At the dawn of the 22nd Earth was at war!
Humanity continued to consume the resources of the earth throughout the 21st century, destroying the natural environment and the only planet they had ever called home. As food and fuel increased in scarcity, the population began to resort to blaming each other for their deteriorating situation. Greed was justified by differences in race and culture. Every difference was used to exclude and dismiss the struggles of others.
As companies failed in a shrinking economy, unemployment skyrocketed. As companies collapsed, many were forced to resort to theft to survive. Crime and violence became common as entire cities descended into chaos. The surviving companies quickly bought out their failing competition, establishing monopolies over the shrinking resource market.
Attacks on naval convoys grew in frequency, targeting vessels as they passed the horns and straights of earth’s oceans. Nations responded by grouping their ships and deploying military vessels for defence. Distrust grew are nations quickly blamed each other. The world was an open powder keg. The spark inevitably came from one of these raids.
31st March 2091, a North American Union convoy was attached while on route from the shale plants of Australasia. While passing by the islands of Indonesia, the three escorting corvettes each reported multiple, simultaneous torpedo strikes from an unknown source. Taking on water, and unable to remain at sea, they were forced to abandon the convoy, leaving sixteen tankers unescorted. All radio contact was lost moments later. The North American Union could only track the vessels as they altered course towards the East Asian Republic.
For the following month, relations between the two nations soured. Accusations were thrown across the pacific as the convoy closed in on the Chinese coast. East Asia continued to claim ignorance, even as two of their decommissioned vessels joined the convoy as escort after three days. On 2nd May 2091, 32 days after the convoy was seized, it dropped anchor in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.
One final ultimatum was sent by the North American Union. As satellite footage showed the ships being brought into dock, and their cargo of natural gas began being pumped. The outbreak of war was swift. The surviving militaries of both nations had spent the month preparing. On 4th May, three fixed wing aircraft took off from O’ahu, Hawaii, two escorts and a single bomber. Attempts to intercept the strike force failed, succeeding only in destroying one escort, while three fighters from the East Asian Republic were destroyed over the East China Sea. At 5am, 5th May locally, a precision strike destroyed the North American tanker sitting in harbour, along with the fuel storage tanks of port.
As reports came in of the hundreds of dock workers and marine personnel that died or were injured in the initial explosion and ensuing fires, other nations began to pledge their support for the East Asian Republic as they suffered what was claimed to be an unjustified attack. Many of the former NATO members pledged support to North America, vowing to ensure the safety of their, and other nations’, convoys from piracy.
Over the following year, the conflict continued to escalate. Both sides began with further strikes against each other’s military, industrial and economic infrastructure quickly turned into the seizure of pacific possessions. Both sides issued unreasonable demands for reparations against the other whenever any attempt was made at peace. Other nations across the globe continued to join, tempted by the promise of resources to stabilise each of their failing economies.
As fighting broke out along the borders of other participating nations, supply lines quickly began to fail. With little other choice, troops began taking their needed supplies from civilian populations. Raiding tactics quickly became the norm. With no solution in sight, the raged on. Governments began issuing conscription orders. Extensive propaganda campaigns swept across nations, directly blaming their foes for the misery the people suffered. Crime rates slowly began to drop as patriotism gave people somewhere to focus their desperation.
With no dialogue between sides, and little land or territory worth taking, war continued on for over a decade. While the masses blindly fought, rallied by their governments, a few began to gather to express their dissatisfaction. Elections happened around the world, governments promising to win the war and return some idea of prosperity to their citizens, and yet election promises remained unfulfilled as a pointless war continued to deplete each nation’s strength.
By 2103, public global communications had almost completely collapsed. Communities commonly gathered around and shared working radios for any news of the world. Typically, broadcasts were largely propaganda with no civilian stations able to power transmitters with a range of more than a few miles.
On 23rd November, a single broadcast covered the entire planet. Every radio in the middle of a crowded communal room, handheld transceiver strapped to a soldier’s chest, crackled to life. TV screens flashed to life, with broadcasts few and far between. Now, the shadow of a man, cast in silhouette by the scorched image of the earth behind him. Fires specked the image as the man directly addressed his audience.
