Service Dogs | Season 1 - Episode 0

January 23, 2026

Service Dogs

Episode 0 | Pilot

Here’s a quick overview of the world where this story occurs - its history was the same as ours until sometime in the early 1800s.

The point of divergence occurred when an alien race known as the Schkrung visited Earth and established trade relations that seemed mutually beneficial at first but this turned out to be a debt trap. A century and a half later:

* The Schkrung Empire ruled the Earth,

* Labour from across the galaxy was imported to the Earth,

* Supply chains and logistics were introduced with technologies that seemed like magic to the humans of the time,

* Earth resources were extracted en masse,

* Fancy alien tech was sold back to the Earth at mostly unaffordable prices to keep the Earth forever poor and indebted to the Schkrung,

* Human languages and customs were gradually replaced with their Schkrung counterparts,

* Schkrung law replaced all human laws,

* A comprador class of humans was established with their allegiance solely to the Schkrung,

Living standards improved disproportionately where a minority of humans lived in luxury while the vast majority lived in squalor

…but eventually, the Schkrung Empire faltered.

* Their markets were saturated and their resources were stretched thin,

* Unemployment was rampant at home and in the colonies including Earth,

* Poverty became the norm as did police brutality across their outer colonies (especially Earth),

* Human insurgent activity made Schkrung rule too expensive to enforce,

* And finally, around the year 2000, the Schkrung just left,

* The Insurgents took control of the planet, and Schkrung loyalists were tried, executed, imprisoned, or pardoned depending on the seriousness of their actions.

After the Schkrung departure, most insurgent groups disbanded. However, some insurgents were lauded as war heroes and went on to serve in the new United Earth Government.

Over the next three decades, Earth society kind of stabilized despite there being a few holdouts that were loyal to the Schkrung. Likewise, there were a number of dissatisfied human and Earth-born citizens of alien origin who felt like the new order didn’t go far enough in terms of revenge against the Schkrung.

It is now 2026 and I bet you have all sorts of questions like what does the world map look like? How similar to our world does theirs look? What language is mostly spoken? Is it worth knowing what happens next? Did Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” ever get made in that timeline?

The answers to all that and more in the next episode of Service Dogs.