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 Two
2247-2299 Quest for the Stars
2273-2334 Problems in Space
2295-2367 Problems on Earth
2336-2419 Medical Renaissance
2374-2470 Resurgence of Religion
2470-2471 Harbinger from Nessus
2443-2568 Genetic Evolutions
2247-2299 Quest for the Stars
As the United Nations' second fifty year plan for space
exploration and colonization came to its completion, science
teams around the solar system raced to find some answer to the
mass-deficiency syndrome which held back interstellar travel.
Finally, in 2247, the Bourns Corporation announced its successful
development of the hydrofunnel, a device by which hydrogen could
be captured in the deep of space. Several companies including
Aster and MDC began licensing production rights in lieu of the
2262 summit. There, a whole host of interstellar vessels were
commissioned for service. The quest for the stars had begun.
To cap off the century in 2299, radio transmissions were
received from researchers on Alpha Centauri. A primitive
ecosystem had been discovered on the small world orbiting within
the primary's habitable zone, reinvigorating ancient hopes and
fears that human beings might find intelligent life in space, or
vice-versa.
2273-2334 Problems in Space
To the exasperation of scientists, not all of humankind's efforts
in space were fruitful. A combination of inexplicable failures
and oversights gave pause to the U.N. space program while
corporations continued to rush ahead. The first signs that Man
had reached his limit was in 2273 when Femm Biolabs announced its
latest breakthrough in the engineering of artificial organisms by
unveiling a whole host of Martian settlers. Although the line
proved extremely beneficial in the early terraformation efforts,
the organisms proved unreasonably hardy and became a bane to the
settlers during the late 23rd century when predatory organisms
were called in to check the population of the pests. The
situation fell entirely out of hand during the early 24th century
as predatory Martian beetles would burrow through the foundation
of domed settlements, exposing the colonists to the hazards of
vacuum.
In 2306, reports from Alpha Centauri confirmed that Man had
overstepped his bounds when Terran bacteria began running amok in
the fragile, alien ecosystem. By the late 20's, the Terran
bacteria had completely usurped their indigenous rivals.
The final boot fell in 2334, when the UNS Halifax suffered a
catastrophic failure of its hydrofunnel during a routine survey
mission of the interstellar hydrogen clouds around the solar
system. The crew decided by lots who would undergo cryogenic
freezing, hopefully to be later rescued, while the losers
sustained themselves for several years, finally resorting to
cannibalism as their nutrition supplies became exhausted.
2295-2367 Problems on Earth
Despite the colonization and population control efforts of the
23rd century, the population stress on planet was insidious with
a purported demographic summary of sixty billion people by the
turn of the century. In order to combat this problem, the U.N.
began a large scale sterilization movement in 2295 combined with
the marketing of propagation rights three years later. Any
children who were found to have been born without proper
processing after the turn of the century were "confiscated" by
the newly created World Peace Agency. Isolated rebellions against
the policy were quickly put down, and political leaders, many of
them in their 2nd rejuvenation with families of eight or twelve
children, argued that enforcement of these extreme measures were
the only way to quell population growth from bursting the seams
of the world order.
To compound the crisis already forming, the U.N. initiated a
policy in 2318 of forced deportation and/or cryogenic sleep for
repeated law offenders as a means of humanly screening the
undesirables from society's ranks. In 2329, a group of protesters
broke into a cold berth confinement area in order to try and free
the captives. The government responded by shutting down power to
the sector, thereby killing the occupants in the low berths
before they could be freed. This incident led to the London
uprising of the following year in which an additional 1.3 million
people were arrested and cryogenically frozen.
In 2315, corporations began responding to the crisis by
building colossal "Arks" in which humans could travel
cryogenically frozen for hundreds of years before reaching any of
the various settlements promised to be robotically constructed
before their arrival. Over the next five decades, some four
hundred and eighty million people signed on for interstellar
colonization. However, when compared to the size of the overall
problem, the colonization effort seemed more like the proverbial
drop in the bucket. The vast majority of population relief came
due to the U.N. propagation restrictions, unpopular though they
were, and by 2367 the legislation achieved its benchmark goal of
a fifty billion population level with sustained negative growth.
