Humanity's Encore

by Deadender Writes

After the Syndicate Wars and the Great Floods, the human sangheili alliance is crippled, and forced into cryogenic sleep. They awake 12,000 years into the future, seeing a world very different than the one they left behind. During a perimeter sweep, they find a creature, who reveals that the alliance has been swept into the middle of a long dormant, but ongoing war.

1. Prologue

A middle-aged man sat down in front of a camera. The camera is more like a Go-Pro in a waterproof case on a tripod. There was no one else in the room with him, since they had all been evacuated off world. The man then pressed a button on the desk, and then the Go-Pro beeped, signaling that it was recording. "Good Evening," the man spoke, "My name is President Johnathan Duncan of the United States of America. I am currently sitting in a room known as the Oval Office, in a building known as the White House, which probably won't exist in about... 10 minutes." The president said this while looking out the window at the gargantuan wall of water in the distance.

"I know that countless other scientists, historians, and politicians have noted the history of the world before me, so I'm just gonna tell you what happened in the past 5 years that triggered humanity's downfall. And I can only hope that you future civilizations watching this can translate this." President Duncan was only 45, but the stress of the past few years had caused his appearance to age dramatically. His hair was glacier white, and he had countless wrinkles and deep shadows under his eyes. He raised his hand to his hair and slicked it back, took a breath, and began to speak.

"Earth year 2014. Earth is visited by a peaceful alien race known as the Sangheili. Sangheili stand seven to eight feet tall. They have skin that ranges from silver-grey to black. Their head elongates forward from their neck like that of a velociraptor, and their mouth is comprised of four mandibles that can move individually, or in synchronization to eat and speak. There was a mass cultural exchange, and they introduced a new way to generate power by harnessing ions from the air. These ion generators were introduced and solved our climate change problem. Oil and energy companies weren't happy about this, but everyone was so enthusiastic about clean and safe energy, that the companies had no choice.

Let's move to 2015. As with all good things, like the Sangheili, there's a dark side. That dark side being a Sangheili named Vul M'daleev. Vul was hellbent on the idea that humans were and impure race, and them and all associated species must be destroyed.
"Vul then did something similar to Hitler's beer hall putsch, an event leading up to World War Two. Vul went to a popular Sangheili gathering place and rallied millions to his cause. The majority of the Sangheili population sided with humanity, so Sanghelios, the homeworld of the Sangheili, fell into civil war.

2016. Vul's side of the war christened themselves "The Syndicate". The Syndicate ended up winning the war, leaving a glassed Sanghelios in their wake. The term "glassed" refers to the process of glassing, in which Sangheili ships fire concentrated, super-heated beams of plasma at the surface of a planet. The immense heat reduces everything to ash, or molten glassing is complete, the surface has been converted to tanzanite, a glass like substance, thus giving the process its name.
"Vul then ordered the Syndicate fleet to Earth, to repeat the glassing process.

"2017. The Sangheili fleet that discovered Earth was alerted to the glassing of Sangheilios, and the approach of the Syndicate fleet. Supreme Fleetmaster Rtas 'Vadum was commanding the discovery fleet, and was more than ready to fight his own species for the betterment of another.

"The Battle for Earth, 2018. Rtas pushes the Syndicate to the arctic poles, to avoid as much collateral damage as possible. The two fleets duke it out, and the Sangheili emerge victorious, or so they thought. The plasma reactors on the destroyed Syndicate ships began to overload, sending out massive heat waves, melting the ice caps like never before. Only then did Rtas realize his mistake. Water levels began to rise globally. In an effort to preserve Human-Sangheili presence on Earth, two cryogenic facilities are built; one housing thousands of Human and Sangheili civilians, the other holding one hundred humans and 50 Sangheili. The other facility serves more militaristic purposes. Thanks to the presence of the Sangheili discovery fleet, we were able to evacuate billions of our kind off world."

The president sighed and looked into the distance at the fast approaching wall of water. "And that finishes my little history lesson. The old saying goes 'A captain goes down with his ship.' America is my ship. And I, the President, am its captain. I bid you farewell."
In the background, the deep rumble of the super-tsunami could be heard. President Duncan said his last words: "God bless America". The rush of water and crashing noises followed, leaving the waterproofed camera floating around.