APPENDIX ONE

HISTORY OF THE
ORIGINAL WORLD

The planet from which the REAP mission left is about 4.5 billion years old. Initially, it was lifeless, dominated by oceans, active volcanoes, and atmosphere that would have been toxic to later life. Bacteria were living on the planet 3.5 billion years ago followed by single-celled organisms. Multicellular organisms began about one billion years before man. Around 550 million years ago, more complex aquatic animals emerged, and life began to thrive and develop more complexity. The earliest mammals lived about 210 million years before the present, though they did not proliferate much until dinosaurs died about sixty-five million years before the current era. Shortly thereafter, primates evolved. Man, Homo sapiens, did not appear until about fifty thousand years prior to liftoff. Civilization followed about forty thousand years later.

Eight thousand years is inconceivable even by an old soul, whose span of eighty years seems to have taken, well, a lifetime. In geologic or astronomical context, it is brief, just 0.00018 percent of the age of the planet. The light from almost every star in the sky took longer than a lifetime to arrive in view.

Over one hundred years before REAP, there was a man-made pandemic of two genetically engineered infectious agents, viral and bacterial, resulting in billions of deaths. The developed world was better able to manage the contagion, but poor countries were decimated.

As a result, by the late twenty-third century, human population had declined from its peak of about nine billion to under two billion. The major world governments came together and adopted a number of joint goals to optimize peace, progress, and cooperation. They reset the calendar, against bitter opposition of Christians, to the year that the pandemic ended. This was the first time in the history of the world that all nations, with the initial exception of the Vatican, functioned on one calendar. Because of the vast devastation and the realization that humanity is fragile, a goal was adopted to explore other planets to which life on Earth could be transported and on which it could survive. Over the following seventy years, up to the launch of the REAP program, great social and political progress was made while working toward this singular goal. Most of the planet was at peace during the launch of the REAP missions between AP 76 and 89, after pandemic.

By AP 400, an ice age was clearly established. Both polar ice caps had grown dramatically in size. By AP 2000, Switzerland and much of France were under ice. This included the bunker where the paired electrons were stored for all the REAP missions. A nuclear power plant was dedicated to this facility including the housing for those that staffed it. Eventually, these efforts were abandoned. The personnel died or moved to a more temperate climate. Before the area was abandoned, four ships had sent messages. Three of these, missions two, five, and six, indicated the target planets were incompatible with life. Mission one indicated their destination, a large moon, was possibly habitable. There were nine confirmed mission failures. No signals had been received from the remaining ten missions, most of which had not reached target. A high-technology, self-contained, extremely durable plant provided minimal though adequate power to the facility. It required infrequent and minor maintenance.

Ice caps displaced people and erased many countries. Africa, having been virtually exterminated, became the new frontier where eventually the countries coalesced into three rich republics. Between AP 1000 and 2000, the population of the world fell by one billion from cold, sickness, and war.

Several African-based theologies emerged, just as happened in America in the nineteenth century, in Europe between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries and throughout the course of civilization. One small branch became known as Reapers. They believed that Earth would be saved by one of the fourteen surviving missions. The faithful went on an icy pilgrimage to the Bunker every year for a few centuries and then every decade as the ice cap grew larger. Gradually, these visits became less frequent when the ice cap was so thick they could not reach the Bunker. At around AP 3000, the visits ceased, and knowledge of the location was lost in a flood of data overwriting history. Only a tiny band of Reapers kept the hope of finding a message from these intrepid astronauts now raised to holy (or mythical) status through their new scripture.

The United New England States (UNES), part of the former United States and the financial center of the western hemisphere for centuries, lost influence as the cold intensified. This country threatened to go to war to annex Guatemala and Nicaragua. Conflict was averted when UNES purchased both countries and guaranteed all natives an income for life and for the next four generations. Over the next forty years, most residents of UNES relocated to Central America. The burden of the purchase combined with expenses of relocation, building a city, and paying debts resulted in a total collapse of UNES.

Sao Paulo, Brazil, became the cultural and business center of the Western Hemisphere. In the east, Mumbai, India, remained the largest financial capitol and center of commerce. The second-largest financial center was Preben, a city built along the Gold Coast of Africa specifically to become a center of commerce. It was a city of beauty, technology, art, and science. Law limited its population to eight million people.