2336-2419 Medical Renaissance
Part of the reason behind earth's population pressures was the
increasing pace of advance in the medical sciences. In the middle
of the 23rd century, geneticists already knew how to modify a
species' DNA over successive generations to create, in effect, a
new species. The more simple the organism, more available the
model, and shorter the lifespan of the organism, the quicker the
pace this engineered evolution could be carried out. By monkeying
around with hominid DNA in the late 2200's, scientists at the
University of Kampala were, in fact, learning a great deal about
human genetics. The subsequent accident in 2292 was said to have
set back the field of research perhaps as much as thirty years,
and the extension of the 2243 ban significantly slowed down the
rate at which science could catch up. Despite these hindrances,
however, corporations carried out secret research off planet,
finally culminating in the early 2330's with the development of
broad-spectrum antiviral vaccinations. With the Terran
inoculation of 2336, humankind had virtually licked the common
cold, something that medical experts had only dreamed about for
hundreds of years.
This event revitalized the medical research profession,
lending new impetus to the fight against human suffering which
had been for so long cheapened and abused by the morally
questionable and occasionally dangerous products of medical
science. Nerve refusion techniques were developed through the
2370's and 80's, and the first broad-spectrum antitoxin was
introduced in 2419, a virtual cure-all against entire classes of
disease. By this time, however, corporations campaigned openly
for the right to re-initiate genetic research on human DNA
without having to conduct their operations in secrecy. However,
fears over the creation of "superhumans" still lingered in the
public subconscious, and corporate sentiments failed to turn over
this legislation.
2374-2470 Resurgence of Religion
With the interstellar exploration and colonization well underway,
the popular media began anticipating the contact of intelligent
alien life forms while prominent scientists began staking their
reputations on the prospect of first contact being just around
the corner. However, "just around the corner" never came, and as
radio transmitted reports of lifeless planets and primitive
bacterial ecosystems came back to earth, the scientific opinion
began to waver. It seemed as though humankind was very much alone
in the universe. The initial evolutionary steps were simply too
difficult and improbable to support a "teeming universe"
hypothesis.
The outlook seemed so bleak that scientists reversed their
stands, now questioning whether there was any intelligent life
other than humankind, and if not, then what fortune led to the
rise of sentience on Earth? This philosophical climate led to a
resurgence of religion, Pope Joseph IX declaring from his lofty
pulpit in 2374 that after hundreds of years of struggling, men of
science had finally arrived to the true knowledge which was
always offered them by God. Each new "negative" discovery seemed
to confirm this statement, and Catholicism found billions of new
converts who hoped to cash in on the gift of immortality just as
the human race had cashed in on its "gift" of the Universe.
However, with the resurgence of religion, so came a new
division among people. While the majority of the world's people
moved toward monotheism, and Catholicism in particular, several
of the eastern nations diverged, holding true to the more ancient
eastern faiths. These deep rooted differences combined with a
yearning for independence from U.N. dictates led to open
animosities between the eastern and western nations during the
early 25th century. Unrest continued to ferment until 2443 when
Xao Ti Xang defied United Nations authority by funding human
geneticists from the Humanix Corporation and allowing the
development of super-intelligent humans in China.
This open schism over the nature and course of human
development generated terrorist actions in China during the
following two decades which were countered by bacteriological
offensives against supporting nations. An estimated twenty
million people died in these reprisals, leading to further
escalation of the crisis when the Catholic Pope declared a holy
war against those who would play God. This militant Catholicism
led to the outbreak of the Yama bug in China in 2467, however
advances in medical science managed to exterminate the dreaded
virus, through only after a death toll of 570 million. Rather
then respond in kind, the Chinese government unveiled the Lu Yueh
virus in 2470, an engineered suborganism capable of mutating
itself beyond even the reach of the broadest antitoxins. The Pope
called for courage, continuing to demand that the heathens leave
the devices of life and death to God alone as the United Nations
Secretary General demanded a reunion of the global alliance at
any and all costs.
