In Fourteen Hundred Ninety Two

by on October 8, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

In Fourteen Hundred Ninety Two Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue. It is the beginning of one of the most famous phrases in America. It celebrates the arrival of Columbus in America, and the general opening of The Americas to a resurgent European society.

Europe had spent centuries rebuilding after the fall of the Roman Empire. They had weathered the Islamic Invasions that nearly wiped out Western and Southern Europe, and survived the Mongol Invasion that left Eastern Europe in ruins. They’d rebuilt after the Black Death killed as many as half the European population and nearly dropped us into another Dark Age.

Europe was ready to see the world for the first time in centuries, and the Age of Exploration was upon us. And so Columbus sailed to parts unknown on prevailing winds he believed would take him to Asia with the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Instead he found what we would later called The Americas after the explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Why? Might as well ask the Turks why they renamed Constantinople. I guess somebody liked it better that way. But streets, cities, counties, states, and even nations would be named for Columbus in the centuries that followed.

It was the Age of Discovery that spread Western Culture all over the world and changed everything. It was the foundations of the world we built and live in now. Western Civilization as we know it would not exist without the Age of Discovery, and Columbus is the emotional touchstone of that legacy in The Americas. Europeans would follow him in the hundreds, thousands, ten of thousands, and later millions. We would build a New World here in the name of the man who heralded it all in Fourteen Hundred Ninety Two.

Christopher Columbus

 Comment 

The Memory Worlds

by on October 7, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

The Memory World on Proxima Centauri is probably one of the truest expressions of cybernetic culture than anything we have ever seen. The AI Council built it to be the ultimate reservoir of humanity’s knowledge, a backup in case we destroyed our only other home at the time. Both digital and analog. You see they did not want to save merely our data but also our way of life. They built real life towns with grass lawns and white picket fences. There’s at least one town to represent each major civilization on Earth, plus most of the minor ones that ever existed. The cybers vacation in these towns. They inhabit robotic avatars and just enjoy a few days of watching the suns rise and fall from the porches of isolated towns all over the planet. They saved us in living, physical memorials they could visit and enjoy. That is the essence of every Memory World they have ever built in the stars. They are not tombs of knowledge, forever closed off from life. They are living memorials of all mankind. And we have no idea where most of them are.

 Comment 

Northern Minnesota

by on October 6, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I grew up on the lakes of Northern Minnesota. Spring. Summer. Fall. Winter. There’s so much you can do in every season. But for all my days, there’s one thing I’ll never forget. One image that will always remain with me until the day I die. A great bonfire on the beach, reflecting on the surface of the water. A stiff, cool lake breeze on the air and stars in the sky. A full moon looking down over everything. Add a few pontoon boats anchored off the beach. Have some music playing and friends singing joyful tunes. People lying in the sand. Swimming in the water. Dancing on the pontoons. I never wanted to leave that behind. It was paradise.

 Comment 

Chloe

by on October 5, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Chloe arranged for the man she thought could unite France to see how badly her nation was faring after the bombing of Old Paris. She showed him the fighting in the streets between the Islamic Brotherhoods and the French Resistance. She showed him the neighborhoods where French police dared not go. She showed him the ruins of downtown Old Paris. And then, when she was certain she had his full and undivided attention, she showed him herself. Her recognized her, of course. He’d told her “no” in New York. This time he simply shook his head and asked who she really was. He was the first person she came out of the network for.

 Comment 

The Memory Worlds

by on October 4, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

The AI Council’s Memory World on Proxima Centauri was a closely-guarded secret for decades, and a more open secret afterwards. Very few people traveled to Proxima before The War because the AIs did not invite visitors. All of that changed after they built the Privateers my Cowboys used during The War. With all the publicity we acquired, people wanted to see the place that built them. Which is how biological humanity finally came to Earth’s closest stellar neighbor and discovered just how beautiful it was. Most of the system infrastructure is built into moons and asteroids all over the system, and the primary habitable world is only lightly settled even now. It was a vacation destination before The War, a place for cybers to rest and relax and enjoy a slower life for a few days.

 Comment