Project Hyper Ch 00

Prologue (No sex)

The year is 2833 in the Earth calendar; the official galactic calendar established 450 years ago when broad space exploration started. That was when human technology finally reached a point that enabled interspace travel. It was the dawn of ships that could create wormholes, bending space-time to travel long distances in a shorter time.

Such a breakthrough was bound to cause tension among the most powerful nations. However, this discovery took place in the background of several crises humanity was facing. The most severe of them all had included a food shortage caused by an unstoppable blight that destroyed the food supply worldwide at the first half of the 21st century. At the time, humanity solved the crisis by genetically manipulating every human into being able to photosynthesize. Humans became capable of generating energy to sustain their bodies only with water and a source of light from any star similar enough to the sun.

This development enabled people to consume much less food, eating only once every two weeks. As part of this drastic change in human anatomy, an unpredicted, but highly desirable, side-effect came into place. A cleaner and more stable metabolism puts a lot less strain on the cells, slowing the aging process. Health issues were drastically reduced, as less foreign substances entered the body with the reduced eating. Organs were used less often and lasted longer. The extended life-span added to the considerable advances in medicine and biomechanics caused regular people to easily reach 250 years of age. Later in current years some can live up to 400 years.

However, there are no such things as "solutions", there are merely trade-offs. A longer life span brought back an old issue: overpopulation. It was a ticking bomb. Photosynthesis bought humans time, but the population progression, lack of occupations available, taken over by technology, dwindling natural resources on Earth. Everything was going to catch up in time. Another crisis loomed on the horizon, unless humanity found ways to expand their domain. And that was when the investments into space travel came into play, leading to the development of spaceships with the wormhole technology.

A space race began as countries fought for securing resources off-world. They explored and colonized pretty much every earth-like planet within reach, increasingly pushing boundaries and going to new lengths. Historians agree that this exploration phase of space travel went on for at least two centuries. The human race found life on several other planets, but only non-intelligent life: mostly bacteria and sometimes even flora or fungi-like structures. New substances as well as new life-forms created another boom in medicine and technology.

This was the golden age of humanity. In a few centuries, humans were able to map an impressive 20% of the milky way galaxy, build supporting structures near moons and stars that allowed for further advancement in energy collection and ship construction. As humanity populated outposts and space stations all across the cosmos, advances were made in every area, technology leaped exponentially.

But instead of uniting as a race to explore the new frontier, humans simply elevated their tribalism and fought for resources within the multi-planetary level, eventually warring against each other. The United States, Russia, and China began to spend a good part of these new-found resources in weapons technology and soldier training. Smaller countries simply allied with one of these powers in the war to try and get their share. These countries slowly disappeared becoming aggregated states from the potencies and soon humans were divided into three main powerful nations, controlling earth and with colonies in most of the known space.

In the year 2457 planet Scorpio brought chaos to this scenario. Initially named Einstein-437, the planet was just one more in the list of places to explore. But this one had a native race, the first complex and intelligent alien life humans found that was technologically advanced. It turned out to be way more advanced than initially estimated.

The exotic and unfamiliar nature of the alien technology made it impossible to detect at the time. There were no negotiations. As soon as human ships came within reach the Scorpions (as they came to be called soon later) were already waiting and completely obliterated the human fleet. They dealt the first blow, humanity was caught by surprise. Only one year later the galactic war of Humans against Scorpions was established. Every attempt to argue for diplomacy or non-violent measures failed. The human race's capacity for brutality and war was almost null next to the fierce strikes the Scorpions visited upon the Earth's settlements. They had the technological edge and were far more experienced in outer-space wars than humans ever dreamt to be.

Humanity began the war at a loss, desperate to find a way to hold the Scorpions advance and keep the territories that had been explored and conquered. But the survival of the species was a greater motivator than any greed. So after incalculable loss, humanity was able to rise to the challenge. Within the first decade of conflict, humans managed to tap into part of Scorpion technology, learning from it and adapting. Scorpion ships and soldiers were captured at every opportunity, studied, examined. While most of their technology was beyond the human capacity to understand, the technology still inspired many new tools of survival, exploration, and war. It led to another leap into technological development.

The many military bases scattered across the galaxy, previously used by Earthen nations to fight among themselves, aimed their efforts at defeating the Scorpions. As the years passed and the war grew in both brutality and scale, the common alien enemy united humanity into what today is known as the Galactic Alliance. This organization represents humanity's fight against a significantly more powerful and mostly unknown force, for the survival of the species and our achievements.

The Alliance leadership knew that as long as the Scorpions were a threat, any exploration or conquering efforts were in danger. The space travel industry soon stopped being owned by private corporations, being taken over by the Galactic Alliance. The "state" power grew more and more, swallowing every important aspect of human society and turning it into an increasingly military-focused enterprise. Interplanetary travel became fully controlled by the military, serving first and foremost the war effort. Most trading had to be approved and overseen by the Alliance armada. No new corners of known space were legally visited if it didn't serve a strategic value, the risk was simply too great.

