Where would be the best place to start? For those who wish to move on from the past, to ignore what was once our history, I would tell them to forget Earth and move on. However, for someone willing to understand our mistakes and wishing to learn from the past, I would invite them to read on. You did buy this book after all, right?
So, where did it all start? Many would argue that the seeds were sown long, long ago, far before anyone in living memory could even fathom. To those who blame the destruction of the very atmosphere of our homeworld on the industrial revolution or the bronze age collapse or any other such other broad event from so long ago, I say ‘nay’. I argue that the beginning of the end for our time on the blue marble can be pinpointed directly to 2046. It was in that year that global tensions, which had been steadily rising by that point, spilled over into direct action, and never recovered until our people were split into three.
The G25, having grown from the original Group of 20, was taking place at summit within Cairo when the unexpected happened. A terrorist attack, the planners and motives unknown, killed a number of high-ranking diplomats in attendance. Whilst no world leaders were directly harmed, a clear message had been made. Due to a recent shortage of rare earth metals and fossil fuels as a result of pre-existing trade restrictions and manufacturing shortages, tensions were already high at that point, and the attack only made things worse.
Following the incident, most countries had begun to think in the long run as to who would be needed to be allied with, and who would need to be cut off for the sake of their own security. Following the incident, an unsaid but clearly seen change in foreign policy was taken by many great powers towards those not directly within their spheres of influence. The Americas, having formed a united alliance against Asian growth around the 2030s, shut themselves off by cutting off major long-time allies across the both the Atlantic and Pacific.
Likewise, The People’s Republic of China was suffering from a string of difficult economic shortfalls in the run up to the 2050s, leading to civil unrest, economic stagnation and a decline in cultural significance. Whilst the G25 attack was the spark, it would take years for the fires to truly swell into something dangerous. Now, I understand my hypocrisy when I say that sentence considering the first paragraph, but it was the unsaid dissolution of long-standing treaties, trade networks and even military alliances stemming from this one event that led into the tumultuous 2050s and 2060s, and eventually the formation of Paradise, Heaven’s Doctrine and The Combined Corporations of Humanity.
By then, confidence in the authority of the various superpowers were coming into question. A great number of famines as a result of microplastic and mineral build-up in agricultural regions only exacerbated this decline in political authority. Russia had always maintained a strong face up until that point, having dramatically expanded its military at the cost of long-term maintenance. Early artificial intelligence managements systems, something previously heavily disliked by the public were slowly favoured over human control, as they felt that the judgment of living, breathing people was too biased in their own favour.
The first big turning point heightening the increased unrest from public grumblings to outright rioting, war, and mass death occurred in the 2060s. Firstly, there was a build-up of decentralised, anti-government corporations springing up the world over, generally regarded as a good thing from modern analysts since it led to the Collective Corporations of Humanity eventually forming, and the realisation that humanity’s most powerful weapons of mass destruction had become useless. Following a Russian nuclear weapon test, the first in many decades, a new discovery was found that threw the world into panic.
A small bacterium-like organism called Urad-235.
Less than 0.1μm long and lacking almost any distinct physiognomic characteristics, it is no wonder why it went undetected for years after its speculated origin date. It caused no diseases, did not destroy crops, didn’t grow on most organic matter, and was barely detectable even with proper cell staining and light microscopy methods. However, what it did do, was completely collapse the nuclear weapon stockpiles of the entire world over a week. It has generally agreed (by reliable academics) that the bacterium-like was introduced following the usage of the new and cheaper Jineberg methodology of uranium enrichment once new WMDs were back in production, thereby allowing it to spread its way inside every single missile silo, military installation and bunker. It was everywhere. Through means barely even understood today, the microorganism rendered nuclear weapons to outwardly appear fine and functional during inspection, but would fail when attempting to make use of their payload. It turned hundreds of trillions of modern day utus worth of equipment and armaments into dead weights. I have previously noted in The Urad Problem, a must read for my fans, that the organism’s effect almost seemed to act in the way a modern S-Field can be used to counter or nullify the effects of an opponent’s S-Field, but that is only my speculation and a topic for another day. It was the result of the aforementioned nuke test, one that ended rather embarrassingly for Russia, that every world power came to realise their greatest weapons, ones that each had begun to produce more of in secret, had become completely useless.
