Greetings all. I've been observing the TML from this shadowy
alcove for next to a year now and figured that it being summer,
this might be an opportune season to put forward the spoils of
imagination for those who are interested.
Being less the technical sort of personage yet more inclined to
dwell on subjects entirely without substance, I've turned all
idle attentions toward the fabrication of an alternate history
for my Traveller setting. Thus, with a Mischievous Huzzah & the
wagging of many a Vargr tail, that history in five glorious if
mundane chapters doth begin.
All comments, criticisms, and character assassinations are hereby
welcome. Enjoy.
- - -----------------------------------------------------------------
Traveller Tales
being an encapsulated history of future time
Copyright 1991 Jim Vassilakos
(for whatever it's worth)
A.D. 2004-2568 * The Infancy
Part One
2004-2007 The Glowing War
2011-2034 Germ Wars
2047-2080 The E-Grid
2068-2088 Only One Earth
2084-2102 The Farmers' Rebellions
2107-2181 Corporate Science
2162-2212 High Road to Peace
2197-2243 A Human Question
2212-2262 Conquest of the Solar System
2251-2292 Children of the Apes
2004-2007 The Glowing War
The 3rd Millennium kicked off with a bang, when in its first
decade both Paris and New York fell victim to nuclear terrorism.
The blow to the western psyche was heartfelt, yet the fear the
terrorists hoped to illicit was replaced only by anger in the
wake of the destruction. A handful of nations were held
responsible for backing the terrorists, and repercussions were
both swift and certain. Through a combination of neutron and
bacteriological strikes, the so-called offending nations were
decimated and a virtual moratorium on nuclear weapons was called
for by the seven superpowers. A policy of "Cooperative
Guardianship" was ruthlessly enforced by the superpowers in order
to maintain the nuclear free world.
2011-2034 Germ Wars
The so-called peace following the Glowing War was short-lived.
For another two decades, as the ability to produce
bacteriological weapons became available to the developing
nations through numerous advances in medical science, a series of
"germ wars" plagued the earth. By the middle 30's, the death toll
was three billion people. The wars resulted in tremendous
biomedical advances in the more advanced nations, however the
third world nations rarely benefitted from new discoveries and
were the hardest hit. Although relatively minor outbreaks
occurred later in the century resulting in half a billion more
fatalities, the wars were said to officially end with the Treaty
of New Delhi in 2034 when India unveiled the Yama Bug, a class of
germs with theoretically no possible immunization or antidote.
Such a germ had already existed in the more developed nations for
several decades, but never before had its release been
threatened. The Prime Minister's statement, "If India dies, the
whole world dies," brought an abrupt halt to the self-inflicted
genocide.
2047-2080 The E-Grid
By 2047, the world's first fusion reactor with a positive net
power output was successfully tested in Tokyo. Although the news
came as an astonishment to the energy community, the media and
public reaction was one of disinterest. Several times before
nuclear fusion had been announced only later to be disproved.
Further, the advent of fusion had been anticipated for next to a
century, so that when it finally came about, people wondered only
that it had taken so long for science to accomplish. Without
going into the technical reasons for the delays, it can be stated
with some accuracy that it was only until the middle 40's that
the technological components for the nuclear fuser were at hand.
Several nations began extending their national energy grids,
exporting inexpensive electricity to the third world by way of
power lines or energy capacitors. The boost in world productivity
was astounding, and with the energy crisis finally licked, the
major stresses inciting conflict between nations were for a time
relieved. In 2080, the national energy grids of the nine super
powers and twenty-seven other states joined together in an
"energy confederation" under the auspices of the United Nations.
The World E-Grid was born.
2068-2088 Only One Earth
In 2068, the nine superpowers joined in a treaty known as the
"Green Pact" which was to later evolve into the "Only One Earth"
restoration campaign. As the global-warming crisis continued
unabated, the world community cooperated in the implementation of
long-term solutions to the greenhousing of the earth's atmosphere
and the environmentally sound disintegration or holding of toxic
substances. Although initially greeted with mixed support, the
efforts of this campaign were finally joined by the remaining
nations in 2088, instituting policies of renewal over the entire
planet.
2084-2102 The Farmers' Rebellions
In the years before the establishment of the world e-grid,
particularly during the middle stages of the Only One Earth
Campaign, the emerging energy-confederation began reclaiming
large areas of infertile land traditionally used for small-scale
subsistence farming. In so doing, the land was once again made
fertile for collective farming, however, hundreds of millions of
small-time farmers were displaced. This sudden shift in the
social order created a people entirely dispossessed, and in the
resulting chaos, a number of rebellions broke out beginning in
2084 and continued sporadically for eighteen years until the
Nolanders' rebellion was ruthlessly crushed in 2102.
2107-2181 Corporate Science
Throughout the 21st century, the vast majority of critical
research in the sciences was conducted with government funds, yet
beginning in 2107, corporations took the lead role in developing
emerging technologies. In 2107, Femm Biolabs in the United
Kingdom engineered a new species of algae which not only helped
reverse global warming during the 22nd century's period of
increased thermal-energy pollution, but also technologically
paved the way for sea farming. In 2122, cryogenic suspension was
refined to the point where long-term "freezing" became both
feasible and relatively safe. In the early 40's, several
breakthroughs in synaptic-electric links made artificial
prothesis of both limbs and major organs more feasible, and by
the middle 50's, the human mind could be connected directly to
computers for the transmission or retrieval of data. The 60's saw
the advent of limb and organ regeneration, and by the 70's
startling progress had been made on total body rejuvenation,
enabling individuals to live up to 200 years. Yet it was in 2181
that the corporate science achieved its crowning glory: the
development of gravitic technology. Though it wasn't for another
three centuries that the science behind the phenomenon was
understood, this step opened an entirely new field of technology,
revolutionizing the global transportation industry almost
overnight.
