004 - New World Enders

At one point, mankind managed to work together, and began the colonization of other planets. Although pushed back by many centuries from its expected date of arrival, the nanoshrinking technology made its debut by being implanted in nearly every single spacecraft at the time. This technology, though potentially very dangerous when first theorized, had an impressive success rate, and became used primarily for one purpose : allowing objects in space to navigate through wormholes. Soon enough, all known wormholes were successfully mapped and exploration through them was easily feasible by any existing spaceship. Basic exploration was already done in less than a decade following this progress, and eventually, the colonization began.

Though much less than imagined in the past, Earth was vastly overpopulated. It was difficult for many people to live comfortably, and life was different between every decade, so much that looking back at the previous century, nobody could recognize their own planet. But thanks to colonization, this problem could be avoided at last.

Mankind started with their local solar system. Long before finalizing the nanoshrinking technology, self-installing bases were already at a late stage. In a matter of hours, a full city could be placed permanently on any telluric planet, simulating atmosphere and many other conditions that could allow terrians organisms to live and grow, from humans to plants, including many animals.

Sadly, not many people could afford to live there at first. Shuttles were still expensive, and life on Earth was ultimately more beneficial to humans, so many of them had to go back there once a while, usually every 5 years, as it became a tradition in many families and on most planets, depending of their proximity to adequate wormholes. Life was not great everywhere, and society could be a a terrible demon, even with populations millions of kilometers apart.

The real demon, however, wasn't still awake at this time. Humans congratulated themselves over and over about the new prospects such installations brought to mankind. Not all of them believed it was a new era, but the future was looking brighter than ever, and this sentiment was shared by the majority. If only they knew what lurked beneath…

Unbeknownst to all, humanity's conquest was targeted by a time bomb. After a certain time had passed, it was doomed to fail, just like every ambitious project orchestrated by the collective efforts of people across history. The trigger of this event, however, was the privatization of this conquest. Since a worldwide, completely friendly communication was unheard of, the various committees in charge of the colonization projects were soon to be caught up by lucrative industries. Colonization had always been expensive in that aspect : ships, habitations, and many other costs were to be included. That is why, as expected by the public but not officially revealed to them, most planets were under the jurisdiction and even government of one or more private companies.

At first, this whole business was beneficial to everyone. With the sponsorship and responsibility of many of those huge companies, the conquest progressed swimmingly. It was simply, at the time, a newfound industry. But the problems started quickly. Monitoring. Unfair taxation. Tyrannical laws. And mostly, a loss of freedom. This is what happened on several planets, punishing all their new inhabitants. Ironically, some of them even escaped Earth to free themselves of such inhumane actions, but they found themselves back to square one. Thankfully, the communication systems were well developped, and it was fairly easy to communicate between bases and planets, even if they were owned by different companies. But eventually, everything became just like the planet they were escaping from, the 'New World' was even on a verge of having wars multiple times, to determine who could control which territory.

Spreaded among the planets but united through similar goals, a strange group was founded, as a reaction to many issues raised by the results of the colonization, the major one being the privatization of countries. Their leader was an ex-President of Atreides Theta, formerly known as 'Gliese 667 Cc'. After witnessing the horrors he had to put the inhabitants of his planet through, he decided to finally fight against it. He was smart. Ironically, much too smart to become in a position of power. All his life, he strived to be a pioneer of the conquest and a model to the New World, but he decided to be its Anti-Hero.

Originally, even before the conquest truly began, a space station called the NUSS - for Neo Universe Space Station - was a point of exchange of many high status commanders, owners and even some presidents of the New World. At the time, the President-turned-terrorist, who named himself 'Lord Wennow' as a reference to his true motivations, managed to hijack a space shuttle using complex hacking supported by his former access codes and privileges, and crashed it deliberately against the NUSS, damaging two out of three energy cores. This attack brought death upon many important people, usually due to lack of space isolation and atmosphere generation. It also made the station unusable for the next 5 years due to massive malfunction.

In the New World, this was known as the first act of 'high grade terrorism'. The mysterious individual named 'Lord Wennow' was put under thorough search, which in turn implied a lot more of unpleasant monitoring and searches conducted among the inhabitants of all planets. As Lord Wennow became the subject of an extra-international - meaning across all planets of the New World - warrant and was portrayed as a public enemy, this caused a major uprising. At first, most people were rooting for the police and governments, but another side slowly rose up, supporting the actions of the so-called terrorist.

