Scorched Earth written by Walter D. Petrovic

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SCORCHED EARTH
A Future History of Planet Earth

By: WALTER D. PETROVIC

walter.petrovic@3web.net

(c) Copyright 1980 + 2004

Note from Author: April 2004

This was my first novel committed to paper during my initial year of
college 1979-80. I was studying Film Production with the goal to
becoming a screenwiter/director.

Life rarely allows most of us the opportunity to achieve our life-long
goals but this did not stop me from pushing-on with my writing. I
recently realised that the real joy of writing was not in the money
and fame that comes with publication but the thrill that comes with
the appreciation of something that is a monumental undertaking - such
as, that of writing a book.

I do aspire to be published at some point, but for now I wish to have
the world-at-large read my works and hopefully to enjoy them.

I only request this one thing from the reader - please drop me an
email to let me know that you have looked at my work and your honest
(and critical) opinion of my material.

Please enjoy, and I thank-you.

Walter D. Petrovic

THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF OUR WORLD

APOCALYPSE - THE BLUE INFINITE

The idea simply was. The single Spirit had begun what was to be the
test for its being-its endurance and tolerances. It was set into
motion by great hands and the power of will, churning the infinite
matter and energy and bringing into being the stunning light of a
living state. Matter collapsed into itself, separating from chaotic
waters the vapours, the gases and ice-imploding into a bottomless
abyss that collected everything into one single focus-and not
excluding the pureness of the energy itself.

Everything was brought together at one point and at one instant-fire
and the waves, also. Everything was made grand and rock hard, held
together by their infinite natures and limits.

The Universe simply was. All its heavenly bodies were compelled to
turn and to make their way into infinite end, while they grew in nature
and in kind, making their firmament and their gleaming lights to be
awakened at their first moment of life-their first day. Time had
begun, and with its cycles of night and day, seconds and light years,
stellar light joined the spheres in moments so brief as to deny
comprehension, in a time that spanned infinite dreams.

Light was life. With this life, the ages passed into a third order.
As if a single day had passed twice from awakening, the heralding joys
of this new-found life had permitted growth to those things named
leaves and trees-the fruits by which the life to come would consume and
hitherto live.

Perpetuation . . . assurance by tiny seed that beat with life in a
harmonious pulse, the genesis of a new life within the ground that
would grow to feed the firmament with breath and thus tempting more
life to be.

The further ordered time had lapsed. In passing as if five thousand,
thousand years flashed by instantly. In these times the Universe was
seen as it reeled and smiled, content with the pleasures of being.
Freedom had taken its accounting. Life left the dark waters for the
light of land. Propagating in their kind they were of dual sexes,
soon to cover the expanse of their terran home.

The Thought knew itself. The Thought was life. The Thought prompted
into Its Being the struggle to survive in the harshness of its new
awareness and substance.

Flesh came from the earth. Blood coalesced from the dew of morning
and eyes that could see the new wonder were carved from the Sun's own
rays. Intelligence sprang from the swiftness of the clouds covered by
the veins and hair, born from earthly grass and breathing with the
life of the wind's own spirit. Each substance could feel and find
meaning for its life. The flesh heard, the eyes saw and the souls
could smell the life to its fullest beauty. The veins of life knew
the touch of life, and the currents of blood tasted life's
sweetness. Bones claimed life's stature through endurance while new
thoughts explored their cravings and their urges. They knew their
pleasures and their joys.

Man was the life and death that followed. The thoughts that served
him well in understanding his infinite life had set him to prey upon
his own kind and in falling from his cosmic grace, he found mortality
through his love for woman.

He cleaved only to her. He obeyed and honoured only her. He
permitted his gift to fail him for a suggestion that there was more to
life than the bliss of a simple and peaceful being.

There was more than long life and contentment in a world of fruitful
abundance, to use at their slightest whim. Yet, all this was to pass
away from sight when they allowed their manners to fail them. Whims
of habit overtook them and tore them from the eternity of the Universe
and its Grand Thought. The Grand Thought that no longer would care
for them, but indeed set them onto a path of struggle for survival.

