Earth at 2084 is a calm and beautiful place. The three great threats to humanity have been overcome: climate change, pandemics and weapons of mass destruction (specifically nuclear weapons and weaponized AI). All this is thanks to the work of three women, who were born human but have ascended to godhood.

Each of these women is known by a different title, each controls one of the three technologies which have liberated humanity from the threat of extinction. The only threat which was not yet overcome is war, and the world is indeed at war as three continent-sized countries are locked in a global and unending World War III.

Eastasia is the most populated of the three countries, spanning the southeastern part of Asia and operating outposts, fortifications and vassal city-states as far as the west coast of Africa. Eastasia is ruled by The Teacher, a divine being born as a human woman of the Jewish faith. The Teacher lives and breathes quantum physics and has the ability to disable nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence with a thought, she knows the future and can accurately predict probabilities and avoid accidents. Eastasia is not a democracy, because The Teacher knows the people’s will better than the people themselves, and no one contemplates disagreeing with her. Her motto is “ignorance is strength.”

Eurasia is the largest of the three countries in terms of landmass, spanning from western Europe to the shores of the Pacific, with its southern border encompassing north Africa. Eurasia is ruled by the Survivor, a divine being born as a human woman of the Muslim faith. The Survivor lives and breathes biotic technology, and is the only person capable of activating all of the mutagens, seemingly without the need for biotic salts. As such, her body can be shaped into any tool which she requires, and she can command microorganisms with a thought alone. She also bestows this blessing to her believers. Eurasia is not a democracy, because the mental capacity of the Survivor’s Farsan far exceeds that of ordinary people, and everyone agrees that important decisions should be entrusted to them. Their motto is “war is peace.”

Oceania has the largest command of the oceans from among the three countries, spanning across northern and southern America, the southern tip of Africa and Australia. Oceania is ruled by the All-Mother, a divine being born as a human woman of the Christian faith. The All-Mother lives and breathes crystal-capacitor technology, and has single-handedly solved the climate change problem and the energy shortage problem by producing crystal capacitors and cold-fusion power plants. These capacitors reduce carbon emissions to almost nothing, and increase energy efficiency to almost 100%. Oceania is not a democracy, because the corporations which own and operate the production, maintenance and charging of crystal capacitors own most of the economy, and the All-Mother owns these corporations in turn, making her not just the ruler, but also the employer of the entire country. Her motto is “slavery is freedom.”

The rest of the world, including various islands and a belt of landmass between west Africa to Persia is known as the “Disputed Territories,” where all three countries vie for dominance, and send armies, spies and gifts to win influence and territory. As a result, the Disputed Territories are hubs where all three new technologies are available in abundance, and this fuels a snowball effect as it makes the territories even more desirable for conquest. This is where the campaign will begin.

Is Earth a utopia or a dystopia? It is a question which is obsessively discussed in the new, in books and in poems. On the one hand, quality of life for the majority of the human race is better than it was half a century ago. Food and water security, health services and life expectancy are good for the citizens of the three empires, and for the upper-middle class in the Disputed Territories. On the other hand, totalitarian governments in the three empires and a corrupt array of city-states in the Disputed Territories mean no political freedoms, and the constant war means unexpected and terrifying emergencies, bombings and needless death and injury.

What does it mean to live in Earth in 2084? It means living under constant surveillance. In order to survive, everyone must register and carry bioscripts. Everyone receives sufficient food, accommodation and health services, but nearly everyone wants more, more comfort, a larger apartment, better food, some status symbols – so everyone works hard to earn money (bitcoin) to buy more. In terms of technology, cybernetic augmentations are relatively common, but people consider biotic abilities to be much more desirable (but harder to obtain). Energy is cheap and plentiful, but all but small personal vehicles (such as bicycles) are state-owned and operated in mass transportation systems. Smart surfaces are incorporated into walls, clothes and everyday items which means that no personal phones or personal computers are necessary, but also means that privacy is a thing of the past. Cities are small and crowded.

You are in the Dublin Arcology, which isn’t really built in Dublin, as Dublin is mostly underwater, but further west, in a place that used to be called Kilcok. Everyone calls it the Dublin Arcology, though. Maybe you came here recently, or maybe you live here all your life.

What is important, now, is your friend. You have a good friend, or had one, who worked for the government of Euroasia, and now she is gone. When you last met a few days ago, she had a bit too much to drink, and said a lot, maybe too much. She said that a shuttle from Mars carrying some passengers started a security emergency. The shuttle changed course in the middle of the journey from Mars, and everyone thought that the crew is trying to steal the shuttle, but where would they take it?

Your friend is one of a group of four elite agents who were supposed to chase the shuttle down, but finding a vessel that could search for the small shuttle in the vastness of the solar system took time, and before they were ready to takeoff, the shuttle made contact again. It reported that it had to change its course because of an object in its path, an object that wasn’t observed by any of Earth’s telescopes, and by the time it returned to its original trajectory, it almost ran out of fuel, and was forced to land on the Moon, rather than on Earth.

