A Brief History of the Future

[Halbarad]

March 23, 2313. It's been nearly three hundred years since the founding of the new Moon Kingdom, and much has changed on the face of Luna and Earth.

ON THE HISTORY OF EARTH:

Following the founding of the Moon Kingdom in 2015, many nations on Earth retorted to the presence of the new country on the Moon with open scorn and derision. America replied with demands that the Lunar surface had been claimed by them during the Moon missions of the late 1960's and early 1970's, although with little proof to back up their claims they made little headway. Japan overcame its initial shock quickly, recognizing the founders of the Kingdom as former citizens and heroes, becoming the first nation on Earth to officially recognize the Moon Kingdom as an independent entity in 2022. China declared the Moon Kingdom to be merely a hoax perpetrated by the decadent West, using the Lunar government as a propaganda tool to reinforce a rapidly resurging Communist philosophy inside its own government. The European Union viewed the colonization of Earth's satellite with some skepticism, although after nearly two decades they too came to a grudging acceptance. China and the United States held out on recognition of the Moon Kingdom for many years, although by 2062 the Americans were beginning the process of officially recognizing the Moon as an independent country.

Unfortunately, that year disaster struck. Rising tensions over the Middle East's dwindling oil reserves sparked the third - and so far, last - of Earth's World Wars. Despite many people's fears of a nuclear exchange destroying the world, that particular disaster was averted. The only nuclear exchange to take place was in the Middle East itself, where Israel launched a terrible counterstrike against Syria for their bombing of Tel Aviv.

Things might have gone well if not for a miscalculation by the Chinese. Eager to cripple their longtime rivals in America, they overran Japan and the American bases there before launching intercontinental ballistic missiles at the United states. These missiles were not equipped with nuclear warheads, however, but with a genetically engineered virus designed to devastate the American population and production capability. The biological weapon did its job quite efficiently, decimating nearly two hundred and fifty million people in the United States alone - more than half the country's population at the time. But the virus mutated far more rapidly than anyone on Earth had anticipated, and soon it spread across the face of the globe, even the Chinese finding their vaccines against the deadly plague ineffective.

Fearful that the plague would overrun the Moon, Queen Serenity quickly shut its borders, for the first and only time in its history. The virus rampaged unchecked across Earth for nearly two full years, the original war quickly abandoned as every nation on Earth scrambled to find a cure or vaccine. Tensions between the two planets were at their highest; the doctors on the Moon were able to magically cure the few cases of the plague that appeared there, and Earth's satellite lived through the nightmare virtually untouched. Many on Earth railed against the Moon for closing its borders during the crisis, and two thermonuclear warheads were launched at the silver planet - one from China, and the other from an undetermined location somewhere in the former Soviet republics. Both were destroyed by the Queen's senshi while still many thousands of miles from the Moon, although the attempted attacks were not forgotten by many of the Moon's citizens for many years.

Finally, however, the virus ran its course on Earth - those that survived the disease remained immune to it, and with no new victims the disease quickly burned itself out. Unfortunately, the toll on the blue planet was very great indeed - of the Earth's former population of eight billion, barely over a billion remained, scattered throughout the globe. A year after the last case of the virus was diagnosed, the Moon reopened its borders, sending a flood of engineers, architects, and medical personnel to help the survivors reclaim their lives. Their efforts were primarily focused in East Asia; the Queen and many of the leaders of the government sent special aid to Japan in particular, remembering their own roots there.

With the Moon's aid, Earth gradually began to regain its footing. By 2100, most of the world was back to a self-sufficient state once again, and summits were convened on the Moon to discuss ways to prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again. The political landscape of the Earth changed dramatically during these conventions; while consensus for a global government bogged down on several points, the leaders of the largest remaining nations on Earth agreed to reorganize the world into a series of five unions, loosely arranged on old continental lines, while the Moon officially declared itself neutral in any conflict based on Earth.

The North American Union (NAU), the largest of the five, consists of the former United States and Canada combined with Mexico and the Central American republics. Far and away the most technologically advanced of the unions at the present time, it finds itself no ally of the Moon. While not openly hostile towards the Moon Kingdom, some lingering resentment over the lack of help during the Great Reconstruction as well as old hostility towards the East Asian Union tends to make the NAU look towards the Moon with a rather suspicious eye. Its allied status with the Eurasian Union adds to their distrust of the Kingdom; while not willing to take a stand with the Eurasian Union in open opposition to the Moon, they're generally viewed with a measure of distrust by the Lunar government.

