Hybrid Technologies Part 1

Here's a bit more on the Hybrid's ships, I should have one more large post and then I might have enough of a general idea on what I'm writing about to start the first part of the actual story. That large post should come sometime during Thanksgiving break.

The Nautilus was created as the Hybrid Flagship used to attack the Alteran base on Earth in 2669. It took serious damage late in the battle as the Alterans began to pull a fighting force together. A large energy cannon sent a bolt through the nerve center of the ship’s brain, limiting the motor control the Hybrids had over it. Not wanting the Alterans to gain the upper hand, a devoted crew stayed on board the ship as non-essential personnel evacuated. The remaining crew guided the Nautilus as it fell, using what little control they still had to aim the wreckage into the Alteran city. The massive ship, nearly the size of New York, decimated the area, leaving a massive crater not because of its size or how far it fell (only half a mile up) but because of the large fusion generator failing when it collided with the ground. Portions of the ship were later recovered and it was cloned, containing the genetic memories of the first Nautilus. Just before the events that take place in the story, the Nautilus is one of three remaining warships the Hybrids have at their disposal. Being the flagship of the entire Hybrid fleet it is significantly larger than the other warships and carries more firepower. It is the only ship to escape Europa, later arriving in Dordonia in 2781.

The Hybrids developed smaller attack ships to be housed within the main body of the Nautilus and other large class ships like it. The smallest of these are the Barnacles, that look similar to larger ship itself however are much smaller, and are able to fit only one or two people. They are named barnacles because of how they form along the inside cavities of the Octopoda Ship. The normal animal would reproduce by making thousands of them, dying and allowing its body to be consumed by its offspring reproducing asexually if no zygote formed. After extensive genetic modification, this would consume a large amount of power and would of course be impractical to those living inside the ship. Instead of using all male ships to avoid this, the offspring were modified to become smaller, single piloted versions of the mother. These Barnacles are outfitted individually with the implants to become viable ships. Because their overall size is only about the size of a large motorcycle, the Barnacles are extensively modified so that they are immune to the harsh environment in space. They have very few organs and what little they do have are removed to make room for mechanical parts, making them much more synthetic than organic. The Barnacles are easily replaced, if a ship is destroyed or damaged, another dormant pod within the lining of cavity is forced to mature into a new body into which the old parts are placed to create a new ship.

To transport larger numbers of people the Hybrids rely on older technologies. Within the Atlantis base itself and the geothermal plant on Io monorails are used to transport passengers quickly. Similar to Dordonia, there are no flying cars or personal vehicles. To transport large numbers of people to and from ships like the Nautilus older shuttles that could carry a fairly large group of one hundred people or so were used. They were old technology from the Union and had for the most part become broken down relics. Medium sized ships called Whales were created in a similar manner to the Barnacles, from the reproduction sites within the Octopoda vessels. These Whales were created from the designs of the older Union transport ships that originally brought people scientists to Atlantis. Their frames were organically made like the Barnacles were however their interiors were largely manufactured. They were essentially large flying rooms that could hold up to one hundred fifty people safely. Several were kept as escape pods but it was impractical to have enough for a city wide evacuation, so only the higher up officers, CEO’s, and their families would have known about their existence, the general public believing that there were escape pods available for everyone and would be told where they were in an actual emergency.

           

Hybrids and Aliens

Alright, this is a whole lot of stuff, much more than I thought I could do in one night, but I'm very glad I finished it. I really don't like how I haven't gone into much detail about Dordonia and that the story up to this point sounds like a really bland science fiction. This is getting it much closer to what I want it to be. This post is an introduction to more of the aliens in this story world, including my favorite "race" the Hybrids. I'm going to go into more depth about their culture and ideals like I did with Dordonia but later, I really don't want to tackle everything at once now, and I'll just be making little mini posts about their stuff. Like the other large post, I didn't have names for some of these things so they sound a bit odd, though I really like the alien names Er and Siom. I doubt they'll have much of a role in anything as things expand, but they were fun to think of still. I just really liked idea of a political debate between a guy and piece of moss with a glowing button on it. One last note, towards the very end there is a section that would spoil a lot if I talked about it, though you can guess the general idea of what happens. I don't have all the details worked out but writing this out definitely helped me better think out the order of things for later. Enjoy.

