Post by thedarkestofangels on Aug 7, 2014 7:59:34 GMT
Early 21st Century and 22nd Century
Shortly after the election of the 43rd United States President, a new plague - a derivative disease of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa is discovered to be exceptionally resistant to antibiotics and spreads swiftly across the densely populated and world-connected nations despite panicked attempts to quarantine it. The death rate caused by this disease is dwarfed, however, by the panic and desperate attempts to survive by the affected populations. Subsequent shortages of food, water, and basic necessities by the collapse of infrastructure amongst the world powers causes a global economic depression the likes of which is unprecedented in world history. By the mid-twenty-first century, the world economy is paralyzed and several world powers are at war with others and with themselves in their desperate attempts to survive the times. By the end of the 22nd century, the disease is finally under control by a combination of new treatments and disease-resistant humans and other creatures.
Although the Pseudomonas Aeruginosa mutation is inevitably cured and nearly eradicated by the 24th century, the secondary effects on the world population of humans, livestock, and other creatures is nearly catastrophic and the resulting chaos effectively rewrites the political landscape across the entire planet. Other catastrophes, including global climate change, world shortages of non-renewable energy sources, various ecological disasters, and war has culminated to become the mass-extinction event that eliminates a large percentage of the human race, marking the first time in human history since the plagues of the previous millennium that the world population has decreased so considerably.
Despite the catastrophes, considerable scientific achievement and other advancements occur that are important to human progress. Renewable sources of energy become the standard for energy technologies by the end of the 22nd century. Advances in energy conduction and capacitors allow for batteries with significantly larger storage capacity and ultra-fast recharge times. Nuclear fusion eventually becomes self-sustaining and only becomes practical with the use of deuterium and tritium by the end of the 22nd century. By this time, fusion makes up less than 1% of the global energy infrastructure.
Revolutionary developments in gene therapy has provided treatments for virtually all genetic disorders and lengthened the universal human lifespan for those able to afford it. Developments in stem cell research has afforded treatments that allow the regrowth of most body organs, limbs, and most kinds of nerve damage.
The most advanced computers, by the end of the 22nd century, have surpassed the human brain in raw processing power and memory storage, but true AI remains elusive as even the most sophisticated AI programs fall well short of human capacities. This is largely believed to be a limitation of adequate programming abilitity and understanding of human sentience. However, AI has become advanced enough and robotics cheap enough for AI-empowered machines to begin to infiltrate into mainstream use. Civilian vehicles are quickly replaced with fully automated vehicles, though it is possible for them to be manually controlled. Flying cars can not be manually controlled, however, and such vehicles with flying capabilities are prohibited for civilian use for safety reasons. Specialty vehicles and airplanes can still be manually controlled as long as the pilot has the necessary licences.
Human spaceflight stalls from the difficulties of plague and war but returns to full swing by the end of the 22nd century with newer, faster, and more sophisticated robotic probes, but humans have had no continuous presence in space since the international space station was decomissioned early in the 21st century. The first space elevator is built through an international effort on Hawaii close to the Kalaeloa airport, paving the way for a new space age.
The 23rd Century
The hardships of the 21st and 22nd centuries are largely past, leaving mostly the environmental damage of global climate change that continues to plague the world economy. In the stead of the old world powers now rises a new superpower. During the 22nd century, a South African dictator spent 25 years on a long crusade throughout Africa, slaughtering, raping, and pilliaging everyone and everything in his path, unless they joined his cause, much like the mongols once did centuries ago. In the end, one man single-handedly changed the nature and infrastructure of the entire african continent. After his death, the infighting nearly caused a major civil war until a peace is struck, creating a direct democracy that is heavily influenced by United States consitution, uniting many of the factions that have been dead set on committing to civil war and creating new nation that would become a world superpower in the same vein as the country that influenced it, the new nation becomes the United States of Africa or U. S. Africa.
The 23rd century is important to history because it is the true space age of the human race, termed "the Expansion Age" where the first permanent and self-sustaining places of human habitation are formed outside the of the Earth's influence, primarily on the Moon at first but later on Mars with numerous temproary establishments elsewhere. New advances in propulsion technology and the development of other space elevators around the Earth makes access to affordable space travel available even to the less wealthy nations on Earth, corperations, exceptionally wealthy individuals, and other economic collaborations.
