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.

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.

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…..

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.

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….

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……