The Global War of 458 HE

When the colony on Hemera was first established, the starship was partially stripped and its materials and resources used to help build vital infrastructure on the planet and in orbit. The plan was for further colony ships to arrive in the coming decades, and in the meantime, the starship could not be refueled for the interstellar journey back to Earth without developing a great deal of industry and infrastructure groundside. The Aurora served as mission control during the first few years of the colony, when colonists were awoken from cryo-sleep and shuttled to the planet's surface. The starship was later converted to a space station and docking port for satellite maintenance. This was crucial, as much of Hemera's power came from orbital solar satellites.

Over the years, space flight grew less and less common. Launching a shuttle into orbit was expensive and time consuming, and the colony's development required all available resources to be devoted to food production, building permanent cities, and later researching vaccines for the numerous hybrid diseases that were springing up. Shuttles ventured into orbit only when necessary to repair or replace failing satellites, which was deemed of minor importance in comparison, especially as the satellites had been built to last.

They did not last forever, however, and when wave after wave of the satellites began to fail in the early 5th century HE, Messembria stepped forward with a particularly visionary new leadership, proposing a complete renewal of the space program. Other nations agreed to varying degrees, and international cooperation was promised. Elysia, however, was unhappy about the amount of international involvement being allowed by Messembria. Known as a volatile nation since its founding, Elysia's rather hot-headed rulers of the time held a paranoid belief that Messembria's space program was a cover for something sinister, possibly weapons development. They demanded full access to scientific archives and full veto power on aspects of the program they deemed problematic. Tensions rose between the nations, until finally a brand new shuttle, equipped with a wide range of new solar, communications, and research satellites, was blown up on its launch pad. Elysia blamed terrorists, Messembria blamed the Elysian government, and things quickly escalated into full-scale war, the Elysians trying to take control of whatever technological knowledge and equipment they could, and destroy what they could not control.

Sides were chosen. Boreas joined with Elysia at first, while Auxesia defended their borders and agricultural centers in cooperation with Messembria. Andalus remained neutral for the first year. Biological and chemical weapons were employed. Communications networks were devastated using superviruses, and communications and transportation infrastructure were destroyed. Libraries and archives were burned, supercomputers destroyed, universities attacked and high level professors and researchers assassinated. Andalus entered the war in an effort to stop what they saw as a threat to the entire planet's survival, choosing to side with Messembria as the lesser of two evils who might see reason. Boreas withdrew from the war, nursing their wounds and calling for a cease fire. Elysia continued to fight until, in a final crippling blow, Troli, one of Elysia's largest northern cities, was devastated by a nuclear bomb. The bomb was built and deployed by a team of Messembrian and Auxesian forces, determined to stop Elysia's rampaging destruction of the world's remaining knowledge.

In the aftermath, Elysia was devastated and took years to rebuild. Messembria suffered great losses, both of life and knowledge, but they retained more technological power than any other nation, likely due to the efforts of an emerging religious organization whose primary goal was to preserve knowledge. Technologies, machines, computers, and the contents of both libraries and electronic archives were spirited off to bunkers in the Rachis Mountains, where they were salvaged after the end of hostilities.

A rough outline of Old Earth's history remains, but many details have been lost. Scientific knowledge regressed for a time, leaving transportation, communications, and information technology particularly lacking. Biological and genetic research suffered, although not as much as many other areas, since the Auxesians, experts on agriculture and medicine, in particular fought to preserve what they could in order to maintain human survival on a planet that still harbors many unknowns. For years the world limped forward on jerry-rigged machines and patchwork energy systems – some places resorted to old-fashioned water and windmills, while others employed steam power and what few fossil fuels could be found under the planet's surface. With time, energy production using solar and geothermal power was restored. The hyperloop tubes whose construction had been halted by the war were completed, high speed rail was up and running again, bridges and tunnels through mountains and across seas were repaired, and transportation across and between continents began anew.

The greatest losses were related to space travel. The production centers that had made equipment and refined the fuel for launching rockets had been devastated, as had most of the computers that were used for the program. Satellites were shot out of the sky, fuel refineries were destroyed, and even the dormant Aurora, the starship that had brought humans to Hemera, was crippled beyond repair. There would be no contacting or returning to Earth, and even a return to orbit would surely be at least a century or two away. All told, technology on Hemera had been reduced to a level roughly equivalent to early or mid 20^th century Earth, although this varied by discipline.