Impatience reigned on a tiny speck of universal dust. The Earth
suffered from that day when curious questions began to jab at its
Heart, and to tear into the very atoms that insured existence. Life
was aware of impending mortality and that life, which called itself
Intelligent and Humanity, had turned its struggle to live into one of
greed and self-fulfilment.

Millennia passed, witnessing countless struggles between the
intelligent human beings who warred over arid and barren parcels of
land which could be traversed by foot in a fraction of a day.

Love was locked out of the hearts of men, and hate was to ravage the
civilized. Hate and greed tempted all whom were alive to hurt their
own kind, and to hurt their stellar home, as well. Through six
thousand years, minds and souls searched for truth but turned their
hearts away, from the few which had come to help them. They allowed
their violations to stain and bloody their souls. They carried on as
if nothing could touch them in life, or in death.

Mankind took command of everything and like maggots devouring rotting
flesh, grew in knowledge and in material things until the very essence
of life itself was at their command.

It became an unsure and frightening time in the Earth's history.
Mankind had now realised that the total destruction of everything that
they knew, and craved for, could happen within minutes. It was
destruction that they, themselves, could cause through the slightest
whim ruled by hate. Through pangs of anxiety, the Earth itself spewed
forth fire from its bowels. The land shook and called its children,
that circled close to her, to come and fall to her bosom and to cry
with her.

Even the Earth, the mother, waited anxiously for the Idea and the
Essence to intervene.

GINN-JULY 2011

A MOVEMENT TO FINALITY

The Twentieth Century was ravaged by bloody wars and more people lost
their lives than in all the wars and all the murders that took place
since the dawn of history, and the ancient account of the first murder.

Paranoia reigned on the Earth. Great multitudes scurried about in
panic searching for shelter and trying to live without substance or
material things. Individuals watched the great Nations rise up against
each other 3/4 pulling in all smaller nations to fight beside them,
thus perpetuating the global conflict. Twice were such great wars.
Many smaller wars were the same, though thoughts in such conflicts were
suppressed by being called "police actions!"

Tensions formed between all peoples.

Politics, economics and retarded beliefs set the course for the world
to crumble.

Latent barbarism that peeked through the veneer of intelligence and
civilisation was set to push the world to its final conflagration.
Then, at the verge of bloodshed and misery, nature itself began its
assault. Dozens of man named Apollo Asteroids, which circles the
Earth, had been moving closer and closer over the millennia, unseen by
the naked eye. Ignored by the stupid and the intelligent alike,
these rocks fell to the Earth in great fury, blasting the entire
surface of the great home.

False prophets cried to the people to repent of their sins, for God had
come. They hid themselves in shelters and in mountains afraid of
mortality, to be punished for being hypocrites while hoarding and
hiding great wealth for use in later times.

When all was done great cities were laid waste and disease moved across
the land and seas to visit all people. A billion individuals perished
in the cosmic catastrophe. A billion more dropped dead from the
diseases that could no longer be controlled.

When normality finally returned those who remained alive united to
rebuild the planet. People of absolute opposing views on Politics,
Religion and life in general, let their hate go from them and so began
civilisation anew. However, each of the sides still had their own
future plans and desires. Soon thereafter everything was rebuilt and
they resumed in their previous and hateful ways. The people, called
Communists, still had cravings to rule the entire world. Those, called
peaceful and democratic, were not far from similar aspirations. In
utter stupidity, arms were again manufactured for defence.

Trusting no one, the people called 'Americans' resumed in their secret
building of great subterranean cities across the face of the North
American Continent. These were the cities that were conceived and
under construction since the great destruction of two Japanese cities
during the period called World War II. Having been the wealthiest of
the Earth's nations, the Americans continued with their early nuclear
war survival plans, designated as "Proposition Blue". It was this
proposal that expedited the construction and populating of those cities
named the Omega Sub-Ground Installations: (O.S.G.I's).

