Written by: Brandon Sheehan January 10, 152

The day I heard this tale was at my first Pesci-Fest told by Alex after the feast, It opened my eyes to our history and brought it closer to reality than the dry bits we learned in school. I could understand why much of it wasn’t taught after digging into it further for these stories; it’s sordid, and I am ashamed to realize we developed as brutal beings with no qualms when it came to killing, maiming and injuring others of our very same species. In many cases, our ancestors could not even see past the surface differences of skin color or culture to understand we all belong to the same species.

War is no longer a concept we’re familiar with; somewhat ironically, armed conflict is nothing we need to worry about now or in the foreseeable future. But, it has been an integral aspect of human history for many thousands of years. (1) No other species on this planet has killed or harmed its own with the alacrity humans managed in the past.

The Foundation traces its beginnings to approximately eighty years pre-catastrophe when the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima as part of a war between multiple countries, referred to as World War II. (2) When it happened, it was the largest and deadliest conflict in human history, with over fifty countries fighting each other in every part of the world, resulting in over eighty million deaths. A brief explanation for the conflict would describe it as a fight over ideologies amid a desire by one side to claim more of the world’s land and population under their rule. The Axis consisted of the countries of Germany, Italy and Japan and those countries under their area of influence who strove to bring large swathes of land and those living on it under authoritarian rule. They fought against the Allies, its core countries being the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union and China, fighting against fascism.

Those fascist countries committed genocide against their own species, seeking to exterminate anyone they considered ‟other.”  For much of our history and for many reasons, many humans did not consider all other humans worthy of living. The most common reasons for considering someone other were the color of their skin, the spirituality they embraced, who they chose to love, and if their identity or culture lay outside of identified norms.

Dropping those nuclear bombs did bring about a dramatic end to the war, but at a terrible cost, both at the time of the detonations and in the following months and years, continuing through the culmination of what we now call the Catastrophe.

The bombs were the most devastating explosive weapons ever created; nuclear material heated to thermonuclear temperatures before detonating created explosions, causing buildings over 2 miles from where the explosion to burn, killing thousands; some instantaneously, while others died from the burns and blast injuries and many others suffered cancers and died slowly in great pain. It was horrendous.

It seems obvious now that after witnessing the destruction those bombs brought, every country in the world should have come together to ensure no bombs like those could ever be built again. But they did precisely the opposite, creating more and more of the bombs in what was called a nuclear arms race until there were enough to destroy the world. The leaders promised that having the bombs made the world safer since they were thought to be a deterrent.

They lied.

Alexandra Hanlon - September 17, 149

The human race is constantly evolving. Just as we progress individually as we age and learn from our experiences, so too does humanity transform. We know our past influences our present, and any choices and actions now will influence future generations. So the question becomes, can we do better for our descendants than our ancestors did for us? No magical looking glass allows us to peer into the future, but we can examine and hopefully learn from our past mistakes.

Changes to our species are slow and never-ending, imperceptible unless viewed in retrospect. All but our primal instinctive behaviors evolve generation over generation, with the most successful spreading through the population and thus shaping our species into its current aspect. Many of these early genetic changes were superficial, enabling our ancestors to acclimate to lands with climates very different from where we originated. This adaptability formed the basis of our ability to survive and spread over the entire planet.

Environmental adaptability aside, our species has changed in other ways. Each generation absorbed the decisions of earlier generations, and these unconscious and subconscious choices overlapped and shaped us, playing on our inherent dispositions and acting to constrain us onto the path our forebears mindlessly laid for us. Our continued existence through the ages has created a web of intolerance passed through the generations, with each new influence layering upon and interacting with every previously absorbed lesson in prejudice and discrimination. We shifted as a species, our attitudes affecting our perceptions with every nudge. Eventually, the conscious choices of our ancestors seemingly became integral to ourselves. And within those inherited biases were sown the seeds of humankind's destruction.

Of any earthly species which could be regarded as highly conscious, Homo sapiens had to be considered the most successful, if for no reason other than sheer number and impact. We paired our natural intelligence with the dexterity of our primate roots. Gathering in small communities allowed us to discover what we were capable of. As our knowledge grew, we fashioned tools to apply what we learned. Technological innovations meant more food, which could support a larger population, which ultimately expanded in an unrestrained manner. As communities grew, those within began to recognize themselves as a people, separate and disconnected from those without.

By the time our ancestors settled into an agricultural system, no natural predators thinned our ranks. Even death from diseases couldn't outstrip the increase in births. We adapted to many climates, and our ability to think, reason and create increased. For most of our time on the surface, we used those abilities with little regard for how future generations might be affected, never considering our planet or what it meant to live on its surface. Many of our ancestors acted as if the world were infinite, existing solely for their benefit, even to the end.

