Create inbuilt genetic coding hardwired into a mainframe. Every single person becomes a monitored commodity which is proportional to a ‘renewable standards’ algorithm. In layman’s terms it would work like this – every few hours a mainframe would collect data from across the planet. This data is scored and analyzed – giving every single person a rank. Now, what the mainframe also figures out every couple of hours is how many people the planet is capable of sustaining based on resource use, climate, air , livable area and so on. The most important factor here is how it applies the data – each person is ranked based on how much they consume, however this is their net effect on the planet. Each person cannot help but consume something it is their efforts to reduce or replace what they use which is important as that would lower their net score. So, if the mainframe decides we are overpopulated those who are causing the most detriment to the planet are culled. This is done automatically and remotely, the mainframe can switch a person off instantly thus saving resources. Think of it as switching off an unnecessary light. The onus then lands on each individual to lower their net score continually, in the hopes that at some stage we will reach equilibrium – with the possibility of moving past and to the point of being able to populate well within our means.
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The totally curious are never satisfied – an unfortunate malady that can affect (effect? l couldn’t be bothered looking it up) a person throughout their lifetime. Being curious is in itself an intriguing notion, casting aside the easy answer of drive for knowledge or even something more mundane such as curiosity being an innate part of our survival instincts l often wonder why a person can be totally disinterested in say, spoons, then be totally enamored with another silly thing – such as stamps.
Should another being ever (well, let’s be realistic here and say when they do, it will happen let’s not fool ourselves) look upon our society (maybe an interstellar archaeologist will use us as their pet project) and find these certain collections, different across the globe to what end will they believe these collections were for? By illustration imagine you and your friend have a cat. Then, sometime later after your beloved moggys unfortunate demise you are going through their personal effects (or affects?) and come across the rather startling discovery of a collection of novelty party hats.
Stored in secrecy it appears your cat (or bunyip, the creature itself is unimportant just the habit) has been collecting, tagging and storing novelty hats en masse. After your initial surprise has worn off and you have had a stiff drink to round off the edge you call your friend whose cat has also shuffled off this mortal coil to let them know of your discovery. As you lift the receiver to your ear the tinkle of ice in a tumbler in your ear tells you your friend has also had to take a little moment to themselves after a shock. You are duly informed that his or her cat or bunyip has a small collection of their own…..moist towelettes from varying fast food conveniences around the state, carefully stored and rated by moistness.
Now here is the problem with looking back and trying to reconstruct the collectors mind from an outsiders point of view – how do you categorize this categorization of cat collecting and collating? How would Xenox 8/9+ from planet Johnson prepare a report for his Galactic Overlord in relation to the collections us as curious humans have? How would Xenox 8/9+ explain the fact that in one room in one home it appears a person has been hoarding small sticky backed pictures that bear some relation to the planetary notification system and in another room a man or woman has been hoarding a particular type of eating implement?
Trying to categorize our rampant and rather unrelated collecting would l fear potentially cause the implosion of a mind from outside our sphere of understanding – l hope this does not cause our new alien overlords to bear us any ill-will due to our innate curiosity and need for collecting.
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1
Progress
The details were sketchy at best, however the general consensus of the Martian
population believed it to be the work of Earthbound scientists millenia ago.
There were also many offshoots from the civilised populace who, though buried
deep below the Martian surface, had their beliefs high amongst the stars and
were firmly grounded in the idea that is was all some galactic stroke of luck.
These wombat-esque peoples were actually closer to the mark than they realised
though and, rather unfortunately for them, their claims would never be proven
and would forever be viewed upon by surface dwellers as a rather simple and
misguided lot.
The truth of the matter is Martian terra-forming had its roots in an age where
mankind felt no restraint in both their progress and demonstration of their
technological prowess. Unfortunately these two endevours were viewed by
Eathlings as going hand in hand and resulted in the near annihalation of the
human race in a most spectacular fashion.
With the passing of time has come the distortion of facts and the myriad of
stories relating to the human races planetary switch are now mainly folklore.
As with all stories passed from generation to generation a certain element of
embellishment creeps in – however among both Martian surface dwellers and the
underground folk details surrounding their beginnings contain a raft of
similarities. Both tribes believed that Earth was allowed to become almost
stripped of all resources and in the process had become tremendously polluted,
dangerous and unforgiving to the populace. Billions had died through this age
of decadence where human kind dessimated their own planet leading to the
downfall of vast amounts of reportely civilised nations – again progress was
the chief culprit in the homeplanets demise, this was a generally agreed upon
notion amongst all Martians.