The immediate result of this was global panic – how would each nation defend themselves now? In the United States of America, which had been itself already undergoing a massive crisis of faith in the strength of their democracy after numerous whistleblowers revealed the extent of privacy violations being carried out by their alphabet agencies, it finally boiled over into mass riots. In the People’s Republic of China, martial law was instigated as they began to annex their neighbours. Russia was one of the first to be absorbed into the growing multi-national empire of the Asiatic continent. The soviet nation themselves had by this point already lost their national identity over years of brutal rule after three power-hungry but outwardly weak dictators in a row. The greatest casualty of this time was the rather unlikely candidate for the Presidency in the United States of America – Poo Poo the Bear.
As an act of defiance against the corrupt system that had taken root in the heavily divided nation, one where violent crime had risen drastically, a small group of independent activists used a loophole found in the recently passed amendment. This resulted in a literal animal, a grizzly bear who had been hand raised at a Wyoming nature sanctuary, taking the podium, having a tie put around his neck, and going on campaign. What was stranger than his initial arrival to the political scene was how well he was received. The people, bitter from decades of divisionary infighting, likely instigated by the same system that controlled them, saw an alternative to the ascendancy of another corrupt politician or amoral elite psychopath to the White House. It was an animal, and he looked like the best goddamn leader they had seen in years.
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Within weeks, the vast majority of the public supported the animal with all they had, declaring him a new start for the nation. Of course, nobody knew what would actually happen if he made the presidency, but that wasn’t the point. Poo Poo was a statement against the injustice that had ensared their country, and they would not stand for it any longer. Truthfully, President Anderson, who was running for re-election at that time, would have likely used his military influence to dispel his opposition even if Poo Poo won. Yet, the bear was assassinated on stage, a rifle shot to the heart, and that was the signal people needed to make a change. America fell into a civil war. Some regional pockets of safety eventually formed around the increasingly detached corporations and their lands as they tried to ride out the storm. As it turned out, when the companies feel their parent nations are falling apart, they tend to take matters into their own hands – through private security or otherwise.
In the early 2070s, a new force emerged in the burning remnants of the USA – Paradise. They claimed safety, freedom and security under their control. Of course, it just so happened at that time that a epidemic of a highly infectious prion broke out, and the people were desperate for safety against the unseen plague. Over a few weeks, the suspiciously well armed and highly developed powerhouse seized control of the nation, and even further beyond its original borders, from the other fledgling factions. In terror and fear out of their lives, many having been degraded to a near-tribal state of bombed out cities, Paradise was the clear choice for the people, it seemed. It was never declared if they were part of the USA’s military or otherwise, but many saw their newly developed railguns, armoured mechs and factories, and thought that some semblance of normalcy was better than chaos.
The few surviving groups of Americans who saw through the new nation’s fa?ade, those who made the right choice in the long run, eventually sided with the corporations. At it turned out, a loose network of likeminded companies had spread across the world by this time, and they had great plans for the future. Together, they wanted to found a new place for them all to start over in, one free of the draconian powerplays of the main superpowers and without the heavy hand of the tyrannical governments the world had seen that century. This is what would lead to the Combined Neutral States eventually forming in Europe, Oceania and Northern Africa, away from the Americas and Asia. Thus from those lands and the various people who migrated the world over, the Combined Corporations of Humanity was eventually born.
China had its own struggles as Paradise finished forming its iron borders against any and all outsiders. The People’s Republic was on the verge of collapse, resources spent and people tired, and all it needed to fall was a charismatic man with enough support. That man, as it turned out to be, was Yuan Xie, later known as the Jade Emperor. He led a campaign to the heart of the People’s Republic, one that had nations bowing at his feet as they joined him on his journey, before killing the crumbling nation’s old leaders and crowning himself a living god. Honestly, I cannot fully blame the people at that point – the global carbon concentration in the air had risen to the point that cognitive issues were becoming pronounced in the latest generation of children, most people had lived without stable electricity or even running water for many years at that point, and stability was the one thing people wanted. That, and a new, feudal war-lord state of ‘might makes right’, it seems.