After their first encounter with Extraterrestrial life in 2240, mankind discovered that the humanoid aliens seen in every movie were non-existent. The first two encounters were with the friendly Er, and Siom on a moon they had colonized together. The Er (pronounced “Air”) were a race that very much resembled an octopus, however was reptilian and had developed in the sands of their high gravity desert world. They were nearly as tall as a teenager; their heads three to four feet above the ground with ten tentacles each nearly double that, making them massive creatures. Their movement required the high gravity and sand of their home world, many wore padding under their tentacles or full body suits to move through the rougher soil layered Siom buildings and smooth clean surfaces in human structures. The Er also

The Siom were a highly evolved plant race, similar in appearance to moss, the Siom grew and moved as large patches of green sludge, sharing hive mind intelligence. The only way to differentiate between individual Siom was by a light green sensory organ that had evolved almost as a giant “leaf” above the group. The sensory organ was able to change its pigment and coloration for speaking with others. A conversation with a human and Siom for example was difficult, the Siom was a slow patient organism, and a single sentence would take about 5 minutes to form, humans would respond by holding a chip or plate that could convert thoughts into the appropriate colors, the differing wavelength would strike the Siom’s body and allow them to “hear” the conversation, think of it almost like a type of sign language with color. This made the Er much easier to deal with compared to the Siom, a conversation between two individual Siom could take twelve hours, as they were “speaking” as quickly as they could with humans.

Both of these races were friendly and eventually traded technology that would allow the Union and Earth to move farther into the stars peacefully. Some other unfriendly militant races such as the Jarah, an insect race that hatched (unfortunately for humans) from the carcasses of rotting mammals, these races however usually kept to themselves, being openly hostile to other races got you nowhere in diplomacy with other races. Unless you were far technologically superior than everyone as the Alterans were. However there was a growing theme that nearly all alien races were not mammalian. After discovering several destroyed civilizations, some still surviving but in a self inflicted nuclear winter, mankind discovered how lucky it was to be alive. A problem with mammalians is that they required a lot of food to keep their metabolism going and nearly always seemed to be hyperactive in comparison with most slow moving races. Mammalian intelligence was almost always extremely curious which had nearly always led to their self inflicted demise. They’re hyperactive life cycle also resulted in very short life span, at best one hundred seemed to be the most the body could take before it began to fail, meanwhile Er could easily live to be two hundred and Siom even longer than that give optimal conditions.

In 2499 a small icy moon was discovered orbiting a Jupiter-like gas giant. The moon was very similar to Jupiter’s moon Europa that had in the late 21^st century proven to have a vast ocean with many creatures and sea life underneath the surface. For a scientific comparison of the two, a Union research group led by Robert J. Falson dug through the mile or so crust of ice covering the moon. They discovered what would the race popularly known as Fal.

The Fal were of the approximate height of an adult human, nearly five to six feet. They are best described as a mix of a jellyfish and a lobster. The Fal have two long slender claws but have multiple pincers, forming something similar to claw like fingers. Similar to some jelly fish, the Fal store charges of electricity and are able to send out an arc between the gaps in their claws stunning pray they’ve caught or close to their claw. The main body is slender compared to their large pincers that it supports, with a large tube extending from their lower back and up to their head, which is long and slender except for a strikingly human face. The tube contains stores of waste carbon dioxide which can be expelled for a large burst of speed when chasing prey. Throughout the body, except for the chitin containing armor, the Fal have bioluminescent insides because of the depths that they live at. They communicate similarly to the Siom, in a sort of color sign language, able to distinguish many more hues than the human eye.