“The Earth is dying. Mother Nature suffers under the era of man. We burn her resources, pollute her atmosphere, defile her life giving water. For her to survive, a sacrifice must be made. For life on earth to live, man must die. For the sake of life itself, we make this sacrifice willingly.”
As the broadcast stopped, governments burst into action. No one stayed to listen. The streets of cities filled with shouts and screams. People flooded outdoors, filling the streets and rooftops to watch. Around the globe the skies filled with the sight of launching rockets, contrails wove their way up towards the clouds. Awe quickly turned to panic as the trajectories shifted. Over the next hour, hundreds of nuclear warheads detonated over the largest cities across the earth. With little no working transport infrastructure, people were unable to flee before devastation was hit them. Estimates suggest that, within a single hour, 1.5 billion people died from the initial blasts. City Centres were laid to waste, flattened as buildings toppled like dominos, burying the streets below.
Over the following weeks and months, the population continued to suffer. As governments broadcast safely from hidden bunkers across their countries, people died by the million, crushed by ruined buildings, trapped in subway stations where they had sought shelter, or from the massive initial doses of radiation they received. No final death toll was ever calculated from the ongoing impact on the population. Official estimates were that by New Year’s Day 2104 6.4 billions humans died as a result of the nuclear blasts, radiation, or in the chaotic aftermath.
No government, organisation, or individual ever claimed credit for the attack that latter became known as Ballistic Day, or B-Day. Elected leaders continued to blame other nations for the attacks, dismissing the launched from their own nation as hacking attempts, or the destruction in their foes cities as targeting errors. The public didn’t care. Military forces ground to a halt. Military convoys were seen heading away from what had been the front lines, dispersing across nations reeling from loss.
2nd May 2104, 12 years after the events that began this never-ending global conflict, another broadcast covered the surface of the earth. A prerecorded message, broadcast from thousands of smaller broadcasting towers around the earth, translated to suitable languages. Monitors and televisions showed a single figure in a charred European Union infantry uniform. Behind him, the ruins of the City of Vienna smoulder even months after their destruction.
“My name is Rene Albert. I was born on the seventh of July 2071 in Bordeaux. My home no longer exists. Five months ago it was destroyed along with hundreds, thousands even, of other cities. All of this happened because our governments failed to protect them. The weapons used on that day, that killed billions of people, were the product of these governments. The war that has ravaged our planet for ever a decade, was caused by these governments. The goals of a nation meander as one elected government is replaced with the next. Out destinations shifts, never reaching one before we catch sight of the next. Without a common goal, a vision of the future, humanity has failed to reach its potential. Democracy has failed! Humanity has failed!
Now, we stand on a precipice. Nations are destroyed, infrastructure in ruins, our resources depleted. To have any hope of survival, we must be united like never before. As you listen to this, a massive undertaking is taking place. The governments of the world have already been removed from their squandered positions. While they sat, throwing words and accusation at each other, across borders and oceans, the militaries of this world came together, to agree on what has to be done.
Stockpiles and reserved are being seized for distribution across the world, where they are need. We will overcome the challenges we face, the obstacles that divide us. What communications infrastructure still exists between continents will be brought under our control. The people of this planet will be united; not as humans, squabbling and fighting amongst themselves, but for the first time as Terrans. Our darkest hour is upon us, and as we are faced with inevitable extinction, we shall do what is necessary to survive. For Terrans. For Terra!”
A speech that gave rise to a nation.
After B-Day the immediate response, by governments all across the earth, had been to order renewed offensives in their eternal war. Faced with orders to advance, troops across the world turned to look back at their destroyed home, and lost loved ones. Dialogues opened between squadrons and divisions across the front, quickly branching between allied nations and, eventually, opposing sides. The belief that a change was needed was a common thread among the soldiers. After a decade of fighting, the incident that started the war was, at most, a distant memory.
Rene Albert grew to be one of the loudest voices calling for change. With several degrees in social sciences, he presented himself as a well-educated man, but easily related to his fellow soldiers from almost ever background. By the time the world entered into 2104 he had gone from being favoured by those around him to revered across opposing lines. Fighting had continued until this date, though with little interest in fighting remaining, it became increasingly common for opposing soldiers to simply pass each other. Rene’s discussions and calls for an end to the failing governments of the world, and the unification of all people to ensure their survival, resonated through every nation’s ranks. Slowly, ranking soldiers began to publicly agree, and pledge themselves to action to make that a reality.
