Ceres Holodisks

The end result of a twenty-year project started in the year 2010, the Ceres Holodisks are the physical representation of the combined knowledge of humanity, as of the outbreak of World War Three in the year 2143.

The holodisks incorporate infrastructural, technological, medical, biological, scientific and military advancement into one easily accessible information repository and, as such, are widely regarded as the most important historical relic known in the 28th Century.

Conceived by Doctor Karmann at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the idea started out as a way to see just how far the holodisk technology - which had only been available to the general public for five years at that point - could be pushed.

It wasn't until Karmann and his team were collating ideas on just what to fill the holodisks with that the cause behind the project became a noble one. Rather than a simple marketing stunt conducted by a proponent of the new data storage technology, Karmann proposed that the Ceres Project become a way to counter the darker side of human nature.

With a third world war only being a question of when rather than if, the holodisks were intended to be the tool with which the human race would rise from the ashes of their own self-destruction. The name Ceres came from the Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility and was used to paint the combined knowledge of humanity as the fruits born from the seeds of the great scientific minds of history.

However, in the year 2028, just two years before the project was estimated to be complete and following a press conference in which he said that a primitive society could use the holodisks to build and utilise nuclear power within fifty years, Karmann was found murdered in his own home. Following his death, the Ceres Project - at least in the eyes of the public - was scrapped. The funding was halted without warning and the holodisks themselves were taken from MIT.

While rumours about the government's involvement ran rife for years, nothing could ever be proved. The Ceres Holodisks weren't seen again for over 500 years and were only found again when an expedition led by the tribal remnants of humanity following World War Three found the subterranean bunker which had once been the hidden NSA laboratory in which the Ceres Project had continued in secret, its information periodically updated to remain relevant and avoid becoming obsolete.

Over the course of the next two centuries, the Ceres Holodisks influenced the path of humanity, allowing them to reclaim a semblance of their former glory and give birth to what is now the pinnacle of their tenacity and continued survival: the city of Neocron.