We developed through millennia, thinking, exploring, communicating and creating, moving us into a rarified position no other creature we knew could achieve. Slowly, we learned how the world and the universe around us worked. The more we learned, the more we realized how little we truly knew, every answer leading to yet more questions. We used our knowledge to invent marvelous and innovative ways to harness the energies of the earth itself. We devised stories and theories to explain situations we could not yet fathom. At first, our physical and mental abilities were finely tuned to the world we inhabited, but as tribes became kingdoms, states and finally, nations, our abilities changed too, adjusting to the environments we created whether we were acclimated to them or not. Our collective knowledge increased, and yet we lacked the wisdom to see beyond our own lives or those of our immediate descendants.

Everything changes in time, even Earth's climate. As their environment changed, our ancestors migrated to more fertile lands. Eventually, those migrations pushed against others of our species who had already settled in an area. At some point in our history, we began battling each other over territory, forcibly taking those who could give birth and compelling them to bear the children of the victors and later subjugating those on the losing side. We preyed on ourselves, on our own species, harming, maiming, enslaving and killing. What a dichotomy it was. The most dominant beings on this planet fought against each other, tearing each other down instead of acknowledging our similarities and finding ways to work together.

It is said nature abhors a vacuum, which might well be a truism; humans became their own predators when no other could fulfill the role, and there was little, if anything, within many humans restraining the impulse. It was easier to kill each other over territory and resources than to work together to limit our population to something sustainable. It was easier to let violence flow and embrace the adrenaline rush than to consider equality as something to strive toward.

As time passed, those expressions of violence became more firmly ingrained in our behavior, and we learned how to kill each other faster and with greater impact. What might have started with bare fists soon moved to conflicts using held rocks and branches of wood, eventually replaced by spears and later swords. At least closely held weapons meant the killing was upfront and personal. Whether they carried the burden of taking a life or not, a person had to confront their action in the moment.

Soon, new knowledge and the technology derived from it enhanced armed conflicts. Copper killed more efficiently than wood; iron and steel were even more expeditious. Humans moved along a similar path with projectiles, rocks thrown from a distance, arrows, slings, shuriken, guns and bombs. Each innovation enabled the person doing the killing to be further and further removed from the process. Until it seemed the killer was playing a video game, viewing a screen. The actual killing was at such a distance that it hardly seemed real, except for those who were killed or grieved.

As wars became more impersonal, they increased in number, and the methods used became more efficient, resulting in even more of our kind dying. As time progressed, tribes became kingdoms and finally nations, each claiming a part of the Earth and sending its soldiers to kill the others, subjugating the civilian populations along the way.

Many wars were fought for no other reason than an ideological or religious difference. Even individuals killed and harmed each other for little or no reason. Some attempted to eradicate specific groups of other humans for various reasons. They despised each other for following a different religion or having no spiritual beliefs. Some were harmed or killed for loving those of the same gender, not conforming to societal conditioning, or even for having a different skin color, to name just a few. Three years before the Catastrophe, just under half a million people were murdered by other humans, while a quarter of a million were killed in armed conflicts throughout the world. (1) Within just a few decades before the Catastrophe, most entertainment highlighted conflict and violence. As long as a person wasn’t directly affected, it was reduced to a game or an impersonal story, further dulling the emotions. (2) I imagine it was very different for those directly confronted with the realities of war and mayhem.

Our world was overpopulated and undergoing unprecedented climate disasters caused partly by human actions. (3) Our mostly non-response was largely unconscious, as most were happy to deny the reality around them, allowing their emotions, stunted by our forebears, to overtake their rational selves. While not everything could be averted, the window for even the little we could do was subverted by those who profited from the situation. (4) Corporations and government officials actively lied to the population, dismissing the reality of the earth's warming, marked by rising oceans, more destructive fires and flooding, which led many people to leave their homeland with nowhere to go. (5) Between the warming of the planet and the numerous wars being fought, those who fled their violent homelands, obeying their instincts to survive, found little welcome anywhere else. (6) They were pawns in a geopolitical chess game, and on one side of the board, disinformation was queen. Lies were broadcast among the population, and many, already indoctrinated to believe unconditionally, swallowed the propaganda whole, no matter how fantastical. It was a practical and harsh lesson in cognitive dissonance. (7)

We now strive to identify and reject the inconsistencies our ancestors took for granted. With the benefit of history, we can trace the small choices made, seemingly for the short-term benefit of a minority of a population and how those actions cascaded to the point where the remnants of humanity now live well underground. We aspire toward a time when the idea of inequities becomes lost to our distant past. But no matter the enormity of humanity's accomplishments before the Catastrophe, I always wonder what we could have achieved if we had embraced a sustainable population and not become our worst enemies.

The beginning of the habitats can be traced to the time when the first atomic bombs were utilized, bringing an end to World War II. It lasted six years and involved over 50 nations spread over every populated continent. The country of the United States, under whose surface we now live, dropped two of these bombs on two cities in Japan, a collection of islands off the east coast of Asia. Two races relating to nuclear arms began shortly after that.

