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The Crider Chronicles

Anderson Gentry

Prologue

Earth, 2130

The history of the First Confederation in fact goes back almost a hundred years prior to the formal

beginning of the Confederate government. In 2130, a young French-English scientist named Hiram

Eugene was working at the Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules in

France. The Institut was doing pioneering work in anti-matter and string/counterstring physics, but it

took the imagination and creative urge of young Gellar to take the work to the next level.

Gellar inhabited an Earth in transition, not long after the Third World War. The United States remained

the planet's primary power, having retained an almost two-century primacy in economic and military

might. Sub-Saharan Africa had been devastated by brush wars and plague, China's population was

recovering from the Chinese Civil War and Russia was once again emerging as an economic power

following huge oil and power metal finds in Siberia.

Europe was still recovering from the Third World War, but France—now a state in the European

community—was becoming a center of physics research, mostly aimed at exploring alternative energy

sources for a world rapidly running short of resources.

Gellar's invention would very quickly change everything.

Morris/Handel, “A History of the First Galactic Confederacy,” University Publications, 2804CE

* * * *

Following are selected excerpts from Morris/Handel, “A History of the First Galactic Confederacy,”

University Publications, 2804CE and selected news media from the Pre-Galactic era.

Morris/Handel: 2041-2044, the Third World War

While the international tensions that led up to the Third World War are generally accepted to

have begun with the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11,

2001, the base causes of the conflict began long before. Decades of instability in the oil-rich

Persian Gulf nations along with a persistent religious fanaticism rooted in the area had given rise

to a number of extremist/terror groups dedicated to spreading chaos through the region and early

in the twenty-first century, around the world.

Following the September 11th attack, the United States—by then Earth's only major military

power—reacted swiftly, invading and crushing the southwest Asian nation of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban government had provided resources and refuge to the group behind

the September 11th attacks. The overthrow of the Taliban, followed two years later by the demise

of Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, started a democratization trend in the Middle East that spread

to Saudi Arabia and Syria in the next twenty years. Democratization did not, however, spread

past those four nations until after the Third World War.

July 14th, 2041 saw another major terrorist attack, this time in Paris. The Bastille Day bombing

attacks killed over 4,800 Parisians and destroyed the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph, along

with several newer buildings and landmarks. The European Union, then a reluctant partner in the

west's attempts to democratize the Middle East, promptly voted to authorize sending EU forces to

Iran, the nation that sponsored the Bastille Day attacks. August 14th, 2041, when elements of the

US 1st Marine division, 82nd Airborne division and the EU's1st Parachute division landed in Iran,

is generally accepted as the first day of the Third World War.

Transcribed from Fox News International netcast, December 9th, 2044:

"Thank you, Lisa. It's an exciting moment here in Brussels, where the leaders of the Allied

Powers are gathered along with the leaders of the defeated Central Alliance, to sign this historic

treaty. Details of the treaty have not yet been released, but one source confirms that one clause

stipulates free, open, internationally monitored elections in the Central Alliance nations are to

take place within one year. Just entering the hall now, we can see the President of the European

Union, the President of the Russian Republic and the President of the United States..."

Morris/Handel: Peebles Mining Corporation, Earth

The Third World War drained not only the defeated Central Alliance, but also the victorious

Allied Powers. While Earth's population was still increasing in the developed and developing

nations, ongoing brush wars and plague in Africa and the aftermath of the war in the Middle East

had rendered much of those regions uninhabitable and their resources inaccessible.

Ever-expanding technology however, was making new sources for vital materials economically

feasible for the first time.

At least three private corporations were involved in the first wave of exploration into the Sol

system. Peebles Mining Corporation was the largest of these. Peebles financed almost one-half of

the first International Orbital Station and shipyard and from there and their bases on Luna, ran

mining operations to Mars, the asteroid belt and as far out as the Jovian satellites.

The key to the economic feasibility of off-planet mining lay in Peebles’ construction of the first of

Earth's five Skyhooks. The Quito Skyhook was a carbon-fiber tower, based on a mountain in the

Andes and tethered to a captured asteroid in geosynchronous orbit. The Skyhook Station enabled

Peebles’ huge mining ships to offload their cargoes into barges that descended to low Earth orbit.

The barges then docked at the station, where refined ores and mineral products were lowered to

the surface by magnetic freight car.

Still, Earth's population continued to grow and advancing technology made the demand for

resources ever greater. By the beginning of the twenty-second century, Earth's demand for

mineral resources was fast approaching a crisis level.

Associated Press, Denver, Colorado, USA, September 23, 2136

A privately owned space ship, designed here in Denver and built with great secrecy in a closed

dock on the International Orbital Station, now promises to change the way humanity looks at the

universe.

