Some say it all ended quickly, a nuclear war that painted the skies black with soot and a resulting nuclear winter to freeze the burn. Some say it was a conspiracy and was all planned by the government. Well in a way, they are all right. But only I know why and how it happened; the real reason… the truth that no one is ever going to be ready to handle. It’s the key to this whole damn war. But even after our great loss, we have not learned yet. We are so stubborn we would rather kill each other off than accept the truth. And that is what makes my knowledge of what happened pointless. Its why I fight every day, to keep what I know alive, until we can find a way to convince people of my truth. I am misunderstood and for that I am hunted down by those who oppose me. It all started in December of 2067. I was the lead scientist for the research project SOLAR GENESIS. It was a top-secret US space program with, of course, military capabilities. But its purpose was not to be militant. It was the hope we desperately needed. By this time the US had crumbled into a state of dismay and panic. The economy was failing and so was the environment. Global warming had increased, storms and heat waves caused deaths in the thousands. It was a sad chapter of humanity. But even though I thought I was helping, I had not even the slightest idea of the horrific things I was going to cause. I had been scheduled for the seventh launch that day. Everything and everyone appeared fine. Earlier that week we had some intrusions by some scavengers. Well, we called them scavengers. They were gangs of people that formed collective groups to control riots, steal food, weapons, or anything else of value. Civilization was failing and too many people were out of control. Police forces were overwhelmed… people just started to take matters into their own hands. Who is going to argue with millions of angry people? Not even the Army. Riots quickly became too much trouble for people. They got smarter and stuck to smaller cliques and groups. Attracting less attention from the seriously depleted authorities who performed triage on riot groups. Terrorism took on a new meaning then. People were constantly under terror attacks. Your neighbor was your enemy and your local food market became a battle field. Its amazing what people will do to survive. And they did. They murdered, they stole and everyone suffered. Before I realized it I was already strapped in and the launch sequence was counting down. There was about two minutes left on the clock when I heard it all go down. First the parameter alerts sounded, the scavengers were back. I knew right away we had problems and I began performing my emergency checklist for security. My copilot, Ms. Brigs, an Ensign at the time, began securing our stations and hatches. Our launch vehicle was unlike anything the government had done before. Even for then it was cutting edge and it was beyond imagination. We had inventions and equipment that wouldn’t be released into public domain for over one hundred years. For no other reason than the government had decided--and smartly so--that the populous just wasn’t ready for such a step forward. In a few steps we had the ship locked down tight. It was already too late to cancel the launch sequence. We also secretly had orders that we were to launch that day, no matter the cost. Even if we had wanted to get out and help, we couldn’t anyway, they had locked us in from the launch station. Only the commanding officer of the facility had the control to reverse it--and he wasn’t going to give it up for his life or the lives of anyone on that planet. The SOLAR GENESIS project was very unique. It wasn’t just a set of technologies that everyone worked towards, it was also a way of life. It truly was a new breed of excellence. The crew of my ship, including myself, were all part of the project. We were raised, born and bred, to do this one task for the world. We didn’t fear it, we accepted it, and were proud to do it. We had no reservations about being synthetically created in a laboratory. We are still Human, but still something a lot different. Perhaps it was because of the engineering or perhaps it was because of the way we were trained. I think it has a lot more to do with the training. We are not unlike our other brothers and sisters in humanity. We breathe, we must eat and sleep, we feel pain, and can die. But there are a few key differences. We do not age, and we have been modified to use our body’s full capacities. For example, our brains and lungs are used to near maximum capacity. Our ability to learn, remember, recall, and think on multiple planes of thought simultaneously makes our mental intellect far superior to any human. We all have IQ’s of roughly four thousand. Yet, we lack the emotions and impulses of greed, hatred, and arrogance. This is by design; we simply can not feel those things. The radio crackled and I heard voices screaming over the PA of the ship. Gun fire and panic was all we could hear. About one minute remained on the count-down timer. I looked over at Ensign Brigs and nodded. She began to execute the accelerated launch