From the armies of nations, a force was formed, pledged to the ideals of one individual. As information was gathered from the wealth of knowledge officers across all nations had access to, plans were drawn up and put into place. With dates set, military forces began mobilising, seemingly without orders. An estimated 80% of total military power had committed itself to this change, and all under strict secrecy. As military units went dark, governments assumed losses, sending still loyal soldiers to rally defences. They found only abandoned camps.
On 2nd May 2104, operation Tabula Rasa was executed. Every government went silent. Military opposition was scarcely met, only to be quickly converted, or overcome. Within a single day, after months of planning, Terra was united with a single goal, survival.
The first years took their toll. Crops and cattle all over the earth died from exposure to black rain. Famine was rampant. Even the seized hordes of the formerly wealthy were not enough to feed everyone.
Every available resource went towards reconstruction. Within the first year, global communication was re-established, powered by isolated surviving power facilities. A rudimentary computer network began to again cover the globe. Families were reunited, census data was compiled, and news began to spread between villages, towns and cities again. The “Terran State” formalised itself as an emergency government, establishing provinces across Terra’s continents under the leadership of Rene Albert as “Prime Minister”. Ministries were set up to manage each area of the new nation, with each minister answering directly to Rene. Citizens were fed and closed under a strata system, ensuring that scarce resources were handed out according to a civilian’s contribution to the Terran State.
Millions had been left to starve as they were deemed detrimental to Terran survival. Those that had resisted were shot down by the same military patrols that defended what those in the state had from fragmented raiding parties, remnants of the former nations’ still loyal militaries. Slowly, as the radiation cleared itself from the atmosphere and degraded, crop yields began to increase. Restored dams and wind farms provided electricity to fragmented power grids. Within a decade, a global grid was under construction as powered industry emerged.
Nuclear power had largely been shunned in human history, following a series of accidents and disasters. With Fissile material the only viable natural resource remaining, physicists and engineers were set the task of using this resource to power Terra’s future. After retrofitting a largely intact station, construction was begun on similar designs across each continent. Foundries and mineral refineries were restored, forging materials from the waste and rubble left behind to aid in the reconstruction.
In 2125, more than two decades since the birth of Terra, Rene Albret led a convoy, alongside his daughter, Camille, deep into the ruins of the City of London. Drones passed overhead, buzzing around them to collect footage for later release. Massive trucks followed in file, slowly being filled to the brim as steel and iron were recovered from the destroyed buildings for use in reconstruction. Weaving through the city’s buried streets, they finally reached the site of Westminster Abbey.
Father and daughters were framed by the western façade, dwarfed by the two towers even in their half destroyed state. The ministers of the Terran State emerged from within the convoy to kneel before Rene.
There, on the site of every British Monarch’s coronation for over 1000 years, Rene declared himself Emperor Rene de Terra, the first Emperor of the Imperial Terran Sovereignty.
Camille Albret was given the official title of Crown princess. Just 5 years after her father crowned himself, he passed away from what was later revealed to be a long term struggle with lung cancer. His daughter’s memoirs revealed, after recently being made public, that he had been close enough to Vienna to be temporarily blinded by its destruction.
Camille de Terra’s coronation took place on the same site of Westminster Abbey. Her father’s funeral had only taken place the day before, buried at had been a family plot outside the city of Bordeaux.
Both cities had begun to be rebuilt, man-made structures beginning to reach towards the sky, as campaigns continued across the surface of Terra to restore the greatest cities of each continent. The Terran Sovereignty was reformed under Empress Camille. The citizen strata was replaced with a new system. Fluid tiers were introduced, allowing citizens to earn further benefits, perks and career options, through excellent performance, good social conduct as well as through direct contributions to the Terran Sovereignty. Lateral position was determined based upon an individual’s skills and education, determining the careers and sectors a citizen could seek employment in. The loss of tiers, and privileges became common punishment for minor crimes, while capital punishment was maintained for severe crimes, including murder and treason.
