After The Leaving … Approaching Contact by wblack

Bryce • Science Fiction • posted on Apr 11, 2012

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Description

An Orion’s Arm future history image Substantial credit is due my co-author Darrell Wollert for this segment of the future historical time-line. Without his efforts the chain of causal events between today and the far future era of the System States would not stand defined in such a sharp and clear light. After The Leaving … Approaching Contact. In leaving Earth the Martian Colonists found opportunity, in this they invest the skills and labor of themselves and their succeeding generations. Driven to build, they craft a foothold for man on a frozen desert of a world – a labor they extend some 200 years. Descendents of the original colonist’s number ten thousand … Their intent requires more: more people, more resources. Earth, after The Leaving, becomes static and shrouded in paranoia. A fear of what others have and they do not arrests any development. Mars is soon reaching a threshold to their growth. They can sustain their numbers, but expanding their range rests on exploiting resources on Earth. Mars mounts an expedition to an Earth unknown to them. They have known that the moon remains undeveloped and that no one followed them to Mars, yet they did not expect a humanity strangled by fear and stifled by a loathing of existence... Notes & Credits This image is intentionally composed to tease; it represents a bare glimpse with further revelation to come. The vehicle is a Martian Trader – an interplanetary spacecraft dating to the dawn of the Martian Terraforming Era. Having said that, I will add to the tease: my inspiration for the vehicle is a hand-rendering drawn by Poul Anderson himself of the Orion spacecraft from his novel "Orion Shall Rise," sketch and letters of authenticity secured by Scott Lowther are available on his Unwanted Blog. Link: Orion Shall Rise You might notice that I’ve scaled the idea up … slightly. Background image is a composite created from two separate image sources: Andy Strappazzon’s Crescent Moon ESO, and as08-16-2593 a view of the earth from the Apollo 8 spacecraft which I have modified into a crescent. Original images cited and credited below. Andy Strappazzon’s Crescent Moon ESO. Wikipedia Link: Crescent Moon ESO. This image was processed by ESO using the observational data found by Andy Strappazzon (Belgium), who participated in ESO’s Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography competition. Original Work here: European Southern Observatory. as08-16-2593 courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, photo number: as08-16-2593, source: The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. All models are my own Bryce creations. As always thank you for your interest, thoughtful comments, and encouragement.