When mankind arrived they had not expected to find a civilization below the depths. The Fal were not as civilized as the others they had found and the region they had made first made contact with had a class based society similar to Middle Ages feudalism, with upper class “knights” and lower class peasants working algae farms and hunting for them. The church played a massive role in the Fal’s society, exerting control nearly half of the moon’s habitable sea floor. The church had oppressed science and had limited the world view of many, because Fal lived on the surface they lived under massive water pressure and were unable to get close to the icy surface naturally. Several rebellious scientists had built pressure suits to allow them to move to higher levels, discovering the icy crust of their world. This Fal version of Galileo argued that there was a surface that could be broken and that heaven lied beyond it. A generation after he had asserted this humanity discovered them, nearly triggering a civil war between opponents of the church, largely abused peasants and the suppressed scholarly class. Humanity attempted to mediate this despite eventually causing the church’s grip to falter in many areas.

The Fal had inspired one scientist professor Ryan Halberd, who had been looking into genetic modifications to be used for troops against the aquatic Alterans. He had done great work with the Fal for most of his scientific life, understanding their biology and the benefit of life on their world, having spent most of his life on the Atlantis research colony on Europa, on which several Fal scientist were sheltered from the growing conflict.  In 2528 he had created the first Alien-Human hybrid DNA strand, eventually creating the first Hybrid named John Halberd in late 2528. He called the new race Falinoids, the Union had originally been supportive, funding the Atlantis colony as a proto-Dordonia. He and his team had worked on the “Falinoids” with Singularity technology, quickly resulting in a human hybrid. These hybrids had both Gills and Lungs, able live in the water or on the surface. They were predominantly human, resembling many of the humanoids from early 21^st century science fiction movies. They had a clear blue skin, but pigment had been applied to their face and hands to make them more able to converse with humans. Pigment was not applied to their backs, chests, or legs, and was clear, with bioluminescent organs and blood. The only parts of their bodies not humanlike were their heads. Unintentionally there remained an elongated section going down to their backs, though it was nowhere near as pronounced as the Fal themselves. They also retained some of the Fal’s electric storing abilities. This was part of what was supposed to add to their military appeal, a walking teaser, the Hybrids were able to force all their electrical activity from a part of their nervous system into one arm and send it into something they were touching. This was very dangerous though, despite retaining the Fal’s greatly increased lifespan and regeneration, they would burn out their nervous system and lose control in that arm until it was able to heal which could take several days. As all Hybrids are the “Falinoids” were sterile and unable to procreate amongst themselves or humans. They would adopt a practice that would be used by Dordonia after the war, using similar (though less advanced) technology to recombine strands of human and Fal DNA into a use able Hybrid sequence, the child being adopted by a Hybrid couple.

The term Falinoids also did not stick, and when it was used it was more of a racial slur than anything. “Hybrids” as they were simply coined, though still not as kind as Falinoids, became the adopted name of the new race. Citizens of the Union and officials in the Union failed to treat the Hybrids well and instead tried to suppress them, few of the young hybrid children reached Earth. Because of this many stayed on the Atlantis research base that was expanded by the Union to keep them sequestered there.  Though they would only be around for nearly ten years before the Earth was invaded the Hybrids had caused the expansion of the Atlantis base on Europa. The Union trusted them more than Dordonia in the later years of the War as they continued to produce weapons and more easily parted with them because they were so much closer and the Union was able to apply pressure to them more easily. Two months before Alterans boldly attacked Earth the Atlantis base had received a package from Dordonia, hoping to preserve its ancestor and the Hybrid race. Atlantis secretly implemented a phase shield generator under the safeguard of a team of highly defensive Dordonian scientists. When the battle came Europa, Atlantis, and its nursery of Hybrids was saved.

After the invasion, Alteran ships searched desperately for Atlantis, however as the Shield was covering the entire moon, it was undetectable. Still, the station was at a disadvantage to Dordonia, which while also secret, had been made to remain secret. The Atlantis base was unable to grab the amount of solar energy it needed being so far from the Sun. Unable to get solar power, and with the geothermal power available on Europa limited, a risky expedition to restore a Geothermal plant on Io, the volcanic moon of Jupiter was mounted in 2542. After several close calls, a fabricated phase shield was placed on Io and the two stations supplied each other, the Atlantis Base of Europa gave food and materials to Io while the base on Io was able to recharge large power cells for use in both colonies.

