Chapter 1: Meteoroids and Shelter

Author's Note: A meteoroid is a piece of debris that drifts through space. It can be as small as a grain of sand or bigger than a house. When the meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere, friction causes the meteoroid to overheat and give off a bright light. The light created by a meteoroid burning in the atmosphere is called a meteor. The portion of the meteoroid that survives to land on the surface of Earth is called a meteorite. People frequently use the term meteor to refer to a meteoroid, but in reality, the meteor is just the light show of a meteoroid passing through our atmosphere.

A small group of energy-based life forms were traveling through our galaxy two million years ago, give or take a few thousand centuries, when they entered Earth's solar system. The group remained in and explored Earth's solar system for a period of time. When the group finally decided that it was time to continue on to the next solar system, a mated pair of aliens, who we now call Bob and Sharna, remained behind to pursue an experiment in genetics.

The remaining aliens continued their travels to explore our galaxy. The separation was not permanent for the characteristics of this energy-based life form include extremely long lives, the ability to communicate with their fellow life forms over vast interstellar distances, and the ability to travel through space at speeds faster than light. These abilities allowed Bob and Sharna to collaborate with their fellow aliens if the need arose, and when necessary, they could summon or go to the aid of their comrades.

At the time the group of aliens left Earth's solar system, Earth had evolved to form continents and oceans, and life on earth consisted of elementary plant life and multi-celled animal life. The genetics project as originally envisioned by Bob and Sharna was to guide the evolution of Earth's plant and animal life to create an ecosphere in which the various plants and animals supported one another in a harmonious manner.

Unfortunately, they quickly learned that the rate at which nature evolved and mutated the existing plant and animal life was beyond their ability to control. They modified their original intent and focused on evolving a select group of plants and animal life, with the remaining life forms evolving as nature dictated.

Through the use of a scientific technique, commonly known as 'Trial and Error', Bob and Sharna learned about the genetic code that controlled the evolution of plant and animal life. Their ability to detect and manipulate electrical fields allowed them to 'see' physical shapes, and since the animals generated stronger electrical fields than the plants, they found it easier to work with animal life.

Although their mission evolved to focus primarily on animal life, the interdependencies between plant and animal life required them to direct a portion of their efforts toward evolving the plant life that provided the animals with food, shelter, etc.

Their increasing ability in manipulating genetic structures combined with normal evolution, led to the multi-cell life forms evolving into the prehistoric versions of today's mammals, reptiles, fish, insects, etc. In a parallel effort, they also evolved the elementary plant life into the prehistoric jungles in which the animals lived.

Throughout this period of evolution, they would periodically pause in their efforts to evaluate the world's environment and the ability of their plants and animals to thrive within that environment. Bob and Sharna soon realized that the meek, mild herbivores they were evolving would not be able to coexist with the carnivores that nature was creating. Thus, Bob and Sharna learned that 'survival of the fittest' was the main driving force in the evolution of life on Earth.

Dissatisfied with the evolution of Earth's animals, Bob and Sharna decided that Earth needed a dominate life form. They located several life forms that had the potential to become the dominate life form of the planet. A significant amount of their attention was given to these life forms until it was apparent that one life form was far more qualified than the others were. They then focused on evolving that life form. During the enhancement of the selected life form, catastrophe struck.

A swarm of meteoroids varying in size from grains of sand to larger than a house was transiting Earth's solar system with several of the very large meteoroids headed toward Earth. Bob and Sharna had given no consideration to the effect that a collision between the Earth and a large meteoroid would have upon their project. Fortunately, only one of the very large meteoroids hit the planet's surface. However, that one, while not a planet-killer sized meteoroid, triggered massive earthquakes and threw immense amounts of debris into the atmosphere.

Bob and Sharna could not 'feel' the earthquakes nor 'see' the debris at the time of impact, but they could detect the energy released by the meteoroid's impact. In time, the atmospheric debris resulted in a reduction of the solar energy reaching the planet's surface. The loss of solar energy lowered the Earth's surface temperature triggering an ice age, and the lower temperatures of the ice age in turn killed off plant and animal life over large portions of the planet's surface. The ice age caused the extinction of many species of plants and animals.

"I have been thinking about this Bob. We began this effort to create a perfect ecosphere. Since then it has been one thing after another thwarting our achieving our goal. Do you think it is worth it to continue our effort?"

"I have to agree about all the work we put into this experiment Sharna. However, when I think back to the way things were when we started and the way things are now, I can see a lot of progress. Granted, we weren't able to evolve all the plants and animals the way we intended. That meteoroid was a major setback, but I'm not going to give up yet. Let's give this another 5 or 6 cycles and then we can reassess our progress."

Author's Note: One of Bob and Sharna's cycles is about 100,000 years.

