Newtonian Aurora Game:
The "trans-Newtonian" materials in the game are, if still present, waved away as being merely a gameplay abstraction of the real materials that might fill the same roles.
Close study of the Sun in the early 2000s revealed that within a very short time span, a large instability in the solar magnetic field would occur. It would trigger huge magnetic fluxes throughout the inner solar system, including massive CME events. In effect modern technology would become more or less impossible to use, and unlike a normal storm, this behavior was expected to last centuries. It was predicted to set back human civilization by possibly thousands of years, and at least hundreds, even after the storm died down.
With mere decades of warning before whatever cataclysm might occur, the only hope for the preservation of modern society was to leave the solar system and establish a colony in the environs of some other star. While fundamentally an attempt to ensure that even should earth be destroyed, humanity would go on, it is publicly treated as an effort to preserve advanced technology so that after the storms, the colonists could return and bootstrap earths technology.
After searching nearby stars with advanced telescope arrays, a relatively nearby trinary star system was found to contain a large number of planets, including several that seemed very promising for colonization. While many systems were closer, the great number of potentially habitable worlds meant that even if scans were wrong, at least one planet would most likely be close enough. It was 20 LY away; with the simple ion drives that had been designed at the time, it was possible to create flight plans with an average velocity of 5% the speed of light, getting there in 400 years.
Many nations then begin to work together on colony ships to take the best and brightest engineers and scientists to this trinary system. The United States and the European Union, with various other democratic powers such as Japan, Canada, and others, form the largest group, the International Colonial Organization. A second group was (highly fractiously) lead by a joint China/Russia space program, with a number of client states as a part of that, called the Asian Spaceflight Group. A few other countries and organizations also worked on colony vessels and research, notably an organization dubbed the Phoenix Foundation, a corporate group that generated funds by offering one guaranteed ticket for stockholders with more than 100,000 shares.
The crude colony ships designed by the various organizations, while varying in small technical detail, were generally quite similar. Rather than risk catastrophic failure of one vessel, they were designed to be redundant, allowing any number of failures during flight to only result in partial losses. These vessels each carried 10,000 colonists in stasis and a quantity of cargo such as life support-gear, industrial goods, and medical supplies. Hundreds of ships were launched; 224 by the ICO, 197 by the ASG, and finally 62 colony ships produced and launched by independent groups, the majority of those operated by Phoenix.
Launched between 2033-2046, the vessels would ultimately arrive in the mid-2190s. Until then, they constantly accelerated with their ion drives to the distant new home, watching Sol and monitoring earth for whatever final communications it might send before being washed out by solar radio emissions.
Meanwhile on earth, mere years remained before solar activity began to drastically increase. While some further attempts to escape were undertaken, these were in vain, as the ships would be utterly unable to leave the inner solar system before being exposed to huge magnetic fluxes. Anyway, the world economy was exhausted by the massive expenditures on the vessels. That, combined with entirely rational apocalyptic fear, drove a steep economic decline on earth. European governments faced public upheaval in response to new austerity measures, and even in China economic hardships plagued the recently-uplifted middle class. As an indicator of the chaos, gold reached peaks of over a ten million dollars a gram before trade for it became virtually unheard of. The last few years of modern civilization on earth were highly stressed from internal conflicts and territorial wars.
Across the planet, large cities saw population implosions as people fled to rural areas. Settlements that depended on infrastructure to remain comfortable were entirely abandoned besides those too stubborn or destitute to move. Months before the solar storms began, unrest and rebellion was common as local regions fought to prepare for the disaster by making regions more self-sufficient.
The United States gradually separated as the states focused inwardly. Great Britain suffered severe internal violence following the launch of the final missions; it ultimately had to crack down harder and harder on the local forces, becoming more authoritarian as time passed. Europe itself saw further unrest and conflict and the eventual breakup of the European Union as the most harshly effected countries refused to accept austerity measures. Asia saw Russia collapse into wave of civil unrest, coups, and crackdowns. China suffered widespread demands for greater standards of living and a growth of its democratic movements. It struggled to maintain control of the country for most of the decade.
India had not suffered the economic exhaustion so badly, though the worldwide economic collapse by no means spared it. It, like many other nations, spent what resources remained on making local areas self-sufficient; the UN also put much effort into this humanitarian effort in many smaller countries where it was possible to do so.
