Chapter Seven: --continued... again--

The war in the colonies was something that the survivors on Earth could not know about.
The weapon on the moon had absolutely obliterated all semblence of communication on Earth. There was no way that one community could get in contact with another without sending a runner. In this respect, what followed was like the dark ages, when the Roman Empire fell.
The Desruction's final wrath was not unleashed on humanity yet, however. The cities were empty husks, everybody in them dead. Pests thrived on an abundance of food. Survivors were suseptible to plauge from these creatures of Death.
Although they are only rumors and there seems to be no evidence to support these claims, it is said that some of the last cities hit with the weapon were hit with a diminished blast and that, althought the electronics were destroyed, it left humans alive. but only just. the brains were damaged somehow and they no longer felt pain, they lurched around randomly, without purpose. Some were terribly injured, others burnt, and they walked, like the living dead.
In rural communities, people were more fortunate than in the cities. Entire farming communities escaped with their lives. The unfortunate part was, as much as the cities of Earth depended on them, so they depended on the cities. Without new tools or gasoline to power the tool, the farms fell into disrepair and many more people in small towns died of starvation as the farmers started to grow only enough food for themselves.
More still people began to die of the plauges coming out of the cities.
The situation seemed very hopeless for many people. There was one place where something akin to a miracle took place, however. After the cities of earth were destroyed, a platoon of USNA forces in the Middle East ran across a platoon of EAC forces. Although initially the weary soldiers lifter their arms, the commanding officer of the EAC put his hands up and walked over to the USNA's position. He was a rational man by the name Xiang Chui. He was not in the war by choice; fundamnetally he was against the fighting. Some even called him a pacifist, but I personaly doubt that. How would a pacifist rise in ranks throught the military? The USNA's leader, Jeanette McCullah, confered with Chui, and they decided it was in everybody best interests to work together. The weapon had managed to destroy all electronics on earth, and both teams had been out of contact with anybody for weeks.
Both groups were made up entierly of conscripts and honestly had no real racial issues with eachother. Or so, the story goes, at any rate. It seems rather improbable that two fueding groups could suddenly reconocile their diferences in such a microcosm, but who am I to rewrite history?
They used their military experitise to form a kind of community near the city of Bahgdad. It thrived through the years, and the Middle East eventually became the major power in the new World.
Eventually, after about 200 years, the people of Earth began to remake communication lines. Civilisation, this time, was not so dependant on the electronics ofa decadant age of years past.
The radiation inteh atmosphere continued to cause problems, but we overcame them as best we could. There was a new political order rising on Earth. Every country seemed to rise to some sort of Democratic socialism. Borders were largely non-existant because most of the surviving communities were spread far and wide. A sort of World Government arose, calling itself the United Socialist States of Earth.The Middle East proved to be the most powerful, so many poeple identify New Baghdad as the capital of the world. It was where the first new spaceport was developed. From there, we launched ships to Mars and discovered the gruesom history of the colonial war. Although we could not settle the moon ever again, it's convience as a waystation to the stars was too important to give up, so we built large spacestations in orbit around it.
The reamins of the colonies gave us considerable leaps forward in technology.
Before too long, in the historical sense of the word, of course, we once again became the masters of the entire solas system, only this time, it was under one centrialized power, and conflict on a military scale was almost non-existant. There were a few minor scuffles in the early years of the new world order, but nothing that even began to comapre with the War of the Destruction. As a society, we decided to start counting years from zero once again - for historical purposes, we assinged the letters PD for Post Desctruction.
Eventually, the peacful corroberation of the peoples of Earth led to some incredible scientific breakthroughs. The most important and recent of which, of course would have to be the one that brought me here - or, at least to where I was. The development of faster than light travel. It would allow us to build colonies away from the solar system and, ultimately, learn more about the universe at large.