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…..
