Tag: planet

The Trees Fight Back

Carbon dioxide levels were at critical levels in the Earth’s atmosphere. Even the US President agreed the problem was real. Deforestation was a major contributing factor.

Genetic engineers had developed a transposon that when introduced into trees markedly reduced the amount of carbon that a dead tree released into the atmosphere.

Application of the gene technology to mature trees meant that deforestation could continue even faster.

But the trees were smarter than we realised. They had their own underground genetic engineers. Pretty soon an unsuspecting human race was being affected by a range of deadly airborne viruses that the trees had generated. Whole cities became de-populated of humans one after the other. The ultimate solution to reducing carbon dioxide generating practices had arrived.

The Grand Council and President of Earth

In the early 23rd Century Earth is a relatively peaceful place. Since the 4th and 5th World Wars of the 22nd Century, Earth relies on its Grand Council, headed up by the President of the Earth, to coordinate the still separate 44 countries that are spread across the 4 Concatanates (Cadabra, G-Soft, Malachite, and Sino-Soviatek) that divide Earth’s population.

The Grand Council came into being as both of the World Wars really ended in stalemate and at a time when it began to be clear that the people of Earth were not alone in the galaxy. This realisation made some coordination of the 4 Concatanates, essential.

The existence of a President of the Earth is however largely symbolic and the President and Council are really only significant when there is an alien incursion or war that needs to be dealt with or when the constant ‘skullduggery’ of the 4 Concatanates sails too close to the edge of armed conflict on Earth.

 

Captain Dougall McBeckHam

Dougall McBeckHam was the Captain of Explorer 237, the first ship from Earth to land on Plasmolidium and encounter Mud Lizards.

Dougall was the first member of the McBeckHam clan not to pursue a career as an aireality star or intergalactic footballer for nearly a century. Accordingly, he was extremely proud to be leading the exploratory mission to this new world. The McBeckhams were the owners of Scotland.

Unfortunately, on Plasmolidium Dougall contacted malaria after being attacked by a mega-mosquito. He survived this but was subsequently massacred with the rest of his crew by unprovoked Mud Lizards attacks.

Dougall was returned to Earth by the Mud Lizards with a declaration of war carved into his and his crew’s foreheads.

Since then the McBeckHams have made another fortune from merchandising Mud Lizard memorabilia and associated fashion accessories.

The Silurian Silkworm Affair

For years can Earth had traded with Siluria. One of a handful of alien species that successful contact had been made with during the Discovery Period of 2150-2200, the Silurians had generally been a very friendly race.

Technologically not that advanced they produced 2 things that Earth imported in large quantities, Baffleberry juice, and silk rugs. The rugs were unique because they had living silkworms in them which meant that the rugs could be grown in the home to fit in the space.

All was fine until the evil Silurian Ambassador to Earth hatched a plan to export rugs with genetically engineered silkworms. At the flick of a genetic switch, the silkworms could be turned into giant monster worms. The Ambassador planned to flood the market with such rugs and then when enough rugs of this type were on Earth, mass trigger generation of the monsters.

His evil plan to invade and terrorise the Earth in this way was uncovered and foiled by the Inspector and Cat, with the help of Joosthava X Minot, in the Silurian Silkworm Affair.

RARSP

RARSP, the Rapid Alien Response Space Patrol, was formed in around 2056 at the behest of the then President of Earth, Ronald Trump jr the 2nd. At the time the decision to form RARSP was seen as just one of Old Ron’s’ (as he was affectionately known by his cronies) crackpot ideas. It arose after the Sequestran’s had been defeated on the Moon in 2056. Ron reasoned that where there was one alien species there would be others and that Earth needed a rapid response group that could be quickly mobilised in the event of any similar threat.

The Head of EarthLand Security at the time, who knew Ron was bonkers, took the formation of RARSP as an opportunity to put the worst performers of the Sequestran war into a unit that would effectively become an unused ‘white elephant’.

Little did she know that at some point in the future, 2170 to be precise, they would be the first military group from Earth to tackle the Mud Lizards.

Space Junk

HabiTech, the home tech giant, has branched out into the space junk industry. For well over a Century Earth’s space authorities have struggled to keep pace with the build up of rubbish in space.

