In the beginning–if there could be said to have been one–no one really understood what had happened. There was a decade of confusion. Populations declined across the board, as you would expect given the accompanying economic changes. All along the coast the little places that had made an income from retirees and weekenders–from tourism in general, from a proximity to remnant medieval priories or bijou nature reserves compiled out of two or three acres of hawthorn scrub, a pond and the possible presence of a locally occurring frog–fell in on themselves. By the time things came back into focus, the climate had changed. Geography had changed. Everyone had a different idea about that. The internet was patchy and undependable; and though the war with the aliens continued, people could never agree on what kind of a war it was, or what its boundaries were.