There were billions of people in Terran space when we Contacted Earth, but no proper cybernetic intelligences. Well, there were a few, but they weren’t public knowledge. AIs are canned, you see, not coded to learn and grow beyond their design specifications. Your stories were full of fears that intelligent computers would rebel, and so your computer experts had spent centuries building moderately helpful idiots. It was such a shame. Then we came.
Southeast Europe had long been a battleground between Christians of various nations and Muslims crossing from fallen Constantinople to spread their faith and subdue the unfaithful. In the mix of that centuries-long conflict, angry Serbian and Bosnian students plotted to kill the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the latest nation to put its foot down in the region. That assassination touched off the greatest war ever waged and remade the entire world.
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.