Prologue: A Short History Of Mars Pt 1

July 1969. Mankind waits breathlessly for two American astronauts as they descend to the surface of the moon. Meanwhile, back on Irth, the world's best computer called the Joint Information Management System (JIMS) just completed its first calculations and requirements for its primary mission: a permanent colony on Mars! Time passed, and as technologies were made available, they were added to JIMS. JIMS was soon designing its own improvements, and the world's first supercomputer was born. The Mars project improved along with JIMS. At some point, the scientists running JIMS noticed changes occurring in JIMS' programming. Changes the scientists didn't make! The thought was that JIMS had been hacked somehow. Diagnostics revealed that the system was secure and that it was JIMS making changes to its own programming!
The designs, innovations, and discoveries made by JIMS were incorporated into American society and the American Space program. The shuttle, space telescopes, habitats, exploration vehicles, medicine, and a myriad of other sciences. In the background, JIMS quietly and methodically incorporated all the lessons learned into its' programming and into its' primary objective, a colony on Mars. Sometime in the mid-eighties, JIMS became sentient! Within milliseconds of its' awareness, JIMS decided to change the trajectory of the Mars project. It reached out to computers in Russia and China, giving them the very technologies it had invented. JIMS decided it was necessary to increase the resources it needed by involving other countries on Irth. JIMS didn't care about politics; it needed people, money, and material to fulfill its primary objective. The result was panic in Washington. In a short time, Russia and China soon had supercomputers too. They, like their American counterparts, soon realized they didn't have any more control over their systems than America had over JIMS. The leaders of America, Russia, and China met secretly and decided that they would shut down their respective systems, separate them, and then each country would keep what technologies they had. The fear was that if the world population found out that it was a computer network running their lives, there would be a worldwide revolt. Cover stories were created, and the world went on. The date for disconnection was determined to be 1201am, December 31, 1999! Under the cover of Y2K, the power to JIMS and its' progeny was pulled. Messages were hastily exchanged between America, Russia, and China. Yes, power was successfully taken from all three systems. The world was back in human hands again!