Many people, organizations, and other groups of people take advantage of this opportunity in order to escape percieved persecution, exercise fringe ideaologies without outside interference, and numerous other reasons over the course of this century. As such, several new nations are made within short time toward the end of the 23rd century, including the first superpowers outside of the Earth, including a Martian nation built by a collaboration between billionaires based on a fringe libtertarian ideaology from a largely north American group of people that formed a new American Confederacy called the "Confederate American Republic". Another nation, that would only recently become a superpower, would also form on Mars from a largely multinational but strongly Chinese group of colonists seeking to form a true communist utopia with a powerful centralized government without the corruption that has plagued similar attempts in the past. Whether or not this attempt was successful is unknown and attempts to discover the current state of this nation, Saonearus, has proved fruitless. However, the most recent new superpower became recognized as such by the United Nations based on their economic activities outside of the nation and it appears to have been the center of strong scientific and technological advancement, but its trade is strictly controlled by the government and it manages to trade with outsiders without revealing much about itself.
As the years roll into the 23rd century, computers and computing technology far outclass what the human mind is capable of and new AI programs allow robots, androids/gynoids, and other machines to become ubiquitous throughout the Earth and even the colonized worlds. Current AI programs still fail to fully replicate human levels of conciousness, instead existing in a sort of uncanny valley where they seem human enough to interact and live amongst humans but not human enough to be treated as anything more than pets or favored equipment. In order to develop a more "aware" AI program, the new avenue for AI research and development now coincides with medical research into the "software" of the human mind. Otherwise, on Earth and especially in the US of Africa, the increasing infiltration of intelligent machines have begun to find a place in the day-to-day workplace. Even though AI isn't quite up to human levels of sentience, they are intelligent enough in this day and age to even make administrative-level decisions. By the end of the 23rd century after a long worldwide economic boom, a jobs crisis appears to be looming on the horizon from the integration of robots in the workplace. This is rare, however, in this day and age and currently only appears to be an issue in the US of Africa.
The field of medicine still sees revolutionary advances in genetic therapy and gene manipulation, allowing astronauts and off-world humans to be genetically manipulated to adapt to their environment, drastically reducing the off-world mortality rate that has suffered spacers since the beginning of the Expansion Age. Developments in nanotechnology and chemistry in medicine has, for those that can afford it, effectively ended the notion of "incurable disease." This change is due in large part of the involvement in supercomputers in medicine and atomic engineering techniques that allow the direct manipulation of individual atoms that can create chemicals that are difficult or even impossible to create through conventional chemistry. Currently, however, this has few applications outside of medicine, though this development has wide applications that will soon spread further. Late in the century, a human brain is fully mapped and advanced computers are now able to successfully simulate the conditions in which a human brain operates.
Human exploration of the solar system is now commonplace, particularly between the colonized worlds, through travel to Venus, Mercury, or a Solar orbit is prohibitive due to increased exposure to heat and radiation. Travel to the outer solar system is possible but still quite distant, taking months and sometimes years with conventional forms of travel but it is not impossible. Many installations come and go in the outer solar system for research and the odd occasional isolated installation but full blown colonies are non-existent. Three attempts at interstellar travel is attepted to the nearby Alpha Centauri Triinary System but only the Russian generational starship Bluzhdayushchiye zvezdy returns from its fifty year round trip using a nuclear pulse interstellar propulsion method that achieved 40% of light speed at its apex.
Military developments based on advances in battery and energy technologies as well as advanced materials and metal alloys have allowed radical new developments in weapons and other military and weapons technologies. Exoskeletons have had an increasingly important place on the battlefield but the use of powered armor has increased drastically in the later decades of the century. Although handheld energy weapons are becoming increasingly practical, a new type of oxodized gunpowder allows for the use of traditional guns in alien atmospheres and the vacuum of space. Genetic manipulation and advances in medicine has produced some frightening new possibilities for military use, particularly amongst the less-than-scrupulous.
