Lovestruck Atomic Teenage Invaders from Mars (LATIFA, if you don’t count the M in Mars and count the A instead) is a shared-multiverse science-fiction/comedy setting for Daria fanfiction. Aliens from outer space have landed—and now they go to high school with Daria, Jane, and the rest of the crew. The setting is designed so that each fanfic writer can elaborate on the basic outline for stories set in her or his chosen Dariaverse. Familiarity with the Daria TV series is essential. So is a really bent imagination.
“The Lawndale File” contributed much to the flavor of this setting, as did pictures from MTV’s Daria website from the year 2000, which had a science-fiction theme, and a variety of alter egos from the show. Use whatever sources work best for you.
Fanfic authors may, if they wish, begin their sagas with the arrival of Daria and Quinn Morgendorffer at Lawndale High School, as happens in the first Daria episode, “Esteemsters.” Anywhere else is a fine starting point, too, and any characters may become the focus of attention, even fan-created original ones or crossovers. The only sin lies in telling a boring story. Everything else can be forgiven.
Unknown to the general public, most UFO sightings in recent years were actual visitations by a variety of extraterrestrial aliens entering our solar system in small groups. They represent the advance fringe of a great wave of alien migration across this part of the Milky Way Galaxy, moving from the direction of the galactic core out toward the rim. Assorted starships come into our solar system disguised as asteroids or comets using supertechnology, are parked around other worlds or in the asteroid belt, and smaller craft using “technological invisibility” then ferry aliens to and from Earth.
Starting after World War II with the Roswell incident in the U.S., and similar events in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, incoming aliens secretly communicated with a handful of world governments and offered sophisticated technology in exchange for using other worlds in the solar system as colonies and resources. (The aliens assumed that humans might become territorial on a large scale, even dangerous, and so bought off humanity early on. Think of Peter Minuit buying Manhattan Island from the Native Americans. The natives still had the rest of North America—for a while.)
The aliens, though greatly varied, are usually social and often need other things humans can find or make for them. They are willing to trade goods and services for the same. The technology they offer is usually of the sort humans might create for themselves in a few decades’ time, though in a few instances it is complicated indeed. The visiting aliens generally do all they can to be open, forgiving, and aboveboard. There are individual differences, of course, and a few aliens have turned out to be problems, but only a few.
Most aliens cannot survive long on Earth because of their exotic biologies and nasty Earth viruses and microbes, but a few who can are allowed to stay in small enclaves near national capitals. Special security services were established by several governments to control human awareness of the aliens’ presence. Not even other government agencies know of these special groups. In the U.S., this service is nicknamed the Men in Gray to distinguish it from the alien Greys and the “fictitious” Men in Black, which the Men in Gray actually are. (The two unnamed federal agents from “The Lawndale File” are examples.) Any trick you can think of and every technology possible are employed by the Men in Gray to make life appear normal and consistent.
The aliens’ existence is so secret that even the President of the United States (like other world leaders) allows his memories of the aliens to be temporarily suppressed when he must handle other matters, so that he does not blurt out the secret even under duress. Because of faulty memory-suppression equipment, President Ronald Reagan almost slipped up during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, on September 21, 1987: “In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?” A close call, indeed.
Speaking of Reagan, Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry has cooperated not only in hiding aliens in plain sight, letting them be actors on SF movies and TV shows, but in changing public opinion about them. Some aliens are made to seem friendly, helpful, and funny, even if others are bad-natured. In other words, the aliens are made to act just like us. Working and interacting with aliens is made to appear unremarkable, if not exciting and desirable (Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Men in Black, Alien Nation, A.L.F., Third Rock from the Sun, Sick Sad World, etc.).
Some alien sightings are allowed to be reported to keep the topic fresh in the public mind. Encounters are usually reported on a positive note to predispose the population to be receptive to aliens in need of assistance. (Sick, Sad World has been very helpful in this regard.)