For as poorly as we in the CCH now view his holiness, the Jade Emperor did make a highly positive impact on the Asia region once he founded Heaven’s Doctrine, as he reestablished supply lines and infrastructure all across the annexed lands he controlled. For a good three decades, Heaven’s Doctrine was likely second only to the Neutral States for general wellbeing and quality of life, as their later bloody traditions and tenants had not yet taken hold. It was a downward dip as the 2100s began with Paradise and the Doctrine locking eyes, each superpower ready to battle it out for who controlled the planet. As for our ancestors, those in the Neutral States, they saw the writing on the wall and knew that Earth was not viable in the long term – so much for a new, safe land to call home.
Immediate plans for leaving Earth began after the first Intercorporate Affairs Council met up. The companies that would later found the CCH - Henry and Huell Incorporated, Glass Tip Productions, Galant Corporation, Tripwire Services, Solarian (which later split into Second Sun Services and Black Sun Enterprises), and Silver Domain - made up this meeting, amongst hundreds of smaller companies. After a decade of hard effort, and as Heaven’s Doctrine and Paradise engaged in bloody warfare all across the Pacific, South Americas, Southern Africa, and Japan, the S-Drive was created as a result of Project Grail. This ‘Schr?dinger-Drive’, as it was later termed, was the thing needed to give the spark leading to space exploration. Needless to say, once Paradise and Heaven’s Doctrine also got their hands on the device, the golden age of space exploration had started.
Within years, early space vessels had begun scouting and settling in space, far away from the hellscape of the constant battleground that was Earth. By 2150, the wars ravaging Earth had wrought so much destruction that only the slimmest proportion of the CCH’s population remained in the neutral zones of Europe, mostly out of stubbornness. Each day thousands died across the seas as Paradise fully became the industrial nightmare we now know it as, dark, utilitarian and unfeeling, and Heaven’s Doctrine’s thirst for violence swelled to meet the demands of the war. Strength and ‘honourable’ precepts became the norm as the foundling clans killed both Paradisians and each other to grow in power under the Jade Emperor’s watchful eye.
And that leads us to the climax of Earth’s demise. In 2151, the Eternal War is officially declared between the two nations, as almost all non-military life left Earth for greener pastures. A widespread campaign of orbital bombardment and bombing runs destroyed the remaining surface of Earth, with anything standing higher than a man turned to dust. By 2153, the atmosphere of Earth was nearly gone, most of the damage being attributed to a new orbital laser design – one that had been good at turning cities and small countries to glassy smudges across the globe. The only side effect, aside from genocide and immediate incineration of the surroundings, was that it also shredded and ripped apart the atmosphere.
At the end of the day, it’s easy to point the finger at a single piece of technology or political movement or peoples to blame for the end of Earth. I think this is a simplistic view. Yet, I also wouldn’t point to some vague nature of reality as some are so quick to do. Indeed, humanity can be cruel and violent, but I do not feel that it is in our genes to destroy and corrupt. Not only do I feel that such great levels of death were caused by an unlucky few getting into power, I feel that there is something else at play. So many unlucky events led to the dire situation of the Eternal War – the G25 incident happening just as the security in charge of the event pulled out for unknown reasons, Poo Poo’s still undiscovered assassin, Urad-235’s appearance not giving time for the nations to fully recover from the rising tension of that period, and even how Paradise came to be out of nowhere. Overall, and this seems silly to me, I cannot help but feel that everything that caused the great divide of our peoples, is almost… manufactured?
Regardless, the following chapters of this book will go into much further detail about each of the nations, peoples and tools at play in the greatest migration of history. Moving on from this impersonal pre-message, I hope you enjoy this work. In the first chapter, we will discuss the rise of Space Australia…
- Introduction to “A Retrospective on Earth’s Demise” by Cornelius Summers, Glass Tip Productions Historian, Published 2221.