Constructed near more populous areas and connected by underground
pneumatic travel tubes, each city was designed to host some one
thousand individuals made up of the chosen elite. These were the
scientists, artists and other members from the intellectual community.
The 1950's through the 1980's saw the building and populating of seven
O.S.G.I's at the following locations across North America:

OMEGA 1 - SOUTH: Near Eldorado, Texas

OMEGA 2 - NORTH: Near Burke, South Dakota

OMEGA 3 - WEST: Near Pioche, Nevada

OMEGA 4 - EAST: Near Toronto, (Canada)

OMEGA 5 - CENTRAL: Near Manhattan, Kansas

OMEGA 6 - ATLANTIC: Near Atlanta, Georgia

OMEGA 7 - PACIFIC: Near Vancouver, (Canada)

Greatly endangered in the asteroid disaster of the late Twentieth
Century, most the cities still survived. Only two cities were utterly
destroyed: OMEGA - 2 and 5. These cities were amongst America's
greatest achievements, next to their endeavours in space. All the
cities were under strict military control, watching the intellectuals
and providing them with necessities, to keep them content.

In the first years of the 1990's, however, many of the scientists in
these cities were made aware that a nuclear war was inevitable. Unable
to control their own consciences and knowing that billions would die,
so that they could live, they rose up against the military and passed
out of these cities and into the public. They published a document
which they called their "Blue Prospectus". This "Blue Prospectus"
revealed their government's survival intentions. With adverse feelings
towards their respective government, the masses marched on their
capital demanding equality to enter these, but nothing was
accomplished. The solar catastrophe had occurred and the reasons for
their mass discontent were subsequently forgotten.

By the end of the 1999, just over a full year following the asteroid
destruction of the Earth's surface, mankind had managed to rebuild
their cities and start life anew. Enjoying totally new styles of
living, no individual was really poor. The technological advancements
during that year of peace were astounding and the entire world now
benefited from them.

New sources of power were discovered following great tectonic upheavals
caused by the impacting asteroids; small, crystal-like minerals were
pushed to the Earth's surface. Their properties were pure and
vigorous. Their radiation became useful for everything imaginable.

Remaining secret, those Americans that survived on the surface and
those from the O.S.G.I's, converted their power sources to utilise the
new crystals. Entire cities were powered by two crystals, no larger
than walnuts.

Plans were formulated to build colonies in space, beginning with
orbital stations and finally lunar and Martian colonies. These
colonies were to be powered by the new crystals and materials for
building the colonies would come from the asteroid belt; the very
origin of the Earth's cataclysm.

Laser instruments, of innovative design and use, were built to take
advantage of this new crystal power. Many of these lasers were used
for medicine, however, and only a few thousand weapons were developed,
for the police. The police rarely used them, having been given
electrostatic guns that inhibited nerve synapses, and in that manner
had several non-injured reprobates to their list of captured. The
laser weapons that were not used by the police were channelled into the
O.S.G.I's, to be taken care of by the city administrators.

During these years of revived human civilisation and technology, there
came a movement of great intensity that called for the disarming and
dismantling of all destructive weaponry around the world.

The Communist nations were prepared to agree with America and its
allied nations. Although there were internal conflicts within the
Communist nations, leading to their eventual fall, the governments that
emerged from the revolutions eventually fulfilled many promises and
commitments to which they were previously committed.

Both great nations dismantled their arsenals and the Americans remained
quiet regarding their O.S.G.I's, never recalling those who were
assigned to live within them. Not many years following the fall of the
Communist Nation, called The Soviet Union, another Communist nation
called China, started to experience similar internal problems. Young
people and those wishing to have an easier life for themselves, rallied
and called for their nation to be more democratic and capitalistic. By
the turn of the Twenty-first Century new borders were drawn all about
the planet. New cooperations and friendships were formed, even between
those people that were considered as past enemies.