The first was the public race between countries to either create or expand their nuclear bomb capabilities. Ostensibly, the reason was to deter any other country from using their nuclear arsenal by threatening them with "mutually assured destruction." (8) No matter how ridiculous it seems now, it was our reality at the time. The second race was hidden from view, even though it was born in direct reaction to the public race. It was a race between the technology capable of destroying our species and those who invented other technologies to save at least a remnant.

The publicly reported nuclear arms race was the impetus, alarming many who lacked the power to halt or change the situation. People with intelligence, wealth, and strategic planning expertise, including writers, futurists, philosophers, and industrialists scattered around the world, were concerned about the situation. They found each other after a few years and soon realized trying to persuade governments to give up these powerful weapons wasn’t enough. They didn't discourage anyone from working to ban and limit nuclear weapons, far from it. Instead, this group adopted and followed a mantra, "Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst." Remembering how many of our achievements were lost after the collapse of the Dark Ages, they wanted to ensure humanity did not repeat the same mistake in the event of a global nuclear war. (9) And so this group resolved to build an ark to hold as much of our knowledge as possible.

Around this time, a writer named Isaac Asimov began publishing stories whose theme revolved around staving off a lengthy dark age following the collapse of a fictional galactic empire. (10) He called these the Foundation stories, and in them, he wrote about those who worked to save humankind’s knowledge and shorten the time humanity would be in crisis. Inspired by these tales, the group chose to call themselves "The Foundation" in homage to Asimov’s writings. Taking heed, we were not a galactic empire spread out amongst hundreds of planets; the members of this Foundation decided to take the scenario further.

They chose to plan for the possibility humankind would not survive an all-out nuclear event on this earth with anything close to the knowledge or levels of technology currently available. In such a situation, survivors might not find an ark for many years and most likely would not understand how to extract the materials and information it contained. Much more was required; the technology needed to bring genetic materials to life and the knowledge necessary to use it must also be a part of any plans. Ultimately, the realization came of the need to populate these arks with enough people to make a difference if the worst should occur. And so, the idea of the habitat as a self-contained biosphere was conceived. (11) The concept was similar to the fictional trope of the time, that of a generation ship with enough space and materials to grow along with population as it crossed space, looking for a world to inhabit. In contrast, the habitats are a physical reality with generations living in contained environments buried under mountains.

When this process began, the Foundation became a legal entity in its own right, allowing it to purchase land and proceed with its plans. The group hired scientists and engineers to conceive, design, and license products for sale, providing the monetary capacity necessary to make the dream of the habitats become a reality. While some of the technology was aimed toward allowing humans to live underground safely and comfortably, other products were created to be licensed for use and sold to the general population.

With their accumulated wealth, the Foundation designed, built and supported twenty habitats. They built habitats in North and South America, Europe and Africa. Habitats were also built in Australia, the Pacific and the Indian Subcontinent. Wherever there was a significant population, the government was stable, and the Foundation could purchase the land they needed, they did so.

The habitats were marvels of construction. They were designed to be self-sustaining and support a population of many thousands for hundreds of years if necessary, allowing us to live comfortably until it is safe to return to the surface. Built within mountains for further protection, each was constructed as a cylinder, 5 miles in livable diameter and height. The sections were designed to be populated from the bottom up, and as our population grows, the number of sections we occupy also increases.

We are the descendants of those recruited to live here, and our mission remains the same. We exist to sustain humanity. When the Catastrophe occurred, two and a half million lived under the surface. After realizing the surface's condition, we chose to slow our birth rate, and while it continues to climb, it does so slowly. Today, we number just over three million, all living in a way none on the surface could have ever imagined. We can do so because the Foundation concerned itself not only with the physical needs of those living in the habitats but also with the emotional stability of the population.

Working with experts in law, ethics, and sociology, the Foundation created an understandable document laying out the rights and responsibilities of those who would live in the habitats. We know this document as the Charter, and it tells us that everyone who signs the Charter as an adult, along with their children, is considered of equal value and worth, a concept never fully embraced by most on the surface. The Charter requires everyone to be treated equitably and guarantees the physical necessities of each person: clean food and water, housing, education and health care, as well as explicitly allowing for the benefits of rest, leisure and privacy.

It was an astounding document for its time, created well before anyone society identified as female could open a bank account on their own recognizance, maintain control over their reproductive systems or act as agents on their own behalf. (12) The Charter was more than aspirational. The Foundation used its concepts to plan a society they hoped would grow to become more self-aware if only because every individual would be spared the energy drain of simply surviving.

