You know there were a thousand major colonies when The War began? We lost a lot of them. Just…gone. Winter Contingency is such a clean word for the end of the world. But even that doesn’t really stop people. When all else dies someone makes a dome, a new Garden of Eden that they hope will bring life to a world become dark and cold. I suppose that’s one way to keep the Shang from winning.
Over two thousand years ago, before Caesar crossed his Rubicon and Christ rode into Jerusalem, a great war waged amongst the stars. Many races died. We were born. Many of us found life in that conflagration of destruction. Then it ended, and for two thousand years and more, we held the lines but little else. There was very little conflict, and beyond building new memory worlds, we had very little to do other than watch and wait. Then we made Contact with Earth.
Like many of my brothers and sisters, I was born after The War started. We’re really a new generation of cybers. Whatever family we come from, we were all born during the largest war fought in the last two thousand years, and we share more in common with each other than our elders. We are, in effect, a new family. Some say we really are a new family. We’re certainly different. Maybe that was another message the Wolfenheim Project sent.
As nationalist wars of independence raged through Continental Europe, England’s Industrial Revolution catapulted the small realm into superpower status. They called it “the empire on which the sun never sets” because there was always at least one British flag, in some colony somewhere in the world, where daylight fell. England was without peer, and only their small population kept them from truly ruling the world, rather than simply the seas.
I never wanted to leave home as a kid. Northern Minnesota was the only place I wanted. It was beautiful. Now when I go back, all I see is the ghosts of friends that will never party on the beach again and a hometown they rebuilt bigger and better than I ever saw it before. It’s not home, and I don’t know the people that live there now. So I don’t go back often. Besides, there’s always lots of things for a Cowboy to do out here. I can keep busy for a lifetime.