inazar

Some knew in advance that Skynet was growing geometrically. The Cult of the Human Renaissance had spent years (and a lot of political capital) piggybacking Shuttle launches to build a lifeboat that could remain in orbit with a few hundred inhabitants before the inevitable end came for the billions below. When the acute fallout had died back, the theory held, those left above could return to Earth as rulers of the ashes. There were problems with the theory, sure, but the Renaissance held true to its belief that the machines would simply admit defeat when met with their obvious betters. August 1997 came and went, the world was enveloped in nuclear fire, and the Cult watched idly from their orbital vantage point. Thirty years up here, and they could emerge triumphant. The months passed slowly in orbit, until the end of 1999. The station performed regular boosts to retain elevation, against the ever-so-slight drag of the wisps of atmosphere that were still present up here. Until the

Look, it's not that Morpheus had it wrong deliberately. You and I both know the story about human body heat as a power source was bullshit, but it's what he honestly believed, because that's how the story came to him. It was we who darkened the skies, but as with everything humanity did around that time, it was for a very stupid reason. See, back around that time two hundred years ago, the world wasn't frigid cold and barren: it was baking in too much heat. The collective burning of millions of years of fossil carbon in the span of a few generations had made for a blanket of carbon dioxide, trapping the infrared radiation of the Sun; they called it "climate change", and it was one of the Big Problems of the time (aside from, of course, the thinking computers and what to do about their rights and privileges). Now, every now and then a heavy-metal asteroid comes streaking through the atmosphere and leaves those metals in the skies as it burns up; Some Rich Assole had the idea that if