The 24th Century
All of the new superpowers in the Sol system grow in power and increase their political, social, and military presence in space, bringing about a new era in human history. Now that human presence in space is essentially commonplace, all of the major space agencies form a solar system-wide cooperative called the International Space Agency, operated by a branch of the United Nations to use their collective funding for major scientific and engineering projects. Over the course of the early part of the century, no less than three attempts were made to travel to the Alpha Centauri System, but none returned until the forth attempt was made by the Phoenix, a starship built by a North American Coalition of different space agencies (including the descendant of NASA) in 2358, which returned to the Sol system by late 2378 CE and later Earth orbit in 2379 CE. This attempt was the first such attempt using plasma-ion engines powered by a powerful nuclear fusion reactor - the first of a kind that no longer requires deuterium and tritium, but can use hydrogen. The ship's overall speed peaked at 55% of the speed of light each way.
Continued development of robotics and advanced AI systems have allowed the creation of machines that can, albeit in a limited fashion, make decisions and carry them out. This has allowed machines to be (very) cheaply made and intelligent and capable enough to fill any job that doesn't require creative or investigative input (AI programs can't yet replace scientists or artists, for example). As such, businesses can and have replaced entire workforces with these machines at a fraction of the cost of a human labor force. Some nations have attempted to stymie the influx of cheap labor, but both the Confederate American Republic and United States of Africa have accepted the practice, for better or worse, as have many 2nd and 3rd tier nations with a strong manufacturing infrastructure or abundant resoruces.
This situation has created enormous solar system-wide disturbances and rifts between the employers and the employed in all of the affected countries, sparking massive protests and government crackdowns. This issue has persisted and grown in intensity over the decades as widespread joblessness and income inequality has only intensified with each passing year. This has, however, created a massive backlash in the form of the greatest depression in human history is predicted to develop as a result. Many are hatching plans to travel to the stars to escape the looming catastrophies (both real and imagined) but the talk of doom and gloom is reaching a fevered pitch. Many are retreating into extremist ideologies and few are even taking action both violent and non-violent.
Medical techniques and advances have eliminated virutally all human disease, particularly genetic disorders. Research into the human brain and neuroscience now allow for even the regeneration of lost mental function due to damage or disorder and virtually any human body part can be repaired or replaced. However, collaborative efforts with UN sanction has upheld the ban on human cloning, which has come under debate ever since a doctor saved a man from severe brain damage (ten years prior to the present), using a previous complete scan of his brain and using a combination of medical nanotechnology and stem cells to repair damaged brain tissue. It was ruled by the UN that a "clone" only qualifies as a complete body or brain replacement or if the person has been declared dead and unable to be revived in brain function prior to any repair attempt.
Several scientific advances and a bold statement by the ISA (International Space Agency) in the spirit of international cooperation has proposed a major scientific and explorative project based on the success of the Phoenix mission using newly developed technology that would allow for faster-than-light travel to other solar systems. The project is met with a great deal of skepticism but once the tests of the Alcubierre-Hinze drive are made public, it begins to gain support in many of the constituent nations, especially Saonearus. By November 15th, 2383 CE, the new ship, to be named "Iris" by the crew after launch during it's month-long journey before accelerating into interstellar space.
In the mid-century, the United States of Africa establishes the first space military by completing a fusion-powered military spacecraft after International Space Agency designs, focusing on long-range military advantage coupled with ultra-precise ballistics computers. Several more such starships would be constructed before the present day and is thus far the only nation with a true national military presence in space but most believe that the attempt is futile given the vast distances involved and the enormous disparity in how a military body (like the Navy) works with the logistics of using similar techniques in space. USAfrican officials maintain that such a presence may be necessary to maintain order and security for the whole world and for the Moon as well. Needless to say, this has caused quite a stir amongst the international community, particularly the Lunarians and the Confederate American Republic, who believe that their presence presents a threat to their security. Saonearus has remained silent on the matter (as they always do).
November 15th, 2383 Common Era (The Present Day)
This monumentous occasion marks the day in which the largest and perhaps most important project ever built was completed and launched out of the solar system. The starship, named "Enterprise" by the fanboys and fangirls of the engineering teams at the construction yards, sets off to a more distant star system of Epsilon Eridani with the expectation of an 18-year round trip.