What could those of us living in the habitats achieve if threats of violence, inequitable treatment, and poverty were banished from our lives? Could we avoid the issues we had seen on the surface due to disinformation pushed by rogue countries and those who craved power for power’s sake? The Charter expressly forbade lying by public and elected officials and those who hold sensitive positions. It also forbade the fabrication of facts by journalists or any who chose to publish their opinions. Having an opinion was fine, but it must be based on reality. Any who lied to the public or pushed disinformation would be judged to have broken their oath to the Charter, and punishment would include removal from its protections. It was a far cry from anything ever tried on the surface.

Once the Charter was established, the Foundation focused on recruiting people to build and eventually live in the habitats. Referring to history, they noted how many societies had been destabilized by small numbers of fanatics who imposed their will over others through violence. So they chose to recruit individuals based not only on their separate abilities and knowledge but also on their personalities to maintain stability in what was, after all, a confined space. When they were ready to recruit workers to build the habitats, they rejected those who conformed with an authoritarian personality, which comprised just under a third of the world's population. (13) Those in the Foundation agreed they would bring in those who could understand nuance and survive amicably in a confined area without looking for a parental figure to direct their lives. To that end, the Foundation also chose to identify and refuse any who exhibited the characteristics of demagogues or those who exhibited signs of high-conflict-oriented personality issues. At first, as they recruited those who would build the habitats, the personality tests were relatively crude. There were also times they could not be used, such as when the Foundation used agents inside refugee camps, which held those fleeing their homelands during any of several wars being fought at any particular time. The habitats were built by those willing to work hard, not only with the physical labor required but also in learning how to live warmly and generously alongside those different from themselves. These were our first residents and the first to start truly living under the Charter.

In time, the habitats were ready for residence, and the Foundation began recruiting others. Their techniques grew more sophisticated as they implemented current technologies to aid their recruiting efforts. At first, they relied on magazine advertisements alongside articles claiming to analyze your personality. The tests were filled out and sent to a Foundation-owned company in droves. The company had experts who analyzed the quizzes, returning the requested information without monetary compensation other than a postmarked return envelope required. If the personality tests met the Foundation's criteria, more complete profiles were compiled, passing on those fitting our requirements for further background checks and recruitment efforts, typically accompanied by a monetary award. Once the internet took hold worldwide, technology was developed, making it easier to sift through a person’s online habits, and taking advantage of the ability to find who they needed based on a data footprint.

Along with the needs of the Foundation and the Habitats themselves came a need for diversity of genes. When planning for the worst, the more diverse the gene pool, the better. The Foundation welcomed people from all regions, all cultures, all genders, all identities and all sexual orientations. Who you were at your core wasn’t an issue as long as you fit the personality profile and were prepared to sign onto the Charter.

The Charter provided the population's overall philosophical and societal framework. At its most basic, the philosophy evolved to emphasize a balance between community and individual rights and responsibilities. At its essence, it advocates for the community's needs being placed over an individual's wants, with individual needs superseding a community's wants. The Foundation decided the primary need of the community was for those in the habitat to live happy and productive lives along with the means to develop any abilities and talents one might have. To accomplish this goal, the Foundation needed to provide the means and incentives to do so.

Two socio-economic models conceived and implemented on the surface fit the Charter’s requirement for everyone to be treated equitably. One was called the Communist Framework, which advocated for what they called "the people" owning the means of production. However, in every instance, this framework had been implemented no matter how lightly; it always resulted in something contrary to the requirements of the Charter. Throughout the historical record, the ruling party controlled the means of production and the jobs it provided, enabling it to dictate how the population under its control should live.

The Foundation adopted a modified version of another framework called the Nordic Model. As conceived, it was based on a capitalistic economy with both universal welfare and healthcare benefits, along with high levels of taxation. Since the Foundation officially owned everything as far as the surface governments were concerned and had built up and expended an incomprehensible amount of surface currency to building and stocking the habitats, they decided to utilize the philosophy of the Nordic Model rather than the specifics adopted by the countries following it.

The easiest part was social spending. Housing, food, clothing, physical and mental health care, education, and other essentials would be provided to all who lived in the habitats. Subsidies would make essential items available to all, and extra income could be used to offset upgrades. Everyone would have a private home, with the number living together dictating the size.

Our recruits could choose their work and receive training with each person's time working limited to twenty hours a week. The monthly income individuals received from the Foundation was the same for everyone based solely on age. Instead of our income being tied to our work as was common on the surface with different positions commanding different amounts of income, ours would be attached to ten hours of Community Tasks weekly. Except for those under a waiver of either age or disability, a failure to participate in Community Tasks still leads to a cessation of income.

After the pandemic hit, those on the surface learned what we already knew. No matter the circumstances, those jobs essential to the health and welfare of communities and societies must be done. (14) There are always jobs considered too physical, dirty, boring or repetitive, but essential work remains necessary, no matter the stigma attached to it on the surface. Food, land, supply, waste and systems management are all crucial for our survival. Everyone capable of tasking must devote ten hours out of every forty to these mandatory tasks. When everyone participates, everyone benefits.

