Space Colony + Green World

The world's resources were drying up. Colonization of other worlds was no longer just an economic investment but rather a matter of survival.

Unfortunately, even with the best scientists working on the project, no habitable worlds were found by the many "Rover" satelites that were sent out to search the galaxy. While the Rovers were searching for a new home, the governments of the world began building huge orbital stations to house those working towards the salvation of their people. America, Europa, Pacifica were the first to get their stations operational. Thousands of people were brought up from a dying earth to live in the relative comfort of the floating cities.

Ships were created capable of traveling to their new home but word never came from the Rover satelites. The ships eventually became living quarters as well as more and more people bought their way out of the industrial filth of the planet below.

In time, generations were born on the floating cities and the earth was forgotten; left behind like a guilty scar. Three generations had been born and died in the creation of the stations and their ships. No more did shuttles arrive from earth with newly "rescued" families from earth. Nothing new came from the burnt planet.

Materials were recycled almost indefinately to maintain the new human population. Domes of plants, imported from protected gardens, once grown to clean the air and provide a memorial to the fallen world, now became an environment only enjoyed by the extremly wealthy. Real wealth was displayed in the organic. Small planters of real grass could be valued as a whole year's salary. Flowers are now frozen within a protected plastic coating to preserve them for generations and soil is as valued as gold.

As with most things, those who control the wealth are in the minority but control the majority. And, as with most things, wealth can be stolen. Food is no longer fresh vegetables and beef but a poly-protein slurry that is compressed into bars and disks. For those who can afford it, their food has been fashioned to appear very much like it once was. Dye and flavoring additives help people believe that they are eating real apples and real carrots but, in truth, they eat little more than processed soy beans.

Huge domes filled with the only remaining plants adorn the top of the floating cities. Those with wealth are closest to it and one's import is measured by which station level you live upon. Any level lower than thirty is considered dangerous and unpatrolled by on-station security. Those who dwell within those levels are left to their own means for survival - breeding unmonitored and unchecked. Having no wealth to access the food vendors, they steal what they can and hack into water pipes to live. They crawled throughout the station's pipes like rats and so they were named by the wealthy.

Rats skulk in corners and hijack food shipments. They disrupt the natural order of things and prevent the space colony from moving forward to "Launch Day". Set backs and problems a plenty have been attributed to the Rats and they are often rounded up in bunches and summarily disposed of with the public's blessing.

But the Rats have a secret.

Some of the Rats, one in twenty, do not steal food and water, they steal earth and seed. Only the bravest of their tunnel-runners venture so high as to steal an acorn or a handful of rich, black soil. The precious prize may change hands a dozen times to send it deep into the lowest of levels where hyjacked sunlight is piped through fiber-optic cables to grow their Green World.

The Green World is a hollowed cavity within the bowels of the floating city. With torch and flesh, the floors and walls were ripped open to form an 'egg' of salvation. Vines, plants and algae clean the air where most think it unfit for breathing. Water runs not in pipes but in small streams to nourish their new world under an artificial sun.

Thus bore the great conflict upon the stars: The Green versus the Greed.

Security teams, attempting to quell the rash of thefts from the gardens and green houses of the wealthy, delve deep itno the heart of the station to destroy the Rats. This time, above others, the Rats would not be rounded up and destroyed so easily. The Rats, who previously had been picked off one by one, had grown into a community - surrounding the Green World and willing to lay down their lives to protect its secret. The rats worked together to alert each other and although they had no great weapons to fight their hunters, but what they did have was cunning, stealth and above all - faith.

Armed only with a dagger carved from the gigantic thorns grown within their green sanctuary, they plotted ambushes and raids. The sharp point of their thorn-daggers plunging deep within the authority of the station. Where one would fall, they would take five and sometimes six guards with them, the only hint of their identity being a small egg-shaped, green pendant found about their neck.

The struggle between the low and the high continued for near three decades until the station's secret was discovered. The Rover project, to find them a new home, had returned information and the location of at least three planets almost fifty years prior. To leave the station and find a world rich with land, plant and soil would rob the powerful of their wealth.

Best to hold a population in poverty than promote them all from purgatory.

NOTES:

1. The earth-that-was has been beyond their observation for more than one-hundred years.
2. Even if the colony ships wanted to, could they actually launch the ships to the new world?
3. Could the Green World on the station be a bit more technologically savvy - enough to perhaps create a "cure" for the polution problem on the Earth? (Some kind of algae that would eat away at the water and soil polution?)
4. Could the Green World's goal be to return to the Earth

WitchWorld

Of One Mind

The idea of a symbiot joining with a human host has been used over and over again within Science Fiction. Generally the symbiot is some evil, alien creature that steals the mind of the host and dominates his will. But what if the 'blending' were not something akin to rape but something more like marriage?

