Abbreiviated timeline

[Alain Vircyn]

((Yes I know this is long anyways))

1946 - Japanese surrender after devastating biological weapons attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Adolf Hitler caught in bunker in Berlin, in the middle of suicide attempt. Apprehended by USSR Special Forces and held trial. The trial lasts three hours. Hitler is shot the next day in Stalingrad.

1947 - 2000 US biological weapons program is broken open by Soviet spy agencies, Cold War begins as both sides stockpile smallpox, Staphylococcus aurous beta, Anthrax, and other germ weapons. Chemical weapons also are added to the stockpile around 1953

1957-1959: Korean War ends. US and Korean forces successful in holding North Korean and Chinese forces to the original DMZ.

1961: US assault on the Bay of Pigs in Cuba deposes Fidel Castro, Soviets launch a retaliatory strike on Vietnam - unprepared US Naval pacific fleets are unable to respond before the country is completely overrun.

1965: A new development in the war - the advent of nuclear fission. The Soviet Union accomplishes their first test ahead of the US program, which has just launched its first satellite into space. Three years later, the US will also win the race to the
Moon, and the US nuclear program will catch up in the next six months.

1965-81: War progresses with no events deviating from standard Earth history

1981-1990: The first Middle Eastern War occurs, NATO forces fighting Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations over oil rights in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and other oil rich Arab nations. After the war, 75% of the Middle Eastern reserves lie in NATO control.

1995: Desperate for oil supplies, USSR forces launch a full biological attack on the Middle East. Estimated death toll 160 million. USAF STRATCOM launches a full thermonuclear barrage in retaliation. Moscow and seven other major Russian cities are devastated. Estimated death toll from detonations and even the relatively light fallout created by next-gen warheads ranges from 600 to 900 million by the next four years.

2001: Devastated by the losses, USSR and Warsaw Pact disintegrate. Smaller wars will be fought for the next twenty years in the area over control, but most are stopped by NATO and UN peacekeeping forces and nonlethal chemical attacks.

2011: Still suffering from radiation poisoning, a Russian geneticist named Andrei Zelenkov invents a serum the NSA titles Q256-B. Using a mouse retrovirus, this serum effectively alters the genome of the human into which it is injected, giving them a 1000% increased resistance to low-level radiation. The scientific community jumps on this technology for all sorts of purposes, curing genetic disorders, cancer, and many others.

2037: Nexgene Inc. founded in Los Alamos. The company devotes itself to the commercialization of genome-alteration technology. Investments are record, and the company soon becomes a trillion dollar enterprise. The founder is Viktor Zelenkov, son of the inventor of Q256-B.

2038: Nexgene finally garners approval for the marketing of its products, promising that every man woman and child in the country can now be genetically perfect. Intelligence, appearance, behavioral predisposition, all these things can now literally be shopped for by any couple desiring a child - for the price of 1.6 million. Prices, however, will drop in the next few years, making it extremely commonplace. However, the American FDA, like with the drug Thalidomide, refuses to license the drug, whereas European and Asian administrations approve it almost immediately, and it is extremely popular to use illegally in the US, especially among the wealthy or the vain.

2047: Problems begin to become apparent in the application of fetal genetic commercialization, as it has come to be called. Certain markers have been found in many of the children, and severe defects start to arise at about the age of puberty, primarily heart and respiratory failure, and neurodegenerative conditions. Nexgene loses everything to the suits that follow, and is bankrupted. Zelenkov is tried in UN Supreme Court and sentenced to life without parole.

2054: As parents of surviving "Nexgene" children try to cope with the horrors of the side effects, some children remain unaffected. This, at first, is attributed to the fact that the gene alteration in fact did very little - the children already had the desired characteristics. But this is soon proved false. All of these children wind up in military or government jobs, and the correlation is not made until two years later.

2056: A massive uprising of so-called "Evolved" humans takes place worldwide. Approximately 100 million unaffected Nexgene children rise up and are able to take control of hundreds if not thousands of key positions in the world's leading countries - including the US. Backing them is an army that seems to have risen from nowhere - a group calling itself Red Phoenix.

2056 (continued): It is quickly revealed that the Red Phoenix army is comprised entirely of soldiers bearing the genetic markers from Nexgene alteration drugs - the drugs they gave to every child whose parents desired it included a little more than they suspected. First: a gene that made them susceptible to an ultra low frequency transmission that only they could hear, which would induce a sort of hypnosis. Suggestions could then be put over the same channel. Second: several of the genes found in the early part of the 21st century found to predispose a human being to being calm under fire, methodical, and essentially near perfect soldiers. A multination coalition mostly comprised of NATO forces was able to eliminate the threat, but what was uncovered was more troubling than was originally thought.

