ForkBraid

The Price of Peace

Folcrom Forkbraid as one of the most powerful psychics on Earth has one very satisfying job. He is head of the Earth's international remote viewing teams that are responsible for keeping peace on Earth. He is also one of the Flinders Psychic Academy's Grey Council members on Flinders Island between the large island of Tasmania and the Australian mainland.

For centuries the psychic remote viewing teams around the globe have been responsible for maintaining peace on Earth. A peace maintained by constant vigilance, the remote viewing teams actively scan the minds of the Earth's inhabitants, seeking out those who would commit premeditated crimes and atrocities against their fellow citizens. Thus would-be terrorists, murderers and criminals are located whilst making their nefarious plans and then the authorities are sent in to round them up for appropriate treatment. Very rare has become the violence of the Earth's past. So successful have the psychics been, that they have even been able to help others in need wherever they find them.

Centuries ago it was said by one of Forkbraid's ancestors that the price of freedom would be constant vigilance, so too would be the price of peace. Thus peace on Earth was maintained, however, all was not well in this "perfect" future. For in this future some centuries from now, humanity has also colonized L5 in cis-lunar space and the far-flung reaches of the solar system. They have even terraformed their neighboring planet Mars. These colonies and realms have developed their own cultures and political systems, many being fiercely independent of the Earth, having spread across the vastness of the solar system.

Lord Folcrom Forkbraid as the leader of the remote viewing teams had long said that most of Humanity lives off-world now and off-world, is the one place they could not scan. A psychic's gifts come undone when fear, uncertainty and doubt fill their minds. As a result, very few psychics could use their gifts off-world, only the most powerful amongst them.

A secret plan had been put in place to set up a new colony on the newly terraformed Mars, a colony of psychics. An attempt to duplicate on Mars, the well-maintained peace that has been long managed on Earth, thus creating another world at peace amongst a solar system in chaos.

So when a terrorist bomb explodes in one of their very own Psychic Academies, the very one at which Folcrom Forkbraid himself lives. The explosion occurs during a psychic induction ceremony for young psychic children, resulting in the deaths of many of them. A place that ought to have been safe from all and any strife, many are mystified as to how this could have happened.

The heinous crime was plotted not on the Earth, but in the one place that the remote viewing teams could not scan. Off world! For psychics, gifts come undone when fear, uncertainty and doubt, clouds their minds and very few psychics on Earth can use their gifts off-world beyond their Mother Earth.

There are only two psychics who can use their gifts fully off-world and Forkbraid being the more powerful of the two is tasked with tracking down the terrorists hidden amongst the myriad colonies of L5 in cis-lunar space. A hunt that will potentially take Forkbraid across the solar system and into the far-flung reaches of space. A hunt that takes Forkbraid through the scattered colonies of humanity which are themselves full of surprises and not at all like Earth. A hunt that takes Forkbraid further from his mother Earth than he has ever been.

For the price of freedom is constant vigilance, what now is the price of peace?