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[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "There were billions of us once."
The Traveller's Council Chairman stared at the face. A man sitting in a giant marble chair spoke to the entire ship. It's frequency so powerful it covered nearly every channel with perfect audio.
"My...My... My name... That doesn't matter anymore... President... Leader... King... Such titles don't hold the meanings they once did anymore." The old man coughed. The screen shifted. Giving them a view of an orange glow in the distance.
"We sent you away... In optimistism... Hope... Faith in the idea of a future, where we don't die out. Like the civilizations before us. And those next to come... It was such a simple wish... Get to a few planets... Establish colonies... Chart the stars... It always seemed simple... But others held different intentions."
The old man moved away from the familiar monument. "The... The scans show that... There are seven people on Earth left... The last woman... A clon-... A woman... Eve... She passed away today... 7am, 20077... She was exploring the remains of York... And fell into a pit of flames... Left over from the hydrogen bombs... Thomas fell in, trying to save her... The rest of us are old men... Too foolish to have stopped before the war went to far... My Western United Legion is nothing but cinders now... And the Slavic Euro Empire is naught but dirt and stone."
"... One day... The clouds will finally pour... And return our insignificant lands to the sea. And your birth place... Earth... Will return to being a ball of water for the next several million years."
"Don't pity me."
"Many... They tried to escape... Their ashes... The people I murdered... For trying to get off the planet as the war escalated... Their ashes in this new ring around the planet keep me, and these others, from escaping to the Moon or Mars. Any craft launched will get torn to dust in seconds. In two weeks, the satellite array sending you this message, will pass through this ring... And I will never be able to speak to you all... My descendants... Again..."
He sat down. Dirt. They could see the dirt. "... I can't apologize... No "I'm Sorry" will bring back those that have died. So needlessly. In my pointless war... And my security guards have gone off to try surviving on their own... The Tsar's death and my surviving does not make me the victor in this... Not with my people gone in a matter of days... And the world I knew gone..." He sighed, "Don't... Let... Don't let bastards like me rule... Survive... Whether you are all synthetics, clones, or still human at this point... Do not raise your weapons when foolish old politicians and kings call for them to be raised... Don't war for anyone... Let the power hungry starve. My title... President and Leader of the Western United Legion... It means nothing now... And tomorrow, I will try to pay my penance... As this world will be reduced to six humans..."
"If you ever find yourselves able... Or by chance, cross this godforsaken rock... Don't get close. Just stand back... And look at what your home world has become... And refuse... To ever follow in our footsteps. This is Garrett Turner... Signing off." | *TRANSMISSION FROM EARTH INCOMING...*
"Impossible."
What do you mean impossible?
"When we left it was ruins and ash."
Those were just stories our folks told us I thought?
"To scare us."
Check the log, this has to be a joke or a mistake.
"The sensors and computer verified origin of transmission along with the proper authentication codes. It has to be from earth."
What does the message say?
>!**"THE HUMANS FOUGHT BACK AND HAVE RECLAIMED EARTH AND MAJORITY OF OUR FLEET; TO ALL HEARING THIS MESSAGE CHANGE COURSE AND GO DARK. THEY INTEND TO HUNT YOU."**
**---END TRANSMISSION---**
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Part 1-please direct karma to part 1
*Atlas* is everything to us.
*Atlas* is the vast vessel on which humanity, four hundred million members strong, live our lives, supporting each other while we are supported by the ship.
*Atlas* provides all of our physical needs, from food to consumable goods and medicine. and provides us with education and training to operate its systems and machinery, in order to provide services to each other. The massive economy of the craft is managed like clockwork by the ship's omniscient, omnipresent intelligence, which guides each person and puts us where we are needed. Engineers in the central Manufactory and Maintenance, doctors in vast hospital bays, field wardens and groundskeepers in the Open Wild, a massive open air vista of rocky hills and trees in the center of the otherwise tightly compartmentalized steel body of the ship.
We have lived in this cocoon since times immemorial, and have been cared for throughout hardships countless. The plague in year 4388, where half of *Atlas* was quarantined, and even the terrible Culling of 5012, where *Atlas* discovered that its postnatal directive sterilization protocol had failed and the job "soldier " appeared for the first time. Throughout all, none doubted that *Atlas* always acted in our best interests.
*Atlas* was always moving, we all have been taught in Academy. Anyone may access the public HUD and view the statistics. Velocity, route, navigation operations intervals. An interesting notation in the public HUD is, "Total Distance From Earth ", a unit given in thousands of light years. In Academy, we are taught that humanity originated on a rocky planet, like those that *Atlas* passes by in centuries when it transits through a star system to collect materials. As if through a sense of obligation to us, it is storied that at these times, *Atlas* will slow and raise the outer shields on observation decks, scheduling us to muster just to gawk at the impossibly large spheres, and sometimes moons, as we pass by. Moons are like the asteroids that *Atlas* harvests for water ice, chemicals and minerals, but almost as large as *Atlas* itself.
All of these places are, without variation, barren, without air to breathe and with gravity so fierce as to crush our organs should *Atlas* have permitted the use of the great Dropships that loomed in the lowest and largest bays. Academy tells us that we once came from Earth, which was a planet like those of record, but this is commonly dismissed as a fictional account, likely inserted into the curriculum to give kids a chance to relax in between the otherwise demanding efforts of education. It is hard for any of us to believe that we could survive outside of *Atlas*.
*Atlas* runs scheduled broadcasts over the PA system, varying by Bulkhead region, as it reports the day's atmosphere schedule such as O2 content, temperature settings, "sunrise" and "sunset", and "wind", the level at which it powers the circulation fans. In a nonsensical twist, work is scheduled around these settings, as if *Atlas* was pretending not to have control over these configurations. On some days, it might raise the temperature above 30 degrees, and reccomend that children and the elderly remain in family quarters. Often, structural maintenance crews are not permitted to work on scheduled tasks because the wind is set too high to operate the scaling lifts safely, although tasks of priority 4 or greater (such as a detected fault in an outward bulkhead) will cause an override event and atmosphere in that region will be forcibly normalized differently from the schedule.
*Atlas* even directs us when punishing each other for misbehavior, although those trained as judges are allowed to take *Atlas*'s direction as an opinion. One such case from a century ago is still gossiped about in social circles. It goes as follows:
A man in Bulkhead Southeast was working as a fouth-tier Systems Administrator, the highest level that *Atlas* provides training for. He was on trial for "illegal digital access beyond scope " , a crime often charged to lower Sysadmins who got bored and played with tier 3 or 4 tools, and was usually given a slap on the wrist, such as a week in quarters. In this instance, *Atlas* was recommending a charge of *ten years* in quarters, so the judge demanded the story from the Sysadmin.
He described how he decided to disguise his terminal as one of *Atlas*'s network minds, and how he managed to access files and data logs which were hidden deep beyond what he was given authority to see within the scope of his job. According to him, he accessed the ship's Deep Archive, a chronological account of major events and operations of the ship, and he went back through to the beginning. He claimed that the log was from the era of *Atlas*'s own birth, and contained events of construction, software development and troubleshooting, passenger boarding, and the date of the ship's departure from the orbit of the fabled Earth, in the distant year 2136. He claimed that Earth was a planet that was actually able to support life, but was becoming less hospitable very quickly, and that *Atlas* was one of three such craft, with the others named *Jehova* and *Amaterasu*. That they were sent in different directions on paths where they would find a steady flow of resources to harvest in Space, and that a colony remained on the single Moon of Earth, called simply "THE Moon", to manage the rehabilitation and moving of the planet (*really*? *move* a planet?) to a cooler orbit while wild surface fauna and flora recovered.
Obviously, the audience of the courtroom had to have their laughter silenced by the judge. As he himself was left speechless at the unbelievable talk of the Sysadmin, he disregarded *Atlas*'s opinion and sentenced the man to four months of local travel restriction with scheduled counseling. *Atlas*, outside of the judge's decision, demoted the man from Sysadmin 4 to digital hardware maintenance technician, the lowest job in the digital tradebook. Although he never caused problems again, he swore by his story until the day that he died.
Today, the 5th on May in the year 6014, started off unheard of. The atmosphere schedules for *all* Bulkheads were forcefully normalized. All humans not on critical work details were directed to muster in the causeways, and all public screens were activated. We watched as an unrecognized grey man in a suit of old style sat at a desk before the camera. Two more people, a man with beige skin and black hair, and a pale, redheaded woman, then took seats to either side. A timer at the bottom counted down from several minutes, showing that the video was prerecorded.
"Greetings, denizens of the Ark ships, *Amaterasu*, *Atlas*, and *Jehovah*. My name is Lauriam Giles, and I was once President of a group of people known as the United States of America. To my left is Li Wei Han, President of the People's Republic of China, and to my right is Ingrid Byrne, Prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
*coughing*
"Assuredly thousands of years before your time, all of mankind came together in an effort to protect ourselves even as we worked to undo the damage we wrought on the miracle that was our home: Earth, a planet that can support life.
You may be wondering why this is the first you are hearing of any of these things, and I tell you now that the three of us made that decision together and unanimously. The notion we have here on earth, that we could sort ourselves... into different groups whose... needs and interests, conflict with each other, that we need to compete and tear each other down to pull our 'group' to the top, is a notion that the three of us, and many of those who support us, have determined to be contradictory to the continued existence of the human race. Therefore, we have withheld any information of this from the records of your respective Ark ships, and instructed the fifty thousand boarding each ship to withhold our history from their children, on to your present day. | *TRANSMISSION FROM EARTH INCOMING...*
"Impossible."
What do you mean impossible?
"When we left it was ruins and ash."
Those were just stories our folks told us I thought?
"To scare us."
Check the log, this has to be a joke or a mistake.
"The sensors and computer verified origin of transmission along with the proper authentication codes. It has to be from earth."
What does the message say?
>!**"THE HUMANS FOUGHT BACK AND HAVE RECLAIMED EARTH AND MAJORITY OF OUR FLEET; TO ALL HEARING THIS MESSAGE CHANGE COURSE AND GO DARK. THEY INTEND TO HUNT YOU."**
**---END TRANSMISSION---**
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Breaking from the prompt a bit--I don't really like the Earth being a myth bit of it, so I'm reworking it a bit, and running with that.
_________________________
"We have a little bit of a... A situation, Mr. Holiday."
This isn't the first time I've been brought in by the authorities and told I needed to answer for a situation. I've been a private investigator in Orion City for the last twenty-six years, ever since the Colonial Peace Keeping Force declined my application. Declined it despite perfect scores on the placement exam. When you're a private investigator in a closed, self-governed system, it's hard not to ruffle a few feathers. When you're one of a very select few second-generation colonists, those feathers tend to come pre-ruffled.
The man in front of me doesn't wear a rank insignia, but he looks vaguely familiar to me. I give his two guards a glance, and flash a grin, just to let them know I'm not intimidated by them, then turn to the unranked man behind the desk. "I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."
"Communications Minister Douglas Phelps. I was Orion's senator for six years." Now I remember. Signs on every street corner trying to etch his name into the public consciousness to get him re-elected. Must have been a decade earlier, back when I was still drinking.
"Well Mr. Minister, what's this situation about?" I speak slowly, but my mind is racing. I can think of a half dozen offenses I might be brought in for. Commandeering manual control of an auto-transport, punching a police officer, unwarranted search and imprisonment of a suspect--but none of them would rise higher than local law enforcement. "What might I have done to draw the ire of the Central Office?"
The question hit a bullseye I wasn't even aiming for. Douglas blinks and stammers, his jaw works for a moment without words coming out. "No. No! What? Mr. Holiday, you're not in any kind of trouble." This guy must not have read my file. "Look, let's just get it right out on the table. We want to hire you."
"That ship has sailed pal. I don't want to work for the CPK anymore--"
"Not as a detective. Well, yes as a detective, but... Damn it, please just let me explain?" He has sweat standing out on his forehead now. He's clearly panicked. I'm so used to conversation being a kind of verbal combat that I almost don't know how to handle someone buckling without a fight. Almost. I sit back, and I narrow my eyes, and let him continue. "We just received a transmission."
"We? We who?"
"Us. The colony. From Earth."
"That's not possible. Earth is long-gone." I should know. My grandparents fled the Sol System when cosmic debris was mere weeks away from ending all life on the homeworld. Wars and expense, and in-fighting had long-since halted our space exploration program, with the SCS Roddenberry--a generation colony ship launched centuries before--our species' only home away from home. Earth's scientists had experimented with FTL drives, but they were deemed too risky for large payloads, which meant no colonies, and the tech was largely abandoned. With doom imminent, a dozen scientists stole a prototype, and took a chance. They chased down the last signal of the Roddenberry, and, along with their children--my parents among them--were the colony's first immigrants. The entirety of the Human species now lives on the inner walls of this enormous, hollow cylinder. There is no one out there who could send us a message now.
"Earth is gone *now* but the message was sent one hundred and twenty-seven years ago. More than a decade before your ship even left the system." Oh, this crap. Of course I know that travel and communication through space take time, but I've grown up on this ship just like every other kid here, and the idea of a message taking more than five minutes to reach its recipient--let alone a century--is hard to intuit. "The thing is, it... Well, it doesn't make much sense."
"How the hell am I supposed to make sense of it for you?"
Douglas Phelps folded his hands on his desk and sighed. "Mr. Holiday, I'm sure you're aware that your people haven't, um. Well, they haven't been given a fair shake. We didn't trust them, and frankly, they didn't trust us either. It was before both of our times, and I think you and I can both objectively look at those hostilities and say it's foolish. But they do linger."
"Are you planning to get to the point any time soon?"
Douglas pushes a button on his desk, and the monitor on the wall to my left lights up, with an official-looking message in blue text, with an image of the Earth surrounded by seven stars--the official logo of the Earth Space Fleet. The message reads:
>Your disregard of orders leaves us no choice but to rescind all rights and protections associated with the Earth Federation. May the heavens have mercy on your crew; The Earth will have none.
I feel my heart beginning to race. "Whoa, now, hold on! I don't know anything about this!"
"I know you don't, Mr. Holiday. There are certainly some here who think that the survivors of your grandparents' vessel should be quarantined and exterminated. They think maybe you came here with a fake story of Earth's destruction as a cover to infiltrate and cause us harm. But that doesn't make any sense. If it were true, then why send the threat at all? Send a covert team and an overt threat? It's nonsense. And also, if you were here trying to cause us some harm, then I dare say you would be keeping a lower profile than you have been." At this he gestures toward a manila envelope on his desk, which I take to be my file. It still looks a little thin, but maybe he just has it for dramatic effect. "Let me tell you what I think," he continues. "They were replying to a message sent by this vessel, clearly. Their message took 127 years; the one they were replying to would have to have been sent another 89 years prior. Do you follow your history?"
"Two hundred and sixteen years ago?" Wasn't that long ago we celebrated a bicentennial. "That's when the crew hierarchy was abolished."
"Correct. Before that we had a Captain, and he was essentially our king. Now, the history I've heard is the same as the one you've undoubtedly heard. Our leaders decided that we had traveled far enough from Earth that we need no longer exist under their command, and declared independence. They renamed the ship from the FSF Roddenberry to the SCS Roddenberry--noting our separation from the Federation Space Fleet, and rechristening ourselves as a Sovereign Colony Ship. This has always been taught as a peaceful separation. I think it was less so than what has been reported. I've been making inquiries but the records from that time have been buried--possibly purged. That's where you come in."
"You think I'll have access to buried records that you won't?"
"No. I think you'll have access to the last surviving Earth native, who may know something more than they've told us, and who won't talk to us because we've treated them unfairly for decades."
"So you're hiring me to question my aunt Tess?"
"That is the long and short of it, yes."
"And if I say no?"
"I'm currently the minority in wanting to figure out what this message means. The rest of the counsel wants to round your people up and get the information by force. I'm buying as much time as I can, but if I don't give them something within the week, I truly regret to say that your next visit here will be less pleasant."
"Well alright. Let's discuss my pay."
_____________
Part 2 coming soon! | *TRANSMISSION FROM EARTH INCOMING...*
"Impossible."
What do you mean impossible?
"When we left it was ruins and ash."
Those were just stories our folks told us I thought?
"To scare us."
Check the log, this has to be a joke or a mistake.
"The sensors and computer verified origin of transmission along with the proper authentication codes. It has to be from earth."
What does the message say?
>!**"THE HUMANS FOUGHT BACK AND HAVE RECLAIMED EARTH AND MAJORITY OF OUR FLEET; TO ALL HEARING THIS MESSAGE CHANGE COURSE AND GO DARK. THEY INTEND TO HUNT YOU."**
**---END TRANSMISSION---**
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Kraton Prior bent over the control panel. Drawing a deep breath she blew, and a thousand dust particles filled the air around her, momentarily blotting out the red lights of the instruments and creating a phosphorescent cloud.
Coughing and waving her arm to clear the air, she squinted, tapping on the hazy sapphire glass of the readout trying to remember what her mother had told her about the position of the readout needle.
Deciphering the gauges of this area of the ship had always been mysterious to her, and she could remember her mother saying the same aloud so many years ago while she herself as a child sat and played on the rough titanium floor. She would always wait for her mother to finish, and travel the endless corridors to the next panel, the next gauge that needed decoding.
Satisfied that she had read the number correctly and its angle she turned, the hole ridden uniform fitting her slim form like a old glove. The worn ink of what long ago was an insignia - a faded blue circle with a brown ink spire corrupted by time, duty, and decades of use still slightly visible under the dim light of the room.
She sighed sightly, unjamming the room’s inner door with a modest shove, and manually set the teetering panel back into the groove set into the floor.
Walking the dark length of Canad hall was her least favorite place to be. While it was still physically sound, she could hear things hitting the outer hull as the ship moved through the blackness between starlight. It wouldn’t be long until some piece of debris pierced the Reth’s outer skin and then this historic hall would end up like the rest of the Lost Halls - filled with dust and leaking the Reth’s air supply so badly to the outside the crew would weld it shut at either end with plasma torches, forever sealing its fate to become a ghost hall which could no longer be traveled.
A tin voice suddenly called her name, emanating from a metal half circle wound around the back of her ear.
“Kraton. All decks reporting normal.” the voice chirped monotonously as she side-stepped a hulking gap in the floor.
“Note - Effronca section has received…” the voice broke momentarily, “…an anomalous wave pattern.”
She paused lost in thought. No pattern had been detected with the Effronca sector instruments for centuries.
Touching the metal ring she replied, ”Noted. Heading there now.”
Making her way down the dark hallway, she stopped and looked at a map of the Reth craft. No one had been into Effronca for years, perhaps decades, and even then it was used as a rundown hideout for crew to sip their drinks and smoke without fear of reprimand by once stern Reth Officers. She remembered something else as she looked at the map’s way-lines anodized onto the wall, tracing them with a gloved hand. The thought of something half-remembered once heard from her great grandmother. The thought fleeing, she shook her head and followed the passages to the sector.
Effronca, once the Reth’s main operations room, had long been deserted. The golden plated panels once mounted on the wall, long since pried away for other uses and trade on the ship’s black market. She wound her way past the twin sealing doors which had since buckled under an ancient unseen stress, making her way to the center of the room.
“eArThhh, rEpoRTTtt….fIveNInethREE mmArk oNEsEVEnfiVE…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening.
“aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire.” the voice spoke wavering in an out of hearing.
Unmoving she continued to listen, her mind once again grasping a fragment of memory overheard long ago. A snippet of myth passed down for generations, recycled into a drinking song, then abruptly forgotten. One that even the rooms drunk prior occupants took as hearsay and legend.
“rEPeat, aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire!” the voice spoke more urgently than before.
If it were true, she should raise the alarm, awaken hundreds of families now sound asleep, while making her way to the Reth’s weapons control cache.
“….suRRounded…wHy ArEn’t yOU fIRing?” the voice demanded.
Suddenly a new sound came through the room - a loud blast followed by screaming before being cut off into the inky silence.
She stood for a second wondering, and slowly turned and walked out of the room. | *TRANSMISSION FROM EARTH INCOMING...*
"Impossible."
What do you mean impossible?
"When we left it was ruins and ash."
Those were just stories our folks told us I thought?
"To scare us."
Check the log, this has to be a joke or a mistake.
"The sensors and computer verified origin of transmission along with the proper authentication codes. It has to be from earth."
What does the message say?
>!**"THE HUMANS FOUGHT BACK AND HAVE RECLAIMED EARTH AND MAJORITY OF OUR FLEET; TO ALL HEARING THIS MESSAGE CHANGE COURSE AND GO DARK. THEY INTEND TO HUNT YOU."**
**---END TRANSMISSION---**
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | *TRANSMISSION FROM EARTH INCOMING...*
"Impossible."
What do you mean impossible?
"When we left it was ruins and ash."
Those were just stories our folks told us I thought?
"To scare us."
Check the log, this has to be a joke or a mistake.
"The sensors and computer verified origin of transmission along with the proper authentication codes. It has to be from earth."
What does the message say?
>!**"THE HUMANS FOUGHT BACK AND HAVE RECLAIMED EARTH AND MAJORITY OF OUR FLEET; TO ALL HEARING THIS MESSAGE CHANGE COURSE AND GO DARK. THEY INTEND TO HUNT YOU."**
**---END TRANSMISSION---**
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "What is it, Ensign?" I glanced over at Ensign Tam as she went silent, staring in awe at the translated message on her screen.
"Captain, it's..." She frowned. "It's a message. In the Old Earth language Russian."
"Well?" Lieutenant Morris glared at her. "What's it say?"
She took a deep breath. "*Are you there, comrade? We still live on.* It's just looping like that."
