DeepStorm OutTack

Planet Earth is hurtling irrevocably from extinction toward Mass Extinction. Calls for action over Climate Change, Environmental & Wildlife Conservation and finally Overpopulation were heeded late by world leaders. Too much was lost. And, yet, might something worse be happening? Something so great that Planet B becomes mankind's destiny?

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An international team of researchers is assigned to live and work in the newly built Near Earth Territories, comprising a squadron of Giga-vessels (each 2.6 billion cubic meters) anchored in Earth orbit. The spaces within, bathed in real sunlight, exemplify the best of nature with rural areas equivalent in every respect to the greenest provinces on Earth.

Least qualified among the scientists is Sashia, a paraplegic who surprisingly becomes a rock on which they all depend. Doctors Mei Sai Ling and Steven Nord form the scientific team's backbone, headed by Professor Mark Madison and assisted by FayWell, the enigmatic Artificial Intelligence to the squadron.

They research natural disasters that began to grow at the turn of the millennium, looking for similarities in the Cretaceous Mass Extinction - starting with Climate Change - to determine all factors in the demise of dinosaurs. Their findings are ground-breaking, casting new light on that event. All the while seeing news coverage that becomes increasingly grim, as refugees fleeing disasters swell mass migrations, civil strife grips the globe and new styled warlords battle with United Nation Security Council forces over provinces. Then the researchers come under attack; their escort, the biggest and best US Navy battle-carrier, is targeted.

The whole scene is of the demise of life as we've known it on Earth. The human species is as much a casualty as all the other species in this Mass Extinction - childbirth licensing to cap populations was introduced far too late. 

And, yet, it is also the birth of a new species - in effect one that has outgrown planet Earth. The Territories squadron is predominantly manned by young adults who had a start as designer-babies. Made to reside permanently in space they are the beginning of a new, mutated, branch of the human species - extraterrestrial.

As for the Earth: It's not too late. Time to let nature revive and evolve on its own...