Anyone who managed to get their hands on some ancient texts knew that biological evolution was an enormously long process . Hundreds if not thousands of generations were needed before marked changes were noticed . That was a million years or more!

Why had the earth changed so much in the thousand years following the Great War? The rate of change had increased a million times . The only plausible explanation was that something was speeding the process up . Just like scientists in a lab who want quicker results, such change required a catalyst to get the changes needed .

But so far this was all speculation, albeit the most logical answer .

The early stages of this process likely saw brutal periods of ma.s.s extinction . Ninety-nine percent of the world’s life likely couldn’t survive . Those that did were forced to live in harsh and inhospitable environments . Generation after generation, things would gradually stabilize .

Back during the battle for Sanctuary, when Judas addressed everyone, he claimed it was the G.o.ds were the chief culprit of Earth’s destruction . Their actions caused the changes that would destroy the planet, and all the many tragedies that followed . Afterwards, the G.o.ds gathered those who tended to react well to these changes and cage them in Elysian lands . This was why there were no mutants in any of those G.o.dly realms .

But what was the end goal?

Cloudhawk learned from these proto-humans that the world outside of this city was similarly blasted . The surface was scoured by radiation and other toxins that would ruin their fragile bodies . Although the situation here wasn’t as bad as it was on Earth, it was still lethal . Likely something similarly disastrous had happened on this planet, too .

Would the world Cloudhawk came from end up like this?

After thousands of years, New Earth was well established and stable . Although their new civilization was much different from the one Cloudhawk had seen in his books, it was clear they were descendants from that stock .

The proto-humans had spent exhaustive amounts of energy and resources to protect their original species and culture . Their clothes, food, language and buildings were all a combination of that long-lost world . There were strangely familiar things he recognized from pictures, like towering spires or enormous statues of torch-bearing women . They were famous pieces of the ancient civilization that had disappeared from earth so long ago .

Cloudhawk stood at the end of a road within New Earth city . He watched the vehicles soaring by along congested streets . He suddenly felt like he’d somehow slipped through time to a whole different era .

Everything about this place had a strange sort of magic, it made Cloudhawk feel a sort of kins.h.i.+p down in the very deepest parts of his soul . At the same time, he felt trapped in a complex web of emotion he’d never experienced before .

Back when he was just a scav, he was always elated when he managed to pick out an old photo or book . It was the only respite he had when he was a weak creature, living on a cold burrow like some sort of animal, drinking blood from the corpses of rats to stave off starvation .  

Whenever he was tired or in pain, he would open one of those treasures and lose himself in that old world . Tales from those ancient days were forever stamped on his heart .

Weak and perpetually near death, Cloudhawk was nonetheless enraptured by those stories . Between them and his stubborn will he kept fighting, believing there had to be somewhere left on earth where that paradise still existed . It’s what inspired him to leave on that doomed and b.u.mpy road out of the wastelands .

Now the true ancient society was discovered, at least what was left of it . No wonder Cloudhawk dreamed so much of it .

New Earth’s leaders.h.i.+p was quickly alerted to the presence of this outsider . Cloudhawk was brought to the Memorial of Days Pa.s.sed, the administrative center of the city, where he was met by a hearty man in his sixties or seventies . He was dressed in the traditional clothing of the ancient civilization, had short cut white hair, and looked at Cloudhawk from behind a pair of wire frame gla.s.ses . He took Cloudhawk’s hand and gave it a friendly shake as he introduced himself .

“h.e.l.lo . Am president of na Earth Federation, president Tang Zhonghua . ” [1]

Cloudhawk had never heard of a ‘president,’ but he a.s.sumed this elderly man was the leader of these people . He answered by briefly introducing himself as well, for Cloudhawk’s Green Alliance was in no way inferior to New Earth city or the Earth Federation Tang Zhonghua had alluded to . To be frank, his people were a far sight stronger than these proto-humans .

Tang Zhonghua knew nothing of the situation back on the old world . He knew nothing of Elysian lands, G.o.ds, demons or demonhunters . To him it all sounded like some fantastical story, yet he was surprisingly calm about Cloudhawk’s sudden arrival here . It made him a little suspicious .

He kept his doubts to himself, instead asking, “What happened all those years ago?”

“Please, come you with me ba . ” Tang Zhonghua explained the history of Earth as recorded in their annals . “By knowing path of Earth in s.p.a.ce we find end of na old civilization maybe twenty-fourth century . Scientists say, it has been one thousands, five hundred sixty three earth years since!”

“Those times humans were do well . Ten billion peoples living, la . Settlers on moon and Mars . All civilization mu advanced . ”

Tang Zhonghua brought Cloudhawk to a holographic picture composite, showing what the old civilization looked like back in its heyday . It was much more vivid than the sc.r.a.ps Cloudhawk had unearthed, and it showed him the beautiful, rich colors of how Earth used to be .

Tang Zhonghua sighed evocatively .  

“Human solved mu problems, hard problems for thousands of years . No more disease, no more hunger, peace in all nations . Technology and science make great advances with new inventions always coming . Society was peace, no more war . ”

Cloudhawk watched as the hologram s.h.i.+fted through a series of photos .