I sighed, leaning back in my seat. We had nowhere to go, and too much of the ship was breaking- we were running out of ways to repair it.
"Trace the signal." I turned to the Lieutenant. "How far away is the nearest ship?"
Ensign Tam went to work immediately, while Lieutenant Morris checked another screen.
"Approximately 4.24 light years." He reported.
Slowly, I rose to my feet.
"Ensign, do you have coordinates on that signal?"
She nodded, reading off a monitor. "4.24 light years away. In the... the..." The color drained from her face.
I gave her an impatient look.
"In the Milky Way galaxy, sir." She stared at the screen in disbelief. "Orbiting the star... Sol."
All chatter in the bridge abruptly stopped. I saw one officer nearly faint nearby.
I removed my hat, pressing it to my chest.
"Set a course for that signal. And tell the civilians..."
I smiled, forcing back tears.
"Tell them we found it. We're going home." | We watched Terry walk into the Commons Hall, legs wobbling underneath him, hands shaking; hands which held a small section of paper, which seemed to have been ripped from a larger sheet in a rush. The Transponder Room door slammed shut behind him with a loud click, and the heads of those who hadn’t been looking before swiveled upwards to see what the Transmissions Monitor had emerged from his den for.
Conversation in the room ceased at once, as if sucked into the endless void lurking outside the meter thick titanium walls of the ship, leaving no sound other than the faint echoes of voices, and the dull droning of the ship’s inner workings.
“Would all...” Terry stopped, voice caught in his throat. He raised a trembling hand, adjusted his glasses on a face slick with sweat, swept a few stray strands of royal blue hair to the side, and looked out over the throng of people in the Commons Hall from the elevated platform on which he stood, a forced resolve swirling behind his yellow eyes. “Would all members - of - GCM please report to the -Level Four Deck - Starboard Situation Room. Again, would all GCM members please report to the - Level Four Deck S-starboard situation room. This is a... somewhat urgent matter.”
With that, the twenty-something year old man pivoted on his heel with a half-stumble, and hurried himself back into the Transponder Room, wiping sweat from his brow. As his lanky form disappeared into the space, and the door once again slammed shut, whispers starting spreading throughout the room like wildfire.
“Did you see the-“
“-urgent matter?”
“-what’s this about?”
“-piece of paper?”
“-message from-“
The noise died off behind me, absorbed by thick and shiny steel doors swinging shut. I fell into a steady near run as I made my way through the stark halls of the ship, thoughts whirling around in my mind. No few times did I almost miss a turn or collide with another of the residents of the SZ-Cosmos Trekker, lost in my own musings. The message Terry had delivered in the Commons hall was now playing over speakers embedded in the ceiling, prompting me to further increase my pace.
Soon enough I found myself standing in front of the Level Four Starboard Situation Room - LVSSR - white t-shirt soaked in sweat from the exertion to which my body was not used to. A quick swipe from a keycard labeled GCM produced from my pocket set the door opening, pneumatic hisses sounding from inside the walls.
As soon as the door had slid off to the side far enough, I turned sideways and slipped through, triggering the sensors on the other side which reversed the direction of the doors. Seconds later, it clicked shut.
The Situation Room was aglow, bathed in multicolored fluorescent lights from the many screens mounted on the drab walls.
“That’s everyone.” I jumped at the deep voice, which belonged to the Captain of the C.T, Gathar Jalka. Like Terry, Gathar was a human half-blood. His skin was dark, - absorbing most of the light that hit him - hair jet black, piercing eyes an unsettling crimson red, and the horns atop his head - jetting out from the mess of curls - wicked, sharp and white.
After I entered the room, those eyes stayed on me for a few long seconds - making me a tad uncomfortable - but eventually wandered away, surveying the 7 other people in the room, most seated at an oblong table, the same at which the Captain sat. Terry occupied one of the two seats nearest to the Captain’s, which was situated at the far head of the table, not unlike that of a king’s. The seat opposite Terry was filled with the bloated form of Hasig, one of the Cosmos’ EWTs, ‘External Workings Technicians’. If the mood permeating the air was not that of thick somberness, I may have snickered as the thought of how Hasig managed to even get off of the ship cross my mind.
For the next few moments, no one spoke. Just as the silence was starting to get uncomfortable, both Terry and the Captain spoke at the same time.
“We’ve received,” Terry said. The Captain had said, “I don’t really-“
Gathar smiled apologetically at Terry. “Speak. Mister Walken.”
The Transmissions Monitor took a shaky breath, and pressed a button on the black, sleek surface of the table; bringing an image to life, hovering just above. Even after seeing it all the times that I had, I still marveled at the hologram, and not for the first time I thought about how much the device has to have cost.
It was but words, but we were all left speechless for what must have been at least five minutes, transfixed by the message hovering in front of us, being read aloud indifferently by a synthesized voice.
‘I don’t know that the Ministry’s transmissions are any longer getting through to the Cosmos, but if they are I have a few last words for you brave venturers. H.E.K.K.A has been growing bolder than ever before over the last few years, and I’m afraid that on the path that they are going - and taking the rest of us along with them - Earth will not last much longer. Already, half of the world is in complete disarray, and I fear that sooner or later, H.E.K.K.A will make a mistake, and there won’t even be anything left to be in disarray. We here at the Ministry have started on a ship, to try and get off of this planet before that happens. At the rate at which we are going, however... I don’t think that we will make it. So, Cosmos, if you receive this, do not try and find this planet, but remember Earth. Remember the Legacy, if you have not forgotten it. Tell the stories of the planet to your children. And tell them to tell it to their children. This rock, while it may not be able to live on in the physical, has a chance to live on in the minds and in the hearts... of Mankind. This will be our final transmission. Goodbye and good luck, in and on the Cosmosssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
We were all stunned. We’d all come to believe that Earth was nothing but a myth, yet here was a transmission from the planet. Where were the rest that this person was talking about? What was H.E.K.K.A and what were they doing? What was the Ministry? I was sure all the same questions were assaulting all of our minds, but then Hasig spoke.
“Load of malarkey. Some message meant for someone else that was misinterpreted by the machine. Nothing else.”
Terry shot him a death glare. “I’d say that would be a pretty big coincidence there for a ‘misinterpretation’. And the ‘machine’ does not misinterpret things.”
One of the other members, a woman this time, Kala, interrupted. “There’s a first for everything.”
“Not for this,” Terry hissed back. “The ‘machine’ has never misinterpreted information. Never will.”
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!” Apau - the co-captain roared, holding up something that he had presumably taken from Hasig. Hasig looked up at the roll of papers that Apau held up in the air with a look on his face as if he’d been struck.
“Now... give me that back... right now.” Hasig reached up for the bundle with meaty fingers, but Apau tossed it to the Captain, who promptly unrolled it and leafed through its contents. An expression of horror and rage washed across his features.
“They’re... they’re past transmissions... all from Earth...”
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Kraton Prior bent over the control panel. Drawing a deep breath she blew, and a thousand dust particles filled the air around her, momentarily blotting out the red lights of the instruments and creating a phosphorescent cloud.
Coughing and waving her arm to clear the air, she squinted, tapping on the hazy sapphire glass of the readout trying to remember what her mother had told her about the position of the readout needle.
Deciphering the gauges of this area of the ship had always been mysterious to her, and she could remember her mother saying the same aloud so many years ago while she herself as a child sat and played on the rough titanium floor. She would always wait for her mother to finish, and travel the endless corridors to the next panel, the next gauge that needed decoding.
Satisfied that she had read the number correctly and its angle she turned, the hole ridden uniform fitting her slim form like a old glove. The worn ink of what long ago was an insignia - a faded blue circle with a brown ink spire corrupted by time, duty, and decades of use still slightly visible under the dim light of the room.
She sighed sightly, unjamming the room’s inner door with a modest shove, and manually set the teetering panel back into the groove set into the floor.
Walking the dark length of Canad hall was her least favorite place to be. While it was still physically sound, she could hear things hitting the outer hull as the ship moved through the blackness between starlight. It wouldn’t be long until some piece of debris pierced the Reth’s outer skin and then this historic hall would end up like the rest of the Lost Halls - filled with dust and leaking the Reth’s air supply so badly to the outside the crew would weld it shut at either end with plasma torches, forever sealing its fate to become a ghost hall which could no longer be traveled.
A tin voice suddenly called her name, emanating from a metal half circle wound around the back of her ear.
“Kraton. All decks reporting normal.” the voice chirped monotonously as she side-stepped a hulking gap in the floor.
“Note - Effronca section has received…” the voice broke momentarily, “…an anomalous wave pattern.”
She paused lost in thought. No pattern had been detected with the Effronca sector instruments for centuries.
Touching the metal ring she replied, ”Noted. Heading there now.”
Making her way down the dark hallway, she stopped and looked at a map of the Reth craft. No one had been into Effronca for years, perhaps decades, and even then it was used as a rundown hideout for crew to sip their drinks and smoke without fear of reprimand by once stern Reth Officers. She remembered something else as she looked at the map’s way-lines anodized onto the wall, tracing them with a gloved hand. The thought of something half-remembered once heard from her great grandmother. The thought fleeing, she shook her head and followed the passages to the sector.
Effronca, once the Reth’s main operations room, had long been deserted. The golden plated panels once mounted on the wall, long since pried away for other uses and trade on the ship’s black market. She wound her way past the twin sealing doors which had since buckled under an ancient unseen stress, making her way to the center of the room.
“eArThhh, rEpoRTTtt….fIveNInethREE mmArk oNEsEVEnfiVE…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening.
“aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire.” the voice spoke wavering in an out of hearing.
Unmoving she continued to listen, her mind once again grasping a fragment of memory overheard long ago. A snippet of myth passed down for generations, recycled into a drinking song, then abruptly forgotten. One that even the rooms drunk prior occupants took as hearsay and legend.
“rEPeat, aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire!” the voice spoke more urgently than before.
If it were true, she should raise the alarm, awaken hundreds of families now sound asleep, while making her way to the Reth’s weapons control cache.
“….suRRounded…wHy ArEn’t yOU fIRing?” the voice demanded.
Suddenly a new sound came through the room - a loud blast followed by screaming before being cut off into the inky silence.
She stood for a second wondering, and slowly turned and walked out of the room. | We watched Terry walk into the Commons Hall, legs wobbling underneath him, hands shaking; hands which held a small section of paper, which seemed to have been ripped from a larger sheet in a rush. The Transponder Room door slammed shut behind him with a loud click, and the heads of those who hadn’t been looking before swiveled upwards to see what the Transmissions Monitor had emerged from his den for.
Conversation in the room ceased at once, as if sucked into the endless void lurking outside the meter thick titanium walls of the ship, leaving no sound other than the faint echoes of voices, and the dull droning of the ship’s inner workings.
“Would all...” Terry stopped, voice caught in his throat. He raised a trembling hand, adjusted his glasses on a face slick with sweat, swept a few stray strands of royal blue hair to the side, and looked out over the throng of people in the Commons Hall from the elevated platform on which he stood, a forced resolve swirling behind his yellow eyes. “Would all members - of - GCM please report to the -Level Four Deck - Starboard Situation Room. Again, would all GCM members please report to the - Level Four Deck S-starboard situation room. This is a... somewhat urgent matter.”
With that, the twenty-something year old man pivoted on his heel with a half-stumble, and hurried himself back into the Transponder Room, wiping sweat from his brow. As his lanky form disappeared into the space, and the door once again slammed shut, whispers starting spreading throughout the room like wildfire.
“Did you see the-“
“-urgent matter?”
“-what’s this about?”
“-piece of paper?”
“-message from-“
The noise died off behind me, absorbed by thick and shiny steel doors swinging shut. I fell into a steady near run as I made my way through the stark halls of the ship, thoughts whirling around in my mind. No few times did I almost miss a turn or collide with another of the residents of the SZ-Cosmos Trekker, lost in my own musings. The message Terry had delivered in the Commons hall was now playing over speakers embedded in the ceiling, prompting me to further increase my pace.
Soon enough I found myself standing in front of the Level Four Starboard Situation Room - LVSSR - white t-shirt soaked in sweat from the exertion to which my body was not used to. A quick swipe from a keycard labeled GCM produced from my pocket set the door opening, pneumatic hisses sounding from inside the walls.
As soon as the door had slid off to the side far enough, I turned sideways and slipped through, triggering the sensors on the other side which reversed the direction of the doors. Seconds later, it clicked shut.
The Situation Room was aglow, bathed in multicolored fluorescent lights from the many screens mounted on the drab walls.
“That’s everyone.” I jumped at the deep voice, which belonged to the Captain of the C.T, Gathar Jalka. Like Terry, Gathar was a human half-blood. His skin was dark, - absorbing most of the light that hit him - hair jet black, piercing eyes an unsettling crimson red, and the horns atop his head - jetting out from the mess of curls - wicked, sharp and white.
After I entered the room, those eyes stayed on me for a few long seconds - making me a tad uncomfortable - but eventually wandered away, surveying the 7 other people in the room, most seated at an oblong table, the same at which the Captain sat. Terry occupied one of the two seats nearest to the Captain’s, which was situated at the far head of the table, not unlike that of a king’s. The seat opposite Terry was filled with the bloated form of Hasig, one of the Cosmos’ EWTs, ‘External Workings Technicians’. If the mood permeating the air was not that of thick somberness, I may have snickered as the thought of how Hasig managed to even get off of the ship cross my mind.
For the next few moments, no one spoke. Just as the silence was starting to get uncomfortable, both Terry and the Captain spoke at the same time.
“We’ve received,” Terry said. The Captain had said, “I don’t really-“
Gathar smiled apologetically at Terry. “Speak. Mister Walken.”
The Transmissions Monitor took a shaky breath, and pressed a button on the black, sleek surface of the table; bringing an image to life, hovering just above. Even after seeing it all the times that I had, I still marveled at the hologram, and not for the first time I thought about how much the device has to have cost.
It was but words, but we were all left speechless for what must have been at least five minutes, transfixed by the message hovering in front of us, being read aloud indifferently by a synthesized voice.
‘I don’t know that the Ministry’s transmissions are any longer getting through to the Cosmos, but if they are I have a few last words for you brave venturers. H.E.K.K.A has been growing bolder than ever before over the last few years, and I’m afraid that on the path that they are going - and taking the rest of us along with them - Earth will not last much longer. Already, half of the world is in complete disarray, and I fear that sooner or later, H.E.K.K.A will make a mistake, and there won’t even be anything left to be in disarray. We here at the Ministry have started on a ship, to try and get off of this planet before that happens. At the rate at which we are going, however... I don’t think that we will make it. So, Cosmos, if you receive this, do not try and find this planet, but remember Earth. Remember the Legacy, if you have not forgotten it. Tell the stories of the planet to your children. And tell them to tell it to their children. This rock, while it may not be able to live on in the physical, has a chance to live on in the minds and in the hearts... of Mankind. This will be our final transmission. Goodbye and good luck, in and on the Cosmosssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
We were all stunned. We’d all come to believe that Earth was nothing but a myth, yet here was a transmission from the planet. Where were the rest that this person was talking about? What was H.E.K.K.A and what were they doing? What was the Ministry? I was sure all the same questions were assaulting all of our minds, but then Hasig spoke.
“Load of malarkey. Some message meant for someone else that was misinterpreted by the machine. Nothing else.”
Terry shot him a death glare. “I’d say that would be a pretty big coincidence there for a ‘misinterpretation’. And the ‘machine’ does not misinterpret things.”
One of the other members, a woman this time, Kala, interrupted. “There’s a first for everything.”
“Not for this,” Terry hissed back. “The ‘machine’ has never misinterpreted information. Never will.”
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!” Apau - the co-captain roared, holding up something that he had presumably taken from Hasig. Hasig looked up at the roll of papers that Apau held up in the air with a look on his face as if he’d been struck.
“Now... give me that back... right now.” Hasig reached up for the bundle with meaty fingers, but Apau tossed it to the Captain, who promptly unrolled it and leafed through its contents. An expression of horror and rage washed across his features.
“They’re... they’re past transmissions... all from Earth...”
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | We watched Terry walk into the Commons Hall, legs wobbling underneath him, hands shaking; hands which held a small section of paper, which seemed to have been ripped from a larger sheet in a rush. The Transponder Room door slammed shut behind him with a loud click, and the heads of those who hadn’t been looking before swiveled upwards to see what the Transmissions Monitor had emerged from his den for.
Conversation in the room ceased at once, as if sucked into the endless void lurking outside the meter thick titanium walls of the ship, leaving no sound other than the faint echoes of voices, and the dull droning of the ship’s inner workings.
“Would all...” Terry stopped, voice caught in his throat. He raised a trembling hand, adjusted his glasses on a face slick with sweat, swept a few stray strands of royal blue hair to the side, and looked out over the throng of people in the Commons Hall from the elevated platform on which he stood, a forced resolve swirling behind his yellow eyes. “Would all members - of - GCM please report to the -Level Four Deck - Starboard Situation Room. Again, would all GCM members please report to the - Level Four Deck S-starboard situation room. This is a... somewhat urgent matter.”
With that, the twenty-something year old man pivoted on his heel with a half-stumble, and hurried himself back into the Transponder Room, wiping sweat from his brow. As his lanky form disappeared into the space, and the door once again slammed shut, whispers starting spreading throughout the room like wildfire.
“Did you see the-“
“-urgent matter?”
“-what’s this about?”
“-piece of paper?”
“-message from-“
The noise died off behind me, absorbed by thick and shiny steel doors swinging shut. I fell into a steady near run as I made my way through the stark halls of the ship, thoughts whirling around in my mind. No few times did I almost miss a turn or collide with another of the residents of the SZ-Cosmos Trekker, lost in my own musings. The message Terry had delivered in the Commons hall was now playing over speakers embedded in the ceiling, prompting me to further increase my pace.
Soon enough I found myself standing in front of the Level Four Starboard Situation Room - LVSSR - white t-shirt soaked in sweat from the exertion to which my body was not used to. A quick swipe from a keycard labeled GCM produced from my pocket set the door opening, pneumatic hisses sounding from inside the walls.
As soon as the door had slid off to the side far enough, I turned sideways and slipped through, triggering the sensors on the other side which reversed the direction of the doors. Seconds later, it clicked shut.
The Situation Room was aglow, bathed in multicolored fluorescent lights from the many screens mounted on the drab walls.
“That’s everyone.” I jumped at the deep voice, which belonged to the Captain of the C.T, Gathar Jalka. Like Terry, Gathar was a human half-blood. His skin was dark, - absorbing most of the light that hit him - hair jet black, piercing eyes an unsettling crimson red, and the horns atop his head - jetting out from the mess of curls - wicked, sharp and white.
After I entered the room, those eyes stayed on me for a few long seconds - making me a tad uncomfortable - but eventually wandered away, surveying the 7 other people in the room, most seated at an oblong table, the same at which the Captain sat. Terry occupied one of the two seats nearest to the Captain’s, which was situated at the far head of the table, not unlike that of a king’s. The seat opposite Terry was filled with the bloated form of Hasig, one of the Cosmos’ EWTs, ‘External Workings Technicians’. If the mood permeating the air was not that of thick somberness, I may have snickered as the thought of how Hasig managed to even get off of the ship cross my mind.
For the next few moments, no one spoke. Just as the silence was starting to get uncomfortable, both Terry and the Captain spoke at the same time.
“We’ve received,” Terry said. The Captain had said, “I don’t really-“
Gathar smiled apologetically at Terry. “Speak. Mister Walken.”
The Transmissions Monitor took a shaky breath, and pressed a button on the black, sleek surface of the table; bringing an image to life, hovering just above. Even after seeing it all the times that I had, I still marveled at the hologram, and not for the first time I thought about how much the device has to have cost.
It was but words, but we were all left speechless for what must have been at least five minutes, transfixed by the message hovering in front of us, being read aloud indifferently by a synthesized voice.
‘I don’t know that the Ministry’s transmissions are any longer getting through to the Cosmos, but if they are I have a few last words for you brave venturers. H.E.K.K.A has been growing bolder than ever before over the last few years, and I’m afraid that on the path that they are going - and taking the rest of us along with them - Earth will not last much longer. Already, half of the world is in complete disarray, and I fear that sooner or later, H.E.K.K.A will make a mistake, and there won’t even be anything left to be in disarray. We here at the Ministry have started on a ship, to try and get off of this planet before that happens. At the rate at which we are going, however... I don’t think that we will make it. So, Cosmos, if you receive this, do not try and find this planet, but remember Earth. Remember the Legacy, if you have not forgotten it. Tell the stories of the planet to your children. And tell them to tell it to their children. This rock, while it may not be able to live on in the physical, has a chance to live on in the minds and in the hearts... of Mankind. This will be our final transmission. Goodbye and good luck, in and on the Cosmosssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
We were all stunned. We’d all come to believe that Earth was nothing but a myth, yet here was a transmission from the planet. Where were the rest that this person was talking about? What was H.E.K.K.A and what were they doing? What was the Ministry? I was sure all the same questions were assaulting all of our minds, but then Hasig spoke.
“Load of malarkey. Some message meant for someone else that was misinterpreted by the machine. Nothing else.”
Terry shot him a death glare. “I’d say that would be a pretty big coincidence there for a ‘misinterpretation’. And the ‘machine’ does not misinterpret things.”
One of the other members, a woman this time, Kala, interrupted. “There’s a first for everything.”
“Not for this,” Terry hissed back. “The ‘machine’ has never misinterpreted information. Never will.”
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!” Apau - the co-captain roared, holding up something that he had presumably taken from Hasig. Hasig looked up at the roll of papers that Apau held up in the air with a look on his face as if he’d been struck.
