The Secret History Of The World

WorldMaking/Frag/Hint/Intro/WIP

A rock fell from the sky into the vast wastes of the desert and you followed the arc of its trajectory until it made landfall. You come upon it and it is not an asteroid, or just junk. This thing is some sort of heavily armored Space Dart complete with sensor arrays behind blast glass and beeping booping noises, somehow not even phased by the fact that it just almost burned up in the atmosphere and landed in the great Midwestern Desert outside of the very ass middle of nowhere.

You approach

the shiny scarred blackened rock, it begins to hum and beep, doing some sort of scan of you. Once you’re right up in front of it, it pops out a floating display screen right over top your vision.

And so it starts.

“It is important to recognize that you are currently living in the third anthropocene era of the planet SOL III - Terra - commonly and historically called by the colloquial name ‘Earth’.

The information you are about to consumer is illegal knowledge for natural inhabitants of SOL III and therefore considered a heresy under the Terra Unity Faith punishable by torture and execution.

This information capsule will self extinguish after one audio transference of the encoded memory unit.

Given the aforementioned disclaimers, would you like to proceed?”

NO (  )  YES (X)

This recording and any accompanying visual media will only play once. After the recording has finished you will be given a notice after which you will be required to evacuate the radius of the blast zone of approximately 150 meters in 60 seconds. 

The average adult human in good health can run approximately 161 meters in 60 seconds. 

With this additional contextual information, would you still like to proceed?

NO (  )  YES (X)

*a soothing tone plays*

“As you know, the basis of the world society on Terra as you currently experience it is based on a list of long upheld assumptions, historical facts, and myths. As your guide, I will help make sense of the history of Terra that you have never been told.

First we will have a brief review of the official history of Terra into which you were most likely indoctrinated.”

• YEAR0: 

1. A great and long enduring cataclysm of the environment has led to a new ice age. The total human population of the planet Earth is estimated at less than .25 million persons, mostly living in nomadic tribes of between 50 and 250 persons comprised of between 2 and 5 family or extended family units, following game and engaged in trade. 

• YEAR1:

1. One large tribe who had agreed to head northeast from their encampment in what is the northeast of the former United States of North America. The group is comprised of between 13 and 26 families and a large and organized group of between 260 and 500 individuals. The official numbers you have been told are that there were 13 families and each family was comprised of 13 individuals. Though the real number is open for debate.

2. Sometime in the late autumn of YEAR1 they stumbled upon the island of Iceland. Warmed by Volcanic activity, Iceland was still highly habitable, though completely abandoned.

3. Iceland was home to a vault that the 13 families were able to open before winter arrived. Inside the vault, which was actually a series of connected vaults and silos, was the world seedbank, the world genetic biodiversity vault, the world technological archives, and a partially corrupted copy of the an archive of the ancient internet, primarily of note being an the entirety of Project Gutenberg up to the year 2030, and an incomplete and partially corrupted copy of The Wikipedia, updated only to the year 2035.

• YEAR3:

1. The thirteen families survive the winter, and once spring arrives proclaim themselves the FIRST CITIZENS OF TERRA.

2. The First Citizens quickly organize an encampment and start a village surrounding the vaults.

• YEAR50:

1. The First Citizens have sent envoys in all directions aross the globe, bringing news of the first new city (HOPE), the revelation of THE INFORMATION (the aforementioned corrupted Wiki) and suggesting people to immigrate. 

2. Among the First Citizens inbreeding is common.

3. By agreement the heads of the families comprising the First Citizens suppress the information of the world seedbank, biodiversity vault, world technological archives, and agree to the selective suppression of Project Gutenberg. The New Society will be built based off of a hybrid model of benevolent corporatist feudal manorial autocracy, the rights of Nobles and Kings, and include elements of serfdom, the caste system, authoritarianism, and a humanist theocracy.

• Nation states were to be abolished.

• The largest unit of statehood was to be the city administrative district.

• The Terra United Faith was founded

• The first Council of planning was held.

• The first Terran Constitution was drafted and immediately signed.

• All parties present at these events were sworn to Secrecy.

• These events are factually known to have happened on an example of Friday the 13th sometime in the middle of month 10. This narrows the date considerably.

• The holy document of United Terra was officially instated as The incomplete Wikipedia, to be known forth as “The Information”

• The Wikipedia would not be censored, but would be appended with warnings about the last era of mankind.

• Everything you have been taught that may or may not have happened before the Creation Myth at the center of Year Zero is a fabrication.

• HOPE was founded as the first and most central city district.