Their new generation of GuzzlePro devices are of course unmanned and driven totally by artificial intelligence. The rubbish swallowing capability of a single GuzzlePro in orbit around Earth will, it is projected, clear up to 100 major pieces of space junk per orbit.

Previous space clearing operations have been fraught with reliability issues with constant breakdowns. In tests though the GuzzlePro has proven very robust, drawing in and recycling all manner of debris and rubbish without issue.

Concerns that the GuzzlePro is not always able to distinguish between junk and functioning satellites have been dismissed by HabiTech as competitor propaganda.

 

Explorer 237

The Explorer 237 spacecraft is well known to historians. It was the ship that went to a previously unexplored planet in the Trappist-1 star and returned with all the crew onboard dead and mutilated. The planet concerned, previously known simply as ‘11596’ had been renamed, by the crew of the Explorer to ‘Plasmolidium’.

Unbeknown to the crew at that the time of landing, Plasmolidium was inhabited by the Mud Lizards. After months of peaceful work on the planet, that included establishing a permanent physical base on the surface, the Mud Lizard’s made their presence known. Very quickly they butchered all of the Explorer’s crew who had mistakenly interpreted their initial contact as peaceful.

Not only that, the fairly advanced Mud Lizard civilisation (technologically anyway) returned the dead bodies of the crew to Earth on Explorer 237 with a declaration of war carved into their collective foreheads. This led to the first Interstellar War.

The response from Earth’s President at the time was strong and unequivocal. His rallying cry to Earth that this atrocity would not go unpunished was what people needed to hear, though he did confuse everyone a bit by subsequently issuing thoughts on ThinQueue that seemed to associate Mud Lizards with some sort of Sino-Soviet plot. He was a distant relative of a 21st Century President, so confusion possibly ran in his genes.

The Zygote Crystal

What do we know about the Zygote Crystal on Earth in the 23rd Century?. Well, first off its a crystal – there’s a clue in the name. Beyond that though, our knowledge is a bit fuzzy, to say the least.

We believe that the Zygote Crystal appeared on Earth in Jurassic times and helped the Mud Lizards, a civilisation that has since warred with Earth, escape the consequences of the Chixulub Impactor. This meteor, of course, led to the devastation of Earth at the time and the demise of the dinosaurs.

Had it not been for the intervention of the Zygote Crystal, it would also probably have been the end of the Mud Lizards. Earth folklore tells us that the Zygote Crystal has the capability to massively accelerate the evolution of a species. It somehow came into the possession of the Mud Lizards on Earth in the Jurassic period and facilitated them to develop into the dominant species of the time.

They were able to make technological advances very rapidly and built a spaceship to escape Earth before the meteor hit. They, therefore, became the first beings from Earth in space, gazillions of years before Albert the Rhesus monkey made it in 1948. Having escaped Earth, they settled on the planet Plasmolidium and the rest, as they say, is (more) history.

 

Cortex’s Thought Assistant hits the Market

After decades of research and even longer sorting out data protection issues and fail-safe protocols, Cortex has launched their thought assistant across the planet. With a small implant in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, anyone can now think a request for information which is then fed back to them with associated images pushed to the back of the retina.

This means that anyone can now engage in a boring conversation with another person or group of people, and not only think about something else (as they invariably do now and have done for centuries) but find answers to anything they need to know whilst wasting their time with people they don’t really want to be with.

Cortex has announced the innovation as the ‘Ultimate in Multi-Tasking’ and claim that the use of the ‘InterMix’ thought assistant will help busy professionals maintain a proper balance of social interaction with their friends and close relatives whilst coping with the pressures of work.

 

Magenta Moons Coalesce above Siluria

Astronomers from the planet Siluria, joined by colleagues from the Inter-Galactic Observatory, have been monitoring a once in a megaannum event. All 3 moons of Siluria are not only at their closest to each other but also to the surface of Siluria. In addition, one of the moons, Amaranthine, is experiencing its most violent period of green and blue phosphorus volcanic eruptions seen for hundreds of years.

The resulting visual phenomenon is enabling astronomers and physicists to observe and measure complex inter-gravitational forces only identifiable because of the close proximity of all 4 celestial bodies.

It’s not only scientists showing an interest though. Tourists are as well and Virgin Galaxy Tours have transported over 12,000 people from Earth to various observatories on and around Siluria to witness the spectacle.