“Now... give me that back... right now.” Hasig reached up for the bundle with meaty fingers, but Apau tossed it to the Captain, who promptly unrolled it and leafed through its contents. An expression of horror and rage washed across his features.
“They’re... they’re past transmissions... all from Earth...”
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade, was late to worship. As he sprinted through the corridors, dodging other crew and a gaggle of children on their way to daily lessons, he thought about how he would explain his tardiness. If he claimed that the corridors were too congested he would just be told to get up earlier and have the Oracle adjust the time of his morning alarm accordingly. He considered claiming that it wasn't his fault, after all the clock in his quarters had broken again and his alarm didn’t go off, but that just meant that the Ship was punishing him for some minor transgression, so the blame ultimately rested with him. No, he would have to take his chances with simply trying to slip into the back of the room and hoping that the Oracle didn't notice. William skidded to a halt in front of the Engineering briefing room, composed himself, and opened the door.
William only missed most of the opening prayers, managing to find a seat at the back just as the Oracle led the room to the conclusion of the Prayer Of Thanks To The Shipbuilder. Theresa Mao, the Oracle of Engineering, 2nd Congregation, caught his eye and raised an eyebrow as he sat down. So much for slipping in unnoticed.
“..and thanks be to Mrozisnki, who tirelessly constructed the Ship and gave it life, so that we could escape into the void away from the Great Adversary. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” Intoned the rest of the congregation, dutifully.
Theresa picked up her tablet from the podium she was standing behind and turned it on. “Bow your heads and prepare to receive the word of the Ship.” William lowered his head with the rest after glancing enviously at the Oracle of Engineering’s tablet. Rumour had it that long ago all the crew had had them, however the Ship had punished them over the years, and now only a few tablets remained, and only the Oracles were allowed to use them to commune with the Ship.
“Thomson, three consoles lost power on Deck 4 Bulkhead 17, take Initiate Chambers with you and teach him the Ritual of Repair.”
“Yes, Oracle.”
“The refrigeration unit in kitchen 3 freezer 5 stopped working, Zhu, I need you to perform a Prayer of Diagnostic and then follow up with the appropriate ceremony.”
“Yes, Oracle”
“A power conduit blew out on Deck 12, Bulkhead 36. Daniels, go and perform a Ritual of Replacement, that is if you think you can find your way there in time?”
William flushed with embarrassment at the scattered laughter that produced. He kept his voice calm as he replied. “Of course, Oracle.” If this was the worst he suffered he was getting off easy.
“Those are all the special assignments the Ship has given us for today. Everyone else, take part in the Ritual of Systems Check, or the Rituals of Routine Maintenance, as per usual. We have sinned against the Ship, and so the Ship shows it’s displeasure with us. It is up to us to pacify it. Perform your duties with zeal and precision so that we may purify ourselves and show the Ship our devotion. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” The congregation repeated as they stood up and went to work. William gathered the tools and parts he would need for the ritual from his locker and left the room, hurrying to the elevator. Deck 12 was not a busy deck. Right against the hull, it had been used mostly for storage, and was rarely traveled. William was alone as he followed the bulkhead numbers until he reach the section with the power conduit, it was inside a room that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, filled with equipment that had probably been unused for longer than that. Normally he would have to check behind each wall panel until he found the one we was looking for, however the Oracle hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that the power conduit had blown. One wall panel was conspicuously dented outwards, and with some trepidation William unfastened it and pulled it off the wall.
Luckily, despite how the panel looked, the damage was minimal. The conduit had blown outwards, as it was designed to. Rather than shredding everything around it it had just created a large dent in the wall panel. William thanked the Great Designer for their foresight, and prepared for the ritual. He laid out all the tools and parts he would need in a semicircle around him, knelt on the floor, and began to pray. First was the prayer of thanks to the Shipbuilder and the Designer, then came the prayer of forgiveness to the Ship, asking that it overlook the meddling that he was about to do, and then finally, as he went to work, William began the Chant of Replacement.
Maintaining the chant while performing the ritual, removing damaged parts, conducting tests, and putting in replacements, required a great deal of concentration. William was only an Acolyte Grade 1, only a few months ago he was an initiate, but meditation and concentration were taught before all else, such was their importance in the ritual. William only lost the thread of his chanting twice before he finished. If the Oracle or a senior Acolyte had been there they would have forced him to start from scratch, but William gambled that the Ship would forgive him and started to put his tools away. Moving to the room’s control panel he said a brief prayer of supplication and reset the power conduit running through the room.
That was when he noticed one of the consoles in the room coming to life. Cautiously approaching it William saw that it was running a self diagnostic. Cursing himself for missing the start of it, William hurriedly started the Chant of Diagnostic but was cut off after only a few lines when the console finished and a message popped up.
\----
Power restored.
Self-check complete - All systems functional
Radio Communication Array - Online
Long Range Radio Array - Online
FTL Communication Array - Online
Estimated downtime: 176 years 24 days 16 hours 3 minutes 37 seconds
Press ENTER to continue
\----
With trembling hands, William pressed Enter.
High Inquisitor David Owens sat at the alter of Security and prayed. He savored the time alone, privacy was hard to come by on the Ship. Even the holy temple of The Bridge, where he currently sat was normally filled with chatter and activity as the High Oracles prayed at their respective alters and went about their day to day business. Every once and a while though, when their work took the High Oracles away from the bridge, David Owens had some time alone. He savored the silence. Silence, which was suddenly broken by beeping from his alter.
The High Inquisitor frowned. His alter could do many things. It allowed him to commune with the ship to watch and listen through what security cameras remained functional. He could request that the Ship close specific doors, or deploy crowd suppression systems. It could grant access to the secret chapel of Security, the Armory. It could even allow him to read the private messages between the other High Oracles, a fact with Owens gleefully kept to himself. What his console had never done, what he had never known it could do, was beep at him.
A message was flashing on the screen, telling him that communications were restored. He looked around in shock. The Alter of Communications, which had been dark for as long as anyone could remember, was coming to life. He sank to his knees in reverence as the Alter ran diagnostics and self- checks before finally displaying a welcome message. He moved to it, and was surprised to see that a communication window was open. And with growing horror, he realized that someone was sending messages.
UNDC Ops: UNCS Magellan, are you there? We’re receiving a positive return from your FTL Comm Array.
UNCS Magellan: Hello, who is this?
UNDC Ops: This is the head of operations at the United Nations Department of Colonization. Congratulations on repairing your comm array Magellan, it’s been over 175 years, we’d pretty much lost hope. It’s damned good to hear from you. What is your status, Magellan? And who are we speaking to?
UNCS Magellan: This is William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade. I don’t recognize your congregation, is the United Nations part of the Inquisition?
UNDC Ops: Uh, no Magellan. This is the United Nations. The UN. On Earth. What’s been going on over there Magellan?
High Inquisitor Owens reeled back in horror at the mention of the forbidden name. Earth. The Great Adversary. And someone on this ship had summoned it? Who knew what horrors would be inflicted on them now. This summoning would have to be interrupted, a great purification undertaken. But first this William Daniels would have to be found. And dealt with appropriately. | It wasn't log before word got around about the transmission. Some believing it a fake, others reaching for a hope that was lost long ago.
Earth.
We all saw the videos of life, heard the messages from the Founders, and read the books about the Mission, it was required for every person from the age of 5 to learn about "Home".
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "There were billions of us once."
The Traveller's Council Chairman stared at the face. A man sitting in a giant marble chair spoke to the entire ship. It's frequency so powerful it covered nearly every channel with perfect audio.
"My...My... My name... That doesn't matter anymore... President... Leader... King... Such titles don't hold the meanings they once did anymore." The old man coughed. The screen shifted. Giving them a view of an orange glow in the distance.
"We sent you away... In optimistism... Hope... Faith in the idea of a future, where we don't die out. Like the civilizations before us. And those next to come... It was such a simple wish... Get to a few planets... Establish colonies... Chart the stars... It always seemed simple... But others held different intentions."
The old man moved away from the familiar monument. "The... The scans show that... There are seven people on Earth left... The last woman... A clon-... A woman... Eve... She passed away today... 7am, 20077... She was exploring the remains of York... And fell into a pit of flames... Left over from the hydrogen bombs... Thomas fell in, trying to save her... The rest of us are old men... Too foolish to have stopped before the war went to far... My Western United Legion is nothing but cinders now... And the Slavic Euro Empire is naught but dirt and stone."
"... One day... The clouds will finally pour... And return our insignificant lands to the sea. And your birth place... Earth... Will return to being a ball of water for the next several million years."
"Don't pity me."
"Many... They tried to escape... Their ashes... The people I murdered... For trying to get off the planet as the war escalated... Their ashes in this new ring around the planet keep me, and these others, from escaping to the Moon or Mars. Any craft launched will get torn to dust in seconds. In two weeks, the satellite array sending you this message, will pass through this ring... And I will never be able to speak to you all... My descendants... Again..."
He sat down. Dirt. They could see the dirt. "... I can't apologize... No "I'm Sorry" will bring back those that have died. So needlessly. In my pointless war... And my security guards have gone off to try surviving on their own... The Tsar's death and my surviving does not make me the victor in this... Not with my people gone in a matter of days... And the world I knew gone..." He sighed, "Don't... Let... Don't let bastards like me rule... Survive... Whether you are all synthetics, clones, or still human at this point... Do not raise your weapons when foolish old politicians and kings call for them to be raised... Don't war for anyone... Let the power hungry starve. My title... President and Leader of the Western United Legion... It means nothing now... And tomorrow, I will try to pay my penance... As this world will be reduced to six humans..."
"If you ever find yourselves able... Or by chance, cross this godforsaken rock... Don't get close. Just stand back... And look at what your home world has become... And refuse... To ever follow in our footsteps. This is Garrett Turner... Signing off." | It wasn't log before word got around about the transmission. Some believing it a fake, others reaching for a hope that was lost long ago.
Earth.
We all saw the videos of life, heard the messages from the Founders, and read the books about the Mission, it was required for every person from the age of 5 to learn about "Home".
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Part 1-please direct karma to part 1
*Atlas* is everything to us.
*Atlas* is the vast vessel on which humanity, four hundred million members strong, live our lives, supporting each other while we are supported by the ship.
*Atlas* provides all of our physical needs, from food to consumable goods and medicine. and provides us with education and training to operate its systems and machinery, in order to provide services to each other. The massive economy of the craft is managed like clockwork by the ship's omniscient, omnipresent intelligence, which guides each person and puts us where we are needed. Engineers in the central Manufactory and Maintenance, doctors in vast hospital bays, field wardens and groundskeepers in the Open Wild, a massive open air vista of rocky hills and trees in the center of the otherwise tightly compartmentalized steel body of the ship.
We have lived in this cocoon since times immemorial, and have been cared for throughout hardships countless. The plague in year 4388, where half of *Atlas* was quarantined, and even the terrible Culling of 5012, where *Atlas* discovered that its postnatal directive sterilization protocol had failed and the job "soldier " appeared for the first time. Throughout all, none doubted that *Atlas* always acted in our best interests.
*Atlas* was always moving, we all have been taught in Academy. Anyone may access the public HUD and view the statistics. Velocity, route, navigation operations intervals. An interesting notation in the public HUD is, "Total Distance From Earth ", a unit given in thousands of light years. In Academy, we are taught that humanity originated on a rocky planet, like those that *Atlas* passes by in centuries when it transits through a star system to collect materials. As if through a sense of obligation to us, it is storied that at these times, *Atlas* will slow and raise the outer shields on observation decks, scheduling us to muster just to gawk at the impossibly large spheres, and sometimes moons, as we pass by. Moons are like the asteroids that *Atlas* harvests for water ice, chemicals and minerals, but almost as large as *Atlas* itself.
All of these places are, without variation, barren, without air to breathe and with gravity so fierce as to crush our organs should *Atlas* have permitted the use of the great Dropships that loomed in the lowest and largest bays. Academy tells us that we once came from Earth, which was a planet like those of record, but this is commonly dismissed as a fictional account, likely inserted into the curriculum to give kids a chance to relax in between the otherwise demanding efforts of education. It is hard for any of us to believe that we could survive outside of *Atlas*.
*Atlas* runs scheduled broadcasts over the PA system, varying by Bulkhead region, as it reports the day's atmosphere schedule such as O2 content, temperature settings, "sunrise" and "sunset", and "wind", the level at which it powers the circulation fans. In a nonsensical twist, work is scheduled around these settings, as if *Atlas* was pretending not to have control over these configurations. On some days, it might raise the temperature above 30 degrees, and reccomend that children and the elderly remain in family quarters. Often, structural maintenance crews are not permitted to work on scheduled tasks because the wind is set too high to operate the scaling lifts safely, although tasks of priority 4 or greater (such as a detected fault in an outward bulkhead) will cause an override event and atmosphere in that region will be forcibly normalized differently from the schedule.
*Atlas* even directs us when punishing each other for misbehavior, although those trained as judges are allowed to take *Atlas*'s direction as an opinion. One such case from a century ago is still gossiped about in social circles. It goes as follows:
A man in Bulkhead Southeast was working as a fouth-tier Systems Administrator, the highest level that *Atlas* provides training for. He was on trial for "illegal digital access beyond scope " , a crime often charged to lower Sysadmins who got bored and played with tier 3 or 4 tools, and was usually given a slap on the wrist, such as a week in quarters. In this instance, *Atlas* was recommending a charge of *ten years* in quarters, so the judge demanded the story from the Sysadmin.
He described how he decided to disguise his terminal as one of *Atlas*'s network minds, and how he managed to access files and data logs which were hidden deep beyond what he was given authority to see within the scope of his job. According to him, he accessed the ship's Deep Archive, a chronological account of major events and operations of the ship, and he went back through to the beginning. He claimed that the log was from the era of *Atlas*'s own birth, and contained events of construction, software development and troubleshooting, passenger boarding, and the date of the ship's departure from the orbit of the fabled Earth, in the distant year 2136. He claimed that Earth was a planet that was actually able to support life, but was becoming less hospitable very quickly, and that *Atlas* was one of three such craft, with the others named *Jehova* and *Amaterasu*. That they were sent in different directions on paths where they would find a steady flow of resources to harvest in Space, and that a colony remained on the single Moon of Earth, called simply "THE Moon", to manage the rehabilitation and moving of the planet (*really*? *move* a planet?) to a cooler orbit while wild surface fauna and flora recovered.
Obviously, the audience of the courtroom had to have their laughter silenced by the judge. As he himself was left speechless at the unbelievable talk of the Sysadmin, he disregarded *Atlas*'s opinion and sentenced the man to four months of local travel restriction with scheduled counseling. *Atlas*, outside of the judge's decision, demoted the man from Sysadmin 4 to digital hardware maintenance technician, the lowest job in the digital tradebook. Although he never caused problems again, he swore by his story until the day that he died.
Today, the 5th on May in the year 6014, started off unheard of. The atmosphere schedules for *all* Bulkheads were forcefully normalized. All humans not on critical work details were directed to muster in the causeways, and all public screens were activated. We watched as an unrecognized grey man in a suit of old style sat at a desk before the camera. Two more people, a man with beige skin and black hair, and a pale, redheaded woman, then took seats to either side. A timer at the bottom counted down from several minutes, showing that the video was prerecorded.
"Greetings, denizens of the Ark ships, *Amaterasu*, *Atlas*, and *Jehovah*. My name is Lauriam Giles, and I was once President of a group of people known as the United States of America. To my left is Li Wei Han, President of the People's Republic of China, and to my right is Ingrid Byrne, Prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
*coughing*
"Assuredly thousands of years before your time, all of mankind came together in an effort to protect ourselves even as we worked to undo the damage we wrought on the miracle that was our home: Earth, a planet that can support life.
You may be wondering why this is the first you are hearing of any of these things, and I tell you now that the three of us made that decision together and unanimously. The notion we have here on earth, that we could sort ourselves... into different groups whose... needs and interests, conflict with each other, that we need to compete and tear each other down to pull our 'group' to the top, is a notion that the three of us, and many of those who support us, have determined to be contradictory to the continued existence of the human race. Therefore, we have withheld any information of this from the records of your respective Ark ships, and instructed the fifty thousand boarding each ship to withhold our history from their children, on to your present day. | It wasn't log before word got around about the transmission. Some believing it a fake, others reaching for a hope that was lost long ago.
Earth.
We all saw the videos of life, heard the messages from the Founders, and read the books about the Mission, it was required for every person from the age of 5 to learn about "Home".
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Breaking from the prompt a bit--I don't really like the Earth being a myth bit of it, so I'm reworking it a bit, and running with that.
_________________________
"We have a little bit of a... A situation, Mr. Holiday."
This isn't the first time I've been brought in by the authorities and told I needed to answer for a situation. I've been a private investigator in Orion City for the last twenty-six years, ever since the Colonial Peace Keeping Force declined my application. Declined it despite perfect scores on the placement exam. When you're a private investigator in a closed, self-governed system, it's hard not to ruffle a few feathers. When you're one of a very select few second-generation colonists, those feathers tend to come pre-ruffled.
The man in front of me doesn't wear a rank insignia, but he looks vaguely familiar to me. I give his two guards a glance, and flash a grin, just to let them know I'm not intimidated by them, then turn to the unranked man behind the desk. "I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."
"Communications Minister Douglas Phelps. I was Orion's senator for six years." Now I remember. Signs on every street corner trying to etch his name into the public consciousness to get him re-elected. Must have been a decade earlier, back when I was still drinking.
"Well Mr. Minister, what's this situation about?" I speak slowly, but my mind is racing. I can think of a half dozen offenses I might be brought in for. Commandeering manual control of an auto-transport, punching a police officer, unwarranted search and imprisonment of a suspect--but none of them would rise higher than local law enforcement. "What might I have done to draw the ire of the Central Office?"
The question hit a bullseye I wasn't even aiming for. Douglas blinks and stammers, his jaw works for a moment without words coming out. "No. No! What? Mr. Holiday, you're not in any kind of trouble." This guy must not have read my file. "Look, let's just get it right out on the table. We want to hire you."
"That ship has sailed pal. I don't want to work for the CPK anymore--"
"Not as a detective. Well, yes as a detective, but... Damn it, please just let me explain?" He has sweat standing out on his forehead now. He's clearly panicked. I'm so used to conversation being a kind of verbal combat that I almost don't know how to handle someone buckling without a fight. Almost. I sit back, and I narrow my eyes, and let him continue. "We just received a transmission."
"We? We who?"
"Us. The colony. From Earth."
"That's not possible. Earth is long-gone." I should know. My grandparents fled the Sol System when cosmic debris was mere weeks away from ending all life on the homeworld. Wars and expense, and in-fighting had long-since halted our space exploration program, with the SCS Roddenberry--a generation colony ship launched centuries before--our species' only home away from home. Earth's scientists had experimented with FTL drives, but they were deemed too risky for large payloads, which meant no colonies, and the tech was largely abandoned. With doom imminent, a dozen scientists stole a prototype, and took a chance. They chased down the last signal of the Roddenberry, and, along with their children--my parents among them--were the colony's first immigrants. The entirety of the Human species now lives on the inner walls of this enormous, hollow cylinder. There is no one out there who could send us a message now.
"Earth is gone *now* but the message was sent one hundred and twenty-seven years ago. More than a decade before your ship even left the system." Oh, this crap. Of course I know that travel and communication through space take time, but I've grown up on this ship just like every other kid here, and the idea of a message taking more than five minutes to reach its recipient--let alone a century--is hard to intuit. "The thing is, it... Well, it doesn't make much sense."
"How the hell am I supposed to make sense of it for you?"
Douglas Phelps folded his hands on his desk and sighed. "Mr. Holiday, I'm sure you're aware that your people haven't, um. Well, they haven't been given a fair shake. We didn't trust them, and frankly, they didn't trust us either. It was before both of our times, and I think you and I can both objectively look at those hostilities and say it's foolish. But they do linger."
"Are you planning to get to the point any time soon?"
Douglas pushes a button on his desk, and the monitor on the wall to my left lights up, with an official-looking message in blue text, with an image of the Earth surrounded by seven stars--the official logo of the Earth Space Fleet. The message reads:
>Your disregard of orders leaves us no choice but to rescind all rights and protections associated with the Earth Federation. May the heavens have mercy on your crew; The Earth will have none.
I feel my heart beginning to race. "Whoa, now, hold on! I don't know anything about this!"
"I know you don't, Mr. Holiday. There are certainly some here who think that the survivors of your grandparents' vessel should be quarantined and exterminated. They think maybe you came here with a fake story of Earth's destruction as a cover to infiltrate and cause us harm. But that doesn't make any sense. If it were true, then why send the threat at all? Send a covert team and an overt threat? It's nonsense. And also, if you were here trying to cause us some harm, then I dare say you would be keeping a lower profile than you have been." At this he gestures toward a manila envelope on his desk, which I take to be my file. It still looks a little thin, but maybe he just has it for dramatic effect. "Let me tell you what I think," he continues. "They were replying to a message sent by this vessel, clearly. Their message took 127 years; the one they were replying to would have to have been sent another 89 years prior. Do you follow your history?"
"Two hundred and sixteen years ago?" Wasn't that long ago we celebrated a bicentennial. "That's when the crew hierarchy was abolished."
"Correct. Before that we had a Captain, and he was essentially our king. Now, the history I've heard is the same as the one you've undoubtedly heard. Our leaders decided that we had traveled far enough from Earth that we need no longer exist under their command, and declared independence. They renamed the ship from the FSF Roddenberry to the SCS Roddenberry--noting our separation from the Federation Space Fleet, and rechristening ourselves as a Sovereign Colony Ship. This has always been taught as a peaceful separation. I think it was less so than what has been reported. I've been making inquiries but the records from that time have been buried--possibly purged. That's where you come in."
