The Divine Dissimulation [Complete]

Chapter 2 The Solar System In 2785

In 2785 most of the solar system was inhabited with Mars being the major population centre with 4 billion inhabitants. Earth had only 1 billion inhabitants, and they were living their life in abundance as Terran Citizens owned almost everything in the solar system.

Earth’s limited population was because the ruling Terran Council in the 23rd century decreed the sterilisation or deportation of everyone who was not rich or had exceptional genes. Most people chose sterilization, living out their lives peacefully while others had left Earth. Since the 24th century, the population of Earth stayed stable around 1 billion, which was the ideal population to avoid civil conflict and resource shortfall.

In 2785 every birth and death on Earth were tightly regulated, and no natural conceptions occurred. Instead, citizens had to apply to have children. If approved, scientific DNA optimisation ensured that every individual had the best possible genes. Individuals who were wealthy could usually apply to have more than one child, while poor people and people with undesired genetics had to leave the planet if they wanted offspring.

The Terran Council controlled the weather on Earth, through launching large mirrors and shades orbiting Earth. The mirrors increased the amount of sunshine on the surface making cold areas such as Antarctica warmer, while the shades decreased the amount of sunshine making the surface cooler in the tropical regions.

Technically the planet Earth was still divided into different countries, but they had lost their meaning as all the political and economic power was with the major company conglomerates. The five large conglomerates governed Earth via The Terran Council, which consisted of:

·         House Goldstein that ruled Antarctica, Australia, and South America;

·         House White that ruled North America;

·         House Muller that ruled Europe;

·         House Rashid that ruled the Middle East and Africa

·         House Cheng that ruled most of the Asian continent.

Through the Terran Council, the major factions met and made sure that life on Earth was plentiful and peaceful. There had been peace on Earth through the Pax Terran agreement for 300 years. Outside of Earth, however, the Terran factions were always fighting each other indirectly through supporting different sides in proxy wars on other planets.

All the major population centres on Earth were connected by a network of trains that ran in vacuum tubes and could reach speeds of up to 10,000 kilometres an hour. This way all the major cities could reach each other within an hour or two.

Mars in 2785 was a chaotic poverty-stricken planet full of warring factions. When Mars was terraformed 500 years earlier, it was intended for a maximum of 200 million people, and now it had 20 times more people. The excessive population meant that water and other natural resources were limited and the only things that seemed to exist in abundance were weapons and synthetic drugs. 

Despite its imperfections, many of the Martians still loved the Martian lifestyle, as it was freer than the Terran one. On Mars, people could live like they wanted, while everything was tightly regulated on Earth. Freedom came at a price though, as the life expectancy on Mars was 40 years while it was 150 years on Earth. Abraham Goldstein who was 250 years old was the oldest man on Earth as he was wealthy and could get his scientists to extend his life a lot longer than most people.

Life on Mars could have been better if the Terran Council had not feared the Martian way of life, and intentionally kept the planet weak. The trading terms between the planets were extremely unbalanced, and the Terran Council took whatever they wanted from Mars paying next to nothing. The Terran Council extorted the Martians, intimidating them with the superior Terran technology and creating mayhem and chaos when the Martians dared to resist.

No export of Terran technology to Mars was allowed, so most Martians had only access to 500-year-old technology.  If the Terran Council wanted to, they could have given Martian population a safe atmosphere protecting them from the toxic stellar background radiation. Instead, these resources were spent on having a massive military fleet orbiting Mars to show the Martians who were the masters of the solar system.

Humans had evolved differently on different planets. The people on Earth were all picture perfect due to the genetic pre-selection. Depending on the culture they could be athletic or lean, but in all cultures, they had ideal complexion and ideal posture. They were highly intelligent humanoids but also highly obedient and non-questioning as that was how the ruling classes liked their subjects.  The Martian human genome had defects from radiation and genetic mutation. Most Martians looked sickly and were genetically predisposed for artificial drug addictions. On the flipside, they were radiation, virus, and infection resistant and a lot more resilient than their Terran counterparts even though they eventually died from sickness and hunger when the circumstances got too rough.

Because of their radiation resistance, Martians were employed to do dangerous jobs in the solar system such as building and maintaining the automated mining stations on Jupiter's moons and building asteroid mining stations. A lot of them smuggled Terran technology back to Mars, so the expeditions hiring Martians was not allowed to use new technology due to the paranoia of the Terran Council. The Martian laborers were always supervised under close Terran military supervision.

Among other inhabited places in the solar system; Venus was only used for its automated natural elemental resource mines and prison camps where condemned prisoners of misbehaving Martians and captured ex-rebels lived in endless darkness and suffering. Life expectancy for anyone residing on Venus was less than 15 years. Likewise, Mercury was too close to the sun to terraform properly for human settlement.

Many of the asteroids were used by wealthy Terrans as holiday houses as technology existed that could put them in any selected orbit around the sun, with artificial atmosphere and artificial gravity. A lot of asteroids also orbited Earth as holiday houses for wealthy Terrans.

Finally, a few planets orbiting other stars had human colonies. While the technology existed to travel this far, the Terran Council did not see it as viable investments. The fastest travel speed possible with the available technology was 1/10th of the speed of light, which meant that it took at least 40 years to reach Alpha Centauri B, the closest star. While it was possible to travel this far by cryogenically freezing the crew before the trip, it was simply not profitable to do so, as it was impossible to control the inhabitants of colonies on Alpha Centauri as it took four years to send them a message and 40 years to travel there. 

Thus, all the colonies outside the solar system, was founded by eccentric trillionaires with no heirs and no better use for their money. These colonies were independent and had very limited contact with Earth.