Here.
I wrote this in about a day, so not _too_ much thought went into it. ;)
It is sort of difficult to explain the background to it, as it takes place on a little world I've been working on for the past few months, originally as a D&D campaign, and then as a testing-ground for a series of essays, poems, and short stories. I'm writing a rather long essay based on this world, but decided to post this short story before the essay.
It takes place in the year of 1979 (on Earth), but around year 1.4M on our fictional planet.
About the fictional planet:
At around year 1995, humanity goes into a deadly civil war (the beginning is very cliched, I realize, and it takes place in an alternate-dimension Earth).
The survivors go launch out on two spacecraft, and go their separate ways. The one we follow lands on a fertile, yet untamed, world.
Approaching the planet, they find other alien life forms already on the planet. (Yes, I know, cliched, but bear with me.)
After fighting for a while, we humans decide to make peace with them, and swap technologies. After a rather tense battle with the planets native inhabitants, we and our friendly alien cohorts control the planet.
After, the alien portal, which connects them to their main empire, is about to collapse. They decide to pull out of the planet, with the exception of a few loony religious followers.
I write my essay in this part of the story, as humanity begins a technological, moral, and political descent. The once-great human empire dwindles into nomadic bands, and space-flight is the talk of madmen.
Like I said, though, this story takes place roughly 1.3 million years after this point.
Comments, and criticisms (plenty of these, I'm sure!) are appreciated.
