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Description

Of all the bodies in the cisbelt, the collapse hit Luna the hardest, for it was the gauze meant to soak up the greatest part of the refugees that the dying earth hemorrhaged, and it was asked to soak up too much.

At first Nasa and Selecorp saw the refugees as more of a resource than a burden. After all, it was a chance to bring a sizable percentage of humanity under their control, increasing their power tremendously. In 2084 both lunar powers pledged to take in ten million immigrants apiece by 2100, totaling ten times Luna's population at the time. Nasa and Selecorp turned their considerable industrial capacities to the task of building new settlements and expanding old ones. They scoured the maria and the highlands for oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon, and all the essentials for life.

There was pushback, of course. Small at first, a few bitter malcontents on message boards, and even the formation of the anti-immigration "Concerned Citizens of Luna Party" (CCLP). Even if they'd had support, there was little that they could have done. Officially, everyone on Luna was an immigrant; there was no such thing as a Lunar citizen, for there was no such thing as a lunar state. All of Luna's inhabitants were resident aliens who retained original citizenship indefinitely. After all, Luna was still officially regarded as a place to work, earn money, and then return from. All persons on Luna's surface or in its gravitational sphere of influence were governed either by the governor of American Lunar Territory or the Selecorp Board of Directors.

The settlement project continued on schedule the next two years, but 2086 brought the great tropical heat wave. It was the first taste of how bad things would really get—and how quickly. The nations of Earth immediately raised their demands of the extra-terrestrial bodies: now, by 2100 at the latest, Luna was ordered to take in one billion immigrants. Few in Lunar government thought that this was really possible, but they all agreed that they had to try. They had to. Earth was the motherworld, and she had to be saved.

Others, however, had no compunctions about allowing Earth to expire. Just seven months after the heat wave, Hellas Planitia on Mars erupted in fire, killing refugees, seizing government buildings, and denouncing the governments of the old-planet. The flinty isolationists of the Belt, the wild no-man's-land, came hot on the Martians' heels. Earth sent armed convoys of refugee ships, and then cargo ships hastily retrofitted into makeshift battleships, desperate to win back these crucial resettlement areas. It never happened. This further increased the burden on Luna, Venus, and Mercury. The huddled, starving, helpless people came like a torrent, never relenting, never giving any indication at they ever would relent. The already crowded settlements became intolerable crushes with ten people to a room, rolling blackouts, around the block lines for dwindling rations, and stale, low-oxygen air.

The CCLP flourished in this atmosphere; it declared solidarity with the rebels of the outer solar system and distributed copious videos and memes denouncing the immigration policy of the powers-that-be. Their rhetoric began to make headway among the staffers of Nasa and the shareholders of Selecorp. Anti-immigrant marches started, and then they were ended. Earth was unwilling to risk losing any more ground, and they sent multi-national occupation forces to hold down dissent on Luna, Venus, and Mercury. And the refugees kept coming.

With the Lunar governments all but powerless and the Earthans desperately squeezing more and more people into Luna. The CCLP became more radical in this climate, and more militant. Their members performed sabotage, murder, and assassination against immigrants, occupation forces, and anyone who showed them sympathy in the name of Mother Selene. The occupation forces spared no brutality in hunting the terrorists down. This grind continued and escalated over the next three years.

In 2090, the Nativist powers of Earth closed themselves to further immigration. To show solidarity with the colonies and strengthen their own defenses, they pulled soldiers loyal to them back to earth. With the occupation in chaos, the leaders of Nasa, Selecorp, and the CCLP secretly agreed to pro-Nativist revolt. While Earth was still busy fighting itself, coups and deadly riots spring up in every city. Violence in the elevator-port of Gagarin was so intense that both sides opened airlocks in quarters held by the enemy, followed by suicide bombers and cyber-sabotage that finally succeeded in destroying the city. Other cities on the surface met the same fate. Armstrong and Jingji are not destroyed, but locked into an attritious grind between the occupiers and the revolters. The elevator-ports of Roosevelt, Tsukuyomi, Dumont, and Chandra were successfully liberated, however. But much to the Lunar nativists' dismay, the revolt fails to fully dislodge the occupation.

Massacres of immigrants spread across the moon, and the Earthan forces race to take back territory. They succeed in landing fresh troops in Armstrong and Jingji, but the last defendants choose to overload the reactors and destroy the cities rather than give the enemy a point of access from orbit to the surface. Revolutions and counter-revolutions wrack the surface, reducing many settlements to ruins and leaving their inhabitants to die. A dozen little Stalingrads eat up soldiers and vital supplies, with most battles only ending with the contested city destroyed.

Even those cities that were not destroyed by violence were not safe. With raids, cut supply lines, and wartime requisitioning, many settlements starved, suffocated, or thirsted to death. In the face of this, others were abandoned, their populations fleeing to other settlements or out into the wilderness. In a desperate bid to end the fighting, the anti-nativists fired scores of nuclear missiles at the elevator ports and several important surface targets, a terrible prelude to the nuclear holocaust on Earth. Most of the missiles were successfully destroyed by flak and point-laser defense systems, but there were too many in the end. All the old lunar capitals were destroyed, along with what was left of the government. The breakdown of central authority did not forestall the war, only when all the armies had killed each other off did that happen.

If Earth had had a plan to exploit the destruction of the Lunar population, the nuclear exchange of 2091 ensured that they had no chance to carry it out. But despite it all, a handful of small settlements survived, their water, air, food, and energy supplies stable, their infrastructure intact, their populations reconciled. The survivors in these cities numbered some twelve-thousand. Everyone of them was shocked and horrified, but it was over; they'd survived the collapse, and their decedents would be there to face the Quiet Eon.

