Humanity did not go to the stars. Oh, we sent a few probes that way. Nor did the Singularity occur. Some argue that it was impossible. Others that the Romantic Turning of the 21st Century killed it, and that was our one chance.
We did make it out into the Solar System right before the Romantic Turning away from individualism toward unity, and from floundering at heterodoxies to learning the classics which did not mean we could not have gone to the stars, but it was also an inward turn of greater care for the environment and meditation.
The First Nuclear War finished off the World That Might Have Been.
After that it was the Dark Years, and then the Dream Years when Humanity clung to hopes of utopia and found its secular saviors to be unworthy of the faith placed in them. The Second Nuclear War finished off the last of the Great Saviors and seemingly purged Humanity of its desire for perfection.
A more stoic, more religious mindset took over, and for hundreds of years a certain grimness of mind kept the Chaos as bay. For the Great Saviors had been eager to improve the species. Things had been made in labs. Things in most ways that counted, far less than human, but in raw combat power, in breeding potential, far more. Oh, not all the Things were destructive. Those that weren't quickly died off.
The Third Millenium came in the midst of the Grim Centuries as Humanity warred with its monsters and its own dreams. Every child was taught that life is short, and frequently painful, and that there were monsters right over the horizon.
Toward the end of the Grim Centuries, Humanity pulled ahead, and moved into Space again. The First Solar War broke the links between home and the other planets, and the others died in the cold and the dark. But not before they wreaked a terrible vengeance on the Mother Planet. Kinetic Impact Weapons, asteroids reaching five percent of lightspeed slammed into the planet. Afterwards, an a watcher from space would be hard put as to remember which continent was which as many distinguishing features were simply gone.
Japan had sunk. Ireland was so ridden with volcanoes that no one could live there. The Great Plains were now a giant inland sea. South America was broken in two, and the Nile now flowed the opposite direction into the much larger Mediterranean.
The rise in magma under the oceans heated the waters of the seas to a very pleasant eighty degrees which produced enough cloud cover to cover the planet in white. The clouds then snowed. It took five hundred years before the Second Ice Age broke when the heating elements of magma were capped, and the waters cooled by refrigerating lasers that pumped the excess energy in the oceans into space in giant blasts of light that no doubt puzzled any observers on the far side of the galaxy.
This work was done by the Ice Kings. Grimness had changed to Authoritarianism. The Ice Kings might have been better named the Steel Kings or the Nuke Lords. The Chaos beasts were dealt with by tactical nukes frequently enough. The man who told his lord that he wanted to work free, or be an artist, or go there or there without permission was lucky if he found a chance to achieve dangerous slavery for his king. Often enough, such folk were simply killed.
The Ice Kings had a vision, and it did not matter how many million human souls got fed into the grinder until it was achieved.
This great killing changed the human race. They became more docile by culture, but also by genetics.
In the end the Ice Kings succeeded, and failed. By thirty-eight hundred, the Ice was almost completely gone and the vision of the Ice Kings seemed borne out. Those long, hard centuries, and now the Earth flowered, and wine and song were heard. But the long passage had corrupted the Ice Kings. Now they rejoiced and took their pleasure, and their children grew up weak and hedonistic but still with powers of life and death over millions in each kingdom.
The aristocrats partied, the commoners toiled in a pleasant land, and no kindness was shown anyone not of royal blood. The weak were found more and more. Certain genetic engineering had been done, but it was a patch, and those patches had lasted for hundreds of years, and now many began breaking.
Some said that certain humans had Chaos Blood in them, and it might well be true.
Worse, still, although the extra radiation was enlivening, it also hurt. Genetic mutations were occurring at a vastly higher rate. No beneficial except in certain odd situations mutation was discovered. But by the Fourth Millenium, one-half of the population was afflicted with low blood sugar and serious acne. Many had far more serious conditions.
And the Great Nobles, the descendants of the Ice Kings went three ways. Some decided to create Culture, and these financed works of art that are adored centuries later. This was the High Art Period.
Others at the same time decided to play games. They were bored with wealth, power, and ease, and commoners weren't really human after all. Nothing like a good war to serve as entertainment. The Noble Wars historians in later centuries adjudged were largely caused by bored younger princes looking for a way to impress their latest girlfriend, and have a good time.