Only a few human government know, like the U.S. and Russia, know all this. No one is sure who else does or doesn’t. Governments "in the know" pretend everything is going along as usual. The wars are real enough (most of them), as human politicking has not changed, but WMDs are carefully avoided. The aliens help monitor the use of their devices so that the world public doesn’t find out, leading to a backlash of xenophobia, social breakdown, rioting, and a lot of bad made-for-TV movies years later.
Thanks to this monitoring, human history is pretty much as we know it, up until 1997, fifty years after Roswell and at the start of the Daria TV series. It is possible, however, that some historical events after World War II were secretly engineered by aliens to turn out as they did, with or without human knowledge and cooperation. It is also possible that certain historical events did not occur as we believe they did. No one is sure, not even the aliens, as the ones who did the historical tinkering have wisely disappeared or moved on.
In the United States, the alien enclave is near Washington, D.C., in a suburb of Baltimore called Lawndale. Lawndale is carefully screened with advanced alien technology for security and protection. Travel into and out of the zone is carefully monitored, but free movement is generally permitted to maintain the fiction that Lawndale is “normal.” One trick employed to allow aliens to get around in broad daylight is to have them pretend to be costumed humans at UFO and Bigfoot conventions (per “Esteemsters”) and similar gatherings of people pretending to be aliens and so on (game and science-fiction/fantasy conventions, etc.).
This does not always work, of course. Many long-term residents of the town have had their memories suppressed numerous times in the past to conceal accidental alien appearances. Some, however, have been allowed to retain their memories if they appeared able to accept the aliens’ presence and respond positively to it. A tiny number of individuals, who for some reason are immune to memory erasure, are allowed to roam free so long as they do not pose a threat to anyone. Their descriptions of alien encounters seem delusional to the majority of people and are ignored (except by Sick, Sad World reporters).
Starting in the fall of 1997, the U.S. government decided to try an experiment with the cooperation of the aliens in Lawndale. Young people, it was thought, would be more likely to accept extraterrestrial aliens as fellow citizens than would older people. The new students entering secondary schools in the suburb would be told the truth—all of it. (Most of the regular students already know the truth, in varying degrees.) At Lawndale High, the secret is revealed to individuals or siblings during the course of an interview with the school psychologist, Mrs. Margaret Manson. Their reactions are monitored by the school’s principal, Ms. Angela Li.
Students who appear unable to handle the truth are given a painless memory-erasure treatment so that they forget the secrets they learned. The rest of the students are allowed to learn about and interact with the aliens on Earth, and to use the advanced technology the aliens have brought. The U.S. government and the local aliens hope that the teens will form a grassroots movement to offer support to the aliens, reduce public xenophobia, and allow the aliens to operate more openly. The secret cannot be kept forever—and there are pressing reasons to establish a firm and open human-alien alliance as soon as possible.
The LATIFA version of Lawndale High School offers (to students who pass the initial psych test) an unlimited variety of classes, everything from Advanced Ninja Wall-Climbing Techniques to Galactic History 101: The Orion Arm to An Introduction to Robot Building Using Materials Found in the Home to Fashion Chic for Carbon-Based Invertebrates. This unfortunately encourages a wild-and-woolly atmosphere on school days, what with mad robots escaping from science class and so forth, which actually makes many teens WANT to go to school.
Students may even suggest classes, such as Perfect Girlfriend Creation, How to Keep Your Boyfriend Faithful Using Pain Guns, and How to Read Minds During Final Exams, though of course these subjects would have to be approved by the principal. The school strives to maintain the perfect balance between academics, athletics, fiscal well-being, and the avoidance of frivolous lawsuits. And aren’t most lawsuits essentially frivolous? Lawndale High’s administration thinks so, and hopes everyone else will think so, too.
Alien youths also go to Lawndale High, though they are often disguised (more or less) as regular students to avoid attracting undue attention from outsiders or students who can’t deal with reality. This could make sporting events rather odd if Lawndale High students keep winning. It could make dating even stranger. Or better, depending on your kink. Because the aliens keep leaving earth, however, heartbreak is almost assured. However, that doesn’t stop anyone from “talking a walk on the wild side,” as it were. To say more about this would be inappropriate, so use your imagination.
