cskendrick
I'm Gnu :)
- Joined
- May 7, 2006
- Messages
- 30
This might be more interesting to the tech-czars of the forum. Don't spare the whip, if you see something that annoys or offends. 
2060s And it gets more nuts. Quantum simulation, which could instill (or infect) memes into anything and everything with a thought process, plus a superabundance of biological/mechanical interfacing provided a target-rich environment for innovators and vandals alike. Mnemonics rose as a science of active detection and destruction of cybernetic infections, though it was just as easily used as a basis for the creation of exceptionally sophisticated hacks against users as well as their gear. Thus, both a new economics and a new form of warfare arose at the same time.
And speaking of warfare: Indonesia was catching up with Russia as a world power, and aloof of the SCO and Chinese dominance. This was a testy period in world history, as the Indonesians were beginning their 'Grand Archipelago' version of manifest destiny, with strong interest in challenging India for hegemony of the Indian Ocean. The Indians, with with Han backing, felt that they had little to fear and were spoiling for a fight over Sumatra, which had been heavily settled by émigrés from the subcontinent. Happily, the Canadians intervened (it was too dicey a proposition for the Americans to get involved) with the new red-armored peacemaker androids (called Mounties, despite being infantry), and wider war was averted.
Elsewhere, the Brazilians were becoming increasingly involved in the recovery work in Africa, which had been devastated by a succession of nasty plagues and famines, the worst caused by a disease that devastated hooved animals of all kinds, the most feared an airborne disease that mimicked the symptoms of leprosy in humans. Cribbing together elements of nanotech, cybernetics, genetics and mnemonics, the Emerald Expeditionary Force was field-testing regeneration and replacement of human limbs and organs with implants, and per the locals, the effort was a resounding, if unsettling, success, to the point that Brazil was becoming the de facto most popular government on the far side of the Atlantic.
The rise of Brazil unnerved many countries, not a few of them in South America itself. The Colombians rose as a focus of Hispanic America's unease with Brazil’s embrace of a wide range of technologies and practices that unnerved the socially conservative bent of much of the region.
Back in the Indian Basin, the Bangladeshis appeared on the scene as leading pioners for oceanic (or pelagic) habitat construction, placement and population: theirs had been a land under death threat by the sea for so long, that as the oceans rose, Bangladesh just shrugged, took a deep breath, and began to expand its territory by claiming much of the Bengal littoral. The Indians were irked, but the Han Federation stayed their hand, remarking quietly that the Bangladeshis were on to something, and besides they were SCO members, too.
By 2060, there were over 5MM people on Antarctica, 2.6MM in the Oceans, 1.1MM on the Moon...and 95,000 on newly-opened Mars, which had waited longer than anyone anticipated for visitors (in the 2030s) and for pioneers. Also, out of necessity, these more tech-intensive societies began to participate in the advancement of knowledge, the applied sciences in particular.
It was not until the joint NASA/ESA Hero Mission (2065) that a permanent presence on Mars was established; after that, the colonists poured in swiftly, mostly from Europe and India in the first wave; the Han Federation (formerly China) is content with its dominance of lunar manufacturing for the time, and talk is of investing in a very long-range project: transforming Venus into a New Middle Kingdom. The Americans split their attention between their controlled retreat from exclusive superpowerdown on Earth and the development of manned interstellar spacecraft, their attentions returned to their greatest and most admirable talents at least -- exploration and invention.
The 2070s saw little change in the ranking of the great powers, or of the technologies used by same. The real excitement came from the opening of the major moons of Jupiter for settlement, facilitated by the licensing-out of US-made Helion (heavy ion) drives and providing of transport services by the various American carrier fleets, such as USStarways, Solar West, and Trans-Ecliptic Spaceways...though UK-based Virgin Planets turned a nice profit, as well.
Due to the relative abundance, even super-abundance of water on Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, all three overtook Mars quickly in the early going as places of settlement. Also, the technology of living on icy worlds required on slight modification from the habitat designs of the Antarctic and Pelagic colonies, so long as they were embedded deep in the ice of the Galilenes, as they worlds came to be known. Hellish Io, though, was a non-starter, and would be among the last worlds of the Solar System to support human residents.
And what the ice-rich but rock-poor moons of Jupiter could not provide, the Asteroid Belt provided in abundance, and during the same decade that saw 900,000 newcomers to Jove's neck of the woods witnessed the arrival of 280,000 'rock jocks' to the off-world population of the Solar System, which was now approaching a total of 2.9 million.
The Seventies also witnessed to start of the Celestial Survey, the Americans’ answer to the European expedition to Mars. Large accelerators were built in space near the Moon, then used to launch the millions of nanonic probes. By 2100, the leading wave of craft had reached as far as Vega and Fomalhaut, detecting evidence of many terrestrial worlds, close but not quite Earthlike, with evidence of life -- many forms of it, in a wider range of biomes than had heretofore been imagined.
