A Ballad of Interplanetary Woe

Join Date: 2012-02-20
Post Count: 111

#208490369Sunday, January 29, 2017 3:55 PM GMT

There was silence in the beginning, and therefore there shall be silence in the end. ~Sesler’ther Var-Indis Mankind has always felt the need to accomplish and discover. From fire to electricity, both inventions and exploration have gone hand in hand. Creation of first space shuttles led to the first space station, and in the later end of the twenty-first century, the first lunar colony. As adventurous and ambitious as the mortal race was, they could not solve one problem, entirely due to the fact that it meant solving themselves. Overpopulation. With the elimination of predators from prehistoric times and a true answer to global warming, - simply vacuum out an exceptional amount of air from the atmosphere and jettison it into space - the human race had no true challenge. Except themselves. The issue was not complicated in design but was complicated in solution. It cannot be as simple as mass killings. No, there must be another way. The lunar colony was a vital first step in this. Within half a century, almost all of the Moon’s surface was covered in biosphere habitats, large bubbles that provided for the occupants. Combating the lower gravity was fairly simple. After all, the International Space Stations had the same problem beforehand. Still, humankind was growing faster each minute. Mars was next to be colonised, albeit via a much longer process than the Moon. Venus and Mercury were unthinkable, too close to the Sun. One could mold the atmosphere to their will but they could not avoid the radiation. The answer came in a surprising way; an engine. One that could, theoretically, bend space around it as though folding a sheet of paper. High densities, like black holes, allowed this. The technology wasn’t cheap, and the Interspace Federation heavily regulated it, but the engine allowed for mankind to explore outside of their solar system, and later their galaxy. Lightyears were never a problem, given that the engine did not move fast. It simply made the route shorter. Well into the forty-first century, two millenniums after the Lunar Colonies, mankind had split into two races: The Earthlings, and the Canis Major Dwarfians. The galaxy, though not as close as the Andromeda galaxy, was cluttered with habitable solar systems. Of course, a great deal of planets needed to be modified to fit the human’s enjoyment. But nonetheless were suitable for the race. Earthlings were left behind, as anyone who could afford the technology used it. With new environments and offspring raised offplanet, centuries passed and people evolved in different ways. The blueskin Esquins of Tarla, or perhaps the Conivs of Mir-Ja, are prime examples of this. Canis Major revolves around a system of planets known as The Highway. These planets would become the center for trade, medicine, technology, arts, and education. It boasted the strongest economies of the galaxy, and rigorous militaries. Wars were now fought between planets and not simply countries or provinces. War spurs invention, however, so cheaper and better ways of making both weapons and space cruisers began to develop. A thriving market of personal ships fit for a handful of people made tourism and travel a virtue of the middle class and no longer only the elite. Humanity was in a Renaissance, as it came to be known.