Genkora
Frog blast the vent core!
- Reaction score
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This is the prologue to my novel, entirely devoted to the setting. Yes, I made up many many things in it, including my own science. Neutronium is a real thing, it is the material from which Neutron stars are made. However, there is much debate over what exactly it is made from, so by all means I am allowed to pretend it is an awesome source of energy. Alright?
If you find any errors or have any suggestions, feel free to tell me.
If you find any errors or have any suggestions, feel free to tell me.
The year is 2310. Mankind has slowly, but surely, been leaving the surface of the planet to live elsewhere. As weapons became more and more powerful over the years, the Earth has become more polluted and damaged. Wars erupted as they always have every decade, turning the world slowly into wasteland. The survival of the human race has been attributed to synthesizing food from other elements as the entire ecosystem has been effectively destroyed. Called by the masses, “meat tanks,” (for the synthesis of meat) food is put together molecule by molecule from other atoms stripped of whatever protons needed to create the correct atoms; the food is developed in large tanks.
Because of the sudden surplus in food, the population sky rocketed from 20 billion to 50 billion in only a century. While food was not a problem regardless of population, disease and pollution were. To accommodate the massive population, cities were stretched out farther and farther, eventually covering 25% of the face of Earth. Because of a lack of land, and of the expense and cons of dredging, cities were eventually constructed on the ocean itself. Unfortunately this did not solve the problem, it led to more and more pollution. There were colonies on Mars, but the cost of getting there was much too large to do a wide scale migration. It was impossible with current technology and resources.
A group of corporations, called the Daedalus Combine, launched a project to find an alternate source of energy with which they could use to move humans to other places to live. The project launched by the combine consisted of mass mining of Mars and the asteroid belt. Many new materials were discovered, but nothing of much interest had been found. The combine had almost gone broke on a useless venture, which is when a super dense material was discovered on Phobos, a moon of Mars. It was dubbed as Neutronium, and was hypothesized that it may have been flung off by a neutron star, as it weighed trillions of tons. It could go through nuclear reactions and generate millions of times more energy than plutonium could. New methods were secretly developed to locate more Neutronium, which generally was not found in amounts more than mere grains. Delicate instruments were crafted which detected tiny fluctuations in gravity caused by the pure massiveness of Neutronium. It was a method which would not have worked for any other material.
Because the Daedalus Combine had a monopoly on Neutronium, the governments of Earth demanded a lower price on it. In a money to energy ratio, the price payed was hardly better than the fossil fuels of the past. Because Neutronium generated so much energy, only the wealthiest nations in the world could afford it, which created an even greater gap between wealthy nations and poor ones. The poorest nations waged guerrilla warfare on the wealthy ones, and were in turn secretly provided with Neutronium by the Daedalus Combine; these conflicts escalated into World War III. This balance of power required wealthy nations to buy more and more Neutronium, allowing the Combine to profit substantially. The problem of over population had been almost completely forgotten.
This massive profit allowed for the Combine to move its headquarters to the safety of Mars, where they bought out all the land owned by other countries. The Combine increased the terraforming by 100 times the current rate and allowed any employees to live there on Mars. It was not long before Mars was its own nation with the Combine at its head.
After decades of nuclear war, the Earth had been leveled almost to worldwide desert. The population had sunk by nearly 80% due mostly to respiratory disease, caused by the mass extinction of many types of oxygen producing plants; and cancer brought on by radiation. The cost of moving to Mars, the headquarters of the Combine, had gone higher than any Earthling could pay, considering it had been terraformed into a paradise. On Earth, there were no wealthy or poor anymore, the tole of destruction had made everyone equal. It was clear to the governments of Earth that something had to be done. A treaty, much to the dismay of the Combine, was signed unanimously by every country on the planet. The treaty formed a new unified group of states, called the UEC (United Earth Confederation); a new age had begun. Normally a unification like this would have been impossible, but the people were united by a common enemy, the Daedalus Combine. The UEC was at least a century behind the Combine in technology due to the war, and was unable to find a way of finding their own Neutronium; even with blue prints of Combine technology, the ability to reproduce such was far beyond what the UEC could accomplish. The UEC continued to buy Neutronium from the Combine, but hired a few intellectuals loyal to the UEC to infiltrate the Combine and try to break things up; this operation was dubbed the Roman Project.
The Roman Project was planned to span at least 20 years to allow the UEC loyalist spies to efficiently spread rumors and plant false data to set the corporations within the Combine against each other. Using false claims of separation and doctored files recording deals to other states handled independently of the Combine, the seeds of doubt were planted. After time, opinions and projected directions of the Combine began seriously conflicting between the individual corporations. It was just a matter of time before a split occurred.
