After the Singularity event, the 22nd century saw unregulated Eugenics experiments running rampant. Scientists could tweak genes, modified the human form in any way they wanted. This rampant unregulated and at times unethical abuse of this new form of technology lead to the first Eugenics war. People were no longer people. Some added muscle mass, some grew appendages, what could be done was really limitless. That had a disastrous effect on society. Not everyone wanted to join in on this body reshaping free-for-all. Many liked being and wanted to stay being Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Unfortunately, some also wanted those who embraced this new technology to cease living. Thus, the Eugenics war exploded.

Of course, by the time the of this war, Humanity had spread out a bit from Earth and into the inner system. New Luna, which was able to remain mostly neutral during the War, was thriving as were other less developed colonies and spatial habitats. Though many of the colonies were neutral, the war did spread to those areas as well. Simply put, the colonies simply didn’t have a strong military in which to stave off incoming waves of the war machine of terrestrial earth. But, due to it’s isolation deep in the moon, New Luna was not an appealing target and was able to remain out of most of the conflict.  It’s interesting that the one place that was created in the hopes of preventing an all out Eugenics war became the safe haven for many fleeing the effects of it.

When the war started, there were several Neo’s that had grown in population. Several aquatic varieties, some avians, even some that had molded their bodies to better survive extra-terrestrial locations such as Mars and the deep caves of Mercury. It was, and is, really interesting how most Neo species choose to modify themselves along lines to allow them to live in a natural environment without the requirement of technology.  A fact about this time, most of those that had modified themselves were individuals. Meaning there weren’t any large amounts of Neo’s that were genetically the same and compared to today’s Sentient’s, most of the changes were cosmetic.

As the war churned on, countries fought each other for the right to control the technology. Some fought for the Neo’s that could not fight for themselves, claiming that they were, deep down, still humans. At times during the war countries split apart, sided with different nations, army’s often fought their own. It was truly a giant mess.

Most of the Neo’son Earth will killed. A large amount fled, with Cy’s and AI’s, to the outer system where they still live today. They had to alter themselves heavily to survive in those harsh environments but they did and do. When the war finally died down it left the inner system a mess of destroyed stations and broken space vessels. The Lunar and Martian surfaces were littered with bodies, burnt out vehicles, and countless other leftovers from the war.

One group of Neo’s that managed to survive, did so by hiding. When the war started a group of aquatically modified people went deep in the Earth’s oceans. They found the Mariana trench, altered themselves to survive the pressure while still keeping the ability to breath open air, and vanished beneath the ocean. They actually thrived beneath the sea. They had brought sea technology, mostly primitive organic based technology, with them and managed to improve upon it. They augmented the organic based computer and technology system. Literally grew homes, vessels to travel in, and even defenses to protect themselves against the war raging above. More importantly they were having offspring. They had not modified their genetic code in nearly 100 years, adopted as a requirement for Sentient status, and were now becoming their own species. As intelligent as Humans but distinctly different in every other way.

Eventually they were able to tap into radio broadcasts from the surface and they realize that the war was long over. The hatred of their kind had muted and there were those that were more accepting. They decided to reveal their colony, long unknown from everyone.

It was a sunny day in Florida, July 22nd 2245, when the first of them returned to the surface. They arrived in one of their grown sea ships. They were greeted with fascination, awe, in some cases even fear. Their coming to the surface, and their decision to rejoin Humanity, was a pivotal moment. They proved that an augmented, changed, group of humans could live, have children, those babies would share in their changed features and they would be a stable and viable species. Most of those on that first ship were children of the original’s that hid in the deep trench. Their existence paved the way for the Sentient Accords to be drafted and accepted by the ever changing community of Mankind and the people of Solar System. They were welcomed as hero’s by nearly every group in existence at the time. They were the first to be given full Sentient status. Theirs was the first new nation to be recognized beneath the sea and warmly welcomed to the UN. Innovations from their aquatic kingdom spawned a new age in sea and space exploration. Organic technology was taken to a new level. Their species name was decided on and agreed upon. Homo Sapiens Aquāticus had arrived. They had shown that change wasn’t evil. That humans could alter their genetic code and still be humans. They loved and died just like any other.

In the years since their re-emergance from the sea. The cities beneath the waves have grown and become major destinations for tourism and opened up vast areas of uncliamed land that would become nations and cities in their own time. Perhaps the most interesting of all, it was members of Aquaticus that first settled Europa. The cities there are magnificent and awe inspiring. I for one thank God that they surived the First Eugenics war, were hidden for the second, and re-joined Humanity. We are so much more richer for their presence.

