A. Once humans begin farming in space, the wealthy move onto luxurious space stations while relying on the Earth for resources and labor. Instead of there being a rebellion, the stationers begin seeing themselves as above normal humanity.
1/A FILL: After the Blight struck, there was no choice but to move agriculture production to the orbital farms. Which meant building a place where humans could live.
Some nights, the sky looks nearly blocked out by the ag-farms. They’re curving bends of metal and plastic, each its own little world, containing thousands of people living miles away from the problems of the Earth below.
The ag-farms once answered to Earth command, but after the War they governed themselves. They chose to use their newfound independence to make themselves into the kings of the sky, doling out food with ungracious superiority.
The Dirt People toiled in factories and in mines while the Exalted enjoyed the fruits of their labors. Ever more fantastical scientific advancements were made on the backs of the people, but the wonders they created were not for themselves.
While the lifespans of the Exalted grew ever longer, the lives of the people became short and filled with sickness and discontent.
What parts of the Earth not destroyed by the Blight were damaged as the people were forced to dig deep and drag out the precious ore.
Year by year, the dying cries of the planet made themselves known to the people. From earthquakes and tornadoes, to explosions of hidden gas and mile long fissures that opened with deadly suddenness. Yet the Exalted did not listen to the dying cries of the people.
They floated high above the world in their shiny and clean habitats, served by their robots and genemod slaves. They lay in their healing pods and never felt pain or old age.
And still it was not enough for them. As the people suffered, the Exalted built spaceships and mined stars. They traveled into the Depths and transformed planets and moons to meet their demands.
The Exalted promised the people a new home as a reward for their hard work. The people would live on a fresh world ripe with life. As long as they were loyal and true, their children would grow in lands of plenty.
But it was a lie.
The people were never to see their new home. Instead, as a reward for all their years of misery and hunger, they were Culled.
Everything that they were and could have been was distilled down to the most basic of components and mixed into something new. Their lives were pasteurized, homogenized, and bottled.
The Exalted had found the means by-which they could live forever. All it required was the death of billions of people at regular intervals.
