OUTCASTS CH.3

Pagal Relic

2010 09 22

Ch.3 United Republic of Earth

Richard Wiles had been on board the Rhadamanthus for most of his life. When he was eleven, his father had been granted command of the ship, even then she was old, but transports her size were built to last centuries, and the than young Mr. Wiles had been given the job of cabin boy.

Cleaning, assisting, any job deemed too menial for full fledged crew was given to him, but when not working, he would be required to go to the ship's surprisingly adequate school and learn like all the ship's other children. Taught either by the ship's computer or by a holographic teacher broadcasting trillions of miles away. Richard had excelled in all of his studies, but history seemed to appeal to him greatly, and it was here he scored his highest marks.

By the time he entered into high school he had read or watched just about every book-pad or holo-video available on history in the ship's somewhat respectable library, and was particularly fond of those relating to mankind's early beginnings.

History had it that Humans evolved on a blue out-of-the-way planet near the edge of the galaxy. From the time they invented powered flight to they perfected I-flight (Iwogawa flight, named after the engineer and physicist named Tokage Iwogawa who invented it.) only a period of two hundred years had past, shattering the previous record of six hundred years of the Kasari race.

Not long after the human race united upon entering the universal stage, and for a period of one thousand-seven hundred years they prospered, accomplishing every technological goal ever laid before them till they came to the very forefront of military and civilian technology. Unfortunately, the human race's progression was so strong and so ambitious that other races, the Kasari among them, began to fear them.

The resulting powder keg finally erupted when A new planetary mining device exploded an entire metallic planet, allowing for easier collection of metals. Unaware that many races considered such an act sacrilege and wasteful to destroy a planet of any kind.

A military alliance led by the Kasari and several other prominent species attacked Human territories only to watch their grand military armada be virtually annihilated at the hands of the Earthling's fewer but much more superior Warships. Six months later the alliance lay shattered and defeated. With their military strength nonexistent and their home worlds laid bare before Earth and her allies, they were left with no other option but to sue for peace.

The terms of surrender were harsh but otherwise not unreasonable (no doubt a first in human history), all species involved in the alliance against Earth were fully disarmed, restricted to their home systems, and were placed under a strict embargo of any trade goods from Earth and her allies. The entire event was later labeled as the First Kasari War.

Earth continued in prosperity for another four hundred years but starting in or around 2100 A.I. (after I-flight), Earth entered a catastrophic depression. Caused by an intense corruption of government and a crippling national debt to foreign races, the entire economy collapsed. Trillions became jobless as entire industries came to an unpleasant halt virtually over night.This continued until politicians, fearing civil break down, sought an escape goat in the military.

Misled by corrupted politicians the people blamed the military for their troubles and a bill backed by popular support, and proving to be the final nail in the coffin, was passed immediately. The billed called for the abandonment 90% of all military ships,bases, and outposts to the cold reaches of deep space.

It is considered that even if the Kasari and her allies hadn't made their move, than that bill would have still destroyed the URE regardless because it effectively destroyed the last vestiges of the dieing economy