The N.I.L.E. Project: Strange Horizons

By 2063 Earth’s population hit ten billion people. With human civilization at a critical breaking point the only alternative to forcing a mass culling was an expansion into the stars. The most brilliant minds that the world had to its name did not falter in their task to save humanity. The solution lied in the nearby Alpha Centauri system. Thanks to the help of AI and quantum computers, a synthetic wormhole was created to allow settlement on a new planet, named Beta Earth. This new land was full of opportunity, and after a couple of years thriving communities were established with the help of reclusive trillionaire, Åsa Haas. Haas Industries paved the way for humanity to continue with the development of astromining. Rare earths were abundant on Beta Earth, and fueled Earth’s exponentially hungry tech industry. However, trouble soon broke out in the new communities. Workers were being exploited, and in 2073 a deadly uprising threatened to throw humanity into chaos once again. To combat this inequality the United Nations formed a peace keeping task force, called the New Inquisition into the Lifeforms of the Extraterrestrial, or N.I.L.E. for short. Doctor de la Muerta was hand picked to spearhead the project by Haas Industries, but things quickly took a downward turn on Beta Earth. Doctor de la Muerta was arrested for murder, returned to Earth to serve a life sentence, and lost everything to her name. Now it is 2078, and stirrings are afoot on Beta Earth once more as Haas Industries is preparing to step into a new light with Åsa’s sixteen-year-old daughter Leonie traveling to Beta Earth for the first time. It’s anyone’s guess what kind of unrest awaits her when she gets there. Will these strange horizons in the stars prove salvageable, or is humanity doomed to overpopulate themselves into extinction?