Religious societies began to gather strength about the planet, and new
societies formed daily. Their influence and power started to influence
the politics of the nations where they formed and soon many of these
people were in control of those nations. Religious dogmatism had
overtaken the sensibilities of most people that were alive. The
polarisation that had formed in religious belief was greater than any
political ideology. Fighting had ensued everywhere and lead to another
great war.

New weapons were produced utilising the new found crystal energy.
These new weapons were used.

Violence and war waged on. In the final year, the religious societies
openly confronted the politically controlled military, everywhere.
Through subversion, propaganda and assassination, these societies
panicked the world's population, further forcing the planet's people to
take sides.

Every group called themselves "The Saviours Of The Earth," believing
that they were sent by God Himself, to turn the planet into a second
Eden.

Not a single soul was saved.

Millions died, and many more perished in subsequent plagues and
famines, which spread throughout the entire world.

The surface of the planet was virtually destroyed. Only those people
that had some natural protection, and those who remained in the
O.S.G.I's survived.

For many centuries the survivors, underground, were put into cryogenic
suspension to await the day they may walk and live upon a newly healed
Earth.

GINN-NOVEMBER 2027

THE NEXT AGE: THE PREDECESSORS

A thick mist encircled the Earth for many years, slowly dissipating as
it radiated out into space. The greater portion of the world was
devastated; a population of billions, reduced to several million
score. Once great cities were wiped clean from the face of the
earth. Those that were spared stood like majestic mountains. With
time, they also crumbled away, turning into gigantic mounds that were
loosely held together by rusty girders, brittle concrete and broken
glass.

Bands of strange-looking humans roamed the face of the land foraging
for the scarce and much-valued commodities of food and fresh water.

In the years following the deluge, the surface dwelling survivors died
out from exposure to radiation and to the adverse climactic conditions
that were inherited from the global fall out.

The progeny of the survivors became strange in appearance and behaviour
until they all became new forms of humans, evolved from mutants, to
small hybrid races which soon became as distinct and individual as
those humans that lived in the late Twentieth Century. The
amalgamation of these races found that great tension had formed between
them, due to their differences in appearances and forms of speech, and
so they broke away from the main body of humanity and headed for their
own select areas of the continent.

Many of these new races of humans ventured forth and eventually
established unique civilisations. One race went to the extreme western
part of the North continent. Everywhere, they found small pockets of
survivors and conquered them. They looted their food stores and used
those people as slaves; so becoming a feared band of humans that
resembled upright, and very dark featured, apes. They called
themselves the Teniqués. Those in the east were afraid that the
Teniqués would begin to move back their way but although they were
warlike, they stayed put and were soon forgotten.

Concentrated cells of normal humans were still alive. They were the
ones who lived in the mountainous regions of the continent and although
most became larger in size than normal humans, they were the most in
resemblance to the people living during the Twentieth Century. They
were hunters and gatherers, moving from valley to, in both the eastern
and the western mountains. These were amongst the first people to be
conquered by the Teniqués, in their move westward. In the east, there
was also a race of perfectly normal looking humans called the Sëdash.
They were a group of hermaphrodites that were compiled and exiled by
the rest of human mutants, who disliked them, since they most closely
resembled the previous normal humans. The hermaphrodites wandered for
many years until a place to settle was found. They began to build a
culture that they based on total
equality between individuals.

Yet, the Sëdash soon became intolerant to any other forms of human.
They developed a belief that they were divinely chosen to be "superior
and perfect," and so they enslaved and mistreated those who happened
to trespass on their city boundaries. For mating, only the true
hermaphrodites were allowed to propagate. After several generations of
regulated breeding, a pure-bred race of hermaphrodites was formed.

There was another similar band of humans in the eastern part of the
northern Continent. They called themselves the Palatkans. Their
appearance was much like that of lepers. They had segregated
themselves from the main stream years before the great cataclysm. They
congregated in long strips of semi-fertile land on the floor of lengthy
canyons.

Following several generations of their offspring, they bore a race of
ugly and canker-covered beings that developed a culture of cannibalism.

