Tomorrow: To Boldly Go

Year 2068

When we last left our alternate Earth, the AL had just been dissolved and the US, China, India, Britain, and Sweden were under heavy rebuilding programs. Manchuria, Russia, and Tibet were also receiving funding from the UN [a group of Belarussian rebels had taken over Russia and es-established it, ousting the other nations in the process] as the massive rebuilding continued.

The United Nations was, in effect, a sort of world government at this point, with the governments of most major powers having been annihilated during the Dragon War. A minor reorganization of the UN had ended up with the structure resembling that of the United States, complete with president, legislative body, and judicial branch. The current president of the UN was a Briton named Robert Ericson, who was one of the major advocates of rebuilding the nations devastated by the Dragon War. UN money poured into those nations, and by 2089 Ericson had succeeded in rebuilding them. Now came an age of progress...

The sole nations of consequence that were not part of the UN at this point were fascist dictatorships that had sprung up in Peru, Venezuela, Mali, Libya, and Indonesia. These nations signed mutual defense pacts with each other, particularly because some of their larger neighbours believed they were a threat.

But for now they were not important. The UN began a space exploration program, starting with a permanent base on the moon [which was now referred to as Luna. Earth became Terra and the Sun became Sol, in accordance with science fiction.] and then a manned expedition to Mars. Shortly thereafter a number of satellite mirrors were launched into orbit around Mars, while car-sized minifactories were sent to the surface to pump greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere. These two factors were carefully monitored and adjusted by the UN base on the surface, with gradual results of noticeable changes in Martian ambient temperature and atmospheric density.

The United Nations now had control over much of Terra's resources, allowing them to embark on a number of missions that saw colonies on Luna, Mars, and a number of moons, primarily those of Jupiter and Saturn. The fascist governments on Terra were little more than an annoyance now, as UN physicists worked on the Berlin Project, an extremely advanced project that created the technologies of interstellar jump drives and ansible communication systems. This allowed, in 2113, Project Spock [named whimsically after the Star Trek character] to send expeditions to extrasolar systems and eventually establish colonies there, on Cassini, Kepler, Atlantis, Sarpedon, and Demeter.

But on top of all this, in 2114, a monumental event occurred. SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, received a response....