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A story by Mat Poland

 

--- History ---

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Good day. I sit to write this today as troubling times may be coming.

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Let me start from the beginning. I live on the planet Nordack Nor, which is the fourth or fifth planet in the Nordack system. I say fourth or fifth because there is a twin planet, called Nordack Sou, which is almost identical to Nor and orbits in very close proximity. Our scientists say that in 242,637.4 years, the orbits will converge, the planets will collide, and all life destroyed. I’ll leave that for future generations to figure out.

 

As the orbits crossed, sometimes Sou’s orbit was within Nor’s and only the dark side was towards Nor, making it difficult to see. When the orbit of Sou was beyond Nor, it will appear as a bright star in the sky. Every few hundred years it will pass quite close to Nor and the surface elements can be seen with simple magnification.

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The presence of our twin has been crucial to our development as a race. Our earliest records show that the shadow of Sou caused great panic when it fell over Nor. Our scientists learned how the planet moved in relationship to Nor and came to understand and predict its movements, so these shadows were expected and became cause to celebrate our understanding and commitment to science.

 

The first few millennia of our existence were spent developing technology. We built machines that could traverse the planet in the air, on our oceans and on the landmasses. We built great cities, with buildings reaching into the sky. We watched Sou go by but never had interest in exploring; we were busy building a competitive society based on perceived wealth.

 

As our population continued to grow, problems occurred. Natural resources became scarcer and more difficult to acquire and process into usable material. Disagreements over these resources and who owned them became confrontational and soon, wars broke out and millions were killed in the subsequent and seemingly never-ending wars.

 

While this was happening, our population was growing beyond our ability to take care of it. With our society built upon perceived wealth, great differences developed between those of great wealth who suffered for nothing and those who had nothing, not even food or shelter. Often, the wealthy would finance wars while the poor fought them.

 

All of this caused great harm to our planet. The air and water had become fouled which then started the temperature to rise on the planet and over hundreds of years, it had become so acute that many places were uninhabitable, which caused more wars as people tried to move somewhere where they could live. Illness became prevalent and even when cures could be found, the inability of the various warring parties to find some accommodation prevented the widespread distribution. Millions more died needlessly.

 

It appeared that our race was destined for failure.

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--- Exodus ---

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The dawning of our fifth millennia coincided with a very near passage of Sou, something which had not happened in over a thousand years. When it was still some ways away, a wealthy party financed an exploration mission. The report back from Sou was quite positive. “It’s just like Nor but the air and water are clean. The temperature is noticeably cooler, and resources are plentiful and easy to recover.”

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With that, the great migration started. In the beginning, it was quite chaotic with ships being haphazardly designed and many failing in various stages of flight. As Sou drew closer, it became more organized. Massive ships were built in orbit of Nor and a fleet of ferries would take people and equipment to these ships.

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To call them a true spaceship would have been a stretch. They had no method of propulsion. Once filled, they were assisted by booster rockets who would push them towards Sou. One of the first things that they brought to Sou were booster rockets to slow the ship as it approached Sou and ferries to unload them.

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These ships could hold thousands of people in different classes. Some were traveling in luxury while others were huddling together in not very well-heated chambers. The ships were not particularly well built and would sometimes leak. They did have internal airlock doors so when a leak would occur, which generally only happened where those of more modest means occupied, the number of killed would be limited to a few dozen.

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As Sou grew closer, the volume of traffic became quite high. Much equipment that kept our planet running was being removed, along with the workers that knew how it worked. Every aspect of life was suffering as food was not being grown and harvested, nor could what was available be distributed to those in need.

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While this had an upside of a cessation of wars, the wealthy parties banded together to make sure they had everything they needed to live on Sou. Nothing was spared and looting to sell for export became quite prevalent. The general health on Nor suffered greatly as disease had recently spread, causing the population of a continent to cease to exist.

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While many greeted the opportunity to escape a dying planet with great anticipation, there were many on Nor who felt that Nor was their home and they would not leave. They were ridiculed by those leaving, who looked upon them as fools for staying. “Good luck with the mess!”

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As Sou moved farther and farther away, the final movements between the two planets were conducted. On the last voyage to Sou, the transport ship took the booster rockets. Once the ship was unloaded, it was propelled back to Nor with no one onboard. Without the booster rockets, there would be nothing to keep it from crashing into Nor. A rocket with modest destructive means was built and the transport was destroyed not far above the planet. The debris field is now a park.

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--- Rebuilding ---

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Once the great migration was complete and Sou, off to not be seen for a few hundred years, only 20% of the original premigration population remained. Many had left but many, many more had died during the migration, due to starvation, disease and lack of anything resembling a functioning society.

