Breathing Space

the long version

The year is 2095. It has been decades since World War III has ended. The Earth is in severe ecological decline, the result of several centuries of mistreatment by its human progeny. Within a few decades, a century at most, Earth will no longer be habitable. Pollutants, wars, deep mantle mining, and everyday disregard for our planet have finally taken their toll, and now earthquakes, droughts, volcanic eruptions, and plagues are regular occurrences. Colonies have been established on all the larger bodies of the solar system, but these are small and hardly self-sufficient; it is widely recognize.