Savants were seen as suspicious characters on Earth. As technology developed, the ability to download your mind into a mechanical artificial brain enabled humans to live eternally as cyborgs. However this unnatural activity was seldom practiced, and those who made the transition were seen as mysterious, eccentric and even alien, by the rest of the human population. They seldom sat down, did not eat or sleep, wore black robes, to hide their mechanical, alloy frame, and had distinguishable, ruby eyes. Many humans felt uncomfortable around them.
None the less, there were Savants in many high-ranking positions, in and around the structural make up of The WHU. There was one aboard the first Destiny Class ship that travelled to Coyote in 2256. And there was one due to travel to Coyote in 2260…
Gregory Hull was a Savant who specialised in studying human behaviour in colonies. He was the first to theorise that, should the first ship sent to Coyote in 2070, the survive, the colonists of that ship, the Alabama, would be resistant to interference to outsiders, and be committed to mainlining their independence. As a result, The Glorious Destiny travelled to Coyote with Union Guard soldiers, as well as colonists.
However, Gregory Hull was confident that the original settlers would have retaliated even against an organised force.
Conditions on Earth were rapidly deteriorating. Natural resources had been exhausted, global warming had rendered entire counties uninhabitable, as shorelines disappeared, and oceans continued to rise. Only the mining of Helium on the Moon prevented human extinction, but the Moon was only a temporary home. Coyote was essential to human survival…
The Union was not prepared to allow the colony to fall out of it’s control, and intended to fight to assert itself.
As a result, The Spirit, the next ship to leave earth for Coyote, reluctantly captained by Fernando Baptiste… became a military operation…
