The Divergence

Humanity spreads to both the stars and the depths of the Earth.

In 2247, humanity stood at a crossroads. Earth’s surface was a patchwork of storms and ruins, scorched by climate collapse and resource wars. Two paths emerged: one reaching for the stars, the other burrowing into the planet’s bones.


The Skybound, as they called themselves, built arks to colonize Mars, Titan, and the asteroid belt. Their ships, powered by fusion drives, carried millions to new frontiers. They engineered domes, terraformed valleys, and mined comets, chasing a dream of interstellar dominion. Their story was one of defiance against Earth’s decay, a saga of steel and ambition.


But another group, the Underdwellers, turned inward. They saw the surface as a lost cause and the stars as a gamble too far. Led by geologist Mara Kade, they descended into the Earth’s crust, seeking refuge in its ancient caves. Their creed was simple: adapt, endure, rebuild. They chose the deep places—natural caverns stretching beneath continents, where stalactites hung like chandeliers and underground rivers sang.


The Underdwellers began in the Mammoth Cave system, Kentucky, a labyrinth spanning hundreds of kilometers. They brought plasma throwers, experimental tools that superheated stone into a glowing, malleable state. The throwers didn’t just melt rock; they altered its molecular structure, turning granite and basalt into a pliable, clay-like material that cooled into a substance stronger than steel yet light as pumice. They called it “vitraclay.”


Mara’s team worked tirelessly. Plasma jets hissed, illuminating caverns with an eerie red glow. They molded vitraclay into arches, domes, and spiraling ramps, transforming caves into vast underground cities. Walls gleamed with embedded phosphorescent minerals, casting soft light. They carved channels for subterranean rivers, powering turbines for energy. Mushrooms and hydroponic algae farms fed them, while recyclers purified air and water.


As years passed, the Underdwellers spread. Scouts mapped new cave systems—Waitomo in New Zealand, Carlsbad in New Mexico, Škocjan in Slovenia. They linked these networks with tunnels, bored by plasma throwers and reinforced with vitraclay. Each city took on its own character: Crystalhold, with its shimmering quartz walls; Riverdeep, where glowing boats drifted on subterranean streams; and Stonehaven, a fortress-city carved beneath the Alps.


Above, the Skybound thrived in their own way. Mars’ Valles Marineris bloomed with greenhouses, and Titan’s methane lakes powered floating refineries. But they faced relentless challenges—radiation, isolation, and the crushing cost of survival. X posts from the colonies told of triumphs and tragedies: a new dome on Ceres, a mining disaster on Io. The Skybound mocked the Underdwellers as “mole people,” clinging to a dying world.


The Underdwellers ignored the taunts. Their plasma throwers opened new frontiers below, revealing wonders: glowing crystal caverns, fossilized forests, even pockets of microbial life untouched for eons. They developed a culture of resilience, their art and music echoing through stone halls. Mara, now elderly, became a legend, her journals detailing the philosophy of the deep: “The Earth is not dead. She breathes beneath us, and we are her keepers.”


Yet tensions simmered. The Skybound needed rare minerals—lithium, cobalt, uranium—locked in Earth’s crust. They sent drones to mine the surface, but the Underdwellers, protective of their world, sabotaged them. Skirmishes erupted, not of bullets but of code and stealth, as hackers disrupted drones and satellites. The divide deepened: one humanity, two futures.


By 2300, the Underdwellers’ network spanned the globe, a subterranean web rivaling the Skybound’s solar empire. In their deepest city, Abyssreach, they uncovered something extraordinary—a vast chamber where vitraclay naturally formed, pulsing with strange energy. Mara’s successor, a young engineer named Kael, believed it was a new resource, perhaps a key to fusion-like power. The Underdwellers stood on the brink of a revolution.


High above, a Skybound captain gazed at Earth from a Martian orbital station. She wondered about the “moles” below, their silent cities glowing in the dark. The solar system hummed with human life, but the planet still held secrets. For the first time, she considered reaching out.


The Underdwellers, shaping stone with fire, and the Skybound, stitching life across the void, were two halves of a fractured whole. Whether they would clash or converge, only time would tell. But in the deep, where vitraclay flowed like a promise, Kael dreamed of a day when both could call Earth home again.