SC 001: The End The Old World It is ironic that the beginning of the Solar Century would coincide with the beginning of a cataclysmic war that nearly ended human civilization. None but the Court Historians care for the details of how it all began, but what is commonly remembered is the greatest of liberal-democratic and the greatest of communist states proved the inferiority of their respective social religions -- two peasant empires wiped each other out, and nearly took the species with them.

The fighting began over territory -- as it always has -- but the logic of democratic societies of both sorts dictated convoluted responses to strategic threats. A regional war soon turned into a global conflagration, and as the great powers slugged it out, rockets were sent off to the stars. The ancestors of today's Noble Houses furnished themselves handsomely in lower Earth orbit, and the merchant classes profited enormously from terrestrial conflict. Mars became a veritable kingdom of its own, where pioneering technocrats sought to rebuild mankind in their own image (as the reader is aware, to disastrous effect).

Then, state atomics screamed through, and massed formations of men-at-arms in Hessen were boiled alive in their tanks. The oceans boiled and flash-burned ships fell through vaporizing seas. A "tactical, limited" application of atomics proved to be anything but. Within hours, hellfire consumed a tenth of the world's population.

Titanic clouds of ash blotted out the sun, and untold billions died in the decade of nuclear winter that blanketed the Earth. As crops withered and the technological backbone of society gave out, the war ended under conditions of effective radio silence. The old world did not go peacefully, however -- the resulting power vacuum and collapse of global trade saw the minor powers fight amongst the rubble. Deteriorating conditions broke the old states down, and within a few more years all had descended into warlordism and chaos.

Those with the means to fight continued to, but up in orbit, a new world was beginning to emerge.

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The Earth War saw satellites destroyed and the occasional flashy skirmish, but for the most part the Orbitals bided their time. The world's elite began moving their assets off-world, and friend and foe alike rubbed elbows at galas as networking events. By the time of the End, a sizable industrial capacity had been established in space, and regular shuttle flights between the Orbital Keeps, the Lunar Cities, and the Martian Free-Trade Zone saw a parallel economy emerge.

As clouds of troposphere ash sank into the oceans, the Orbitals descended onto a changed planet. Desperate for raw materials, the Orbitals went to work pacifying and enslaving the survivors of Earth -- plying weapons, high-technology, and riches upon a thousand warlords.

Where diplomacy failed, orbital bombardment with requisitioned military satellites proved a good motivator.

Old Houses were resurrected; new ones were founded. Fiefdoms replaced nations, and salvage from Earth would be traded on Mars for raw materials and high technology. The Houses of Terra coalesced into a complicated international system of peerage, and the process of reconstruction would be frustrated by succession disputes and battles over territory.

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Massive, taxing demands on the Martian economy to fuel wars between the Orbital families pushed the Martian Elders to begin an accelerated project in cloning to meet demands in labor. While the efficacy of cloning had been proven before, the scale and complexity of a mass cloning program was only possible due to Mars' industrial and scientific development.

The Earth was nowhere near its pre-war population, but civilization had to some extent returned. The enormous quantities of wreckage in Earth's old cities were proving to be a valuable source of salvage -- but radiation diseases, pestilence, and near constant wars for territory were stalling a full scale reconstruction.

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Martian hero M.B.A. Geest dispatches an Amazoon Lifter pilot during a heated exchange

Cruel extractive policies on Mars and the repression of martian clones leads to revolution, and the rebirth of humanity's greatest emancipatory ideologies.

The Martian Workforce Transition, as it was known, saw millions of machine-born clones pressed into de-facto slavery. Born with a myriad of congenital defects and exposed extremely high levels of radiation, martian clones suffered short and brutal lives. While initial generations were born with deliberate limits to their cognitive ability, industrial demands saw these limitations relaxed, and the emergence of a martian class consciousness rapidly morphed into violent struggle.

Commandeering utility lifters and weapons destined for Earth, the Mars Commune overthrew the technocrats and abolished mass cloning, and refused to continue to supply the Earth with the technology and resources that enabled Orbital supremacy on Earth.

This existential threat to the Orbitals forced an end to hostilities on Earth. Facing an uncertain future, the Orbital dynasties saw one way out -- a punitive campaign against the Martians. And so began the First Solar War...