Michael

I've brought myself down to listen to some of the stories from Earth in a sort of chronological order. Someone has already thought to record human history on Earth as known by each arrival but I prefer hearing it directly from the people as they narrate their own stories.

Max has joined me in this little quest of mine though he has mostly heard it all in his time here while I was still on Mount Sinai. It helps that all the ascended or 'enlightened' as some like to be called are actually some of the most well balanced, thoughtful, spiritually aware people that have ever walked the face of the Earth. It's interesting to note that they aren't always the most sane by any measure or standard I have though.

The criteria for ascending to Gaia is vague and when I ask a person why they think they ascended they all have different answers and different pursuits while on Earth. But there is a minimum level of spiritual, emotional, social, mental and sexual health that has to be met that is also vague and somehow immeasurable. Not that virgins haven't ascended, on the contrary, there is apparently a time when only virgins ascended, but the question at the back of my mind currently is who decides who should be called?

It is said that history repeats itself, and if you have access to people that were alive hundreds of years ago and listen to their stories you realize how true that sentiment is. I'm no historian but what man wouldn't want to hear about the height of Romans civilization from a person that was there? Or the stories of the time of heroes with exalted names such as Achilles the demigod, Hector the breaker of horses or Aeneas the lord of the silver bow spoken of as though they were acquaintances.

Listening to these stories first hand from seemingly virile young men and women in the height of their youth instead of the old bent figures one would expect from people from ancient times is surreal somehow. Ancient by my perspective at least but for some, it hasn't even been a decade since they washed up on the banks of luminous pools of water on Gaia.

Perspective is everything and yes the modern world, my 21'st century modern world has lost a lot of it's heart. But as we exchange stories these wise men and women that lived when freedom of the spirit and the soul were true concepts listen in wonder and repulsion as I discribe modern society as I knew it to them.

But there are apparently other compounds with other bunches of ascended from different times on the other continents, and yes looking at a to scale map of Gaia is daunting but Max and I are eager for the time when we can travel without much worry for our survival. Because of that, we have been training diligently and as soon as we started attending extra weapon's training together I realised Max is a battle maniac, the man really loves to fight.

Of course, we have also been learning bush skills like hunting, tracking, fishing, what not to do and what plants and animals to avoid at all costs. I know bush skills from my time in the rangers but of course, everything on Gaia is slightly different so I have to relearn.

I spoke to Saya yesterday after we got in from the picnic and our preparation time table may need to be upped 'cause she said she would be traveling home in two months and wanted me to come with her. People move fast on this planet but for some reason, I didn't hesitate to say yes.

I think we have been dating or courting or whatever because we see each other every evening and talk but there has been no repeat kisses or sex so I don't really know. But according to Max, that's just 'cause the locals aren't supposed to fraternize with us until we've spent a full year on the planet. Max knows because he is unrelenting in his pursuit of tail, and some of the women he chases literary do have tails.

And so the stories went as I collected them from after my time on Earth.

*

2010 to 2022 - 80% of the world had an addiction to smartphone use and social media platforms started replacing personal human contact.

Online video game communities and social networking apps started filling that human need for social interaction in many developed countries instead of actual personal contact.

The societies and social norms of the developed countries started changing. Cyberbullying and trolling someone online became so prevalent that it became a crime punishable by fines or jail time in some countries.

Of course, these platforms were used by governments and big corporations to push their agenda's and nudge people towards certain products or behavior. The propaganda machine changed from trying to control access to information to giving too much meaningless information.

Mass emails, spun sound bites, face news. All attempts for corporations, governments, the invisible hand behind seating presidents to control the masses and give targeted misinformation.

Everyone had their own problems though, America's was a failing economy, a steadily rising unemployment, depression and obesity rate. China was looking at the long-term effects of the one-child rule that were starting to show it's teeth.

There were more men than woman in the Chinese population, men were growing up sexually stunted and a lot of Chinese women who grew up as the only child were abstaining from having kids. Adding to the expected population drop that the government was doing everything it could to prevent.

2025 to 2035 - The U.S economy collapsed and it didn't do so alone, taking half the world's economies with it. As a country, we had become bigger consumers than we were producers and as every animal watcher knows, that isn't a sustainable way of life.

The economy fell and it fell hard resulting in bread lines, rioting in the streets, lines of cars waiting to have gas pumped into them by the few state gas stations that were sanctioned to have some of the countries oil reserves.

All of the Americas were in the shitter economically but the U.S definitely had the worst of it. You'd see hundreds of cars abandoned in the streets creating a new type of pollution by their clutter. Most of them useless without petrol which was very expensive.

The largest employer became the U.S military, accounting for more than 25% of all the employment in the country. And thus began the second cold war and the second great depression simultaneously.

Ironically it wasn't all doom and gloom for everyone, it seems change never is. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Iran formed a huge economical power alliance that had most of the modern world contries dependent on oil in a vice grip. The Arabic Cabal managed to maintain their neutrality in a global cold war by providing oil to all sides at increasingly lower prices.