2470-2471 Harbinger from Nessus
So engaging was the new world-conflict, that when news of the UNS
Erik's discovery of a somewhat more advanced ecosystem on New
Amsterdam reached Earth in 2447, the Terran media scarcely took
notice. It thus came as a fortuitous coincidence that in 2470,
just as world war seemed imminent, radio transmissions reporting
startling discoveries on Nessus reached Earth. Nessus, a world
emersed in what appeared to be an artificially produced
greenhouse atmosphere was literally strewn with ancient ruins. It
appeared, for the first time in human history, that humankind
might not be alone in the universe after all.
As the United Nations poised on the edge of an invasion,
reports continued to come in about explorations to the planet's
surface. From initial data, it appeared that the Nessusan
civilization had simply faded away, as if each and every
individual had suddenly died without cause. Some alien specimens
were found in cryogenic suspension, but died during the thawing
process. By a careful analysis of the raw data, it was finally
determined by Terran geneticists a year later that the society
had fallen victim to some form of biological germ, something too
advanced for the explorers on Nessus to detect since they were
still using outdated technology. Ironically, where the explorers
lacked knowledge they seemed to lend wisdom, the immortal words
of the Alien Archeologist, Dvitro Xerxes, streaming as particles
of radio light through the vastness of space, piecing together
the final whispers of an alien people who died some forty million
years before humans learned to build fires. This harbinger to
Earth's own imminent destiny proved so power that support for the
U.N. invasion of China immediately collapsed.
2443-2568 Genetic Evolutions
When corporations were finally given free reign to develop a
super-intelligent human with the full backing of the Chinese
government, genetic engineers flocked to Beijing from all over
the solar system. The resources put into the project were
enormous from the very beginning, however, unlike Dr. Eski, these
researchers had no naturally evolved genetic model upon which to
base their work. Therefore, the quest was likened to a grope in
the darkness, when after numerous attempts, science had as its
best example of experimental success produced only a colony of
sterile, psychotic deviants.
Humanix was finally bought out by Femm Biolabs in 2470, during
the uncertainty of the mounting U.N. invasion. Femm immediately
diverted corporate resources toward the physical manipulation of
the human species, something which was considered far more
attainable by science, and the decision proved successful in 2502
with the unveiling of water-breathing sapiens who, though
genetically fragile, were nonetheless capable of reproduction.
Japanese and Australian opposition to the creationists finally
caved-in to business pressures as new corporations raced to
catch-up in what soon became known as the Race of Evolutions.
However, just as anxiety had grown three centuries earlier when
the prospect of a race of superpeople loomed in the mind of
ordinary man, so was there a resurgence of activity from various
fronts attempting to regulate the flow of government sponsored
research dollars as U.N. Articles were instated effectively
enslaving the newborn species even as they arrived.
Between 2510 and 2568, a plethora of human variants reached
the market, one adapted for cold weather, another for extremes of
heat, another with the ability to soar by the use of wings, and
still others, often created as midgets, with little more than a
dog's mentality and often purchased as household pets. Progress
on the intellectual side of the genetic coin was finally achieved
in the 50's and 60's with the development of super-intelligent
children whose increased learning ability and pre-implanted
knowledge threatened standard humans on a more psychological
level. However, the majority of these creations were non-viable,
unable to reproduce as does a true species, though, with time
geneticists promised that they would learn the secrets of life
itself, not merely of its modification.
However, whether unfortunate or inevitable, the proverbial
excrement finally hit the spinning rotor-blade in 2565 when a
scientist defecting from the More Perfect Human Corporation
stated to the media that a psionic child had been born. Suddenly
faced with the prospect of mind-invasion and a whole host of
alien mental powers, anti-creationist groups gained increased
political power, finally forcing the passage of a U.N. Resolution
in 2568 declaring Earth a standard-human zone. Individuals could
either apply for special wavers to harbor non-standards or move
off-planet. This resolution put a virtual stop to the
creationists who relied on government sponsorship for a majority
of their research and development and on the Terran consumer for
a substantial market. In an attempt to continue the rally, the
Chinese agreed to sponsor psionic research off-planet, however,
in 2576 the U.N. extended its 2568 resolution to the entire solar
system.
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