Joseph Shoer

The Four Colonies

• The Colonies
• The Universe

The Colonies

Escape: First Contact

When the colony was founded in early 2279 on a planet named Haven, mission planners sited the first settlement within several dozen kilometers of a geologic anomaly located by surveyors. Reconnaissance orbiter images showed a tantalizing glimpse of ancient ruins - a vague impression resoundingly confirmed when advance parties landed. In 2288, the new citizens of Scaep located alien ships and electromagnetic transmissions surrounding the closest human-habitable planet to the sun, Vermillion.

This first human contact with extrasolar alien life was not entirely unexpected. Astronomers and astrobiologists knew that it was a strong possibility since they chose target systems for colonization with oxygen signatures, and contemporary theories held that oxygen was a marker for life. The newly arrived colonist at Salvation greeted the news warmly, and the Scaepans were eager to attempt their contact protocols. They successfully contacted the "Arboreals" and began to develop a rapport. Their communal, cooperative society moved carefully and sedately into orbit around their world and to their two moons. Their motivation was simply to expand the space available for their population, combined with a pseudo-religious drive to look for a mythical set of artifacts scattered throughout the universe. Human anthropologists tentatively concluded that the Arboreal civilization once reached across the Scaep system before suffering some catastrophic collapse. (On Earth, the dissolving remants of the New United Nations took this as proof that the Extrasolar Colonization Initiative had been necessary to preserve the state of human civilization.) Scaepans were interested in trade, scientific knowledge, and support for their fledgling colony; the Arboreals desired to plumb the depths of human knowledge to search for their Artifacts.

Salvation: Drive to Immortality

Not much news came through the 'tanglers from the colony Salfan for quite some time after their arrival in 2287. The monks did their duty, relaying general news and information, but the governing Conclave was not very forthcoming with new developments and did not ask for much from Earth or the other Stellar Colonies-except for every scrap of scientific knowledge they could obtain. Salfans conducted some of the most advanced research in artificial intelligence, neural network processing, and the biological basis of cerebral function. In mid-2320 their efforts were rewarded with the first successful cerebral pattern duplication.

Developing true artificial intelligence remained elusive. (Indeed, a 2299 proof by a Salfan cerebrist showed that it would be impossible to engineer an AI without relying on random quantum processes; this would make any AI developed in the next several hundred years, at least, too erratic to remain stable longer than a few minutes.) A neural network system with the capacity to support a human cerebral pattern, however, was possible-though the duplicated pattern could not be truly self-sufficient or even conscious. Instead, the pattern-duplicating technology was combined with the well-known physics of 'tanglers. The first subject had her cerebral structure copied into a neural network with a simple robot body designed to mimic high-level human mechanics, but the copy was quantum-entangled with her own cerebral cortex. The effect was to give her consciousness complete simultaneous control over two separate bodies; one human, one robot. This gave the Salfan civilization the perfect means to explore and exploit the near-hostile Salfan star system: explorers directly experienced their endeavors as hardened robotic probes, with an instantaneous communications link back to their original bodies in a safe habitat. Death of either one of the bodies, unfortunately, proved as permanent for the patterned consciousness as ever. As the Salfans perfected the process and experimented further, they found that very few human minds were capable of controlling more than two bodies, and even then, the consciousness often flitted its full attention back and forth between the two rather than acting in both at the same time.

In 2343, the Salfan Conclave asked its 'tangler monks to contact the older colony of Scaep. They transmitted the instructions to construct a standard human-analog pattern-receptor automaton. The Scaepans, intrigued, built the "hapra" to specifications. The 'tangler monks then relayed an unusual instruction: the Scaepans were to use the condensate at the heart of the Salfan-Scaep 'tangler device as a seed for the similar device in the receptor cortex of the hapra. After this step was complete, the Salfans activated the hapra with the duplicate pattern of their selected envoy, giving his consciousness instantaneous access to his human body in Salfan and his hapra body on Haven. With the successful transmission of a patterned mind through the 'tangler, the Salfans proved that a human mind could operate simultaneously across star systems. Salfan researchers then turned their attention to building small space environment pattern-receptor automatons, or sepras, to allow them to explore the universe. By 2350, an estimated 25% of the Salfan population had been patterned into hapras and sepras.

Deliverance and Hope: The Idyll and the First Interstellar War

True to its name, the colony of Hope lived up to the wildest aspirations of the ECI. Situated on a mild, resource-rich world, it had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere supported by benign local vegitation. The colonists built several outpost towns on Hope's rolling plains and calm harbors. Its administrators projected a high growth rate as the colonists scouted the surface of Hope and sent probes to the other worlds of their new home system.

The colony of 'Vence, strapped for resources, began begging the residents of Hope for assistance via their 'tangler link. Help was long in coming, however, as the distance between those colonies meant that the best conventional-drive starships would take over three years to make a one-way trip, and Hope had to establish itself well before it could send aid. Not surprisingly, once the 'Vencians found some metal-rich asteroids, they began constructing ships capable of travelling to Hope to investigate the possibility of moving their colony or obtaining the resources they wanted. The ships were equipped to use force. Of course, by building the yards to produce those warships, the 'Vencians established themselves strongly enough that they lost interest in transplanting their colony. Instead, they began to dream of Empire.

Humanity received its first taste of interstellar warfare in late 2344, when a 'Vencian "expedition" arrived at Hope. The colonists there were caught up in their own affairs, establishing their industrial base and scouting their rich 18-planet system. They dismissively directed the 'Vencians to an unexplored asteroid cluster, giving them leave to take what they wished. Not interested in something they could obtain back in 'Vence, the 'Vencians insisted on allowing their crews to enjoy an open-air shore leave first. Once on the ground, the crews deployed a marine escort and seized a small settlement on Hope.

As the conflict was escalating, a 'Vencian survey mission in their home system stumbled upon a Sojourner. The hard-shelled, asteroid-like creature communicated, by signaling with its broad solar fans, that it originated from the rings of the gas giant 'Vencians called Cyclone. Now knowing what to look for, they began to seek out more of the aliens, hoping that their adaptations to the harsh environment of space would prove useful.

Earth: The Fallout

The strike on the ark departure station to Salvation in 2253 marked the beginning of a new cycle of warfare in the Solar System. While the New UN ceasefire was in effect, a number of behind-the-scenes alliances and international backdoor deals between the Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, Inner Colony companies, Martian Planetary Authority, and Outer Colonies formed-roughly-three factions: the Americans, Japanese, and Indians along with some Earth-orbiting habitats and lunar assets; the New Zhou Dynasty of China and MPA, and the Europeans and Outer Colonies. The attack on the Salvation ark sparked a power struggle between the Earth-centric Amer-Indian alliance and the Chinese/Martian union for the spoils of the Solar System colonies. The Europeans and Outer Colonies tried to impose themselves in the middle of the conflict, with disastrous results. By 2270, nuclear impacts in central Europe had decimated the planetary industrial complex of that alliance, forcing them to an almost entirely space-based economy with major outposts in the asteroid belt and Jovian moons. The roiling climate carried fallout to the Americas, where poverty and illness took root.

By 2300, the impotent New United Nations had completely dissolved. The Americans allowed their Reverend President to rework the Constitution to better allow him to deal with his people's struggles, but at the same time giving him much broader powers. Skirmishes between American units and MPA or Dynasty ships continued throughout the Solar System. The European Union and the Outer Colonies, chastised by their errors in the 2260's, began to lie low. Through it all, the 'tangler monks on Earth diligently continued with their duties, reporting the successes and failures of the extrasolar colonies.

And then, in 2355, scientists from the Jovian Colonies made a startling new discovery…