After the firefall

The Firefall was a near extinction event for humanity and the Earth. As the dark meteor fragmented in the moon’s gravity well, it created thousands of shards ranging in size from baseballs to stadiums that smashed into the Earth at fatal velocity. The Nine Year Winter that followed radically changed the planet. Much has been documented about how humanity was nearly wiped out as weather patterns changed drastically from the ash and debris released into the atmosphere from the meteor strikes. Glaciers formed, seas swelled, and the Earth grew dim. In order to survive, humanity would have to essentially terraform their own planet to restore it to conditions suitable for human life. Earth had the key basis of this technology in the HAARP project, a formerly secret North American military project designed to control the weather by controlling the charge and resonance of the ionosphere through microwave bombardment. But HAARP previously was missing a key ingredient, the power and special properties that could be developed through the use of Crystite. Once a suitable Crystite hybrid was found, HAARP became exponentially more effective. Large stations were erected in strategic locations around the globe, and the air began to clear, the rain came again, and humanity was able to shape the ideal climate for itself, and even stop the ravages of storms and tornadoes. But they didn’t stop there. Humanity was sparse and spread out now. Only a fraction of the population remained. Instead of rebuilding cities, humanity decided to live more simply, and harmoniously with nature. They favored smaller communities, spread out with large beautiful national parks and cultivated wild landscapes between their new high tech towns and villages. Thanks to SIN, the shared intelligence network, people still felt connected and close, even though they were physically farther apart. Work was not a problem, since the economy had long ago shifted primarily into the information age and all physical tasks and manufacturing was handled by robotics and the advent of molecularly printed manufacturing (MPM). Non-biological physical goods could be transported by short distance arcfolding, and larger, or more biological cargo, shipped via efficient and Crystite powered dropships. Perhaps the most impressive feat of terraforming this new Earth as was the science of bioscaping. Scientists, using repatterning technology similar to MPM for medical and biological use, began to clone and propagate, at an accelerated rate, flora and fauna throughout the new, vast greenbelts that separated human populations. They created careful new artificial ecosystems to replace the ones devastated by the Nine Year Winter, including new plants and animals brought from Alpha Prime, and in some cases, selectively and genetically blended with Earth’s biosphere. The new system was designed to replace the demolished ecosystem caused by the Firefall event, and was designed not just with sustainability and functionality in mind, but also beauty. Again, none of this would have been possible without Crystite. The great irony of the Firefall event, culminating in a technological renaissance for humanity, affected human psychology deeply.