At this point, history becomes unclear. In July, 2055 a massive CME eruption rocked the sun, blasting high energy particles throughout the system. The colony ships, now in the outer solar system, were not significantly effected, but following that event no radio broadcasts from earth could be detected. Judging from the magnitude of the blast, every satellite must have been disabled, and even well-sheltered underground bases might have been harmed. Any national power grids would have been annihilated, with any part of the infrastructure from generators to neighborhood transformers virtually melting. While earlier events were recorded in broadcasts to the colony ships, what follows is only available from earth side paper records.
Many large governments collapsed overnight; indeed, most governments collapsed in the first few years. One of the largest remaining organizations on the planet was an oil distribution company that worked with the remnants of the US federal government to ship oil from the national reserve. Within the decade, the earth was dominated by nation-states.
The UN had de-facto disbanded following the breakdown of long-distance communication. However, various aid organizations gradually built a support network. Over the next few centuries, this tenuous aid group helped the new, isolated nations and nation-states rebuild following the chaos of the collapse, in return for a modest diplomatic alliance and support. While not directly related to the UN, the new Solar Event Aid Organization (OSA, a non-English acronym) was often associated with the older group.
Earth ground along in primitive conditions for many years, gradually rebuilding localized industries running purely off of non-electrical labor. As such, it struck a ceiling of information processing and local energy sources; they had the knowledge, written down, on how to make computer chips, but not the infrastructure. What's more, without an ability to communicate effectively, few large organizations existed. OSA would eventually find that it was the largest remaining power group on earth, but only marginally. It would take decades for it to consolidate that power, and even then it would not be able to take large scale action until fast planetary communication could be established.
2177: Five different nations celebrated it as the quadricentennial. At this point, the long-forgotten colonists were considered at best as lost in space and at worst as partially to blame for the chaos and economic devastation of the early storm period. Humanity on earth was adjusting to a new kind of civilization- one where electricity can barely be tamed.
In 2444, the first of the colony ships entered orbit of primary of the new star system, and the automatic systems awakened the crew to examine the system with the simple systems they had brought, and the data the probes had relayed. These 2040-era people had only the knowledge of history up to about 2050 in the databases compiled by the ships. Some colony leaders set out to establish a unified government for all of the new colonies. However, the ACT (Asian Colony Treaty) leaders were skeptical and concerned with being absorbed wholesale into the larger ICO, and while a few independents chose to join ICO, a large group joined the Phoenix Foundation's fleet as a way to maintain a personal identity. The remaining independent vessels gradually joined one of these three groups. Shortly after the meeting, the colony ship carrying the leader of the ICO organization suffered a sudden and catastrophic computer malfunction, ultimately leading to the deaths of all on board. While there was no real evidence of foul play, it was extremely suspicious. It was the start of an uneasy relationship between the CRCT and ICO.
The ICO fleet had a population of 2.42 million in 242 ships. The ACT fleet had 1.98 million in 198 ships. Finally, the corporate organization that emerged from the various independent and corporate groups accounted for a little over half a milion people in 64 ships, ultimately coming under the heading of the Pheonix Foundation (PHX). Note that ACT life support is more efficient than ICO and PHX systems. Also, PHX has the distinction of getting more income from workers and was able to attract skilled researchers more easily than the other two- they have an additional lead scientist.
The ACT, PHX, and ICO are now leaving the close-in orbit of the system primary that the flight plan put them in on arrival. Where they go from there is uncertain, and depends greatly on the whims and needs of the various groups.
[The game will start with the three groups of loaded colony ships orbiting the primary of a trinary start system. The primary will have a few minerally-wealthy planets and an asteroid belt, and the two stars orbiting that will have giants with habitable moons. Other than that, it will be random. There will be a large number of colony ships for each side, and these will all be dismantled for resources- after all, they will start with massive, nearly-empty fuel tanks, and it will be some time before the colonists can refine new fuel. Oh, someone might get the idea to scrap most of the ships, extract sorium from the engines, and refine a little bit of fuel from that for one or two extra vessels... Anyway, it will take a long time to build up everything, and so jump drive research won't be a priority. Eventually, however, it will be "discovered in a remarkable accident" and the colony groups might be able to go to nearby stars and eventually, earth... if and when Sol starts to calm down. Until then I'll ignore earth.]
[Oh, and since the population of the entire colonial group is less than 1% the normal 500 million population, industrial productivity may be doubled for everyone just so we don't spend a hundred years just getting to the point where everyone has two construction centers.]
Author
Topic: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games (Read 2709244 times)