Whatever my reasoning, I decided to hop an elevator to upper orbit, rent a room and schedule a seat on the next Luna bound shuttle. I must say the elevator ride is quite pretty, though a little long. You get an incredible view of the Earth. I live in DC, so I took the North Atlantic elevator up. Great view of the eastern seaboard and you can see western Europe.

So a short trip up and I was at the Hyatt. That place is getting a little run down I must say. Why is it that companies are unwilling to spend on upgrading things in orbit? I dunno. The Hyatt is based on the old Bigelow design from 300 years ago, again the 300 year theme.  It’s not an actual construction from that time of course but it’s one of the inflatable designs. It’s just such a good, cheap design why make anything else? Of course, other designs have been made. My room didn’t’ have a window but I did go down to the viewing hub and took a look around. It’s crowded out there. I saw three pinwheel hotels, several science stations and a few military installations. The giant O-Ring station was just visible to me. It is the largest station in earth orbit, with offices for nearly 35,000 people, 5,000 of them living there. It is a massive construction. It single handily controls all space traffic for the entire inner system , earth orbit and ships entering or leaving Earth. It is a primary docking station for ships leaving or arriving at Earth.  I do want to tour that place one day, they do offer tours. It really is a building in space. Though not the biggest man made space bound construction out there, it is the biggest in earth orbit.

But at any rate, I stayed in the viewing hub for a bit, watched stations whiz by, a few yachts, some space skimmers, I even saw a girl in a fly suit, those things are wicked! Latest thing out there for space survival and of course someone took it, tweaked it and made it into a luxury item. Love it.

I crashed out and the next day caught a speed shuttle to New Luna. Those things are quick. It’s a “goo” ship, technically called a Fast Inertial Suppression Transit ship, commonly called a FIST ship, obviously.  Kinda gross really. But I wanted to get to New Luna and back in a week and this was the cheapest and best bet. No way in hell am I ever going to scan myself there. That stuff is just not for me, not my way to travel. I don’t care what anyone says.

At any rate, I got submerged in goo, the FIST ship got me to New Luna just under 2 hours. After a very long shower I hit the streets. Ah New Luna. Love that place. It has grown since I got there last. I honestly think they are just going to grow an grow until they’ve hollowed out the entire moon. Though of course, that’s a big exaggeration. They are only 60 or so square miles, roughly.

So anyway, on the first day I walked the main drag, ate some great Italian food, not as good as Little Italy in NY of course but still pretty good. I played a bit in the low grav sector. It’s actually neat how they’ve done it, some streets are low grav and some are Earth normal. Grave plates were a neat invention for sure.

The second day I wanted to go caving. They have tunneled out a massive caving system for tourists. Whole thing is all moon standard gravity. You can practically float from hand hold to hand hold down the caves. It’s a great day trip. There’s a lake down there they have, going swimming in log grav is a unique experience. They have life guards there though, even experienced swimmers can’t handle the uniqueness of low grav swimming.

Day three I decided for debauchery and gambling. I hit the casino district and just played poker for awhile. I actually won some money. And since I won some money I decided to play on the fourth day of my stay and lost it all back again. Ah, gambling.

I ended my week vacation with doing some site seeing. I went to a few museum’s, went to the home of the first president of New Luna, Constitution Hall and the a bunch of the other general tourist places.

After my excursions I grabbed a FIST ship, headed back to the North Atlantic elevator and went home. Was a great trip I must say. I once fancied the idea of moving up there but I couldn’t handle all the tourists. The one great thing about living in a terrestrial city is you don’t have as many damn tourists. No one cares about visiting DC anymore, well that’s not true, we do get our share. But no where near as many as you get on some of the other hot spots in the inner system. The outer system, of course, is more for the hard core enthusiasts. There’s still a sense of ‘wild’ out there and in many places it’s lawless. I much prefer the civil and ordered cities of the inner system. Next up, I think i’ll head to Sphere’s. That is a neat place!

So, it is with great pleasure that my first entry into this section be about the first extra-earth habitation of humans that declared their own Independence. It was really an incredible time to be alive. 75 years after The Singularity event, 50 years after the colony was established, they declared their independence from the conglomeration of countries that founded it. It was an interesting situation, to understand some of the complexities, I’ll briefly go over the state of things then.

