An Alternative History of the Future - Entry VIII

2044

Operation Biolife

The results of Operation Biolife, the ecological restoration program for the Amazon jungle, was presented by Brazilian Prime Minister Osvaldo da Silva to the United Nations Committee on the Environment. The report showed remarkable success in curbing ecological damage, by instituting localized sustainable development, coupled with rigorous scientific controls.

American tar sands unlocked

Advanced drilling methods finally unlocked deep to reach oil hidden in the Tar Sands of the former Canadian province of Alberta.[1] Ironically, despite this success, petroleum was shortly superseded by a new array of porginine fuels. By the 2070s, only sub-optimum vehicles and older machines used oil-based products.

First “landing” on Jupiter

Space Agency of the American Nations (SAAN)[2] veteran Mike Harwell, led the first manned mission, Armstrong I, to explore Jupiter. Booster jet packs attached to each crew member’s spacesuit, allowing the astronauts to leave the spacecraft and survey Jupiter’s gaseous interior. Twenty-one subsequent Armstrong missions explored the sixteen Jovian satellites, as well as Jupiter’s giant red and black spots.

The first Jovian space colony, Humania-1, was established on Ganymede in 2081. Humania-2 on Europa and Humania-3 on Callisto, were both founded in 2084. The population of the Humania colonies was greatly increased by Earth’s resettlement programs in the 2090s. By 2160, there were twenty-three colonies in the Jovian system, with a combined population of one hundred and eighty million people.

Adapting Earth’s hydrocolony technology, floater colonies hovering in Jupiter’s atmosphere, became viable living environments in the 2120s, each housing one million people. Early warning satellites monitored the planet’s lethal storms, allowing floater colonies to escape energy buildups.

2045

The Duprey crisis

French religious leader Cardinal Jacques Duprey, a Catholic moderate, was assassinated in Nantes, the first of fourteen Catholic figures murdered around the world during a seven-year period. The previously unknown New Order of Christ claimed responsibility. An Interpol investigation identified the Archbishop Wotjek Orislaw as its prime suspect. The conservative Archbishop had once claimed that the Church had to be “purged to save itself,” however, the evidence was insufficient to proceed with charges against him. Pope John Paul IV exploited the suspicions cast upon religious conservatives and seized the opportunity to purge the Vatican of their influence. The assassinations mysteriously ceased in 2052.

Eruption of Mount Fujiyama

The unanticipated eruption of the Japanese volcano Mount Fujiyama, killed one hundred and fifty thousand people. The abysmal failure of hi-tech monitors to predict the eruption, shocked volcanologists worldwide. An earthquake the same year killed thirty thousand people in central Turkey. Pietri Nino, a seismologist at the Earthquake Research Center in Palo Alto, determined that overzealous porginine mining had caused both disasters, by effecting a radical change in continental drift. Nevertheless, business interests successfully resisted calls for regulation of the porginine industry.