Culture developed along similar lines of Dordonia, though it retained the ideals of the Union capitalism and individuality more easily. The Io colony and Atlantis bond was firm until the late 2640’s, ironically when the era of peace in Dordonia began. The population of humans had dwindled because the Hybrids were able to reproduce and maintain their numbers more easily and also able to live nearly double that of regular humans. Many Humans fiercely upset of being replaced threatened to leave and find Dordonia, the lost human colony. The Alterans had set up a large presence on Earth, they did not occupy it because it was premium living space. Demanding far different conditions a small base was maintained to keep the Earth as a trophy world, warning other races such as the Er and Sioms that they were far superior. Nearly half of the population, including nearly all humans, wanted to attack this single base on Earth and reclaim it. The council was fiercely against this but slowly new officials were elected so that by 2652 more than half the populations of Atlantis and the Io colony were ready for war.

While working for the Union, Atlantis had specialized in creating new ways to create weapons and to make modifications to Dordonian weapons (which the Union suspected was not producing the most dangerous weapons it could). The crown jewel of Atlantian creations was the Octopoda Class ship. The Union had wanted large Dreadnaughts created faster and more cheaply than it could muster with materials, having most of them consumed in the creation of Dordonia and Atlantis. Atlantis had on file from Ryan Halberd’s early research many different types of aquatic life, from many worlds that had been explored. A massive squid from the Fal home world showed promise for extensive genetic modification. It was called simply a “Supermassive Squid” and though had been catalogued and had many DNA sequences was poorly named by the person who found it (ha ha ha). It was similar to the Fal in that it had air sacks along its tentacles from which air could be jettisoned for extremely fast bursts. However it needed a smaller species of sea worm to live inside large cavities in these sacs, providing it nutrients while the worm aided in giving it nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Altanian scientists before the invasion had plans to use genetic modification and massive amounts of cybernetic parts to be implanted inside a gigantic (nearly the size of New York) sized Squid. Structures were to be built inside the Air jets and engines placed at the tips of the tentacles; the animal’s brain would become the control center and would be used to direct movement of the tentacles. A massive structure underneath the skin would serve as the “city” where most of the officers on board the ship would live. By 2668 the 16 year effort was finished, with 22 massive ships the Hybrids planned an invasion of the Alteran colony and reclaiming Earth. In 2669 a huge fleet of twenty, five hundred mile long ships were brought out of phase above the Alteran city and razed it to the ground.

Between here and 2691 is a huge area of the story that I don’t want to explain yet, parts about the main characters and the people they’re working for aren’t clear enough yet. All that I can say is that they are not in a parallel time fixing something, they’re going back into their own timeline to fix something, which doesn’t happen for several reasons I’ll talk about later.

In 2691, an Ocotpoda Class ship leaves Europa crammed with nearly 9 million people in stasis pods, including Red’s family, heads for Dordonia. The Faster Than Light (FTL) drive is dysfunctional and makes it to Dordonia in 2781.

Dordonian Technologies Part 1

Here's a small bit of info about Dordonian Tech. It's stuff I meant to go over in that original post but forgot. I like the idea of making smaller posts like this during the weekdays and keeping huge posts to the weekends if I can. 

Dordonians for the most part wear jumpsuits issued to them by their Sanctuary. As they grow out of them, they are given multiple sets throughout their lives. Originally they were worn by the Union military that had been stationed there, after the Alteran victory and the Class War however, the suits were first mass-produced. The Jumpsuits were made of a high tech durable fabric, resembling in texture to polyester, but extremely tough like Kevlar. It had been designed by the military to be light combat armor, the fabric being able to closely associate with itself when hit by bullets or lasers. This quality made it ideal for Dordonian mechanics, dealing with harsh conditions both inside and outside the sanctuaries and also when dealing with dangerous research projects. After the difficulties in the Class War they helped inspire a sense of nationalism in a way that’s not easily described. This wasn’t as identity suppressing as it may sound. They became somewhat of a symbol, like wearing an American flag pin after 9/11 or wearing a Live Strong bracelet would, helping to kick start Dordonian nationalism. The suits were not always uniform. Though they were originally copied off of the Union military uniforms, light brown and dark red, scientists were able to take advantage of the fabric’s malleability. The Fabric’s ability to change density and texture when shot was manipulated so that it would be able to change its texture and even color on command. This was led by a small group of rebellious young scientists who wanted more of an identity. This gave some people jobs as fashion designers, though the trend never became too popular, as citizens were free to “tailor their own clothing’s appearance themselves. 