sequence. We didn’t have time to be sitting around on that launch pad like sitting ducks. We listened in disgust as every last person we knew, that raised us, that cared for us, perished. We couldn’t do anything to help them either. Right before the final launch sequences were entered by Brigs, the commanding officer contacts the cockpit on a secure line, directly in my helmet. He was hidden and trapped, but safe, in a secret officers chamber. He ordered us to proceed with the accelerated launch sequence. I told him it was already underway. He then proceeded to tell us something else. It was this that was going to become the seed for all things to come after. I wasn’t prepared for what he was about to tell me. And looking back on the situation, I am still angry that I wasn’t told all along. He told me what the SOLAR GENSIS project was really about. He said that the very ship I was about to pilot into space was to be the seed for a new civilization. He mentioned things about the end of the world, the conquest of life, and he was almost sounding delusional for a moment, as he exclaimed in great enthusiasm the visions of the future--its too bad none of them have come true. But he also told me that it wasn’t ready. That it would cause a global instability that could destroy the entire Earth as we knew it. He was starting to panic now, the scavengers had found him. He began talking in broken sentences and I heard him ruffling through papers. Brigs had finishing the accelerated launch sequence, and stopped the original count timer, disconnected us from the HQ, and was ready for the manual launch. She asked me for confirmation. I held up my hand, to let her know we were not ready yet. She nodded and continued a review of our flight checklists. The commander finally found what he was looking for and started telling me to enter some codes into the ship computer. He said that if I did not enter the codes the ship would activate upon launch--instead of simulation mode, it would begin the SOLAR GENESIS program! I thought for a moment. Why would they have put the program into real-mode when we hadn’t done a single test in the simulation modes yet? Why would he not tell me? It didn’t make sense. But there was no time to think about any of that. I had trusted him from the very start, he was there for us for everything. I wouldn’t have believed anyone at the time if they would have told me that he would have been capable of what he tricked me into doing. So I continued. I entered the codes and the ship’s computer confirmed the manual entry. I nodded to Brigs and she ignited the launch engines. We accelerated in a fury and we were on our way into space and into a new future. Seconds later the launch facility exploded violently. The commander had initiated a destruct to protect the secrets of the program. Everyone, including himself, was vaporized in the explosion. I looked over to Brigs. She mouthed the words, “what the”, without speaking, because of the extreme noise and rumble of the ships engines. I shook my head, I didn’t know what had happened. We’re all strapped in with our faces stretched from the massive acceleration, all we could see was sky. I couldn’t move my head enough to look at any of the external cameras because of the G forces. Brigs, myself, and the other crew members, didn’t really know what had just happened to the facility at the time. We all thought it was just an engine fluke, turbulence, or just part of the launch. We were all devastated to find out what had happened later. We reached orbit and the ship’s systems began to take over. I looked over to Brigs, as if she had done something. She raised her hands off the controls to show she hadn’t. I started entering commands to halt the sequences but the computer seemed to have its own agenda. Then it hit me. I realized that it was activating the program in real-mode! The commander had actually tricked me into entering the codes to activate the program, not disable it. First of all, being as intelligent as we are, one would think of how stupid that was to be so easily deceived. But the commander has been like a father to us. He had never done wrong to us. But I guess we were just part of the program, tools at their disposal--it’s a good thing we can’t hate. The ship activated and began to give a low hum. The other crew members came flying into the cockpit and forward area. We had a total of thirty on board, twelve men and eighteen women, that’s including Brigs and myself. The crew had all come to report that their stations were going active and that they weren’t able to abort. It was then that I realized that the internal intercom system had been knocked out by the explosion from the facility. I quickly told everyone to get back to their stations and to proceed as if it were a simulation. We realized it was for real, but if we were going to do it, we had to do it correctly, or risk being destroyed by the immense power of the equipment. All cameras and viewers came online and we had all angle aspect shots of the Earth. We had tapped into the satellite network that had been set up. We had 3D slices of the Earth, contour maps