Areas that had been desserts were transformed into lush expanses of productive land. Northern Africa became the breadbasket of the world followed closely by Australia. In the Western Hemisphere, Mexican dessert was transformed into fields of grain as the Midwest became tundra.

Repeating cycles of growth and decay of democracies and dictatorships were repeated over hundreds of times for thousands of years. Saharia, the largest country in Africa, was a stable government for over two thousand years until the great Menetian war in 4515. David Meinet was a gifted speaker, with an expressed philosophy that appealed to the poor and to the intelligent alike. With his sophistry and oratory manipulating the masses, war raged, and governments were toppled throughout Africa, the Mideast, and Asia. Genocidal campaigns were followed by nuclear detonations, making the planet toxic and colder.

It took hundreds of years for the residual small feudal states to merge into larger and more-organized geopolitical units. This decreased the frequent small conflicts but replaced them with larger infrequent wars. Despite the instability and shifting centers of financial and political power, technological and scientific advances were never lost. Most people continued to enjoy conveniences, efficiencies, and comforts.

Australia became a dominant economy, protected by its geographical separation from the Balkanized world. Following the success of Preben in Saharia, Australia built its own Golden City on the central north coast. It was called Borigine. It became an academic, intellectual, and artistic capital as well as a financial center. Its focus was on education with research, development, science, and technology on one hand, and art of all kinds on the other. Shortly after AP 6000, it started to try to replicate itself in other areas, notably the island of Ceylon and South America. It had the will, the military ability, and political savvy to “franchise” governance across the globe.

As the ice caps were retreating in March AP 6898, astronomers identified an approaching asteroid. Regardless of the spacecraft and advanced powerful weapons, mankind was not able to divert a 128-kilometer rock away from Earth. It was diverted slightly to the Kamchatka Peninsula, which was completely covered by glacier. The material kicked into the atmosphere, and the tsunamis that resulted were catastrophic. This was followed by a lethal five-year-long global winter. Hundreds of thousands of species became extinct. With fossil fuel almost depleted from the planet, the toll on human life was unprecedented. By 6904, Earth held less than one billion humans, almost all of them living between the tropics. Political boundaries changed. Years following the longest winter in history, world governments again reset the calendar to the day the asteroid hit.

In AA 984, after asteroid, less than eight thousand years had passed since REAP 23 left orbit around Earth. A young scholar, Kririk Gwolono, was delving into ancient religious texts in the deteriorating library of the University of Borigine when he found references to the small sect known as the Reapers. Additional research yielded history about “the Bunker” and the REAP missions. To his disappointment, he could find no scientific or governmental agencies or individuals with knowledge of the REAP missions. He put together an expedition of fifteen people and went to the state of Italia, in the expansive Empire of Mediterrania. They found a cave that had been a Reaper way station used during the pilgrimage during the early ice age. Inside were writings and scripture of the Reapers, preserved and legible. The translation from ancient Italian was easy. It was a book of inspiration. It told of saints that had gone in search of habitable planets for the salvation of mankind, of service and sacrifice, dedication, and devotion. Moreover, it gave the location of the Bunker in a region north of the cave that lay in disputed territory between Mediterrania and Atlanticus. As a citizen of Saharia, Gwolono had almost no chance of being allowed into any territory, disputed or not, that belonged to Atlanticus. Satellite images indicated the region was still spotted with ice.

Kririk returned to Borigine and received his doctoral degree after publication of his work. His wife, Gwain, published the Book of Reapers. His interest in the book was secular, but Gwain had a spiritual fascination with the teachings and theology. To his dismay, she began speaking on a theology that she gleaned from the book. Within ten years, she established a church known as the Reapers located in the ancient coastal city of Alexandria, where Kririk was a professor in the University of Saharia.

Church members traveled to the site where the book was found. Travel to the Bunker region was not permitted. Dr. Gwolono communicated with professors at universities throughout Atlanticus and Mediterrania for several years in an effort to research the site. Because of the religious fervor around the book, they invariably declined and eventually became hostile. The book ruined his career and then their marriage. He died young and poor. Following the death of wealthy Gwain Gwolono many years later, the Reapers continued to slowly accrete converts in many countries. Eventually, the disagreement between Mediterrania and Atlanticus about ancient Switzerland was resolved in favor of Atlanticus. Travel restrictions were loosened, enabling the mission of Maroche and others.