Dordonia had been a hub from where nearly all Union technologies had come, though secretly. Dordonia had not been used to create many recreational inventions more than what it needed for itself to stay self-sufficient. Some already established technologies from Earth however leaked in from Earth, some, like the Gateways, had already been established before the foundation of Dordonia. One necessity of many Dordonian Engineers was the Holographic Hard Tool. On the outside of a space colony it is difficult to carry a heavy toolbox or tool belt around. The solution was a cuff, about three to four inches in length that would fit around one hand. A shielded panel contained a solution of energized microscopic crystals that formed the small-scale three-dimensional shape of a tool such as a screwdriver, hammer, or even a loadable nail gun. When positive current was run through the design, the image would appear as a larger scale hologram above the panel. The panel was made out of several layers of refined crystal that were able to project the image out, but also have the light beam curve back in on itself, making the image actually made of light. Because of the positive current running through it, electrons from the air would attach to the image and form a fully sized electrified three-dimensional tool shape. The light being curved around by the panel would come back around and layer overtop this electrified shape instantly making it firm to the touch. The tool was projected above the wrist and had a limited connection to the nervous system, making it able to extend out nearly a foot from the panel before the image would degrade, making it a hands free tool.

Another popular was called a Flick Light. Ironically the company’s logo was a hand holding up a single finger (index) before the invention of the Lighter. By 2450 most governments under the Union had low smoking rates, become an expensive addiction of the most wealthy. A small company tried appealing to a younger generation. The “Flick Light” was patented as the Snap Light, however the name was adopted by its young consumers for several reasons. The Flick Light was an adapted glove for lighting cigarettes, the middle finger had a cap to be placed on it, with a piece of wire going down the hand, wrapping around at the wrist, and leading to another cap at the thumb. On each cap pieces of high friction flint were placed, so when a person snapped their fingers a small spark was created. The company was relatively soon after because of the obvious fire hazards the “Snap Lights” created. Despite this the children of several scientists snuck them onboard Dordonia when it was originally created. Later confiscated, the few Snap lights that survived are a trophy of senators such as Daniel’s Father.  

Standardized Testing Teaching, Not Testing

This was a quick opinionated thing I did for my high school newspaper. I made it kinda quickly and it is the unedited version so there will probably be somethings grammaticality that need fixing. I liked how it came out though.

Standardized tests are meant to be beneficial to student's learning, highlighting what material is necessary, however there are major criticisms of how effective they really are. Standardized Testing basically is any test that is created to test skills that are thought to be most crucial for students and taken by a large number of students across wide areas. For example the PSSA tests are taken by all students in Pennsylvania while the SAT's are taken all over the United States and are used to determine college placement. Tests are meant to be unbiased and are used to help guide teachers on what exactly is important and what is not. The problem with Standardized Testing is its lack of subjectivity and how well students are actually learning information, not just learning how to fill out a bubble sheet.

            Standardized testing forces teachers to teach certain things, while cutting others out. While this can seem like a good idea it can actually be harmful to the student. It depends on the situation, a poor or inexperienced teacher could be helped and guided on what to teach. However teachers who know what they're doing have to adapt their teaching style around confinements put on by the testing, cutting out time for content the teacher thinks is important for what the test makers think is important. There is a large gap in what is actually taught to students by their teachers and what could be taught on tests. Because schools need students to do well on tests for funding or for the student's personal benefit, students are taught not necessarily to enjoy a subject or to go farther and further in their pursuit of knowledge, but to learn how to score on a test.