of the surface, temperature fields, weather data, and everything else. The ship, as I said before, was a modern marvel even by today’s standards. It had been dubbed “Alpha-Pegasus”. It was a sophisticated life support system, designed to sustain life indefinitely. In short, it had the ability to create matter from energy and visa versa. It also had the ability to reshape itself or any matter, within reason, to create new structures. Even complex machines like ships and weapons. It could harvest the raw resources in unlimited abundance from space. The Sun’s energies, in all forms: electromagnetic, infrared, and photoelectric, could all be harnessed. This would allow the ship to literally be a new starting point for civilization. It also had a computer database capable of storing the blueprint for every species on Earth ten times over. Including all compounds, chemical synthesis formulas, atomic structures, and more. Its computer systems were all based on quantum computer science, in addition, it was entirely solid state. No moving parts whatsoever. Memory storage was measured in septillions of bytes (yottabytes). That day, we were supposed to be testing the ship’s maneuvering systems, communications systems, and extended deep space communications arrays. At that point I was thinking I should have never wished for those boring procedure tests to go away. The ship’s high-gain energy collectors began to deploy. We entered our simulation data and proceeded as usual. If we had entered any information in error, the system would have ripped itself apart--including us. After a twenty minute power-up phase it blasted a high particle stream to the initiator satellite. It relayed the stream around the other satellites to form a ring that encircled the Earth. It was just like in the simulations. Only we didn’t know exactly what was going to happen after this part. We had never really taken it past this point because of internal problems. The general idea is that we were supposed to be using this system to repair the atmosphere’s multiple levels. If I would have known what it was about to do I would have sabotaged the ship right then and there. But I was curious to see what was about to happen. After all, I had prepared thirty years for this and so had Brigs. The beams suddenly directed towards the Earth and began coating the atmosphere. At this point I looked down at the computer system more closely. The system had gone into a new program operation. It was entirely automatic from this point on and any inputs were no longer considered from the crew as parameters of execution. The Earth’s atmosphere began to ionize, and the energy stream created a blanket that began blocking all energy from the sun. We all watched in horror. We couldn’t believe what was happening. Again, the crew game bolting up to the cockpit. Brigs and I unbuckled and met them halfway to the galley. I explained to them everything that had happened. I told them about the commander and that we had no choice, that it was beyond our control at this point. Considering we had no choice, the others didn’t handle it quite so well. We were the only synthetics on board. The rest of the twenty eight people were human. More than half of the crew were losing control. To prevent any possible mutiny from occurring I redirected our attention back on the matter at hand to see if there was anything we could do to stop it. Everyone agreed that it was the best course of action. We couldn’t have been more wrong. I ordered everyone to split up and began accessing and hacking various parts of the ship. It was an extremely robust design and I knew that our efforts were in vain. We could not even hope to statistically crack the ships computer core, even from within. I was also unaware of something else. An alarm sounded as one of the science officers breached a core panel. Apparently this ship had a lot more to it than I had been briefed on. Small doors opened above us and above the corridors down every hall we could see. Small geodesic objects dropped from the ports and began flying around. Everyone near the core was shot with what we found out later to be tranquilizers. Brigs and I froze, hoping to pose as little or no threat. The sentry flew past us in a strange darting search pattern. We had passed out emergency hand-held radios before we had left from the galley. I whispered over my radio to my most trusted science officer, whom I had already sent into the computer core room. I received no answer. I told the rest of the crew to abort their mission and return back to the galley. I also instructed the others closest to the core to find out what had happened to the rest of the crew. I told them the sentries posed no threat if they were not harming the ship. The alarm went silent after about five minutes, but the emergency lights were still flashing. We met back in the galley. The crew was growing restless. We looked over to the view screens and saw that the Earth had a black, dull, metallic like coating over it and we could barely see the clouds or the surface of the Earth. We really had no choice but to just watch and figure out exactly what