"You think I'll have access to buried records that you won't?"
"No. I think you'll have access to the last surviving Earth native, who may know something more than they've told us, and who won't talk to us because we've treated them unfairly for decades."
"So you're hiring me to question my aunt Tess?"
"That is the long and short of it, yes."
"And if I say no?"
"I'm currently the minority in wanting to figure out what this message means. The rest of the counsel wants to round your people up and get the information by force. I'm buying as much time as I can, but if I don't give them something within the week, I truly regret to say that your next visit here will be less pleasant."
"Well alright. Let's discuss my pay."
_____________
Part 2 coming soon! | It wasn't log before word got around about the transmission. Some believing it a fake, others reaching for a hope that was lost long ago.
Earth.
We all saw the videos of life, heard the messages from the Founders, and read the books about the Mission, it was required for every person from the age of 5 to learn about "Home".
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Kraton Prior bent over the control panel. Drawing a deep breath she blew, and a thousand dust particles filled the air around her, momentarily blotting out the red lights of the instruments and creating a phosphorescent cloud.
Coughing and waving her arm to clear the air, she squinted, tapping on the hazy sapphire glass of the readout trying to remember what her mother had told her about the position of the readout needle.
Deciphering the gauges of this area of the ship had always been mysterious to her, and she could remember her mother saying the same aloud so many years ago while she herself as a child sat and played on the rough titanium floor. She would always wait for her mother to finish, and travel the endless corridors to the next panel, the next gauge that needed decoding.
Satisfied that she had read the number correctly and its angle she turned, the hole ridden uniform fitting her slim form like a old glove. The worn ink of what long ago was an insignia - a faded blue circle with a brown ink spire corrupted by time, duty, and decades of use still slightly visible under the dim light of the room.
She sighed sightly, unjamming the room’s inner door with a modest shove, and manually set the teetering panel back into the groove set into the floor.
Walking the dark length of Canad hall was her least favorite place to be. While it was still physically sound, she could hear things hitting the outer hull as the ship moved through the blackness between starlight. It wouldn’t be long until some piece of debris pierced the Reth’s outer skin and then this historic hall would end up like the rest of the Lost Halls - filled with dust and leaking the Reth’s air supply so badly to the outside the crew would weld it shut at either end with plasma torches, forever sealing its fate to become a ghost hall which could no longer be traveled.
A tin voice suddenly called her name, emanating from a metal half circle wound around the back of her ear.
“Kraton. All decks reporting normal.” the voice chirped monotonously as she side-stepped a hulking gap in the floor.
“Note - Effronca section has received…” the voice broke momentarily, “…an anomalous wave pattern.”
She paused lost in thought. No pattern had been detected with the Effronca sector instruments for centuries.
Touching the metal ring she replied, ”Noted. Heading there now.”
Making her way down the dark hallway, she stopped and looked at a map of the Reth craft. No one had been into Effronca for years, perhaps decades, and even then it was used as a rundown hideout for crew to sip their drinks and smoke without fear of reprimand by once stern Reth Officers. She remembered something else as she looked at the map’s way-lines anodized onto the wall, tracing them with a gloved hand. The thought of something half-remembered once heard from her great grandmother. The thought fleeing, she shook her head and followed the passages to the sector.
Effronca, once the Reth’s main operations room, had long been deserted. The golden plated panels once mounted on the wall, long since pried away for other uses and trade on the ship’s black market. She wound her way past the twin sealing doors which had since buckled under an ancient unseen stress, making her way to the center of the room.
“eArThhh, rEpoRTTtt….fIveNInethREE mmArk oNEsEVEnfiVE…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening.
“aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire.” the voice spoke wavering in an out of hearing.
Unmoving she continued to listen, her mind once again grasping a fragment of memory overheard long ago. A snippet of myth passed down for generations, recycled into a drinking song, then abruptly forgotten. One that even the rooms drunk prior occupants took as hearsay and legend.
“rEPeat, aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire!” the voice spoke more urgently than before.
If it were true, she should raise the alarm, awaken hundreds of families now sound asleep, while making her way to the Reth’s weapons control cache.
“….suRRounded…wHy ArEn’t yOU fIRing?” the voice demanded.
Suddenly a new sound came through the room - a loud blast followed by screaming before being cut off into the inky silence.
She stood for a second wondering, and slowly turned and walked out of the room. | It wasn't log before word got around about the transmission. Some believing it a fake, others reaching for a hope that was lost long ago.
Earth.
We all saw the videos of life, heard the messages from the Founders, and read the books about the Mission, it was required for every person from the age of 5 to learn about "Home".
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Captain's log, day 6 of Juno, year 675: Captain Francis, "the brave" they called him, he was the second captain to dare traverse an asteroid field, how fast it was until they called him "the mad", when he turned the ship around he promissed his officers that if a hint of that message got out he would send them all to the slaughter, in less than two months he kept his word, nobody expected him to kill himself too, left only his second in command.
Poor guy, Captain Marc "the poor" lasted less than two years in command, left without a crew, he never questioned his captain's orders, nobody believed the Earth existed, I'm sure even he had doubts but he was loyal. And so a civil war started, one side wanting to continue towards the Earth, the other believing it to be a trap.
In the end we kept moving, the captains, myself included, had a mission, save humanity, and at this rate we wouldn't last much more than a hundred years, I was born 50 years after these events and I honestly think he wasn't mad, just tired, I'd do the same if we weren't so close, there's only so much a man can take.
Now we actually talk to them, these other humans, they say the Earth is back to normal, no one here knows exactly what that means. We avoided talking about food, they asked but we told them we have enough for the journey, how could we explain, how would they understand? No, we deal with it when we get there, until then, rations will be smaller, it's so hard to tell them they won't see Earth, but it's a noble sacrifice and we can't stop now. Hopefully they won't judge us harshly, after all, our food suplies only lasted one hundred years and we had to keep eating. | It wasn't log before word got around about the transmission. Some believing it a fake, others reaching for a hope that was lost long ago.
Earth.
We all saw the videos of life, heard the messages from the Founders, and read the books about the Mission, it was required for every person from the age of 5 to learn about "Home".
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | It wasn't log before word got around about the transmission. Some believing it a fake, others reaching for a hope that was lost long ago.
Earth.
We all saw the videos of life, heard the messages from the Founders, and read the books about the Mission, it was required for every person from the age of 5 to learn about "Home".
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "There were billions of us once."
The Traveller's Council Chairman stared at the face. A man sitting in a giant marble chair spoke to the entire ship. It's frequency so powerful it covered nearly every channel with perfect audio.
"My...My... My name... That doesn't matter anymore... President... Leader... King... Such titles don't hold the meanings they once did anymore." The old man coughed. The screen shifted. Giving them a view of an orange glow in the distance.
"We sent you away... In optimistism... Hope... Faith in the idea of a future, where we don't die out. Like the civilizations before us. And those next to come... It was such a simple wish... Get to a few planets... Establish colonies... Chart the stars... It always seemed simple... But others held different intentions."
The old man moved away from the familiar monument. "The... The scans show that... There are seven people on Earth left... The last woman... A clon-... A woman... Eve... She passed away today... 7am, 20077... She was exploring the remains of York... And fell into a pit of flames... Left over from the hydrogen bombs... Thomas fell in, trying to save her... The rest of us are old men... Too foolish to have stopped before the war went to far... My Western United Legion is nothing but cinders now... And the Slavic Euro Empire is naught but dirt and stone."
"... One day... The clouds will finally pour... And return our insignificant lands to the sea. And your birth place... Earth... Will return to being a ball of water for the next several million years."
"Don't pity me."
"Many... They tried to escape... Their ashes... The people I murdered... For trying to get off the planet as the war escalated... Their ashes in this new ring around the planet keep me, and these others, from escaping to the Moon or Mars. Any craft launched will get torn to dust in seconds. In two weeks, the satellite array sending you this message, will pass through this ring... And I will never be able to speak to you all... My descendants... Again..."
He sat down. Dirt. They could see the dirt. "... I can't apologize... No "I'm Sorry" will bring back those that have died. So needlessly. In my pointless war... And my security guards have gone off to try surviving on their own... The Tsar's death and my surviving does not make me the victor in this... Not with my people gone in a matter of days... And the world I knew gone..." He sighed, "Don't... Let... Don't let bastards like me rule... Survive... Whether you are all synthetics, clones, or still human at this point... Do not raise your weapons when foolish old politicians and kings call for them to be raised... Don't war for anyone... Let the power hungry starve. My title... President and Leader of the Western United Legion... It means nothing now... And tomorrow, I will try to pay my penance... As this world will be reduced to six humans..."
"If you ever find yourselves able... Or by chance, cross this godforsaken rock... Don't get close. Just stand back... And look at what your home world has become... And refuse... To ever follow in our footsteps. This is Garrett Turner... Signing off." | Somewhere, buried underneath tons of metal and wiring, a small sensor began to gently beep. A larger sensor noticed this beep and inquired as to what was wrong. The small sensor simply returned "Transmission received." The larger sensor turned its attention elsewhere; it had solved that small mystery. The humans on board were likely already receiving the message.
Waylon jumped when he saw the little envelope icon on his screen turn orange, with an accompanying pop-up saying "Transmission received. Click here to access".
What? What had sent him this transmission? They'd established (god, generations ago now) that Earth didn't exist. What other explanation was there for their vastly overdue arrival? They'd lost contact with their own civilization millions of light-years ago; he hadn't even been alive to see the last signal they'd received, and they'd determined that to be from some other planet far off of their route. He took a few seconds to process this interruption to his daily star-scanning - his machine was rather outdated and difficult to operate - before pressing the button to speak on the chatting channel that had been installed for communication between the scanners.
"Hello? Yes, Tario, I know, that constellation's cool. Where's the Sergeant at?"
"Right here, Waylon. What's up up there?" (This peculiar wording had been derived from the fact that the scanners occupied the very top of the megaship)
"Yeah, I got a transmission-"
"WHAT? What'd it say?"
"I don't know, I was gonna play it for you."
"Well shut up an' lemme hear it then!"
"Transmission begins. *raised voices in background* Hello, whoever has received this. This is an urgent distress call from the planet Earth. We are currently under assault by a number of astrological and physical anomalies. We request assistance. Transmission ends."
At this point everyone in the chat channel had gone silent.
A voice asked "Was that what I think it was?"
Another voice answered "I think we all know what it was."
Waylon sat in stunned silence. He could feel concern building.
**50 Days Later**
The ship was in disarray. Makeshift forts constructed out of spare metal sheeting crowded the corridors, some interlinked, some with spikes on the outside. Everyone had formed their own thoughts about that fateful transmission - Those who thought it was real had decided to call themselves Truth-knowers, and those who thought it false had deemed themselves Lie-rejectors. The two factions had recently gone violent, and those caught in the middle who had no beef with either had decide it was best to just wall themselves off. The Bridge was its own elite enclave, containing the original captains and Waylon. It was under constant assault by both for making no official statement on its views. Waylon was, of course, named the Chief Scanner. On this particular day (for that is what they called the "awake" part of their sleep cycles) he peered through his scope to assess the distance of the slow-growing blue ball he always saw, and simply saw a patch of black, tarred-looking ground.
They had arrived, but as they would discover, they'd come 15,000 years late. They hadn't stopped to consider the age of the radio signal they received. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Part 1-please direct karma to part 1
*Atlas* is everything to us.
*Atlas* is the vast vessel on which humanity, four hundred million members strong, live our lives, supporting each other while we are supported by the ship.
*Atlas* provides all of our physical needs, from food to consumable goods and medicine. and provides us with education and training to operate its systems and machinery, in order to provide services to each other. The massive economy of the craft is managed like clockwork by the ship's omniscient, omnipresent intelligence, which guides each person and puts us where we are needed. Engineers in the central Manufactory and Maintenance, doctors in vast hospital bays, field wardens and groundskeepers in the Open Wild, a massive open air vista of rocky hills and trees in the center of the otherwise tightly compartmentalized steel body of the ship.
We have lived in this cocoon since times immemorial, and have been cared for throughout hardships countless. The plague in year 4388, where half of *Atlas* was quarantined, and even the terrible Culling of 5012, where *Atlas* discovered that its postnatal directive sterilization protocol had failed and the job "soldier " appeared for the first time. Throughout all, none doubted that *Atlas* always acted in our best interests.
*Atlas* was always moving, we all have been taught in Academy. Anyone may access the public HUD and view the statistics. Velocity, route, navigation operations intervals. An interesting notation in the public HUD is, "Total Distance From Earth ", a unit given in thousands of light years. In Academy, we are taught that humanity originated on a rocky planet, like those that *Atlas* passes by in centuries when it transits through a star system to collect materials. As if through a sense of obligation to us, it is storied that at these times, *Atlas* will slow and raise the outer shields on observation decks, scheduling us to muster just to gawk at the impossibly large spheres, and sometimes moons, as we pass by. Moons are like the asteroids that *Atlas* harvests for water ice, chemicals and minerals, but almost as large as *Atlas* itself.
All of these places are, without variation, barren, without air to breathe and with gravity so fierce as to crush our organs should *Atlas* have permitted the use of the great Dropships that loomed in the lowest and largest bays. Academy tells us that we once came from Earth, which was a planet like those of record, but this is commonly dismissed as a fictional account, likely inserted into the curriculum to give kids a chance to relax in between the otherwise demanding efforts of education. It is hard for any of us to believe that we could survive outside of *Atlas*.
*Atlas* runs scheduled broadcasts over the PA system, varying by Bulkhead region, as it reports the day's atmosphere schedule such as O2 content, temperature settings, "sunrise" and "sunset", and "wind", the level at which it powers the circulation fans. In a nonsensical twist, work is scheduled around these settings, as if *Atlas* was pretending not to have control over these configurations. On some days, it might raise the temperature above 30 degrees, and reccomend that children and the elderly remain in family quarters. Often, structural maintenance crews are not permitted to work on scheduled tasks because the wind is set too high to operate the scaling lifts safely, although tasks of priority 4 or greater (such as a detected fault in an outward bulkhead) will cause an override event and atmosphere in that region will be forcibly normalized differently from the schedule.
*Atlas* even directs us when punishing each other for misbehavior, although those trained as judges are allowed to take *Atlas*'s direction as an opinion. One such case from a century ago is still gossiped about in social circles. It goes as follows:
A man in Bulkhead Southeast was working as a fouth-tier Systems Administrator, the highest level that *Atlas* provides training for. He was on trial for "illegal digital access beyond scope " , a crime often charged to lower Sysadmins who got bored and played with tier 3 or 4 tools, and was usually given a slap on the wrist, such as a week in quarters. In this instance, *Atlas* was recommending a charge of *ten years* in quarters, so the judge demanded the story from the Sysadmin.
He described how he decided to disguise his terminal as one of *Atlas*'s network minds, and how he managed to access files and data logs which were hidden deep beyond what he was given authority to see within the scope of his job. According to him, he accessed the ship's Deep Archive, a chronological account of major events and operations of the ship, and he went back through to the beginning. He claimed that the log was from the era of *Atlas*'s own birth, and contained events of construction, software development and troubleshooting, passenger boarding, and the date of the ship's departure from the orbit of the fabled Earth, in the distant year 2136. He claimed that Earth was a planet that was actually able to support life, but was becoming less hospitable very quickly, and that *Atlas* was one of three such craft, with the others named *Jehova* and *Amaterasu*. That they were sent in different directions on paths where they would find a steady flow of resources to harvest in Space, and that a colony remained on the single Moon of Earth, called simply "THE Moon", to manage the rehabilitation and moving of the planet (*really*? *move* a planet?) to a cooler orbit while wild surface fauna and flora recovered.
Obviously, the audience of the courtroom had to have their laughter silenced by the judge. As he himself was left speechless at the unbelievable talk of the Sysadmin, he disregarded *Atlas*'s opinion and sentenced the man to four months of local travel restriction with scheduled counseling. *Atlas*, outside of the judge's decision, demoted the man from Sysadmin 4 to digital hardware maintenance technician, the lowest job in the digital tradebook. Although he never caused problems again, he swore by his story until the day that he died.
Today, the 5th on May in the year 6014, started off unheard of. The atmosphere schedules for *all* Bulkheads were forcefully normalized. All humans not on critical work details were directed to muster in the causeways, and all public screens were activated. We watched as an unrecognized grey man in a suit of old style sat at a desk before the camera. Two more people, a man with beige skin and black hair, and a pale, redheaded woman, then took seats to either side. A timer at the bottom counted down from several minutes, showing that the video was prerecorded.
"Greetings, denizens of the Ark ships, *Amaterasu*, *Atlas*, and *Jehovah*. My name is Lauriam Giles, and I was once President of a group of people known as the United States of America. To my left is Li Wei Han, President of the People's Republic of China, and to my right is Ingrid Byrne, Prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
*coughing*
"Assuredly thousands of years before your time, all of mankind came together in an effort to protect ourselves even as we worked to undo the damage we wrought on the miracle that was our home: Earth, a planet that can support life.
You may be wondering why this is the first you are hearing of any of these things, and I tell you now that the three of us made that decision together and unanimously. The notion we have here on earth, that we could sort ourselves... into different groups whose... needs and interests, conflict with each other, that we need to compete and tear each other down to pull our 'group' to the top, is a notion that the three of us, and many of those who support us, have determined to be contradictory to the continued existence of the human race. Therefore, we have withheld any information of this from the records of your respective Ark ships, and instructed the fifty thousand boarding each ship to withhold our history from their children, on to your present day. | Somewhere, buried underneath tons of metal and wiring, a small sensor began to gently beep. A larger sensor noticed this beep and inquired as to what was wrong. The small sensor simply returned "Transmission received." The larger sensor turned its attention elsewhere; it had solved that small mystery. The humans on board were likely already receiving the message.
Waylon jumped when he saw the little envelope icon on his screen turn orange, with an accompanying pop-up saying "Transmission received. Click here to access".
What? What had sent him this transmission? They'd established (god, generations ago now) that Earth didn't exist. What other explanation was there for their vastly overdue arrival? They'd lost contact with their own civilization millions of light-years ago; he hadn't even been alive to see the last signal they'd received, and they'd determined that to be from some other planet far off of their route. He took a few seconds to process this interruption to his daily star-scanning - his machine was rather outdated and difficult to operate - before pressing the button to speak on the chatting channel that had been installed for communication between the scanners.
"Hello? Yes, Tario, I know, that constellation's cool. Where's the Sergeant at?"
"Right here, Waylon. What's up up there?" (This peculiar wording had been derived from the fact that the scanners occupied the very top of the megaship)
"Yeah, I got a transmission-"
"WHAT? What'd it say?"
"I don't know, I was gonna play it for you."
"Well shut up an' lemme hear it then!"
"Transmission begins. *raised voices in background* Hello, whoever has received this. This is an urgent distress call from the planet Earth. We are currently under assault by a number of astrological and physical anomalies. We request assistance. Transmission ends."
At this point everyone in the chat channel had gone silent.
A voice asked "Was that what I think it was?"
Another voice answered "I think we all know what it was."
Waylon sat in stunned silence. He could feel concern building.
**50 Days Later**
The ship was in disarray. Makeshift forts constructed out of spare metal sheeting crowded the corridors, some interlinked, some with spikes on the outside. Everyone had formed their own thoughts about that fateful transmission - Those who thought it was real had decided to call themselves Truth-knowers, and those who thought it false had deemed themselves Lie-rejectors. The two factions had recently gone violent, and those caught in the middle who had no beef with either had decide it was best to just wall themselves off. The Bridge was its own elite enclave, containing the original captains and Waylon. It was under constant assault by both for making no official statement on its views. Waylon was, of course, named the Chief Scanner. On this particular day (for that is what they called the "awake" part of their sleep cycles) he peered through his scope to assess the distance of the slow-growing blue ball he always saw, and simply saw a patch of black, tarred-looking ground.
They had arrived, but as they would discover, they'd come 15,000 years late. They hadn't stopped to consider the age of the radio signal they received. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Breaking from the prompt a bit--I don't really like the Earth being a myth bit of it, so I'm reworking it a bit, and running with that.
_________________________
"We have a little bit of a... A situation, Mr. Holiday."
This isn't the first time I've been brought in by the authorities and told I needed to answer for a situation. I've been a private investigator in Orion City for the last twenty-six years, ever since the Colonial Peace Keeping Force declined my application. Declined it despite perfect scores on the placement exam. When you're a private investigator in a closed, self-governed system, it's hard not to ruffle a few feathers. When you're one of a very select few second-generation colonists, those feathers tend to come pre-ruffled.
The man in front of me doesn't wear a rank insignia, but he looks vaguely familiar to me. I give his two guards a glance, and flash a grin, just to let them know I'm not intimidated by them, then turn to the unranked man behind the desk. "I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."
"Communications Minister Douglas Phelps. I was Orion's senator for six years." Now I remember. Signs on every street corner trying to etch his name into the public consciousness to get him re-elected. Must have been a decade earlier, back when I was still drinking.
"Well Mr. Minister, what's this situation about?" I speak slowly, but my mind is racing. I can think of a half dozen offenses I might be brought in for. Commandeering manual control of an auto-transport, punching a police officer, unwarranted search and imprisonment of a suspect--but none of them would rise higher than local law enforcement. "What might I have done to draw the ire of the Central Office?"
The question hit a bullseye I wasn't even aiming for. Douglas blinks and stammers, his jaw works for a moment without words coming out. "No. No! What? Mr. Holiday, you're not in any kind of trouble." This guy must not have read my file. "Look, let's just get it right out on the table. We want to hire you."
