Quintessence
Chapter 3: Decline

62 Percent.

I’ve always been a fan of pre-collapse television shows. There’s a lot that they could do, there’s a lot that they did do, which became impossible after the First Pass. Their stories often had little regard for reality, their tales were inane and poorly thought out, but they were fun. They had a degree of hope and optimism which we just don’t see anymore. My favorites were those that dealt with the issue of global calamity. There was so much speculation and variation on how the world would end, and how the people would deal with a loss of everything they had grown to know.

The consensus seemed to be that after the disastrous event mankind would quickly devolve into chaos. They had the timing wrong, but in many cases, they weren’t far from the truth.

Simply put, we were not ready. Without communication we were without coordination and leadership, without coordination and leadership our culture became almost tribal, at least at first. New communities formed through proximity, social class, and race, and these often had conflicting ideas on how to weather this storm, and how to keep society fit until what they saw as the inevitable phase of rebuilding and reclamation.

It was inevitable that some of these groups would come into conflict. Most were convinced that they and they alone held the knowledge of how to rebuild the world and that any groups who contradicted this knowledge were ones that willfully invited destruction. The conflict which arose was remarkably consistent across all cultures. The upper classes and those who remained from the government universally declared themselves the fittest for leadership.

They would be the ones who decided how to ration food, water, and the workload of rebuilding. At this point money still had its use, as people weren’t willing to abandon a form of currency that had served them their entire lives. Thus, those with money still made the rules. Many of the police and armed forces sold their services to this new ruling class, convinced it was the closest they had to a system of leadership as strong as the one they lost.

It didn’t take long for the abuse of power to become rampant. Those in the working class started to notice that while the ruling class often spoke of the sacrifice and hard work required to ‘fix’ the world, they themselves were usually extremely hesitant to make anything but the most token of effort into directly contributing to the cause.

After two months of work to restore worldwide communications and supply lines, two further events pushed mankind into what we now call the Lost Decade. The first was the re-arrival of most leading politicians from the safety of their bunkers. They attempted to slip back into their prior positions of power, ripe with the promises that they had been doing all that they could to help from behind the scenes. They might have gotten away with it, had it not been for the moon.

There were many early indications of the moon’s odd behavior, even to those without the telescopes to observe it directly. Tides had become erratic, their high and low marks were no longer predictable to any real degree. Most people put this down to the lingering effects of the Dark Star’s wake.

What should have made people realize there was a problem was that the moon had been showing a side of itself which man had never before been seen by man, it had broken its tidal lock and was shining down a totally alien visage.

Until this point, we had, apparently, been making fair strides in rebuilding. Despite the conflict, many were anxious to help get their lives back to the normalcy which they so craved.

The first confirmed fragment of the moon to fall to earth occurred on January the 29th, 2018, in a rural locality in the northeast of Russia. Olenyok was hit by a fragment approximately 80 meters in diameter at 7:13 AM local time. The energy released in this event was calculated to be somewhere in the area of a 200 megaton atomic blast, some four times as much energy as the most destructive bomb ever tested (coincidentally by Russia). Before the strike, Olenyok had a population of 2300. These people were used to a major degree of isolation and had not felt most of the social effects which were affecting most first-world countries. After the strike, Olenyok had a population of around 500, with survival mostly owing to the decentralized nature of the large locality.

There were, initially, arguments over what the fragment had been. We were assured by those in power that this was an isolated incident, a simple chance strike from an object which had been thrown from the asteroid belt sometime during the passage of the Dark Star.

It was China that first alerted the world to the truth, that the moon had destabilized and was breaking apart due to forces which they admitted they were unable to comprehend. The official response from most governments was that this was a lie, or a rumor, spread by some malicious group who had hacked into the remaining long-distance communication cables. Within a few weeks, astronomers, both amateur and professional, had contradicted these claims with enough evidence and passion to dissuade many from the claims of their leaders.

The official response then became what Grandfather referred to as “Typical Political Weaseling”. There were claims that the politicians were acting in the best interest of the public, that it was to avoid panic, or simply that these astronomers were somehow implicit in some sort of coverup. The outcome was a further loss of confidence of what was becoming less seen as the ruling class, and more viewed as those with the means to lie their way through avoiding real effort.

Over the next nine years, before it broke orbit and headed out into space, there were over six thousand more strikes from fragments of the moon. Thankfully most were considerably smaller than the one which fell on Olenyok, with most ranging from five to twenty meters in diameter. Only two of these strikes surpassed the destructive power of the Olenyok disaster.

