Numerous datacast screens showed similar messages after the Fall of the F9000 in October 2170
Source: wipeoutpure.com
The Fall of the F9000 was a controversy that involved the F9000 International Federation of Anti-Gravity Racing, administered by the Overtel Corporation, and other related parties, legitimate or not. The Anti-Gravity Purity Coalition exposed numerous sensitive documents, detailing various acts of corruption within the F9000 Race Commission. The subsequent investigations literally destroyed most of, if not all, the parties involved in the scandal, including Overtel itself.
In 2170, the concurrent fallout by the general public resulted in a widespread unrest and an economic depression that lasted until the end of the decade. AG racing would disappear as a reputable sport until its re-emergence in the 2180s, which led to the inauguration of the FX300 League in 2197.
Background[]
Ever since the beginning of AG racing, Overtel had been obsessed with the sport, and was willing to try and gain control of it, with the intention of commercializing it and "maximising the audiences at any cost necessary." Before it could do so, Overtel bought the controlling stake of Qirex Industries in the 2050s and reared it to become the most successful team in the early years of AG racing history. However, this was viewed with suspicion by the Anti-Gravity Race Commission, especially Pierre Belmondo, who saw Overtel's influence as a threat to his ideals. Belmondo responded to this by forming the Belmondo Foundation in the early 2100s to protect his ideals once he resigned from the Race Commission.
In 2132, Overtel finally managed to seize control of the F7200 AG Race Commission from the Belmondo Foundation following Pierre Belmondo's death in 2127. Since then, Overtel would evolve the sport to become "better for the spectators watching." In 2152, Overtel announced that the league would be upgraded to the F9000 specification, and held a public contest for the selection of race tracks for the league. The first F9000 League season was contested in 2156 to worldwide acclaim.
As the competition went on though, the sport increasingly turned into business ground for interested parties. Once-proud teams, such as Piranha and Van-Über, had become virtual pawns in one humongous game of business. Numerous resistance organizations were formed to protest the direction AG racing was going in, most notably the Anti-Gravity Purity Coalition. Formed in 2162, the Coalition coordinated numerous publicity stunts in an attempt to undermine all of those involved in the F9000. League participants and sponsors were common targets, and this became more common toward the late 2160s. Among them was a web campaign to stop the construction project of a racetrack in London that would have centered around the landmarks of the city.
The F9000 League was likewise marred by a great deal of controversies, including the disaster at Temtesh Bay during the 2164 season, where extremely powerful missiles with enhanced explosive power, believed to have been FEISAR's "Super Missiles", were used on the first lap at the track's medium course. The resulting explosion caused the collapse and cave-in of the underground mining area, trapping many people inside for days. The incident took the lives of six pilots, and three of the pilots who survived the incident would subsequently withdraw from the league, including the season's eventual pilots' champion Daniel Johnson. It is widely believed that this incident marked the beginning of widespread distrust towards Overtel, and the descent of the F9000 as a whole.
In 2168, following their F9000 League championship victory, which also saw their lead pilot Pascale Rouser win the pilots' championship, Auricom withdrew from the F9000, citing the corruption of the League. The state of the F9000 League was left in uncertainty as a result of this shock withdrawal. To make matters worse, Piranha followed suit during the 2169 season also out of the soaring expenses of the League. Sometime after the 2169 season concluded, Xios and Van-Über announced their withdrawal from the F9000 on separate occasions, both in protest of race-fixing schemes within the League that went unpunished, besides the aforementioned corruption, leading the League closer to its doom.
October 2170: Exposure of Corruption[]
| “ | I knew that day would come at some point. The instant I spotted the news on the screens, I opened the channel to my team and asked ‘Is this what I think it is?’ When they replied in the affirmative, I felt a wave of emotion rush over me. I eased off the power, opened the air brakes, coasted to a stop and began to cry. They were not tears of joy or sadness, but tears of relief. Relief that it was finally over. As I sat in my ship on the grid, those moments of eerie silence seemed to last for an age, then the crowds began booing and jeering. At the same time, the trouble started to break out – like the opening of some giant floodgate of anger, and our world went from one of peace to one of anarchy. |
„ |
| ~ Natasha Belmondo, F9000 championship-winning AG racing pilot, recounting the revelation of corruption within the F9000 Race Commission |
In October 2170, several members of the Anti-Gravity Purity Coalition successfully hacked into the database of the F9000 Race Commission and lifted terabytes of confidential data before they were discovered. Among those files were the details of corruption, deception, illegal business practices, and even murder, spanning the entire history of Overtel. The Coalition made these documents public before the start of the penultimate race of the 2170 season. Crowds stopped in their tracks and gazed in awe at the revelations unfolding upon the giant screens in shopping malls, city centres, and airports around the world.