"That ship has sailed pal. I don't want to work for the CPK anymore--"
"Not as a detective. Well, yes as a detective, but... Damn it, please just let me explain?" He has sweat standing out on his forehead now. He's clearly panicked. I'm so used to conversation being a kind of verbal combat that I almost don't know how to handle someone buckling without a fight. Almost. I sit back, and I narrow my eyes, and let him continue. "We just received a transmission."
"We? We who?"
"Us. The colony. From Earth."
"That's not possible. Earth is long-gone." I should know. My grandparents fled the Sol System when cosmic debris was mere weeks away from ending all life on the homeworld. Wars and expense, and in-fighting had long-since halted our space exploration program, with the SCS Roddenberry--a generation colony ship launched centuries before--our species' only home away from home. Earth's scientists had experimented with FTL drives, but they were deemed too risky for large payloads, which meant no colonies, and the tech was largely abandoned. With doom imminent, a dozen scientists stole a prototype, and took a chance. They chased down the last signal of the Roddenberry, and, along with their children--my parents among them--were the colony's first immigrants. The entirety of the Human species now lives on the inner walls of this enormous, hollow cylinder. There is no one out there who could send us a message now.
"Earth is gone *now* but the message was sent one hundred and twenty-seven years ago. More than a decade before your ship even left the system." Oh, this crap. Of course I know that travel and communication through space take time, but I've grown up on this ship just like every other kid here, and the idea of a message taking more than five minutes to reach its recipient--let alone a century--is hard to intuit. "The thing is, it... Well, it doesn't make much sense."
"How the hell am I supposed to make sense of it for you?"
Douglas Phelps folded his hands on his desk and sighed. "Mr. Holiday, I'm sure you're aware that your people haven't, um. Well, they haven't been given a fair shake. We didn't trust them, and frankly, they didn't trust us either. It was before both of our times, and I think you and I can both objectively look at those hostilities and say it's foolish. But they do linger."
"Are you planning to get to the point any time soon?"
Douglas pushes a button on his desk, and the monitor on the wall to my left lights up, with an official-looking message in blue text, with an image of the Earth surrounded by seven stars--the official logo of the Earth Space Fleet. The message reads:
>Your disregard of orders leaves us no choice but to rescind all rights and protections associated with the Earth Federation. May the heavens have mercy on your crew; The Earth will have none.
I feel my heart beginning to race. "Whoa, now, hold on! I don't know anything about this!"
"I know you don't, Mr. Holiday. There are certainly some here who think that the survivors of your grandparents' vessel should be quarantined and exterminated. They think maybe you came here with a fake story of Earth's destruction as a cover to infiltrate and cause us harm. But that doesn't make any sense. If it were true, then why send the threat at all? Send a covert team and an overt threat? It's nonsense. And also, if you were here trying to cause us some harm, then I dare say you would be keeping a lower profile than you have been." At this he gestures toward a manila envelope on his desk, which I take to be my file. It still looks a little thin, but maybe he just has it for dramatic effect. "Let me tell you what I think," he continues. "They were replying to a message sent by this vessel, clearly. Their message took 127 years; the one they were replying to would have to have been sent another 89 years prior. Do you follow your history?"
"Two hundred and sixteen years ago?" Wasn't that long ago we celebrated a bicentennial. "That's when the crew hierarchy was abolished."
"Correct. Before that we had a Captain, and he was essentially our king. Now, the history I've heard is the same as the one you've undoubtedly heard. Our leaders decided that we had traveled far enough from Earth that we need no longer exist under their command, and declared independence. They renamed the ship from the FSF Roddenberry to the SCS Roddenberry--noting our separation from the Federation Space Fleet, and rechristening ourselves as a Sovereign Colony Ship. This has always been taught as a peaceful separation. I think it was less so than what has been reported. I've been making inquiries but the records from that time have been buried--possibly purged. That's where you come in."
"You think I'll have access to buried records that you won't?"
"No. I think you'll have access to the last surviving Earth native, who may know something more than they've told us, and who won't talk to us because we've treated them unfairly for decades."
"So you're hiring me to question my aunt Tess?"
"That is the long and short of it, yes."
"And if I say no?"
"I'm currently the minority in wanting to figure out what this message means. The rest of the counsel wants to round your people up and get the information by force. I'm buying as much time as I can, but if I don't give them something within the week, I truly regret to say that your next visit here will be less pleasant."
"Well alright. Let's discuss my pay."
_____________
Part 2 coming soon! | Somewhere, buried underneath tons of metal and wiring, a small sensor began to gently beep. A larger sensor noticed this beep and inquired as to what was wrong. The small sensor simply returned "Transmission received." The larger sensor turned its attention elsewhere; it had solved that small mystery. The humans on board were likely already receiving the message.
Waylon jumped when he saw the little envelope icon on his screen turn orange, with an accompanying pop-up saying "Transmission received. Click here to access".
What? What had sent him this transmission? They'd established (god, generations ago now) that Earth didn't exist. What other explanation was there for their vastly overdue arrival? They'd lost contact with their own civilization millions of light-years ago; he hadn't even been alive to see the last signal they'd received, and they'd determined that to be from some other planet far off of their route. He took a few seconds to process this interruption to his daily star-scanning - his machine was rather outdated and difficult to operate - before pressing the button to speak on the chatting channel that had been installed for communication between the scanners.
"Hello? Yes, Tario, I know, that constellation's cool. Where's the Sergeant at?"
"Right here, Waylon. What's up up there?" (This peculiar wording had been derived from the fact that the scanners occupied the very top of the megaship)
"Yeah, I got a transmission-"
"WHAT? What'd it say?"
"I don't know, I was gonna play it for you."
"Well shut up an' lemme hear it then!"
"Transmission begins. *raised voices in background* Hello, whoever has received this. This is an urgent distress call from the planet Earth. We are currently under assault by a number of astrological and physical anomalies. We request assistance. Transmission ends."
At this point everyone in the chat channel had gone silent.
A voice asked "Was that what I think it was?"
Another voice answered "I think we all know what it was."
Waylon sat in stunned silence. He could feel concern building.
**50 Days Later**
The ship was in disarray. Makeshift forts constructed out of spare metal sheeting crowded the corridors, some interlinked, some with spikes on the outside. Everyone had formed their own thoughts about that fateful transmission - Those who thought it was real had decided to call themselves Truth-knowers, and those who thought it false had deemed themselves Lie-rejectors. The two factions had recently gone violent, and those caught in the middle who had no beef with either had decide it was best to just wall themselves off. The Bridge was its own elite enclave, containing the original captains and Waylon. It was under constant assault by both for making no official statement on its views. Waylon was, of course, named the Chief Scanner. On this particular day (for that is what they called the "awake" part of their sleep cycles) he peered through his scope to assess the distance of the slow-growing blue ball he always saw, and simply saw a patch of black, tarred-looking ground.
They had arrived, but as they would discover, they'd come 15,000 years late. They hadn't stopped to consider the age of the radio signal they received. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Kraton Prior bent over the control panel. Drawing a deep breath she blew, and a thousand dust particles filled the air around her, momentarily blotting out the red lights of the instruments and creating a phosphorescent cloud.
Coughing and waving her arm to clear the air, she squinted, tapping on the hazy sapphire glass of the readout trying to remember what her mother had told her about the position of the readout needle.
Deciphering the gauges of this area of the ship had always been mysterious to her, and she could remember her mother saying the same aloud so many years ago while she herself as a child sat and played on the rough titanium floor. She would always wait for her mother to finish, and travel the endless corridors to the next panel, the next gauge that needed decoding.
Satisfied that she had read the number correctly and its angle she turned, the hole ridden uniform fitting her slim form like a old glove. The worn ink of what long ago was an insignia - a faded blue circle with a brown ink spire corrupted by time, duty, and decades of use still slightly visible under the dim light of the room.
She sighed sightly, unjamming the room’s inner door with a modest shove, and manually set the teetering panel back into the groove set into the floor.
Walking the dark length of Canad hall was her least favorite place to be. While it was still physically sound, she could hear things hitting the outer hull as the ship moved through the blackness between starlight. It wouldn’t be long until some piece of debris pierced the Reth’s outer skin and then this historic hall would end up like the rest of the Lost Halls - filled with dust and leaking the Reth’s air supply so badly to the outside the crew would weld it shut at either end with plasma torches, forever sealing its fate to become a ghost hall which could no longer be traveled.
A tin voice suddenly called her name, emanating from a metal half circle wound around the back of her ear.
“Kraton. All decks reporting normal.” the voice chirped monotonously as she side-stepped a hulking gap in the floor.
“Note - Effronca section has received…” the voice broke momentarily, “…an anomalous wave pattern.”
She paused lost in thought. No pattern had been detected with the Effronca sector instruments for centuries.
Touching the metal ring she replied, ”Noted. Heading there now.”
Making her way down the dark hallway, she stopped and looked at a map of the Reth craft. No one had been into Effronca for years, perhaps decades, and even then it was used as a rundown hideout for crew to sip their drinks and smoke without fear of reprimand by once stern Reth Officers. She remembered something else as she looked at the map’s way-lines anodized onto the wall, tracing them with a gloved hand. The thought of something half-remembered once heard from her great grandmother. The thought fleeing, she shook her head and followed the passages to the sector.
Effronca, once the Reth’s main operations room, had long been deserted. The golden plated panels once mounted on the wall, long since pried away for other uses and trade on the ship’s black market. She wound her way past the twin sealing doors which had since buckled under an ancient unseen stress, making her way to the center of the room.
“eArThhh, rEpoRTTtt….fIveNInethREE mmArk oNEsEVEnfiVE…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening.
“aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire.” the voice spoke wavering in an out of hearing.
Unmoving she continued to listen, her mind once again grasping a fragment of memory overheard long ago. A snippet of myth passed down for generations, recycled into a drinking song, then abruptly forgotten. One that even the rooms drunk prior occupants took as hearsay and legend.
“rEPeat, aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire!” the voice spoke more urgently than before.
If it were true, she should raise the alarm, awaken hundreds of families now sound asleep, while making her way to the Reth’s weapons control cache.
“….suRRounded…wHy ArEn’t yOU fIRing?” the voice demanded.
Suddenly a new sound came through the room - a loud blast followed by screaming before being cut off into the inky silence.
She stood for a second wondering, and slowly turned and walked out of the room. | Somewhere, buried underneath tons of metal and wiring, a small sensor began to gently beep. A larger sensor noticed this beep and inquired as to what was wrong. The small sensor simply returned "Transmission received." The larger sensor turned its attention elsewhere; it had solved that small mystery. The humans on board were likely already receiving the message.
Waylon jumped when he saw the little envelope icon on his screen turn orange, with an accompanying pop-up saying "Transmission received. Click here to access".
What? What had sent him this transmission? They'd established (god, generations ago now) that Earth didn't exist. What other explanation was there for their vastly overdue arrival? They'd lost contact with their own civilization millions of light-years ago; he hadn't even been alive to see the last signal they'd received, and they'd determined that to be from some other planet far off of their route. He took a few seconds to process this interruption to his daily star-scanning - his machine was rather outdated and difficult to operate - before pressing the button to speak on the chatting channel that had been installed for communication between the scanners.
"Hello? Yes, Tario, I know, that constellation's cool. Where's the Sergeant at?"
"Right here, Waylon. What's up up there?" (This peculiar wording had been derived from the fact that the scanners occupied the very top of the megaship)
"Yeah, I got a transmission-"
"WHAT? What'd it say?"
"I don't know, I was gonna play it for you."
"Well shut up an' lemme hear it then!"
"Transmission begins. *raised voices in background* Hello, whoever has received this. This is an urgent distress call from the planet Earth. We are currently under assault by a number of astrological and physical anomalies. We request assistance. Transmission ends."
At this point everyone in the chat channel had gone silent.
A voice asked "Was that what I think it was?"
Another voice answered "I think we all know what it was."
Waylon sat in stunned silence. He could feel concern building.
**50 Days Later**
The ship was in disarray. Makeshift forts constructed out of spare metal sheeting crowded the corridors, some interlinked, some with spikes on the outside. Everyone had formed their own thoughts about that fateful transmission - Those who thought it was real had decided to call themselves Truth-knowers, and those who thought it false had deemed themselves Lie-rejectors. The two factions had recently gone violent, and those caught in the middle who had no beef with either had decide it was best to just wall themselves off. The Bridge was its own elite enclave, containing the original captains and Waylon. It was under constant assault by both for making no official statement on its views. Waylon was, of course, named the Chief Scanner. On this particular day (for that is what they called the "awake" part of their sleep cycles) he peered through his scope to assess the distance of the slow-growing blue ball he always saw, and simply saw a patch of black, tarred-looking ground.
They had arrived, but as they would discover, they'd come 15,000 years late. They hadn't stopped to consider the age of the radio signal they received. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | Somewhere, buried underneath tons of metal and wiring, a small sensor began to gently beep. A larger sensor noticed this beep and inquired as to what was wrong. The small sensor simply returned "Transmission received." The larger sensor turned its attention elsewhere; it had solved that small mystery. The humans on board were likely already receiving the message.
Waylon jumped when he saw the little envelope icon on his screen turn orange, with an accompanying pop-up saying "Transmission received. Click here to access".
What? What had sent him this transmission? They'd established (god, generations ago now) that Earth didn't exist. What other explanation was there for their vastly overdue arrival? They'd lost contact with their own civilization millions of light-years ago; he hadn't even been alive to see the last signal they'd received, and they'd determined that to be from some other planet far off of their route. He took a few seconds to process this interruption to his daily star-scanning - his machine was rather outdated and difficult to operate - before pressing the button to speak on the chatting channel that had been installed for communication between the scanners.
"Hello? Yes, Tario, I know, that constellation's cool. Where's the Sergeant at?"
"Right here, Waylon. What's up up there?" (This peculiar wording had been derived from the fact that the scanners occupied the very top of the megaship)
"Yeah, I got a transmission-"
"WHAT? What'd it say?"
"I don't know, I was gonna play it for you."
"Well shut up an' lemme hear it then!"
"Transmission begins. *raised voices in background* Hello, whoever has received this. This is an urgent distress call from the planet Earth. We are currently under assault by a number of astrological and physical anomalies. We request assistance. Transmission ends."
At this point everyone in the chat channel had gone silent.
A voice asked "Was that what I think it was?"
Another voice answered "I think we all know what it was."
Waylon sat in stunned silence. He could feel concern building.
**50 Days Later**
The ship was in disarray. Makeshift forts constructed out of spare metal sheeting crowded the corridors, some interlinked, some with spikes on the outside. Everyone had formed their own thoughts about that fateful transmission - Those who thought it was real had decided to call themselves Truth-knowers, and those who thought it false had deemed themselves Lie-rejectors. The two factions had recently gone violent, and those caught in the middle who had no beef with either had decide it was best to just wall themselves off. The Bridge was its own elite enclave, containing the original captains and Waylon. It was under constant assault by both for making no official statement on its views. Waylon was, of course, named the Chief Scanner. On this particular day (for that is what they called the "awake" part of their sleep cycles) he peered through his scope to assess the distance of the slow-growing blue ball he always saw, and simply saw a patch of black, tarred-looking ground.
They had arrived, but as they would discover, they'd come 15,000 years late. They hadn't stopped to consider the age of the radio signal they received. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Part 1-please direct karma to part 1
*Atlas* is everything to us.
*Atlas* is the vast vessel on which humanity, four hundred million members strong, live our lives, supporting each other while we are supported by the ship.
*Atlas* provides all of our physical needs, from food to consumable goods and medicine. and provides us with education and training to operate its systems and machinery, in order to provide services to each other. The massive economy of the craft is managed like clockwork by the ship's omniscient, omnipresent intelligence, which guides each person and puts us where we are needed. Engineers in the central Manufactory and Maintenance, doctors in vast hospital bays, field wardens and groundskeepers in the Open Wild, a massive open air vista of rocky hills and trees in the center of the otherwise tightly compartmentalized steel body of the ship.
We have lived in this cocoon since times immemorial, and have been cared for throughout hardships countless. The plague in year 4388, where half of *Atlas* was quarantined, and even the terrible Culling of 5012, where *Atlas* discovered that its postnatal directive sterilization protocol had failed and the job "soldier " appeared for the first time. Throughout all, none doubted that *Atlas* always acted in our best interests.
*Atlas* was always moving, we all have been taught in Academy. Anyone may access the public HUD and view the statistics. Velocity, route, navigation operations intervals. An interesting notation in the public HUD is, "Total Distance From Earth ", a unit given in thousands of light years. In Academy, we are taught that humanity originated on a rocky planet, like those that *Atlas* passes by in centuries when it transits through a star system to collect materials. As if through a sense of obligation to us, it is storied that at these times, *Atlas* will slow and raise the outer shields on observation decks, scheduling us to muster just to gawk at the impossibly large spheres, and sometimes moons, as we pass by. Moons are like the asteroids that *Atlas* harvests for water ice, chemicals and minerals, but almost as large as *Atlas* itself.
All of these places are, without variation, barren, without air to breathe and with gravity so fierce as to crush our organs should *Atlas* have permitted the use of the great Dropships that loomed in the lowest and largest bays. Academy tells us that we once came from Earth, which was a planet like those of record, but this is commonly dismissed as a fictional account, likely inserted into the curriculum to give kids a chance to relax in between the otherwise demanding efforts of education. It is hard for any of us to believe that we could survive outside of *Atlas*.
*Atlas* runs scheduled broadcasts over the PA system, varying by Bulkhead region, as it reports the day's atmosphere schedule such as O2 content, temperature settings, "sunrise" and "sunset", and "wind", the level at which it powers the circulation fans. In a nonsensical twist, work is scheduled around these settings, as if *Atlas* was pretending not to have control over these configurations. On some days, it might raise the temperature above 30 degrees, and reccomend that children and the elderly remain in family quarters. Often, structural maintenance crews are not permitted to work on scheduled tasks because the wind is set too high to operate the scaling lifts safely, although tasks of priority 4 or greater (such as a detected fault in an outward bulkhead) will cause an override event and atmosphere in that region will be forcibly normalized differently from the schedule.
*Atlas* even directs us when punishing each other for misbehavior, although those trained as judges are allowed to take *Atlas*'s direction as an opinion. One such case from a century ago is still gossiped about in social circles. It goes as follows:
A man in Bulkhead Southeast was working as a fouth-tier Systems Administrator, the highest level that *Atlas* provides training for. He was on trial for "illegal digital access beyond scope " , a crime often charged to lower Sysadmins who got bored and played with tier 3 or 4 tools, and was usually given a slap on the wrist, such as a week in quarters. In this instance, *Atlas* was recommending a charge of *ten years* in quarters, so the judge demanded the story from the Sysadmin.
He described how he decided to disguise his terminal as one of *Atlas*'s network minds, and how he managed to access files and data logs which were hidden deep beyond what he was given authority to see within the scope of his job. According to him, he accessed the ship's Deep Archive, a chronological account of major events and operations of the ship, and he went back through to the beginning. He claimed that the log was from the era of *Atlas*'s own birth, and contained events of construction, software development and troubleshooting, passenger boarding, and the date of the ship's departure from the orbit of the fabled Earth, in the distant year 2136. He claimed that Earth was a planet that was actually able to support life, but was becoming less hospitable very quickly, and that *Atlas* was one of three such craft, with the others named *Jehova* and *Amaterasu*. That they were sent in different directions on paths where they would find a steady flow of resources to harvest in Space, and that a colony remained on the single Moon of Earth, called simply "THE Moon", to manage the rehabilitation and moving of the planet (*really*? *move* a planet?) to a cooler orbit while wild surface fauna and flora recovered.
Obviously, the audience of the courtroom had to have their laughter silenced by the judge. As he himself was left speechless at the unbelievable talk of the Sysadmin, he disregarded *Atlas*'s opinion and sentenced the man to four months of local travel restriction with scheduled counseling. *Atlas*, outside of the judge's decision, demoted the man from Sysadmin 4 to digital hardware maintenance technician, the lowest job in the digital tradebook. Although he never caused problems again, he swore by his story until the day that he died.
Today, the 5th on May in the year 6014, started off unheard of. The atmosphere schedules for *all* Bulkheads were forcefully normalized. All humans not on critical work details were directed to muster in the causeways, and all public screens were activated. We watched as an unrecognized grey man in a suit of old style sat at a desk before the camera. Two more people, a man with beige skin and black hair, and a pale, redheaded woman, then took seats to either side. A timer at the bottom counted down from several minutes, showing that the video was prerecorded.
"Greetings, denizens of the Ark ships, *Amaterasu*, *Atlas*, and *Jehovah*. My name is Lauriam Giles, and I was once President of a group of people known as the United States of America. To my left is Li Wei Han, President of the People's Republic of China, and to my right is Ingrid Byrne, Prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
*coughing*
"Assuredly thousands of years before your time, all of mankind came together in an effort to protect ourselves even as we worked to undo the damage we wrought on the miracle that was our home: Earth, a planet that can support life.
You may be wondering why this is the first you are hearing of any of these things, and I tell you now that the three of us made that decision together and unanimously. The notion we have here on earth, that we could sort ourselves... into different groups whose... needs and interests, conflict with each other, that we need to compete and tear each other down to pull our 'group' to the top, is a notion that the three of us, and many of those who support us, have determined to be contradictory to the continued existence of the human race. Therefore, we have withheld any information of this from the records of your respective Ark ships, and instructed the fifty thousand boarding each ship to withhold our history from their children, on to your present day. | A voice came through space
Crackling like tin foil
Transmission of one's face
In... terrestrial soil?
"We've done it people, we messed up
If there's one *sob* thing we learned..."
