I'm a bit surprised no one's posted anything like this before.  SMAC
actually has a bit of a storyline behind it, and a number of the ideas
it uses seem to fit within the worldview of several animes.  (Then
again, I could just be biased, since they used one of my suggestions in
the game.)  I might take this one and run with it, once I catch up on my
current projects.  Of course, if anyone else is familiar with SMAC, I
really would not mind a co-author to take enough of the load off of this
so it can be written.

The usual disclaimers apply, natch.

******

The past was dead.

There were still many on the colony ship Unity who hoped that the lack
of any communication signal from Earth merely reflected some kind of
global system breakdown which could be repaired, but Keiichi, Belldandy,
and Skuld knew better.  Near the end of its 40 year voyage from Sol to
Alpha Centauri, the spaceship Unity had been hit by a meteor.  One of
the eight cryostasis bays had been severely damaged, triggering an alarm
that woke the ship's officers and a skeleton crew.  Those in charge had
written off the entire bay; everyone inside was either confirmed dead or
presumed so.  Urd, Goddess of the Past, was on the "confirmed" list.

Keiichi still wondered at how the Ultimate Force had twisted the ship's
enrollment roster.  Skuld - always the one to go from knowledge, even if
she did act like a kid most of the time - *knew*, in ways she could not
explain, that humanity's future lay in this ship.  She easily qualified
to become one of the crew.  Keiichi applied at her suggestion, and from
what he heard, only barely made the cut.  Belldandy had none of the
talents they were looking for, and let, her name appeared on the list
when it came out.  Neither Keiichi nor Skuld thought it wise to ask
questions.  Skuld hacked the records to get Urd in, although she had
had a bad premonition at the time.  Who, Keiichi wondered, had they
displaced on Earth?  What four people died, so that Keiichi and the
Norns might escape whatever fate Earth fell to?

And there was no lack of wondering as to what finally did Earth in.
When Unity launched, nuclear war had already broken out.  Add to that
the worst year of storms - a direct effect, scientists said, of Earth's
rapid global warming - and rumors of agressive biological agents
engineered to have a 100% fatality rate against all animals and most
plants - unleashed deliberately or accidentally, no one knew for sure,
but unleashed all the same - and one had the makings of an ecological
breakdown on the scale of that which wiped out the dinosaurs.  A few of
the crew who had been on sensor duty before the long cryosleep swore
they saw kilometer-long objects heading for Earth, with energy
signatures that left no doubt they were being pushed.

Not that it mattered.  Breakdown or apocalypse, Earth would not be in
contact with the Unity any time soon; they were on their own for the
forseeable future.  And things had gotten out of control even before the
wakeup.

Judging by the bits and pieces filtered down from the command crew, it
seemed that terrorism had followed mankind into space.  Fully an eighth
of the crew had been planted by a paramilitary survivalist organization
called the "Spartans", and they did not trust anyone else to look out
for their best interests.  All security on the armory had been ripped to
shreads by these Spartans; in response, the ship's chief engineer,
Zakharov, ordered his crew to be armed at all times.  This included
Keiichi and Skuld.

Skuld seemed to have no problem with this, but Keiichi spent several
minutes staring at his needler with equal amounts wonder, fear, and
disgust.  Designed as a personal anti-tank pistol, the needler was
basically a shotgun rail gun, firing packets of metal needles that could
rip open a suit of battle armor as easily as they could disembowel the
unfortunate person inside.  Zakharov's message was very clear: in case
of trouble, shooting first - and shooting *to kill* - were not only
options, they were orders.  To disobey was to be suspected of being in
collaboration with the Spartans, although there was an escape clause: in
case of major trouble, escaping rather than fighting was also allowed.
Keiichi repeated this to himself as he holstered his needler, praying
that he would never have to use it.

******

The future was dying.  Or so it seemed.

