The transition began on a global scale in the year 2070. Overpopulation had become a huge issue, and food shortages had become almost as dire. The global economy was in absolute shambles, and the terrible state of the world and it's environment had begun to take it's toll on humanity. Due to this, a previously unsurpassed rise in mental disorders and physical deformities began cropping up on a global scale. There were not enough people who were genetically and mentally sound to handle this massive influx of chaos. Riots covered what used to be the most civilized portions of the earth. it wasn't the apocalypse, but it was enough to make world leaders meet to discuss the problem. They spent two years deciding what to do, and as the world outside got worse, their solutions became more and more desperate. when they came to a conclusion on June 22, 2068, they had given up morality for logic. most everyone would have to die. they collaborated with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and NASA, and devised a plan to end all of the problems once and for all. They asked a billion people in a survey what they wanted most. 87% of them selected the " To be happy" option. 3% wanted freedom. The other ten percent answered with " to die. " Using these statistics, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and NASA created an alternate reality that could give anyone what they wanted most in their heads. It would let them create and live in a reality specifically catered to them. They worked with the world's government to create billions of stations where people could go and live in these realities for no money at all. But that's not to say that there wasn't a cost. All across the world, people who were fifteen years old or older had to take a test. It would verify weather or not they were mentally sound and if they were or were not genetically flawed. If the results came back flawed in any way, the people would be given a choice. Either they could live in the world as it was, and be able to have children and deal with all of the costs and the changes that the world was about to go under, or they could give up their life and their right to reproduce and live in a virtual reality for the remainder of their lives, being fully cared for on a intravenous diet and in a biogel capsule. Every five years the people who chose to stay in reality were offered the choice and tested once again. At first, only a few people chose the virtual life. They could communicate to the outside world via email, and show others what their Eworld was like. Many Eworlds collided, and soon it became very popular to put clips of your Eworld onto YouTube and show others what you had created. Due to this, many more people decided to live in the virtual life. Soon, 85% of the world's population lived in Biogel, and only a handful of unstable people walked the earth. There were giant silent cities, once full and noisy, now very quiet and sterile. Many still lived in them, but in facilities dedicated to caring for and keeping the citizens locked safe away in their Biogel. The world was quiet for a short time, while it transitioned into a new age. Then the work for the planet began. Every Realitwer, as those of sound mind and body began calling themselves, began their work. They were required to do much community service, and each had a list of things to do for their years. Every citizen over the age of four had to plant five trees per year and maintain, or help maintain, a garden or a plot of livestock. They also were required to attend school until the age of twenty five. School had changed greatly. Most classes were done outside, and the students chose what they wanted to learn about that day from a selection of 365 things per year. School was every day, for three hours a day. They were fed from the very gardens they tended, from the very animals they nurtured. At the age of twenty five, people were given a list of jobs based on the things they enjoyed or excelled at, usually a combination of the two. They made the world a better place for the remainder of their lives, and each were allowed two children per couple. Suicide barely existed, and cancer and illness had been all but eliminated. The earth began to grow again, as fossil fuel cars were all scrapped and solar power and electronic cars were the only ones that remained. So began an era of world peace, an era where the earth, and humanity, began to heal. The downside to this world peace was that the inhabitants of Biogel began to die of old age. No one noticed except the other people who lived in the Biogel and the people who maintained them and disposed of their bodies. The outside world had forgotten about them in the years that had passed. They saw them occasionally on YouTube, showing of the elaborate lives they had created for themselves. They didn't care if the virtuals died. Because to them, they weren't really alive. Hundreds of thousands died every day, but it would never make it to the news. There was a documentary of las Vegas, a once booming city now turned into a beautiful green desert oasis. The Realitwers were so caught up in the way the earth was healing, in the beauty of their society, that they forgot about the people of the Biogel. The people who cared for them were slowly replaced by robots, who were just as efficient at keeping them alive. Not that there were many left. One and a half billion were left, in their beautiful and fantastical lives. They stopped noticing the deaths in their own communities, and retreated into their own worlds. When the last person who had any deformities died, that was the first time the world noticed a death in a long time. They celebrated and mourned all in the same day. The earth was beautiful and green again, the world had united and we were all one people. Entire continents had been left to heal, every last person had moved to Europe, in order to let the planet be born again. Humanity had learned it's lesson, and had finally begun to fix it's mistakes. It's the year 3050.
A thousand years later, a young girl finds a note in an abandoned building in the middle of some ruins in a forest. It's stuck in some blue gel next to a peaceful looking skeleton. The note says " We died so that you could make the planet live again. Don't think we went into this not knowing that we were all going to die. We sacrificed everything so you could have a future. Do not forget who we were, or that we existed." The girl takes the note home to her mother, and asks her what it means. " I don't know, Dear. It doesn't matter anyways."