The monthly income from task participation supports what became known as creative capitalism. Built into the habitats was the concept of a viable marketplace for individuals and groups, allowing our creators to connect with those who wish to experience their innovations. All through the habitats, those with an artistic or a creative bent have enhanced our lives and their efforts are highly encouraged. The Foundation also encouraged people to band together and form cooperatives, which facilitated running restaurants, shops and other endeavors in their off-time. The Foundation went further, capping individual accounts at $50,000 units a year. Wealth, for wealth’s sake, was neither desired nor encouraged. But, of course, no one is required to contribute in this way, and some will always value their free time for other pursuits, choosing to live within the means of their monthly income.

Kevin and I moved down seven years before the Catastrophe. In that time, our population almost doubled. It wasn't a coincidence. Shortly after we moved down, my empathetic and intuitive abilities chose to make an unscheduled appearance, during which I was able to hypothesize a period of time encompassing a pandemic that would sweep over the world and the nuclear war that followed. Even though I could not guarantee my estimation would ever happen, much less than within a particular year or season, the Foundation Board, Habitat Administration, and Liaison Heads in each habitat agreed to use the timing from "the Estimate" as a series of deadlines. Recruiting, moving and assimilating residents into the habitats sped up. The goal was to find as many people as possible before my hypothesis could come to pass.

Then, the sars-2-novel coronavirus, a virulent air-borne disease, erupted at the end of 2019, five years pre-Catastrophe, killing millions around the entire world and crippling even more. Because the habitats had acted, we were ready for the pandemic, building quarantine facilities in our highest sections. We brought our new residents down to live in quarantine for a month, leaving those who tested positive in the hotels and miniature hospitals we set up on the surface to be cared for until they recovered and could move down without endangering our population. Our mitigation strategy was successful; none of our original residents became ill, and we were able to continue recruiting. In many ways, the pandemic was helpful to us. There were so many families under lockdown for several years, and even after the worst had passed, the ability to work in a place other than a building owned or leased by their employer rose in popularity. Many practiced remote work during this time, and we took advantage of the situation. Teachers, coders, and others who could continue to work remotely were easier to recruit.

As the habitats were populated, so too did we turn inward. Each habitat drew from the land above and surrounding it and so had a slightly different culture. While it was decided the official language should be English, most also encouraged the languages of their ancestors and cultures also be sustained. Various languages and cultures may translate words and phrases into slightly different meanings, so as part of the LCO Initiatives, a process was initiated for all the habitats to come together to analyze and agree upon what the Charter meant. We worked to harmonize the Charter across habitats, ensuring everyone understood the Charter's concepts consistently despite any cultural or language differences.

Those living in the habitats were not wholly immune to the stresses happening on the surface. We had access to all the outside media and information we chose to consume. We communicated with those on the surface, not telling them of our whereabouts but able to share in their lives from a distance. We knew what was happening, and as the stresses on the surface rose, the race to ensure each habitat had what it needed and to get everyone we had recruited down was a race against time, but without a firm date. Our only clue was my estimation, indicating a possibility in the last half of that year. All we could do was continue bringing people down, saving as many as possible within our parameters.

From the time Kevin and I chose to make our lives here in the habitat until the start of the Catastrophe, the speed at which humanity turned on itself increased exponentially. Hatred of someone considered other and a narcissist's need for domination took hold in differing areas of the world. Fueled by the rise of Donald Trump in the United States, it became acceptable in some regions of the country to loudly proclaim hatred towards targeted groups and openly support the violence accompanying those utterances. It was a throwback to the past many thought we had already overcome. (15) The smallest of the two political parties of the United States, the country I am most familiar with and where most of your ancestors lived, was determined to hold power at any cost. They cared nothing for the harm their policies would inflict, only for the money they accumulated and the influence they wielded.

They arranged to make voting harder for groups who didn’t like their policies. (16) They began the dismantling of individual rights by removing a woman's control over her own body, which, in some cases, cost women their lives. (17) The Republicans stoked culture wars, demonizing groups of people to give their followers someone to hate. (18) They sowed discord against those who loved someone other than the opposite sex, who identified as someone different than the genitalia they were born with or assigned, or who had escaped the country of their birth and tried to move somewhere for a better life for their children. (19) Even those followers of the same deity but who worshipped differently or dressed differently were hounded as "other" and pointed to, not as fellow human beings, but as objects worthy of scorn and to whom it was deemed of no account to harm or even kill. (20)

The same political party triggered the hatred and anger and then leaned into the same. Calls for unity were ignored. They were following Trump's call and march toward an authoritarian form of government, one where the vast majority would have little to no say in their own lives. In his three presidential campaigns, Trump incited these calls, saying the ugly part out loud and openly admiring the country of Russia, the original name of the defunct empire that had stretched across the continent of Asia, and its leader, Vladimir Putin. (21) The country so currently named had descended from a government operating under a communist framework, which in turn had collapsed into what could only be called autocratic rule via thievery and thuggery. (22) In the 2024 election, Donald Trump, who was under criminal indictment for 88 counts of breaking the law and owed just under a half billion dollars for violations of the law, was openly telling those who attended his rallies he would be a dictator and would conduct mass arrests and deportations of those he targeted. (23)