During what is known as the pre-Scorpio era, humans used to defend planets and resources from each other. As bad as they were, the three international conglomerates were composed of humans. They still valued human life, respected common war-time laws and answered to war-crimes. Diplomacy was still possible as some common ground was still shared at a political and cultural level.

But that wasn't the case in the war against the Scorpions. The enemy didn't seem to be interested in any specific resources, their strategy and tactics made it clear that, whatever their motivations, they wanted to exterminate humanity. There was no room for compromise or alliances, they often employed genocidal strategies without hesitation or second thought. It became common knowledge that Scorpions sought the extinction of the human race and assimilation of their territory.

On the battlefield, Scorpions were stronger and faster. Ranging from seven to eight feet tall, these giants had two sets of arms and legs (totalling eight members) as well as a long scaled tail (hence their name), attached to a big curved body that made them look like four-armed, insectoid centaurs. Their bodies were covered in a thick, chitinous carapace that acted as natural armor. They attached layers of crafted armor and other tech that complimented their already formidable natural qualities, creating lethal killing machines.

The defining trait that gave them their name, besides the eight members, was the energy blade they artificially attached to the edge of their tail, curved like a scorpion's talon or sting. Legions of human armies were obliterated by their combat expertise. Evidence only showed them talking to each other with guttural, incomprehensible sounds, impossible for humans to replicate or understand. They were the opposite of unintelligent grunts, sometimes swiftly exterminating entire colonies without mercy, even when that wasn't a strategic necessity. They took no prisoners, no slaves, no workers. To anyone witnessing their behavior it was clear that they wanted nothing more than to annihilate humans whenever they set their eyes on them.

At first, the Galactic Alliance armies were mostly composed of automated or remotely piloted machines. However, in less than five decades of fighting, it became clear that the Scorpions were adapting to humanity's strategies, predicting the behavior of the Galactic army. All odds being the same, clever maneuvers very rarely worked more than once. There was no choice left but to re-introduce the human element back onto the battlefield. Only human, emotion-driven creativity and capacity to think on their feet could counter the speed, strength and strategies of the Scorpion armada.

The Galactic Alliance immediately began the training of soldiers specifically to fight against Scorpions. Weapons technology as well as biological enhancements quickly advanced, sometimes to extreme, and often unethical, levels. All in the attempt to push the human race on equal footing with the superior Scorpion soldiers and technology.

The boundaries set by human rights in the medical field were increasingly blurred in most army research facilities under the guise of strengthening the Galactic force for the preservation of the human race. Human soldiers were subjected to severe physical and mental conditioning. All aspects of culture emphasized the honor of volunteering to the Galactic Army, or volunteering to participate in experiments that would further the goals of the Galactic Alliance.

As the law of the universe dictates, there are many more ways of getting things done wrong than done right, and most of these experiments were bound to fail. But the scientific process thrives in eliminating wrong turns, more so than finding the right ones. So even from the failed endeavors of deranged minds, many important facts were learned. This enabled advances that would be otherwise impossible in weapons and bioengineering. Researchers that succeeded at least partially managed to develop the technology humanity has today in the year 2833.

Culturally, war has become the new normal. Human culture has adapted to one of patriotism, martyrdom, and hate against the Scorpions. Most of the hate for different groups, prejudice or racism has ended, with those tendencies directed at the Scorpions only. Those who are not in the military generally support it, and in some forefront planets which are closer to Scorpion territory speaking badly against the military is considered a crime punishable by death or life in prison.

Almost five-hundred years and multiple generations after the first encounter with the Scorpions, the quest to reach the next level in soldier performance has still not reached its final goal, if there even is such a milestone. While humans have ships and facilities that are almost equal in power to the enemy, a Scorpion is still worth about three or four human soldiers on the battlefield, and their weapons still have more firepower.

The battlefront has been in a stalemate for almost a century, with the same planets switching control periodically. Since now every battle creates massive casualties for both sides, they are best avoided. Still, humans were never able to create the energy blades that generate the characteristic Scorpion's "talon", capable of cutting through pretty much every material in the known universe. Furthermore, the human body is much harder to change than mechanical devices. So in the past years, biological enhancements have been one of the main focuses of the research teams in the Galactic Alliance.

One of the main bases of operations for the Biological Research department is located on the planet Copernico-321. The planet is in a classified location. It is about twice the size of Earth, with a very similar atmosphere. The day in Copernico-321 lasts around thirty Earth hours. It orbits a star very similar to Earth's sun. The planet has about fifty percent of its surface covered in salt-water oceans, small sea life, no fauna in the dry land but excessive flora that grows and develops slightly faster than Earth's.

Humans built bases all over the equatorial line of Copernico-321, where the climate is constant and favorable for training throughout the entire year. The most advanced training and research bases were intentionally built closer to the poles, for harsher training conditions. Cadets can start in the base academy at the age of eight, and move from one facility to another, going further north or south, where the training is more extreme. Their entire education and lives are tailored towards fighting Scorpions in the war. They are raised as a tool of the Galactic Alliance and the Biological Research department.

In one of those facilities, humanity is about to push the barriers of biological enhancement.