One, calculated to be around 350 meters long, struck the Atlantic Ocean, at 11.25 PM GMT, February 17, 2020. This resulted in the largest tsunami in recorded history, which reached from the east coast of the Americas to the west coast of Africa and Europe. According to our best estimates over 5.4 million lives were lost, mostly in Florida, in the greatest natural disaster that man had ever experienced. This most common colloquialism given to this event was the Great Western Flood, a name which, while not scientifically accurate, was still indicative of the harm it caused to the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

The second-largest piece of the moon, calculated at around 220 meters in circumference, struck Abu Simbel in Egypt at 11.54 PM local time, on September 29, 2022. This fragment took over thirty thousand lives and added a 5-kilometer wide crater just off the west bank of the Nile. This fragment eventually earned the nickname Pandora and became a cornerstone in the creation of Safeholds.

The threat of destruction from the sky caused terror in all those who understood the risks, and many of those who didn’t. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time then nothing could save you. There would be no warning and there could be no hiding. Even the strongest bunker was no match for thousands of tons of crushing rock, traveling faster than the speed of sound. The political machine kept on turning its wheels, its vacuous claims of safety becoming even less convincing with each passing day, with every thousand dead.

It was a year after the First Pass that the people started to revolt. Led by Australia and the United Kingdom, the leaders were deposed and replaced by high-ranking members of the military. There wasn’t much objection at first, as until that point the military had been doing fairly well at maintaining order and keeping supplies running. When it became evident that they were burning through stockpiles and favoring those who supported their rule their support started to waver. Further opposition came from their treatment of immigrants, and the military’s willingness to turn them away to die of starvation and dehydration.

The tactics of those in charge became increasingly antagonistic, forcing people from their homes to farm at the barrel of a gun. I don’t know if I believe that old saying, that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I do know these individuals and groups held vast power, and they were very corrupt. Maybe it was the pressure of those without the relevant experience being asked to manage the lives of millions, combined with strict military training and a lack of oversight.

Though this outcome was common, it wasn’t always the case. Some smaller countries managed to make it through the collapse with very little damage. Estonia and South Africa ended up being led by extremely compassionate military commanders who ruled peacefully until their entry into the Safeholds some two decades later.

As I said, the complete histories are available in the community archives, if they remain. I’m an engineer, not a historian. The generally accepted shorthand is that the collapse was the inevitable result of a drop in communications, food supply, power, and leadership.

My great-grandparents were at their mountain property in rural Pennsylvania, in the eastern United States of America, during the First Pass. According to them, the only oddity to hint at something was wrong was the constant aurora which lit up the night sky. They had no problem surviving in the countryside. Their property was already stacked with supplies and even had a small cottage where they could sleep without fear of the weather. Freshwater was available from a nearby river and fresh vegetables, which they had planted the year before, had come into season. The surrounding forest supplied them with all the wood they needed to keep a fire running for decades, if necessary.

They stayed here for the next six months, listening on their crank-charged radio for stories of the world. My great-grandmother had made the right call to get out of New York, as the first areas to experience widespread panic were the largest cities. New York was not a place that could thrive on its own produce, it had barely any. Instead, like most major cities, it required consistent deliveries of food and water from both imports and the surrounding countryside. After the communications blackout, both types of deliveries dwindled, and then stopped cold.

Governments turned their gazes inwards, breaking trade agreements and international law in their reallocation of exports back within their own borders.

Those who had the foresight to stock large quantities responded in ways my Grandfather explained as typical human behavior. My Grandfather believed that there were three basic types of people in an emergency, those who cared about helping, the ‘carers’, those who cared about garnering wealth and power, the ‘profiteers’, and those who wanted to be left alone.

Those who wanted to be left alone simply hid away. With only themselves or a small family unit to worry about, they would be sure that their supplies would last long enough that the world could get back into order, these were the ‘loners’.

Those who placed their emphasis on caring for their fellow man would go on to set up community kitchens and emergency help centers, where they would ration food and supplies out to those in need. An admirable pursuit, to be sure, but one which didn’t last long, given the sheer volume of those in desperate need, and those who hadn’t properly prepared themselves. The last group, the profiteers, are the ones my Grandfather spoke of with the most venom. They began by overcharging for every item they could. When it became evident that cash wasn’t viable as a currency anymore, they started insisting on jewelry, gold, silver, and gemstones. I heard stories of some especially reprehensible individuals and groups trading supplies for favors much darker. While these profiteers succeeded, initially, most were eventually brought down by larger groups who had felt the sting of injustice.