was happening. We found later that the energy stream was ionizing the Earth’s atmosphere. It was irradiating the entire planet, turning it into a giant microwave of sorts. We had equipment that scanned for life. It could give an accurate count of human lives within five percent. We activated it and were astonished to see the how rapidly the numbers were falling. Two of the crew members completely lost it at that point. We had to restrain them and then detain them in the holding chambers below decks. The rest of the crew was in shock and looking at Brigs and I for answers. I had none other than what I had told them about the commanding officer’s plots. It was rather sickening that we had been used. But why would he have needed us? Why would he have sent us into space? This ship could damn near pilot itself. The answers were coming sooner than I had thought. The energy stream stopped. The Earth’s atmosphere began to return to normal but the death toll continued to rise. In just an hour we had witnessed nearly a quarter of the Earth’s population just vanish. Most animal species had been extinct for a while, except for insects. So we were not really concerned at the time with anything but the human lives. But this problem was a global killer. It was literally wiping the entire planet of all forms of life. Suddenly and without warning, the ship came about one eight zero and began an extreme burn. We were all knocked off our feet. The acceleration was so intense that we were all pushed against the rear bulkhead of the galley and held there from what must have been at least 4 G’s of acceleration--that’s four times the gravity at the surface of the Earth. It finally stopped accelerating and we were able to get up. I ordered everyone to their stations and to buckle in. The ship began to break off its outer hull. The ship gave another and opposite burn to slow our velocity. Again we were slammed into our chairs for the duration of the blast. When all deceleration stopped the ship released four smaller vehicles. We watched as these vehicles began materializing a new structure right on front of our eyes. The speed at which they assembled this new structure was amazing. It began attaching the components to the ship and arranging them. It added two columns, one of the top of the ship, one on the bottom, and two massive shafts to the port and starboard of the ship. They then turned away and shot off into space. We tracked them moving at incredible speed. They had accelerated to one fourth of the speed of light and were headed towards the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. We used the high-resolution optics to watch them as they slowed their approach. They shot large green bands of energy into the asteroids. The asteroids caught in the beam were fragmented and ripped apart as streams of dust and chunks of rock began floating back towards the drones. They were harvesting them for raw materials. This was unbelievable! We had never seen this part of the program design and were marveled--but also very scared. Meanwhile we received an alert from the main computer. The PA system had been repaired… automatically. Apparently the computer had released nanobots to repair itself. Then from behind me I hear the commanding officers voice. Brigs and I turned around so fast we almost broke our own necks. And there he was in full uniform in the center of the doorway. He had been rematerialized by some of the other crew members. It was their plan all along. The commander had deceived everyone on the GENESIS PROJECT. He had even deceived everyone at the launch and research facilities. He knew the potential of the Alpha-Pegasus and the implications it would have on the rest of humanity. We were initially shocked but not surprised to see him. He and the other crew members had also released the detainees from the holding area. He spoke softly and calmly and called us all into the galley. He began indoctrinating us on his magnificent future. All Brigs and I could think was that he was a murderer. The epitome of human corruption. History repeats itself and it has always been true that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”, written by Lord Acton, in 1887. He talked over the loud thumps and construction of the drones on the hull. He explained that a massive space station was being formed. To hold the new civilization of human kind. A civilization that he had tailed to be “greater than ever before”. Even greater than Brigs and I were, in his eyes. I had already formulated a plan of action. I had calculated who on the crew would be loyal to me and who would probably not be. Brigs was definitely on my side and so was my 1st science officer, John. There were a few other crew members but not many, a few technicians and auxiliary pilots. The commander concluded his disenchanting discourse with a notice that he had “improved” himself and all the other humans onboard with an injection prior to our 1st flight. He had administered genetic alterations unknowingly to all of the humans. We were skipped; we had already had the modifications and then some, from birth. They were given the “gift