Earth (Glisean Dreams Map Game)

Earth, also known as Terra or Gaia, was the former home world of humanity, which is the 3rd planet of the Sol System, located 23.6 Light-Years from Gliese 667C c. Details to Earth and its history are currently left up to speculation by the post-Planetfall generation, but historical records recovered from the Genesis, state at least bits and pieces of the last 6,800 years of Terran history. However, some of these records were damaged, or incomplete, and thus many records from Terran civilization prior to 4,000 BCE (6,800 B.P.) have been lost.

Pre-History
Not much of Earth's history prior to 4,000 BCE is known, due to the destruction of records from the Genesis, but it is often foretold that humans have evolved on this planet for 4 million years, although according to legend, Homo Sapiens, or modern man, began to evolve around 100,000 BCE. According to the Terran generation of colonists, modern man on Earth developed agriculture around approximately 11,000 - 10,000 BCE. Following the invention of writing, around 4,000 BCE, human civilization began, thus starting the recorded bits and pieces of human history recovered from the Genesis prior to its destruction.

Ancient History
As humans began to invent writing, civilization arose, and the first of these, according to the recovered records was a civilization known as Mesopotamia in a region of Earth known as the Middle East, although it is currently unknown where in the region it developed. However, after some time, many civilizations began to form across many portions of the Earth's continents. Details are sketchy as to what sort existed, although legend states of the existence of the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, a dynastic China, and the existence of civilizations in the continents known as North America and South America. This coincided with the rise of some of the Old Earth religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Greco-Roman Polytheism, etc. Some of these religions are still practiced today, with the faction known as the God's Enlightened being founded on the basis of what the Terran generation calls the "Abrahamic religions", with much emphasis on Christianity. It is currently unknown when the Ancient Era ended, but it is believed that it ended somewhere around the 5th Century CE, with the fall of the legendary Roman Empire, according to certain bits of the official Genesis historical database.

Medieval Times
With the downfall of the Roman Empire, the division of Christianity that was known as the Catholic Church began to become increasingly powerful, more so than in the Ancient World. Very little is actually known of this period, although recovered records from the Genesis state that the era was characterized by economic inequality, religious intolerance, and regression for the people of the European continent. It was also characterized by the advent of Islam, now a small minority within the God's Enlightened faction, and with a 16% of the League Remnant's population being Islamic, which during that time, became the dominant religion of the Middle East and the region known as Northern Africa. It also saw the rise of epidemics, such as the so-called "Black Death", and also brought the advent of a series of religious wars across the Middle East and Europe. It is unknown precisely when this age ended, but it is often estimated around 1453 CE with the fall of the Byztantine Empire, and 1492 with the so-called "Discovery of America".

Renaissance and Industrial Revolution
As the Medieval Age ended, the European continent experienced a Renaissance, which according to legend, lead to a Golden Age of technological innovation and cultural upheaval. It also lead to the rise of Protestantism, the downfall of the native American civilizations, and the rapid expansion of what at the time was called "Western Civilization". The Americas began to be inhabited by Europeans as many began to migrate to the newly "discovered" continent, which became the promised land on certain religious and ethnic groups, particularly in North America around the 17th and 18th centuries CE. As these Europeans migrated, and the local natives began to die out, the need for a labor force, forced the Europeans to turn to Africa for slave labor, although specifics about this are unclear, due to the data files on this era becoming damaged after the initial landing of the colony pods. Details on when the Industrial Revolution began are sketchy, although it is believed to have started in either the late 18th century or the early 19th century. With this new revolution in technology, the human race began to enjoy unprecendented levels of progress, and economic progress began to increase. However, as the 20th century came along, things began to seem dark for the first half with the Great Wars, or the World Wars as they were known at the time, and thus became darker with the advent of nuclear energy. However, what they did not anticipate in the coming years, would eventually lead to the biggest economic, social, political, environmental and humanitarian crisis in human history at some point in the 21st century.