Transmission stop
Earth has met its doom
This myth, this proof of Eden
Suddenly thrown into the room
And dying before us, heathens
So here we float, canned humanity
Wondering if we were meant to excel,
to exceed our expiration date.
Fearing that time has fed our profanity
Like preserved corn unable to tell
Whether we're shipped up too soon
Or will see the world too late
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Breaking from the prompt a bit--I don't really like the Earth being a myth bit of it, so I'm reworking it a bit, and running with that.
_________________________
"We have a little bit of a... A situation, Mr. Holiday."
This isn't the first time I've been brought in by the authorities and told I needed to answer for a situation. I've been a private investigator in Orion City for the last twenty-six years, ever since the Colonial Peace Keeping Force declined my application. Declined it despite perfect scores on the placement exam. When you're a private investigator in a closed, self-governed system, it's hard not to ruffle a few feathers. When you're one of a very select few second-generation colonists, those feathers tend to come pre-ruffled.
The man in front of me doesn't wear a rank insignia, but he looks vaguely familiar to me. I give his two guards a glance, and flash a grin, just to let them know I'm not intimidated by them, then turn to the unranked man behind the desk. "I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."
"Communications Minister Douglas Phelps. I was Orion's senator for six years." Now I remember. Signs on every street corner trying to etch his name into the public consciousness to get him re-elected. Must have been a decade earlier, back when I was still drinking.
"Well Mr. Minister, what's this situation about?" I speak slowly, but my mind is racing. I can think of a half dozen offenses I might be brought in for. Commandeering manual control of an auto-transport, punching a police officer, unwarranted search and imprisonment of a suspect--but none of them would rise higher than local law enforcement. "What might I have done to draw the ire of the Central Office?"
The question hit a bullseye I wasn't even aiming for. Douglas blinks and stammers, his jaw works for a moment without words coming out. "No. No! What? Mr. Holiday, you're not in any kind of trouble." This guy must not have read my file. "Look, let's just get it right out on the table. We want to hire you."
"That ship has sailed pal. I don't want to work for the CPK anymore--"
"Not as a detective. Well, yes as a detective, but... Damn it, please just let me explain?" He has sweat standing out on his forehead now. He's clearly panicked. I'm so used to conversation being a kind of verbal combat that I almost don't know how to handle someone buckling without a fight. Almost. I sit back, and I narrow my eyes, and let him continue. "We just received a transmission."
"We? We who?"
"Us. The colony. From Earth."
"That's not possible. Earth is long-gone." I should know. My grandparents fled the Sol System when cosmic debris was mere weeks away from ending all life on the homeworld. Wars and expense, and in-fighting had long-since halted our space exploration program, with the SCS Roddenberry--a generation colony ship launched centuries before--our species' only home away from home. Earth's scientists had experimented with FTL drives, but they were deemed too risky for large payloads, which meant no colonies, and the tech was largely abandoned. With doom imminent, a dozen scientists stole a prototype, and took a chance. They chased down the last signal of the Roddenberry, and, along with their children--my parents among them--were the colony's first immigrants. The entirety of the Human species now lives on the inner walls of this enormous, hollow cylinder. There is no one out there who could send us a message now.
"Earth is gone *now* but the message was sent one hundred and twenty-seven years ago. More than a decade before your ship even left the system." Oh, this crap. Of course I know that travel and communication through space take time, but I've grown up on this ship just like every other kid here, and the idea of a message taking more than five minutes to reach its recipient--let alone a century--is hard to intuit. "The thing is, it... Well, it doesn't make much sense."
"How the hell am I supposed to make sense of it for you?"
Douglas Phelps folded his hands on his desk and sighed. "Mr. Holiday, I'm sure you're aware that your people haven't, um. Well, they haven't been given a fair shake. We didn't trust them, and frankly, they didn't trust us either. It was before both of our times, and I think you and I can both objectively look at those hostilities and say it's foolish. But they do linger."
"Are you planning to get to the point any time soon?"
Douglas pushes a button on his desk, and the monitor on the wall to my left lights up, with an official-looking message in blue text, with an image of the Earth surrounded by seven stars--the official logo of the Earth Space Fleet. The message reads:
>Your disregard of orders leaves us no choice but to rescind all rights and protections associated with the Earth Federation. May the heavens have mercy on your crew; The Earth will have none.
I feel my heart beginning to race. "Whoa, now, hold on! I don't know anything about this!"
"I know you don't, Mr. Holiday. There are certainly some here who think that the survivors of your grandparents' vessel should be quarantined and exterminated. They think maybe you came here with a fake story of Earth's destruction as a cover to infiltrate and cause us harm. But that doesn't make any sense. If it were true, then why send the threat at all? Send a covert team and an overt threat? It's nonsense. And also, if you were here trying to cause us some harm, then I dare say you would be keeping a lower profile than you have been." At this he gestures toward a manila envelope on his desk, which I take to be my file. It still looks a little thin, but maybe he just has it for dramatic effect. "Let me tell you what I think," he continues. "They were replying to a message sent by this vessel, clearly. Their message took 127 years; the one they were replying to would have to have been sent another 89 years prior. Do you follow your history?"
"Two hundred and sixteen years ago?" Wasn't that long ago we celebrated a bicentennial. "That's when the crew hierarchy was abolished."
"Correct. Before that we had a Captain, and he was essentially our king. Now, the history I've heard is the same as the one you've undoubtedly heard. Our leaders decided that we had traveled far enough from Earth that we need no longer exist under their command, and declared independence. They renamed the ship from the FSF Roddenberry to the SCS Roddenberry--noting our separation from the Federation Space Fleet, and rechristening ourselves as a Sovereign Colony Ship. This has always been taught as a peaceful separation. I think it was less so than what has been reported. I've been making inquiries but the records from that time have been buried--possibly purged. That's where you come in."
"You think I'll have access to buried records that you won't?"
"No. I think you'll have access to the last surviving Earth native, who may know something more than they've told us, and who won't talk to us because we've treated them unfairly for decades."
"So you're hiring me to question my aunt Tess?"
"That is the long and short of it, yes."
"And if I say no?"
"I'm currently the minority in wanting to figure out what this message means. The rest of the counsel wants to round your people up and get the information by force. I'm buying as much time as I can, but if I don't give them something within the week, I truly regret to say that your next visit here will be less pleasant."
"Well alright. Let's discuss my pay."
_____________
Part 2 coming soon! | A voice came through space
Crackling like tin foil
Transmission of one's face
In... terrestrial soil?
"We've done it people, we messed up
If there's one *sob* thing we learned..."
Transmission stop
Earth has met its doom
This myth, this proof of Eden
Suddenly thrown into the room
And dying before us, heathens
So here we float, canned humanity
Wondering if we were meant to excel,
to exceed our expiration date.
Fearing that time has fed our profanity
Like preserved corn unable to tell
Whether we're shipped up too soon
Or will see the world too late
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Kraton Prior bent over the control panel. Drawing a deep breath she blew, and a thousand dust particles filled the air around her, momentarily blotting out the red lights of the instruments and creating a phosphorescent cloud.
Coughing and waving her arm to clear the air, she squinted, tapping on the hazy sapphire glass of the readout trying to remember what her mother had told her about the position of the readout needle.
Deciphering the gauges of this area of the ship had always been mysterious to her, and she could remember her mother saying the same aloud so many years ago while she herself as a child sat and played on the rough titanium floor. She would always wait for her mother to finish, and travel the endless corridors to the next panel, the next gauge that needed decoding.
Satisfied that she had read the number correctly and its angle she turned, the hole ridden uniform fitting her slim form like a old glove. The worn ink of what long ago was an insignia - a faded blue circle with a brown ink spire corrupted by time, duty, and decades of use still slightly visible under the dim light of the room.
She sighed sightly, unjamming the room’s inner door with a modest shove, and manually set the teetering panel back into the groove set into the floor.
Walking the dark length of Canad hall was her least favorite place to be. While it was still physically sound, she could hear things hitting the outer hull as the ship moved through the blackness between starlight. It wouldn’t be long until some piece of debris pierced the Reth’s outer skin and then this historic hall would end up like the rest of the Lost Halls - filled with dust and leaking the Reth’s air supply so badly to the outside the crew would weld it shut at either end with plasma torches, forever sealing its fate to become a ghost hall which could no longer be traveled.
A tin voice suddenly called her name, emanating from a metal half circle wound around the back of her ear.
“Kraton. All decks reporting normal.” the voice chirped monotonously as she side-stepped a hulking gap in the floor.
“Note - Effronca section has received…” the voice broke momentarily, “…an anomalous wave pattern.”
She paused lost in thought. No pattern had been detected with the Effronca sector instruments for centuries.
Touching the metal ring she replied, ”Noted. Heading there now.”
Making her way down the dark hallway, she stopped and looked at a map of the Reth craft. No one had been into Effronca for years, perhaps decades, and even then it was used as a rundown hideout for crew to sip their drinks and smoke without fear of reprimand by once stern Reth Officers. She remembered something else as she looked at the map’s way-lines anodized onto the wall, tracing them with a gloved hand. The thought of something half-remembered once heard from her great grandmother. The thought fleeing, she shook her head and followed the passages to the sector.
Effronca, once the Reth’s main operations room, had long been deserted. The golden plated panels once mounted on the wall, long since pried away for other uses and trade on the ship’s black market. She wound her way past the twin sealing doors which had since buckled under an ancient unseen stress, making her way to the center of the room.
“eArThhh, rEpoRTTtt….fIveNInethREE mmArk oNEsEVEnfiVE…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening.
“aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire.” the voice spoke wavering in an out of hearing.
Unmoving she continued to listen, her mind once again grasping a fragment of memory overheard long ago. A snippet of myth passed down for generations, recycled into a drinking song, then abruptly forgotten. One that even the rooms drunk prior occupants took as hearsay and legend.
“rEPeat, aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire!” the voice spoke more urgently than before.
If it were true, she should raise the alarm, awaken hundreds of families now sound asleep, while making her way to the Reth’s weapons control cache.
“….suRRounded…wHy ArEn’t yOU fIRing?” the voice demanded.
Suddenly a new sound came through the room - a loud blast followed by screaming before being cut off into the inky silence.
She stood for a second wondering, and slowly turned and walked out of the room. | A voice came through space
Crackling like tin foil
Transmission of one's face
In... terrestrial soil?
"We've done it people, we messed up
If there's one *sob* thing we learned..."
Transmission stop
Earth has met its doom
This myth, this proof of Eden
Suddenly thrown into the room
And dying before us, heathens
So here we float, canned humanity
Wondering if we were meant to excel,
to exceed our expiration date.
Fearing that time has fed our profanity
Like preserved corn unable to tell
Whether we're shipped up too soon
Or will see the world too late
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Captain's log, day 6 of Juno, year 675: Captain Francis, "the brave" they called him, he was the second captain to dare traverse an asteroid field, how fast it was until they called him "the mad", when he turned the ship around he promissed his officers that if a hint of that message got out he would send them all to the slaughter, in less than two months he kept his word, nobody expected him to kill himself too, left only his second in command.
Poor guy, Captain Marc "the poor" lasted less than two years in command, left without a crew, he never questioned his captain's orders, nobody believed the Earth existed, I'm sure even he had doubts but he was loyal. And so a civil war started, one side wanting to continue towards the Earth, the other believing it to be a trap.
In the end we kept moving, the captains, myself included, had a mission, save humanity, and at this rate we wouldn't last much more than a hundred years, I was born 50 years after these events and I honestly think he wasn't mad, just tired, I'd do the same if we weren't so close, there's only so much a man can take.
Now we actually talk to them, these other humans, they say the Earth is back to normal, no one here knows exactly what that means. We avoided talking about food, they asked but we told them we have enough for the journey, how could we explain, how would they understand? No, we deal with it when we get there, until then, rations will be smaller, it's so hard to tell them they won't see Earth, but it's a noble sacrifice and we can't stop now. Hopefully they won't judge us harshly, after all, our food suplies only lasted one hundred years and we had to keep eating. | A voice came through space
Crackling like tin foil
Transmission of one's face
In... terrestrial soil?
"We've done it people, we messed up
If there's one *sob* thing we learned..."
Transmission stop
Earth has met its doom
This myth, this proof of Eden
Suddenly thrown into the room
And dying before us, heathens
So here we float, canned humanity
Wondering if we were meant to excel,
to exceed our expiration date.
Fearing that time has fed our profanity
Like preserved corn unable to tell
Whether we're shipped up too soon
Or will see the world too late
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | A voice came through space
Crackling like tin foil
Transmission of one's face
In... terrestrial soil?
"We've done it people, we messed up
If there's one *sob* thing we learned..."
Transmission stop
Earth has met its doom
This myth, this proof of Eden
Suddenly thrown into the room
And dying before us, heathens
So here we float, canned humanity
Wondering if we were meant to excel,
to exceed our expiration date.
Fearing that time has fed our profanity
Like preserved corn unable to tell
Whether we're shipped up too soon
Or will see the world too late
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Probably a little late to the party on this, but I was inspired and wrote about six pages in like three hours, so I guess I should post it. Let me know what you think, as it's my first submission here.
​
Cymanndor Absinthe “Abby” Lawrence Washington III of the auxiliary scout *Sun’s Green Glint* grimaced as the scouting mission entrusted to her came to an end and she and her crew once again re-embraced the Society of the Metal-Mother, with the Thoughtseers keeping a close eye on them to ensure no sort of deviancy had been applied to their outlook over the course of their mission. They had found nothing, of course, in the two firmaments they had explored these past twenty fuel cycles, but she made sure to keep ideas like that to herself.
She was aided in this by the amulet she wore around her neck, one which had been worn and kept safe by her X-donor, and her X-donor before her. It depicted a planet which was altogether unlike any Absinthe herself had ever seen. Its colors had faded, but she could still see the vibrant blue oceans and green masses of land, could picture them in her mind’s eye as she slept. Before her X-donor had been Culled to one of the mining outposts, she had pressed this amulet into Absinthe’s hands with an uncharacteristic display of emotion and some sort of strange wetness in her eyes, saying to her, “Abby, this will be the greatest gift I have ever given you. Keep it with you, always. Someday, you will see through the veil of deceit that surrounds us all, and on that day, this will guide you.”
With that, she had left. Absinthe had shown the amulet to her mother, who in low tones let her know in no uncertain terms that no one else must ever be allowed to see the amulet, especially the Matriarchs and their Thoughtseers. She explained that, though she knew not what it depicted, it must be a relic from before the War of Five Oaths, when the Oathbreakers and the Y-Remnants they protected were all exiled from the Metal-Mother. The Oathbreakers were the only ones who dared challenge the Matriarchs, so to possess a relic of theirs was an act of absolute blasphemy.
Absinthe followed the rest of her women into the Council Chamber, where five of the Matriarchs sat in the shadowy thrones set above the reporting dais, each flanked by five Thoughtseer guards. She let Telluride Elizabeth “Liza” Antoinette give the report this time, only half-listening as her second recounted their discoveries: small amounts of water, zirconium deposits to recharge the Metal-Mother’s beams, a small Oathbreaker mining colony, a perfect target for the Metal-Mother’s Pummelers, that should be added to the Order of Battle, and a few other trivialities. Yet, just like all of Absinthe’s prior expeditions, and those of the other scouts, no habitable planets or moons were found. All the rest of the Society were unfazed by these repeated failures, but Absinthe had wondered for dozens of fuel cycles whether something deeper was at play, suspecting that her amulet was aiding her in this independent mental inquiry.
As Telluride’s report came to an end, all of the crew performed the Prostrations just as set out by the Oaths and began to exit, none of the Matriarchs having said a word in reply (though Absinthe had noted long ago that this was normally a good sign). Absinthe by now had thought through her situation once again, and resolved to ask her second a few probing questions. The two of them had entered scout training in the same fuel cycle, and they had served together on the *Glint* for hundreds of cycles now. Besides her mother, there was no one that Absinthe trusted more.
As such, she made sure to walk next to Telluride as they left the Chamber, and slowed her pace slightly as they made small talk so that the rest of their crew were out of hearing range. Making sure that the only ones who could hear her were Telluride and their Mother, Absinthe began her attempt.
“Liza, don’t you ever wonder if the scouts could get more done if we could search beyond our assigned firmaments? I’m just thinking that we could discover more resources and opportunities for the glory of the Matriarchs and the Metal-Mother if we could lengthen and unrestrict our scouting duties.”
Telluride stopped dead in her tracks, her silvery hair framing a face that held shock, bemusement, and, perhaps, just a small bit of agreement.
“Absinthe, are you questioning the wisdom of the Matriarchs? They, acting through their Strategists, are the ones who develop our expedition schedules. When have they ever led us astray?”
Absinthe had expected such a response, so she pressed onward. “I intend no offense to them, of course not. However, I believe our duty is to the Mother first, and the Matriarchs second. Don’t forget, Liza, that some of the Matriarchs supported the Oathbreakers in the War. They are not infallible, and the offerings to the Mother and her blessings upon our Society should be our focus.”
Telluride looked like she wanted to say more, but she was interrupted by Absinthe’s amulet, which suddenly emitted a sort of musical tone before somehow levitating itself out of her uniform and pointing in a certain direction. Absinthe quickly grabbed Telluride by the shoulder, causing her to stiffen, but she relaxed as Absinthe began to speak.
“Liza, you know me better than almost anyone. I would never do anything to hurt our Mother or break the Three Oaths.” Absinthe knew her second would pick up on her reduction from Five Oaths to Three, but she pressed on regardless. “This is a relic from before the War. All I know about it is that it shields my thoughts and clears my mind, but apparently it has something it wants to show me. Please, Liza, come with me. Let’s learn together, find out more about what’s really out there.”
Telluride gave a deep sigh and replied. “I always knew there was something strange about you, Abby. Well, I suppose there’s no harm in at least finding out more, just as long as we don’t leave the Mother to do it.”
The two of them followed the floating amulet until they arrived at a sealed door with a red version of the eye symbol of the Matriarchs. Absinthe nodded grimly. A Forbidden Room. Well, considering she was dealing with something from before the War, that made sense. Telluride looked nervous once more, but she swallowed hard and remained in place.
Absinthe was trying to figure out how she was going to get this door open when the amulet floated over to a small panel next to the door, which beeped and gave off a green light as the Metal-Mother’s voice proclaimed: “Identity confirmed: Tyler Washington, Junior Lieutenant in Weapons. Access granted.”
With that pronouncement, the door slid open, and the two of them were greeted by a room not too dissimilar from others they’d seen, with the same sort of devices which enabled Maintainers and Guardians on the Mother and its scouts to ask for changes to the engines or protection from the weapons. Absinthe and Telluride immediately began to examine the largest device in the room, which had a blinking white light. Absinthe held her amulet against a panel similar to the one on the door, and immediately a brighter light began to shine from the device, which coalesced into the figure of…some sort of person. It (for it was clearly not a she) had rugged features, short hair, and a sort of sharpness to it that made her vaguely uncomfortable. Telluride nudged her, and whispered softly, “I think that’s one of the Y-Remnants.”
The figure formed from light began to speak, in a voice lower than any either of them had heard.
“This message comes from the headquarters of the Planetary Compact Navy, intended for the current Captain of the American Union Space Naval colonial vessel *Gaia’s Star*. Commodore Maximus Yorkan speaking. This is a priority message, clearance level Zeta Black. This message is being sent to your auxiliary communication room only, as the repeated messages sent to your bridge have been ignored. This message is to inform you that you must plot a course towards Planetary Compact space immediately and with all available speed, or we will intervene to ensure you do. Your vessel is currently trespassing in the territory of the Clockwork Hierarchy, in violation of the Writ of Stability proclaimed by the Clockwork Speaker at the end of the War to Contain Organic Aggression. Should you refuse to comply with this order and further refuse to cooperate with our intervention, we will offer you a choice: destruction by our fleet, or ‘reprogramming’ by the Clockwork Men. Commodore Yorkan, signing off for now.”
With that, the beam of light given off by the device dimmed and the figure disappeared. Absinthe and Telluride looked at each other, both of their faces consumed by horror. Absinthe chuckled weakly and gave a good summary of the situation.”
“Well, I suppose we have bigger problems than just the ‘mercy’ of the Matriarchs to deal with, don’t we Liza?” | A voice came through space
Crackling like tin foil
Transmission of one's face
In... terrestrial soil?
"We've done it people, we messed up
If there's one *sob* thing we learned..."
Transmission stop
Earth has met its doom
This myth, this proof of Eden
Suddenly thrown into the room
And dying before us, heathens
So here we float, canned humanity
Wondering if we were meant to excel,
to exceed our expiration date.
Fearing that time has fed our profanity
Like preserved corn unable to tell
Whether we're shipped up too soon
Or will see the world too late
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Set course for Gamma Alpha Seventeen," called Captain Morgensen.
The bridge crew of the USS Trailblazer hustled about their duties - adjusting parabolic arcs, calling commands, and readying warp drives. It was an average day on the ship - one following the format of every day before it, for as long as anyone could remember. The Trailblazer was a colonization vessel that had dutifully explored the universe for well over two thousand years.
"Captain, we are ready to warp!" said the helmsman.
Captain Morgensen made the signal, and with a loud swoosh, the ship began to gain more and more speed, until light itself split into a myriad of beautiful rainbows as the ship entered warp. Morgensen smiled - he always loved the feeling of entering light-speed.
He had made Trailblazer history for a few reasons - the first, and most well known, was that he was the youngest captain to ever preside over the USS Trailblazer. A tactical and strategic genius, Morgensen had gotten the ship out of quite a few scrapes.
"First Officer Smith, you have control. I'll be back," Captain Morgensen said. He rose from his seat and walked briskly to the elevator - the walk of a man who was about to witness something important. Smith offered a knowing smile, and took her place in the captain's chair.