In the not-to-distant future, an alien ship with thousands of such symbiotes arrives in earth's orbit. Unfortunately with the number of hosts dwindling to get them to our planet, they are unable to keep the ship from crashing into the surface of the earth for too long. The military forces of the world can't keep the secret of their existence for long and before a week, every news service is carrying the story. The 'crew' of the alien ship is running out of time and sends down life pods to attempt to find those willing to join with them and plead their case directly. Since they only know what they and their host knows, any attempt to communicate wihle they were in orbit was reduced to a hap-hazard attempt at mathematical codes and re-crunched radio signals.

Small pods fall around the world and soon a small 'diplomatic envoy' attempts to plead their case before the UN. In exchange for various medical and hordicultural advances, the UN offers the alien race a small element of a treaty. With their ship damaged and hosts slowly becoming available (though the U.S. Military refuses to relax their guard and promises to shoot it from the sky if they so much as twitch the wrong direction), a small Embassy is created in the US. Through this, candidates can be screened for genetic compatibility and psychological stability. The US prohibits any ex-fellons, persons with criminally dysfunctional mental conditions and other such people from entering the testing.

"Joined-Citizens" become an uncommon but occasional mix into several of the nations capital cities. The Joined, as one media source termed them, quickly rise to the exclusive level of rank, wealth and priviledge - plying their advanced technology to other companies. A serious concern of the world's governments is the integration of the Joined into their market economy. They can not permit the addition of a perpetually renewing energy source without first finding an alternative use for those in that market. How does an oil company compete with a small company that can produce cheap, clean, unending power anywhere and at any time without any risk to the environment?

The Alien Technological Integration Committee, an international consortium of politicians, holds control over what alien technology can be released to the public market and how. Bribes to influence their decision began to pour in almost immediately and corruption caused the A.T.I.C. to be disolved and reconstituted three times in seven years. By the end of this, the wealth acquired by the Joined was pooled and land purchased off the coast of South America.

Where no island once stood, the Island of Atlan (Atlantis to many believers) rose above the waves in a single day and night. The island would be the home of the Joined, allowing them to develop their technology without the meddling of bureaucrats and politicians. Having all the hosts needed to continue their race indefinately, they became increasingly isolationist and focused their attention at rebuilding the world that was lost to them.

Their technology slowly made its way into other nations with a more enlightened and less greed-based motivation. The Joined began to decide where their technology would be shared and where it would not. When terroritsts attempted to bomb their island and it was discovered that the Joined were not so defenseless as previously thought, the US demanded access to their entropic shield technology.

They were refused.

The secrets of the Joined would remain their secrets until the Human Race matured. Though small bits of their technology were sold across the world, the process of its manufacture was not.

The warring nations of the world united against a common cause, the Joined, and launched a joint armada to surround their island and prevent ships or aircraft from leaving or approaching; attempting to force them to capitulate. The Joined embassidors were threatened with arrest if they did not reveal their technology to their host nations. The world was poised upon the brink of an inter-species war.

With their shield technology, the Joined ships could not be attacked while their embassidors were collected from around the world. Those who had shown them kindness and civility were welcomed to leave with them and return to their island home. A mass exodus of the Joined and their close allies was echoed with threats of nuclear detonation and sea-based bombardment. While warships prepared to launch their strikes which were uncertain if they would have any effect upon their shields, the news media of the world condemned the technological greed of their governments.

Over night, the island, protected by its shield, began to sink beneath the waves. Conventional weapons were launched in a vain attempt to count coup against a vastly superior enemy, but by the dawn there remained only the warships and a warning:

Do not approach.

Of course, the militaries of the world would not be stopped so easily and several failed attempts were launched to breach the undersea kingdom of the Joined. No word would be sent from the divers upon final approach to their target and then, a week later, they would be found on a distant shore with little memory of his failure.

Archaeologists and Scientists, attempting to crack the language of the Joined, finally discovered the connection when an off-beat researcher identified some characters on a platinum page as similiar to the Joined. Through an extrapolated computer translation model, they were able to translate the page that was previously thought to be a hoax. The page's message sent shockwaves through the academic and scientifiic communities of the world and raised more questions than ever before.

The message read:

Expeditionary Ship successfully launched to return to homeworld. Estimated time for rescue to be approximately fifteen years. Acquire suffecient hosts from local populations to survive until rescue. Experimental communications beam possible for implementation within the next six months. Problems harnessing available geo-thermal energy may create chain-reaction within sea floor and destroy up to twenty percent of city. Evacuate as necessary to prevent catastrophic reaction.

The truth of the Joined had been discovered. Their 'rescue ship' had returned thousands of years too late and now had simply vanished beneath the waves.