2057: Data captured from Red Phoenix leaders quickly linked the group to the Russian government, whose economy had been in extreme jeopardy since the fall of the USSR. It is soon revealed that several ex-Russian military elements were responsible not only for the incident with the secret gene therapy - but for the very formation of the Nexgene Corporation, which even after its dissolution had links to other corporations worldwide. Most disturbing of all -
That wasn't their only experiment. Another, similar Chinese company is soon revealed to have been acting under the direct control of the Nexgene corporation, unbeknownst to the NSA and other intelligence agencies. For nearly thirty years this company had been operating in secret, performing nonconsensual gene therapy on millions of Chinese children - children now of prime fighting age.

2058: Despite all attempts to the contrary, including attempts to interfere with the UHF signal encoded into the genes of over a billion Chinese, World War Three begins on May 27th, 2058. Horrified at what had happened fifty years before, and unwilling to make the same sort of enemy of the rest of Asia that they once made of Russia by the tactical nuclear strike, US STRATCOM is unwilling to fight this war with nuclear weaponry. Unable to amass the transportation force to cross the Atlantic, much less the air or sea power required to cut a path to mainland America, the new Red Phoenix forces move across Asia, Africa, and much of Europe with little to stand in the way of their massive numbers. Us and NATO Air Forces and naval units are proven more than capable of stemming any tide over sea or air, but the sheer number of ground troops and the single-minded determination of the RF military is unstoppable on the ground. Conventional weapons superiority becomes nearly useless - no matter how much better the weaponry, there are still simply too many to shoot. On top of that, Chinese technology has risen to nearly match the US in at least some of their military over the years, making the technological gap much smaller than most had thought at the time. The war is devastating, even in the first seven months. RF casualties number in the millions, and at least 300 thousand coalition forces lie dead. The RF controls all of Eurasia up to Germany by Christmas.

2059: Coalition conventional and special weapons superiority finally begins to take a toll. Stealth attacks on already dangerously stretched RF supply lines force the army to retreat back to Asia, and for a time there is an uneasy cease fire as both forces train troops. The fighting will rage on for years.

2070: After more than a decade of prolonged warfare, the third and the greatest world war yet finally comes to an end. Bombing runs have finally left even the hardened underground production facilities of mainland China and Russia little more than dust and mangled wreckage, and the facilities producing the so called 'supersoldier' gene therapy have been wiped out, every scientist accounted for. The UN passes the Genetic Preservation Act; forbidding any and all genetic tampering in human DNA, except to rectify genetic disorders such as Down syndrome. Use of these remaining therapies is strictly regulated and may be administered only by specific doctors certified twice a year by the federal governments of respective countries.

2083: The melting of the ice cap over Greenland signals the advent of a cycle of global natural disasters that will persist for the next two hundred years – cold freshwater flowing into the ocean halts the flow the gulf stream, plunging most of Western Europe into a pseudo Ice Age that will persist for over a century, killing hundreds of thousands that are unable to get within protected zones within the deadline. Meanwhile, constant sparks of war around the world contributes to the problem even more extensively, leaving many countries too devoted to the wars to focus resources on the environmental problems – such as an over 20 ft rise in worldwide sea levels, which displaces more than 500 million people. Modifications to survive cold weather and water start to become very popular…

2103: The Genetic Preservation act is repealed, thanks to extreme pressure from wealthy lobbyists. Genetic fashions soon again become all the rage among the mid to upper class...

2114: The accessible supply of fossil fuels on Earth is completely depleted. Several countries that failed to switch their infrastructures over to hydrogen and new clean-fusion reactor systems (Among them France, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and parts of India) suffer massive economic losses. Most of these, however, will recover in the next decade with humanitarian and scientific aid from other countries.

2119: The first true city is built on Antarctica, known as Paradise, something of a joke among residents. Protected by a massive dome spanning about a mile radius, most of the city is actually below the ice and even below ground, though even with the titanic heating units ((actually nuclear powered)), most of the city is bitter cold almost constantly. It is seen as one solution to the overpopulation crushing most of the planet, and an escape from the harsh realities of life on what most Paradise residents refer to as "the warmer places".

2130: World population has hit 20 billion. Over 90% of the rain forests of the world have been destroyed, though many specimens have been preserved, countless thousands are lost. The planet, many speculate, can no longer support any more human population growth. Technological growth has halted, and rumors of disease resistant to all modern medicine are rampant - civilization is on the brink of collapse for the first time in a thousand years.