Born from this era of the breakdown of nations came the the United Societies.
Geographical information is sparse regarding this empire although it a appears
with the fall of the then modern nations humankind fell into two distinct
groups – those connected or unconnected to the internet. With this access the
connected societes, although distanced in some cases by many thousands of
kilometres, attempted to rebuild and continue their stampede for progress
together under the banner of the United Societies. The second groups simply
disbanded and became nomadic tribes of the barren lands of the planet, numbers
and details now almost impossible to discover.
Then came a period, many hundreds of years after the rise of the then great
United Societies where mankinds thinking shifted universally. This was almost a
renaissance for the people of Earth and a golden age for the planet istelf. It
had taken thousands of years and the stripping bare of their planet for people
to finally attempt to recreate their beautiful home, the connected peoples of
the planet banded together to perform humankinds first selfless act. To rebuild
their home planet.
At first, their progress had been slow despite being technologically advanced
and having an army of labour in the form of robotic assistance. As humans could
barely remain outside of their sheltered cities for more than a few hours due
to harsh environmental conditions, robots had progressed very naturally over
the centuries to become honoured companions after years of being thought of as
merely equipment.
The people persevered and eventually the recreation of their planet began to
take shape – massive undertakings began in earnest and entire continents were
earmarked as Earth Parks – free for the remaining populace to use as they saw
fit within keeping of strict environmental guidelines. For a population
numbering in less than one million the achievements in the few centuries of
this golden age were nothing short of remarkable.
Regeneration of entire forests, thousands of kilometres across were
accomplished with a remarkably simple and effective solution. Seed stocks were
simply grown and dropped from an aramada of flying (or more accurately,
gliding) solar greenhouses high in the atmosphere, in some cases not returning
to the planet for 100 years or more.
Seedlings were grown in these automated flying greenhouses around the clock -
constantly circling the globe following the sunlight. Lightweight robots
working in the upper atmosphere aboard these gently floating nurseries coaxed
the seedlings from the matured plants and, as they began to sprout, were
wrapped in organic, conical and slightly weighted “shells” then dropped from
the ship. These organic missles buried their precious cargo deep within the
Earth, their organic husk breaking up and feeding the plant as it began its
lifegiving mission.
The ships themselves were a beautiful sight, being made of lightweight aerogel
structures that were almost transparent. These lightweight and incredibly
strong structures refracted the light over almost an acre of tiny plants
seemingly suspended by an odd shaped rainbow in mid-air. Slowly gliding through
the upper atmosphere, intelligent solar power generators worked in perfect
accompianment with the flight systems and water management mainframe to
accuarately control condensation development for the seedlings. A delicate
ballet of temperature shifts by dancing the floating seedling factory along the
horizon allowed water to be created through condensation on the thin, membrane
like wings of the glider. Each droplet lovingly harvested by nanoscopic ‘worker
ants’and delivered to the waiting seedlings. This created the illusion of a
giant translucent dragon fly, gliding effortlessly between the horizon
refracting millions of shades of light which appeared to dance with the
movement of innumerable droplets of water being shifted delicately to their
precious recipients. Truly a sight to behold.
Millions of such nurseries circumnavigated the globe, their robotic workers
diligently dropping their produce to the ground below to rebirth the planet.
Over time these seedlings took hold and mighty forests appeared, there was a
dual purpose for such a planting en masse. More than seventy percent of the
planets surface was liquid water, which was inhospitable and almost devoid of
life . Over time, millions of tons of organic matter was deposited into the
oceans creating an abundant food source for genetically recreated species of an
age gone by. Such species were developed far removed from their historic
genetic cousins to allow them to flourish in the heavily polluted seas, lakes
and streams. Huge stocks were initially lost as it took the people of Earth
some time to realise that their tides had long since stopped. The mighty ocean
currents – the lifeblood of the planet – were thought to be dead. Fortunately
they had merely stalled. Celebrations such as the world had never seen burst
across the planet when the first fruits were born from the refreezing of the
polar caps and the slow return to equilibrium in the functioning of the planet.
As time wore on the incredibly hardy genetically altered creatures of the
planet were re-encoded to revert closer to their previously extinct forms.
Every creature that was recreated was provided with built in genetic sequencers
allowing each generation of species to deevolve to as close a state as possible
to what they were before their extinction. Martian scientists believed this to
be an incredible feat but still point out that even with their immense level of
planetwide cooperation towards a singular goal and highly developed technical
prowess, billions of species were lost forever. The Earthlings of the time were
filled with a deep sense of accomplishment for what they had recreated and at
the sime time the grief of monumental loss.