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In time, people would gather to work to rebuild. It was much easier to take care of a more modest population. The concept of wealth was eliminated, and all efforts and production of society were equally distributed to provide for the health and well-being of the entire society.

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Our society had been built on science although in the last few hundred years, we seem to have moved away from that. The reasons for our overpopulation and pollution were well documented, but we ignored the science. Now was the time to hand things back to science.

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One of the first things that our scientists did was develop a method for tapping into the unlimited energy available from the molten core of our planet. Using this energy vast caverns were constructed and filled with machines that we would need to rebuild our planet.

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A global underground transportation system was then built so people and products could be moved quickly around the planet without harming our environment. This initiated a change in societal structure.

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There would be no cities; every few miles along the transit system, villages would be built with a small population. Each village contributed to society. I live in one such village and I am tasked with monitoring a maintenance facility for the transport system. The facility is approximately a half mile literally under my feet as I sit at my desk. All maintenance is done by robots, but I check reports to see when the robots need to be maintained.

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Once this was complete, a major project was undertaken to clean our environment. Huge machines were constructed which purify the air while others cleaned the water. This took almost five hundred years but when it was done, our planet was a very livable place. The machines were disassembled, and their parts repurposed although one was left in place and a park built around it.

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We no longer used machines that would foul our water or our air. Beyond the transport system, there was little need for other forms of transportation. While roads connected our villages, they were only for use for recreation and moving people or products to and from the transport stations.

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From all outwards appearances, we were an agrarian race with little to no technology. The agrarian part was true, but our technology was well hidden.

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I think it’s a great time to be alive. I have a small family, and my partner works as a teacher. Our village, like most, has a common area where the members of the community can gather for various occasions, usually involving lots of food and some form of entertainment. One of the highlights was when someone would bring a food product native to some other part of the planet as they had recently been there.

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And now, after more than a thousand years, Sou was coming by for another close pass. When it was still distant, we used long range sensors to find out what was going on there. What we found was not good.

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It appeared that the new society on Sou had not changed since when they left. What took us almost five thousand years to do to Nor, they had done in a thousand or so. The air and water were fouled, and it appeared that they were in a constant state of war, once again fighting over resources and pride.

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The wealthy controlled the resources and power, but the overall tenor of society was very militaristic. A young child would be evaluated and be routed to whichever branch of the military they were deemed fit for, which might include toiling in the fields to harvest food.

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We could only wonder what would happen when they got closer. We had to have a plan in case they did something unexpected, like attack and who knew what kinds of weapons they might have. In our surveys, we determined that their weapons technology had not really evolved much since they left. They had just used it to make a big mess.

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We began to make preparations.

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--- The Attack ---

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Captain Jack had been a soldier since he could remember. He had moved up the ranks, having earned his first promotion at seven when he broke a boy’s neck to get it. He had built a loyal and lethal group around him. They were mercenaries of the very finest. They could be fighting beside one group today and fighting against them tomorrow, it just depended on how much they would get paid.

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Jack’s crew was the best, but they had to be, or they didn’t live long. Promotions only occurred through attrition whether by internal or external means. More than a few of Jack’s men had not survived very long if they returned from a failed mission.

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A space faring dreadnaught had been built in orbit of Sou, bristling with weapons of all types. Jack and his men had been commissioned to take the dreadnaught to Nor, go to the planet’s surface and acquire whatever technology they could find. Once that was done, they were free to destroy at will, something they were very good at.

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As the dreadnaught approached Nor, Jack and his men could observe the planet. It was lushly forested, with small villages spread across the surface. There were no cities, something that disappointed Jack. The weapons he had at his disposal could have done great damage if the population was more concentrated.

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Jack and his men boarded a shuttle for the trip to the surface. Included was his new adjutant, who Jack picked for his knowledge of information technology, which could be important to the mission. He was also well regarded for his ability to handle himself in a fight as he was the sole survivor when his previous militia was massacred.

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The entry into the atmosphere was smooth and Jack looked for a good location where technology might be found. It was very frustrating as all the villages were small, no village stood out. A village was selected and the shuttle landed in the center of the village. His men donned their gear and the landing door opened.

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Jack and his men went out into the village. What they first noticed was there were no people. In fact, there appeared to be nothing living, except the flora. They went from building to building; most were locked but they came upon one that wasn’t. Through the windows, they could see that it was full of things to eat or drink.

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Jack’s troopers entered the building and started consuming the food and drink with great enthusiasm. A mercenary diet consisted mostly of scavenged food, and this was a step up from the usual battlefield scraps. Soon, some of the men appeared to be walking somewhat unsteady and a few had fallen asleep on a bench outside. No matter; they had been fighting for a long time, they could use a break.