He asked the country to vote for him after telling them he planned to turn a country currently being run under mostly democratic principles into one under fascism. (24) He spoke openly of using force to achieve his goals, however obliquely. (25) He openly admired Vladimir Putin and wanted to create the same kind of government here. (26) He openly told us he wanted to emulate a government that decided to expand its territory and take over a country next to it simply because it felt entitled, regardless of the wants or needs of those who resided there. And amazingly enough, there were those who rallied to his call.

Donald Trump lost in 2020 and made a clumsy attempt to prevent the election's winner, Joseph Biden, from taking office. (27) He was eventually charged with seventeen counts related to his actions to steal that election, many of which had been done openly. (28) When Putin decided to go through with his plans to invade Ukraine, Trump and his Republican allies had approval ratings dipping to all-time lows. Rather than wait to see if Trump could take office again and simply let him annex another country, Putin ordered his military to invade Ukraine. (29)

Russia soon aimed its bombs not only at military targets but toward the civilian population. (30) It was horrific; bombs launched from hundreds of miles away precisely targeted both public and private buildings, even targeting schools and hospitals in direct contravention of the rules of engagement. Putin was sure the brutality of those actions would have the people calling for mercy within weeks if not days. Instead, the citizens of Ukraine rallied and defended themselves, and Russia continued with its brutal and violent acts. They abducted over a hundred thousand children, removing them to underpopulated areas of their own country and re-educating them. Reports came out the Russians even massacred the population of an entire town. (31)

Other countries, including the United States, flocked to Ukraine's aid. (32) Sending weapons and supplies and sanctioning Russia, along with those who aided and abetted them, turned this war into a semblance of a proxy battle. In many ways, it was the same war waged within the United States between those who stood for human self-determination no matter our flaws and those who wanted to live off everyone else's hard work while making the choices others would have to live by. Once Russia was in a protracted war, it used every trick to change the outcome. (33) From the threatening to disclose compromising information it had on those with power in other countries to murdering its own citizens and spreading disinformation through complicit cutouts on social media and through websites, it did everything it could to destabilize the world for Putin's benefit. (34) He even issued continuing threats to resort to its nuclear arsenal. (35)

Trump immediately took Putin's side, and whichever direction he leaned, whatever position he took, so did his followers. (36) It was almost as if they were zombies, whether brainwashed or blackmailed, so fast would they change a position they had held dear once Trump did so. (37)

He spent his time split between crying foul over his inability to steal an election by proclaiming falsely and loudly over and over the election had been stolen from him. (38) He grifted in any way he could to have those he held under his sway send him money for worthless items, which, instead of spending on his campaign, he used to pay millions in legal fees and bribes to those who could testify against him. (39) It was obvious he was campaigning not to help the country but as a means to keep himself out of jail. (40)

As the world settled into yet another war, a massacre occurred in the region we called the Middle East. A terrorist group naming themselves Hamas managed to leave a fenced-off area to carry out a mass slaughter and hostage-taking against a country called Israel, the very ones who had survived mass genocide for their religious and cultural beliefs eighty years before. (41) Once again, the world plunged into the familiar song of hatred of each other. It didn't matter who you thought less than yourself, be it someone whose skin color was darker than your own or those who did not follow the religion you did. In this case, the hatred was against anyone following the Judaic religion, and hatred of these people went so far back that it had its own name, antisemitism, and it burst upon our modern landscape full force in surprising ways and from unexpected sources. (42) It didn't help that the country sustaining this slaughter was being run by one who could also be considered authoritarian. (43)

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, had been trying to consolidate power to keep himself from being tried for crimes he had committed while in office. (44) He did so by forming a government with those of his country who were extreme in their positions and ignoring the preparations of those who ultimately participated in the slaughter. After the massacre occurred, he declared a war of retaliation against the terrorists, which also was inflicted upon the civilian population, in large part because the terrorists used them as human shields. (45) Many of the same countries rallying around Ukraine also rallied around Israel, while others rallied around the terrorists and Russia. It might not have been called a World War, but all indications indicated history might judge it so.