            Some teachers and schools are tested just as much as students are, which puts enormous pressure on them. In some states, a teacher's continued employment is based entirely on their ability to increase scores. In some Californian school districts, parents are able to look at how a teacher is graded. They are not evaluated on how effective they were in the classroom or how well students learned or retained content, but how high his or her student's test scores were. It makes sense that a "good" teacher would have students who were learning the material effectively and able to apply it on the test, while a "bad" teacher would be just the opposite. However this is a modeling a standardized world of which we are not a part of. Some highly effective teachers are able to teach in unorthodox ways, ways that are not easily transferred into high test scores. Having teachers employment at the mercy of their students has another problem: how willing the class is to actually learn. Even with an amazing teacher, students will still fail if they are unmotivated, and making teachers accountable for this can be unfair or put force them into cheating, as an entire school was caught doing in the Sunnyside school district early this November. Standardized testing also is questionable in how well students are actually learning material.

            A dangerous president is being set by Standardized tests, they tell students that "This is what is important. This is what you need to know.", while that simply isn't true. Give a group of ten students an outline for a 20 page chapter they must read and complete by the next day. Nine out of ten of those students will not actually read the information, they will skim for each part of the information needed to complete the assignment. Complete the assignment, not learn the material. Students learn something to apply it on their next test and then to forget it. That is exactly what standardized testing teaches and why it is harmful to students. Learning should be more about how to explore something and to understand why things work, and how to apply them and teach critical thinking, not why the answer is A, B, C, or D. 

First Real Post

Alright. Just so if it isn't well explained in the writing below, Dordonia is one of the largest parts of the story. It not only is home to the two main characters, its Parallel copies are a part of nearly every place in the story, for reasons that won't be apparent until I get fairly deep into this. This version however is arguably the most necessary to get right, as it is the most influential of all of them. There are some parts of this I still am mulling over, I'm not 100 percent happy with how the part on politics sounds, but hopefully I can iron it out after someone else sees it. I guess I'm starting to realize how ambitious this could end up getting, and that's exciting at least. I doubt I'll be able to update this more than once a week like this as this entire thing ended up being 3 pages in Microsoft word and took around 3 hours of typing to complete. Some details such as the name for the "Union" I added on the spot and so have unoriginal names, some things like the Hybrids I just don't have a clever name for because I think making up strange alien names sounds too lame. That's something I guess I would like feed back on if I get any at all. Enjoy, hope it doesn't come off as too campy. 

Dordonia was created as a research and development lab for the Union, a collective government of the nations of Earth, though separate and more effective than the United Nations using its authority. The Earth had started a war with the Alterans in 2527, after settling in a star system they claimed ownership of. Not knowing about this claim or the Alterans themselves, militarized Human colonists settled on a small Earthlike Moon in this system. The paranoid Alterans thinking it was the start of a push into their territory exterminated all the colonies on the moon with an oversized invasion fleet. The overkill the Alterans had used on the colonists enraged nearly everyone on Earth, putting them on a bad footing with the Alterans for their first encounter. After 3 more years of contact with no signs of improvement, a similar invasion fleet attacked a large ship taking a detour through the edges of Alteran territory, on board was the entire population of colonists including a major Union Senator who were fleeing a meteor strike on their colony. This was the last straw, and soon after the Earth had its first inter planetary war. By 2534 the war was going poorly and edges of Union space had dwindled. Despite this, the Union had acquired a lot of Alteran technology that was far superior to what humans had. Dordonia was planed originally as a set of 3 planetoids circling around the sun, they would help the Union by attempting to reverse engineer Alteran Technology. Dordonia was built on the far reaches of Union territory and was very discrete about it’s existence, unknown even to citizens of the Union. It was constructed around a red dwarf, extremely small compared to the Earth’s Sun, this made the star itself hard to spot and undesirable for other alien colonists because it had few habitable worlds making it unlikely to be stumbled upon accidently. Though the colony was meant to be an extension of the Union it was populated with scientists who were mostly forced to be there. Many feared that if the war could be won, the weapons they would be creating could do more harm than good and split the Union back into individual warring nations. Despite this, the three original Planetoids grew into 37. The Planetoids were built with Singularity technology. Difficult to imagine today, the Singularity is a point at which technology is advancing impossibly quickly. Individual atoms were like bricks and mortar, most the materials needed were found in the brown dwarfs circling the red dwarf. Construction of a single Planetoid took under a month, with all the wiring, plumbing, and life support all installed. Each planetoid by itself was able to sustain itself through small-scale hydroponics and live of solar energy, but as the Union wanted Dordonia to produce more and more, they needed materials at a faster rate and it was becoming harder and harder to transport them secretly so far away. It made sense for the planetoids themselves to become more and more self-sufficient.