The East Asian Union (EAU) is the second largest of the unions, and definitely the most powerful politically in the new United Earth Council. Consisting of East Asia along a line just to the west of India and including Oceania and Australia, it's only marginally smaller than the NAU in size as well. Long a favored trading partner of the Moon Kingdom, they are the closest allies of the Moon; while the Moon maintains its officially neutral stance towards conflicts on Earth, the EAU has readily pledged its support for the Moon Kingdom in the event that it were to be attacked directly, a move that no other union on Earth has taken to date. The EAU owes much of its current power in the political landscape to its rapport with the Moon Kingdom; while the Kingdom refuses to deal in magical technology with any nation on Earth (a measure to prevent magical warfare from occurring and getting out of hand), the traditional goods received from offplanet provides the EAU with a steady source of income and political sway.

The Eurasian Union (EU) is the third of the unions in terms of power, although it is by far the smallest. Its land area includes all of Europe and the Middle East; however, its shared border with the EAU has been hotly contested for nearly a century - not enough to break out into open warfare, but skirmishes break out between the two unions along the border regularly. While the oil reserves of the Middle East have long sustained the small union economically, the world in general has seen a slow shift away from fossil fuels since the end of the Great Reconstruction. During the modern day, oil sees very little use other than in the production of plastics, which doesn't bring in anywhere near the wealth that oil as a fuel once did. The EU is the only union on Earth openly hostile towards the Moon Kingdom; they have been implicated in several terrorist incidents, including unconfirmed rumors that they are one of Arcana's biggest supporters. The relations between the EU and the Moon have been notably strained over the past two decades, with some rumors that the EU is considering some sort of attack on the Moon - although no one is quite sure how or what form such an attack might take.

The last of the unions are the African Union (AU) and the South American Union (SAU). The AU and the SAU are very similar; both were just beginning to enter the 'first world' prior to the world war, but the devastation of their populations would have set back their progress by centuries - if not for the help of the Moon Kingdom during Reconstruction. Most of the Moon's efforts during Reconstruction were spent trying to help the SAU and AU come up to speed with the rest of the world. The AU has come to rely on the vast natural resources of its home continent to maintain a footing in the post-Reconstruction world, while the SAU has taken a rather surprising turn in becoming a research enclave - most of its rainforests were untouched in the war, and much of the SAU is devoted to uncovering Nature's secrets hidden inside the great jungles. Both unions view the Moon favorably for its assistance following the war, although both have recently struck out towards a more independent stance - with Queen Serenity's blessing.

The five unions and the Moon Kingdom all convene in the United Earth Council (UEC), the replacement for the long-defunct United Nations. The UEC's primary concern is maintaining peace between the five unions, and to date it has maintained an excellent record for success, aside from the long-disputed border issues between the EU and the EAU. Of late, however, the NAU and the EU have been increasingly unwilling to deal with the Moon Kingdom, either in the council or privately.

The years following the reorganization of the Earth have been mostly quiet. During the years between 2100 and 2200, most of the new unions were mostly concerned with rebuilding themselves after the devastation of the war and the plague. In 2205, however, long-building tensions along the EU and EAU border erupted into violence for the first time, with the EU leading a strike deep into EAU territory. While thie marked the beginning of a long period of strife between the two unions, it has never escalated to the level of open warfare, partly due to pressure from the United Earth Council and the other unions. The skirmishing has continued at intermittent intervals for most of the past hundred years.

ON THE HISTORY OF THE MOON KINGDOM:

The Kingdom itself was founded in October of 2015, after more than ten years of preparations by the founders - the Queen and her senshi, and her loyal retainers from the Infinity Academy of Tokyo. The Moon Kingdom's early years were full of struggle; with many nations on Earth refusing to take the fledgling nation with any seriousness, trade with Earth was off to a very rocky start in the early years. Despite the many hardships faced in those early years, the Kingdom survived, slowly building itself to a population of nearly ten million by the start of the third World War.

