Several days to half a decade later, maybe in the years before, during and after World War IX, most folk at that time did not have to fight for survival, or scavenge supplies again. And this time, with the existence of other races. Factories produced everything a person could want - by the billions. Walking into a store with a stack of paper money - or bills, they could buy and pay as much food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter, ammo, furniture, supplies, and many more as they could carry. In fact, the biggest "problem" people faced was finding a place to keep it all. Highways stretched three million miles from continent to continent with roadside diners and gas station convenience store selling fresh burgers made from cows, brahmins and many domesticated animals. Riding in gas-guzzling and atomic-powered cars like Chryslus, and drinking ice-cold soda pop, both of the Humans and the Toonatopians enjoyed their prosperity for generations, while the other races do also. Secure in their beliefs that their ways of life would never alter. That they would never be forced to involve. Change came slowly at first. And it was welcomed. People were not satisfied just having a house where fresh water came right out of a pipe in the wall. No, they wanted more. Always more. They wanted robots to do their work for them, and they needed electronic computers and personal computers to do their thinking for them. Companies like RobCo filled the demand for domestic and international robots so that citizens did not have to lift a finger. A robotic Mister Handy could walk the dog, do the laundry and watch over the kids too, leaving mom and dad free to spend an evening on the town, go to work, or to watch the latest shows on the new Radiation King HD television set. If they got lost on the road, an international consumer based on the United States could use the new Personal Information, processors to see where they needed to go without ever needing to open a map. Of course all of these new-fangled technological wonders needed power to run. Gasoline had been plentiful for over two thousand years, but the Earth had started to run dry by the middle of the 30th century. More and more of the power came from renewable energy and, thanks to companies like General Renewable Energy, there where hydroelectricity, wind power, solar power, geothermal power, rain power, tidal power, and wave power to power electricity up for decades to come. Cities and towns lit up, robots kept on humming and computer monitors kept flowing. Some factories even started turning out renewable energy-powered cars with water, wind, sunlight, geothermal power and raindrops as fuels and that still also have some juice in them today - so do not go using those rusted old cars, like that rusted old Corvegas, for target practice. Factories churned out toys for the kids, teddy bears, tricycles and comic books by the ton. Dad could mix his rum with a bottle of soft drink, like Nuka Cola, and mom had new spring fashions every year. Shelves were filled with snacks - snack cakes, canned meats, sugar-coated cereals, and more - all of it are not pumped full of preservatives, but are only pumped with a very healthy chemical - Chemical XYZ, to make sure they are a little bit healthier than any other pre-Toonatopian junk food, and so that it would also stay fresh forever and mom would not have to take so many trips to the grocery store. You see, when it came to consumption - the Humans and the Toonatopians were the best, as same as all races in the Earth and as the Americans. Yet even with the increased numbers of houses, commercial buildings, industrial buildings, government buildings and military buildings, there was not enough energy for a trillion of people across the world. Oil was more precious than ever, especially in pre-World War III times, and the oil-rich countries of the world demanded their dwindling oil supplies in the last gas stations at ever-higher prices, or maybe they also need more oil to be discovered in other planets in the Universe to ensure that oil is going to be found, but terraforming is essentially needed, so astronauts left Earth for terraforming and prospecting. Eventually the oil wells ran dry in most of the world. The very rare ore mines were scraped also clean, but no one wanted to give up their shiny, new and improved technologies. Change had come and with it, war. But that - is a story for another day.