2131: War has again broken out. Desperate to claim the last of the remaining resources, a number of countries who have been illegally modifying their armies genetically launch an assault on the colony of Paradise, which over the years has become a haven of technological advancement - after an innovation allowing them to tap the vast oil reserves under the Antarctic ice cap made the colony trillions. Since even now the process for extracting viable hydrogen fuel and deuterium relies on the burning of gasoline, Paradise quickly becomes possibly the most important military strategic point in history. Nearly every country in the world with the military reach to make a grab for paradise does - but the American military gets there first. With more than nine times the naval and air power of any other nation, the US forces prove more than adequate to hold off the invasions. Still, resentment builds against the NATO nations - now the only nations with a steady supply of power. It is offered to other nations of course, but on terms of disarmament that most nations, now falling into fascist control, are unwilling to accept.

2132: The resentment against the UN and NATO finally reaches the breaking point. 34 chemical and biological attacks are launched on Europe and the Americas, resulting in nearly half a billion deaths. Retaliatory strikes solve little - the overwhelming majority of citizens in over a hundred nations supporting the anti-UN sentiment. With simply too many targets to attack and unwilling to repeat their earlier mistake in using nuclear warheads, killing entire nations, the UN is left with no options. One hundred and fifty nations withdraw from the UN, forming another body known as the FNT - Free Nations of Terra.

2134: After two years of debates and frantic negotiations, war breaks out. UN forces prove vastly superior to the FNT militaries, but as in the previous wars, sheer overwhelming numbers and genetically advanced troops begin to take their toll. Even so, Un forces manage a victory after five years of the bloodiest fighting in history.

2139: With over five billion dead from the war, humanity is more than ever at the end of its rope. Power and transportation infrastructures fail worldwide as the devastated supply lines running out of Paradise can no longer supply fuel to the various refineries. Governments collapse all around the world, but some of the more advanced nations are soon able to repair their situations, and UN security forces, now comprised almost entirely of American troops, manage to maintain a very tenuous peace on Terra.

2180: After over twenty years without a major conflict, most of the world has at least begun to recover from the devastation of what will be known in later dates as the Terran War. As with most great wars, it is predicted to be the last one that will ever be, and for a very long time, prosperity will reign again on the planet.

2250: Reconstruction is still underway throughout most of the world, and the population is again approaching 20 billion people. However, with so many nations becoming fully industrialized, even the plentiful fuel coming from Paradise is beginning to become insufficient. Even wealthy nations in Europe suffer from power failures - many of the sources Paradise was able to tap over a hundred years ago have begun to empty - soon even the Antarctic oil reserves will no longer be viable. Paradise engineers continue to stake out new oil fields, but the fact rapidly becomes clear - soon there will simply be no more oil to tap. Paradise has grown into a massive nation all unto itself, now with a population of nearly a billion and a military of its own to defend its shores. The cities of Paradise ring the entire Antarctic continent, and its oil fields stretch deep towards the South Pole.

2252: Resentment against Paradise begins to simmer in the hearts of people worldwide. It has been suggested and is now a popular belief that the people of Paradise have been hoarding the fuel for their own use, prospering while the rest of the world suffers, waiting for the other nations to starve so Paradise, forever dominated by the needs of the planet, will finally be dominating the rest. These rumors are of course unfounded and untrue - most of the people of Paradise have quite enough trouble keeping their own nation going, and while times are hard, they also all manage to keep the massive domes in repair, and keep their living to a decent standard. Still, however, the starving or the without power are often apt to believe anything to prove to them it was not their fault, but the fault of others lying... and so it goes again.

2258: The first Paradise war breaks out on the Antarctic sea. Paradisian sea power has grown to rival even the United States over the past seventy years, and so even the combined forces of most of the world are unable to break through their defenses. Several NATO countries do come to the aid of the frozen nation, and again the battle rages - the passion of the masses against the conviction of the few. The war will rage on for over twenty years at a near standstill, neither force willing to surrender - the masses cannot break through the sea, nor the high-tech defenders cannot break through the vastly superior numbers without resorting to WMDs - still considered a nonoption.

2279: An uneasy peace is finally brokered, but the war seriously depleted the last remaining substantial oil reserves, and resentment soon grows again. Riots break out even as the previous leaders of the uprisings attempt to broker peace, and the world is thrown into chaos, only a few nations along with the US on the defensive as the endless cycle comes back again.

