Our away teams, down on Earth 2, have been making some fascinating discoveries. Most of the above-ground structures, buildings and skyscrapers are long gone, crumbled into dust, rust, and rubble, a result of 400 years of weather and decay. Underground areas, on the other hand, are a different story.
In Paris, some stone walls remain from the historic buildings that once comprised the city. Heavily worn statues, covered in vines, dot the forests where city parks once stood. And, interestingly enough, a number of underground areas are still accessible. One of these areas is the Louvre – the crypt and medieval areas to be exact. A series of art storage rooms were also found, although, the canvas art discovered there is largely decayed. Some ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian statues, however, do remain.
London has been a bit less preserved. The crumbling walls of old cathedrals dot the forest, parts of the ancient London Wall still stand (partially buried by debris in some places), and the stone shell and crypt of Westminster Abby remain. A few areas of the London subway have also been found, and various debris dumps down there, suggest that some of those subway tunnels may have been used as hospitals or medical triage centers at some point.
Almost nothing remains of San Francisco. The rusted lower supports of the Golden Gate Bridge do still rise out of the bay, and recon flyovers were able to spot the rest of the bridge collapsed beneath the water. Parts of the massive pillars of the Bank of California building were also found rising out of the hills. A partial structure wall here and there are about the extent of anything else still visible above ground. Some uncollapsed street car tunnels were also discovered. Nothing, however, points to any historical records that would be helpful to us, here in 2365.
And finally, there’s New York City, or, at least the former site upon which it stood. Our base camp was established in the shallow forest valley that was once Central Park, and we’ve been exploring outward from there. The feet of the Brooklyn and Queensboro Bridges still exist, as do parts of the New York Public Library, Grand Central Station, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We have also discovered many areas of the New York subway system. The attached photo features one of the better preserved subway stations still sitting quietly below the forest. We lit it up for dramatic effect.
Overall, there is very little to suggest the fate of the people who lived on Earth 2. The historical evidence that does remain, seems to support abandonment in the 1950’s or 1960s. But what happened to cause this level of abandonment? Did these humans succumb to global war? Did they die out from a plague? Did they – somehow – abandon the planet, and relocate elsewhere? We may never know. But you can bet we’ll keep exploring. These forests, ruins and tunnels will give up their stories – eventually.
-Lieutenant Sam Archer
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May 14, 2365 -- (Original Devron Timeline)