Centuries of effort passed, however the damage done to the planet would be
everlasting. Humans had managed to almost restore equilibrium on the planet -
seas flourished, the mighty ocean currents had returned to feed the enormous
rivers and streams of the restored continents and the animal life of the planet
was beginning to find its own natural balance. From time to time human
intervention was required to manufacture a particular species or recreate a
particular food source due to a miscalculation however they were learning and
humankinds new ethos of being all for the planet and not soley for their
species was doing the Earth very well.
Passed down records for this period of time in Earths history started to paint
a picture of the inhabitants becoming finally aware of more than just
themselves, they had expended many hundreds of generations for a purpose
greater than themselves – the recreation of their home for all creatures.
Unfortunately, human nature once again reared its ugly head.
The people of Earth began once again to look beyond their own horizons and this
is where the historical beliefs of the Martians begin to differ. The most
widely held view of population of Mars is that humans once again began to look
to the stars and to press their progress on other celestial bodies. Mars being
the most obvious choice humans thought that with what they had already
accomplished on their home planet there was no reason not to begin builing
another…..
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Chapter two
On the Surface
Surface dwelling inhabitants of Mars are proud decendants of humankind, a
people with a long (if patchy) history. Their lifetimes on Mars are spent in
the pursuit of science, with highly developed intelligent networks creating the
backbone of their society they function in much the same way as their
forebears. Streamlined genetic information was the key to their resilience -
engineered for the gathering and utilisation of information they have a highly
integrated social architecture. Robots, AI Networks and computer nodes are all
awarded the same social standing as has been the case for centuries. Their goal
is still to recreate the Earth on Mars however there have been problems.
In the beginning colonisation of Mars was not to happen until Mars had been
deemed a suitable habitat for Earthlings. A formidable army of terraforming
equipment, factories and robots shuttled silently through the cold of space to
their new home. Earth had planned to equip the planet with the machinery
required then begin the mighty red planet’s transformation. For years the
shuttles flew back and forth until the development of a more suitable system
appeared.
By utilising hundreds of space stations, each with their own closely monitored
orbits a type of chain was created which spanned the enourmous distance to
Earths recreation. Each station followed its own axis and was self aligning,
constant adjustments were carried out by the robots on board using solar
charged ion drives.
The premise was incredibly simple, a shuttle would lift from Earth with its
payload and dock with an orbiting space station. The station would take the
payload and sling it from its orbit on a trajectory that would coincide with
the next space staion who would ‘catch’ the payload. Thus not expending any
fuel and only using the energy imparted by the ‘throwing’ station. Orbits were
matched in real time so that trajectories of the payload and catching station
were matched equally. The catching station would then rotate – aim the payload
at a point that would coincide with the orbit of the next station and fling the
cargo off into the castness of space then rotate back into a catching position.
The beauty of this system is that instead of building enormous craft and
expending incredible amounts of fuel for the journey a shuttle mearly had to
leave Earths atmosphere briefly and impart its goods to the orbiting station.
Once arriving the goods would beging a stop/start slingshot trip to Mars.
Shuttles delivered equipment twice a day to the station. After 11 months Mars
began receiving two payloads a day – greatly increasing transportation capacity
with minimal use of materials of fuel for an operation that was expecting to
continue for centuries.
So the process was believed to have begun, Earthlings waited – developing new
technologies and adapting them to a Martian environment and sending them on,
all the while believing that Mars was becoming more hospitable yearly. Many
dreamt of a time when Earth would have an nearly identical sister and humankind
could begin its exploration of their galaxy. One planet at a time.
Up until this point of history both the surface Martian and his underground
relative are in relative agreeance. What happens next is highly speculative and
based on nothing more than hypothesis.
Todays surface Martian has taken an analytical approach to the problem. And the
problems they are faced with are these – Mars is populated, it has not been
terraformed to anywhere near the exacting standards imparted by their Earth
bound forefathers and there has been no contact with Earth of any kind for as
far back as any record can indicate. They know of the attemped recreation of
Earth however they do not know how they came to be there. Being the analytical
creatures they are they have concluded that there was a catastrophic accident
on Earth, the Earthlings had a small amount of time to send a final payload to
Mars and this payload consisted of their engineered selves in storage form.