2162-2212 High Road to Peace
Despite all the progress made toward a unified social structure,
tensions began again to sweep the seeds of discord. Disputes over
territorial rights, population control, reparation for past
injustices, patent infringements, and a whole host of other
issues divided the varying and often fluid factions as though by
an iron wedge. It is thus significant that the United Nations
took the lead in renewing cooperative ties between the world's
many states, inciting perhaps the most unifying gesture of the
first quarter of the millennium. In 2162, the U.N. approved its
first fifty-year plan for space exploration and colonization.
Though this action may seem today more an attempt to divert the
world's attention from the "real issues", the joint venture did a
great deal to quell nationalistic aggression and instill a
feeling of "world community" among divergent peoples. By 2178
both Martian and Lunar colonies had been established, and by
2210, numerous colonies existed in the Jovian and Saturn systems
and in the asteroid belt.
2197-2243 A Human Question
By the late 22nd century, the cyborgization of the human species
was well underway. Since the 50's, numerous machines had been
designed to do nothing other than link with the human nervous
system and provide artificial sensations. These "psychedelic
sensitizers" or "sex machines" as they were sometimes called were
by the close of the century responsible for as many as a million
fatalities worldwide. To compound the problem, the public seemed
oblivious to the mounting death toll. This "crisis" prompted the
United Nations to create a Council on Human Affairs, and for the
first time in its existence, the U.N. began dictating a universal
morality from its high pulpit.
For the most part, this infringement on private enterprise
came as a shock to the business sector which began moving its
more questionable operations off-planet where the Council would
not have legislative jurisdiction. However, as the 23rd century
dawned it became apparent the U.N. would have more on its hands
than mere sensitizers.
In 2231, unprecedented breakthroughs in biogenetics allowed
the precise description of an unborn child's future traits, and
by the end of the decade, the IHM Corporation began marketing its
"First Step" program to prospective parents. First Step was
basically a euphemism for the "service" of altering the genetic
material of an unborn fetus in an attempt to create "perfect"
human beings. As the U.N. began wrestling with the ethics thereby
involved, geneticists began work on altering the human DNA to
even greater extremes. In the majority of cases, the geneticists
delivered on their promises, producing evermore intelligent,
physically powerful, and dexterous humans, however in a certain
number of cases mistakes were made, and artificial mutants were
born. Although many of these "accidents" were promptly disposed
of, not all could be hidden so easily. Finally, in 2243, the U.N.
passed a comprehensive ban of genetic engineering on human DNA.
By this time, however, several million super-children had already
been born, and although this figure represented only a small
fraction of earth's thirty billion inhabitants, the threat of
superbeings pounded a serious impact on the social psyche.
2212-2262 Conquest of the Solar System
With the successful completion of the 1st fifty year plan,
industry began to get heavily involved in space interests,
particularly in asteroid mining and shuttle services. Thus, when
it came time to draw the 2nd fifty-year plan in 2212, the U.N.
conferred heavily with business leaders to form an opinion on
what was possible and what was financially feasible. At the 2212
conference, the Aster Corporation unveiled its prospects for the
construction the Von Neumann Robotic Miner. Once complete, the
spacecraft would be capable of self-replication, it's sole
purpose to find mineral deposits among the asteroids, mine them,
and reproduce itself. By 2220, the first VNRM set sail for the
belt, and within four decades, hundreds of the miners existed,
plying the asteroids for minerals which manned vessels could
later find neatly deposited with a homing beacon and refine in
the deep of space.
Planetary population stress, however, proved to become an even
more serious issue than the plundering of the belt. Despite the
numerous microworlds and planetary settlements created during the
first fifty-year plan, the Terran population pressures were more
evident than ever, and by 2212 every nation on the globe
practiced some variety of population control. It was therefore
critical that some form of large-scale terraforming be undertaken
by the world community. Again, the corporations came to the
rescue with a number of exotic ideas involving the biological
terraformation of Mars, Venus, and Titan. Forming into a
cooperative combine latter to be known as the Solar Planetary
Trust Corporation, these companies demanded exorbitant property
rights on the planets to be terraformed, rights which bordered on
the creation of sovereign states beyond the United Nations'
traditional jurisdiction. With the world community's grudging
acquiescence in 2217, the long process toward terraformation was
begun.
2251-2292 Children of the Apes
With the road to human genetic development legally cut short in
2243, many "human engineers" found themselves squeezed out of the
private sector. One such scientist, Dr. Ukliv Eski, returned to
the academia where he founded the Department of Hominid Studies
at the University of Kampala. There, his research team raised
several generations of chimpanzees, the genetic structure of
which he successively modified toward humanity's own. By 2289,
his chimps gained international notoriety on a holovideo talk
show where on several occasions they argued the "world issues"
with political leaders, the implicit parody of the situation
flustering their opponents and creating a media circus. Although
never progressing beyond a grade school intelligence, the chimps
ingratiated themselves into their hearts of the common people.
However, in a biological mishap at the University in 2292, the
chimps and their trainers, including Dr. Eski, were killed. Later
that year, the U.N. extended its 2243 prohibition on the genetic
manipulation of human DNA to cover the DNA of all hominid
species.
_ /|
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