|
Virtual Eclipse | Science Fiction | Role Playing | Club | Help |
| Background | Database | Encyclopedia | News | Training |
'Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth' - Matthew 5.5
It was the technological breakthroughs of the early 21st century that first allowed mankind to travel to the stars.
Practical near room temperature superconductors were first employed in 2006, and this overcame one of the final barriers to practical fusion power generation. The first large scale fusion power-plants became operational during the 2020's. These two advances made it possible to build the first starships, i.e. the first spaceships realistically capable of reaching nearby star systems by using the Bussard Ramjet principle. The only problem was that although such ships would still take decades to reach even the nearest stars. So our first starships were unmanned robotic probes, dispatched to several of the nearby star systems. By the end of the century they had transmitted back startling data, planets capable of supporting human life had been detected in several star systems. By that time the science of cryogenics advanced to the stage where there was a realistic prospect of sending manned vessels, with their personnel in 'cold sleep' until reaching their destination.
Humanity was inspired. The decision was made. The United States of America were the first country to despatch a colonising vessel. Massing 5.2 million tonnes, and named by popular demand 'USS Enterprise', she carried 20,000 colonists and set out for Alpha Centauri in 2124. The Russian Hegemony as well as the European Space Agency followed shortly thereafter with their own vessels, being launched in 2127 and 2128 respectively. These were just the beginning. The later vessels were more ambitious, bigger, faster, and aimed further. Over the next 50 years country after country and alliance after alliance launched wave after wave of colonising vessels. Records are not precise, but by 2180 no less than 132 ramjets were ploughing through the depths of interstellar space, carrying over 5 million humans.
But there was a price to be paid. When a plant produces seeds, the investment is great. All the nutrients are invested in the seeds, and once they are scattered the plants job is done, so it withers and dies. So it was to be with Earth.
The colonising effort cost vast amounts of cash and resources, placing the world economy under even greater strain until it began to collapse. Population explosions continued in the underdeveloped nations, bush wars spread to become regional, national economies faltered. In most places law and order broke down. Opinion is divided, many feel that the collapse was probably inevitable and the cost of the colony missions simply hastened the end. But worst of all, the missions naturally attracted many of the best minds that Earth had to offer. The very people that perhaps might have averted the chaos were sleeping peacefully in their cryo-chambers, as Earth receded behind them.
By the early 2200's, the collapse was more or less complete. Earth was exhausted, worn out. It was enough of a struggle for most people to survive from day to day, let alone to continue to push for the stars. The scientific stations on Mars, Luna and the Jovian moons had long since been abandoned as too costly, and sporadic unmanned missions to orbit for the occasional satellite delivery were the extent of the capabilities of the more developed countries.
So, by 2216, few people were even aware that one of the dinosaur extinction theories was that an asteroid had impacted the Earth. Even fewer manned those observatories that were still functioning. Most of humanity was blissfully ignorant of the approach of another rogue planetoid, and of the futile efforts to divert it. At 1023 UTC on September the 5th, 2216, a 150 km diameter chunk of rock, falling towards the Sun at 162 kilometres per second, impacted in the centre of Mexico. The impact directly killed hundreds of million, and opened up fault lines all over the Earth, rocking everywhere with deadly earthquakes. Tsunamis swept around the planet, destroying and killing everything in their path. By that evening, 98% of the Earth's population was dead or dying. The impact threw up debris, obscuring the Sun. Over the next few months, temperatures plummeted, decimating plant and animal life, and killing most of the survivors. By 2218, only a handful of humans survived, eking out a precarious existence. By 2220, the last pocket of resistance crumbled, their life support systems failing. The only surviving humans were light years away, speeding through space, sleeping, unaware of what had befallen their birthplace.
In the middle of the 20th century, scientists had speculated that in the event of a global thermonuclear war, the species most likely to survive was the cockroach. In 2220 they were proved right. After the Impact, the 'roach's inherited the earth.
Read what happened when the starships arrived in chapter 2.