Read Betrayal: Book Three of Allies and Adversaries Page 10

The transformation of Core from one of ecological diversity to technological dominance was a slow one. As the population began to exponentially increase, several experiments were carried out concerning the feasibility of establishing cities underwater. None of these proved successful, as the cities could never be large enough to conquer the feeling of isolation they engendered. So, after several planet-wide votes in the third millennium PD, it was finally decided to drain the oceans, to construct massive metal reservoirs to hold the world’s water supply. Over the next thousand cas the ocean bed was stabilized and eventually became Foundation. Over it was constructed the new space needed for population growth.

  The reservoirs eventually proved inadequate as a sole water supply for the planet. As void-travel grew in sophistication, moons of other planets were drilled into, and their ice brought back to Novan. At the time of the Ascension is was widely known in the hierarchy of the Leviathan that the supplies of ice from neighboring moons were nearing total exhaustion, in effect condemning the Novan race to death.