Background

Prologue

The global civilization that had sprouted out of the industrial revolution had reached its zenith. The need for fresh water to replace melting glaciers and depleted soil came from the obvious choice, mining space. Meteors, comets, the moon, they all quickly became centers of human activity. A solar-civilization sprung up within two hundred years, moving rock and ice across the galaxy. The genomes of earth's species were mapped, archived and swapped; domesticated animals were made more efficient, given hands and speech. Robots explored the moons of Saturn and Neptune; the biosphere of Earth stood proud across the space between Earth and Mars. Astronomers have catalogued millions of planets, hundreds of thousands of which could possibly support life, although no one had figured out a way to reach them yet.

But then, it came...

A large meteor entered the Earth's atmosphere around 2600 A.D. It crash landed in the artic ocean, causing massive tsunamis that decimated settlements for hundreds of miles inland. The impact disrupted the earth's crust and upper mantle, creating massive earthquakes and causing volcanic eruptions which clouded the skies with dust and ash. Nations were devastated. Desperate governments warred against each other. Some nukes were fired. Within less than two years the multi-planetary civilization had been crushed.

Small pockets of people have survived. The first generation of survivors of the catastrophe are now coming to maturity, and their decisions shall determine the course of civilization.