Generally, the engineered genetic information of a species is printed on a
template consisting of the chemical building blocks of the item (in thise case,
a person). When the required specimen is required a robot or other automated
system begins the recreation process – generally Earthlings had engineered
species on had for a multitude of different requirements should they arise. It
appears that the Earthlings, faced with extinction slung across the gap between
the two planets a final payload containing the building blocks of a new race,
the template for the Martians.
This was generally accepted as it fulfilled the basic requirements as to why
they were there without recollection of arriving. The surface habitats they
occupied were remnants from the failed terraforming project and contained a
vast amount of information as to what they were doing yet very little
information not related to the Earthlings themselves. A fair amount of history
was gleaned from the robots that had originated on Earth but the robots on Mars
had not been on Earth at any time close to when the extinction event had
occurred.
So, believing that Earth was destroyed or at least uninhabited the Martians
picked up where the Earthlings had failed and began their own terraformation of
the planet – unfortunately for them they had very little information of the
original template to work from so they let the machines carry on unguided in
the hope they would work well enough autonomously to recreate the Earth.
It had been a long time, many generations had passed and their beliefs still
held firm. All the while the enormous machines continued on to create something
they hoped to recognise. Although their beliefs had remained in tact many were
beginning to question the effect of the machines. As the Martians strengths lay
in the collection and interpretation of information they were getting data that
did not tie into their long held beleifs that the machines were there to
fundamentally change the planet into something wholly new.
Their data told them that nothing on the planets surface was changing. And
without knowing what was meant to change or if the terraforming had already
been completed correctly they continued on blindy, collecting information they
had no purpose for.
From time to time there were interactions with the underground people of the
planet – these ranged from amicable to downright hostile with the occassional
attempt to disrail the terraforming process, to what end the surface Martians
could not understand so for the most part did their utmost to stay well away
from their underground relatives.
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Getting on it.
The deeply felt yet inaudible bass filtered through the the bar creating a subconsious rythm for the room full of liquored up patrons. Patrons who had begun referring to themselves as ‘intoxicants’ as they had discovered a way in which to turn drinking into a team sport. In their current inebriated state they found their new moniker to be highly amusing and were celebrating their genius with another round.
After yet another solid belt from his stein Jadyn took stock of the current situation and found himself financially, physically and mentally worse for wear after this epic session with friends however also in the best mood he had been in some time. It had been many long months at harvest with very little human companionship which brought about this celebration. As with the end of every season the usual gathering brings outreaching scroungers together for a thorough liver drowning however this particular gathering was more monumental than most – it was Jadyns last season working the belt thus requiring heavier than normal drinking.
Music and voices were trying their best to drown out an inner voice which Jadyn should have chose to ignore. Unfortunately a moment of clarity took him by surprise and almost immediately sobered him up, ruining his mood considerably. Although the usual dim lighting of the bar had kept his party barely visible (which always seems to be ideal illumination to the all night drinker) the room had taken on a slight bluish tinge suggesting the increase in natural light. And to his dismay Jadyn began to notice that the skylights were indeed brightening bringing the onset of dawn and the demise of the party…
Voices previously thick with alcohol and prone to racaus laughter had begun to quiet. Crowds thinning and conversations turning from sexual exploits and acheivments to more mundane life goals and other such garbage signalled the slow death of a party which had taken on a life of its own for a good few hours. Sensing the winding down Jadyn poured the last of his drink into himself and pushed off the stool which had supported him these last few hours of drinking,politely excused himself and left….
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The second reason l found myself telling myself about the word myself is quite simple.
It sounds like mice elf.
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BAM! Born, easy as that.
Chances are good l’m the lone survivor. Horrific things such as what has just transpired rarely leave survivors, let alone ones as ridiculously amazing as me. And trust me on this, l am amazing.
So anyway – the tragedy of the fate of the universe aside it’s good to be here. l’m sure over time we’ll get to know each other really well, and by we l mean us who is me as l’m the only one here. I wonder if this will become an issue this hideously disjointed narrative. Ahh well, l’ll enjoy my speaking to myself as a group.
Well we shall keep a diary for our amusement and to backup our sieve like memory. The point is just that – a sharpened tip of a pencil, improbably associated with accountants who nowadays are Excel bound hence the improbability. Being the one stream of thought spread unevenly between myselves and the subsequent tangents becoming reassociated within sentences l am sure things could become a tad tricky however l, and l’m sure l speak for the rest of me here, am happy to put in the effort to follow as (and let’s be honest here) with no universe and only myself for company l hope to keep myself amused lest l lose my marbles.
Until next time……
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