New Hope

The year is 2327;

After every fall there is a raise, from every pile of ashes a new phoenix can raise. So it was with this world as well. From the destruction and chaos a new step in evolution came and once more proved how fragile the powerful minds are. Slowly times changed, after the first apocalypse things went for worse before it started to resemble something better. Little by little humans rebuilt the once lost home they had. One would think how we could all learn from our past, from mistakes made and mistakes that marked our petty lives, to raise from it and embrace the newly given chance, sadly answer was no.

By the year 2185 it was clear Earth was lost. All efforts to undo our damage had failed. All that it took was the first few methane gas pockets, in the tundra, to be released. After that the whole global warming process snowballed out of control. Everything we tried only seemed to be a temporary fix. Earth was dying, and her blood was on our hands.

Earth's population is around fourteen billion, and rising. Our world is now on the verge of environmental collapse, again. We've tried sending colonies to Mars and the nearby star systems, but the process of terra-forming takes far too long and we could never build enough ships to send everyone to the stars. Our fate looks grim and inevitable once more.

But at least some gripped on the newly given chance, and before the history got itself a repeat, a small group of dedicated minds ventured into deep space to seek our salvation.

At the edge of the asteroid belt was the largest science experiment ever undertaken. It was a particle accelerator that was several millions of miles across. "The Gate", its name marking its meaning - to open a doorway to another Earth. Except this newly given home was out of the solar system reach.

The gate was made of a series of magnets that directed two beams of particles. When it activates the two beams will be fired from a space station. Then after several passes around the magnetic track they are angled to fire at a ring that will open up the gate upon collision. I know it sounds impossible, but this is how the world's best scientists said we could get there.

Today is August 21, 2327 and today is the day we turn on the gate. If this works this it will be the greatest feet of engineering and physics ever undertaken, but if it doesn't it will likely be our last. My name is Lokhe Verlack, a survivor of past, sleeper and now  among "Angels"  to venture into the New Hope.

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Last Transmission

Human civilization never really knew the extent of our dependency on oil; never realized how much we all needed it to survive. There were seven billion people on Earth, Before the Peak… today they say there's barely a billion left alive.

Trains, planes, cars, heating, refrigeration, computers, TVs, DVDs, electricity, Food, Water, medicine, the military; it all rested on the shoulders of a petroleum based economy, and without it our fate was sealed.

The oil hikes of the first days of the 21st Century were nothing compared to the gas rationing of the late 2010s, the fuel and food riots, and the Great Drought that all followed. When we passed the peak it didn't take long for the markets to panic. That panic contributed more to the collapse than anything else; perhaps if we'd remained calm, we could have had the time to find a real alternative. All those hybrid cars and the few electrics, they didn't add up for shit. The Prius couldn't transport billions of tons of food all over the country, let alone the world. Once the price got too high it quickly hit the supermarket shelves. Corn for $100 an ear, Milk for $80 a gallon, rice… worth more than gold in some places. The dollar was on its knees after just a year of living like that, and social unrest spiraled out of control. People were starving to death in the cities and suburbia, and they weren't doing much better in the country. 

By the winter of 2019 over 100 million people had either starved or frozen to death in America, over two billion worldwide. Some people got by with Natural Gas, but it takes oil to move everything that enables natural gas to exist. Looters ran wild throughout the streets and rumor had started about people who just went mad from the hunger and started eating people.

The year before the President ordered the opening of all emergency oil reserves, and recalled most of the US Military to enforce Martial Law, but by the Summer of 2020, the United States Military had finally ran out of fuel too. The nuclear carriers and subs still ran and the jets could still fly on ethanol, but the jeeps, the trucks, and everything you need to run an Army, they were DOA. It was no longer logistically possible for the Federal Government to administer the continent, and with that came the Morgan Acts.

Signed in the Spring of 2021 the US Government decided to divide the administration of the country into four distinct zones, each with a Military Governor who would keep martial law in affect, "until such time as our energy crisis can be remedied." What a bunch of bullshit. Eastern, Mid-Western, Central, and Western, each divided along major geographic lines. Each military governor would report directly to the President, but in reality they were Emperors of their own countries. That same year the death toll in America was up to over 200 million, world wide… they just stopped counting.

…And so, here we stand at the end of it all, out of gas and out of time, a nation broken and burnt. It was inevitable I suppose, all empires fall eventually, ours just took the whole damn planet with it; like Rome before us. I wonder how people will remember the great American Empire down the line? Will they be inspired by what we accomplished? Or will they just pity us for our shortsightedness. I don't know, and to tell you the truth, I really don't give a shit.

This is Lokhe Verlack, 107.9 KFNK, signing off, for good.

-Last known private radio transmission from the Pacific Northwest. December 22nd, 2041 CE. Human

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