It was, as I said, 75 years after The Singularity event. Earth was literally tearing itself apart trying to figure out it’s new identity. Countries were going through periods of civil wars every few years. Twenty five years after the event, the countries of the world attempted to pull together and establish the first extra-planet colony on the Moon, New Luna.  The name was as politically correct as possible of course. They needed to call it something that wouldn’t offend anyway, and that was probably the most difficult task of all.

There were already dozens of space hotels, communities, etc. Some even had attempted to declare their independence. They were mostly ignored of course. No country, organization of any kind recognized them. On that note, the title of should really say the first recognized colony to declare Independence, but I won’t. It’s too wordy.

So, it was then in 2065, trillions of dollars were spent by seventeen countries and unions, over 50,000 volunteers were transported deep beneath the lunar surface into a massive cavern created by nuclear explosions and massive drilling automatons. It was a symbol of ingenuity of mankind, AI’s, Cy’s and Neo’s. It was an example that maybe we could all get along in this new world of post-Singularity confusion. The 50,000 chosen were a representation of every ethnicity and Sentientcy, even though no real declaration of sentient status was made by this time in history, they didn’t even use the word sentient to describe everyone.

With advanced hydroponics, water sources found on the moon, advanced technologies and methods of creating closed ecosystems, the colony was very quickly self sufficient. This was really the turning point of the colonies history in my opinion. Only ten years after it’s founding, it no longer required Earth for supplies.

New Luna thrived. Even though the original inhabitants were representative of the Earth’s population in religion, ethnicity, political views, they actually seemed to get along pretty good. Later sociologists would attribute this phenomena to a low population and a need to work together. Also, they shared a common ground in New Luna itself and being the pioneers they were.

It wasn’t a large surprise to some that the creation of New Luna did not ease any of the pains happening on Earth. Some even feel that it contributed to more hostilities. After all, ten years after it’s creation, they no longer required supplies, they didn’t even need Earth anymore. Whether that really made tensions worse on Earth is in some dispute, by myself as well. I think that though it was a great example of coming together, and the fighting did die down a bit while the colony was being established, once it was created everyone forgot about it and went back to fighting.

For the next 35 years, fighting on Earth intensified. Old ideologies simply would not die. What did it mean to be Human? The Singularity event changed everything and many were having a hard time adjusting. New Luna, however, found that there really wasn’t much difference between Sentients. Though, I will admit, the Cy’s were always a bit arrogant and full of themselves, but they too got along fine in New Luna.

It was Tuesday, in May of 2113 that started the declaration. Though this too is in dispute. It really amazes me with the level of available documentation, vids, and in some cases actual virtual, how arguments can happen about how things developed. Anyway, I digress. In my view the rumblings of revolution started years before, perhaps even all the way back to when Luna found themselves resource independent. But the actual meeting to discuss the reality of independence came in May of 2113.

Alexis Sommers, Thomas Davies and my dear friend aCompius met and discussed the realities of independence. I say my dear friend, but honestly, the aCompius I know is a third generation copy of the original AI. But it was still fascinating to speak with someone who shared the memories of that incredible day. The three sat for nearly a day discussing the possibilities and realities of what they were doing. They thought for sure that the Prime’s would not agree to this under any circumstances. I often think there’s a prejudice towards Prime’s, that since they choose to remain as Humans have been since evolution that they are somehow inferior. I do not share this belief. I think they are as accomplished and capable as any Sentient.

Regardless of such prejudices, the Prime’s went along with the choice whole heartedly. It isn’t a big surprise really, people have been revolting since the first societies of man. It took another two years for the movement to gain steam, bring in the major political parties of New Luna, draft the declaration and announce it to the combined countries of Earth.

Of course, by this time, the countries of Earth were in no shape to do anything about it. Sure some of the super powers would have been able to launch a military attempt to quell the revolution, as many saw it. But, honestly, no one really cared. New Luna had long ago repaid it’s debts though tourism, asteroid belt mining, docking fees of Luna’s massive space port and the technological innovations that streamed out.

Today, New Luna is one of the most innovative, successful and thriving governments in the system. They had a tremendous jump start on the extra-earth colonies and really are responsible for most other colonies being created. Their support, ability to coordinate and provide a jumping off point for the solar system allowed the system to grow as strong as it has. We really are in debt to New Luna and all Lunar Citizens and cities that exist today.