The Lever du Soleil departed the Station fourteen days ago and was observed accelerating at an

unprecedented rate; Luna City Tracking and Traffic control reported that the ship was

accelerating at a logarithmic rate.

"It was impossible—at least we thought it was impossible,” said Andrea Martins, the senior Duty

Controller at Luna City who was on watch at the time. “No known drive system can accelerate a

big ship like that—not chemical rockets, not ion drives, not reaction motors. And there was

almost no drive signature. We didn't have any idea what was happening."

The world found out what was happening this morning, when the Lever du Soleil returned to the

International Orbital Station from the Alpha Centauri system. The crew of the ship brought back

over a terabyte of data from the Alpha system that revealed the existence of three rocky planets

in the habitable zone. While all three planets are barren and sterile, one of them shows signs of

great mineral resources.

The question is now one of economics. Will Gellar Systems Enterprises, the Lever du Soleil's

builders, be producing more ships? Or will the design be licensed to other shipbuilders?

In either case, the entire economic picture of the Sol system has just been irretrievably altered.

Morris/Handel: Gellar Star Drive

If one man can be named as having had the most significant effect on human history in the

modern era, that man would be Hiram Eugene Gellar, inventor of the Gellar Star Drive. The

Gellar Drive made interstellar flight not only possible, but also practical and launched mankind

on its greatest era of exploration and discovery. The stage was now set for humanity's expansion

into what was to be the first Galactic culture.

Book One

Forest

Earth

In the year 2136 CE, Hiram Eugene Gellar invented a mass-drive engine capable of tremendous

power. The prototype Gellar Star Drive was a massive affair, combining thirty-meter wide scoop

with a mass converter tunnel. Gellar built his pioneering starship around his mass tunnel and

christened it the Lever du Soleil. The Gellar Drive not only generated tremendous power, it's

negative-energy drive field enabled ships to penetrate the subspace field barrier, resulting in

trans-light speeds. Indeed, the nature of the mass-tunnel drive was such that a large ship could

attain higher speeds than a small one.

Gellar's first ship was a private yacht and it was in the Lever du Soleil that the first interstellar

jump was made by Gellar and his partner Edda Jean Fauvier. In 2138, they left Earth orbit for

the Alpha Centauri system, returning fourteen days after their departure to report two rocky

planets, supporting no life but holding a rich variety of mineral resources.

The Peebles Mining Company Inc. subsequently purchased the patent to the Gellar Star Drive for

the record sum of 2.1 billion dollars. Gellar and Fauvier were married and retired to an estate in

the south of France.

Within five years, the entire face of human life changed. Peebles swiftly re-organized as the

Off-World Mining & Exploration, Ltd. and built the first Skyhook in Peru, providing an

inexpensive transport of raw materials to low Earth orbit. From this base, a floating space-dock

was built in high orbit. In this first major space-bound naval architectural platform was built the

Star Ship Blue Giant , a colossal mining and exploration ship built around a two-kilometer long

Gellar Star Drive tunnel.

The SS Blue Giant left Earth orbit late in 2165, with a crew of 16,000, 48 mining shuttles and a

thousand tons of specialized mining equipment, bound for the Alphan system. Two other major

mining ships and four smaller exploration craft were already under construction.

However, the sensation caused by the ability to mine planets in other systems was quickly

eclipsed. In 2167, the SS Demeter , an OWME exploration ship, discovered the first habitable

world orbiting Tau Ceti. The planet, later named Caliban, was a temperate world of oceans and

continents, forests and mountains, with gravity slightly higher than Earth's and a variety of native

flora and fauna. The Demeter returned to Earth with the exciting news and OWME Ltd. quickly

began construction of colonization ships. Within three years, four more habitable planets were

discovered. The next great phase in man's evolution had begun.

One of the first thirteen worlds to be settled was Forest. While Forest lacked mineral wealth, its

flora and fauna were similar to Earth's Jurassic period and colonists were attracted to the mild

climate and rich soil. OWME intended Forest to be an agricultural world and began recruiting

farmers, hunters and pioneers to settle what promised to be a difficult place.

Unfortunately, the difficulty only began there, as it was on Forest that humanity first

encountered the hostile, militaristic Grugell Empire.

Morris/Handel, “A History of the First Galactic Confederacy,” University Publications, 2804CE

One

" Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure,

than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the

gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat .” Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United

States, 1901-1909

October, on a trail in the Salmon River Mountains near Challis, Idaho.

The last few golden aspen leaves were fluttering in the breeze as Michael Crider and his hunter-client

climbed through the grove on their way to a high drainage. The Idaho sun was bright, but the air was

chilly and at 3500 meters altitude, very thin. Mike was used to both, his lungs and muscles hardened by a

life in the mountains. He paused, looking back and wishing the same were true of his client, an overweight

Anderson Gentry - Jean Barrett 02 - The Crider Chronicles.pdf

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