They believed that all the other humans were left on Earth for them to
sacrifice to their gods, then to feast. They were aware of a life
force that permeated everything and that was significantly concentrated
within the flesh of humans.

Many such bands of human beings were alive, over the entire face of the
Earth. Most of these peoples contained and confined themselves within
special areas of land and rarely ventured out.

Six centuries passed since the cataclysm.

Lack of productivity and raw stock caused the remaining human people to
further mutate into odd looking things. Civilisation had also
regressed into a primitive form. Much of the Earth reverted into the
appearance of the primitive and the primordial, awaiting the moment to
be reborn.

The Earth was not alone in its anxiety for rebirth. There were nearly
one quarter of a million true humans that waited, also, to be reborn
craving to, once more, walk the mother Earth's surface, and to begin
life anew. In six hundred years of waiting, the population of the
Omega SubGround Installations grew. To extend the food and water
rations, the major part of the personnel was placed in cryogenic
suspension vaults upon attaining the age of thirty-five.

Most, of age, personnel stayed to be suspended in animation but some
were granted the permission to leave the cities and try to reestablish
life wherever they could find hospitable environments. Contact was not
kept with those who had left. Only on hearsay did anyone know how these
people fared.

Many headed towards the eastern shoes where they successfully took up
oceanic livelihoods, and so began the city, later to be called,
Besten. Others made their way to the mountains and met up with other
bands of self-exiled people. They took to herding goats, and sheep;
and whatever other animals that were left alive, they could catch to
domesticate.

The people took to catching and taming the Continent's greatest animal
mutations: gigantic eagles that were as high as trees. These people
learned to fly them and use them as beasts of burden. These agrarian
peoples were called the Krolalins and the Virunese.

The time had come, in the O.S.G.I's, where all those people in
cryogenics were awakened. They organized into groups of thousands then
left to set up individual and distinct villages, towns and cities.

The Earth was becoming clean again. Air and water sparkled with
freshness and the entire world returned to green.

The only people to stay in the O.S.G.I's were the scientists, carrying
on with their work (in every field), as it was done in the Twentieth
Century. With those that left and built cities, these cities adapted
to a simpler way of life and craved not to progress much in their
technology. They did not crave to progress very much in their
technology. They did not want the responsibilities that went with
having technology. They found that they were just as happy without it,
and their attitudes were civilised enough to accept and give their
blessings to those still utilising the ancient ways. By 2500 C.E.,
many of the O.S.G.I's were back to a comfortable size of around four
hundred people. Some O.S.G.I's lost people so readily and quickly,
that a few had become abandoned and forgotten.

All those who left the cities tried to track down some of their old
comrades, heading in the direction of newly established settlements and
subsequently joining with some of them.

The surface cities began to grow and the O.S.G.I's were beginning to be
emptied, with only a few hundred older people remaining in some of them.

In those Omega cities, that were still densely populated, power
struggles often took place. Some of these people who became the
leaders, by force or otherwise, set up a form if thought that denied
the life and events of the Twentieth Century. Some even went as far as
stating that the Twentieth Century never happened, and so proclaimed
themselves as Kings, Queens and other types of monarchials because they
were descended from the intellectuals who "made the world" what it was.
During this period, everyone that was a descendant of these people was
given the title "BLUE" -- from the old Proposition Blue code since they
were from the Great Line of Knowledge.

There were men, in the BLUE, who disagreed with the idea that the
Twentieth Century never happened, and long debates were engaged to
discuss it.

These debates and periodic skirmishes were the original cause for the
initial emigration from the cities. Similar events sparked moves in
each of the Omega S.G.I's.

Reginald Jones was a BLUE who opposed the "never happened" dogma, and
his life was, at several times, threatened.

Reginald was suppressed from speaking in the city parliament and seeing
that he lacked any other option, he removed himself from politics and
searched for a wife.

He wasn't successful, though, since his public image had made women
avoid him, for fear of being ridiculed. As it had happened, many
centuries and aeons ago, a man had been denied comfort for-want-of a
fundamental principle way of thought. Reginald became lonely.

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