In that period of time, many small groups were formed, all pursuing attention and validation from Lord Wennow, who also became the subject of an extra-international fascination. However, what they didn't realize was that their motivations were different from those of Lord Wennow. He didn't seek heroism or a liberation of the people. At first, he just expressed his contempt for the bureaucracy and privatization of the planets. When he was President, he worked hard to bring satisfaction from the people, but internal economy was also his priority. Both aspect were later ruined by manifestation of powerful lobbies, which disgusted him and almost made him resign at the time.

Still hiding in plain sight, Lord Wennow went on a quest to find people who would prove themselves useful to accomplish his plans for future attacks, his abilities being limited on his own, especially in a situation of massively increased security. He traveled between many colonized planets, meeting a lot of different people, visiting both as an ex-President and as a terrorist.

Eventually, Lord Wennow met Alexandra, an employee of Galleon Dextro, the company that owned 70% of Mars. Inspired by Lord Wennow's actions, she went on to mess with most of the company's accounts, creating a lot of disastrous situations for them. Two Presidents resigned over the course of only one year, finding the situation of the major implanted company too unreliable to pursue leadership. As expected by Alexandra, this brought a lot of attention to Galleon Dextro, who was forced to reconsider their ownership of the planet, ending the monopoly and giving a chance to a real free market environment, eventually leading to more balanced lives for the inhabitants of Mars. She was the first official recruit of Lord Wennow, who appreciated the ingeniosity and efficiency of her activism. She still kept her job as an accountant at first, in order to not attract attention during this recruitment phase.

Across numerous visits that spread over a little more than five months, Lord Wennow found a handful of talented people who shared his view towards the twisted business that he called the 'planet market', as parts of some countries in the New World were simply bought or sold, and treated like disposable possessions. With a team of about 25 people that included hackers, pilots, engineers, merchants, soldiers and even high status individuals across the New World, Lord Wennow sealed the creation of a new promising group with a second major terrorist attack, this time on Earth, the root of all problems according to him. Even though some stations or small planets were used as hubs for various exchanges and other purposes, the Earth still kept its function as the center of mankind.

This time, the plan was much less complicated than the first one. After all regrouping in their secret base implanted in Atreides Theta, formerly governed by Lord Wennow himself, the group's hackers made sure to change the spaceship assignments so that one of their pilots could be in charge. From then, it was only a matter of distracting the monitoring stations enough to make them believe that there was no problem with the ship they were sailing on. Near the orbit of Earth, the group overrunned the security systems in order to fire defensive armement straight at different places of interest, where the most powerful extra-international companies gathered to discuss business. The only targets were corrupt businessmen and leaders… in theory. But as many people know, the practice is always a different story altogether.

Lord Wennow was not a hero. In fact, he was much more of a tyrant than any corrupt businessman in the New World, and far worse than himself in the past, when he was President. One of his main guidelines as leader of the group was 'Spare none that is expendable', interpreted by many as a much crueler version of 'the end justifies the means'. He never hid that he was a terrorist. A terrorist with a simple dream : ending the New World. And that is why, as a modern calling card to all inhabitants of it, he signed his second act of protest with the name 'New World Enders', a name that still makes people shiver in fear today.

As time passed, many members joined and left the group. Alexandra, one of the founding members, was eventually one of the first to part with them, not feeling like she accomplished anything she wanted to. Unfortunately, her life as an ex-terrorist came to an end fairly soon, as she was hunted down and executed by the government of her planet. Many members of the group died. Some of sacrifice, some of execution, but none of suicide, as this was against the rules, that nobody wanted to break. Under the influence of Lord Wennow, no single member of the New World Enders dared to attempt betrayal, as getting found out by their leader was far worse than getting found by the police.

The colonization continued. But everything was different. Companies were scared to make any business moves. Governments proceeded with caution to make sure no protests were made. People became slaves of self-censorship to not attract attention from the terrorists. It was not a better New World, or a worse one. It was simply… a different New World. Much quieter, too.

Even a whole century after those attacks and thus the beginning on a new era, nobody knew what truly happened to Lord Wennow. Legend says he's still alive, like an immortal demon, his shadow still engulfing the New World, waiting for it to suffocate. Most people like to think that Lord Wennow is deceased of old age, but that none of the New World Enders want people to believe so, as he was certainly the most feared person in recent History.

Humanity experienced many more events after those ones, but none came close to the terror of the New World Enders. Nowadays, people still refer to this period as 'the end of the New World'.