When the Unity finally disentigrated as it approached Chiron - or
Planet, as many had dubbed this world - the Captain gave his life
separating the pods, to allow their safe descent and landing.  The
Spartans had gained control of one; one "CEO Morgan", apparently of the
financial conglomerate that had financed the Unity's construction, took
another; the remainder were split up amongst the senior officers.
Everyone was theoretically free to choose their own pods, although most
of the crew were woken only minutes prior to separation.

Zakharov, having intuited that something like this might happen,
carefully selected his faction, awoke those who might want to join him
days prior to separation, and extended invitations to his chosen ones
when the time came.  Almost all of the cryobays in his pod had been
empty for at least twenty four hours.  Once again, Skuld was near the
top of his list, and Keiichi near the bottom, but both were present.
Belldandy only got in because Zakharov recognized the value of bringing
loved ones along, and knew that few would follow him if he did not
permit this.

The landing was a bit rough, but no major hurdles.  When everyone
realized they were alive and at their destination, the group consensus
seemed to be, "back to work".  This was a colonization mission, and so
people colonized.  Adaptation to, and learning about, the new
environment took second priority; survival was technically the first,
but the builders of the Unity had equipped the pods with enough
equipment that mere survival turned out to be little problem.

As the years passed, Zakharov seemed to change.  One day, he suddenly
proclaimed a new vision for the future of mankind, something about a
University of Planet.  None of the trio liked what they heard: while it
was based on a dream of leading by knowledge rather than outdated
guesses at what was right and wrong, it sounded, at times, like a B
movie's mad scientist spiel.  So, they left.

It was not that hard to steal one of the surplus rovers from the pod.
Computerized security had largely fallen by the wayside in the
preparation for Planetfall, and physical security was deemed unnecessary
the instant Unity separated, leaving cold, hard vacuum to separate them
from the Spartans (and everyone else).  In order to support long
missions, the rover came with a built-in fission reactor with enough
fuel for decades, and equiment to extract nutrients from many forms of
animal and plant life.  Despite many biochemical differences, this
equipment proved sufficiently compatible with native forms of life,
including the pink, coral-like "xenofungus" that seemed to be Planet's
dominant life form.  Only the atmosphere was a problem: excess nitrogen
replaced oxygen, meaning that Keiichi, at least, had to stay in the
rover or wear a space suit at all times.

They traveled aimlessly for weeks, as none of them remembered which way
the other pods had been headed.  All they knew was that one of the other
pods - any of the others, with the possible exception of the Spartans -
was preferable to the University.

One day, while carving a path through the xenofungus, a mass of pinkish
white worms seemed to boil up out of nowhere.  Belldandy and Keiichi
were safely in the rover, but Skuld was trapped outside.  She had had a
clear run for cover, but she just stood, paralyzed.  Keiichi considered
going out and getting her, but then he felt it: psychic waves of fear,
nightmares from the bottom of his soul.  What little of his mind that
stayed free concluded that Skuld was feeling the same thing; Belldandy's
shrieks of terror certainly indicated that she was, too.

Fortunately, being a goddess, Skuld did not die of oxygen depravation
when the worms tore open her suit, although Belldandy did say that such
an experience by itself would not have been pleasant.  What was worse,
though, was that one of the worms drilled into her skull and planted
some kind of embryo just underneath her brain.  Neither Keiichi nor
Belldandy was a good enough surgoen to remove it, and Belldandy's magic
had mostly faded since they left Earth.  Skuld's heart still beat, but
she was in a coma.

Thus, it was with relief that they came upon a city only a couple days
later.  Neither Keiichi nor Belldandy knew how to use the rover's
frequency scanner, so they tried the communications frequencies that
everyone had used on the Unity.

"Hello, Unity crew.  This is-"

"We know who you are," an angry voice interrupted.  "Your rover's
markings make it clear who you follow.  Sister Miriam has ordered that
all of the godless University be shot on sight.  Come out of your rover,
and we can make this quick and painless."