This is a novel meant to explore the relationship between science and humanity and is comprised of 3 distinct phases:
- The modern era where an event known as "the drift" starts to occur. Essentially, the planets are effected by a nearby star, causing them to drift from the sun. This reverses the effects of climate change in the short term and causes people to generally distrust science
- The near future where science is rarely taught in schools and people look back at the past in doubt as to whether science was ever useful.
- The far future where humans have hidden under the sea / ground and rely on geothermal energy to survive. Here, the sun returns as the Earth starts to orbit again nearby 4, maybe: the period between 2 and 3 when science is revived to allow humans to survive underground.
During this time, science becomes religion and people "believe" in science in the same way they do Christianity
Thousands of years ago, the Sun's gravitational forces collided with another star, causing all planets to slowly drift away over the course of thousands of years. Though scientists were immediately aware of the gravitational drift, the first noticeable effects were actually positive as they directly opposed the effects of greenhouse gasses, effectively reversing climate change. This lead to many politicians harvesting the seeds of doubt they had planted in the scientific process:
- "See, climate change is a hoax! It always has been and always will be!"
- "Scientists don't know what they are doing. They just want to leech off the government's money! Your money!"
- "All academic institutions are biased and lead to the downfall of humanity as we know it!"
Unfortunately, ignorance won. Without an immediate existential threat, scientific funding was cut for almost every research center in the world with exception of weapons research in the United States. Now bereft of funding, colleges closed and researchers fled to industrial positions. For the next century, the average person felt few noticeable changes. Science still advanced, it was just no longer discussed in public. Everything was a trade secret, held behind industrial bureaucracy to keep others from getting an edge.
As the Earth drifted further and further, human civilization stagnated. Winters became harsh and summers were shortened, but people used these facts only to confirm their own bias:
- "Wow! We used to think the world was warming? Look at things now!"
- "I cannot believe how stupid we were a century ago!"
- "I'm glad we got rid of those scientific leeches!"
At the time, a small group of individuals became increasingly interested in the ancient ways. They would study the literature and eventually created a compendium of the greatest achievements of mankind. This book was nicknamed the "Climate Bible."
Any code to render the text is licensed under the MIT license in LICENSE.md.
All of the writing in this repository is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License with attribution to James Schloss (Leios).