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Jack and the adjutant came upon a tall building, the tallest in the village, which had a sign, “The Repository of Public Knowledge.” The door was unlocked. They entered and there was a set of stairs, which they ascended, checking each floor. All the doors were locked.

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When they got to the top of the stairs, they found themselves in a large room with a single desk and some type of user interface device. The adjutant sat down, pushed a few buttons and the device became active. He could immediately see that all information was available to be viewed.

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Jack shoved the adjutant out of the way and started looking. The description of their limitless energy was explained clearly along with the transportation and communication systems. Next to the interface device was a portable storage unit which appeared to use the same technology as was common on Sou.

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He thought it odd that while it was obvious that the technology on Nor had surpassed that of Sou, they used a storage device invented over a thousand years ago. He proceeded to copy everything he could find onto a storage crystal, looked at his adjutant and declared mission accomplished.

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It took some time for Jack to gather his men as some had fallen asleep in odd places. Some could just barely walk, and they were all carrying as much food and drink as they could. Jack had to put a damper on some of their scavenging as the shuttle can only carry so much weight. This resulted in the “accidental” killing of one trooper allowing more scavenging. One would never have thought that this would be the only fatality of the war to occur on Nor.

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As the shuttle lifted off, Jack looked around at how beautiful this planet was. There was nowhere on Sou like this, as almost every part of the planet had been touched by war. Jack thought that maybe when they had conquered Nor, this might be a good place to settle down. The troopers were enjoying themselves with their ill-gotten gain and speculating on what they could sell the excess for.

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After the shuttle was back onboard the dreadnaught, Jack and the adjutant went to a user interface station to look at what data they had brought back. The intention was that once they had made sure they got what they came for, they could fire all weapons at Nor and be beyond any countermeasures, although as far they could tell, there weren’t any.

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Jack inserted the data crystal into the reader and as soon as he did, the lights went out.

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Jack looked at the screen and wrinkled his face. “I don’t understand.”

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A shot rang out, and Jack slumped over the terminal. His adjutant holstered his weapon and said, “Finally, my own command.”

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It would not last long. There was no power anywhere on the ship. Without power, life support systems started to fail. With many hardened fighters on board, chaos soon broke out as they struggled to survive. What men weren’t killed in the fighting soon expired, due to lack of breathable atmosphere.

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The dreadnaught, now completely devoid of life, sailed back towards Sou. We watched as it burned up in their atmosphere and with the vast number of weapons on board, the explosion obliterated a quarter of the northern hemisphere.

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The same weapon that rendered the dreadnaught powerless had also infected Sou on a global scale. The factories churning out war machines ground to a halt, along with the war machines. There was no functioning communication system. In time, they would figure out how to fix the problem but before that could happen, worldwide chaos broke out.

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Except for the continents in the southern hemisphere, which were primarily used for slave labor growing crops, Sou society, if you want to call it that, collapsed. Without their massive weapons of war, they fell on each other with anything they could use to kill and take whatever they could. As Sou disappeared beyond our sensors, things did not look particularly good. A planet on fire.

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On Nor, there was no celebration. We did gather to express our appreciation for the guidance of our scientists in using a ruse instead of weapons to achieve victory. The store that was looted was open a day or so later, the keeper taking the opportunity to bring in some new products.

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The trooper who was killed was buried in a common place and given every courtesy we give to our own when they pass. One problem we had was we didn’t know if there was anything special that we should do for a fallen soldier as there has not been a soldier on Nor for over a thousand years.

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--- Epilogue ---

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Greetings,

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I was looking at my ancestor’s notes and thought that the reader might appreciate what happened after the war. A thousand years have passed since then and it is largely a forgotten incident. I have been to Debris Park; it is quite peaceful.

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Sou recently made a near pass to Nor but it was when I was very young and do not remember. According to the records and what my father told me, Sou had partially recovered on its own. The industries and war that polluted their air and water were gone, so the environment was on the path to natural recovery.

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The northern hemisphere, where most of their industries and cities were, was almost completely abandoned, forests now reclaiming the towers where death was once dispensed with a wave of a hand. The southern hemisphere, which was primarily agrarian, now had a functioning society on the verge of trans-oceanic travel.

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There was some discussion that maybe we should make an effort to help. They are countless generations removed, our distant relatives. It was decided that it was not appropriate now. Perhaps in a few hundred years when Sou fills our skies again.

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I must be brief in my remarks. There is a grand ceremony going on the center of my village. Over the past few decades, we have been exploring technology which could carry a spacecraft across great distances in very short time.

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The culmination of those efforts is a ship which has been under construction at a facility in orbit. After years of work, it will leave space dock today and we are gathering to watch and celebrate. Perhaps in my lifetime, we will visit one of the stars that fill our night sky.