Lawndale High has also become the de facto school of choice for all mutant human students whose parents or grandparents lived near aboveground atomic testing sites in the western United States or Pacific Ocean. It is felt that here they can complete their education goals in a warm, all-accepting atmosphere that also allows gives them access to advanced technology to settle old scores improve interpersonal relations.
New sports are possible, like Cyber-Frisbee or setting a land-speed record in the school’s main parking lot, as well as variations on familiar sports like football, which could be played while wearing powered armor—only with teams similarly equipped, however. Paintball could be replaced by team-building quasi-military activities using lasers (low-power settings only). Actual mercenary operations are forbidden, however.
In every LATIFA Dariaverse, Angela Li is the principal of Lawndale High School. This character is an unknown quantity. In any particular universe, she might be human, alien, robot, hologram, hive-mind clone, or all/none of the above. Ms. Li always acts like a slightly mad autocratic dictator, per canon, but might also have extensive paranormal or technological powers and resources. She has carefully turned Lawndale High into a fortress with astounding defensive and offensive capabilities using human and alien technology. Her sole mission is to protect and defend the students at her school, and she will stop at nothing to accomplish this. Angela Li answers to Lawndale School Superintendent Cartwright, but might actually work directly for the President of the United States—or someone else. She might also be linked to other Ms. Lis in other Dariaverses, looking for ways to preserve galactic civilization from complete destruction. No one knows or even knows to ask. In any event, it is not good to get on her bad side.
Because Lawndale High will be far more challenging than in the canon series, new rules have had to be established by Ms. Li to maintain an atmosphere benefiting study and learning. For examples of the sorts of rules that might be in effect, check out the PPMB threads for “Things Students Are No Longer Allowed To Do At Lawndale High,” here and here.
The aliens are not seeking political asylum on Earth, as in the movie Men in Black. Nor are they seeking to conquer Earth, which is a deadly environment to many of them and could not be made habitable (by their standards) with their present equipment, even if humans weren’t around at all. The aliens want only allies who can help them survive. They were at first reluctant to reveal why they were migrating, but the truth came out in time and is the most closely guarded secret of all: the aliens are all that remain of numerous civilizations annihilated by an all-consuming force moving outward from the galactic core, destroying everything in its path for use as resources and energy. Nothing has stopped the advance so far, and tougher aliens than humans have tried. The aliens have a lot of names for their nemesis, most of them mixed with curses, but the most common names often translate as the Swarm.
What is the Swarm? Humans have a lot of trouble getting a fix on this question, as descriptions vary wildly. No one who has fought the Swarm has survived. As a result, the refugee aliens are going mostly on rumor. The name implies an insectoid race, but use of the term actually began (the aliens say) because of the way the Swarm enters a star system. The first sign of its arrival is the appearance out of nowhere of innumerable gigantic (kilometers long) spacecraft that can cut up asteroids and moons in seconds. No one knows what happens after that, as anyone who stayed behind is now gone.
The only thing the aliens agree on is that encountering the Swarm is certain death—that, and their certainty that the Swarm is heading this way and will be in the vicinity of Earth in about 150 years, give or take. The incoming aliens pause only long enough to catch their breath, refuel, do maintenance on their ships, chitchat and trade a little, then abandon the Solar System at high speed to be replaced by new groups of alien migrants on other ships.
Earth governments have been rather slow to act on this news because they didn’t quite believe it for a while, plus the aliens weren’t initially forthcoming with the information, plus a lot of government people still don’t believe it, plus it’s hard to get funding to build a starship to hold six billion people, etc. Loads of weird ideas are being floated around for ways to avoid termination. None have been put into effect. Lately, though, the idea that we might really be in trouble has begun to gain ground. The number of incoming aliens has been slowly increasing, and they all tell the same story in millions of different ways.