Sensing this large amount of doubt within the Combine triggered the UEC to act, launching terrorist attacks in the name of several corporations on Mars. Believing these attacks to be an attempt to take over the Combine, several groups of corporations split off, forming the Adder, Martian Mining Combine (MMC), Strauss, and New Daedalus Combines. At this point it was just a matter of choosing sides for the UEC. Having spent the last 20 years spying on the Combine and many of the inner corporations, the UEC had extensive knowledge of what role each Combine was strongest in. Leaders of the UEC approached the CEOs of the Strauss Combine, the strongest in research and development. Their terms were simple, the UEC would support Strauss in the inevitable war as long as they shared their technology, including Neutronium detection.
Wanting an advantage on the other Combines, Strauss quickly agreed to the terms and set up academies and branch offices on Earth. Education systems were overhauled by the Strauss Combine and Neutronium detecters were provided to the UEC while they caught up technologically.
Because all the common locations Neutronium was found had belonged to the old Combine, war erupted over who owned what. Between the New Daedalus, Adder, Strauss and UEC, and MMC, the Combine War, masterminded by the UEC, had come to fruition.
A massive project to move mankind off the shattered surface of Earth began within the UEC, powered by their own source of Neutronium, simply called Ladder. The design, made with help from the Strauss Combine, involved huge towers which reached beyond the atmosphere. Six towers were to be constructed, one on each arctic pole and four equally far apart along the equator. Each tower was connected at the top by three rings spanning the entire orbit of the planet. Construction on Ladder was not disturbed by the war, there was no Neutronium to be mined on Earth. Almost all combat took place between huge capital ships guarding mining vessels in the asteroid belts; there were pirate attacks on ships carrying the material. Mars itself was often the place of combat due to all the combines being located there. While a quick attack on Earth may have proven useful in the War over Neutronium, the combines were not accustomed to war; the only sensible targets to them were other organizations trying to mine.
When the Ladder project was finished, cities began popping up all over the towers and rings up in orbit. The UEC allowed for people to move up the towers and live in orbit without cost. Billions of people flocked to the towers, eager to move away from the deserts and wastelands, however, the Ladder project had not expected the population to spike as much as it did after WWIII, and there was not enough room for everyone. Each tower was given its own state status, regulated by the UEC as a national government. Those who remained on the surface were called the Earthbound. The Earthbound were forced to live in the ruined desert world, they congregated around the bases of the towers or any areas with Strauss academies and branch offices. Making enough money to buy their way into orbit had become the driving force of every Earthbound's life.
As energy loses efficiency the farther it has to travel, Neutronium reactors had to be built on the surface to power the lower levels of the ladders. After Neutronium goes trough nuclear reactions, it is eventually reduced to dust and smoke. Just a tiny amount of Neutronium creates enough dust and smoke to cover millions of square miles. Normally this dust and smoke is compressed and launched towards the sun, Mars can do it because of the lower gravity, the orbital cities of Earth can do it because of the same reason, but the surface reactors just pump it out onto the planet because sending it into space is not cost effective. The entire planet was eventually shrouded in darkness from the dust and smoke expelled from the reactors. The Earthbound were assured that the waste from the reactors was harmless, consisting mostly of iron.
This is where we begin.
Because of the sudden surplus in food, the population sky rocketed from 20 billion to 50 billion in only a century. While food was not a problem regardless of population, disease and pollution were. To accommodate the massive population, cities were stretched out farther and farther, eventually covering 25% of the face of Earth. Because of a lack of land, and of the expense and cons of dredging, cities were eventually constructed on the ocean itself. Unfortunately this did not solve the problem, it led to more and more pollution. There were colonies on Mars, but the cost of getting there was much too large to do a wide scale migration. It was impossible with current technology and resources.
A group of corporations, called the Daedalus Combine, launched a project to find an alternate source of energy with which they could use to move humans to other places to live. The project launched by the combine consisted of mass mining of Mars and the asteroid belt. Many new materials were discovered, but nothing of much interest had been found. The combine had almost gone broke on a useless venture, which is when a super dense material was discovered on Phobos, a moon of Mars. It was dubbed as Neutronium, and was hypothesized that it may have been flung off by a neutron star, as it weighed trillions of tons. It could go through nuclear reactions and generate millions of times more energy than plutonium could. New methods were secretly developed to locate more Neutronium, which generally was not found in amounts more than mere grains. Delicate instruments were crafted which detected tiny fluctuations in gravity caused by the pure massiveness of Neutronium. It was a method which would not have worked for any other material.
Because the Daedalus Combine had a monopoly on Neutronium, the governments of Earth demanded a lower price on it. In a money to energy ratio, the price payed was hardly better than the fossil fuels of the past. Because Neutronium generated so much energy, only the wealthiest nations in the world could afford it, which created an even greater gap between wealthy nations and poor ones. The poorest nations waged guerrilla warfare on the wealthy ones, and were in turn secretly provided with Neutronium by the Daedalus Combine; these conflicts escalated into World War III. This balance of power required wealthy nations to buy more and more Neutronium, allowing the Combine to profit substantially. The problem of over population had been almost completely forgotten.