However, as the Terran Sovereignty continued to rebuild, the end of their finite resources loomed. Fossil fuels were depleted, with the planet’s power grids relying on nuclear fission. Vehicles required batteries to store electrical energy, but the scarcity of suitable metals on earth was turning interest towards Luna. A large scale space program became one of the top priorities on Terra. With oceans providing hydrogen for rocket propellant, design and construction began on a fleet of rockets to construct the necessary orbital facilities.
In 2148, the first shipment of Luna Lithium was brought to Terra’s surface from orbit. Luna constructed machines processed the dusty crust of the moon’s surface, extracting valuable minerals for shipment back to Terra. As construction of cities and vessels continued, Mars was looked at as a source of metals, such as aluminium and titanium. To make the trip between Terra and the red planet viable, the first manned, nuclear powered barge was constructed around Luna.
Camille de Terra passed in in the year 2189, leaving the Imperial Terran Sovereignty to her granddaughter, Aurelia de Terra, given her only child’s death in a Luna shuttle accident, 2 weeks before Aurelia’s birth. Under Camille’s rule, Terra’s population had rapidly grown, supported by the power infrastructure her father had put into place, while mining colonies from out as far as the moons of Jupiter supplied the much needed resources. Maglev trains sped across the surface, moving large quantities of resources as required, while offering fast transport for citizens between cities. Agriculture was, once again, largely mechanized to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population. Out of necessity, almost no animal products remained in the terran diet. Cattle and livestock that hadn’t been killed in the immediate fallout from B-day had been slaughtered for food during the first years of the Terran State while famine was wide spread. What little meat was produced was only available to the highest citizen tiers, and was prohibitively expensive from the costs of maintaining livestock while food remained a precious resource.
Committed to continuing her grandmother’s legacy and securing the future of all of Terra, Empress Aurelia expanded the Terran space program to create the Imperial Terran Stellar Navy. Over time, this became known simply as the Imperial Terran Navy, with the continued decline of the terrestrial navy. Resources and labour were directed to aid the navy in the pursuit of a single goal, to expand Terra’s reach beyond the confines of the Sol system.
—Thank you for accessing this historical archives—
—Join the empress next to celebrate the birth of the 23rd century—
Humanity continued to consume the resources of the earth throughout the 21st century, destroying the natural environment and the only planet they had ever called home. As food and fuel increased in scarcity, the population began to resort to blaming each other for their deteriorating situation. Greed was justified by differences in race and culture. Every difference was used to exclude and dismiss the struggles of others.
As companies failed in a shrinking economy, unemployment skyrocketed. As companies collapsed, many were forced to resort to theft to survive. Crime and violence became common as entire cities descended into chaos. The surviving companies quickly bought out their failing competition, establishing monopolies over the shrinking resource market.
Attacks on naval convoys grew in frequency, targeting vessels as they passed the horns and straights of earth’s oceans. Nations responded by grouping their ships and deploying military vessels for defence. Distrust grew are nations quickly blamed each other. The world was an open powder keg. The spark inevitably came from one of these raids.
31st March 2091, a North American Union convoy was attached while on route from the shale plants of Australasia. While passing by the islands of Indonesia, the three escorting corvettes each reported multiple, simultaneous torpedo strikes from an unknown source. Taking on water, and unable to remain at sea, they were forced to abandon the convoy, leaving sixteen tankers unescorted. All radio contact was lost moments later. The North American Union could only track the vessels as they altered course towards the East Asian Republic.
For the following month, relations between the two nations soured. Accusations were thrown across the pacific as the convoy closed in on the Chinese coast. East Asia continued to claim ignorance, even as two of their decommissioned vessels joined the convoy as escort after three days. On 2nd May 2091, 32 days after the convoy was seized, it dropped anchor in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.
One final ultimatum was sent by the North American Union. As satellite footage showed the ships being brought into dock, and their cargo of natural gas began being pumped. The outbreak of war was swift. The surviving militaries of both nations had spent the month preparing. On 4th May, three fixed wing aircraft took off from O’ahu, Hawaii, two escorts and a single bomber. Attempts to intercept the strike force failed, succeeding only in destroying one escort, while three fighters from the East Asian Republic were destroyed over the East China Sea. At 5am, 5th May locally, a precision strike destroyed the North American tanker sitting in harbour, along with the fuel storage tanks of port.
