Earth

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''This article is about the planet itself. For information about its state of affairs as of the 22nd century, see: State of the World.''

Earth, also known as Sol III or Terra, is the third planet from its parent star Sol in the Sol system. With a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere and with 71.3% of its surface covered in liquid water (as of 2114), Earth is the only planet in the system with conditions naturally suited for sapient life.

The birthplace of humanity, Earth has served as the capital of the United Nations and is the largest and most developed planet under UN control. With a population of nearly 10 billion people and counting, Earth has developed a massive overpopulation crisis slowly mitigated by humanity's exodus to planets such as Mars, Venus, and Luna, Earth's own moon.

Early Space Age
Amidst worldwide disasters becoming more and more prominent from the 2020s onwards, worldwide governments had begun putting more and more research and budget into space exploration, with the ultimate goal to set humans on Mars as well as establish a permanent presence on the Moon.

Luna eventually saw the landing of a small research base, Artemis, on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility in 2027 as a joint effort between most major space agencies, crewed by eight astronauts. This marked a first step in permanent presence and would crucially serve as a research centre for the effects of long-term habitation away from Earth on a foreign celestial body. Artemis was joined by another larger module in 2031, sent by Roscosmos, and eventually crewed by 12 astronauts for 20 permanent residents in total, at the time dwarfing even the International Space Station for the most people in a single habitat away from Earth.

In 2033, the Prosperity series of missions launched with the goal to survey Mars for landing, with the Prosperity V mission in 2038 culminating in the first astronauts to land on Mars, captained by American astronaut Eric Scofield, followed by German astronaut Niels Heinig and Indian astronaut Sharya Bhaumik. They had achieved humanity's dream of landing on the Red Planet, and fed back considerable amounts of research to Earth. Subsequent Prosperity missions, VI thru IX, furthered landings to Mars, gathering more research and eventually building an outpost there as well in 2042.

Middle East Oil Crisis
By the years of 2038 thru 2040, the oil and coal reserves of the Middle East, among the last remaining pockets in the world, eventually had reached critically low levels. Oil and coal prices had already begun skyrocketing a year prior, and this eventually led to the nations in the Middle East strapped for cash. Destabilization of the economy had led to crisis, followed by war. Crashes in the economies spanning most of the Middle East, especially the Arabian Peninsula, led to guerilla fightings and the formation of various insurgent groups.

This culminated with the largest terrorist cell, Huriya, raiding and taking control of an Iranian nuclear missile silo and launching two nuclear ICBMs for the Arabian peninsula, leveling the region and transforming it into radioactive wasteland. An additional missile was additionally bound for Israel but was shot down before it could detonate. The silo was later raided by surviving Iranian forces, killing most of the Huriya insurgents inside.

This was only the second usage of nuclear weapons in active conflict since World War II, and scared the public into believing that nuclear fission was only a route to destruction. Nuclear reactors, which had already been seen as dangerous by the public despite ongoing efforts to miniaturise and further reinforce their safety, were met with strong protest by the public.

A cascading series of events including NATO-led accusations that China and Russia had funded and encouraged the formation of the insurgent forces in the Middle East led to the spark of a new Cold War between the East and West, followed by market crashes and economic depressions worldwide. Due to the death of fossil fuel energy as well as the defunding of nuclear power in Europe, most energy generation relied on the renewable energy grid, which even by this time still remained insufficient to power the continent, causing rampant blackouts and energy rationing.

Nuclear fusion company Axiom Dynamics, which would later be known as the AXIOM Corporation, seized this mistrust in fission reactors to push their fusion reactors to governments worldwide. Through a mixture of lobbying and taking advantage of economic destabilisation they rose to power and managed to seize both the nuclear fission and fossil fuel energy percentages of the grid, monopolizing the energy industry in Europe and, eventually, North America.