The War itself reinforced the Moon's reliance on the one natural resource it had in far more abundance than any location on Earth: magic. From the very earliest stages of the Kingdom's conception, it was envisioned to be an enclave for magically gifted humans, most of whom were viewed with either skepticism or derision on Earth. Many of the Moon's first colonists were chosen from among the magically adept of Earth, and the high concentration of magically empowered humans only increased over time. While the study and use of magic had long been encouraged on the Moon from its earliest times, the forced isolation from the resources of Earth during the war and the plague following trying forced the residents of the Moon Kingdom to rely on their magical talents to survive, even flourishing as their abilities truly developed while the Earth wasted away under the effects of the terrible virus sweeping its surface.

The years following the war saw a practical explosion in the research and application of magic in almost every area of life on the Moon. One of the foremost areas of application was into the development of technomagic, the fusion of modern technology with magical power; the boom in technomagical development put magical ability within the grasp of every citizen of the Moon, whether they themselves were a mage or the most mundane of citizens. Following the great boom in development, however, evidence of military applications being researched were soon uncovered, and the government stepped in to place tight supervision on further magical development in the year 2161. While not overly onerous, the restrictions were resented by many in the burgeoning fields of technomagic, as the oversight committees frequently slowed the research and development of new applications of technomagic - and thus the companies' profits.

While these restrictions on research had little impact on the citizenry at large - most of whom were simply in the habit of relying on spells or abilities innate to themselves - among certain sectors of the population the uproar was loud indeed. By 2210 many of the most ardent opponents to the regulatory committees formed a group to lobby the Lunar Parliament: the Association for Freedom in Magical Research, or AFMR for short. The next several decades saw the new special interest gain a fair amount of public support; the Queen herself had established the Moon Kingdom on the principles of personal freedom, and with a groundswell of grassroots support, the AFMR managed to push back a number of formerly restricted areas, although not without much resistance from Serenity and much of her cabinet - most of whom were all too aware of the dangers of uncontrolled magical research and the dangers that could accompany it.

Matters came to a head in 2258. On June 29th of that year - a day before the national holiday of the Queen's Birthday - the Queen made an unscheduled visit to one of the port cities on the Moon's large oceans. Within twenty minutes of her arrival, however, an assassination attempt was made on her, foiled only by the timely intervention of Serenity's oldest daughter, Usagi Tsukino - Sailor Moon. During the capture of the assassin, it was discovered that he had made use of a personal teleport device, only recently deregulated under extreme pressure from the AFMR. The matter was assigned to investigation by Sailor Mars, but not in time - the disruption in the planning for the Queen's birthday celebration enabled another assassin to plant a bomb inside the Great Hall of the palace, one that very nearly went undetected until a mere few seconds before it would have detonated - and destroyed half the palace. The device was spotted by Sailor Mars, however, and quickly teleported into space by the Queen before it could cause any real damage to the palace.

With the entire kingdom in an uproar over the back-to-back attempts on the Queen's life, a splinter group from the AFMR stepped up to claim responsibility, referring to themselves only as Arcana - and declaring that the attacks would continue until the Queen was either dead or released all government controls on magical research. The group's ties to the AFMR were quickly uncovered and publicized, and by 2270 the original AFMR was defunct; with Serenity one of the most popular rulers in recorded history, their ties to a terrorist group devoted to ending her life quickly lost them all the popular support they had managed to garner over the years. Arcana remains, however; although they managed to carry out a few terrorist attacks on the Far Side, they have since been unable to get close to the Queen again. Their most prominent action in the years since was an attempt in 2292 to plant a bomb in the roots of the Tree of Life; the Tree itself quickly discovered the intrusion and captured the terrorists, holding them for the Lunar authorities. Since 2296 the group has been almost silent, although rumors still persist that Arcana is working underground - still trying to uproot the Lunar government.

Which brings us to the modern day. For the past three years (since 2309) the Queen has held open applications for a group of surveyors to journey to the Solar System's other planets. The Moon's population has boomed considerably in the last hundred years, and while the housing pressure isn't too great yet, with the Kingdom's current rate of growth it's estimated that it will be quite considerable within the next twenty years - 623 million is a respectable population for the Earth's lone satellite. In the middle of 2312 the finalists for the survey team were announced, and the final selections were made in late December, just as the final preparations for the first interplanetary vessel to exist in several thousand years were completed. And today, March 23rd, the survey team is receiving its commission from the Queen, its departure scheduled within the next week. It is here where our story begins...