The Approaching Dark Age
Union historians place the early days of the Fall
around 6,000 years prior to Union's foundation;
beyond that date, specific records are few, and often
contradictory. What we do know is that
Cradle (née
“Earth”) was dying well before that date. An accumulation
of fatal blows – a thousand cuts made on the
world by the people who lived upon it – had rendered
humanity’s only home all but inhospitable.
The Fall was not one single, cataclysmic blow. There
was time for acts of desperate hope. The creation of
the Ten was one such endeavor.
As the long dark age crept towards and then across
Cradle, its governments crafted and populated ten
massive colony ships – “the Ten” – and launched
them toward distant, previously identified terrestrial
worlds. These ships were slow, their titanic enclosed
cylinder hulls pushed along by conventional sublight
drives, but they marked Old Humanity’s crowning
achievement: a second chance.
The Ten were humanity’s last hope. They would travel
for thousands of years, slowly accelerating to a significant
fraction of lightspeed before slowing as they
approached their destinations. Generations of
passengers would live, die, and procreate, sustaining
themselves and their ships until they arrived at worlds
able to sustain human life.
This was humanity’s second chance: a handful of
stones cast out into the night. The billions left behind
watched the Ten burn away into the night, looking out
through choking clouds of smog, dust, and the smoke
of raging, unstoppable wildfires.
The Great Struggle
Then, they fought for what remained. In the wake of
the Ten’s departure, the world erupted into pandemonium
– a violent crescendo that would end Old
Humanity. The ruined climate choked the atmosphere,
famine and fire tore apart the countryside,
and disease scoured the cities. War ravaged the
world. Lonely outposts and
Stations throughout the
solar system – established when Earth was waning,
but not yet terminal – watched their homeworld go
dark. Most withered or fell to internal strife; a rare few
managed to hang on.
Thousands of years passed in realtime. Aboard the
Ten, time crept at a slower pace and the clocks fell
behind those of Cradle. After the passing of the first
generations, the new captains of the Ten made a
mutual decision: to avoid the danger of nostalgic return and ensure the success of their mission, the
Ten would isolate themselves, ceasing communication
with the world they left behind.
While dying
Colonies cried desperately for help, Cradle
continued to spin, silent and unresponsive. The poles
thawed and dead cities sank under rising, lifeless
oceans. Fire and stinking fog swept the equator while
titanic storms thrashed the tropics. Ash fell over the
whole of the world. Satellites and stations decayed in
their orbits. Great shipyards fell quiet. Glittering
habitats on Mars and the Moon – once beacons of
human achievement – cascaded into failure.
The End of Old Humanity
The first Anthropocene – the age of Old Humanity –
faded, buried under ash, and water, illness, and desperate
violence. Silence fell. Even still, Earth was not
empty, nor lost. Billions had died, but humanity is resilient
– hundreds of thousands survived, persevering
through the endless dark of the Fall.
After an unknown amount of time – estimated now to be
four or five thousand years – Cradle’s population began
to stabilize, then grow as the climate found a new
balance. Long-dead variants of food-staple crops
returned. Gnarled shrubs grew into new trees. The
oceans receded, cooled, and filled themselves with the
life that survived. The fires dimmed, then died. The greasy
black and orange smear that was the sky gave way to
light and deep blue. The air became safe to breathe.
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