Before the Collapse

Description

Of all the bodies in the cisbelt, the collapse hit Luna the hardest, for it was the gauze meant to soak up the greatest part of the refugees that the dying earth hemorrhaged, and it was asked to soak up too much.

At first Nasa and Selecorp saw the refugees as more of a resource than a burden. After all, it was a chance to bring a sizable percentage of humanity under their control, increasing their power tremendously. In 2084 both lunar powers pledged to take in ten million immigrants apiece by 2100, totaling ten times Luna's population at the time. Nasa and Selecorp turned their considerable industrial capacities to the task of building new settlements and expanding old ones. They scoured the maria and the highlands for oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon, and all the essentials for life.

There was pushback, of course. Small at first, a few bitter malcontents on message boards, and even the formation of the anti-immigration "Concerned Citizens of Luna Party" (CCLP). Even if they'd had support, there was little that they could have done. Officially, everyone on Luna was an immigrant; there was no such thing as a Lunar citizen, for there was no such thing as a lunar state. All of Luna's inhabitants were resident aliens who retained original citizenship indefinitely. After all, Luna was still officially regarded as a place to work, earn money, and then return from. All persons on Luna's surface or in its gravitational sphere of influence were governed either by the governor of American Lunar Territory or the Selecorp Board of Directors.

The settlement project continued on schedule the next two years, but 2086 brought the great tropical heat wave. It was the first taste of how bad things would really get—and how quickly. The nations of Earth immediately raised their demands of the extra-terrestrial bodies: now, by 2100 at the latest, Luna was ordered to take in one billion immigrants. Few in Lunar government thought that this was really possible, but they all agreed that they had to try. They had to. Earth was the motherworld, and she had to be saved.

Others, however, had no compunctions about allowing Earth to expire. Just seven months after the heat wave, Hellas Planitia on Mars erupted in fire, killing refugees, seizing government buildings, and denouncing the governments of the old-planet. The flinty isolationists of the Belt, the wild no-man's-land, came hot on the Martians' heels. Earth sent armed convoys of refugee ships, and then cargo ships hastily retrofitted into makeshift battleships, desperate to win back these crucial resettlement areas. It never happened. This further increased the burden on Luna, Venus, and Mercury. The huddled, starving, helpless people came like a torrent, never relenting, never giving any indication at they ever would relent. The already crowded settlements became intolerable crushes with ten people to a room, rolling blackouts, around the block lines for dwindling rations, and stale, low-oxygen air.

The CCLP flourished in this atmosphere; it declared solidarity with the rebels of the outer solar system and distributed copious videos and memes denouncing the immigration policy of the powers-that-be. Their rhetoric began to make headway among the staffers of Nasa and the shareholders of Selecorp. Anti-immigrant marches started, and then they were ended. Earth was unwilling to risk losing any more ground, and they sent multi-national occupation forces to hold down dissent on Luna, Venus, and Mercury. And the refugees kept coming.

With the Lunar governments all but powerless and the Earthans desperately squeezing more and more people into Luna. The CCLP became more radical in this climate, and more militant. Their members performed sabotage, murder, and assassination against immigrants, occupation forces, and anyone who showed them sympathy in the name of Mother Selene. The occupation forces spared no brutality in hunting the terrorists down. This grind continued and escalated over the next three years.

In 2090, the Nativist powers of Earth closed themselves to further immigration. To show solidarity with the colonies and strengthen their own defenses, they pulled soldiers loyal to them back to earth. With the occupation in chaos, the leaders of Nasa, Selecorp, and the CCLP secretly agreed to pro-Nativist revolt. While Earth was still busy fighting itself, coups and deadly riots spring up in every city. Violence in the elevator-port of Gagarin was so intense that both sides opened airlocks in quarters held by the enemy, followed by suicide bombers and cyber-sabotage that finally succeeded in destroying the city. Other cities on the surface met the same fate. Armstrong and Jingji are not destroyed, but locked into an attritious grind between the occupiers and the revolters. The elevator-ports of Roosevelt, Tsukuyomi, Dumont, and Chandra were successfully liberated, however. But much to the Lunar nativists' dismay, the revolt fails to fully dislodge the occupation.

Massacres of immigrants spread across the moon, and the Earthan forces race to take back territory. They succeed in landing fresh troops in Armstrong and Jingji, but the last defendants choose to overload the reactors and destroy the cities rather than give the enemy a point of access from orbit to the surface. Revolutions and counter-revolutions wrack the surface, reducing many settlements to ruins and leaving their inhabitants to die. A dozen little Stalingrads eat up soldiers and vital supplies, with most battles only ending with the contested city destroyed.

Even those cities that were not destroyed by violence were not safe. With raids, cut supply lines, and wartime requisitioning, many settlements starved, suffocated, or thirsted to death. In the face of this, others were abandoned, their populations fleeing to other settlements or out into the wilderness. In a desperate bid to end the fighting, the anti-nativists fired scores of nuclear missiles at the elevator ports and several important surface targets, a terrible prelude to the nuclear holocaust on Earth. Most of the missiles were successfully destroyed by flak and point-laser defense systems, but there were too many in the end. All the old lunar capitals were destroyed, along with what was left of the government. The breakdown of central authority did not forestall the war, only when all the armies had killed each other off did that happen.

If Earth had had a plan to exploit the destruction of the Lunar population, the nuclear exchange of 2091 ensured that they had no chance to carry it out. But despite it all, a handful of small settlements survived, their water, air, food, and energy supplies stable, their infrastructure intact, their populations reconciled. The survivors in these cities numbered some twelve-thousand. Everyone of them was shocked and horrified, but it was over; they'd survived the collapse, and their decedents would be there to face the Quiet Eon.

Before the Collapse