Earth, late twenty-third Century.
Crops fail and nations starve. Populations huddle in fear of the constant threat of total war. Desperate billions clamor to be free from their poisoned birthplace.
Plans are laid in the boardrooms of the great corporate towers. They mature in secret over decades. Sleek silver ships are constructed at awesome expense. Entire worlds are reshaped according to the vision of corporate scientists.
An atmospheric cloak is thrown around the moon. The red deserts of Mars become fertile. Jungles sprout beneath the clouds of Venus. The Earth is raped and plundered to pay for this mighty work till the day dawns when all is in readiness and the corporations announce their plan.
I will speak now of the Exodus, of the teeming millions clambering into great Arks as the Corporations loaded their best and brightest onto the great ships, of the weeping and lamentation of those abandoned to wander the Cursed Lands forever, of the riots and protests of those who learned too late that they were doomed to be left behind.
Now the banners of the Megacorporations fluttered boastfully in the winds of new worlds.
It was a time of hope and terror and blighted promise, the dawn of a new age.
The children of the Megacorporations made landfall at the places prepared for them. Each corporation had a dream, a vision of a perfect world, an ideal to which all its folk aspired. Each corporation strove to achieve that ideal amid the new worlds of the re-shaped Solar System.
The proud pioneers of mighty Capitol set foot on the soil of Luna and began to build the greatest city that these worlds will ever know. They seized the fertile red plains of Mars and colonized their Freedom Lands.
The Homebuilders of Bauhaus toiled in the sweltering jungles and volcanic archipelagoes of Venus , laboring to raise cities and factories and enormous estates. They strove against mighty monsters and awful conditions to build a new and perfect world of order.
The honor-bound citizens of Mishima excavated their cavern-cities beneath the burning sands of the Mercurian deserts. the great underworlds filled with people. Lights glittered where once there was only darkness. The miners burrowed deep. Giant smelters glowed with white heat. Overlord Mishima smiled as he finds work good.
Imperial struggled to carve out its niche in the already crowded solar system, sending great forces of Conquistadors to grab land all over the inner system and to explore the uncharted territories of the asteroids and the outer worlds.
Everywhere, there was uneasing activity. All the worlds of men were a hive of industry. Great cities were founded, new trade routes were forged. In all this activity there was only one quiet spot. Old Earth was ignored, left to degenerate into barbarism. It is a senile parent abandoned by its embarrassed children. Its people were hopeless. The sands swallowed its cities.
Crops fail and nations starve. Populations huddle in fear of the constant threat of total war. Desperate billions clamor to be free from their poisoned birthplace.
Plans are laid in the boardrooms of the great corporate towers. They mature in secret over decades. Sleek silver ships are constructed at awesome expense. Entire worlds are reshaped according to the vision of corporate scientists.
An atmospheric cloak is thrown around the moon. The red deserts of Mars become fertile. Jungles sprout beneath the clouds of Venus. The Earth is raped and plundered to pay for this mighty work till the day dawns when all is in readiness and the corporations announce their plan.
I will speak now of the Exodus, of the teeming millions clambering into great Arks as the Corporations loaded their best and brightest onto the great ships, of the weeping and lamentation of those abandoned to wander the Cursed Lands forever, of the riots and protests of those who learned too late that they were doomed to be left behind.
Now the banners of the Megacorporations fluttered boastfully in the winds of new worlds.
It was a time of hope and terror and blighted promise, the dawn of a new age.
The children of the Megacorporations made landfall at the places prepared for them. Each corporation had a dream, a vision of a perfect world, an ideal to which all its folk aspired. Each corporation strove to achieve that ideal amid the new worlds of the re-shaped Solar System.
The proud pioneers of mighty Capitol set foot on the soil of Luna and began to build the greatest city that these worlds will ever know. They seized the fertile red plains of Mars and colonized their Freedom Lands.
The Homebuilders of Bauhaus toiled in the sweltering jungles and volcanic archipelagoes of Venus , laboring to raise cities and factories and enormous estates. They strove against mighty monsters and awful conditions to build a new and perfect world of order.
The honor-bound citizens of Mishima excavated their cavern-cities beneath the burning sands of the Mercurian deserts. the great underworlds filled with people. Lights glittered where once there was only darkness. The miners burrowed deep. Giant smelters glowed with white heat. Overlord Mishima smiled as he finds work good.
Imperial struggled to carve out its niche in the already crowded solar system, sending great forces of Conquistadors to grab land all over the inner system and to explore the uncharted territories of the asteroids and the outer worlds.
Everywhere, there was uneasing activity. All the worlds of men were a hive of industry. Great cities were founded, new trade routes were forged. In all this activity there was only one quiet spot. Old Earth was ignored, left to degenerate into barbarism. It is a senile parent abandoned by its embarrassed children. Its people were hopeless. The sands swallowed its cities.