[Alain Vircyn]

2282: With the rest of the world still in total chaos, the US is now the only remaining nation, along with Paradise, that is able to at all hold back the tide of warring factions dominating the world. Several biological weapons labs have been broken into, and mutant strains of smallpox and other virulent diseases are ravaging the planet, killing millions of people. The collapse of human society is no longer imminent - it has happened. But most disturbing is what geologists have found creeping up beneath Yellowstone National Park - the volcano, having slept for more than 650 thousand years, is awakening.

2286: For four years every available resource is put into attempting to halt the eruption of the massive supervolcano sleeping beneath the northern US. All attempts fail. A last ditch evacuation attempt starts, Americans fleeing to South America, to Paradise, anywhere to be away from the detonation. It comes six months early. The explosion is more devastating than any weapon ever created by humankind. An explosive force of over 250 megatons sends more than 1200 cubic kilometers of debris into the upper stratosphere. The huge clouds of ash block out the sun over 90% of the planet, and global temperatures drop nearly twenty degrees. Pyroclastic flows from the eruption wipe out nearly every human city west of the Great Lakes, and the ashfall and acid rain produced from the sulfides released from the volcano mixing with oxygen and ozone in the upper atmosphere devastate ecosystems across most of the planet. The Ozone layer takes an even harder hit than most of the planet, losing nearly thirty percent of its coverage worldwide, but the heavy clouds of ash protect most areas from the fury of the sun for a few years, at least. Now with the only sources of medicine destroyed, deaths from accidentally released plague agents soar. Over the next forty years, the world's population will drop under two billion, deaths from acid rain, ash inhalation, pyroclastic flows, and various modified diseases total more than 19 billion by the end of what most survivors are calling the end of humanity. However, after all the ash has cleared, and the ozone layer has started to recover, no longer under assault from human industry or lingering sulfides in the air, two civilizations remain.

2325: More than 50% of the Paradisian domes, built to withstand any and all elements ((and in later design considerations, assault)) survived, along with approximately 700 million human lives. Using massive hydroponics orchards, the people were able to keep themselves alive while the rest of their race crumbled around them leaving Paradise truly the last bastion of humankind - or so it was believed. Preserved from the destruction many believe the earth herself wrought on the people that spent so much time taking from her, and none giving back. Slowly the Paradisians rebuild their own cities, then begin to spread back into the world, starting with the Americas and southern Africa, spreading slowly, rebuilding not so much the devastated cities, though a few are built, protected under huge domes with the majority of the cities underground, so as not to disturb nature’s healing more than they must. The Paradisians, simply calling themselves human, devote themselves to making amends for what they have destroyed. Letting the planet heal, and ensuring that no such devastation need ever occur again.
In the more than 200 years since the first gene therapy was created, many more have been created as well. Genes to resist disease, to resist nearly any hardship have been produced. While the side effects in appearance have made many of these... less than desirable, almost a billion twisted human forms survived on the continents of Asia and Africa, the most untouched by the eruption, have survived - having chosen disfiguration over death. These people collect in what remains of China, once a superpower in its own right, like the Paradisians, believing their method of altering their own genomes to have been what allowed them, and them alone, to survive the purging of all those too weak of heart to follow them. Labs and cities are rebuilt; dedicated to rectifying their disfiguration, making them smarter, better, evolved. The people start to change; deformities vanish, as does any care for the world around them. They have become gods, masters of DNA, and who controls DNA controls life. The world shall be reshaped, a better world - their world.

(This part is one big 225-year chunk because I was lazy)
2326-2551
The humans, in keeping with their pledge after the destruction of most of the world, start their recolinization in South America and work their way up. There are fifteen major cities, massive domed complexes that are largely underground, modeled after Paradise itself, in various places, usually built on the ashes of major cities from before, where there will be the least life trying to reestablish itself anyways. The primary four are New Detroit, Haven (built on the ashes of Washington DC), Amazonia (where do you think?) and Threshold City on the cape at the southernmost point of South America. Over the next two centuries, the Terrans technology develops rapidly, largely focused on devices for cleaning the air and assisting the growth of plants in harsh environments.
The year 2505 heralds the advent of the nanomachine, first fully realized in the year 2493, it has taken 12 years to get approval for their full production, due to worries about their possible virulence - after all, these are machines designed to circulate in the human bloodstream. Over the next fifty years advances in nanomachenery permeate the whole of Terran society, and become an integral part of their restoration strategy, being able to destroy all manner of harmful agents with simple programming. Probably the most culturally significant effect of these nanomachinery advances is that of the medical nanomachine, or medichine. These devices were at first designed to supplement the human immune system, mainly to destroy viral agents, and were specifically programmed to attack and destroy any biological weapons encountered in destroyed labs, or ones that might have caught on the atmosphere ((another reason for the domes, nearly a quarter billion deaths had occurred by this time due to inadvertently released biological weapons, and most of the facilities were simply quarantined. However, the use of these medichines soon extended to all diseases, and most sicknesses simply vanished in Terran society almost overnight. Genetic diseases, however, were still a problem, and due to the Terran stigma against gene alteration, even though their technology was more than advanced enough to repair these diseases, they almost never were, as to do so was considered the highest of crimes. Eventually, however, nanomachines became able to handle the symptoms of most of these diseases through synthesizing proteins the disease caused the person to lack, or destroying the agent that the disease created. However, there were several instances of diseases inexplicably evading even the potent cellular weaponry of the nanomachines. True to Terran philosophy, this was explained away by the fact that the planet always comes up with something to defeat human ingenuity - after all, the creations have a hard time surpassing the creator...

