Story Seed - After the Fall

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Nobody ever expected this. We thought the enemy was desperate for resources and tech, we thought that we had the upper hand.

We were wrong.

When it started it seemed like any other conflict. Land grabs, tactical strikes, and men killing men. We saw what they had, their numbers, their tech, the weapons they had, and we thought that we understood them. We were confident that our analyses were right and that they couldn't sustain a lasting conflict. We were right.

And we were so very wrong.

The enemy saw our strength. They saw that their weapons and numbers were insufficient for the long term conflict. They retreated, pulled back and fortified, and enacted the plan they had all along.

They fled to the stars.

And before they left the released a kill agent. Probably they hadn't found a way to make to tactically compliant so instead they altered their tactics. The weapon, whatever it was, tore apart like at the molecular level. It unraveled DNA like unzipping a jacket and then moved on. It killed the world.

And it would have killed us, but it stopped short. There were no human casualties. It decimated plants and animals. It tore through the biosphere like a rock through wet paper. In the end we turned on ourselves to survive. Humanity, consuming itself in the dust of a dead world.