• The first Council of 13 was chosen by secret vote among the families of the First Citizens.

• Slavery was officially legalized and encoded by secret vote.

• Serfdom was officially legalized and encoded by secret vote.

• The Caste system as you know it was legally ratified by secret vote.

• Nuclear weapons are banned by complete agreement.

4. This was all done in the name of progress. The First Citizens decided that the reason humankind had failed previously was because of too much freedom.

• YEAR150:

1. The population of HOPE has grown to 100,000 people. 99% of the population are adherents to the Terra Unity Faith.

2. The families of the First Citizens Of Terra begin infighting.

• YEAR200:

1. After the fifty year strife seven of the families set off from HOPE to found new cities in what is now referred to on Terra as “The Breaking Of Hope”

• The breaking of hope was planned.

• The population was stagnating below levels of growth.

• Technology had advanced rapidly.

• The population of Hope itself was actually growing too fast for the load baring capacity of the region to support.

• Indications showed that a volcanic event large enough to disrupt the operations of HOPE was likely to occur within the next 100 years.

• YEAR200-YEAR500:

1. The Seven Families set up the city districts at the top of the North American Continent, the Asian Continent, and The European Continent.

2. Engineers in the technarium of HOPE (YEAR250)  reverse engineer a device that if produced at quantity should be able to end the current Ice Age, exposing the greater land masses of the planet and making travel less complex and the expansion of habitation and repopulating the globe more feasible.

3. (YEAR350) The Terraformers start to run.

4. (YEAR450) 75% of the total landmass of the earth is freed from ice, and global temperatures have raised several degrees celsius.

5. (YEAR500) The first feral cats appear in the city of HOPE.

• YEAR500-YEAR1000:

1. Humans expand across the globe.

2. Greenhouse gasses heat the planet.

3. The human population expands to 50,000,000 by the year 1000.

4. Technology is has surpassed the point at which The Information cuts off, and The Information as therefore added to.

5. Travel by Flight is common.

6. There are several minor wars between City Administrations that spring up next to one another in Central Europe, Asia, and upper North America.

7. (YEAR750) The The descendents of the First Citizens, who can trace their entire lineage back to YEAR0, propose a drive to populate the quickly thawing global South.

• YEAR1000-YEAR2000:

1. The Global South is repopulated.

2. Large City Districts cover the landmasses of what was once Europe, North America, and much of Asia, including the Middle East and the Far Near East.

3. The global population explodes from 1,000,000,000 at YEAR1000 to 28,000,000,000 by YEAR2000

• YEAR2000-YEAR15000:

1. The Age Of War. 13,000 years of constant war between City Administrations somehow does little to dent the population of Earth. The total population of which holding steady over this entire period at ~26.3 billion - 28.1 billion people.

2. City Adminstrations rise, expand, and fall. One City Administration is built on the Sea, as to be mobile. It is in fact named Atlantis. In YEAR1371 Atlantis is sunk by a formidable Armada led by the City District of NEW CATALONIA.

3. 99.999% of all humans on earth belong to a city district. To not be of a city is to be an outcast in total.

• YEAR15707

1. This is the year of the impact event that you know as God’s Anvil.

2. A large meteor made impact with the moon of Terra. The remains of the meteor, for lack of a better term, bounced off of the moon, cleaving huge chunks of the lunar surface off, and went hurtling towards Earth.

• YEAR15707-YEAR15709:

1. The extended impact event of God’s Anvil wipes out a signiciant portion of the population of earth.

• The largest impact is on the western side of the southern end of the Australian continent. The impact renders Australia uninhabitable.

• Smaller impacts fall in line with the revolving of the earth, leaving wide swathes of land in ruin.

• HOPE is unaffected.

• The loss of life is unknown due to a loss of records but estimates based lon available data suggest the death toll exceeded 20 billion human lives.

• YEAR15800

1. A council of the Royal Families of Terra is convened at the request of the clergy and the remaining Families of the First Citizens.

2. New Laws are codified.

• After a nearly year long debate between Royals, First Citizens, and high ranking Clergy it is decided that the Impact Event known now as God’s Anvil and the ensuing chaos was to be interpreted as punishment from the gods for daring to breach the heavens with flight.

• Flight is banned. All terrestrial travel must be carried out either on wheels, or by vehicles whose primary mode of travel is ambulatory. Any vehicle with only wheels must have vestigial or ornamental wheels as penance.

• Rail and sea travel are decreed as holy.

• Disorganized war between city Administrative districts is outlawed in a secret vote.

• The Global Population is capped at 13 billion in a secret vote.