As for the other wing of humanity, things also progress much in a linear fashion - but totally deviant from the Terran path. Coming to call themselves the Divini, a Latin word meaning divine. Their settlements start mostly in China and eastern Asia, and are widespread and scattered unlike the few large communities favored by their cousins across the Pacific. Their cities appear utopian, most of them actually looking like forests or fields filled with flowers, things plucked straight from fantasy books. The people are all tall and usually fair skinned, resembling elves in many ways, pictures of beauty, and the very archetypes of what humanity has always seen gods to be - flawless. Beneath the surface, however, things are... slightly less utopian. Beneath each settlement is something known as the Nursery, populated by several hundred beings engineered specifically for scientific thought and invention - and they are very very good at it. Through them, further genetic perfections and ways of perfecting other things are developed, including a retrovirus known as the Gift, something used to alter the genome of whatever it infects, and to morph it to the will of the Divini. While the people are extremely amorous, and many people literally order extra husbands or wives from the 'orchards' down in the nursery, no one is born from these unions; all people are cloned from certain perceived 'perfect' characteristics. Using the Gift, the Divini soon warp the entire world around them to their own vision of the perfect world, and they soon set their sights, especially the former Americans (since no one has died since the inception of the genetics program, they can simply restore their body in a few moments), on returning to the Americans, and claiming that portion of the world for their perfection as well.

About this time, however, the Terrans have developed a new ionic thrust system, and have launched humankind back into space again, to resume their cleanup. They spend a few months above the earth, using nanomachines and magnetic field manipulation to clear the belts of debris surrounding the planet from the previous years of space exploration, before the wars and the disasters. Then, however, one of the pilots notices something - structures on the planet below that are most certainly not natural.

By this time, about the year 2530, Terran technology has advanced to a level far, far beyond even the pre-war era, which had been the original peak. The first floating city, a one square mile structure known as Avalon, has just been launched from old California, and so, filled with explorers, Avalon sets off for Asia. Now, both races have flight capability, but until this point neither has seen it necessary to explore the rest of the world any more - the search for survivors stopped years ago, before either civilization was large enough to be noticeable from the sky. And, knowing that the rest of the planet was nothing but a wasteland, both 'races' decided to finish rebuilding their section of the planet before moving on to the next part. Avalon was the Terran's first expedition to Asia in over two hundred years, the people aboard ready to begin the restoration of Asia and make way for others coming by air. When the space mission reports odd structures, however, the Avalon mission changes - find out who - or what - built them. It takes six months for the floating city to make its way across the pacific, where the unthinkable greets them. The details of that encounter never reach the Terrans back on the Americas, but they receive the results seven months afterwards - the entire population of Avalon, changed beyond all belief. The people realize what has happened almost immediately, but not before the euphemistically titled Gift spreads among thousands of the population. Quarantines are almost immediately set up, but the small military presence of the Terrans is almost immediately overwhelmed by legions of what are referred to as Homo sapiens parabellum, humans warped and created for war and war only. It takes months before the considerable technological force of the Terran people finally comes to full military production, and an army of quickly trained soldiers with extremely advanced weapons does manage to eliminate the enemy foothold on America. And, once the medichinery is tuned to fight the Gift virus, the Terrans seem to have little to fear from their 'more primitive' enemies. A special strike force is sent to retake Avalon, but it never returns, and the city vanishes from history. The loss of Avalon, however, is troubling, and no further attempts are made to make contact after a very simple message is exchanged - leave us alone, and we shall not interfere with you. This is agreed, and things will go this way for another century... though the advancement of these nations no longer remains dedicated to self or world improvement... a portion will always be devoted to the possibility of war. A second Cold War has begun... and though no battles have been fought, the Terrans know one thing - so long as their opponents continue to use the resources of their world up and not replace them, the errors of centuries past will be repeated... and the war will come. For them it is not a question of if, but one of when the attacks will come...