In the next few days, the F9000 League was suspended pending further investigation. Within hours of story breaking, many of Overtel's board members took the easy way out, mostly by committing suicide to avoid criminal charges that would have been laid against them. Those who opted not to do so were subsequently arrested by U.S. Marshals in a raid on the Overtel headquarters in New York City.
Fallout[]
At the same time, a media firestorm was developing in the crossfire between companies exposed by the scandal. As involved parties were throwing accusations at each other, F9000 teams still competing and their controlling corporate sponsors desperately scrambled for the high ground. But for most, it was too little too late – angry mobs would besiege corporate HQs around the world day and night for weeks, requiring local military forces to move in and enforce martial law in several major cities.
Tigron[]
The AG racing team that took the most devastating hit from the fallout was probably Tigron Enterprises. The company was run by a crime syndicate that had been in power in Russia since the late 2140s. In an independently carried investigation, Tigron was exposed as one of the main cohorts involved in the scandals with Overtel. After the company acquired Qirex in 2149, Tigron discovered all manner of illegal activities in which Overtel engaged while in control of Qirex. During the F9000 League, Tigron used this information to blackmail Overtel into allowing them to flout the rules, which was seen as having gone so far as to fix the races in the later years. Shortly after this revelation, Tigron was terminated and its properties abandoned. Subsequently, the disgruntled civilians revolted and overthrew the syndicate within the year.
G-Tech[]
G-Tech Systems was another AG racing team involved in Overtel's unlawful activities. Specifically, the team appeared to be financed, illicitly, by Overtel, through its various illegal operations. This was likely the result of their overall poor performances in every F9000 League season they had competed in, as well as their arrogance to stay in the League in spite of repeated attempts by parent company to withdraw the team. An investigative audit discovered colossal financial irregularities in G-Tech's accounts. The G-Tech Systems corporation eventually became financially crippled after starting to be deserted by its customers, and all its remaining resources were auctioned off once the company went out of business.
Others[]
Other parties involved in the scandal subsequently dissolved or merged, or simply quit the scene and were never heard from again, mostly as a result of a financial recession coming after the fallout. Meanwhile, the remaining teams of the F9000 did succeed in surviving the fallout. EG-R, who had managed to arouse much controversy with their cyberized pilots, merged with Xios to form EG-X, while FEISAR, who had been highly successful throughout the F9000, simply left the doomed league intact and distanced themselves from AG racing for the next two decades.
Aftermath[]
The major fallout during the fall of the F9000 League, coupled with the subsequent chaos all over the world, had a devastating impact on world markets and the international economy. This shock led to a worldwide recession that took years to stabilize, and many more to recover from. As for Anti-Gravity racing, it would cease to exist for the next decade as the public had decided to do away with the sport altogether.
Trivia[]
- This event may likely foreshadow and reference the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal.
- Evidence of the latter includes the allegations of corruption, bribery, racketeering and money laundering from behind the scenes, as well as numerous controversies, including but not limited to sportswashing and exploitative tendencies.
- This event also alludes to the era of the Roaring Twenties, especially towards the end of that era, which ultimately led to the Great Depression in 1929, lasting until the end of World War II.
- The civil unrest that followed the collapse of both the F9000 and Overtel can be described as a global corporate warfare.
- Anti-Gravity racing would soon re-emerge in 2180s when curious hobbyists restored AG racing craft and used them for self-organized amateur racing events on temporary racetracks.
- This eventually led to the Anti-Gravity Rebirth Festival at the Nevada desert in 2185, held to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Pierre Belmondo's historic flight, as well as the FX150 Amateur League that same year, where Piranha and Van-Über, along with AG Systems, Assegai, Qirex and Triakis, would provide technical support for competitors, even actually compete in races.
- Professional AG racing would eventually return to its former glory in 2197 with the FX300 Anti-Gravity Racing League.