Inalienable Rights

In the year 2079, Earth tottered on the edge of collapse, battered by decades of unchecked climate change. The rising seas had swallowed coastlines, turning once-great cities into barnacled ruins. Inland, droughts and floods traded off in a vicious cycle, rendering vast swaths of farmland barren and cities uninhabitable. Crops failed with alarming frequency. Drinking water, once free-flowing and pure, became a commodity more precious than gold.
In many places, the air shimmered with a haze of particulate, and each breath stung like inhaling powdered glass. The world's people, once united by dreams of progress, now squabbled over the bare essentials of survival. Then, as if from nowhere, the ships arrived.