(Timeline again)

2552: The retooling of the Terran sciences from purely botanical and biological sciences to defense systems has taken nearly full effect. Though the vast bulk of Terran development is still devoted to the restoration of the planet, the nanomachines have proven themselves more than capable of shepherding the planets forests with minimal human intervention - and the most imminent of threats looms just across the oceans. A Terran scientist by the name of Allen Ridgeley develops the first true energy shield, a system using oscillating pulse frequencies on several different levels to use the constructive interference from the patterns to create a coherent - that is, solid - barrier that can be projected from the emitter. Because the frequencies are harmless unless focused, the shield can be directed to expand or collapse, and humans can walk through the space between emitter and barrier freely. Still, because the technology is largely unknown - and many see it as dangerous - it is rarely used for many years, until the physics behind it are better understood, and the peculiar wavelengths used are proven to be harmless unless combined.

2557: Another major technological breakthrough occurs, this one contributed by a scientist named Jennifer Kornac - the first reliable and efficient method for antimatter generation. Largely powered by the massive geothermal units underneath the fifteen remaining Terran superdomes, the new antimatter technology quickly becomes the primary choice for powering outposts and smaller cities - virtually eliminating the Terran's previous dependence on solar power and refined hydrogen for these smaller outposts. This allows for much more powerful defensive systems, and these are implemented across Terran territories in the next five years. The Splicers, who until now did not see their overly idealistic relations as much of a threat, now take a great notice, and begin to generate their own army of genetically engineered creatures, who they refer to as the Scourers, or the Crusaders, or simply the warriors. The Terrans will in later years come to refer to them as the Blight, or the Uglies (or other derogatory names or phrases), or the Drones.

2575: The Terrans begin construction on their largest project yet - the underwater city of Atlantis, beneath the north polar ice cap. Finally having advanced their energy shield technology to the point where building an underwater city is possible, they decide to take advantage of it. Atlantis, however, is constructed to be far more than simply an aesthetic accomplishment. The city will be the first to utilize several brand new and theoretical technologies that have been developed since the unofficial cold war began with their Homo sapiens parabellum "brethren". Among them are a new and potent but extremely energy hungry shield system, designed not only to be able to hold back the massive water pressure at the bottom of the Arctic sea, but to withstand any assault the Splicers could mount - theoretically. It will also be the first of the terran fortress cities - not only defended by domes and shields, but massively powerful energy and magnetic cannon, as well as a modification of the age old supercollider technology, referred to as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Cannon. Atlantis will originally support only one of the massive weapons, though this will change in the future as the technology is scaled down and refined. ((More in the Terran Technology page))

2579: The splicers, using a modified form of shark, have stumbled upon the Atlantis program - and they are not happy about it. The prospect of their only enemies having a fortress city more than capable of standing up to anything they might engineer does not sit well with the ruling Triumvirate, and the first full scale attack is launched against the construction crews stationed in domes and tunnels in the ice above. The Terrans, using their air and space superiority, are able to anticipate the attack, and it is repelled, though the Atlantis project suffers several severe setbacks - the main scaffold supporting the central dome is destroyed, and the weakened shielding system causes collapses throughout the city.

2580: It has become apparent that the shields require far more power than even the antimatter systems can provide. To combat this, a young scientist named Jonathan Altair steps up with a new plan, referred to in later years as the Geospire. A massive shaft dug by nanomachine and shield projecting robots more than six miles into the earth, and a still mysterious technology implanted to draw power from the earth never before dreamed of. Even in the present (2755) the technology behind the Spire is not understood, though the power output it can draw upon seems unlimited. The new power source takes twenty years of construction, though Jonathan never lives to see its completion - he is killed in a Splicer attack one year before the Spire is completed. The system is still completed however from preprogrammed instructions in the nanomachines, and the construction of Atlantis moves rapidly after that. The full fortress city is completed in 2607, and modifications to reinforce the rest of the Terran cities (which have been occurring since midway through the Spire project) are completed three years later. The Splicers attack several more cities, and there are Terran losses - two more of the fifteen cities (Madagascar and Isis City in former Libya) fall to assault during the rebuilding efforts. Attacks on the completed cities, however, are a miserable failure, and open hostilities cease not long after.