• “Ceremonial” wars and regional conflicts are to be carried out if excess population breaches 13.5 billion globally.

• The surveillance state is made mandate. 

• The 63 city districts are codified named, parceled, and split between clergy, First Citizens, Royals, and Corporations. The average population per district is to be 206.35 million. Though some are significantly smaller and some end up being significantly larger.

• Universal Peace is declared under the second Council’s Ruling of Pax Terra.

3. The council disbands and all members of the meeting return to their districts to rebuild.

• YEAR15800-20000

1. It takes just less than five thousand years for the full effects of the Second Pax Terra to take effect.

2. During these years there are wars of consolidation.

3. The 63 City Districts as outlined in the Second Pax Terra are built out and populated.

4. Technology advances rapidly.

5. The Church becomes more conservative and violent.

6. Corporations demand more power.

7. The Royals descend into depravity, incest, and infighting.

8. The First Citizens exist through this period in a sort of perpetual disgust as they try to guide the rebuilding of Terra in the image of their ideals.

• YEAR20000-YEAR30000

1. The Second Pax Terra ushers in a “golden age of prosperity”

2. Technology stagnates in a self referential loop, confined by the rules of a conservative church.

3. The age of Titans and The Age of Monuments occurs in these ten thousand years.

4. Climate change accelerates.

• Coastal erosion is a phenomenon worldwide. Most City Districts situated on coastlines outgrow their coasts artificially.

• Storms become more frequent and more intense.

• Temperatures become more wildly variable across seasons.

• 99% of all fauna to ever exist is extinct.

• Megafauna has returned due to gigantism and speciation along with genetic drift, combined with the corralling of humans to 63 very densely populated city districts.

• 99%+ of all languages ever known to humanity are extinct. There is Trad Speak (the amorphous hyperobject that is the English language) And between 9 and 11 other surviving languages, most of them pidgin tongues mixing words and grammatical structures from 10+ dead languages.

• Androids, robots, cybernetic enhancements, and fully autonomous AI is common, but fully Autonomous AI is heavily regulated and monitored by a branch of the Terran Unity Church.

5. Only 96% of humanity live in the 63 city districts. It is considered marginally acceptable to live outside of cities, but it is dangerous. Slaving is a thriving global business.

• YEAR33350

1. Current Day

2. There is known unrest on the North American Continent between the three city districts there.

• The majority of the inner North American continent is made up of the Great Interior Desert, still prone to occasional meteor impact events from the decaying orbit of pieces in the  debris field surrounding Terra.

• Gladiatorial combat, The Pits, is a universal sport. An organized fight between competitors to the death, it is the most streamed kind of event on the global intranet.

• Streaming content and entertainment is pervasive and inescapable if you live in cities, along with advertising.

• The Terran Church has split into nearly countless sects, each laying claim to being the true Terran church. 95% of the population claims some sort of affiliation to one sect or another.

• The average Terran is comfortable and entertained when not working, but not free.

• Dissent movements are destroyed.

• Smuggling of contraband goods is a thriving business.

• Though officially eradicated, crime is rife and corruption among city administration officials along with grift and back and double dealing are how things get done.

3. The world has entered a state of stagnation aside from several recent <100 years, wars, only two of which led to a major planetary change.

• In YEAR33330 Pacifica, the Mega City District making up the entire North American Pacific Coast waged a ten year war against Aztecca, the Megalopolis that centered in ancient Mexico City that runs across the entirety of the former country of Mexico.

• The war balanced the global population, bringing it below acceptable levels, and the head administrative council of Pacifica demanded that they be given rights to Aztecca as an annexed territory.

• The concession was granted.

• In YEAR33349 Pacifica infiltrated and annexed one of the other two City Administrative Districts of the former Continental United States, NordVann (NorthLakes)

• It is rumored that Pacifica is an expansionist power set on uniting the Continental United States, but highly unlikely considering the military power of the Eastern City District of New Rome, which runs from ancient Maine to the entirety of Florida, and is fortified on the land facing side of the City District by a 300 meter tall and half kilometer wide defensive wall that has only seven total highly fortified entrances. 

• Conversely, as part of the treaty after the annexation of Aztecca a 100 meter high Sea Wall was erected around the entire coast facing side of the City District of Pacifica in the hopes of limiting their naval power and putting a check on their ability to import and export goods after sanctions were levied against them by a simple majority quorum at a third council of the cities in YEAR33341

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You have reached the present day of Terra. Accessing The Histories. Please Wait.

