Solar Storms

Genesis

"And the serpent said unto the woman, "Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." - Genesis 3, 4-5 (KJV)

Preamble

Half a million years ago, humanity learned the secret of fire. Setting themselves apart from the animals that surrounded them, mankind took its first step out from under the oppressive thumb of Nature.

Seventy thousand years ago, humanity learned to speak. Though they were able to communicate before, no longer were they limited to nasal grunts and clicks of the tongue. From Africa, they conquered the Earth.

Twelve thousand years ago, humanity learned to harvest. Where once there were thousands, in time, there would be billions.

Six thousand years ago, humanity learned to write. Where once the knowledge of previous generations had to be endlessly repeated, it could now be known for all eternity.

Not so many decades past, humanity unlocked the power within the atom. For good, and for ill, even the most ignorant amongst the masses could not help but respect the smallest of things.

As the third millenium sent humanity into a frenzy, the secrets of aging itself were laid bare, and soon, Science found for mankind the Fountain of Youth.

At the dawn of the 23rd century, the people of Terra have colonized many worlds within its star system. The terraforming of Mars is nearing completion, and work on making Venus habitable is well underway. The vast expanse of space stretches before humanity, cold, but inviting. All of its knowledge, all its wisdom, all its power, seems like naught but a tiny candle amidst an endless night.

Small, and fragile, but it only takes a single flicker to light the inferno.

The Solar System is the Third Cradle of Man, out of Africa, off of Earth, not satisfied with mere immortality, humanity gathers its resources and hones its intellect, preparing to storm across the Milky Way.

Solar Storms is the tale of that exodus. As mankind finds the answers its last questions, countless more unfold from the telling.

Introduction

Sometime, in the year 2202, humanity cheated. This much humans know. The Mobius Patterns seem to defy the second law of thermodynamics, offering no explanation for their capabilities. Most are small, and fragile, but they are something else.

They are life.

It may be aeons before humans are aware of just what they have done. Before their intervention, the multiverses... omniverse... whatever, were happily colliding away, self-immolating, only to be reborn anew, with no such thing as a memory if their previous state.

But now, humans have brought a piece of this immolation, this rebirth, into their own realm, and are bending it to their will. This delicate flicker threatens to become an inferno that may one day consume this Universe, and whatever lies beyond.

Without fear of disease or hunger, without worry of age or even death, the overwhelmingly vast majority of humans are known as the Content, paragons of Nietzsche's Last Men, both male and female. They live their lives, either in quiet ennui, hedonistic frenzy, or somewhere in between, caring not for a future they believe to be garaunteed. By their own actions and decisions, they are second-class citizens, fourteen billion humans united in apathy.

But the future is not yet written, and, either through circumstance or raw personal drive, some seek to guide or alter the status quo. Those who belong to this fractured lot are the authors of humanity's future - however minor. About a half billion in number, they sometimes refer to their whole as the Gerents, for they manage and guide humanity and its creations.

This is no consensus. The current dominant body is the Solar Consortium, which formed after the Martian Compact had taken control of Earth. The old powers who held sway over Earth's people before that incident have not forgotten, and neither have the masses who have rejected technology entirely, living outside of the great Arcologies as the original humans once lived, fortelling of the days when the sins of Man will be brought low.

Not half a century after the rise of the Consortium, it already finds its power threatened. Humans, transformed by the meddling of science into affairs that should have never been possible, are displaying abilities beyond the ken of current knowledge. Hunted, these rare humans banded together to build Ouranos Prime, a mighty space station resting inside the orbit of the seventh planet. There, they built a new weapon, revealing its nature in an event now known as the Jovian Massacre. This bought them many enemies, but also a measure of safety, at least for a few years.