-4 Old Chapter 1 (1/2)

Chapter 1: Prequel 1

The year where the story begins is 2142.

This chapter is similar to a historical prologue. A brief summary of the major events from the previous 125 years:

The catastrophe of climate change had come and gone with little more than a bump in the road. Species annihilation was averted by major changes to the energy mix from a fossil fuel source to renewables and versions of nuclear fission. And in the year 2074, a series of breakthroughs led the world to rely on cold fusion reactors, small and large, for its energy needs. Other than a few islands going underwater, extinction of a few dozen species the human race survived without too much trouble. As a lasting consequence people were now predominately vegetarian. Feeding ten billion people with different forms of meat was not sustainable.

Where the world skipped past a mass extinction event and avoided planet-wide anarchy with climate change, it came close to Armageddon with the rise of robot labour. All through the twenty-first-century robots replaced humans in the workforce. It started with factories, logistics and even driverless cars, trucks and trains played their part. Before spreading to every industry and sector.

Robots replaced humans in call centres and nearly every facet of the information technology sector. AI programming became a reality where these robots would learn and adapt. They were not sentient, not yet, but a Robot would learn on the job. Although they had no body, no bipedal mechanical structure these entities were labelled robots.

People worried about driverless cars, arguing they were not safe, where in reality the software driving these cars was far more reliable than human beings on a mass scale. Governments became addicted to removing drivers as a matter of reducing traffic congestion. A highway which could handle a million human-controlled cars a week could handle ten million driverless vehicles, due to the far superior traffic management, merging, and the consistent speeds of driverless vehicles.

Unemployment rose from ten percent to twenty, and once it hit fifty percent, the world began to buckle. Anti-robot protests led to riots which led to anarchy in a few of the major cities followed by a lethal crackdown. The cycle repeated. And protest plans turned to revolution plans.

The European Union was an early adopter of wages for all, whether you worked or not. With these wages, all people could afford rent and food with spare money for a few entertainments. If they wanted to work, they could and still receive the government stipend.

The political persuasion from the right could not stomach the idea of free money for all, it was against everything they stood for. But with unemployment creeping towards sixty and then seventy percent it was either accept this policy or the whole world would burn.

The Romans knew they had to give the people bread and give them entertainment.

Without the wages for all policy, governments would topple. The corporations who existed to increase their share price, the shareholders and the wealthy one percent all agreed. If the people had money, they would spend it, and their world was turned by money. The corporations were caught in a vicious cycle of reducing labour for productivity, but as fewer people had jobs, there was less spending in the market. Wages for all was a solution to this problem as well.

It was 2100 and every citizen, no matter their wealth and earnings, was paid a stipend from their respective government. The internet was cheap, most conveniences were cheap, food was cheap, you could live happily and do no work whatsoever. Nearly all entertainment was delivered on demand to the person or home, to old school monitors, goggles, headphones or a multitude of devices. Or to the new wave of first-generation cybernetics.

Twenty percent of people worked for corporations as the backbone of what was a much larger workforce of robots. Some worked in research or maintenance. Some worked as supervisors or as one of the few humans in any number of sectors.

In 2017 the world's richest one percent owned fifty percent of the world's wealth. By the year 2100, this number was over eighty percent. The majority of the masses just spent everything they received and due to being housed, fed and entertained they were compliant, sedated and controlled.

Out of the eighty percent who received money for nothing, those who did not work for a salary job, they were free to earn extra by working for themselves. This is where the motivated could change their lot, where most people quite happily sat at home, watched streams of the latest drama, or played games, a few produced content themselves.

Whether they streamed, sold digital items from the latest VR or AR, programmed their own application, made music or some other creative outlet which was popular this group had the ability to make a little extra and in some cases a lot.

Then in 2101, the world changed. We were no longer alone.

An alien vessel parked itself in orbit around Earth, and after a few days of rioting, end of the world predictions, general mayhem and panic the aliens spoke to the entire world.

”We are peaceful. Do not despair. You are not alone,” the alien vessel then released four mechs which dropped to the planet. One to China, one to the European Union, one to Russia and the last to North America. These four mechanical monoliths walked the earth and handed each of the world's superpowers a mysterious package.

To this day it has not been confirmed exactly what was in that package but what did happen after this event was dramatic.

The world was gripped with paranoia. Instead of fearing and fighting each other, for a short while it was united. The world had a common ”them” to fear. Now instead of us being North America and them being Russia or vice versa. The us was now the world, and the them were the aliens.

The major arms and armament manufacturers began producing robot soldiers, but after they failed every test against human soldiers, who adapted spontaneously and with strategic variety, the direction moved to mimicking the aliens and mech research and development began in earnest.

Mech's came in all shapes and sizes, it was not only the traditional arms manufacturers involved, ones like Lockhead Martin, Boeing and Saab industries. But tech companies like Huawei and DaVinci became involved. New companies were born and grew rapidly; Svarski, Templars and Tiger Eight to name a few.

Governments invested heavily into mechs as did private enterprise and the richest one percent. Academies to train the pilots were born either as offshoots from the top universities of the world or sponsored by the large mech companies as proving grounds and to showcase their strength.

In 2120 amateur competitions came into fashion where old technology or fabricatedparts were used to homebrew a mech fitting into one of three predefined categories. The fights went viral, and it quickly became an international obsession. A VR game was one thing, but when real alloy mechs and dreams were blown to bits, it had a visceral appeal that digital could not come close to.

Amateur circuits soon became professional, and with increased views and crowdfunding, it soon turned into emerging businesses around the globe. Even the major corporations took note of the innovations coming from the ”entertainment combat mechs.”

The world had become infatuated with mechs. VR and AR games were produced, World of Mechs being the most popular was born in 2112 only to be surpassed by League of Mechs in 2120. Finally, the latest dominant game to grip the planet was the first VR MMO to utilise AI enhanced cybernetics used by the real world military mechs called CyberMech. It was launched in 2139.