Your friend fell silent. She was still on the case, and probably would have to interrogate the crew members about what they saw, but she didn’t say more about it, and went home.

The next morning, you received an urgent message from your friend, asking you to come quickly to some location. You couldn’t. There were fences and police checkpoints cordoning off the area, and even residents were not able to walk home. The news reported a dangerous AI was loose and was the cause of a series of lethal incidents. There were pictures of victims, and your friend was among them, but her picture in the news seemed wrong somehow, and allowed you to hold on to the hope that she might still be alive somehow.

A few days later you went to the place you arranged with her again. You had a feeling that a drone was following you around. The area was clearly searched by the police already, but you knew your friend well, and discovered in a hidden corner a little plastic passkey shaped like a nine-pointed star.

As you reached for it, you instantly felt that this was a mistake. A drone floated nearby, taking your picture. As you held the plastic passkey, it activated. Instinctively you understood that it sent some kind of message. In lest than four minutes an armored hovercar arrived, landed next to you and the door opened. Inside was a seated man, a government agent in an armored suit and a pistol strapped to his thigh. “Please come with me” he said, addressing you with the name of your missing friend. For a second you thought about correcting him and explaining who you are, but that felt like a very dangerous thing to do, with the drone still hovering nearby and your picture already on the files of whoever sent the drone there, so you climbed into the hovercar.

*

We entered the alien ship, wearing our suits. Only Dave and Dr. Takahashi stayed behind.

The corridors are full of equipment which is alien to us, curved surfaces rather than flat and the equipment seems very delicate and fragile.

Within seconds, we were attacked by strange monsters, small but aggressive.

Glyph, augmented by their fast reflexes, caught one. We beat the others away quickly, one was injured and one escaped and called for reinforcements.

We started to move more quickly, Udirdiha urging us to find the computers of the ship and observe them to shut down their quantum functions. Sergei operated the ship’s internal sensors which were based on optical cables to locate what seemed like the computer room, or maybe a chicken coop. Meanwhile, the local aliens were coming at us with a combat robot of some kind.

In the room that looked like a chicken coop the creatures ambushed us with laser pistols, but we survived their barrage with minor injuries and pressed forward. Sergei’s suit was torn, and he detected that the ship had breathable, albeit warm, air.

In the cages were sponge-like orange blobs. Wires sticking to them made us think that they are some kind of organic computer.

It took some doing, but Glyph managed to interface with the computer and attach their translation dumb-AI into it. The orange sponges learned standard Compact and started communicating with us through text, asking us to intervene on their behalf.

The winged aliens, the zwik, consider these sponges to be food and are not aware that the sponges are self-aware. Now that an another spacefaring species was present, the omo, the sponges made their move and disabled both fleets. They asked us, being the outsiders, to mediate.

First, we had to name the sponges, and we decided to call them Miriams. The Miriams opened the comms for us and we explained the situation to the omo, and started negotiations with the zwik.

We learned that the zwik are not as techonologically-advanced as we thought. They relied on Miriams to operate advanced machines and design complex components. They sent scouts to the omo prison-planet and scouted it for habitation, but the omo mistook the flying zwik in the sky for drones and sent digital communications at them, which the zwik never detected.

The omo were now ready to call off the attack and return to their home planet. The zwik had to dismantle their fleet and liberate the Miriams. The Miriams agreed to replicate another cold-sleep coffin for us with the help of zwik, something which will give them the technology of cold sleep and us another coffin. But we had to loan them one of ours first.

One of the Miriams joined us on the ship, to serve as an ambassador of sorts, as they wish to explore new planets and visit Earth. In exchange, the Miriam who came with us we named Alexandra.

The Miriams also told us that a ship has briefly visited and left the system while the fleets were disabled, which they described as a very human-like ship. It jumped to Lacaille 8760, the edge of the mapped space, and we decided to delay our return to Earth and follow that ship first.

In Lacaille 8760 we saw the ship we were chasing, with the English name Chimera painted on its hull, flying through a ringlike structure orbiting a planet, close to the relatively large and bright red dwarf. It looked like some kind of portal, but it didn’t seem to work or do anything. The Chimera accelerated and jumped away, and we decided to follow and jump after her, leading us into uncharted space!

Exhausted and wrung from two jumps in a row, we observed the Chimera docking with a space station orbiting a moon around a gas giant.

We noticed that a star very close to the system we just jumped to (only about one light year away) was not observable before we actually arrived on this system for some reason.  

The station hailed us, and we saw on the screen what seemed like a human woman, called Kanisha! She told us that the station is called “Halcyion.” It took her a few minutes to be convinced that we are humans from what she termed “the original Earth” rather than home planet, which was “sort of Earth2”.

We had many questions.

We docked on the same station, called Halcyon station, and the Chimera quickly disengaged and jumped away, but we were too distracted. Kanisha offered human food, a warm shower and other human comforts to our weary crew. She let us use our observatory in the Nancy Wake and then told us the names of all the nearby systems, as the humans call them:

And now, we need to see what we do with this incredible information!