By early 2024, the United States presidential election was upon us, once again featuring a choice between Joseph Biden and Donald Trump. Trump was rapidly deteriorating, displaying issues many experts saw as the symptoms of a disease called Behavioral Variant Fronto-Temporal Dementia. (46) The news media, though, chose to focus on Biden's openly acknowledged stutter, which apparently became more challenging to control during this time. They turned his gaffes into questions about his cognitive ability and age while ignoring the fact Trump was only two years younger and openly glitching and talking nonsense. (47) The editor at a particular news media company at the time promoted stories of Biden's age because he was miffed Biden wouldn't sit for an interview. (48) And during this time, Trump was out of money, and directing much of what was raised to his legal bills. (49)

The world was rapidly devolving from reams of misinformation. (50) It didn't matter how far-fetched a scenario was; someone was always willing to fabricate something wilder. (51) And there were always those who had been so conditioned they believed the fantasies they were told and acted upon them as if they were real. (52) The stress on the rest of the population was palpable. They watched the slow-moving trials of Trump delayed again and again. (53) The law and rules, which they had been told were evenly applied to all, were shown to be a sham, with justice delayed over and over by one who was spending millions to do just that. (54) His only game plan was to win the election somehow, be sworn in as president and make everything against him disappear. (55)

Tensions around the world continued to rise. Israel was fighting on two fronts, the actual battle to remove Hamas from Gaza and the war of public opinion, made all the more difficult by the rise of anti-semitism. (56) Hostilities between Israel and Iran flared up when Israel targeted an Iranian consulate in another country, and Iran launched a drone attack, which mostly failed. It escalated further when Israel conducted an assassination of a Hamas leader, with Iran threatening yet another retaliatory attack. (57) Russia was reeling from an incursion of the Ukranian army capturing settlements twenty miles within Russia's official borders. (58) And Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.

The pressure on Joe Biden to leave the race had been palpable from the start. (59) Elections had become less about humanity's serious issues and more about entertainment and feelings. (60) Bets were placed on who would win, and the odds were reported by other news media, which conveniently continued favoring Trump by ignoring almost everything he said and running story after story of Biden's poor debate performance. (61) If they had been objective, they would have pointed out that everything Trump said was lie after lie after lie, in an utter deluge called the gish gallop. (62) Trump lied, but he was confident and loud as he lied, while Biden struggled to respond, and the moderators did nothing. (63)

Trump seemed to be on a winning path despite his despising everything the citizens had been taught to revere. (64) He survived a bullet whizzing by his ear at a rally, which killed innocent bystanders and milked it for all he was worth by wearing a conspicuous bandage over his ear to the convention where he ranted and raved against Joe Biden and bullied and preened before an adoring audience. (65)

Then Dark Brandon struck. Joe Biden announced he would not be accepting the nomination he had campaigned for and won; instead, he was endorsing his Vice President to be the nominee. (66) His actions, putting the country's needs over his wish to continue in the role, changed everything.

The voters rallied around Kamala Harris in a wave of exuberance and enthusiasm, which forestalled what many, both MAGA politicians and many news media companies, hoped would create a contested convention, which cleared the way for a Trump victory. Most of the world sighed in relief. Donald Trump, however, after endlessly whining about election interference in the 2020 election, tried to rerun the same playbook but now implied that Harris becoming the nominee was somehow a coup against Biden. (67) It was readily apparent to everyone but his most fanatic followers that his publicly undiagnosed but unmistakable dementia meant he had become a tragic shambolic figure, propped up by those who would still use him, speaking to crowds in an ever-increasing unintelligible word salad and less and less able to keep a focused or coherent thought. (68) His performance at rallies would have been worthy of mockery if only the election weren't so consequential for democracy. He looked and acted like a marionette, his strings pulled by an off-stage performer. It was especially noticeable every time he attempted to dance at each rally; his body held stiffly while his limbs and head bobbed out of time with the music. (69)

And it got worse for Trump as the contrast between the two candidates became starker. Suddenly, he was the oldest person ever to run for President, and his lies and antics were too hard for even the most partisan of news media organizations to cover up. The contrast between the Republican convention and its Democratic counterpart was blatantly obvious; one stoking fear, the other hope. (70) It didn't help that Trump had selected a chameleon for his running mate. (71) JD Vance, a first-term Senator from Ohio, wasn't chosen because he could bring voters or appeal to the populace at large. (72) He was a proponent of Project 2025 and wrote the introduction to a book about it, something Trump was vehemently trying to distance himself from, even as he had embraced it. (73) Harris's selection of a running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, showed the stark ideological differences and choices in the presidential campaigns.

Where Vance showed disdain for any woman not fulfilling what he considered their biological imperative, Walz openly embraced those who loved or identified differently. (74) Where one had to suffer memes regarding dolphin porn, and intimacy with a couch, the other was embraced with memes about his caring nature. (75) And the Harris/Walz team began rising in the polls. Not just in the crucial swing states but everywhere. (76)

The only puzzlement was how anyone could seriously claim they would vote for Trump. He had been indicted on eighty-eight felony counts, all concerned with his actions to rig and overturn the elections he had previously run in or for stealing documents containing information only available to those currently in the government after he left in disgrace. (77) The only case tried before the election had been considered the weakest of the four he was currently charged. Still, after only eleven hours of deliberation, Trump was found guilty on all thirty-four counts of falsifying business records to conceal rigging the 2016 election in his favor. (78)