2615: With open war no longer in effect, the way of things returns to a state of high tension between the two powers on Terra. Both sides continue to refine their military technology, the Splicer creating bigger and more vicious mutants, creatures no longer at all human - usually four legged, with blades on their arms and legs and massive claws and teeth, thick hides of a material stronger even the chitin, nearly totally bulletproof and resistant to all elements. The Terrans continue to refine their defenses, shield technology continues to improve, and energy weapons advance to the point of being able to blast chunks from mountains in seconds. Two massive, floating cities, Valhalla and Castella, are constructed from similar technology to Atlantis, though on a smaller scale, and serve as the forward outposts for the Terran militaries. But in 2643, the most interesting Terran development yet occurs...

2643: The Terrans have suspected for a long time that there was something more than just desperation driving their rapid advancement in technology, and in May, this becomes even more apparent - the first true and documented case of telepathy. Not a rumor, disbelieved by many, a girl named Jessie Reynolds, a nephew of Jonathan Altair, is proven beyond all doubt to be able to read and in some case even influence the thoughts of those around him. The first documented case of telekinesis follows only three years later, in a six year old by named Kenneth Vircyn. After the initial bafflement, the gifted children are seen to be something of a natural mutation, a chance evolution of the human race - but this is not so. Over the next twenty years nearly one in ten children born show signs of some sort of mental power by the age of six, and one in five by the age of 16. The percentages increase slowly as the years progress, though this is slow and not noticed until years later. The most puzzling thing to the Terran researchers, however, which becomes apparent years later, is that this does not seem to be a genetic occurrence. Identical twins can be born where only one twin has the power; it is actually more frequent that fraternal twins will share the ability than identical ones. Couples where both parents have the ability, or even the same ability, can have a child with none, or the other way around. At first, these 'psi' humans, Homo sapiens intendere, as they are called, spark a certain amount of jealousy and suspicion in the 'normal' population. Before the genetic nonconnection is discovered, many suspect they could be planted by the Splicers, results of genetic experimentation by Splicers or rogue Humans, and it becomes common for a psi to hide their ability. The Splicers, however, discover the gifted humans almost by chance in a raid on an outpost where one human demonstrates the ability to throw objects at great speed - without touching them. This sparks a great interest in people of this sort, and the war begins anew, but this time the Splicers have a new purpose - isolate the gene mutation granting this power, and use it for their own. The terrans this time, however, are almost entirely taken by surprise at the sudden size of the army, and using burrowers, the Splicers escape the watchful eyes of Haven - the terran space city - and aircraft ((I should note at this time that the Terrans could have used their antimatter or even nuclear weapons to destroy the Splicers, but their unwillingness to harm the planet so that has stayed their hand - it is the knowledge that they have done this that makes Terrans so infuriating to the Splicers.)).

2648: The major attacks by the Splicers on human outposts have left most of the population shocked, and where there was once suspicion towards the psi humans, now there is a sort of pity. It is rapidly learned that these humans are being targeted, and the new Splicer drones are far to strong for a human to take with only handheld weapons - should the shielding of any outpost be breached, the battle is lost. The thirteen supercities, however, all manage to survive the onslaughts through their massive shields, though many humans begin evacuating to Atlantis from the outer cities - the war starts to turn badly on the terrans, who can only watch as the nature they fought so hard to restore is taken by their enemies. Nearly every Terran base on Africa or Europe is lost, leaving only the cities on the Americas, and on Paradise. A new technology again hits the Terran military, however, and the war starts to take another turn...

2650: The rise of the Terran powered armor suit begins here. These new exoskeletons can make a human being more than a match for the vicious drones, and so the Terrans begin to slowly regain their lost ground. The victories come at a heavy price, however - the first supercity, the one that saw so many through what now is remembered as the Cataclysm, falls to an assault. Paradise is destroyed by a massive attack force of drones and genetically engineered monsters. The loss of so many, and their first city, shocks many Terrans to the core, and some descend into despair. The resolve, however, remains, and again Terran technology rises to meet the monsters their former cousins created.

2654: The first mecha is created, to the adoration of many children who have seen them in cartoons or stories since time immemorial. The first unit is known as the Tempest, and stands seven meters high, weighing nearly forty tons. While its combat effectiveness pales in many situations compared to the much more agile armored suits, which are now in their third generation models, the Terran Titans are seen as something of a beacon - especially when the land that was once Paradise is retaken by a combined force of mecha and armor in 2656. Both forms of battle technology advance nearly together after this point, growing together rather than apart - the mecha supporting the armor with heavy firepower, and the armor moving in the smaller spaces and keeping the quick drones from getting in too close for the mecha to fire on.

