Most of the populations awoke, groggy and hungry, but alive.

A small few fared worse than others: Moscow, for instance, as the first city to succumb to a bell, saw several thousand of its citizens die of exposure or starvation during their week of unnatural slumber.

And so the world woke to tales of white-cracked skies and quantum pulses and the story of a man named West who had saved the world and seen off the end of the universe.

Discussions were held at the highest levels.

It was decided that hearings would be held in the Security Council chamber at the United Nations Building in New York.

When the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries gathered there, they called on Captain West and his associates to address them.

As the details unfolded over the course of weeks, it became clear to the world that this man and his team had saved everyone.

Many people remembered when the TV airwaves had been hacked a week previously and Captain West had been cast as a villain to be assassinated.

But now they knew the truth.

He told them of ancient prophecies and the expansion of the universe and a celestial phenomenon called the Omega Event.

He also told them about the secret royal system that had been pulling the strings of governments around the world for centuries.

This revelation, naturally, caused a worldwide sensation.

Judicial commissions were established in countries worldwide to investigate ‘the hidden royals’ within their governments, courts and military forces.

Captain West and his associates assisted them.

The lists that had been obtained from Sir John Marren’s briefcase helped immensely in this task.

But Jack had a knack, people said, of getting royal sympathisers to talk and thus he helped weed out members of the royal world who had infiltrated all kinds of national and international institutions, parliaments, spy agencies and armies.

Some exposures caused uproars, especially in Britain and Europe, where many members of prominent aristocratic families were revealed to be part of this secret cabal. They were put on trial, shamed, and sent to prison.

The entire Russian Army was disbanded, given how hopelessly riddled it was with royal agents.

Likewise, certain special forces units, like the British Royal Marines and America’s Delta Force underwent full-scale purges.

The Catholic Church was completely restructured. Given the roles its most senior figures had played in the whole affair, for a time the Church became the target of worldwide hostility and anger. A special commission was created just to investigate the full extent of its actions.

Captain West suggested a person to lead that commission: Sister Lynda Fadel of the Order of Serene Maidens of Novodevichy Convent in Moscow.