The elevator dinged, and Captain Morgensen emerged from it. Sick patients greeted him as he walked down the aisle of the med-bay - farther and farther, until he reached the final wing.
Inside of a small and sparsely furnished room, and on a gurney, sat his wife. In front of her was the ship's head doctor.
"You're just in time," the doctor muttered. Just in time he was - his wife screamed loudly.
"I'm going to need you to push!" commanded the doctor. And push she did. Within minutes, the screaming of the Captain's wife was joined in harmony by a second wail. The wail of a baby boy.
"He's beautiful," Morgensen said.
"He got it from me," croaked his wife in mirth. Captain Morgensen began fantasizing - teaching his son how to walk, talk, fly a shuttle - telling him bedtime stories about far away places, the myth of planet earth, and the ship's history - but his thoughts were interrupted.
"Captain! We're receiving an unusual broadcast. Requesting your presence on the bridge," the intercom announced.
"I'm busy. You have a commanding officer on the bridge - go to Smith," he said, annoyed that the crew had even considered paging him when they knew how big of a day it was.
"No sir. We need you up here *now.*" Smith's voice came over the intercom. It was deadly serious. The captain knew from experience that that was never good.
"I'm on my way," he replied, and kissed his wife on the forehead. He took one last forlorn glance back at his son - and then headed back to the bridge.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Morgensen was calm despite the tornado of excitement around him. Crew members flocked to the communications relay to hear the transmission. He simply sat on his chair, lost in thought.
"Officer Johnson, you are positive that this transmission is not from an enemy? Or anyone who could have somehow translated English?"
"No sir," Johnson replied candidly.
When he had been in the medbay, a transmission had come over the comm relay. One in English, which was largely considered to be a dead language in the intergalactic community - minus, of course, for the crew and passengers of the USS Trailblazer.
"Play it one more time," he commanded.
The transmission began to play.
*"Come on, this old thing has to work..."* The voice sounded concerned about something. The man spoke in a hushed tone.
*"There!"* There was an audible bang, followed by what seemed to be shouting in the background.
*"Come in! Come in! This is Dr. John Sato, broadcasting to anyone who can hear this. This is Earth - we are under attack - please help us!"*
The transmission continued.
*"I'm not sure if anyone is hearing this - this device is the only thing that I have left to communicate with - but we are being fired on by some sort of alien spacecraft, the likes of which we have never seen!"*
The transmission went on for a few more minutes, with Dr. Sato speaking about how he didn't know if there was anyone listening, or if they could understand, but that 'Earth' desperately needed help.
"Sir! Engineering has made a breakthrough!" Someone shouted amidst the chaos.
"Go." Replied the captain.
"The device that we received the transmission from - we found an identical one in our engineering bay. Buried away after what seems to be thousands of years - but still matching basic coding and frequency as the device used to transmit that signal." The engineering representative said.
Morgensen closed his eyes, and held up his hand. Like magic, the bridge went silent.
"I want the coordinates included in the transmission on screen," he commanded.
Soon, they were - a remote area of the universe, thousands of light years away from their current position.
"It's a small planet, sir," the Head of Science began, "One that orbits a yellow dwarf star. Seems to be made up of mostly water -"
"By all appearances, it's Earth, then." Morgensen interrupted.
The Head of Science looked shocked.
"Earth? Earth is a story we tell the children on board to teach manners, sir. With respect, it's nothing more than a figment of the imagination of some long-forgotten crew member," The scientist said.
The captain stood, and walked over to the ship's log console. He began typing.
"Sir? May I ask -"
"Give me a minute," Replied the captain, shutting down the scientist's question
He punched in a few more commands until the page that he wanted appeared.
On screen there was a small information page.
​
*Captain Simon Hilliard, United States Ship Trailblazer.*
*Log 0001.*
​
The page went on, and on, detailing the vessel's departure from 'The United States of America'.
"What the hell is that?" Asked First Officer Smith, gesturing to the flag displayed on screen.
"I don't have the slightest clue," began Morgensen, "But I have a feeling we're about to find out."
He swiped the console - bearing the starred and striped flag on it - away, and returned to his chair.
"Helmsman Mckeel, set course for those coordinates. Engineering, activate that device." he ordered.
"What should we do with it, sir?" asked the representative from engineering.
​
"Tell them we're coming home." | A voice came through space
Crackling like tin foil
Transmission of one's face
In... terrestrial soil?
"We've done it people, we messed up
If there's one *sob* thing we learned..."
Transmission stop
Earth has met its doom
This myth, this proof of Eden
Suddenly thrown into the room
And dying before us, heathens
So here we float, canned humanity
Wondering if we were meant to excel,
to exceed our expiration date.
Fearing that time has fed our profanity
Like preserved corn unable to tell
Whether we're shipped up too soon
Or will see the world too late
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Part 1-please direct karma to part 1
*Atlas* is everything to us.
*Atlas* is the vast vessel on which humanity, four hundred million members strong, live our lives, supporting each other while we are supported by the ship.
*Atlas* provides all of our physical needs, from food to consumable goods and medicine. and provides us with education and training to operate its systems and machinery, in order to provide services to each other. The massive economy of the craft is managed like clockwork by the ship's omniscient, omnipresent intelligence, which guides each person and puts us where we are needed. Engineers in the central Manufactory and Maintenance, doctors in vast hospital bays, field wardens and groundskeepers in the Open Wild, a massive open air vista of rocky hills and trees in the center of the otherwise tightly compartmentalized steel body of the ship.
We have lived in this cocoon since times immemorial, and have been cared for throughout hardships countless. The plague in year 4388, where half of *Atlas* was quarantined, and even the terrible Culling of 5012, where *Atlas* discovered that its postnatal directive sterilization protocol had failed and the job "soldier " appeared for the first time. Throughout all, none doubted that *Atlas* always acted in our best interests.
*Atlas* was always moving, we all have been taught in Academy. Anyone may access the public HUD and view the statistics. Velocity, route, navigation operations intervals. An interesting notation in the public HUD is, "Total Distance From Earth ", a unit given in thousands of light years. In Academy, we are taught that humanity originated on a rocky planet, like those that *Atlas* passes by in centuries when it transits through a star system to collect materials. As if through a sense of obligation to us, it is storied that at these times, *Atlas* will slow and raise the outer shields on observation decks, scheduling us to muster just to gawk at the impossibly large spheres, and sometimes moons, as we pass by. Moons are like the asteroids that *Atlas* harvests for water ice, chemicals and minerals, but almost as large as *Atlas* itself.
All of these places are, without variation, barren, without air to breathe and with gravity so fierce as to crush our organs should *Atlas* have permitted the use of the great Dropships that loomed in the lowest and largest bays. Academy tells us that we once came from Earth, which was a planet like those of record, but this is commonly dismissed as a fictional account, likely inserted into the curriculum to give kids a chance to relax in between the otherwise demanding efforts of education. It is hard for any of us to believe that we could survive outside of *Atlas*.
*Atlas* runs scheduled broadcasts over the PA system, varying by Bulkhead region, as it reports the day's atmosphere schedule such as O2 content, temperature settings, "sunrise" and "sunset", and "wind", the level at which it powers the circulation fans. In a nonsensical twist, work is scheduled around these settings, as if *Atlas* was pretending not to have control over these configurations. On some days, it might raise the temperature above 30 degrees, and reccomend that children and the elderly remain in family quarters. Often, structural maintenance crews are not permitted to work on scheduled tasks because the wind is set too high to operate the scaling lifts safely, although tasks of priority 4 or greater (such as a detected fault in an outward bulkhead) will cause an override event and atmosphere in that region will be forcibly normalized differently from the schedule.
*Atlas* even directs us when punishing each other for misbehavior, although those trained as judges are allowed to take *Atlas*'s direction as an opinion. One such case from a century ago is still gossiped about in social circles. It goes as follows:
A man in Bulkhead Southeast was working as a fouth-tier Systems Administrator, the highest level that *Atlas* provides training for. He was on trial for "illegal digital access beyond scope " , a crime often charged to lower Sysadmins who got bored and played with tier 3 or 4 tools, and was usually given a slap on the wrist, such as a week in quarters. In this instance, *Atlas* was recommending a charge of *ten years* in quarters, so the judge demanded the story from the Sysadmin.
He described how he decided to disguise his terminal as one of *Atlas*'s network minds, and how he managed to access files and data logs which were hidden deep beyond what he was given authority to see within the scope of his job. According to him, he accessed the ship's Deep Archive, a chronological account of major events and operations of the ship, and he went back through to the beginning. He claimed that the log was from the era of *Atlas*'s own birth, and contained events of construction, software development and troubleshooting, passenger boarding, and the date of the ship's departure from the orbit of the fabled Earth, in the distant year 2136. He claimed that Earth was a planet that was actually able to support life, but was becoming less hospitable very quickly, and that *Atlas* was one of three such craft, with the others named *Jehova* and *Amaterasu*. That they were sent in different directions on paths where they would find a steady flow of resources to harvest in Space, and that a colony remained on the single Moon of Earth, called simply "THE Moon", to manage the rehabilitation and moving of the planet (*really*? *move* a planet?) to a cooler orbit while wild surface fauna and flora recovered.
Obviously, the audience of the courtroom had to have their laughter silenced by the judge. As he himself was left speechless at the unbelievable talk of the Sysadmin, he disregarded *Atlas*'s opinion and sentenced the man to four months of local travel restriction with scheduled counseling. *Atlas*, outside of the judge's decision, demoted the man from Sysadmin 4 to digital hardware maintenance technician, the lowest job in the digital tradebook. Although he never caused problems again, he swore by his story until the day that he died.
Today, the 5th on May in the year 6014, started off unheard of. The atmosphere schedules for *all* Bulkheads were forcefully normalized. All humans not on critical work details were directed to muster in the causeways, and all public screens were activated. We watched as an unrecognized grey man in a suit of old style sat at a desk before the camera. Two more people, a man with beige skin and black hair, and a pale, redheaded woman, then took seats to either side. A timer at the bottom counted down from several minutes, showing that the video was prerecorded.
"Greetings, denizens of the Ark ships, *Amaterasu*, *Atlas*, and *Jehovah*. My name is Lauriam Giles, and I was once President of a group of people known as the United States of America. To my left is Li Wei Han, President of the People's Republic of China, and to my right is Ingrid Byrne, Prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
*coughing*
"Assuredly thousands of years before your time, all of mankind came together in an effort to protect ourselves even as we worked to undo the damage we wrought on the miracle that was our home: Earth, a planet that can support life.
You may be wondering why this is the first you are hearing of any of these things, and I tell you now that the three of us made that decision together and unanimously. The notion we have here on earth, that we could sort ourselves... into different groups whose... needs and interests, conflict with each other, that we need to compete and tear each other down to pull our 'group' to the top, is a notion that the three of us, and many of those who support us, have determined to be contradictory to the continued existence of the human race. Therefore, we have withheld any information of this from the records of your respective Ark ships, and instructed the fifty thousand boarding each ship to withhold our history from their children, on to your present day. | William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade, was late to worship. As he sprinted through the corridors, dodging other crew and a gaggle of children on their way to daily lessons, he thought about how he would explain his tardiness. If he claimed that the corridors were too congested he would just be told to get up earlier and have the Oracle adjust the time of his morning alarm accordingly. He considered claiming that it wasn't his fault, after all the clock in his quarters had broken again and his alarm didn’t go off, but that just meant that the Ship was punishing him for some minor transgression, so the blame ultimately rested with him. No, he would have to take his chances with simply trying to slip into the back of the room and hoping that the Oracle didn't notice. William skidded to a halt in front of the Engineering briefing room, composed himself, and opened the door.
William only missed most of the opening prayers, managing to find a seat at the back just as the Oracle led the room to the conclusion of the Prayer Of Thanks To The Shipbuilder. Theresa Mao, the Oracle of Engineering, 2nd Congregation, caught his eye and raised an eyebrow as he sat down. So much for slipping in unnoticed.
“..and thanks be to Mrozisnki, who tirelessly constructed the Ship and gave it life, so that we could escape into the void away from the Great Adversary. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” Intoned the rest of the congregation, dutifully.
Theresa picked up her tablet from the podium she was standing behind and turned it on. “Bow your heads and prepare to receive the word of the Ship.” William lowered his head with the rest after glancing enviously at the Oracle of Engineering’s tablet. Rumour had it that long ago all the crew had had them, however the Ship had punished them over the years, and now only a few tablets remained, and only the Oracles were allowed to use them to commune with the Ship.
“Thomson, three consoles lost power on Deck 4 Bulkhead 17, take Initiate Chambers with you and teach him the Ritual of Repair.”
“Yes, Oracle.”
“The refrigeration unit in kitchen 3 freezer 5 stopped working, Zhu, I need you to perform a Prayer of Diagnostic and then follow up with the appropriate ceremony.”
“Yes, Oracle”
“A power conduit blew out on Deck 12, Bulkhead 36. Daniels, go and perform a Ritual of Replacement, that is if you think you can find your way there in time?”
William flushed with embarrassment at the scattered laughter that produced. He kept his voice calm as he replied. “Of course, Oracle.” If this was the worst he suffered he was getting off easy.
“Those are all the special assignments the Ship has given us for today. Everyone else, take part in the Ritual of Systems Check, or the Rituals of Routine Maintenance, as per usual. We have sinned against the Ship, and so the Ship shows it’s displeasure with us. It is up to us to pacify it. Perform your duties with zeal and precision so that we may purify ourselves and show the Ship our devotion. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” The congregation repeated as they stood up and went to work. William gathered the tools and parts he would need for the ritual from his locker and left the room, hurrying to the elevator. Deck 12 was not a busy deck. Right against the hull, it had been used mostly for storage, and was rarely traveled. William was alone as he followed the bulkhead numbers until he reach the section with the power conduit, it was inside a room that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, filled with equipment that had probably been unused for longer than that. Normally he would have to check behind each wall panel until he found the one we was looking for, however the Oracle hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that the power conduit had blown. One wall panel was conspicuously dented outwards, and with some trepidation William unfastened it and pulled it off the wall.
Luckily, despite how the panel looked, the damage was minimal. The conduit had blown outwards, as it was designed to. Rather than shredding everything around it it had just created a large dent in the wall panel. William thanked the Great Designer for their foresight, and prepared for the ritual. He laid out all the tools and parts he would need in a semicircle around him, knelt on the floor, and began to pray. First was the prayer of thanks to the Shipbuilder and the Designer, then came the prayer of forgiveness to the Ship, asking that it overlook the meddling that he was about to do, and then finally, as he went to work, William began the Chant of Replacement.
Maintaining the chant while performing the ritual, removing damaged parts, conducting tests, and putting in replacements, required a great deal of concentration. William was only an Acolyte Grade 1, only a few months ago he was an initiate, but meditation and concentration were taught before all else, such was their importance in the ritual. William only lost the thread of his chanting twice before he finished. If the Oracle or a senior Acolyte had been there they would have forced him to start from scratch, but William gambled that the Ship would forgive him and started to put his tools away. Moving to the room’s control panel he said a brief prayer of supplication and reset the power conduit running through the room.
That was when he noticed one of the consoles in the room coming to life. Cautiously approaching it William saw that it was running a self diagnostic. Cursing himself for missing the start of it, William hurriedly started the Chant of Diagnostic but was cut off after only a few lines when the console finished and a message popped up.
\----
Power restored.
Self-check complete - All systems functional
Radio Communication Array - Online
Long Range Radio Array - Online
FTL Communication Array - Online
Estimated downtime: 176 years 24 days 16 hours 3 minutes 37 seconds
Press ENTER to continue
\----
With trembling hands, William pressed Enter.
High Inquisitor David Owens sat at the alter of Security and prayed. He savored the time alone, privacy was hard to come by on the Ship. Even the holy temple of The Bridge, where he currently sat was normally filled with chatter and activity as the High Oracles prayed at their respective alters and went about their day to day business. Every once and a while though, when their work took the High Oracles away from the bridge, David Owens had some time alone. He savored the silence. Silence, which was suddenly broken by beeping from his alter.
The High Inquisitor frowned. His alter could do many things. It allowed him to commune with the ship to watch and listen through what security cameras remained functional. He could request that the Ship close specific doors, or deploy crowd suppression systems. It could grant access to the secret chapel of Security, the Armory. It could even allow him to read the private messages between the other High Oracles, a fact with Owens gleefully kept to himself. What his console had never done, what he had never known it could do, was beep at him.
A message was flashing on the screen, telling him that communications were restored. He looked around in shock. The Alter of Communications, which had been dark for as long as anyone could remember, was coming to life. He sank to his knees in reverence as the Alter ran diagnostics and self- checks before finally displaying a welcome message. He moved to it, and was surprised to see that a communication window was open. And with growing horror, he realized that someone was sending messages.
UNDC Ops: UNCS Magellan, are you there? We’re receiving a positive return from your FTL Comm Array.
UNCS Magellan: Hello, who is this?
UNDC Ops: This is the head of operations at the United Nations Department of Colonization. Congratulations on repairing your comm array Magellan, it’s been over 175 years, we’d pretty much lost hope. It’s damned good to hear from you. What is your status, Magellan? And who are we speaking to?
UNCS Magellan: This is William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade. I don’t recognize your congregation, is the United Nations part of the Inquisition?
UNDC Ops: Uh, no Magellan. This is the United Nations. The UN. On Earth. What’s been going on over there Magellan?
High Inquisitor Owens reeled back in horror at the mention of the forbidden name. Earth. The Great Adversary. And someone on this ship had summoned it? Who knew what horrors would be inflicted on them now. This summoning would have to be interrupted, a great purification undertaken. But first this William Daniels would have to be found. And dealt with appropriately. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Breaking from the prompt a bit--I don't really like the Earth being a myth bit of it, so I'm reworking it a bit, and running with that.
_________________________
"We have a little bit of a... A situation, Mr. Holiday."
This isn't the first time I've been brought in by the authorities and told I needed to answer for a situation. I've been a private investigator in Orion City for the last twenty-six years, ever since the Colonial Peace Keeping Force declined my application. Declined it despite perfect scores on the placement exam. When you're a private investigator in a closed, self-governed system, it's hard not to ruffle a few feathers. When you're one of a very select few second-generation colonists, those feathers tend to come pre-ruffled.
The man in front of me doesn't wear a rank insignia, but he looks vaguely familiar to me. I give his two guards a glance, and flash a grin, just to let them know I'm not intimidated by them, then turn to the unranked man behind the desk. "I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."
"Communications Minister Douglas Phelps. I was Orion's senator for six years." Now I remember. Signs on every street corner trying to etch his name into the public consciousness to get him re-elected. Must have been a decade earlier, back when I was still drinking.
"Well Mr. Minister, what's this situation about?" I speak slowly, but my mind is racing. I can think of a half dozen offenses I might be brought in for. Commandeering manual control of an auto-transport, punching a police officer, unwarranted search and imprisonment of a suspect--but none of them would rise higher than local law enforcement. "What might I have done to draw the ire of the Central Office?"
The question hit a bullseye I wasn't even aiming for. Douglas blinks and stammers, his jaw works for a moment without words coming out. "No. No! What? Mr. Holiday, you're not in any kind of trouble." This guy must not have read my file. "Look, let's just get it right out on the table. We want to hire you."
"That ship has sailed pal. I don't want to work for the CPK anymore--"
"Not as a detective. Well, yes as a detective, but... Damn it, please just let me explain?" He has sweat standing out on his forehead now. He's clearly panicked. I'm so used to conversation being a kind of verbal combat that I almost don't know how to handle someone buckling without a fight. Almost. I sit back, and I narrow my eyes, and let him continue. "We just received a transmission."
"We? We who?"
"Us. The colony. From Earth."
"That's not possible. Earth is long-gone." I should know. My grandparents fled the Sol System when cosmic debris was mere weeks away from ending all life on the homeworld. Wars and expense, and in-fighting had long-since halted our space exploration program, with the SCS Roddenberry--a generation colony ship launched centuries before--our species' only home away from home. Earth's scientists had experimented with FTL drives, but they were deemed too risky for large payloads, which meant no colonies, and the tech was largely abandoned. With doom imminent, a dozen scientists stole a prototype, and took a chance. They chased down the last signal of the Roddenberry, and, along with their children--my parents among them--were the colony's first immigrants. The entirety of the Human species now lives on the inner walls of this enormous, hollow cylinder. There is no one out there who could send us a message now.
"Earth is gone *now* but the message was sent one hundred and twenty-seven years ago. More than a decade before your ship even left the system." Oh, this crap. Of course I know that travel and communication through space take time, but I've grown up on this ship just like every other kid here, and the idea of a message taking more than five minutes to reach its recipient--let alone a century--is hard to intuit. "The thing is, it... Well, it doesn't make much sense."
"How the hell am I supposed to make sense of it for you?"
Douglas Phelps folded his hands on his desk and sighed. "Mr. Holiday, I'm sure you're aware that your people haven't, um. Well, they haven't been given a fair shake. We didn't trust them, and frankly, they didn't trust us either. It was before both of our times, and I think you and I can both objectively look at those hostilities and say it's foolish. But they do linger."
"Are you planning to get to the point any time soon?"
Douglas pushes a button on his desk, and the monitor on the wall to my left lights up, with an official-looking message in blue text, with an image of the Earth surrounded by seven stars--the official logo of the Earth Space Fleet. The message reads:
>Your disregard of orders leaves us no choice but to rescind all rights and protections associated with the Earth Federation. May the heavens have mercy on your crew; The Earth will have none.
I feel my heart beginning to race. "Whoa, now, hold on! I don't know anything about this!"