[Alain Vircyn]

2657: Reconstruction of Paradise begins, and with it, the second generation of Terran domed cities. All thirteen of the cities are nearly rebuilt, and the entire military is pulled back to support the effort. Atlantis also undergoes a massive overhaul, and though the Splicers do send an attack force to test its defenses for the first time since its completion, the assault is repelled without a single Terran casualty, and marks what seems to be the last attempt at the original - and still most powerful, thanks to the Spire - Terran city. Though Atlantis shows up little in history after its creation, since the Splicers avoid it at all costs, it has been the site of most of the technological developments since it was created, and nearly ever human on the city has at least low level telepathy - one thing that makes the massive fortress run so smoothly - even if it is still unexplained.

2670-2734: For eighty years, war rages on and off, with ground being traded between the sides nearly every time, but the balance of power seems perfectly in check - the Terrans incredible technology, their new A-12 Centurion armor, the latest and by far the most potent weapons system, and the AM-78 Druid combat mecha more than enough to defend the humans against even the overwhelming numbers of the cloned enemies, but unable to push very far into the almost hivelike land of the Splicers, honeycombed with passages where new and nastier drones and other creatures roam freely about underground, stopped only by Terran barriers set up underground to prevent them. A new power source, the deuterium power cell, is developed in 2694 to replace the outdated antimatter generators, which though have never had a meltdown, there have been several close calls, especially in the aging systems. The Power Cells prove extremely stable and provide a slightly greater amount of power, while being far smaller and less dangerous. The Splicers continue to engineer creatures for assaults in all environments, massive, hulking creatures to combat the terran mecha, and the list goes on. By 2750, neither side seems capable of gaining any ground, both too far entrenched for either side to make a push - an odd sort of 28th century rendition of the First World War, casualties mounting but no ground to gain, a no man's land stretching a hundred miles between lines, located just east of Germany and circling around Europe, the only continent apart from the Americas where the Terrans maintain a presence even through all the wars - it's proximity to Atlantis being too important, there are already quite enough places in northern Russia for their enemies to stage attacks on Atlantis from, and the humans have no desire to give them yet another front.

2734: The Splicers make the first move to break the stalemate. East Germany is hit with a force numbering in the billions, the brand new supercity of New Berlin being the primary target. Unprepared for the sudden assault, and the newly demonstrated ability of the Splicers to break through the underground barrier systems, that have been in place for decades, New Berlin falls in only a few days - millions are lost, and only a few hundred survivors make it back to Atlantis. The Terran retaliation comes in its most potent form - the first use of their antimatter as a weapon. The fallen city of New Berlin is leveled along with a five square kilometer area of the planet, leaving nothing but a blackened scar where the newest Splicer hive was forming, meant to steal the Terran technology. The war halts almost in shock by both sides at the display. The Splicers now realize just what they are going to have to face, and the Terrans find themselves having to do something they swore they would never do. The planet may have to suffer to be free of these warped... former people. Though the land is again theirs, Berlin is never again rebuilt, nor do the plants there ever grow back - a memorial to the destruction they too are capable of. Their darkness...

2740: A third floating fortress-city is constructed, named New Avalon in memory of the fallen first floating city. Avalon boasts all the latest innovations, some even Atlantis does not possess, three next generation RHI cannons, three piers for launching the Defiant class attack ships, capable of submerging and of launching fighters and assault craft, as well as the newest in shielding and point defense weaponry. Despite this, however, New Avalon is not fitted with a sentient AI unit for ten years, because of the lack of suitable donors for a core unit.


2755: The wars have again started, after about twenty years of rebuilding, rest, and mostly rearming. The war is on the brink of starting again, and more viciously than ever before - after the Berlin incident, the Splicers know that if the Humans are not destroyed rapidly, not only will their growing psychic abilities (Now one in every three children has some form of the gift, still a minority but an ever growing one, and a very few children have been born whose powers are without precedent - strong enough to crush enemies with their minds, or force them into actions despite all resistance. While there are only a few, maybe five, children with such power, they are observed very carefully - such power holds as much danger as it does promise) pose a problem, but should the Terrans decide to go all out with their antimatter, the war will not be a long one anyway.

2775: After another two decades years of bloodshed with nearly no progress on either side, things seem stretched to the breaking point. Both sides have new soldiers, the Terran A-13 Advent armor and AM-83B Arsenal mecha in all their gleaming glory and the drones and monsters in all their horror. Both sides believe that this could be the final war, and though it may yet last years, it must be fought before anyone can live in peace...

...right?