However, the most stunning discovery of the Celestial Survey was its use as an ever-expanding broad-spectrum interferometer. With a light-years wide baseline, structured signals were detected and slowly assembled, all a long way away. One signal group lies on the edge of the Cygnus Dark Cloud, 6,000 light years away, in the general direction of the bright star Deneb. Another is barely detectable on the backside of the Vela Supernova Remnant, perhaps peeking from around the Galactic Core.
The clearest signals are from the direction of Rho Cassiopeiae, a yellow supergiant star that most certainly has no life of its own, and that landmark star is a whopping 14,000 light years off. So, now we know – Most likely, no one is coming, either to deliver or to destroy us. We're not alone, but we're on our own, and Humanity must look to itself to solve Humanity's problems.
Spiritually, there was some impact, and a salutary one, given what had been lost in the jihads and reactionary crusades of the first half of the 21st century. Those wars did much to discredit religion as a mode of conduct, but the ecological and biological cataclysms of the era, as well as the discovery of worlds full of life nearby and the detection of distant neighbors elsewhere in the galaxy has had a paradoxical boosting effect on faith. Fewer Americans went to church, there was much less demand for professional clergy and widespread skepticism of their motives. This was true even where churches and mosques and temples received common visitation. Regardless, this was an age of mystery and awe, of veneration of life, of atonement for its destruction and thanksgiving for having passed through a round of terrible tests -- and prayers to pass those that are to come. There was a general sense that the world was living on the near edge of an age of plagues, a time of tribulation to last centuries. People were desperate for something to believe in; many came to believe in themselves, and perhaps in doing so the nation come closer to God than it had been in a long time, if ever.
A final note to the 2070s, in more ways than one. Jehanne Reyne's fatal dive into the depths of Jupiter. The Americans had explored (and claimed) the Galilean Moons, but had deferred taking on Jove himself for later. The Europeans had opted to take up the Quebecois expatriate's offer to test out the charged diamond-lattice hull of the appropriately-named Nautilus -- for the ship resembled in concept the legendary submersible, was nuclear-powered like the original SBN, and mimicked the structure of the living denizen of the deep.
What was lost with the passing of Jehanne Reyne cannot be estimated; she demonstrated the interaction between vaccuum energy and gravitation. She had even fielded a controversial proposition -- that macro-scale quantum translocation was possible.
In the intervening centuries, no one has dared to repeat Reyne’s Dare, save with robotic and nanonic probes, all of which have been swiftly destroyed by one of the dozen ways in which Jupiter deals with trespassers. The means to visit the Lord of the Planets in person surpasses us, even now.
2060s And it gets more nuts. Quantum simulation, which could instill (or infect) memes into anything and everything with a thought process, plus a superabundance of biological/mechanical interfacing provided a target-rich environment for innovators and vandals alike. Mnemonics rose as a science of active detection and destruction of cybernetic infections, though it was just as easily used as a basis for the creation of exceptionally sophisticated hacks against users as well as their gear. Thus, both a new economics and a new form of warfare arose at the same time.
And speaking of warfare: Indonesia was catching up with Russia as a world power, and aloof of the SCO and Chinese dominance. This was a testy period in world history, as the Indonesians were beginning their 'Grand Archipelago' version of manifest destiny, with strong interest in challenging India for hegemony of the Indian Ocean. The Indians, with with Han backing, felt that they had little to fear and were spoiling for a fight over Sumatra, which had been heavily settled by émigrés from the subcontinent. Happily, the Canadians intervened (it was too dicey a proposition for the Americans to get involved) with the new red-armored peacemaker androids (called Mounties, despite being infantry), and wider war was averted.
Elsewhere, the Brazilians were becoming increasingly involved in the recovery work in Africa, which had been devastated by a succession of nasty plagues and famines, the worst caused by a disease that devastated hooved animals of all kinds, the most feared an airborne disease that mimicked the symptoms of leprosy in humans. Cribbing together elements of nanotech, cybernetics, genetics and mnemonics, the Emerald Expeditionary Force was field-testing regeneration and replacement of human limbs and organs with implants, and per the locals, the effort was a resounding, if unsettling, success, to the point that Brazil was becoming the de facto most popular government on the far side of the Atlantic.
The rise of Brazil unnerved many countries, not a few of them in South America itself. The Colombians rose as a focus of Hispanic America's unease with Brazil’s embrace of a wide range of technologies and practices that unnerved the socially conservative bent of much of the region.
Back in the Indian Basin, the Bangladeshis appeared on the scene as leading pioners for oceanic (or pelagic) habitat construction, placement and population: theirs had been a land under death threat by the sea for so long, that as the oceans rose, Bangladesh just shrugged, took a deep breath, and began to expand its territory by claiming much of the Bengal littoral. The Indians were irked, but the Han Federation stayed their hand, remarking quietly that the Bangladeshis were on to something, and besides they were SCO members, too.