"Alright Bob, I didn't really want to quit, it is just frustrating to get so far, and then lose so much."

Bob and Sharna had to once again make major changes to their genetic program for the life form that they had been evolving to be the dominate life form was among those that had become extinct. They realized that the life form they had selected required a narrow range of environmental characteristics to survive, so they decided to select a more adaptable life form and evolve it into a life form that would be capable of controlling and adapting to its environment and controlling the other life forms that lived in that environment.

One of the major activities that Bob and Sharna added to their schedule was a meteoroid patrol. Periodically, they would tour the outskirts of Earth's solar system looking deep into the void to detect the approach of meteoroid showers that contained large meteoroids. When such a meteoroid shower was detected, its path through the solar system was projected to determine if it would pass near Earth. If so, Bob and Sharna would apply energy to the large meteoroids deflecting them enough to ensure that they would not hit the planet.

Humanity, the second species selected to become Earth's dominate life form, continued to evolve due to nature and the genetic efforts of Bob and Sharna. From time to time, events occurred that required a more personal involvement on the part of Bob and Sharna. On those occasions, Bob and Sharna would select and bond with two humans. The bond allowed them to interact with other humans, via their Bond Partners, in order to provide advice and help regarding problems that threatened humanity.

During a meteoroid patrol in the early 1970's, Bob and Sharna noted a huge meteoroid shower containing numerous very large meteoroids headed in the general direction of Earth's solar system. Examination of the shower's path indicated it would most likely enter Earth's solar system in about 70 years, but it was too early to predict the precise path the larger meteoroids would take when they entered our solar system.

Author's Note: It would probably be more accurate to refer to a large group of meteoroids as a meteoroid storm, but I prefer the phrase meteoroid shower.

During a meteoroid patrol in 1999, Bob and Sharna discovered that Earth was in the meteoroid shower's path and that some of the larger meteoroids, including meteoroids large enough to destroy the planet, would probably hit the Earth's surface. Their genetic experiment was definitely at risk.

The sheer number of medium- and large-sized meteoroids due to impact Earth's surface indicated that the resulting destruction would be catastrophic to the people of Earth and to its infrastructure. They estimated that if they shifted the path of the larger meteoroids only 10 to 20% of Earth's population would be killed. They also knew that there would be extensive damage to the current infrastructure. Bob and Sharna decided that in the time remaining before the meteoroid shower reached Earth they would do three things:

1) Shift the paths of the larger meteoroids.

2) Prepare a series of small shelters for those who were trained in repair of the planet's infrastructure.

3) Prepare humanity for survival following the impact of the meteoroids.

They considered the many things that would need to be addressed before and after the meteoroid shower reached Earth. Based on these things, they formulated the basics of an overall plan. The plan was to protect a large number of people in small shelters who would be capable of rebuilding Earth's critical infrastructure. This meant a series of shelters scattered around the world that were stocked with food and repair materials and it also meant locating and training people so they would be skilled in repair of the infrastructure.

Bob and Sharna's initial action was to determine the genetic characteristics that would be needed by the humans who survived the coming disaster. They created a virus that would cause these genetic changes in order to produce people with the necessary survival traits and characteristics.

Thus, Generation V984 of humanity was launched in the US by Bob and Sharna as a highly contagious, viral, DNA-modifying infection that targeted the reproductive systems of all humans who contracted the infection. The infection generated no noticeable symptoms other than a slight cold, and it was spread around the world by contact. Bob and Sharna estimated that over 90% of humanity would be affected by the infection. With the release of the virus, Bob and Sharna changed their main focus to the task of shifting meteoroids.

For Bob and Sharna, shifting meteoroids was a relatively simple task. Dive into the nearest sun and absorb as much energy as possible. Fly to a meteoroid and direct the stored energy at the meteoroid. Repeat the process until enough energy had been applied to shift the meteoroid's path far enough to miss the Earth. There were two facts evident to Bob and Sharna:

1) The energy expenditure to shift a meteoroid was proportional to the mass of the meteoroid.

2) The closer the meteoroid was the Earth, the further its path had to be shifted.

With these facts in mind, they initially focused their efforts on shifting the largest meteoroids, the planet-killers, which could destroy Earth. While performing this mundane and boring task, they learned that the meteoroids were laced with ice crystals that contained a virus that was lethal to humanity. They estimated that the meteoroid shower would spread the virus across the world's surface and the virus would kill over 85% of Earth's population. Unfortunately, many of those who survived the virus would kill each other due to a lack of food and in disputes over who should control the survivors. The shortness of time prohibited them from building and provisioning large shelters around the world. The lethality of the virus and lack of time caused them to change their plan. Bob and Sharna decided that this lack of cooperation in a survival situation would be one of the things they would try to eliminate in the next version of humanity.