It has been said “neccesity is the mother of invention”. This was never more true than the early 21st century. Faced with an ecological crisis known as the Great Extinction whose scale was unparalleled in human history – threatened the extinction of all complex life. That we are alive to have this conversation is owed to a multi-generational scientific effort known as the Atlas Initiative which had been sponsored by the United Nations. You are much too young to remember what that was, but suffice to say that despite their reluctance the other powers of the world before the Great Extinction consented to yield considerable executive authority over to it. By pooling the scientific and military assets loaned to it, the Atlas Initiative managed to sucessfully heal the world long after those same nations hhad lost most of their power.
History, it seems, is not without it's sense of irony. In the process of narrowly averting this apocalypse, we learned enough about environmental sciences and molecular nanotechnology to bring life to other worlds far quicker than we could have otherwise. Most of the work was automated with limited human oversight to make sure as few things went wrong as possible. By the time 50 Solar Units had passed, Mars had been terraformed and Venus followed soon after, with plans for what to do with the Asteroid Belt already being hatched.No more than 320 Solar Units later the Inner Solar System was developed enough so that for no more than a transoceanic cruise ship would have cost one could buy a ride via cycler station between our three homeworlds.
Of course, one has to keep in mind that people at the time were often not the utopian idealists popular culture often perceives them to be. It was a time of marvelous wonders born of our own ingenuity and verging on magical. Yet at the same time it was still somewhat shaken by the memory of the Great Extinction... a crisis of our own making no less. That, I suppose, is why the Atlas Initiative was permitted by the Secretary General of the U.N.to keep the rights to technologies with world-changing/world-ending potential, to be used for the benefit of mankind. Don't get me wrong: the prosperity so enabled was real... even though we didn't get a say in the how and when. Whether this was part of a powergrab or a sensible precaution after having barely survived one potential apocalypse is still a matter of hot debate. What's certain is that it stirred up much suspicion towards the Atlas Initiative.
DAWN OF THE PROMETHEAN AGE
It has been said “neccesity is the mother of invention”. This was never more true than the early 21st century. Faced with an ecological crisis known as the Great Extinction whose scale was unparalleled in human history – threatened the extinction of all complex life. That we are alive to have this conversation is owed to a multi-generational scientific effort known as the Atlas Initiative which had been sponsored by the United Nations. You are much too young to remember what that was, but suffice to say that despite their reluctance the other powers of the world before the Great Extinction consented to yield considerable executive authority over to it. By pooling the scientific and military assets loaned to it, the Atlas Initiative managed to sucessfully heal the world long after those same nations hhad lost most of their power.
History, it seems, is not without it's sense of irony. In the process of narrowly averting this apocalypse, we learned enough about environmental sciences and molecular nanotechnology to bring life to other worlds far quicker than we could have otherwise. Most of the work was automated with limited human oversight to make sure as few things went wrong as possible. By the time 50 Solar Units had passed, Mars had been terraformed and Venus followed soon after, with plans for what to do with the Asteroid Belt already being hatched.No more than 320 Solar Units later the Inner Solar System was developed enough so that for no more than a transoceanic cruise ship would have cost one could buy a ride via cycler station between our three homeworlds.
Of course, one has to keep in mind that people at the time were often not the utopian idealists popular culture often perceives them to be. It was a time of marvelous wonders born of our own ingenuity and verging on magical. Yet at the same time it was still somewhat shaken by the memory of the Great Extinction... a crisis of our own making no less. That, I suppose, is why the Atlas Initiative was permitted by the Secretary General of the U.N.to keep the rights to technologies with world-changing/world-ending potential, to be used for the benefit of mankind. Don't get me wrong: the prosperity so enabled was real... even though we didn't get a say in the how and when. Whether this was part of a powergrab or a sensible precaution after having barely survived one potential apocalypse is still a matter of hot debate. What's certain is that it stirred up much suspicion towards the Atlas Initiative.
edited 13th Jul '15 9:08:42 AM by goldenerasuburb