The aliens who come to Earth have little in the way of supertechnology that would enable them to fight the Swarm. Most of their more complicated technological devices broke down long ago and could not be replaced on the run. Only their starships have been maintained so they can keep moving. If a starship can’t be operated, it will be quickly abandoned. In fact, excluding their starships, most incoming aliens aren’t all that technologically advanced compared to humanity. They have countless computerized and actual libraries filled with information on how to do stupendous things—if they only had the time, materials, and numbers to put it to work. They have none of these things now. They have lost everything except their starships, lives, knowledge, and a little hope. Once the edge of the Galaxy is reached, they fear they will be unable to survive trips across intergalactic space and will perish. Perhaps one day they will meet a civilization that will help turn the tide against the Swarm, or find a way to escape it forever. It does not appear that humans, even as aggressive and adaptable as they are, will be of much help, but one never knows. Every ally counts.
A few aliens stay on Earth from each group passing through, having missed their outbound flights or being more intrigued by human civilization than by disaster. Some are just tired of running and plan to stay on Earth no matter what. Some plan to give humans access to what little superweaponry they have so the humans who stay behind can (it is hoped) delay the Swarm for a while and give the escaping starships a few more years of life. No one expects humans will do much to stop the Swarm, which has overcome everything thrown against it.
By the way, the idea of escaping to other worlds using interdimensional wormholes and gateways won’t work for everyone. All the parallel Earths that can be reached by interdimensional gateways are also facing the same crisis, and other Earthlike worlds (those not destroyed by the Swarm) are already occupied or are in the process of being abandoned. Attempts to open wormholes to other galaxies have not yet been successful.
The problem won’t be resolved anytime soon, as the government is only now starting to look at the problem seriously. Perhaps it won’t take a government committee to save the human race—and all the aliens in the neighborhood as well. Perhaps all it will take is one student at the right place and the right time.
We’re doomed, of course.
Rule #1 of writing Daria fanfic in the LATIFA setting is that there are no rules (except for the third paragraph below). There is no rule #2. Everything on this page is only a suggestion to create a wacky set-up for storytelling, cobbled together using sci-fi elements from the Daria TV series and other MTV sources. It’s freakin’ amazing how well it fits together.
Each author gets to figure out which students at Lawndale High are human, which are clones (using Ms. Li’s DNA archives and alien technologies), which ones are humanlike androids or robots or cyborgs, which are aliens, which are some or most of the above, etc. etc. etc. Jane Lane could be an alien and Daria Morgendorffer a human, or vice versa, or whatever. Each author also decides who passes the psych test in his/her own Dariaverse. Maybe Daria and Jane flunk it, but the Fashion Club passes and begins an exciting year with fashionable alien classmates!
Comedy fanfics for LATIFA are welcome, adventures are almost mandatory, and ‘shippers are likely to be twisted, but angst is optional despite the circumstances (Earth will be blown to smithereens in a century and a half, unless someone figures out how to prevent it). Crossovers from one author’s Dariaverse to another are fine if all parties are in agreement. Heck, crossovers to anything are permitted. Do it to it.
Examples of ways in which Daria characters could be reinvented in this setting are shown below. Your ideas are probably a lot better than mine, so go for it.
As a final note, the Swarm will not be encountered for a century at least, and attempts to actually head in its direction by any means really should be avoided. If someone decides to teleport in the direction of the galactic core, that person is gone for good (but optionally can be cloned and have memories restored later by Ms. Li). More information on the Swarm will be provided later (it’s very, very, VERY bad), but authors can have whatever stories, guesswork, and rumors they wish circulate as the “truth.” Remember, even the aliens don’t know what the hell is happening, except that escape is so far the only proven means of survival.
So . . . that’s a century or more off . . . no problem! Relax! Enjoy! But do your homework first and get ready for that pop quiz in Silicon Life-form Gross Anatomy, and remember the pep rally for the Lawndale Leonids! Lawndale High: Hurling into tomorrow--today! (No jokes, Kevin.)
