An Introduction to the Modern World

The beginning of the modern age is often said to have been the year 2031.

This may seem an odd choice, for in 2031 things were much as they had been in the previous century. Man was still earth dwelling, the western powers still had control, well mostly, and space was really no closer to the average man than it had ever been. But one very significant event occurred in this year, though it was not recognized as such by those living then.

A German scientist, a quantum physicist of simple background and profound talent, developed a new theory. Using the latest in astronomical data and mathematics Dr. Herbert Engel posited his “continuum”. His work suggested that the framework of space and time and even the conceptual groundwork of things like human thought and language required the existence of something. Qualifying this something however proved extremely difficult and Herbert died trying to accomplish it.

From one angle, it was a place, at least in a dimensional sense. In another, it was a system or a perspective on the universe. In still another it was an energy form or even a state of consciousness. The great minds of the day looked on mostly in confusion. Herbert was celebrated in some small circles of the elite, but even in these cases his praise was gained more from his mathematical gymnastics than any kind of understanding or recognition of what Dr. Engel had actually found. Engel died and soon after his ideas were mostly forgotten, lost to the cyclopean halls of the Ivory Tower. It would be more than 60 years before his theory was shed in a more accurate light.
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The mid 21^st century saw gradual and yet sweeping changes on Earth. The great Asian powers of China and India continued to wax on the fuel of their human potential while the former giant of the USA slowly slumped deeper and deeper into decline. The EU managed to keep in close step with the Asian juggernauts and some other previously less than significant regions like much of Africa showed their first real signs of advancement and stabilization.

More significant than even these shifts however were the seeds of what would become the mega–corporations of the future. Through the forces of globalization and increasingly complex mergers and hierarchies of subsidiary and parent companies the lines between “citizenship” and “employment” began to blur. India was the first real obvious example of this. By 2057, 63% of the population of India was in some way employed by the Advedhya Corporation. In the coming years some of these connections would prove stronger than national identity.

In 2063, another great revolution in society became clear. Though not the only organization responsible for this movement, a small research endeavor known as the Canaan Foundation can be said to be the pioneer. It began as a research endowment established by several wealthy German Zionist Jews in Israel in the 2040s. Its mission was to push the bounds of biotechnology and genetics to new lengths. It did just that. Under its guidance genetic engineering technology advanced in leaps and bounds. By 2049 the ability to create enhancement engineered humans and even crude Moreaus, humans with a certain amount of animal DNA grafted to their genetic structure, was publicly known. The next decade saw a great push by not just the Canaan Foundation but all nations to remain as close to the top of this extremely potent scientific revolution.

This of course caused an increasing amount of social debate as to the way such creations were to be regarded in society. Were they free beings? Were they entitled to rights similar or equal to those of humans? The culmination of this was the signing of the Genjid Emancipation Agreement in 2063, an endeavor of the UN that gave all mutants certain human rights, all be them basic. However no one, not even the executives in the multitude of firms creating these creatures for sometimes nothing more than pure experimental fancy, realized just how many Genjids there had been. Hundreds of thousands of franks and Moreaus were freed in the matter of a few years. Suddenly the planet found itself flooded with a new social class and people didn’t quite know how to handle them. They could not be owned as slaves, but they still were denied main rights considered basically human. The result was a massive group of untouchables, a shunned demographic that, as with all such things, did as much to create crime and unrest as anything else as the genjids chaffed under the injustice they were forced to endure.

The 2070s are a time to be forever remembered, particularly the date May 28^th, 2074. As has been mentioned, the United States had waned ever since the blight of the second president Bush in the early 21^st century. The country just never seemed to be able to get back onto its feet after the immense cost of the War on Terror. It lagged further and further behind the great economic momentum of China, India, and the EU. In a last ditch effort to save its precious spot on the top of the heap, the powers that be in American turned to weapons development to reestablish its military power hold as they had in the days of exclusive nuclear weapons.

The technology of choice was supersonics and seismic technology. By early 2074 their great new weapon of mass destruction had been built, and by May it was ready for testing on Luna. The test was a total disaster. The weapon proved effective, almost too much so, and a large portion of the moon corresponding to 17% of its total mass was split off and shattered into millions of pieces ranging from the size of toaster ovens to the size of small cities. These fragments began raining down on earth. The first ones came in a matter of hours and the bigger ones came later. In addition to this extreme falling damage, huge tidal waves and weather anomalies were caused by the gravitational distortion of the new moon. The earth was devastated by this assault and man had to no choice but to flee.

This event, sometimes called The Exodus, was a mad scramble to get off the planet as quickly as possible. Up until this point space technology had remained a kind of scientific play thing with few enough short term gains to be pursued with any great fervor but more practical minds. Really only two countries had established colonies away from earth, The United States had a large lunar colony, though most of it was lost in the disaster, and China The people of earth piled on to all the ships capable of carrying large numbers of people. These were unfortunately painfully few. Only about 1 billion of the world’s roughly 10 billion people made it off at first. Of the 9 billion remaining, about 70% died from the falling debris or the starvation and famine that followed. Many of the space vessels returned to pick up much of the remaining 30%, but for many others it was too late. Those still left behind retreated underground or found other means of surviving. Today, earth is considered backwater and rough, though the lunar storms of falling stones are much rarer now and earth based societies continue to improve. had built many different colony sites on Mars.