of eternal life”, as he put it. The man was obviously insane and quite the genius by human standards. We were all ordered to return to our quarters for a prompt nights rest to begin “work” in the morning. We had all trained on the Alpha-Pegasus Epsilon time, or, ship time, and it was the equivalent of about three in the morning. Of course Brigs, John, and I didn’t go to our quarters. We met in secret and I discussed my plans with them. They were already hoping I had come up with a plan of action. We quickly discussed who else we thought would be loyal. It was risky, but we had no other option. We had to do something. John and Brigs informed me that at least two other people were definitely loyal and would go with my plan. I told John and Brigs to tell the others while I went back to my quarters to meditate and rest. The morning came quickly. I didn’t actually sleep, but went into a deep meditation to work out all the details of my plan. We weren’t supposed to hurt anyone, we were supposed to just detain them. But I couldn’t have meditated enough, planned enough, or predicted what was going to be the start of a long and cold civil war. Brigs, John, and four other crew members met with me in the weapons area of the ship. The moment we removed the stun guns and a few rifles from the wall an alarm sounded. Well, our element of surprise was now gone. I had anticipated this and we immediately split up into two groups. Brigs went with the other crew members and John went with me. The objective for John and I was to capture the commander. The objective for Brigs’ group was to detain the other crew members. I had given the order to use any force necessary, but only equal force. We were met with little opposition as everyone was still sleeping when the alarm went off. We made it to the commanding officers chambers but, no surprise, he wasn’t there. We immediately proceeded to the nearest com panel and attempted to locate him. Brigs and her team, moving fast towards the crews quarters were met by the sentinels. The two crew with rifles gunned the sentinels down. There was no time now, they had no element of surprise, if this was to be successful it had to be a blitz. They breached the first crew chambers and right as they blew the door down they were caught off-guard by some of the other crew approaching down the opposite hallway. They were shot at with live ammunition! They weren’t even using stun guns. They were trying to kill them. They bolted into the room they just breached. The blast they made had knocked out the four crew members that had been trying to get ready in the panic. They formed a tight formation and Brigs ran up to the door and began taking peek shots out of the doorway. Being a crack shot, she easily picked off two of the other crew members. They were violently knocked unconscious by the energy blast. Even with the stun gun she was more effective than any human with a standard weapon. She did not hesitate to use equal force back to them, but it was never her intention to kill them. Unfortunately her shots were fatal; we couldn’t get to them to revive the shock to their nervous systems--there just wasn’t time. She didn’t want us all getting killed and it was obvious that’s what they were trying to do. She also knew that if we were captured there would be no negotiating and we would have all been executed. John and I had located the commander and were already moving to his location. He had been last recorded by the computer to be in the launch bay. We reached the bay and met up with Brigs and her group. They were laying heavy firing down on a ship that was powering up. There were no additional ships on the Alpha-Pegasus when we had taken off. The drones had constructed it over the night. There was a tremendous blast and we were all knocked away like autumn leaves. The commander, his crew, and the ship flew away in a violent rush of heat and piercing light. The plasma exhaust from the engine spiraled through the archway next to us. With our backs against the walls and crouched into a huddle we suffered only minor burns. Their ship passed through the energy membrane with a subtle buzzing sound and they were off. They fired a volley of shots towards the rear underside of the ship. We were shaken to our knees by the shockwave of the impact. It was a crippling blow; they had disabled the engines sub-system of the ship. The ship fired an automatic defense in retaliation. The Alpha’s pulse lasers just about carved their getaway tug into pieces. They quickly accelerated, broke off their attack, and escaped. We gathered ourselves and secured the rest of the ship. It was then we realized they had not just taken themselves. They had depleted the memory banks of the computer’s genetic database. Every single species was erased. The Alpha-Pegasus was a “Noah’s Ark” of sorts. It had a listing of all the species on Earth. Which were being wiped out every second that went by. They also made off with a lot of equipment, records of weapons, and other information. However, there was one bright side. The commander didn’t have time to delete the core memory areas. They contained the