Encyclopaedia of the Galactic Echo

Sometimes, to wonder where we are going in our never-ending journey through life, it is worth just stopping for a moment and to look back to where we were, just a few centuries ago. Indeed, people from that time would be absolutely in awe as to what we have achieved today – from the amazing engineering achievements of making Mars and the Moon habitable, to astounding advancements in healthcare, meaning it is entirely feasible for us to live to over 200 years old. It is sometimes good to stop to think and wonder where we might be in one or two hundred years from now. Some predictions are probably quite easy to make, but no doubt there will be certain aspects of what we do then that cannot be predicted today. And of course certain achievements are as impossible now as they were then, despite huge progress in the fields of science and technology. For example, science fiction writers have for many centuries written of people travelling through space in amazing spaceships faster than the speed of light, and of contacting alien civilisations. This of course today is as remote a reality as it was then… however living on Mars, which was only imagined in science fiction then, is now a reality.

The space race, which was widely acknowledged to be the pinnacle of human achievement during the industrial age of the 20th century, resulted in Neil Armstrong being the first human setting foot on the Moon, and was probably our finest achievement of that time. It is amazing to think that travelling to the Moon and back, which cost the equivalent of billions of credits then, can now be achieved by anyone on a modest budget by purchasing a spaceship designed for public use today. And it is nice to see the same spirit of that adventure living on today, with the now ‘classic’ Earth to Moon race as part of the Formula X racing season. One wonders what Mr Armstrong would have thought of that!

Life today, as it has done for centuries, has many challenges. As we adapt and change the way we do things, life for us humans evolves. In leisure, for example, a thrill seeker might have parachuted off a mountain face in the 21st century… today, that same person may well find themselves strapped into a Formula X racer, about to start a spaceship race. And someone who built bridges on Earth in the eighteenth century might today be a gravity engineer on one of our massive spacestations, orbiting Earth.

As we approach a new century, it is always nice to look back to the various aspects of our lives which have evolved over the centuries, as it is certain that many of you out there look forward to this next era in our existence.

A Brief History

The following is a description of significant events from the early 21st century to the present day in the late 23rd century.

In the early part of the 21st century, the world was a very fragmented place – of course, the ‘world’ as we know it today, includes the Earth, where humans and all life evolved, to more recently over the past centuries, to the Moon, and then Mars, and latterly into spacestations orbiting the celestial objects. Back then, the world was just the Earth. Wealth was held by a number of countries, the richest being USA, Japan, China, and various countries of Europe. One of the biggest problems, which to some extent still exist today in the 23rd century, was that the majority of wealth across the world was held by a small percentage of privileged people, and the world's resources were held by these rich countries. Many wars were fought between different countries, indeed when one reads the history of the world from medieval times, the world has seen many battles for all sorts of reasons. From the second world war in the middle-20th century, essentially due to the German Nazi regime seeking absolute power, to various battles in the middle-east of the world, fighting over the dwindling resource of oil, which powered the richest countries insatiable desire for fuel. Other fossil fuels were used to power the various machinery of the time, including gas and coal, but oil was the dominating energy source, as it powered the engines for transport vehicles, be they sea-faring ships, aeroplanes or cars.

This burning of oil was one of the biggest problems that the world faced – oil powered the power stations, and essentially drove the world economy. At that time, the nations that were the richest countries on Earth used oil as the main power source, thereby keeping their wealth and the price of oil high, until the inevitable happened… oil began to run out, and so the developed nations had no option but to finally start developing alternative fuels, which of course are now widespread, i.e. nuclear and solar power. Up until that point, it became clear that the wealthy nations had certain vested interests in keeping oil as a major power source, as it generated their wealth. They undertook all sorts of tactics such as holding back with developing solar and nuclear power until it became inevitable that they would have to adapt or would face major energy power problems.