By 2060, there were over 5MM people on Antarctica, 2.6MM in the Oceans, 1.1MM on the Moon...and 95,000 on newly-opened Mars, which had waited longer than anyone anticipated for visitors (in the 2030s) and for pioneers. Also, out of necessity, these more tech-intensive societies began to participate in the advancement of knowledge, the applied sciences in particular.
It was not until the joint NASA/ESA Hero Mission (2065) that a permanent presence on Mars was established; after that, the colonists poured in swiftly, mostly from Europe and India in the first wave; the Han Federation (formerly China) is content with its dominance of lunar manufacturing for the time, and talk is of investing in a very long-range project: transforming Venus into a New Middle Kingdom. The Americans split their attention between their controlled retreat from exclusive superpowerdown on Earth and the development of manned interstellar spacecraft, their attentions returned to their greatest and most admirable talents at least -- exploration and invention.
The 2070s saw little change in the ranking of the great powers, or of the technologies used by same. The real excitement came from the opening of the major moons of Jupiter for settlement, facilitated by the licensing-out of US-made Helion (heavy ion) drives and providing of transport services by the various American carrier fleets, such as USStarways, Solar West, and Trans-Ecliptic Spaceways...though UK-based Virgin Planets turned a nice profit, as well.
Due to the relative abundance, even super-abundance of water on Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, all three overtook Mars quickly in the early going as places of settlement. Also, the technology of living on icy worlds required on slight modification from the habitat designs of the Antarctic and Pelagic colonies, so long as they were embedded deep in the ice of the Galilenes, as they worlds came to be known. Hellish Io, though, was a non-starter, and would be among the last worlds of the Solar System to support human residents.
And what the ice-rich but rock-poor moons of Jupiter could not provide, the Asteroid Belt provided in abundance, and during the same decade that saw 900,000 newcomers to Jove's neck of the woods witnessed the arrival of 280,000 'rock jocks' to the off-world population of the Solar System, which was now approaching a total of 2.9 million.
The Seventies also witnessed to start of the Celestial Survey, the Americans’ answer to the European expedition to Mars. Large accelerators were built in space near the Moon, then used to launch the millions of nanonic probes. By 2100, the leading wave of craft had reached as far as Vega and Fomalhaut, detecting evidence of many terrestrial worlds, close but not quite Earthlike, with evidence of life -- many forms of it, in a wider range of biomes than had heretofore been imagined.
However, the most stunning discovery of the Celestial Survey was its use as an ever-expanding broad-spectrum interferometer. With a light-years wide baseline, structured signals were detected and slowly assembled, all a long way away. One signal group lies on the edge of the Cygnus Dark Cloud, 6,000 light years away, in the general direction of the bright star Deneb. Another is barely detectable on the backside of the Vela Supernova Remnant, perhaps peeking from around the Galactic Core.
The clearest signals are from the direction of Rho Cassiopeiae, a yellow supergiant star that most certainly has no life of its own, and that landmark star is a whopping 14,000 light years off. So, now we know – Most likely, no one is coming, either to deliver or to destroy us. We're not alone, but we're on our own, and Humanity must look to itself to solve Humanity's problems.
Spiritually, there was some impact, and a salutary one, given what had been lost in the jihads and reactionary crusades of the first half of the 21st century. Those wars did much to discredit religion as a mode of conduct, but the ecological and biological cataclysms of the era, as well as the discovery of worlds full of life nearby and the detection of distant neighbors elsewhere in the galaxy has had a paradoxical boosting effect on faith. Fewer Americans went to church, there was much less demand for professional clergy and widespread skepticism of their motives. This was true even where churches and mosques and temples received common visitation. Regardless, this was an age of mystery and awe, of veneration of life, of atonement for its destruction and thanksgiving for having passed through a round of terrible tests -- and prayers to pass those that are to come. There was a general sense that the world was living on the near edge of an age of plagues, a time of tribulation to last centuries. People were desperate for something to believe in; many came to believe in themselves, and perhaps in doing so the nation come closer to God than it had been in a long time, if ever.
A final note to the 2070s, in more ways than one. Jehanne Reyne's fatal dive into the depths of Jupiter. The Americans had explored (and claimed) the Galilean Moons, but had deferred taking on Jove himself for later. The Europeans had opted to take up the Quebecois expatriate's offer to test out the charged diamond-lattice hull of the appropriately-named Nautilus -- for the ship resembled in concept the legendary submersible, was nuclear-powered like the original SBN, and mimicked the structure of the living denizen of the deep.
What was lost with the passing of Jehanne Reyne cannot be estimated; she demonstrated the interaction between vaccuum energy and gravitation. She had even fielded a controversial proposition -- that macro-scale quantum translocation was possible.
In the intervening centuries, no one has dared to repeat Reyne’s Dare, save with robotic and nanonic probes, all of which have been swiftly destroyed by one of the dozen ways in which Jupiter deals with trespassers. The means to visit the Lord of the Planets in person surpasses us, even now.