The Hierarch of Truth came to the people in one land, and began preaching. His followers eventually took over the nation they lived in, and the surrounding nations. This was a rebirth of Biblical truth, and one of the results of this was an aristocracy that was more open to outsiders. Exceptional commoners could get in on the lower rungs of power. This brought a great deal of energy to the government, and it did not hurt that commoner and noble gene pools were far enough apart that hybrid vigor was a real effect.
The Hierarchichate, a noble ruled culture bound by codes of conduct that theoretically applied to all, spread from their part of the world. They absorbed the ideas of the High Culture and became the overlords of the High Cultures. The transmission of ideas went two ways with the High Culture being heavily influenced by the more Biblically based Hierachichate. However, one half of this world culture would always be more formal, more ritualistic, more dramatic, more artsy, and the other half was more energetic, more egalitarian, more vicious, more logical, more compassionate.
Democracy was tried, but it was found that the people perhaps lacked the capacity for Democracy anymore. The rulers of that time, even as they fought and destroyed the perverse culture of the Noble Wars Kingdoms who fought for sport by the nobles even as they lied mightily to their commoners, came to the sad conclusion that Humanity was not what it once was.
The brightest of them, well schooled, could not manage to understand the thoughts of the greatest of the World That Was. A constitutional republic eluded their understanding, as did relativity.
With this knowledge came the Twilight Era.
"As we limp toward the end, let us strive to be decent so that when we face our Maker who has given us mercy we did not deserve, we will make Him glad He made us." Saint Ralis Viat Do'Conszordo 4312-4349 A.D..
Others did not agree. Free enterprise flourished, but not wholly for the basis of it was too subtle for them to understand. And others struggled in various ways, some deeply dark, against the End. Things better left hidden and forgotten were revived, and wars were fought to Sustain the King's Peace.
Humankind degenerated. Mutations, genetic engineering...they took their toll.
By now the typical human is....
1. A member of the Five Kingdoms (the remains of the Southern branch of the Hierarchichate on the Broken Away Land (south south America)).
2. One of the mountain tribes. Barbarians either vicious or merely trying to get by.
3. A member of a secret order dedicated to somehow by some means or the other of evading the End. Most are silly. Some are deeply depraved. Some are deeply depraved and very dangerous.
4. A member of one of the great trading companies that travel from centers of civilization like the Five Kingdoms to others.
5. From some other center of civ, usually thats a Hierchichate branch.
6. Outcast mutant.
7. A Dark Land. As the Hierchichate wanes, in its place rises simple thieves and peddlers of fear to rule small lands.
Mental Disorders
================
# 1-4 of the following.
1. Depressive attacks.
2. Outbursts of Rage
3. Poor Impulse Control
4. A Gift for Making the Wrong Decision
5. Addictive Tendencies
6. Monomania about....
7. Vengeful.
8. Sophist.
9. Lack of empathy.
10. Sadistic.
Multiple takes on one create more effects in the person like a person inclined to be addicted to gambling and alcohol. Or, they turn someone from Lack of Empathy (cold) to LoE (sociopathic).
Physical Degenerations
======================
#1-4
1. Poor Vision.
2. Allergic to Common Substance.
3. Continous Sinus Attacks.
4. Daily Migraines.
5. Lesions on skin.
6. Albino.
7. Blood does not clot.
8. Arthiritic.
9. Asthmatic.
10. Lame.
Diseases
=========
#1-3
1. Smallpox survivor (heavily scarred).
2. Fungus growth.
3. Malaria.
4. Gullibility War Virus (created in previous centuries, this virus destroys the part of the brain that judges accurately making the victim extremely likely to believe any smiling person.).
5. Sunshock or Vampire War Virus. Person is extremely vulnerable to sunlight. Usually vitamin D deficient as well, and suffering from rickets and osteporosis and possibly other conditions.
6. Immune System Collapse. This is not AIDs specifically. The effect is that at times of high stress, the sufferer's immune system shuts down for a week or two. Opportunistic colds and viruses then come along and play havoc.
7. Bloodrage. The person loses their temper, drinks their own blood, tries to force their blood on others, and/or kill them with their bare hands. It was designed as an attempt to create Berserkers out of ordinary soldiers.
8. Sleeping. Caused by animal bites, this disease varies in effect each time it occurs. The person cannot sleep for a week, and then they simply shut down and sleep. Some sleep for a day, others a week, and others die. After waking up, they're good for anywhere from six months to ten years.
5. Person is unaffected by one disease he carries, but is a carrier.
The highest current tech is the electric cars which are powered by the rails in the roads and receive power from the Solar Power Satellites. There are computers- no one can program them because the logic is too hard.