The Nuclear Age and the 2 Hour War
Of all the eras, this was where the 2nd most of the historical records from the Genesis were recovered. With the creation of nuclear weapons and with the rise of the two major superpowers at the time, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a nuclear arms race began. The two, rather than fighting directly, decided to fight via indirect methods, such as propaganda, proxies, nuclear deterrent, and lastly, convert operations. This era also lead to the first steps of the human race beyond Earth, steps that would later prove vital in The Exodus. The Soviets initially had the lead in what was then called the "Space Race", only for the Americans to catch up, and eventually land on the planet's moon, known as Luna, or Earth's Moon. Meanwhile, around the 1980s CE, the advent of information technology began a new age of innovation and technological progress, while opening a new field of war: cyberspace. In the coming years, this would lead to a new method of fighting the Cold War: cybernetics, unmanned drones, and cyberattacks. In the political sense, new nations were born out of the African continent, while the Soviets, under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, decided to implement a series of economic reforms, while ensuring the status quo in the political sense. This lead to the rise of "Free Market Socialism", as the Soviets and the Chinese called it, which, following over 30 years of stagnation, helped recover their economies around the early 21st century. This eventually lead to the short-lived "Eastern Renaissance", which also lead to a slight decline in Western influence, and the Cold War began to intensify. Eventually, everything changed with the 2 Hour War, or World War III as it was known as the time. Records as to how the war began are sketchy, but evidence from the data suggests a computer glitch may have had caused the war by mistake. Over the course of 2 hours, the Northern Hemisphere was obliterated, taking the lives of over 800 million humans, with the aftermath taking down a large 40% of the world's population. In the ashes of this war, and the subsequent global crisis, lead to the rise of new powers in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Post-Nuclear Horror
Of all this historical records recovered from the Genesis, this was of course, where the most data remained intact and preserved. In the Post-Nuclear Horror, the nations of Earth began to fall into a period of anarchy, as new powers began to arise, such as the Organization of Latin American States, the African Union and the Oceanian Commonwealth, while the old ones, such as America, the Soviet Union and China began slowly breaking down. The European continent was reduced to city-states, while the North American continent collapsed into anarchy. Meanwhile, new nation-states formed in the Asian continent, especially around the former USSR, the Far East and Southern Asia. The United Nations, the pre-war organization whose objective was to ensure peace, had been nearly destroyed, and with its remains eventually reformed into a reestablished League of Nations. During this dark period, a short 50-year long nuclear winter took place, followed by a nuclear summer, which lasted for centuries before The Exodus. With these new changes in mind, and the radiation spreading, the surviving nations of Earth were forced to adapt, as the world on average regressed to an early 18th century-like status, in terms of social organization and in some regions, technology. Over the course of 500 years, humanity recovered and had gone to a level of what could have been the mid-21st century prior to the 2 Hour War.

The Exodus
With Earth regaining the lost technologies, and some new additional technologies, Project: Genesis began to head into application. Project: Genesis, originally conceived by the UN prior to the 2 Hour War, was a project designed to send an interstellar vessel to a habitable planet. Several candidates had been selected, and in the end, the winning candidate became Gliese 667C c. As they selected crewmembers, and constructed the L.N.S. Genesis, assisted by both governments from around the Earth, and private corporations, with the intent of saving the human race from extinction and search for a new home. The project was done in complete secrecy, and by the start of 2564 CE, the ship finally departed Earth, thus beginning the long 236-year journey throughout interstellar space.

Final Fate
The final fate of planet Earth, is unknown although, some recovered logs from Captain Li Yiang, reveal the possibility that Earth could have descended into another nuclear war, although other logs claim communications with Earth ceased as the ship entered the Gliese 667 star system, thus also brining into consideration the possibility Earth had survived. It may be some time before Earth's final fate can be revealed to post-Planetfall colonists, or even the original Terran colonists, for that matter.

Geology
To be Added.

Biosphere
To be added.

Historical and Mythical Significance
To be added.

In Popular Culture
To be added as the game progresses.