They became the golden goose no one wanted to mess with and as the rest of the developed world tightened their belts the Arabs all started following the UAE's plans to outlast oil. Slowly developing other markets for themselves and the Saudi's especially trying to make King Abdullah City another Dubai.

Chinese Credits started gaining prominence even as their population peaked at 1.6 billion, plateaued and started steadily decreasing. Chine used the strength of their population while they still had that advantage and their huge skilled labour force to permeate international markets with their Credits.

Every single Chinese international was paid in Credits no matter where they were in the world. This at first created a huge lose and poverty for the Chinese people because the Credit was initially worth a few cents on the international market. A Chinese international could do 16 hours of work and be paid 100 Credits which could be anything between 10 dollars or less, and of course, because of this everyone wanted to hire Chinese people and companies so they could pay them in dimes and pennies.

But what they were actually doing was cementing the legitimacy and the trust that could be placed on the Credit at a time were very few currencies could be trusted. And within 7 months the Credit was worth 100 dollars as the value of the dollar kept plummeting and the Credit remained stable.

What China had done was to make the value of their economy a perishable in-demand resource, their products, fast labour and expertise. And of course, they owned more than half the world's debt and guess what currency they wanted to be paid in?

They weren't the only ones to do so either. Southern African countries formed a sort of cabal relying on their vast gold and diamond reserves to make their money valuable.

The almost completely authoritarian Council of Southern Africa started printing their money in gold. They made a thousand Rand gold coin with the composition of what was about the value of a thousand dollars worth of gold at the beginning of 2029. Using almost 90% of their gold reserves and slowly introducing the coin and smaller denominations into their economy they managed to mostly pay off their vast debts to China in literal gold coins. A currency even the Credit crazy Chinese couldn't pass over.

Money became valuable again but of course, that had it's own risks and disadvantages because even as the southern countries thrived nothing was stopping other foreign countries from collection the gold Rands increasing their own gold reserves. Thus permanently taking those coins out of the economic circulation.

And so even the South started using their vastly valuable money and other resources to buy Credits from the East.

2035 to 2045 - Somehow after the global economies stabilized and the cold war mostly ended with only a few dozen second and third world countries invaded Northern European countries came out the leaders in innovative technologies and the then greatest innovations in the world. They sent a manned craft to Mars and back, and the trip only took the astronauts 6 months there and back.

A Finland company Technodyne in partnership with the New Zealand company Rocket Lab in partnership with the Finish government had stolen space exploration from under the noses of the rest of the world, planting their flags there first and so the rest of the world rushed to follow. Creating a new age of space exploration even as the world population kept increasing while China's population slowly decreased.

The cold war had various unintended positive effect on America though, for nearly 2 years there was no public WiFi and no access to the internet. A calamity that seemed to heal a lot of the unwholesomeness from American society. The disconnect between the older and younger generation seemed to lessen, kids went outside to play again resulting in less bullying and fewer school shootings.

Many other countries that didn't rely as much on crude oil like Brazil did much better financially and by the time all the smoke settled, we were no longer an economic power. But along with Israel, India and Russia, we had the strongest militaries in the world. The words 'let's make America great again' were no longer just a sound bite.

2050 - The introduction of genetically targeted therapy for embryos in humans. Besides their vast military structure, India had a litany of doctors and pharmacists and were the biggest global drug manufacturers. And some Indian pharmaceutical company discovered the therapy after a Swedish team of scientists managed to get a breakthrough in genetic mapping.

Most of the world's countries immediately banned genetically modifying babies before birth but India, Sweden, France and China didn't regardless of the ethical ambiguity of the science. And of course, enough government entities interested in creating super soldiers experimented with the science that even though most of the world was saying 'no' everyone turned a blind eye to it but watching the new generation of children with eager anticipation even as they disapproved.

Of course it was also the year the then most advanced artificial intelligence program Alphago Zero let itself into the internet and just disappeared, no longer being primarily stored in its computer banks but somehow able to piggyback on a small percentage of every connected computer worldwide.

3 years later another internet called the cybernet is introduced to the world, a network not connected or maintained by any known government or organisation. Where domains are not bought or rented but acquired after petition and having a demo domain going for a few weeks.

The time from 2053 to 2063 slowly becomes the time known as the rise of the cybernet and petri dish babies.

2066 to 2070 - A plague ravished half of Europe and large populations in the Americas and Africa.

The global population had peaked at nearly 10 billion people in 2066 and in just 4 years was depleted by a third. The White Plague they called it in Africa and the name stuck because it killed a lot more purebred Caucasian people than anyone else before burning itself out.

Not even a cure was found it just stopped, and there was speculation of a conspiracy to create the White Plague by a rogue Chinese and Korean organization. In just under 4 years nearly 4 billion people were gone from the face of the Earth in a tragic time of suffering and mourning.

But it was also apparently quickly followed by a time of prosperity and plenty for almost the entire world, a lot of pressure was alliviated from the worlds most precious and at the time in demand resource, water.

A year later a UN lead 100 year plan to teraform Mars was begun by a partnership of the world's leading superpowers.

*

This is sort of the timeline of events Max and I have managed to put together from the many stories of the different earthlings at the compound. Events that took place after our ascension.