Shortly after the election of the 43rd United States President, a new plague - a derivative disease of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa is discovered to be exceptionally resistant to antibiotics and spreads swiftly across the densely populated and world-connected nations despite panicked attempts to quarantine it. The death rate caused by this disease is dwarfed, however, by the panic and desperate attempts to survive by the affected populations. Subsequent shortages of food, water, and basic necessities by the collapse of infrastructure amongst the world powers causes a global economic depression the likes of which is unprecedented in world history. By the mid-twenty-first century, the world economy is paralyzed and several world powers are at war with others and with themselves in their desperate attempts to survive the times. By the end of the 22nd century, the disease is finally under control by a combination of new treatments and disease-resistant humans and other creatures.
Although the Pseudomonas Aeruginosa mutation is inevitably cured and nearly eradicated by the 24th century, the secondary effects on the world population of humans, livestock, and other creatures is nearly catastrophic and the resulting chaos effectively rewrites the political landscape across the entire planet. Other catastrophes, including global climate change, world shortages of non-renewable energy sources, various ecological disasters, and war has culminated to become the mass-extinction event that eliminates a large percentage of the human race, marking the first time in human history since the plagues of the previous millennium that the world population has decreased so considerably.
Despite the catastrophes, considerable scientific achievement and other advancements occur that are important to human progress. Renewable sources of energy become the standard for energy technologies by the end of the 22nd century. Advances in energy conduction and capacitors allow for batteries with significantly larger storage capacity and ultra-fast recharge times. Nuclear fusion eventually becomes self-sustaining and only becomes practical with the use of deuterium and tritium by the end of the 22nd century. By this time, fusion makes up less than 1% of the global energy infrastructure.
Revolutionary developments in gene therapy has provided treatments for virtually all genetic disorders and lengthened the universal human lifespan for those able to afford it. Developments in stem cell research has afforded treatments that allow the regrowth of most body organs, limbs, and most kinds of nerve damage.
The most advanced computers, by the end of the 22nd century, have surpassed the human brain in raw processing power and memory storage, but true AI remains elusive as even the most sophisticated AI programs fall well short of human capacities. This is largely believed to be a limitation of adequate programming abilitity and understanding of human sentience. However, AI has become advanced enough and robotics cheap enough for AI-empowered machines to begin to infiltrate into mainstream use. Civilian vehicles are quickly replaced with fully automated vehicles, though it is possible for them to be manually controlled. Flying cars can not be manually controlled, however, and such vehicles with flying capabilities are prohibited for civilian use for safety reasons. Specialty vehicles and airplanes can still be manually controlled as long as the pilot has the necessary licences.
Human spaceflight stalls from the difficulties of plague and war but returns to full swing by the end of the 22nd century with newer, faster, and more sophisticated robotic probes, but humans have had no continuous presence in space since the international space station was decomissioned early in the 21st century. The first space elevator is built through an international effort on Hawaii close to the Kalaeloa airport, paving the way for a new space age.
The 23rd Century
The hardships of the 21st and 22nd centuries are largely past, leaving mostly the environmental damage of global climate change that continues to plague the world economy. In the stead of the old world powers now rises a new superpower. During the 22nd century, a South African dictator spent 25 years on a long crusade throughout Africa, slaughtering, raping, and pilliaging everyone and everything in his path, unless they joined his cause, much like the mongols once did centuries ago. In the end, one man single-handedly changed the nature and infrastructure of the entire african continent. After his death, the infighting nearly caused a major civil war until a peace is struck, creating a direct democracy that is heavily influenced by United States consitution, uniting many of the factions that have been dead set on committing to civil war and creating new nation that would become a world superpower in the same vein as the country that influenced it, the new nation becomes the United States of Africa or U. S. Africa.
The 23rd century is important to history because it is the true space age of the human race, termed "the Expansion Age" where the first permanent and self-sustaining places of human habitation are formed outside the of the Earth's influence, primarily on the Moon at first but later on Mars with numerous temproary establishments elsewhere. New advances in propulsion technology and the development of other space elevators around the Earth makes access to affordable space travel available even to the less wealthy nations on Earth, corperations, exceptionally wealthy individuals, and other economic collaborations.