This massive profit allowed for the Combine to move its headquarters to the safety of Mars, where they bought out all the land owned by other countries. The Combine increased the terraforming by 100 times the current rate and allowed any employees to live there on Mars. It was not long before Mars was its own nation with the Combine at its head.
After decades of nuclear war, the Earth had been leveled almost to worldwide desert. The population had sunk by nearly 80% due mostly to respiratory disease, caused by the mass extinction of many types of oxygen producing plants; and cancer brought on by radiation. The cost of moving to Mars, the headquarters of the Combine, had gone higher than any Earthling could pay, considering it had been terraformed into a paradise. On Earth, there were no wealthy or poor anymore, the tole of destruction had made everyone equal. It was clear to the governments of Earth that something had to be done. A treaty, much to the dismay of the Combine, was signed unanimously by every country on the planet. The treaty formed a new unified group of states, called the UEC (United Earth Confederation); a new age had begun. Normally a unification like this would have been impossible, but the people were united by a common enemy, the Daedalus Combine. The UEC was at least a century behind the Combine in technology due to the war, and was unable to find a way of finding their own Neutronium; even with blue prints of Combine technology, the ability to reproduce such was far beyond what the UEC could accomplish. The UEC continued to buy Neutronium from the Combine, but hired a few intellectuals loyal to the UEC to infiltrate the Combine and try to break things up; this operation was dubbed the Roman Project.
The Roman Project was planned to span at least 20 years to allow the UEC loyalist spies to efficiently spread rumors and plant false data to set the corporations within the Combine against each other. Using false claims of separation and doctored files recording deals to other states handled independently of the Combine, the seeds of doubt were planted. After time, opinions and projected directions of the Combine began seriously conflicting between the individual corporations. It was just a matter of time before a split occurred.
Sensing this large amount of doubt within the Combine triggered the UEC to act, launching terrorist attacks in the name of several corporations on Mars. Believing these attacks to be an attempt to take over the Combine, several groups of corporations split off, forming the Adder, Martian Mining Combine (MMC), Strauss, and New Daedalus Combines. At this point it was just a matter of choosing sides for the UEC. Having spent the last 20 years spying on the Combine and many of the inner corporations, the UEC had extensive knowledge of what role each Combine was strongest in. Leaders of the UEC approached the CEOs of the Strauss Combine, the strongest in research and development. Their terms were simple, the UEC would support Strauss in the inevitable war as long as they shared their technology, including Neutronium detection.
Wanting an advantage on the other Combines, Strauss quickly agreed to the terms and set up academies and branch offices on Earth. Education systems were overhauled by the Strauss Combine and Neutronium detecters were provided to the UEC while they caught up technologically.
Because all the common locations Neutronium was found had belonged to the old Combine, war erupted over who owned what. Between the New Daedalus, Adder, Strauss and UEC, and MMC, the Combine War, masterminded by the UEC, had come to fruition.
A massive project to move mankind off the shattered surface of Earth began within the UEC, powered by their own source of Neutronium, simply called Ladder. The design, made with help from the Strauss Combine, involved huge towers which reached beyond the atmosphere. Six towers were to be constructed, one on each arctic pole and four equally far apart along the equator. Each tower was connected at the top by three rings spanning the entire orbit of the planet. Construction on Ladder was not disturbed by the war, there was no Neutronium to be mined on Earth. Almost all combat took place between huge capital ships guarding mining vessels in the asteroid belts; there were pirate attacks on ships carrying the material. Mars itself was often the place of combat due to all the combines being located there. While a quick attack on Earth may have proven useful in the War over Neutronium, the combines were not accustomed to war; the only sensible targets to them were other organizations trying to mine.
When the Ladder project was finished, cities began popping up all over the towers and rings up in orbit. The UEC allowed for people to move up the towers and live in orbit without cost. Billions of people flocked to the towers, eager to move away from the deserts and wastelands, however, the Ladder project had not expected the population to spike as much as it did after WWIII, and there was not enough room for everyone. Each tower was given its own state status, regulated by the UEC as a national government. Those who remained on the surface were called the Earthbound. The Earthbound were forced to live in the ruined desert world, they congregated around the bases of the towers or any areas with Strauss academies and branch offices. Making enough money to buy their way into orbit had become the driving force of every Earthbound's life.
As energy loses efficiency the farther it has to travel, Neutronium reactors had to be built on the surface to power the lower levels of the ladders. After Neutronium goes trough nuclear reactions, it is eventually reduced to dust and smoke. Just a tiny amount of Neutronium creates enough dust and smoke to cover millions of square miles. Normally this dust and smoke is compressed and launched towards the sun, Mars can do it because of the lower gravity, the orbital cities of Earth can do it because of the same reason, but the surface reactors just pump it out onto the planet because sending it into space is not cost effective. The entire planet was eventually shrouded in darkness from the dust and smoke expelled from the reactors. The Earthbound were assured that the waste from the reactors was harmless, consisting mostly of iron.
This is where we begin.