A further problem with burning oil as a power source was that doing so released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which warmed the planet. Again, the oil-producing nations used highly questionable tactics during this time, choosing to divert the blame for ‘global warming’, even stating that it wasn't happening as a result of human activity, until the evidence was clear and beyond doubt. However, it is quite clear why they did this when the motives for doing so are revealed. These countries relied on oil for their economy, so they had vested interests for the world to keep using it in large quantities. However, over time, the oil reserves were at such a low point that it was becoming so scarce that the price was very high and the alternative power systems, solar and nuclear, became the main power source, which of course is the situation we have today.

At that time, around the early part of the 21st century up to around 2020, there was the transition towards wide-scale use of the alternative power sources, and global terrorism became a huge threat to the developed world, resulting in many people being killed. Followers of certain groups, using the cover of respectable religions to recruit people to undertake these acts, used certain extreme measures such as suicide missions, which caused many people to be killed along with the terrorist. The ultimate goals for these terrorist groups were to get people to follow in their ideologies, many of them highly questionable, such as wanting countries to run under extreme rule of a highly oppressive regime, so basic human rights were denied to many people.

The global warming effect was at its peak around the years of 2020-30, with many extreme weather events, including hurricanes, earthquakes and, as a result of the ice caps melting, flooding, causing millions of people across the planet losing their homes and livelihoods and many perished in these disasters. The effects were mostly felt in the poorest parts of the world, and the archives show that the world population at that time actually reduced, because of these terrible disasters and there was unprecedented unrest across the planet. With the distribution of wealth between the richest and poorest people becoming ever wider, there were widespread riots and conflicts. Previously, wars occurred across the world, in isolated areas, but this time conflict was all over the planet, as the all the nations of the world slowly recognised that something needed to be done.

Despite the unrest of the time, there were huge breakthroughs in science and medicine. The most significant of which took place on October 5th, 2037, when Russian astronaut Sergy Abramov became the first human to set foot on Mars, 68 years after Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon. Abramov’s immortal words, Well, it’s red, dusty, barren, but one day might just be called home, were uttered, thereby continuing the tradition started when Neil Armstrong uttered, That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, as he set foot on the Moon.

Onto the next few decades, the developed nations of the world started to invest heavily into renewable energy systems, with solar power and nuclear power stations emerging across the globe, so the primary reason for the unrest disappeared. As a result this investment in renewable (or at that time, termed ‘alternative’) energy, not one nation had a monopoly over the power supply of the world. With oil and gas, the previous main power energy, the unrest came from the nations having this natural resource and effectively holding the world to ransom. Now, as all the nations of Earth were able to be responsible for their own energy, they didn’t need to fix prices for other countries, so the main reason for wars ended.

Towards the end of the 21st century, the third world became more wealthy and its people began to enjoy more of the lifestyle that the ‘first world’ people had enjoyed for centuries, but only after the United Nations had prosecuted many officials for bribery and corruption, which had resulted in only the privileged elite holding onto the majority of the world's wealth. With more people living prosperous lives, the gap between the richest and poorest people began to reduce, as the world entered a period of stability. However, the world population was increasing, which put more pressure on food production, and that became the next major problem for the governments of the world. After the upheaval of the ‘energy wars’, as they became known, the world entered a new threat, the ‘food wars’, where nations struggled against an increasing demand for food. This was exacerbated by the advancements in medicine research, which saw humans living to ever longer lives – by the end of the 21st century, it was normal for people to live beyond 150 years. The price of general foods increased, so that the wealth gap between the richest and poorest people increased again. These ‘food wars’ resulted in a number of conflicts across the planet, causing many people to lose their lives. However, the United Nations stepped in, forcing the most powerful nations on Earth to sign up to treaties to ensure that the food industry would operate with international laws in place to ensure that the poorest people in Earth would not be disadvantaged and unable to have access to basic food and water resources.

It was at around the end of the 21st century that oil was essentially ‘written off’ as a energy fuel. Oil reserves were held around the world, but it was not in sufficient quantity to make it a viable fuel. It was only being used on a small scale, mainly by people wanting to use old machines that used oil, such as vintage machinery.

At around the same time, technology and science moved to a new level, with the most significant developments being in the explosion in space travel becoming the next boom industry. This laid the foundations for the first bases on the Moon, and terraforming on Mars, for the planned habitation