THE BUBBLE

The elder stood at the podium and waited patiently for the younger Elves to settle down. He opened an enormous leather bound book. It looked old and well used. The binding was cracked, and the vellum pages yellowed and torn in places. He cleared his throat loudly to get everyone's attention, then he began.

"As all of you know, we are gathered here today for the annual reading of 'The Earth Chronicles,' in honour of those who lived and died for our most noble cause, life on Earth."

He poured a glass of water from a pitcher on a little table beside the podium, then drank half of it. Reading made his throat dry.

"We will begin as usual with the prologue taken from the logbooks of the galaxy hopper The Peacock, as written by the esteemed captain Shalice Teirney.

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PROLOGUE FROM THE LOGBOOKS OF CAPTAIN SHALICE TEIRNEY

The final fifty years of the twenty second century had not been good ones for the planet Earth. There were more wars than reasons for them. The Earth itself was war torn and battle weary. There was more crap thrown into the air than the ozone layer could withstand, so it leaked, and leaked mightily!

Global warming melted the ice caps and flooded the land masses in stages. By the year 2175, the Earth was but a watered down memory of itself. The air was barely breathable due to unchecked greenhouse gas emissions. The mountainous regions and inland desserts were still intact, but barely habitable.

Space travel was the only way to escape this increasingly more dangerous Earth. The guided missiles of the cold war in the mid twentieth century were still buried under the desserts and tundras of The United States, and Russia. There were hidden missiles all over the world in fact. 

At some point near the end of 2175, The codes to those guided missiles were used to set all of them off at once. It was insane! Missiles flew back and forth between Russia and the United States. Canada  got caught in the middle. The middle East, North Korea, China, all the usual suspects got into the act too.

There were bombs and missiles, even nuclear warheads going off everywhere!  It was literally Hell on Earth. The heavily bombarded surfaces of the remaining landmasses weakened and collapsed. There were eruptions of molten lava that burst from the Earth's core that sent geysers of death sky high! The Earth's orbit was finally compromised as core deep explosions rocked the Earth out of control.

There was a mad last minute scramble to get off the Earth as soon as possible. There had been a mass exodus the year before, due to the Earth's increasingly more difficult ability to sustain life. All of the living plant, animal and sentient life forms were either drowned out, burned out, bombed out, or smothered by  heavily polluted air. Those who could get off the planet, did.

Those scrambling to get off the Earth went to Earth Station One, which orbited around Earth. It began as the International Space Station in the twentieth century, and ended up as the only legal means of trade and commerce between Earth and other planets.

Even Earth Station One wasn't safe. When the Earth's orbit was compromised, so was the orbits of everything that depended on it. Communications satellites,  protection systems satellites, everything afloat up there was sucked into the Earth's atmosphere, and either melted or exploded.

Earth Station One was no exception. Every space worthy or even semi space worthy vessel left  in unregulated waves of panic. There was no space traffic control, every vessel that could jump into deep space did so, until the jump stations were closed from the other end.  Finally, after herculean efforts to pilot the station toward a jump site, those still aboard abandoned it.

As a last and final effort to destroy anything and everything, the Earth came apart at the seams!  Earth Station One was absorbed into the expanding fireball, and was seen no more. Earth itself was seen no more.. forever!

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When the prologue was finished there was a good deal of clapping and whistles from the crowd. The elder gestured for quiet.

"We will now continue with The Earth Chronicles, which is a compilation of interviews, handwritten journals, some original vid images, and eye witness accounts after the Earth was destroyed."