As reports came in of the hundreds of dock workers and marine personnel that died or were injured in the initial explosion and ensuing fires, other nations began to pledge their support for the East Asian Republic as they suffered what was claimed to be an unjustified attack. Many of the former NATO members pledged support to North America, vowing to ensure the safety of their, and other nations’, convoys from piracy.
Over the following year, the conflict continued to escalate. Both sides began with further strikes against each other’s military, industrial and economic infrastructure quickly turned into the seizure of pacific possessions. Both sides issued unreasonable demands for reparations against the other whenever any attempt was made at peace. Other nations across the globe continued to join, tempted by the promise of resources to stabilise each of their failing economies.
As fighting broke out along the borders of other participating nations, supply lines quickly began to fail. With little other choice, troops began taking their needed supplies from civilian populations. Raiding tactics quickly became the norm. With no solution in sight, the raged on. Governments began issuing conscription orders. Extensive propaganda campaigns swept across nations, directly blaming their foes for the misery the people suffered. Crime rates slowly began to drop as patriotism gave people somewhere to focus their desperation.
With no dialogue between sides, and little land or territory worth taking, war continued on for over a decade. While the masses blindly fought, rallied by their governments, a few began to gather to express their dissatisfaction. Elections happened around the world, governments promising to win the war and return some idea of prosperity to their citizens, and yet election promises remained unfulfilled as a pointless war continued to deplete each nation’s strength.
By 2103, public global communications had almost completely collapsed. Communities commonly gathered around and shared working radios for any news of the world. Typically, broadcasts were largely propaganda with no civilian stations able to power transmitters with a range of more than a few miles.
On 23rd November, a single broadcast covered the entire planet. Every radio in the middle of a crowded communal room, handheld transceiver strapped to a soldier’s chest, crackled to life. TV screens flashed to life, with broadcasts few and far between. Now, the shadow of a man, cast in silhouette by the scorched image of the earth behind him. Fires specked the image as the man directly addressed his audience.
“The Earth is dying. Mother Nature suffers under the era of man. We burn her resources, pollute her atmosphere, defile her life giving water. For her to survive, a sacrifice must be made. For life on earth to live, man must die. For the sake of life itself, we make this sacrifice willingly.”
As the broadcast stopped, governments burst into action. No one stayed to listen. The streets of cities filled with shouts and screams. People flooded outdoors, filling the streets and rooftops to watch. Around the globe the skies filled with the sight of launching rockets, contrails wove their way up towards the clouds. Awe quickly turned to panic as the trajectories shifted. Over the next hour, hundreds of nuclear warheads detonated over the largest cities across the earth. With little no working transport infrastructure, people were unable to flee before devastation was hit them. Estimates suggest that, within a single hour, 1.5 billion people died from the initial blasts. City Centres were laid to waste, flattened as buildings toppled like dominos, burying the streets below.
Over the following weeks and months, the population continued to suffer. As governments broadcast safely from hidden bunkers across their countries, people died by the million, crushed by ruined buildings, trapped in subway stations where they had sought shelter, or from the massive initial doses of radiation they received. No final death toll was ever calculated from the ongoing impact on the population. Official estimates were that by New Year’s Day 2104 6.4 billions humans died as a result of the nuclear blasts, radiation, or in the chaotic aftermath.
No government, organisation, or individual ever claimed credit for the attack that latter became known as Ballistic Day, or B-Day. Elected leaders continued to blame other nations for the attacks, dismissing the launched from their own nation as hacking attempts, or the destruction in their foes cities as targeting errors. The public didn’t care. Military forces ground to a halt. Military convoys were seen heading away from what had been the front lines, dispersing across nations reeling from loss.
2nd May 2104, 12 years after the events that began this never-ending global conflict, another broadcast covered the surface of the earth. A prerecorded message, broadcast from thousands of smaller broadcasting towers around the earth, translated to suitable languages. Monitors and televisions showed a single figure in a charred European Union infantry uniform. Behind him, the ruins of the City of Vienna smoulder even months after their destruction.