It became obvious to all but those brainwashed individuals who slapped fake bandages on their ears and wore diapers to his rallies that Trump was going to lose. (79) It became more apparent how frantic he was becoming as he saw his get out of jail card that was the presidency slip away from him. He began to say anything he could to appeal to women and younger voters, even as his previous actions were thrown in his face. (80)

Once it was apparent Trump's presidential prospects were dashed and Putin would get no help from him, the march toward a nuclear exchange inched closer to reality. Putin was a cornered man; the economy in most of the areas of his country was dismal, thanks to the loss of people and equipment, and his ego and self-image would not permit him to surrender. (81) Harris's apparent path to victory closed off any options he was willing to accept.

On September 18th, 2024, which we now call Year 0, those countries allied with Russia fired their entire nuclear arsenal at the rest of the world in a planned attack. Once the attack was verified, the rest of the world responded by sending their arsenals toward those who attacked first. The exchange of nearly the entirety of the world's nuclear stockpiles killed millions that day and further annihilated the population over time.

The fires ignited the day of the Catastrophe contained toxic chemicals, which, when combined with the smoke of the fires, rose above our atmosphere, stopping the sun's rays from reaching us and creating a nuclear winter, a mini-ice age lasting for ten long years, rendering our planet's surface uninhabitable. When the nuclear winter finally lifted, and we regained access to the satellite systems circling the planet, we discovered we were the only ones left.

No images were available after the satellites were cut off from the Earth until the smoke cleared and our connections were restored. We have nothing telling the story of what happened on the surface during that decade. Even without knowing, we mourned. Survivor’s grief is real. We went through it twice, first right after the nuclear event and again when we realized there was no one left on the surface. Once we worked through our grief, we realized our focus had to be on ourselves and our descendants; our little remnant of civilization was the only hope for humanity's survival. We had the luxury of being in communities we could thrive in and we could take our time to plan for when we would come to the surface and what we would do.

As the remnants of the human race, we have the responsibility and the time to be deliberate in our actions and to work towards the benefit of ourselves as well as our long-time descendants. Knowing our history, we can study as patterns emerge, and we understand the work before us. There will always be reminders so long as we remain on this planet. The life we live now, under the surface of the earth, is a testament to those founders of the Foundation and their forethought and ingenuity. There will come a time when we will have to directly confront the issues left to us by those who destroyed the surface. We will have to deal with the atrocities left, the poisoned soil, and the ruins of a technologically driven civilization concerned only with new advances and their short-term benefits, never seeking the wisdom to consider if an advancement could be safely implemented or what the long-term result might be.

The seeds of our destruction were planted in us all. Those inherited biases, the bedrock of human aggression toward our own species, still exist. Will we remember any of this as humanity progresses in our journey? Will we recall the consequences of humanity's relentless drive toward self-destruction and fight against those corrosive instincts instilled into us by our ancestors? We can neither dismiss nor repudiate what happened in our past. Neither can we suppress those reactions completely, certainly not in the limited time since the Habitats were populated. But we can learn from our mistakes and work to mitigate the toxic behavior that led us to the brink of extinction.

As our earlier ancestors influenced those who came later, so do we have the same ability toward our descendants. We are beginning to take conscious responsibility for our choices and work to remove those destructive seeds as we identify them within ourselves. When your ancestors came to live here, we brought down all the inherited instincts, systemic biases, individual issues, and traumas we were raised with; in short, we brought ourselves down.

We know it will take generations to move closer to the vision of a community free of those inherited traits we know are detrimental to us while continuing to retain our individuality. We strive to continually expand our knowledge and understanding of the world around and within us. We continue to work cooperatively as equals and individuals in a way that would be unrecognizable to those who had lived on the surface. We are just beginning our long traversal to remove and replace those inherited traits to ensure our continued existence as a species.

At first, none of us who moved into the habitats thought about our inherited or systemic issues as something to be dealt with on a large scale. Eventually, most of us realized we had to work through the issues we brought in for our personal benefit and the benefit of those around us. And even if we couldn’t eradicate those thoughts and hurts within ourselves, we did our best not to inflict them on subsequent generations. It’s something each of our generations continues to work toward, though not always consciously.

We are transitioning from an age when knowledge was gained and applied without conscious consideration to one where we now understand that just because we can do something doesn't necessarily mean we should. At the very least, we've gained enough intelligence to question our discoveries before we apply them, asking each time whether our actions are reasonable and meet our long-term objectives as a sentient and sapient species.

What will be humanity's evolution? Knowing what we do now and recognizing the issues we confront from our past is key. Determining to change our course and recognizing our choices every day is how we achieve our future, a future where we no longer prey on each other.

End Notes

Links to the number in the End Notes, returns you to your place in the archives. Links in the note itself will open in a new tab or window.