Simple really, the needs of existence grow more complex as time progresses onward.
Think of a newborn baby, a human that is incapable of surviving without assistance. But, unlike their adult contemporaries, this child’s needs can be met moderately easily. We age, we learn, and within reason we gain reason.
This is where things begin to get tricky.
Within the fabric of every major technological advancement there are hairline fractures–metaphorically speaking–that impede existing infrastructure, so as humanity’s use of electricity began to outpace its ability to actually produce it, the end user seemed to only take that as a collective challenge.
Solis-aggregate, a fairly rare metallic powder of natural heat resistance, was found to make up a portion of the exterior mantle surrounding earth’s outer core.
This material, after a few years of research, was measured to be almost 80% efficient when used as a solar harvesting compound, and further, the aggregate was able to store radiant heat with no measurable losses.
The perfect solar battery, just existing under our feet all this time.
The aggregate was, of course, then mined extensively and manufactured into an array of different energy conversion devices. This relatively inexpensive material was able to collect energy from both radiant heat and the very light spectrum itself, effectively replicating an atom vacuum by pulling energy from the world around it.
Aside from the mass destabilization of some non-populated sections within the southern hemisphere, the mining of Solis-aggregate proved to be a majorly energy dependent process that, at its peak, filled 45% of the entire earth’s base power load. Furthermore, the worldwide harvesting of sunlight, via the aggregate, had not only dimmed the sun’s liminal radiance, but it was measured to lower the median temperature of earth by a non-maintainable degree. To combat this, resistive heating elements were installed under the outer crust of the northern hemisphere so as to retain the mandated climate of 21 degrees Celsius.
Fearing further tectonic collapse, alternate energy production methods were then researched.
The separation of deoxygenated hydrogen from water particles had long been touted as a potential infinite energy source, and if it were able to be achieved the collective mass of the world’s oceans could be theoretically recycled into a perpetually renewable resource.
After its introduction, and initial fine tuning phase, ASES’s Hyrda-diversion scheme was announced to be a resounding success and soon became heralded as the driving force behind technological achievement: allowing humanity to exceed new heights of intelligent creation.
The oceans were eventually surrounded by separation plants and over time the harvesting pipes of these plants were needing to be further and further extended, as it was realised that the ocean’s tide was creeping away from the established coast line. This recedment caused a fair amount of panic within the scientific community as the core fact of a continual median water level held at a singular time was an SI measurement wholly integral to how climate science was viewed.
To overcome this decrease, several different chemicals were introduced back into the exhaust of the deoxygenation process as replacement for any consumed hydrogen.
The most successful chemical, obtained from the copperization of oxygen, produced a liquid oxide comparable enough to legally constitute an adequate water substitute. Aquafied verdigris-patina, as it was named, was introduced back into the ocean and empirically allowed the sea levels to stabilize, with only the minor effect of greening within the water table.
Our blue earth had finally embraced green power.
Despite all this, peak electrical production was approaching, and it was estimated that if this demand continued to exceed capability the resultant blackout would be permanent. The twilight of human existence, as it was so poetically put.
And so it was finally accepted that humans would have to leave their home, and the planet that had lived on for so many thousands of years.
Collecting the remaining Solis aggregate from Earth 1’s mantle, a group of scientists developed an inhabbital sphere that if constructed around the sun, would be able to harvest ten times humanity’s current energy requirements and further become the first ever human manufactured planet. This invention, as we know it today, was named a Home-sphere and became mankind’s chief LOE: “Location of existence”.
Our technology progressed onward, growing ever more complex, as our needs similarly grew alongside the advancements. There is an estimate, well hypothesis really, that in time every sun within the galaxy will be slowly consumed by Home-spheres similar to our own.
Expansion forever reaching outward our wake may become larger than we ever care to realise.
What have we become, my friends?
…What have we become.
Historian at the centre for scientific research
Michael Leifson
J.McCray
2020
Sunday Short Stories 