Within the six months that my great-grandparents stayed in the mountains, all of the carers, and most of the profiteers, had gone as far as they could. When people started to become hungry they started to become desperate. When they became desperate they opened themselves to violence. Those who chose to stay in the city had no choice but to become increasingly aggressive in their search for supplies.

Those loners, who had done so well at first, became targets for the desperate masses, for each other. Again, begging, borrowing, and then stealing. Back in those days, very few lived underground, everybody knew exactly where their neighbors were, and this made replaceing targets especially uncomplicated.

Scavengers would go door to door in the community, under the guise of checking the wellbeing of their supposed friends. If there was no answer, or if those inside appeared well-nourished, then the house would often be broken into that night. Those who fought against the looters ended up beaten and broken.

Of course, personal bunkers did exist then, just on a much smaller scale than today. The problem with these is that people other than the owners often knew exactly where they were. Couple a safe place with the promise of supplies and it was no surprise that all but the most reinforced and well-hidden bunkers didn’t last long before they were raided.

These old bunkers were never meant as permanent homes, they always had a way in, and sometimes had a secret way out. They were sturdy, built out of thick and reinforced concrete and steel. They were also no match for human ingenuity, desperation, and ruthlessness.

Doors and walls could stand an enormous amount of heat and pressure, but a targeted and dedicated force could cut their way inside in a matter of days, with the right tools. One of the most common ways to take these bunkers was to drills a small hole in the wall and pipe in various gasses, enough that the bunkers’ air filtration systems couldn’t keep up. Carbon monoxide was one of the earliest gasses used for its accessibility and toxicity. If you manage to poison a family in their sleep they’ll put up a lot less of a fight once you manage to break inside. A more successful and less murderous path was to pump in gas which was incredibly unpleasant, but not toxic. After a few days, inhabitants would attempt to escape the smell, where the looters would rob them and take whatever they desired.

After the first six months in the mountains, my great-grandparents decided to take a trip back into town, to resupply what they could with their hidden caches and then make their way back into the countryside. On arrival they found most of their house looted and wrecked, windows smashed and sofas and televisions stolen. Their foresight in hiding their supplies saved it from being a fruitless trip.

My Grandfather told me he remembered their car being stopped on their way out by those fleeing the city. He said at one point a man pointed a gun at them and tried to force them out of their car. My great-grandfather showed the man a gun of his own and continued on. Great-grandfather’s gun was only a replica and was incapable of firing, but the fear of these weapons was so great that the man failed to notice. This was also the last time they went back to that house, with it being later flattened in an impact event over the suburb of Queens. What little remained following this was washed away by The Great Western Flood.

For ten long years, my family lived in those mountains, though not in discomfort by any means. My Grandfather spoke of those days as being the most peaceful and simple of his life, despite their struggles and the loss of much of the comforts created in western first-world civilizations.

During this time there was back and forth on the quality of governance. The leadership in the U.S fell into military rule after mass starvations and eventually fell back into civilian leadership after most of the military’s command were killed by what my Grandfather called ‘a particularly fortuitous moonstrike’. Those who had found a way to survive on or near the east coast almost all ended up dead after the flood, after which many more started to move inland, terrified of the possibility of another wave. Millions dead. If the pictures in the archives are anything to go by, then I’m glad my family got out of there while they could.

With the influx of refugees to the countryside, farming became almost a national pastime. The genetic engineering of the former world had at least left a legacy of easily grown and disease-resistant crops. These were processed into food and fuel both, which helped keep what few machines we still had the resources to maintain running.

These were tenuous times for most, who struggled to adapt to a more natural way of life. The threat of the Moonfall was ever-present, and too much for many to handle. In the years after the First Pass, suicides and murder-suicides were common in the west, as many lost the strength to fight.

Interestingly, this was uncommon in the less developed world, the residents of which my Grandfather told me were better equipped and experienced to handle the hardships of this type of life.

While they worked hard, there was still an issue of crime. Bandit groups occasionally formed to harass and steal the supplies of farming communities and storage sites. These groups met with success, at first, and hurt many innocents until the inevitable revenge wiped most of them out. I feel the need to restate that at this point in history the United States of America had more guns than it knew what to do with. It also had many military deserters who had taken what weapons and supplies they could to help defend their homes and families after the military command became overzealous in their authority.

The basic community setup settled into three main groups, the farmers, the supporters, and the guards, often with individuals filling multiple roles as necessary. For the first time in years, ham radio and train engineers were brought back into the spotlight. Every now and then an area would be wiped off the map by a moonstrike, after which the survivors would be absorbed by their neighbors. The term United States of America had rarely been as literal.