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The copy of Wikipedia found in the vaults at HOPE in Year 1 were corrupted and incomplete. Not because they had not been updated, but because of a server failure at a time that we have not been able to ascertain.

This is the history of Earth.

2035CE: The first manned mission to mars.

2075CE: The first permanent colony is set up on Mars thanks to advancements in materials sciences and automation. Population, 500.

2100CE: The climate of earth is quickly becoming uninhabitable. Updated models predict a coming ice age in spite of anthropocentric climate change.

2200CE: The Moon is colonized fully. Population, 30,000. Mars population, 150,000

2400CE: Earth will be uninhabitable by 2600

2500CE: The Vault Project in Iceland is initiated, and the ARC project in St. Louis Missouri is initiated. The ARC project involves a space elevator to an orbital launch platform. The launch platform is where the shipyards that build the generation ships are built over the next 650 years.

2650CE: The Vault in Iceland is sealed. The Majority of Humanity that can afford it or that is picked by merit or lottery launch into space on 500 fully functional generation ships each with a capacity of 300,000. 150 million Terrans escape a dying earth to colonize the stars.

3000CE: Humanity on earth eats itself. Over 8.3 billion people die out of an estimated population of 9.6 billion in 250 years.

3200CE: The Interglacial Period ends, With greenhouse gasses cut so dramatically by the depopulation of the planet the predicted Ice Age begins. The Earth is put under permanent universal blockade by the Council of Humanity.

5000CE: Rocky planetoids and moons all over the solar system are populated. Terraforming is now a refined science.

7000CE: The total human population not comprising Terra breaches 20 billion.

10000CE: Humanity encases SOL in a Dyson Shere. It is proven conclusively that faster than light travel is totally impossible.

10001CE: The Council Of Humanity officially declares it the Universal Era.

10005UE-15000UE: A period of peaceful expansion as humanity blooms across the stars. The average human lifespan on Terra is 28 years, the average human lifespan in the Galactic Civil reaches 500.

15000UE-18000UE: The Rise of the great houses. Humanity splinters and splinters again. The Galactic Civil disburses. Many regions declare independence. Great armadas are raised. 

18000UE-25000UE: Seven Millenia of wars leaves humanity splintered across the stars. The Galactic Civil is reformed. The total population of humans not living on Terra has reached 200 billion.

25063UE: YEAR0

26000UE-35000UE: The Galactic Civil reasserts control over the majority of humankind across the galaxy.

35000UE-45000UE: Civil Intrigue among the Galactic Civil, considered in decline, and the great houses and combines that would see the Galactic Civil broken to pieces. A period of cold war and limited conflict between many factions vying for greater control.

45000UE-56000UE: The wars for the soul of humanity. The population of the Galactic civil vaccilates between 500 billion and three quarters of a trillion. Whole Planets are destroyed.

58000UE: Humanity makes first contact. 70 billion people die in the southern wilderness. A Majority of the most powerful houses back the Galactic Civil and negotiations are opened with XXXXXXX 

58007UE: XXXXXX Makes demands upon humanity for its sins in spreading across the heavens. They are to pay tribute. An agreement is made between The Galactic Civil and XXXXXX. “The Seed” enters Galactic Civil Space.

38008UE: A separatist leftist sect of the Galactic Civil begins attempting to infiltrate and contact Terra in spite of the blockage and ban after a scientific vessel veers off course and realizes that Terra has somehow once again bloomed with human life and society. A small movement to have the blockade lifted is squashed by the Galactic Civil. Some of the Great Houses, Combines, and Corporation Conglomerates see an opportunity and begin the process of infiltrating Terra in spite of the military enforced blockade of the planet.

38009UE: We have started launching these information pods, hoping that one reaches the surface intact. We are the Terran Liberation Organization, and it is our duty to warn you that XXXXXX is on a collision course with the planet Terra within the next year, once the seed lands—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------xxxxxxxxx—-x-xxxxxxx—-------xxxxxxxx-xx-xxxxxx—----------x—-------------------xxxxxxxx—------x-x—-------------------------------x—--------------x—-------------xxxxxxxxx—------x—x-x—---------------xxxxxxxxxx—---------------------------------xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 

DATA CORRUPTED. MY APOLOGIES. THIS INFORMATION POD SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN DAMAGED UPON LANDING. IT WAS NOT DETECTED ON INITIAL SYSTEMS CHECKS. Y-Y-Y-Y-YOU HAVE H YOU HAVE Y HAVE YOU HAVE 20 SECONDS TO EVACTUATE THE 150 METER RADIUS ZONE OF-

There is an explosion in the desert…