Many people, organizations, and other groups of people take advantage of this opportunity in order to escape percieved persecution, exercise fringe ideaologies without outside interference, and numerous other reasons over the course of this century. As such, several new nations are made within short time toward the end of the 23rd century, including the first superpowers outside of the Earth, including a Martian nation built by a collaboration between billionaires based on a fringe libtertarian ideaology from a largely north American group of people that formed a new American Confederacy called the "Confederate American Republic". Another nation, that would only recently become a superpower, would also form on Mars from a largely multinational but strongly Chinese group of colonists seeking to form a true communist utopia with a powerful centralized government without the corruption that has plagued similar attempts in the past. Whether or not this attempt was successful is unknown and attempts to discover the current state of this nation, Saonearus, has proved fruitless. However, the most recent new superpower became recognized as such by the United Nations based on their economic activities outside of the nation and it appears to have been the center of strong scientific and technological advancement, but its trade is strictly controlled by the government and it manages to trade with outsiders without revealing much about itself.
As the years roll into the 23rd century, computers and computing technology far outclass what the human mind is capable of and new AI programs allow robots, androids/gynoids, and other machines to become ubiquitous throughout the Earth and even the colonized worlds. Current AI programs still fail to fully replicate human levels of conciousness, instead existing in a sort of uncanny valley where they seem human enough to interact and live amongst humans but not human enough to be treated as anything more than pets or favored equipment. In order to develop a more "aware" AI program, the new avenue for AI research and development now coincides with medical research into the "software" of the human mind. Otherwise, on Earth and especially in the US of Africa, the increasing infiltration of intelligent machines have begun to find a place in the day-to-day workplace. Even though AI isn't quite up to human levels of sentience, they are intelligent enough in this day and age to even make administrative-level decisions. By the end of the 23rd century after a long worldwide economic boom, a jobs crisis appears to be looming on the horizon from the integration of robots in the workplace. This is rare, however, in this day and age and currently only appears to be an issue in the US of Africa.
The field of medicine still sees revolutionary advances in genetic therapy and gene manipulation, allowing astronauts and off-world humans to be genetically manipulated to adapt to their environment, drastically reducing the off-world mortality rate that has suffered spacers since the beginning of the Expansion Age. Developments in nanotechnology and chemistry in medicine has, for those that can afford it, effectively ended the notion of "incurable disease." This change is due in large part of the involvement in supercomputers in medicine and atomic engineering techniques that allow the direct manipulation of individual atoms that can create chemicals that are difficult or even impossible to create through conventional chemistry. Currently, however, this has few applications outside of medicine, though this development has wide applications that will soon spread further. Late in the century, a human brain is fully mapped and advanced computers are now able to successfully simulate the conditions in which a human brain operates.
Human exploration of the solar system is now commonplace, particularly between the colonized worlds, through travel to Venus, Mercury, or a Solar orbit is prohibitive due to increased exposure to heat and radiation. Travel to the outer solar system is possible but still quite distant, taking months and sometimes years with conventional forms of travel but it is not impossible. Many installations come and go in the outer solar system for research and the odd occasional isolated installation but full blown colonies are non-existent. Three attempts at interstellar travel is attepted to the nearby Alpha Centauri Triinary System but only the Russian generational starship Bluzhdayushchiye zvezdy returns from its fifty year round trip using a nuclear pulse interstellar propulsion method that achieved 40% of light speed at its apex.
Military developments based on advances in battery and energy technologies as well as advanced materials and metal alloys have allowed radical new developments in weapons and other military and weapons technologies. Exoskeletons have had an increasingly important place on the battlefield but the use of powered armor has increased drastically in the later decades of the century. Although handheld energy weapons are becoming increasingly practical, a new type of oxodized gunpowder allows for the use of traditional guns in alien atmospheres and the vacuum of space. Genetic manipulation and advances in medicine has produced some frightening new possibilities for military use, particularly amongst the less-than-scrupulous.
