00- Prologue: Society after the Meteors Falling

Prologue- Alexis’ Essay: Society after the Meteors Falling

The pre-disaster Earth was living its greatest era. Every country in the world was excited about the new communication systems and new technologies applied to the daily life. In the twenty-first century, humankind was connected, united and had achieved a superior level of constant growing in medicine techniques.

The social and economic meltdown happened when scientists decided to change the common ethical rules to apply new uses for genetics and improve people’s life. The scientists wanted all people to have the right to have twins produced and cryogenically store them to use their organs and stem cells for future health issues. Most of the religious and social groups around the world declared to be against it and announced a Diplomatic Strike.

Ten years later, the USA supported the scientists and pushed the authorization on UN. The Russian government, united with North Korea, supported the civilians and was against the USA decision, what leaded to the Third World War. The situation got worse when new kinds of weaponry were used against the civilians.

During WWIII, the weaponry gears and attacks changed something in our atmosphere and Balls of Bluish Fire fell from the sky. No one knew what they were for certain, probably passing meteors. They caused massive avalanches in Asia, earth shakes in Africa, lands tore apart and burning red rivers of lava rose from the earth cracks. All lands were affected and most of them destroyed. Many people died and the few alive were in shock. It took months before the seas calmed down. The old world was gone and a new one was being created.

A big mass of land could be seen where once Europe had been, the Iceland crack full of solidifying lava lands. The other lands had been flooded with the water levels or split in so many pieces, it was hard to see if there were any survivors there. The few survivors were a mixture of nations, languages and stories. Most of them lived far from where the meteors had fallen or had the luck to be on mountains and high lands.

People ended up in this newly formed piece of land in search for help. They gathered their knowledge, supplies and strength to rebuild their lives. But human kind had lost way too much to just rebuild. People spoke different languages, had different faiths and lifestyles, so they had to agree in creating a whole new model of society for the thousands who survived to live in real peace. And they did so, but now they did not have access to any kind of technology. They were living in the brand new Dark Ages.

Some of the survivors happened to be former government leaders. They organized themselves and started to elaborate a plan to build this new society they needed to survive. They gathered everything people had saved, from books and paintings to animals and pieces of technology, charged with deadly radiation from the mysterious meteors falling. They built wood ships and went to explore the remaining islands in search of more animals, plants or anything they could reuse.

From the lots of books, they decided to search for old Roman and Greek models of society, and excluded religion of their plans, what they believed had caused WWIII. To this, some people, who did not agree, simply abandoned this gathering and went to look for islands and possible survivors.

This group of leaders believed there was no other model they wished for. They decided to follow the path of a society enlightened by reason and tradition. They believed that with strong education, the future human beings would be superior to the previous ones and could focus on real quality science, trying to achieve the previous advances, and go further. They would build a better world.

After some decades, most of Human kind organized itself in a new country called Asael, with two main rulers: the Head of State and the Prime Minister. The Head of State was responsible for polemic decisions, for declaring war, and for diplomatic conversations with people out of Asael. The Prime Minister was responsible for daily political issues. The Prime and the other ministries formed the Parliament. They organized and worked hard to build a new and just society to live on.

Two centuries later people disagreed with the politics developed by the Parliament, considered too rigid and elitist, and started to oppose the government. There were long discussions, protests and popular groups decided to destroy the Parliament and institute a new one. Those were years of terror for the civilians. The main threats the government faced were brought by two families: Aemygdius, from the city of Ellmish, and Griffin, from the city of Tall Tuinen. These two families leaded, what the government called the Ungrateful, and were responsible for more than 10.000 deaths in civilian’s confrontations with the government soldiers in less than a year.

This opposition lasted for years until it cumulated in the Great War of Asael, where more than 200.000 people died in the battlefield nowadays known as Elysios, the Dead Land. In the end, the leaders of the resistance were arrested and killed, destroying all the threats to the peace of Asael.

The consequences of this war still can be seen, seventeen years later. People still remember with great pain and fear those dark years. People wish they could erase this Great War from their memories as they had erased the Aemygdius and Griffin from the world of living, with hard work and never giving up on defending what we love: our Asael.