A BREIF HISTORY OF WHAT HAPPENED TO EARTH
In order to fully understand how these two great societies came together, one should have a general understanding as to what happened on Earth. Earth’s history is the story of survival, of great struggle, and of loss. It is also a story of deceit. However small at first, this truth withheld became a festering wound. It, in time, became a source of great shame among the best and brightest of Earthlings. When first contact was made with the people of Ahkam, the truth of Earth’s struggle was never revealed.
What happened on Earth in the year 2035 A.D. was a chain reaction. Nuclear power became used more prevalently, as a way to leave fossil fuels behind, along with our attempts to harness fusion on the planet. When the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Europe exploded, the fallout caused other nuclear power reactors to go up in smoke. The fallout and nuclear winds soon consumed the entire planet. Those that survived went to ground. The nuclear winter that consumed the Earth lasted for generations. Left unkept and abandoned, the world’s nuclear facilities began to deteriorate. Massive radiation leaks were commonplace in what used to be the industrialized areas of the planet. As these facilities continued to deteriorate they would explode, perpetuating this horrible chain reaction for hundreds of years. This period is known on Earth as the LOST AGE.
When humans finally re-emerged, most of Earth's life had all but disappeared. Small tribal groups started rebuild. Once they began to find one another, the mission to become a global society once again became paramount. Quests to find and unlock ancient technologies were of the utmost importance, along with the expedition to the “Svalbard Global Seed Vault” that was established many years before the Lost Age.
Growing food in this harsh environment was not easy but humanity showed it’s grit. Though the seeds gave them food, it was the radio re-invented that allowed Earth's children to reach out to one another across great distances. Unknowingly, it brought something else.
A haunting voice overpowered the lower frequencies of the radio dial for years with a single repeating phrase; “We Here”. Once it was discovered that the message “We here, we here, we here.” was from an alien civilization trying to make contact, it sent ripples of hope throughout an already devastated and struggling society. All efforts went to unearthing and restoring the Arecibo Observatory, which was used to discover the origin of the message and to determine a method for sending a response.
This marked the beginning of The Renaissance on both planets.
The prospect of being part of an interstellar alliance and that life on another planet existed brought the world together. But no matter how unified they were, toxic oceans, food shortages, and the damage done from Earth's Oil Age continued to haunt Earthlings. Most Earthlings believed, at this time, that they could turn things around. They believed that science would give solutions to cleaning up the mess that was made, that their greatest failure would never be more than a footnote in the galactic ledger of the future. At first, Earth’s “Chromos” were afraid of broadcasting humans' vulnerability and their darker natures. They had no idea who these aliens were and what kind of threat they posed. Even in the dilapidated state Earth was in, the first hundred years of communication it became clear that human technology surpassed the Ahkamians in almost every way. Many debates occurred around this subject as the years passed, what finally ended the debate and solidified the position in government that a lie would be upheld.
In telling Ahkam the hardship of Earth, humans would have to reveal technology of the Oil Age that was looked at by most as what led to the damage of their biosphere. It was decided that technology that could help the Ahkamians bypass the industrial revolution and many of the dangers of the Oil Age would be shared freely. The secrets of renewable energy collection were shared openly in the most advanced forms that Earth possessed. Flying machines and bullet trains that were powered by the sun gave Ahakmian society a leap forward so that they never knew what they were missing. By keeping them innocent of the struggle humans faced, Earth’s people hoped they could give Ahkam a chance to avoid the same mistakes they had made.
Hundreds of years passed and Earth’s scientist continued to fail to turn things around. Most of civilization lived in small pockets of the world where life was able to be sustained. Famine, limited resources and political uprisings plagued the Earth. Regionalism and mistrust was never overcome entirely, Earthlings never achieved the same sense of global unity that Ahkam was able to. The reality of Earth’s situation was one that large portions of the population could simply not accept. Many people believed that elites and the privileged few were intentionally keeping people from settling outside of domed cities. When they ventured out or rebelled they found themselves in the harsh reality that the world was truly destroyed.
The natural history of Earth that was shared with Ahkam was all from before the Lost Age. The planet that Akamians knew as their sister planet had died before they ever said hello. No official messages were sent from Earth revealing this deception. When it became the scientific consensus that leaving the planet was the best chance for humanity's survival, this posed a very large problem. Not everyone could go. When the A.R.C.C. was established it would take over a hundred years to build and prepare for the mass exodus. In that time the A.R.C.C. operated in the utmost secrecy.
Most humans went on completely unaware that they were being left behind. However, some did learn of the plan and unified into a rebel alliance that was aimed at nothing less than the destruction of the A.R.C.C. These humans believed that the people involved in the A.R.C.C. were traitors to their species. Instead of trying to save us all, they were running away and taking the best of our resources and scientific minds with them. They would have to be stopped in order to save the Earth. Most battles comprised of guerrilla tactics and covert operations, for both sides in this escalating war knew the dangers of the entire population discovering the nature of this project. It wasn’t until just before the A.R.C.C. had managed to build all three magnetic boosters in the solar system, and the massive starship was finished that the rebels went public with what they knew.
The world erupted into a full blown world war. Mass hysteria took over and the A.R.C.C. narrowly escaped a world gone mad. There was nothing left for the people of Earth, and they had to look to Ahkam as their greatest hope for the survival of humanity.