The 24th Century
All of the new superpowers in the Sol system grow in power and increase their political, social, and military presence in space, bringing about a new era in human history. Now that human presence in space is essentially commonplace, all of the major space agencies form a solar system-wide cooperative called the International Space Agency, operated by a branch of the United Nations to use their collective funding for major scientific and engineering projects. Over the course of the early part of the century, no less than three attempts were made to travel to the Alpha Centauri System, but none returned until the forth attempt was made by the Phoenix, a starship built by a North American Coalition of different space agencies (including the descendant of NASA) in 2358, which returned to the Sol system by late 2378 CE and later Earth orbit in 2379 CE. This attempt was the first such attempt using plasma-ion engines powered by a powerful nuclear fusion reactor - the first of a kind that no longer requires deuterium and tritium, but can use hydrogen. The ship's overall speed peaked at 55% of the speed of light each way.
Continued development of robotics and advanced AI systems have allowed the creation of machines that can, albeit in a limited fashion, make decisions and carry them out. This has allowed machines to be (very) cheaply made and intelligent and capable enough to fill any job that doesn't require creative or investigative input (AI programs can't yet replace scientists or artists, for example). As such, businesses can and have replaced entire workforces with these machines at a fraction of the cost of a human labor force. Some nations have attempted to stymie the influx of cheap labor, but both the Confederate American Republic and United States of Africa have accepted the practice, for better or worse, as have many 2nd and 3rd tier nations with a strong manufacturing infrastructure or abundant resoruces.
This situation has created enormous solar system-wide disturbances and rifts between the employers and the employed in all of the affected countries, sparking massive protests and government crackdowns. This issue has persisted and grown in intensity over the decades as widespread joblessness and income inequality has only intensified with each passing year. This has, however, created a massive backlash in the form of the greatest depression in human history is predicted to develop as a result. Many are hatching plans to travel to the stars to escape the looming catastrophies (both real and imagined) but the talk of doom and gloom is reaching a fevered pitch. Many are retreating into extremist ideologies and few are even taking action both violent and non-violent.
Medical techniques and advances have eliminated virutally all human disease, particularly genetic disorders. Research into the human brain and neuroscience now allow for even the regeneration of lost mental function due to damage or disorder and virtually any human body part can be repaired or replaced. However, collaborative efforts with UN sanction has upheld the ban on human cloning, which has come under debate ever since a doctor saved a man from severe brain damage (ten years prior to the present), using a previous complete scan of his brain and using a combination of medical nanotechnology and stem cells to repair damaged brain tissue. It was ruled by the UN that a "clone" only qualifies as a complete body or brain replacement or if the person has been declared dead and unable to be revived in brain function prior to any repair attempt.
Several scientific advances and a bold statement by the ISA (International Space Agency) in the spirit of international cooperation has proposed a major scientific and explorative project based on the success of the Phoenix mission using newly developed technology that would allow for faster-than-light travel to other solar systems. The project is met with a great deal of skepticism but once the tests of the Alcubierre-Hinze drive are made public, it begins to gain support in many of the constituent nations, especially Saonearus. By November 15th, 2383 CE, the new ship, to be named "Iris" by the crew after launch during it's month-long journey before accelerating into interstellar space.
In the mid-century, the United States of Africa establishes the first space military by completing a fusion-powered military spacecraft after International Space Agency designs, focusing on long-range military advantage coupled with ultra-precise ballistics computers. Several more such starships would be constructed before the present day and is thus far the only nation with a true national military presence in space but most believe that the attempt is futile given the vast distances involved and the enormous disparity in how a military body (like the Navy) works with the logistics of using similar techniques in space. USAfrican officials maintain that such a presence may be necessary to maintain order and security for the whole world and for the Moon as well. Needless to say, this has caused quite a stir amongst the international community, particularly the Lunarians and the Confederate American Republic, who believe that their presence presents a threat to their security. Saonearus has remained silent on the matter (as they always do).
November 15th, 2383 Common Era (The Present Day)
This monumentous occasion marks the day in which the largest and perhaps most important project ever built was completed and launched out of the solar system. The starship, named "Enterprise" by the fanboys and fangirls of the engineering teams at the construction yards, sets off to a more distant star system of Epsilon Eridani with the expectation of an 18-year round trip.