Reticent

The aliens are still interested in Earth superhumans - and Earth politics. They swiped the superhumans once. Now it's the politicians' turn. But aliens have their own ideas about which politicians to take.

• Green Bay town meetings have been taken over by the Packers and their fans. They make a lot of noise when they stomp... The aliens consider Green Bay to be a world capital, based on their disproportionate influence on world culture. So they swiped the mayor. (4 Oct)
• The McDonalds in Douglas-Michigan is closed, but you can get a cow-shank ham at the general store. Governor Granholm shows up there, aged 20 more years and complaining about a 66-day budget stalemate. (4 Oct)
• Michigan's governor Jennifer Granholm got mistaken by the aliens as Republican VP-Candidate Swift whom she mimicked for debating purposes, therefore swiped.
• Another abductee was Madonna, who always acts like a socialist presidential candidate and therefore got mistaken for the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. She's come back 70 years old. I guess she won't be complaining about not being on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine any more.
• Yet another abductee was Jesse Jackson, who always acts like an independent presidential candidate and therefore got mistaken for the independent candidate Barack Obama.
• Major party candidates / Senators McCain and Bayh also escaped abduction, but Obama's running mate Bernie Sanders didn't.
• The abductees were deposited in an Earthling colony in a hyperdimension. There they were subjected to twenty years of Earth-style politics.
• Madonna and Governor Granholm (who are both superpowered, like all women now) led the party back. Senator Sanders came back wrapped in a watermelon, or so the returning Earthlings claim, but Rev. Jackson didn't.
• In the meantime, four minor political parties are having debates in a boxing ring... The Libertarians, Greens, Socialists, and Ralph Nader have decided to call attention to their non-major party campaigns in controversial manner. (4 Oct)

... Now why are the aliens intervening again?

• The various Galactics have been working with the Earthlings - but they consider the government of Earth to be Wendie Robinson, a schoolteacher from Texas. Other Earthling factions have been reluctant to work through Wendie. So other Galactic factions may be ready to do some more peacekeeping. But the Galactic idea of militarism is (surprisingly enough) alien.
• Earth is a major Galactic tourist destination. Reportedly the view of Earthling reality shifts from the Moon is unique and spectacular. And there's also a really good access to hyper-realms from the Earth. Some aliens enjoy the ability to get into the Dreamtime unrestricted by Galactic authorities, and then act like gods. This is not without precedent; even Jesus of Nazareth alluded to human ascension when he quoted the Psalm, "I Said, You Are Gods".
• The aliens have been relating with us for over a year now. But we mostly don't recognize them because they're so alien.
• Some tourists arrive by flying saucers which the "Green" race operates. The "Gronite" alien space lizards like this mode, though the Greens themselves never go outside their spacecraft here because our sun drives them crazy. The Gronites mostly like to crawl through swamps and sewers, and peek out.
• Other aliens project through the Dreamtime. That is to say, telepresence. One race (the Zarkonites) is energy-based and specializes into telepresence into host bodies. That is to say, mind control. And they consider tourism to be conquest. They're getting a lot of willing Earthling hosts now, even without compensation; the mind-altering experience is payment enough for some. But it took Zarkon a while to understand "willing". (10 Oct)
• One race (the Caladrians) is nearly humanoid, and can pass for human if they care to. They'll come here any way they like; they're as nearly unpredictable as humans. Indeed, their splinter factions say they may have colonized the Earth. The Galactic mass is somewhat worried about Caladrians, the same way as about the Earth.
• When "peacekeeping" was desired, Zarkon got the commission to mind-control the Presidential candidates - but they couldn't quite find the right ones.

The main casualty so far is Barack Obama's independent campaign, since the best-case scenario for Bernie Sanders is incapacitation. But if Obama can find a suitably independent replacement V.P., he might thrive on the backlash. Joe Lieberman is out of the question, since he's started advising the Republican candidates... but they say Obama's asked Joe Corrigan, famous superhuman maverick politician.

• Joe Corrigan comes from the old Superhuman World 2005, where he was the outlandish governor of California. But he was effective too. During one of those extradimensional incursions, people wound up saying, the world was lucky it happened in California.
• After reality shift, this California already has a governor, so Mr. Corrigan retired to a private island. But inevitably, he got drawn back into politics. There's actually a support group "Mothers for Crusher Joe", which makes him a factor among the Panlucida women's movements.
• Zenobia the famous women's leader was supporting Crusher Joe last year. And she claims involvement in summoning Holy Mary for the Panlucida Incident. Does that say something about the forces in play for the upcoming election? (23 Aug)