The movement away from Earth greatly accelerated the corporatization trend. As the spacecraft of the various nations filled up people turned to vehicles owned by private companies. In many cases private owners had many more resources in this area due to the freedom they had experienced with their funds. It was at this time that the true Canaan Foundation, Nippon, and the Indus Corporation were born, just to name a few. In the early years most people settled on Mars, where there were already established bases and proven technology. China further profited from this lucrative planetary colonization business. China, which was pretty much already the head dog in the nations game, suddenly became clearly defined as the leader of mankind in light of this new tragedy. As such, there was a great shift in the countries foreign policy as it began to look at itself as the protecting father of mankind. It was generous with its technology and space on Mars.

After Mars was well established, people began slowly creeping towards further destinations in search of opportunity. Nations sought territory that would be their own and no one else’s. Technology was developed for better more efficient colonization and China It would be a few years until colonies on places like Europa, Ganymede, or even Venus were established, but the seeds had been sown. fell behind a bit as the undisputed master of space technology.

Two great advances remain that will help illuminate the modern world. They are fairly unrelated, but they happened within only two years of each other and so they will be mentioned together. Both center on the Canaan Foundation to some degree.

In the decade before the 22^nd century, Canaan made a great leap forward in technology, one that has come to largely define the organization. A Dr. Cohen at Canaan This dormant genetic “node” has no effect but when the subject is irradiated with a new kind of energy wave also discovered by Canaan, know as ארג (ARG) waves, the subject experiences a drastic restructuring of his genetic code with powerful wide ranging effects.

Later these men and woman would be called mutants. Amongst a very small number of mutants, some individuals would possess a kind of psychic ability. Many mutants were made for various purposes, but one of the first would also be perhaps the most famous. His name is forgotten, but he was called Adam by many, or ADM in Hebrew.

On record Adam was created by Dr. Cohen, his last great master piece before his death. Adam was a mutant, but it is said he was nearly perfect in the extent of his abilities. In particular he was a powerful psychic, said to have mastery of all psychic phenomena now recorded to have appeared in other mutants. Adam’s life is shrouded in myth and legend, and many treat him with a kind of fantastic whimsy. Indeed, there are whole religious movements built up around Adam. As such, the real details are lost, but all kinds of miracle are attributed to him.

One mystery however is the question of what happened to Adam. He just kind of disappeared one day. Scientists claim he finally died as his body gave out under the immense pressures of his talents. More religiously minded people however think he communed finally with God or some spiritual force. In the end it is one big mystery. developed a new process whereby a new special kind of synthetic genetic material is spliced into that of a man.

The second great advance came shortly after the disappearance of Adam at Canaan. A scientist of some skill at the Foundation, Dr. George Engel, grandson of Herbert Engel, made a discovery. Using a cousin technology to the same ARG waves used in mutation creation, Dr. Engel was able to push beyond the bounds of conventional time and space. In the beginning this “place” Dr. Engel had opened a gate to was called hyper space, but after only a couple of years Dr. Engel was able to prove that it was in fact his grandfather’s “continuum”.

So it was that the Engel Continuum was finally recognized for at least a fraction of its significance. However, much like his grandfather George had difficulty explaining what exactly he had found. But, beyond his grandfather’s work, with modern technology and energy sources he was able to interact with the continuum on a much more intimate level. Of particular importance, a new element that does not occur on earth had been found. Aetherium was a new metal, super dense and heat resistant that had some base line ARG immersions. When used with Dr. Engel’s specially designed wave emitter, great gates were able to be built. These gates allowed a vessel to travel through space and time almost instantly without experiencing any temporal dilation. In a sense, the traveling craft would “skip” off the continuum like a stone on water, and since 4 dimensional orientations had no existence in continuum, the craft could go anywhere as long as it had an exit gate. Also, this technology would revolutionize the Net.

As mentioned earlier, the continuum was in some ways a system, but a system of massive near infinite potential. As such, over a few years much of the internet moved onto Engel Servers, huge mini gates that allow a computer to access the raw substance of the continuum and use it as “space” in a cyber-spatial sense. The old method of physical storage units was quickly abandoned.

With the creation of this new gate technology, some kind of disagreement occurred within the ranks of the Canaan Foundation. The result was that Dr. Engel and many other scientists, most of them German, broke away from Canaan and formed their own soon to be mega-corporation; The Engel Corporation. In the next decade many people who were formerly citizens of Canaan immigrated to Engel. Engel built gates and servers all over the solar system and soared high on the wings of its Engel Continuum monopoly. It established its own home worlds on the distant moons of Uranus.

- First conceived and written by Nick G.