“My name is Rene Albert. I was born on the seventh of July 2071 in Bordeaux. My home no longer exists. Five months ago it was destroyed along with hundreds, thousands even, of other cities. All of this happened because our governments failed to protect them. The weapons used on that day, that killed billions of people, were the product of these governments. The war that has ravaged our planet for ever a decade, was caused by these governments. The goals of a nation meander as one elected government is replaced with the next. Out destinations shifts, never reaching one before we catch sight of the next. Without a common goal, a vision of the future, humanity has failed to reach its potential. Democracy has failed! Humanity has failed!
Now, we stand on a precipice. Nations are destroyed, infrastructure in ruins, our resources depleted. To have any hope of survival, we must be united like never before. As you listen to this, a massive undertaking is taking place. The governments of the world have already been removed from their squandered positions. While they sat, throwing words and accusation at each other, across borders and oceans, the militaries of this world came together, to agree on what has to be done.
Stockpiles and reserved are being seized for distribution across the world, where they are need. We will overcome the challenges we face, the obstacles that divide us. What communications infrastructure still exists between continents will be brought under our control. The people of this planet will be united; not as humans, squabbling and fighting amongst themselves, but for the first time as Terrans. Our darkest hour is upon us, and as we are faced with inevitable extinction, we shall do what is necessary to survive. For Terrans. For Terra!”
A speech that gave rise to a nation.
After B-Day the immediate response, by governments all across the earth, had been to order renewed offensives in their eternal war. Faced with orders to advance, troops across the world turned to look back at their destroyed home, and lost loved ones. Dialogues opened between squadrons and divisions across the front, quickly branching between allied nations and, eventually, opposing sides. The belief that a change was needed was a common thread among the soldiers. After a decade of fighting, the incident that started the war was, at most, a distant memory.
Rene Albert grew to be one of the loudest voices calling for change. With several degrees in social sciences, he presented himself as a well-educated man, but easily related to his fellow soldiers from almost ever background. By the time the world entered into 2104 he had gone from being favoured by those around him to revered across opposing lines. Fighting had continued until this date, though with little interest in fighting remaining, it became increasingly common for opposing soldiers to simply pass each other. Rene’s discussions and calls for an end to the failing governments of the world, and the unification of all people to ensure their survival, resonated through every nation’s ranks. Slowly, ranking soldiers began to publicly agree, and pledge themselves to action to make that a reality.
From the armies of nations, a force was formed, pledged to the ideals of one individual. As information was gathered from the wealth of knowledge officers across all nations had access to, plans were drawn up and put into place. With dates set, military forces began mobilising, seemingly without orders. An estimated 80% of total military power had committed itself to this change, and all under strict secrecy. As military units went dark, governments assumed losses, sending still loyal soldiers to rally defences. They found only abandoned camps.
On 2nd May 2104, operation Tabula Rasa was executed. Every government went silent. Military opposition was scarcely met, only to be quickly converted, or overcome. Within a single day, after months of planning, Terra was united with a single goal, survival.
The first years took their toll. Crops and cattle all over the earth died from exposure to black rain. Famine was rampant. Even the seized hordes of the formerly wealthy were not enough to feed everyone.
Every available resource went towards reconstruction. Within the first year, global communication was re-established, powered by isolated surviving power facilities. A rudimentary computer network began to again cover the globe. Families were reunited, census data was compiled, and news began to spread between villages, towns and cities again. The “Terran State” formalised itself as an emergency government, establishing provinces across Terra’s continents under the leadership of Rene Albert as “Prime Minister”. Ministries were set up to manage each area of the new nation, with each minister answering directly to Rene. Citizens were fed and closed under a strata system, ensuring that scarce resources were handed out according to a civilian’s contribution to the Terran State.
Millions had been left to starve as they were deemed detrimental to Terran survival. Those that had resisted were shot down by the same military patrols that defended what those in the state had from fragmented raiding parties, remnants of the former nations’ still loyal militaries. Slowly, as the radiation cleared itself from the atmosphere and degraded, crop yields began to increase. Restored dams and wind farms provided electricity to fragmented power grids. Within a decade, a global grid was under construction as powered industry emerged.