In 2539, the war that had been going on for almost 20 years ended. Despite the massive advantages given to them by Dordonians the Union was unable to hold back the Alterans. Dordonia however had surpassed the Alteran technology in some areas and had been unwilling to part with some of the more potent technologies. Having a population almost entirely of scientists, the Dordonians were worried about how the Union military would handle these technologies in peacetime. Though they had handed over many new types of engines, weapons, and one notable scientist created a Human-Alien Hybrid, they were unwilling to part with their most advanced weapon. The Phase Shield takes matter out of phase with normal matter, uses a colossal amount of power to push every atom in an object towards a parallel universe, usually the next one down in the universal stack. This causes the object not only to become invisible, but intangible as well. Though this could be the greatest defense the Union could have mounted, the Dordonians were fiercely against it, if mishandled, it could create a rip in space-time, or displace large areas into another universe. Though it was the Dordonians’ fault that Earth was lost, costing billions of lives and losing the history of an entire species, it showed how large the divide between them and the Union had become. The Hybrids, who had been given similar technology to Dordonia and were meant to be kept under the thumb of the Union more than Dordonia was, ran, taking the entire moon of Io with them. Earth’s defenses failed on December 17^th 2539, small Alteran ships slipped through, dropping warheads on Washington DC, London, Paris, and Beijing first, the rest of the world would follow in the next few hours. Dordonia watched as the Earth burned, the torch of humanity had just been dimmed down to something the size of a candle.

Dordonia is the “nation” and homeland that two of the main characters come from, and several other locations have a parallel version of it or something equivalent to it. The Nation of Dordonia from which Daniel and Red are from is made of 37 artificial planetoids, each approaching the size of New York City, however they maximize living space by instead of building laterally they build upwards. Think of it like this, any city will have large stretches of buildings several stories high, however a city such as New York cannot expand laterally any further, they’re nowhere else to build. However there are two other options, building up into the sky, or down into the ground. Like the major cites that existed in the time they were made, the living space of these planetoids take full advantage of space and build up extremely high with a wide base. These have upwards of 300 floors and are cities within a city, containing places for businesses, housing, and each planetoids specialized work to take place, such as Hydroponics, Engineering, as well as manufacturing of basic materials such as glass and metals.

            Unlike all the films of the 20^th and 21^st century flying cars are impractical and are an extreme hazard to civilians and property. A drunk driver could cause unrepeatable damage to essential parts of any highly specialized equipment or kill dozens of people if they crashed into a housing area. Small quick ships do inter-Planetoid transport but they are restricted to docking bays at all times. People are transported from Planetoid to Planetoid and even between buildings via Gateways. Unoriginally named, Gateways are indistinguishable from regular doorways except that they link one area to another by pinching the space between them closer together. Doing this causes substantial heat and causes the edges to glow red-hot and thick casing is put around their edges for safety. Also they look nothing like doorways. Gateways to different parts of Dordonia are easily accessible, nearly every apartment, floor, or office has one and with a nearby kiosk any two gateways can be linked provided the person has clearance to go into that area.

            Being a closed off community the Dordonians would have had a major problem with population if it were not regulated, if a generation had too few their gene pool would gradually shallow and too high would tax their food production system. After the first generation of scientists realized this after the Earth had been destroyed, they started a contingency plan. They had received a massive file containing every human being registered in the Union it had been used to simulate Alteran bio weapons on a virtual city called the World. Every detail had been accurate down to the inhabitant’s DNA and now that DNA would be repurposed. The Alterans reproduced through cloning; they had created machinery to create several sequences that were perfect for specific roles. For example they had one hundred different warrior clones, each was able to pass on its memories to the next clone if the brain was recovered. This meant the Alterans could have hundreds of commanders who lived through the same exact life and could flawlessly work as a single unit. The Dordonians however used this cloning for a different function. They used two desirable strands of DNA to create an embryo, as it would have been if it had been created between the two naturally. This embryo would grow into a baby that would be “born” and would be raised by a couple existing in Dordonia. Though the first few generations were rocky at best, by 2600 it was becoming “normal.”         

