A Brief History of Mankind

6,000 years is long enough for anyone to forget.

It's definitely enough time for things to happen which make my story that much more difficult to tell.  Where do I begin?  The dawn of time seems a little too far back, but starting five years ago seems too soon to the present.  The truth is, it all began somewhere between the two points in the history of mankind....and I don't mean on this planet.

Tristan told me to get to bed before 4am this time, so I will try to paint for you a brief timeline of events in human history so I can crawl under the covers long enough to drive him to work without crashing.

Imagine this.....

North Korea has snapped.  They mean war, and the world's defenses are going up.  Russian secrets are being exposed, and we discover concentration camps did not end with the Holocaust.  Europe is at ends with itself, Africa is just, well, getting worse, and South America is scrambling in this arm's race.  And as the world turns to the United States of America, the people of this great and powerful nation have successfully disintegrated the infrastructure through greed.  With no agreed-upon central government, chaos ensues.

While tension fills the atmosphere, a few scientists and astronomers launch their hidden arsenal of spaceships capable of carrying hundreds if not thousands of people into space, and after successful tests and further research, it is determined that should nuclear war actually occur, we would be able to maintain a sufficient number of people to repopulate and colonize surrounding planets and moons.  Since, by the way, we have been able to terraform Mars, Titan, and some parts of the Milky Way we didn't know had planets with oxygen.

No one knows who pushed the first button, because once the nuclear rocket launched, no one cared.  It was do or die.  Those who knew of the space ships scrambled to escape the radiation that has evaporated Paris, Ankara, St. Petersburg, most of Kenya and half of the western USA.  The stupid ones in governments try to outblast each other.  The smart ones do everything they can to preserve our world in the few minutes we have before the planet dies.

Imagine watching the earth turn to dust from the safety of space.  You are safe, you are on one of the ships, you are with your people and most of your family.  In a few weeks, maybe months, you will begin rebuilding civilization on Mars.  It is the closest planet to Earth, has ice caps that can be used for water and irrigation, and rumors are buzzing that an area unknown at the turn of the 21st century is practically a Garden of Eden.  But in the time that it takes to get there, you gaze out a window and watch your beloved planet, your home, turn into a swirling marble of red dirt.  No one will be able to go back for centuries, and even when the radiation fades, without plants or any surviving ecosystems, the oxygen will be depleted.  An entire planet consumed by greed for "the bigger stick".

There are new rules on the new planet.  Technology is at a minimum, limited to shuttles between ground and space stations.  Outside the landing perimeters, you have to start from scratch.  This means growing your own trees so you can build your own homes.  Those of you who settle in the rather expansive oasis, you must learn to adapt to all new ecosystems.  This world is filled with new dangers, new food chains, new means of communication.  Life fills this planet beyond anything your minds ever imagined.  Your children are born with traits you do not possess, like the ability to smell certain plants.  Your grandchildren are becoming a part of a new governance, one set by morals and ethics and spirituality, everything that the people of Earth lost before the Great Dust.  Your new leaders determine that by a strong faith in God, a strong sense of morals, we can avoid ever repeating the great tragedy that killed billions of humans and almost every last living thing.

But 6,000 years is long enough for anyone to forget.