The Keep Earth Pure Movement rose to prominence in late 3000 as Solar Consortium President Lazarus Blades opened the door to trade with alien cultures - a move many xenophobic Earthers didn't support. The movement's leader, a radical ex-military man named Gustav Eiger (who once ran the mysterious Area 16 prison facility in the Mojave Desert), acquired sixteen plasma bombs, which his followers placed in major cities all over Earth. When Blades refused to rescind his more open-minded trade policies, Eiger detonated the plasma bombs, killing billions and rendering Earth virtually uninhabitable.