These synthetic humans were also extensively modified to extend their ware in the artificial environment they were placed in. Their blood contained medical Nanites, nearly microscopic machines that could work seamlessly to correct problems in the body. They acted mostly as a faster alternative to the natural immune system, however they also were able to more complicated things such as quickening healing rates from broken bones, cuts, as well as destroying cancers and other disorders.

            Though Dordonia had been founded under the Union’s command and had a Democratic Republic government, this quickly fell apart under the test of extreme isolation. The Dordonians had a system that had become the standard in nearly every civilized world in the 21^st century. While it worked with the union it had worked well, but showed signs of weakness. Solar panel workers and workers who did more intensive labor were given less than those working on the highest level experiments. Though these high level workers were much more knowledgeable than the more labor-intensive workers they were not risking their lives sitting outside the Planetoid shell. Eventually this led to the first Dordonian Class War. Though the conflict was minor with only seven casualties among the most radical on each side, the conflict led to sweeping reforms in the government. Socialism and Communism had utterly failed on Earth because it highly alienated the upper class workers because there were places where they could be making more money and the only pressure put on them to do extremely hard work for less pay was that it was helping the homeland. However having a small community divided along class lines was just as ineffective. As the Class Wars concluded large scale improvements were made to the government. Autocratic governments allow fast quick decisions to be made but at the cost of liberty to its citizens. Dordonia would have a combination of two conflicting ideals, the electoral government remained, however with a short term equal to almost one year, meaning officials had to constantly produce results to remain in office. Each “Sanctuary” as the planetoids became known, had two Senators and a number of Congressmen dependant on the population similar to the United States system. However, it copied off of the Roman’s system of government, in a time of crisis the two major heads of the two political parties would together work for the benefit of the nation, with their decisions able to overturn any other order and bypass any part of their constitution if necessary. This however had a time limit, if in 6 months the problem wasn’t resolved an election would be held by the people to place a new duo in office. Before the Class War some senators had given themselves entire floors of buildings they were meant only to have a medium sized apartment. Though members in government had somewhat larger housing than everyone else as well as a few other perks, they were not as significant as they had been. Credits were distributed evenly and slowly as memory of the Union life faded, strong nationalism and xenophobia emerged. Rejection of the old world’s ideas came into practice; they were not hated, just held as an example. The Union was archaic and it had been foolish to attack the obviously superior Alterans out of anger, even if it was the noble thing to do. They were proud of who they were, the last of humanity, the best of humanity, some even went as far as to say it was some kind of divine test, that their destiny was to someday recreate the human race better than it had been. This attitude remained from 2650 to 2781. In 2781 they met a civilization of almost equal power and ambition. The Hybrids had found Dordonia. 

Welcome!

For almost four years now I've had a story idea for something I've called the "Glass Earth". It started out as a simple idea but has swelled to something very large and ambitious. Without getting into too much detail it's a science fiction in which several  characters having to make a deal with the devil of sorts, moving across many parallel universes to fulfill a contract. One problem with the idea of this story is that it's all in my head, I have a general idea how the plot will go but I don't have room for all the detail I would like. I plan on writing stuff here soon about the areas the story takes place in, such as the home universes of main characters and important parts of each world. Depending on how much time I have I might have something up as soon as tomorrow, we'll see I guess. I'm open to suggestions on how I should change things when I'm writing, as tearing something up just after writing it, is a surprisingly good way to produce something better. I might also slap some "Liberal Propaganda" from time to time, and give some opinions on current events and what not. Well thanks for reading, hope to write more soon.

Hey Guys

Just a quick note for what I hope will be a much larger place for me to put ideas and such, welcome! Hopefully I'll have a few things more notable than this in the near future.