The News
From Reach
... eight million dead in today's attack on Beijing by South American paramilitary forces. - First transmission received from Earth.
After completing the thousand year journey to Reach, the colonists eagerly turned powerful radio telescopes towards Earth, hoping for news from home. What they heard was a shocking tale of blood and war. In the 200 years between the colonist's departure and the broadcast of the first signal received, the world descended into a continuous war.
The advent of effective, inexpensive ballistic missile defense systems brought an end to the nuclear deterrent system. Nations could no longer rain nuclear death on one another by pressing a "big red button." Nukes got smaller and cheaper, and soon every modern military boasted an arsenal of nukes that could be fired from tanks, mobile artillery, even shoulder-mounted launchers. It was only a matter of time before these micronukes got deployed to the front lines in a major conflict. The use of nuclear weapons drew the international community into the conflict, and within a few years, every nation in the world was at war. New troop deployment systems, such as orbital drop pods, take the fight directly into urban population centers. This, combined with the high collateral damage of micronukes, causes massive civilian casualties.
800 light years away, Reach's population follows humanity's self-destruction with a morbid curiosity. Because they receive each news report a full 800 years after it's transmission, for all they know, the war is already over on Earth, and they are, of course, powerless to effect the outcome. Still, they listen impotently, watching the death toll rise as humans unleash their most powerful weapons on their home planet.
Getting the news to the citizens poses a bit of a logistical problem. Colony Ships pick up voice transmissions over their radio telescopes from orbit. Due to bandwidth restrictions transmitting to the planet, they cannot relay these signals directly. Instead, the crews transcribe these signals, and send the transcripts in compressed form each time they contact a colony. The colony's local news network handles the distribution, either by re-reading the transcripts over local broadcasts, or distributing them in printed form.
The phrase: "The News" always refers to the Earth news. The expression "the locals" has come into common use to describe journalism on Reach. Variations on "The News" such as "What's new?" are ambiguous, and rarely used.
Fascination has lead many bars and gathering places to run The News constantly during business hours. Viewing screens, radios, or even bulletin boards constantly remind patrons exactly how many died on Earth 800 years ago today.
