The resulting chaos has only recently been stabilized, due primarily to the heroic efforts of the Global Ecology Organization (GEO). This organization was created by the United Nations in reaction to the Blight and is all that still remains of most of Earth’s original world governments. Conceived of desperation and the threat of human extinction, the GEO was viewed as a powerful and benign champion, the protector of human rights and ecological integrity. During the darkest days of the Blight, the GEO was humanity's last hope for salvation.

Forty years after the Blight was finally eradicated, the memory of the GEO's heroism and its champion's mantle are beginning to fade. Many believe this world government is a powerful and dangerous relic, one that has outlived its usefulness and now threatens the ideals of liberty and justice on which it was founded. The United Nations has been reinstated and has emerged as a new challenge to the GEO's political authority throughout Earth and the Colonies. The GEO has become an unpleasant reminder of a horrific past, as humanity's attention turns to a new world and a new future.

In 2078, long before the outbreak of the Blight, astronomers discovered an anomalous body beyond the orbit of Pluto. During the following years, a series of probes revealed the anomaly to be a rift in space, an example of the hypothetical, astronomical construct

known as a wormhole. Further exploration eventually demonstrated that this phenomenon was, in fact, a traversable passage to another region of space. Humanity looked to the stars with collective awe when it was discovered that an Earth-like planet waited beyond the wormhole: a planet covered by blue oceans and teeming with life; a pristine world, unexplored and unravaged; a waterworld that would become known as Poseidon.

As part of a long-term plan to ease the heavy burden on the Earth’s vanishing resources, the UN member nations began an intensive colony effort, seeding Poseidon with genetically altered human colonists. The Athena Project did much to aid the Earth’s failing economies and social morale. Unfortunately, the Blight struck soon after the colony ships were launched but before the planned resupply ships could be built. Desperate for resources to fight the Blight, the UN was forced to abandon the project and the colonists. This was the first in a long series of harsh decisions the UN would be forced to make in the years that followed.

In spite of the failure of the resupply effort and the lack of contact with Earth, the colonists on Poseidon survived. As their technology wore out and failed, they learned to rely on pioneer ingenuity and their genetically engineered bodies. Spreading across the planet’s surface in small villages and family groups, the colonists adopted a life much like the ancient Polynesians, settling the planet’s countless island archipelagos.

One of the many discoveries made by the colonists was that they were not the only sentient lifeforms on Poseidon. Frustratingly alien in their actions and motivation, these aborigines became a source of fear and mystery for the colonists. Encounters often ended in bloodshed, and superstition grew as evidence of strange empathic abilities was discovered. The true origin and motivations of these beings lies in the ancient history of the planet and is a mystery as dark as the planet’s deepest waters.

As the GEO slowly salvaged the future of the human race, it looked again to the stars. In 2164, a small science vessel was built and sent through the wormhole in hopes of initiating a second colonial effort. No one had anticipated the survival of the original colonists, and those on Earth were stunned to discover the colony had not only survived, but had grown from the 5,000 original colonists to over 40,000 souls.

The recontact mission met with mixed reactions from the original settlers—many were excited and relieved, others were bitter and retreated into uninhabited regions; the majority were calmly indifferent. Poseidon had become their world, and they had become its natives. Contact was welcome but essentially unimportant. They had made their peace with the planet and had no intention of giving up the lives they had built.

Traffic between Earth and Poseidon was minimal at first and consisted mainly of scientific missions and Incorporate research and development teams. At first they had little impact on the natives or the planet, but as Poseidon began to give up its secrets, that quickly changed. The nature of the wormhole and its connection to Poseidon became a source of endless debate. The intelligence of the aborigines became a compelling mystery, as all efforts at contact or capture ultimately failed. The planet’s biological diversity and ecological intricacy defied understanding, and the commonality of DNA remained inexplicable. And, in the planet’s exposed crust, Incorporate geologists found a substance that would eventually motivate a colonial frenzy that not only threatened to change the colonists’ new way of life, but threatened to plunge humanity into a war of survival with an ancient alien legacy. Xenosilicates, commonly called Longevity Ore or Long John, were

first discovered during an Incorporate mineral survey. Though initially a closely guarded secret, word soon leaked about the fantastic potential of the substance. These minerals could be processed to yield biochemical tools of such awesome power that nothing in the realm of genetics remained beyond the control of gene engineers. Humanity had discovered the key to immortality!

On Earth, a world still foul with the smell of the dead, the human race exploded into a colonial gold rush the likes of which history has never known. Almost overnight, company towns began springing up across the waterworld as the Incorporate states imported research scientists and deep-ocean miners by the thousands. Human desperation sent millions rushing to Poseidon to stake their claims and to feed a market driven by humanity’s primal fear of death.

In 2199, Poseidon is a planet of company boomtowns and corporate mining facilities, native settlements and orbiting factories. Life is hard, fast, and amphibious. Frontier law prevails as GEO Marshals try to protect native rights and enforce Incorporate regulations. The aborigines remain a mystery, yet are blamed for increasingly frequent acts of sabotage and carnage. Squadrons of fighter subs guard sea-floor installations, and corporate takeovers often involve marine assault teams. The natives have grown to hate the Incorporate and fear for their new world as environmental extremists incite ecological warfare in defense of the planet. New colonists continue to flood in, hoping for a better life, as ruthless opportunists scavenge what they can. And, lost in the background, scientists preach caution, claiming there is something wrong, something strange going on below the water’s surface.

Welcome to the world of Blue Planet