weapons, ship, structures, metals, chemicals, and all sorts of information needed for the drones to perform construction. Then a grim expression drew upon my face as I saw that he had stolen a replicator. It was a small one, the smallest one onboard. Mainly used for food and small tool creation. But given time, it could be used to make a drone, which then could make anything he wanted. That was a scary thought--and rightly so, because it would prove to be the very thing he needed to start the war. Part of the commanders plot was to return to Earth after it had been “cleansed” and recreate the world as he saw fit. His followers also liked the idea as they were promised high power, wealth, and anything they wanted in this supposed “Shangri-La” he was to create. We didn’t believe his plan for a minute and knew it was just a ploy. We knew if he did make it back to Earth that it would be even more damaging than what he had already done. And it was then I realized that this war was going to be all about Earth and the control of all the planets. We had to protect her and we had to make sure he never got control of the system. Because that is exactly what he was going to do. The other planets are not as easily terra-formed as Earth. Earth was to be a strategic flagship that would ever be his continual goal to conquer. We could never allow that to happen. To mark that day, I re-designated our ship as the Exile. That was two hundred years ago. And after the drones had finished the Exile, our home was a massive space station just as the commander had said. It was capable of being a home to over ten thousand people. As for the Earth, it was just a gray blob, lifeless, scarred, and would take billions of years to recover from a single moment of malevolent greed and lust for power. I formed the United Earth Defense, or UED, as we call it, to protect the Earth and the Exile. We had not heard from the commander or his followers, except for sporadic ghost contacts on the fringes of our sensors, until about eight years ago. We have designated his force as the RF or the Resistance Force. They are hostile and we are at civil war with our own human brothers and sisters. They have never made any initiative to contact us except to destroy our drones, harvesters, and transports. We now have a crew of about one hundred twelve. Combined with traditional child birth and cloning, we have created a population on the Exile. Brigs is second in command and John is our lead security officer. The other crew members that came with us are the scholars and teachers of our university. Along with traditional teaching methods and enhanced learning arrays we have brought our people to a level of understanding that would have taken far longer. We are peaceful and our species is a blend of human and the synthetic-human, like me and Brigs. We all agreed it was the fairest option, since our initial crew was mixed. We fight every day, they seem to be an equal match to us. We both share the same original equipment so we have all the same weapons, ships, and so forth. We control four of the nine planets: Earth, Mercury, Mars, and Venus. We also heavily patrol the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is a source of raw materials and we are constantly on the lookout for enemy RF drones and harvesters. We think they have found an alternate source. But by far, to our calculations, this is the most abundant supply. So its only a matter of time before we engage in a serious conflict over that area. The belt also blocks a lot of signals, so we probably have missed a lot of their sorties. We perform training in the belt often, as it is excellent practice for our pilots. It is our mission and vow to protect the Earth, advance our species by means that are friendly to the universe, and without destroying other life forms. We look down upon the killing of any other species, even at war. We are above such violent and primitive acts. Still there are casualties, as a result of war, they are unavoidable. We train our pilots and hone our weapons to disable ships. For that reason we never allow combat unless using full protective gear and equipment. The RF seems to not have the same outlook and will happily kill even a disabled UED pilot. It is a sickening situation. So we have extended our directives and the UED’s number one mission right now is to hunt down the RF and gain control of the solar system to bring peace. I would hate to have an alien first contact see us fighting amongst ourselves. It could prove to be disastrous to the future of us all. We can never allow the RF to reach Earth. To think this war all started… this whole new way of life… because of the final Earth’s Assault the RF initiated and still continues to this day.
wow... lol damn u got nothing to do lol, or you just copy/paste it? lol :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: :blink:
woh i need a story like that maybe ill post a 500 pg novel in a forum lol that would be like 800000 Credits :blink:
dude thats pretty deep i think war is stupid why waste life killin eachother they could settle it out with a Yangitapple(known as a gang fight)jk