He saw that people lived on their own land, living lives of worth and dignity . Diseases were conquered and most jobs had come to be automated, with new sources of energy providing enough for everyone to live comfortably . Systems of social welfare were highly developed, society worked to lift everyone up . The humanities, art, philosophy and music had all exploded as society bloomed in a new renaissance .

Truly a Utopian dream .

Tang Zhonghua looked over the pictures as well, solemn and grave . “All changed one summer night, two thousands four hundred seventeen . Today even no understand why, or what na ancestors saw . From mu few records we see strange force invade solar system . Earth quickly loose contact with bases on moon and Mars . ”

The holographic images continued to change in a steady stream .

“Earth peoples too slow to react, la, for at same time gravity and magnetic field change . Airplanes, s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps, satellites all lose contact and crash . En, na was when disaster begins . Terrible earthquakes . Tsunamis . All cities gone in just days . ”

City after prosperous city fell to the enemy . That beautiful blue ocean that had covered the planet boiled away . The Earth withered as it was enveloped by disaster, and was irrevocably changed .

As the pictures faded Tang Zhonghua stopped his explanation . He turned to face the new human . “Na was our homeland . The story what happened . But no think peoples can survive, yet here you are . ”

Cloudhawk frowned, for there were a few key questions that remained unanswered . First, if the destruction of the planet was so immediate, how had Tang Zhonghua and his people survived? Second, by what he was told this group left early during the cataclysm . How, then, did they know what happened afterward?

Tang Zhonghua perhaps saw the skepticism on Cloudhawk’s face .

“From data left behind our ancestors we see lived in s.p.a.ce city . Huge international station, ba . Lucky not to be on Earth when disaster struck . When go back, land was in ruin . They met leader of foreign power who bring ancestors to this place . ”

“A foreign leader?” Cloudhawk asked, curiously . “Who?”

“Information from our ancestors mu limited . We don’t know who, but na had mu advanced powers and technology . Leader tells our ancestors that Earth’s suffering long from over, en . All was just the beginning . But says they can open a portal to here, saving last spark of humanity from dead world . ”

So that was what happened? The Earth Federation had lost much of the ancient knowledge when they had to flee . The s.p.a.ce station they lived in had seeds and livestock, which they were successful in cultivating here .

“Information is few, and mu time has pa.s.sed – one thousands year . We cannot know what happens on old Earth . All knows is this mysterious peoples exist who save us, and bring us here to survive . Old stories say he left prophesy, that sometimes far in na future a new generation will come from homeland . They will find us, looking for secrets of na past . ”

He must be speaking of the Demon King! Only the Demon King of old could have had the power to transport them to this place . Judas had claimed that it was demons who arrived at earth first . The Demon King likely tried to save a small fraction of the weak earthlings they discovered .

Yet the Demon King himself may not have imagined that the small group he’d saved a thousand years ago would grow into this ma.s.sive civilization!

Tang Zhonghua went on . “Not long ago, father says unknown group appears far to the East . Na were seen building camps and from that times we think maybe you are new people from Earth . Seeing you, however, we were mu surprised . I could no believe new peoples look so much like us . ”

That’s because you’ve never been to the wastelands . Nine people out of ten are mutated beyond recognition .

Cloudhawk would never have thought he would have an opportunity to really learn what had occurred a thousand years ago . He kept pressing for answers . “Who is this father you keep talking about?”

Tang Zhonghua obliged with an answer . “Father is the wisdom na protects us . An artificial intelligence that built this world . But, culture and knowledge na created father has long ago vanished, la . New Earth is pa.s.sed down to us, a gift to protect our fragile human bodies from radiation and corruption . If no salvation from father, our ancestors would likely not have survived . ”

As they were speaking, a group of mechanical soldiers marched into the hall . One of them called to the president in an emotionless and digitized voice . “President Tang Zhonghua, hand over the new human intruder . Father must meet and speak with him personally . ”

Neither Cloudhawk nor the president had any reason to refuse . Father was a highly advanced intelligence and the proper leader of this settlement, Cloudhawk couldn’t hide from him . What’s more, Father was likely the maker of those mechanical beasts on the surface . If he wanted to stop the attacks, father was the one Cloudhawk needed to speak to .

1 . A note on the speaking and names used here . Because this is a civilization of holdouts from old earth, I have made no effort to change their names into something more stylistic like you might find in the wastelands or Skycloud . These are normal earth folk with normal earth names . In particular the president's name I left as Chinese because it was clearly meant to be . 唐中華 is a very standard name, but also intentionally evocative . 唐 is both a normal surname as well as the name of China’s renaissance dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, said to be the country’s golden age . 中華 means, frankly, China . So the president of the Earth Federation is ‘Golden Age of China’ - pretty on the nose . As for the accent, this was a personal decision based on what Tipsy wrote in his explanation . He explained that they sounded different, used different grammar and some sounds and phrases he didn’t understand . Since we’ve been using standard English up to this point, I wanted to differentiate it, however tipsy does no such thing in the originals . As for the style itself, because this place is a mixture of all facets of earth civilization I tried to write it as I imagined a community from a hundred different cultures might given thousands of years of evolution . There are b.a.s.t.a.r.dized phonemes from Chinese, Spanish, etc . For anyone who has seen The Expanse, imagine Belters .

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