Nuclear power had largely been shunned in human history, following a series of accidents and disasters. With Fissile material the only viable natural resource remaining, physicists and engineers were set the task of using this resource to power Terra’s future. After retrofitting a largely intact station, construction was begun on similar designs across each continent. Foundries and mineral refineries were restored, forging materials from the waste and rubble left behind to aid in the reconstruction.
In 2125, more than two decades since the birth of Terra, Rene Albret led a convoy, alongside his daughter, Camille, deep into the ruins of the City of London. Drones passed overhead, buzzing around them to collect footage for later release. Massive trucks followed in file, slowly being filled to the brim as steel and iron were recovered from the destroyed buildings for use in reconstruction. Weaving through the city’s buried streets, they finally reached the site of Westminster Abbey.
Father and daughters were framed by the western façade, dwarfed by the two towers even in their half destroyed state. The ministers of the Terran State emerged from within the convoy to kneel before Rene.
There, on the site of every British Monarch’s coronation for over 1000 years, Rene declared himself Emperor Rene de Terra, the first Emperor of the Imperial Terran Sovereignty.
Camille Albret was given the official title of Crown princess. Just 5 years after her father crowned himself, he passed away from what was later revealed to be a long term struggle with lung cancer. His daughter’s memoirs revealed, after recently being made public, that he had been close enough to Vienna to be temporarily blinded by its destruction.
Camille de Terra’s coronation took place on the same site of Westminster Abbey. Her father’s funeral had only taken place the day before, buried at had been a family plot outside the city of Bordeaux.
Both cities had begun to be rebuilt, man-made structures beginning to reach towards the sky, as campaigns continued across the surface of Terra to restore the greatest cities of each continent. The Terran Sovereignty was reformed under Empress Camille. The citizen strata was replaced with a new system. Fluid tiers were introduced, allowing citizens to earn further benefits, perks and career options, through excellent performance, good social conduct as well as through direct contributions to the Terran Sovereignty. Lateral position was determined based upon an individual’s skills and education, determining the careers and sectors a citizen could seek employment in. The loss of tiers, and privileges became common punishment for minor crimes, while capital punishment was maintained for severe crimes, including murder and treason.
However, as the Terran Sovereignty continued to rebuild, the end of their finite resources loomed. Fossil fuels were depleted, with the planet’s power grids relying on nuclear fission. Vehicles required batteries to store electrical energy, but the scarcity of suitable metals on earth was turning interest towards Luna. A large scale space program became one of the top priorities on Terra. With oceans providing hydrogen for rocket propellant, design and construction began on a fleet of rockets to construct the necessary orbital facilities.
In 2148, the first shipment of Luna Lithium was brought to Terra’s surface from orbit. Luna constructed machines processed the dusty crust of the moon’s surface, extracting valuable minerals for shipment back to Terra. As construction of cities and vessels continued, Mars was looked at as a source of metals, such as aluminium and titanium. To make the trip between Terra and the red planet viable, the first manned, nuclear powered barge was constructed around Luna.
Camille de Terra passed in in the year 2189, leaving the Imperial Terran Sovereignty to her granddaughter, Aurelia de Terra, given her only child’s death in a Luna shuttle accident, 2 weeks before Aurelia’s birth. Under Camille’s rule, Terra’s population had rapidly grown, supported by the power infrastructure her father had put into place, while mining colonies from out as far as the moons of Jupiter supplied the much needed resources. Maglev trains sped across the surface, moving large quantities of resources as required, while offering fast transport for citizens between cities. Agriculture was, once again, largely mechanized to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population. Out of necessity, almost no animal products remained in the terran diet. Cattle and livestock that hadn’t been killed in the immediate fallout from B-day had been slaughtered for food during the first years of the Terran State while famine was wide spread. What little meat was produced was only available to the highest citizen tiers, and was prohibitively expensive from the costs of maintaining livestock while food remained a precious resource.
Committed to continuing her grandmother’s legacy and securing the future of all of Terra, Empress Aurelia expanded the Terran space program to create the Imperial Terran Stellar Navy. Over time, this became known simply as the Imperial Terran Navy, with the continued decline of the terrestrial navy. Resources and labour were directed to aid the navy in the pursuit of a single goal, to expand Terra’s reach beyond the confines of the Sol system.
—Thank you for accessing this historical archives—
—Join the empress next to celebrate the birth of the 23rd century—
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