"I know you don't, Mr. Holiday. There are certainly some here who think that the survivors of your grandparents' vessel should be quarantined and exterminated. They think maybe you came here with a fake story of Earth's destruction as a cover to infiltrate and cause us harm. But that doesn't make any sense. If it were true, then why send the threat at all? Send a covert team and an overt threat? It's nonsense. And also, if you were here trying to cause us some harm, then I dare say you would be keeping a lower profile than you have been." At this he gestures toward a manila envelope on his desk, which I take to be my file. It still looks a little thin, but maybe he just has it for dramatic effect. "Let me tell you what I think," he continues. "They were replying to a message sent by this vessel, clearly. Their message took 127 years; the one they were replying to would have to have been sent another 89 years prior. Do you follow your history?"
"Two hundred and sixteen years ago?" Wasn't that long ago we celebrated a bicentennial. "That's when the crew hierarchy was abolished."
"Correct. Before that we had a Captain, and he was essentially our king. Now, the history I've heard is the same as the one you've undoubtedly heard. Our leaders decided that we had traveled far enough from Earth that we need no longer exist under their command, and declared independence. They renamed the ship from the FSF Roddenberry to the SCS Roddenberry--noting our separation from the Federation Space Fleet, and rechristening ourselves as a Sovereign Colony Ship. This has always been taught as a peaceful separation. I think it was less so than what has been reported. I've been making inquiries but the records from that time have been buried--possibly purged. That's where you come in."
"You think I'll have access to buried records that you won't?"
"No. I think you'll have access to the last surviving Earth native, who may know something more than they've told us, and who won't talk to us because we've treated them unfairly for decades."
"So you're hiring me to question my aunt Tess?"
"That is the long and short of it, yes."
"And if I say no?"
"I'm currently the minority in wanting to figure out what this message means. The rest of the counsel wants to round your people up and get the information by force. I'm buying as much time as I can, but if I don't give them something within the week, I truly regret to say that your next visit here will be less pleasant."
"Well alright. Let's discuss my pay."
_____________
Part 2 coming soon! | William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade, was late to worship. As he sprinted through the corridors, dodging other crew and a gaggle of children on their way to daily lessons, he thought about how he would explain his tardiness. If he claimed that the corridors were too congested he would just be told to get up earlier and have the Oracle adjust the time of his morning alarm accordingly. He considered claiming that it wasn't his fault, after all the clock in his quarters had broken again and his alarm didn’t go off, but that just meant that the Ship was punishing him for some minor transgression, so the blame ultimately rested with him. No, he would have to take his chances with simply trying to slip into the back of the room and hoping that the Oracle didn't notice. William skidded to a halt in front of the Engineering briefing room, composed himself, and opened the door.
William only missed most of the opening prayers, managing to find a seat at the back just as the Oracle led the room to the conclusion of the Prayer Of Thanks To The Shipbuilder. Theresa Mao, the Oracle of Engineering, 2nd Congregation, caught his eye and raised an eyebrow as he sat down. So much for slipping in unnoticed.
“..and thanks be to Mrozisnki, who tirelessly constructed the Ship and gave it life, so that we could escape into the void away from the Great Adversary. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” Intoned the rest of the congregation, dutifully.
Theresa picked up her tablet from the podium she was standing behind and turned it on. “Bow your heads and prepare to receive the word of the Ship.” William lowered his head with the rest after glancing enviously at the Oracle of Engineering’s tablet. Rumour had it that long ago all the crew had had them, however the Ship had punished them over the years, and now only a few tablets remained, and only the Oracles were allowed to use them to commune with the Ship.
“Thomson, three consoles lost power on Deck 4 Bulkhead 17, take Initiate Chambers with you and teach him the Ritual of Repair.”
“Yes, Oracle.”
“The refrigeration unit in kitchen 3 freezer 5 stopped working, Zhu, I need you to perform a Prayer of Diagnostic and then follow up with the appropriate ceremony.”
“Yes, Oracle”
“A power conduit blew out on Deck 12, Bulkhead 36. Daniels, go and perform a Ritual of Replacement, that is if you think you can find your way there in time?”
William flushed with embarrassment at the scattered laughter that produced. He kept his voice calm as he replied. “Of course, Oracle.” If this was the worst he suffered he was getting off easy.
“Those are all the special assignments the Ship has given us for today. Everyone else, take part in the Ritual of Systems Check, or the Rituals of Routine Maintenance, as per usual. We have sinned against the Ship, and so the Ship shows it’s displeasure with us. It is up to us to pacify it. Perform your duties with zeal and precision so that we may purify ourselves and show the Ship our devotion. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” The congregation repeated as they stood up and went to work. William gathered the tools and parts he would need for the ritual from his locker and left the room, hurrying to the elevator. Deck 12 was not a busy deck. Right against the hull, it had been used mostly for storage, and was rarely traveled. William was alone as he followed the bulkhead numbers until he reach the section with the power conduit, it was inside a room that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, filled with equipment that had probably been unused for longer than that. Normally he would have to check behind each wall panel until he found the one we was looking for, however the Oracle hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that the power conduit had blown. One wall panel was conspicuously dented outwards, and with some trepidation William unfastened it and pulled it off the wall.
Luckily, despite how the panel looked, the damage was minimal. The conduit had blown outwards, as it was designed to. Rather than shredding everything around it it had just created a large dent in the wall panel. William thanked the Great Designer for their foresight, and prepared for the ritual. He laid out all the tools and parts he would need in a semicircle around him, knelt on the floor, and began to pray. First was the prayer of thanks to the Shipbuilder and the Designer, then came the prayer of forgiveness to the Ship, asking that it overlook the meddling that he was about to do, and then finally, as he went to work, William began the Chant of Replacement.
Maintaining the chant while performing the ritual, removing damaged parts, conducting tests, and putting in replacements, required a great deal of concentration. William was only an Acolyte Grade 1, only a few months ago he was an initiate, but meditation and concentration were taught before all else, such was their importance in the ritual. William only lost the thread of his chanting twice before he finished. If the Oracle or a senior Acolyte had been there they would have forced him to start from scratch, but William gambled that the Ship would forgive him and started to put his tools away. Moving to the room’s control panel he said a brief prayer of supplication and reset the power conduit running through the room.
That was when he noticed one of the consoles in the room coming to life. Cautiously approaching it William saw that it was running a self diagnostic. Cursing himself for missing the start of it, William hurriedly started the Chant of Diagnostic but was cut off after only a few lines when the console finished and a message popped up.
\----
Power restored.
Self-check complete - All systems functional
Radio Communication Array - Online
Long Range Radio Array - Online
FTL Communication Array - Online
Estimated downtime: 176 years 24 days 16 hours 3 minutes 37 seconds
Press ENTER to continue
\----
With trembling hands, William pressed Enter.
High Inquisitor David Owens sat at the alter of Security and prayed. He savored the time alone, privacy was hard to come by on the Ship. Even the holy temple of The Bridge, where he currently sat was normally filled with chatter and activity as the High Oracles prayed at their respective alters and went about their day to day business. Every once and a while though, when their work took the High Oracles away from the bridge, David Owens had some time alone. He savored the silence. Silence, which was suddenly broken by beeping from his alter.
The High Inquisitor frowned. His alter could do many things. It allowed him to commune with the ship to watch and listen through what security cameras remained functional. He could request that the Ship close specific doors, or deploy crowd suppression systems. It could grant access to the secret chapel of Security, the Armory. It could even allow him to read the private messages between the other High Oracles, a fact with Owens gleefully kept to himself. What his console had never done, what he had never known it could do, was beep at him.
A message was flashing on the screen, telling him that communications were restored. He looked around in shock. The Alter of Communications, which had been dark for as long as anyone could remember, was coming to life. He sank to his knees in reverence as the Alter ran diagnostics and self- checks before finally displaying a welcome message. He moved to it, and was surprised to see that a communication window was open. And with growing horror, he realized that someone was sending messages.
UNDC Ops: UNCS Magellan, are you there? We’re receiving a positive return from your FTL Comm Array.
UNCS Magellan: Hello, who is this?
UNDC Ops: This is the head of operations at the United Nations Department of Colonization. Congratulations on repairing your comm array Magellan, it’s been over 175 years, we’d pretty much lost hope. It’s damned good to hear from you. What is your status, Magellan? And who are we speaking to?
UNCS Magellan: This is William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade. I don’t recognize your congregation, is the United Nations part of the Inquisition?
UNDC Ops: Uh, no Magellan. This is the United Nations. The UN. On Earth. What’s been going on over there Magellan?
High Inquisitor Owens reeled back in horror at the mention of the forbidden name. Earth. The Great Adversary. And someone on this ship had summoned it? Who knew what horrors would be inflicted on them now. This summoning would have to be interrupted, a great purification undertaken. But first this William Daniels would have to be found. And dealt with appropriately. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Kraton Prior bent over the control panel. Drawing a deep breath she blew, and a thousand dust particles filled the air around her, momentarily blotting out the red lights of the instruments and creating a phosphorescent cloud.
Coughing and waving her arm to clear the air, she squinted, tapping on the hazy sapphire glass of the readout trying to remember what her mother had told her about the position of the readout needle.
Deciphering the gauges of this area of the ship had always been mysterious to her, and she could remember her mother saying the same aloud so many years ago while she herself as a child sat and played on the rough titanium floor. She would always wait for her mother to finish, and travel the endless corridors to the next panel, the next gauge that needed decoding.
Satisfied that she had read the number correctly and its angle she turned, the hole ridden uniform fitting her slim form like a old glove. The worn ink of what long ago was an insignia - a faded blue circle with a brown ink spire corrupted by time, duty, and decades of use still slightly visible under the dim light of the room.
She sighed sightly, unjamming the room’s inner door with a modest shove, and manually set the teetering panel back into the groove set into the floor.
Walking the dark length of Canad hall was her least favorite place to be. While it was still physically sound, she could hear things hitting the outer hull as the ship moved through the blackness between starlight. It wouldn’t be long until some piece of debris pierced the Reth’s outer skin and then this historic hall would end up like the rest of the Lost Halls - filled with dust and leaking the Reth’s air supply so badly to the outside the crew would weld it shut at either end with plasma torches, forever sealing its fate to become a ghost hall which could no longer be traveled.
A tin voice suddenly called her name, emanating from a metal half circle wound around the back of her ear.
“Kraton. All decks reporting normal.” the voice chirped monotonously as she side-stepped a hulking gap in the floor.
“Note - Effronca section has received…” the voice broke momentarily, “…an anomalous wave pattern.”
She paused lost in thought. No pattern had been detected with the Effronca sector instruments for centuries.
Touching the metal ring she replied, ”Noted. Heading there now.”
Making her way down the dark hallway, she stopped and looked at a map of the Reth craft. No one had been into Effronca for years, perhaps decades, and even then it was used as a rundown hideout for crew to sip their drinks and smoke without fear of reprimand by once stern Reth Officers. She remembered something else as she looked at the map’s way-lines anodized onto the wall, tracing them with a gloved hand. The thought of something half-remembered once heard from her great grandmother. The thought fleeing, she shook her head and followed the passages to the sector.
Effronca, once the Reth’s main operations room, had long been deserted. The golden plated panels once mounted on the wall, long since pried away for other uses and trade on the ship’s black market. She wound her way past the twin sealing doors which had since buckled under an ancient unseen stress, making her way to the center of the room.
“eArThhh, rEpoRTTtt….fIveNInethREE mmArk oNEsEVEnfiVE…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening.
“aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire.” the voice spoke wavering in an out of hearing.
Unmoving she continued to listen, her mind once again grasping a fragment of memory overheard long ago. A snippet of myth passed down for generations, recycled into a drinking song, then abruptly forgotten. One that even the rooms drunk prior occupants took as hearsay and legend.
“rEPeat, aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire!” the voice spoke more urgently than before.
If it were true, she should raise the alarm, awaken hundreds of families now sound asleep, while making her way to the Reth’s weapons control cache.
“….suRRounded…wHy ArEn’t yOU fIRing?” the voice demanded.
Suddenly a new sound came through the room - a loud blast followed by screaming before being cut off into the inky silence.
She stood for a second wondering, and slowly turned and walked out of the room. | William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade, was late to worship. As he sprinted through the corridors, dodging other crew and a gaggle of children on their way to daily lessons, he thought about how he would explain his tardiness. If he claimed that the corridors were too congested he would just be told to get up earlier and have the Oracle adjust the time of his morning alarm accordingly. He considered claiming that it wasn't his fault, after all the clock in his quarters had broken again and his alarm didn’t go off, but that just meant that the Ship was punishing him for some minor transgression, so the blame ultimately rested with him. No, he would have to take his chances with simply trying to slip into the back of the room and hoping that the Oracle didn't notice. William skidded to a halt in front of the Engineering briefing room, composed himself, and opened the door.
William only missed most of the opening prayers, managing to find a seat at the back just as the Oracle led the room to the conclusion of the Prayer Of Thanks To The Shipbuilder. Theresa Mao, the Oracle of Engineering, 2nd Congregation, caught his eye and raised an eyebrow as he sat down. So much for slipping in unnoticed.
“..and thanks be to Mrozisnki, who tirelessly constructed the Ship and gave it life, so that we could escape into the void away from the Great Adversary. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” Intoned the rest of the congregation, dutifully.
Theresa picked up her tablet from the podium she was standing behind and turned it on. “Bow your heads and prepare to receive the word of the Ship.” William lowered his head with the rest after glancing enviously at the Oracle of Engineering’s tablet. Rumour had it that long ago all the crew had had them, however the Ship had punished them over the years, and now only a few tablets remained, and only the Oracles were allowed to use them to commune with the Ship.
“Thomson, three consoles lost power on Deck 4 Bulkhead 17, take Initiate Chambers with you and teach him the Ritual of Repair.”
“Yes, Oracle.”
“The refrigeration unit in kitchen 3 freezer 5 stopped working, Zhu, I need you to perform a Prayer of Diagnostic and then follow up with the appropriate ceremony.”
“Yes, Oracle”
“A power conduit blew out on Deck 12, Bulkhead 36. Daniels, go and perform a Ritual of Replacement, that is if you think you can find your way there in time?”
William flushed with embarrassment at the scattered laughter that produced. He kept his voice calm as he replied. “Of course, Oracle.” If this was the worst he suffered he was getting off easy.
“Those are all the special assignments the Ship has given us for today. Everyone else, take part in the Ritual of Systems Check, or the Rituals of Routine Maintenance, as per usual. We have sinned against the Ship, and so the Ship shows it’s displeasure with us. It is up to us to pacify it. Perform your duties with zeal and precision so that we may purify ourselves and show the Ship our devotion. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” The congregation repeated as they stood up and went to work. William gathered the tools and parts he would need for the ritual from his locker and left the room, hurrying to the elevator. Deck 12 was not a busy deck. Right against the hull, it had been used mostly for storage, and was rarely traveled. William was alone as he followed the bulkhead numbers until he reach the section with the power conduit, it was inside a room that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, filled with equipment that had probably been unused for longer than that. Normally he would have to check behind each wall panel until he found the one we was looking for, however the Oracle hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that the power conduit had blown. One wall panel was conspicuously dented outwards, and with some trepidation William unfastened it and pulled it off the wall.
Luckily, despite how the panel looked, the damage was minimal. The conduit had blown outwards, as it was designed to. Rather than shredding everything around it it had just created a large dent in the wall panel. William thanked the Great Designer for their foresight, and prepared for the ritual. He laid out all the tools and parts he would need in a semicircle around him, knelt on the floor, and began to pray. First was the prayer of thanks to the Shipbuilder and the Designer, then came the prayer of forgiveness to the Ship, asking that it overlook the meddling that he was about to do, and then finally, as he went to work, William began the Chant of Replacement.
Maintaining the chant while performing the ritual, removing damaged parts, conducting tests, and putting in replacements, required a great deal of concentration. William was only an Acolyte Grade 1, only a few months ago he was an initiate, but meditation and concentration were taught before all else, such was their importance in the ritual. William only lost the thread of his chanting twice before he finished. If the Oracle or a senior Acolyte had been there they would have forced him to start from scratch, but William gambled that the Ship would forgive him and started to put his tools away. Moving to the room’s control panel he said a brief prayer of supplication and reset the power conduit running through the room.
That was when he noticed one of the consoles in the room coming to life. Cautiously approaching it William saw that it was running a self diagnostic. Cursing himself for missing the start of it, William hurriedly started the Chant of Diagnostic but was cut off after only a few lines when the console finished and a message popped up.
\----
Power restored.
Self-check complete - All systems functional
Radio Communication Array - Online
Long Range Radio Array - Online
FTL Communication Array - Online
Estimated downtime: 176 years 24 days 16 hours 3 minutes 37 seconds
Press ENTER to continue
\----
With trembling hands, William pressed Enter.
High Inquisitor David Owens sat at the alter of Security and prayed. He savored the time alone, privacy was hard to come by on the Ship. Even the holy temple of The Bridge, where he currently sat was normally filled with chatter and activity as the High Oracles prayed at their respective alters and went about their day to day business. Every once and a while though, when their work took the High Oracles away from the bridge, David Owens had some time alone. He savored the silence. Silence, which was suddenly broken by beeping from his alter.
The High Inquisitor frowned. His alter could do many things. It allowed him to commune with the ship to watch and listen through what security cameras remained functional. He could request that the Ship close specific doors, or deploy crowd suppression systems. It could grant access to the secret chapel of Security, the Armory. It could even allow him to read the private messages between the other High Oracles, a fact with Owens gleefully kept to himself. What his console had never done, what he had never known it could do, was beep at him.
A message was flashing on the screen, telling him that communications were restored. He looked around in shock. The Alter of Communications, which had been dark for as long as anyone could remember, was coming to life. He sank to his knees in reverence as the Alter ran diagnostics and self- checks before finally displaying a welcome message. He moved to it, and was surprised to see that a communication window was open. And with growing horror, he realized that someone was sending messages.
UNDC Ops: UNCS Magellan, are you there? We’re receiving a positive return from your FTL Comm Array.
UNCS Magellan: Hello, who is this?
UNDC Ops: This is the head of operations at the United Nations Department of Colonization. Congratulations on repairing your comm array Magellan, it’s been over 175 years, we’d pretty much lost hope. It’s damned good to hear from you. What is your status, Magellan? And who are we speaking to?
UNCS Magellan: This is William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade. I don’t recognize your congregation, is the United Nations part of the Inquisition?
UNDC Ops: Uh, no Magellan. This is the United Nations. The UN. On Earth. What’s been going on over there Magellan?
High Inquisitor Owens reeled back in horror at the mention of the forbidden name. Earth. The Great Adversary. And someone on this ship had summoned it? Who knew what horrors would be inflicted on them now. This summoning would have to be interrupted, a great purification undertaken. But first this William Daniels would have to be found. And dealt with appropriately. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Captain's log, day 6 of Juno, year 675: Captain Francis, "the brave" they called him, he was the second captain to dare traverse an asteroid field, how fast it was until they called him "the mad", when he turned the ship around he promissed his officers that if a hint of that message got out he would send them all to the slaughter, in less than two months he kept his word, nobody expected him to kill himself too, left only his second in command.
Poor guy, Captain Marc "the poor" lasted less than two years in command, left without a crew, he never questioned his captain's orders, nobody believed the Earth existed, I'm sure even he had doubts but he was loyal. And so a civil war started, one side wanting to continue towards the Earth, the other believing it to be a trap.
In the end we kept moving, the captains, myself included, had a mission, save humanity, and at this rate we wouldn't last much more than a hundred years, I was born 50 years after these events and I honestly think he wasn't mad, just tired, I'd do the same if we weren't so close, there's only so much a man can take.
Now we actually talk to them, these other humans, they say the Earth is back to normal, no one here knows exactly what that means. We avoided talking about food, they asked but we told them we have enough for the journey, how could we explain, how would they understand? No, we deal with it when we get there, until then, rations will be smaller, it's so hard to tell them they won't see Earth, but it's a noble sacrifice and we can't stop now. Hopefully they won't judge us harshly, after all, our food suplies only lasted one hundred years and we had to keep eating. | William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade, was late to worship. As he sprinted through the corridors, dodging other crew and a gaggle of children on their way to daily lessons, he thought about how he would explain his tardiness. If he claimed that the corridors were too congested he would just be told to get up earlier and have the Oracle adjust the time of his morning alarm accordingly. He considered claiming that it wasn't his fault, after all the clock in his quarters had broken again and his alarm didn’t go off, but that just meant that the Ship was punishing him for some minor transgression, so the blame ultimately rested with him. No, he would have to take his chances with simply trying to slip into the back of the room and hoping that the Oracle didn't notice. William skidded to a halt in front of the Engineering briefing room, composed himself, and opened the door.
William only missed most of the opening prayers, managing to find a seat at the back just as the Oracle led the room to the conclusion of the Prayer Of Thanks To The Shipbuilder. Theresa Mao, the Oracle of Engineering, 2nd Congregation, caught his eye and raised an eyebrow as he sat down. So much for slipping in unnoticed.
“..and thanks be to Mrozisnki, who tirelessly constructed the Ship and gave it life, so that we could escape into the void away from the Great Adversary. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” Intoned the rest of the congregation, dutifully.
Theresa picked up her tablet from the podium she was standing behind and turned it on. “Bow your heads and prepare to receive the word of the Ship.” William lowered his head with the rest after glancing enviously at the Oracle of Engineering’s tablet. Rumour had it that long ago all the crew had had them, however the Ship had punished them over the years, and now only a few tablets remained, and only the Oracles were allowed to use them to commune with the Ship.
“Thomson, three consoles lost power on Deck 4 Bulkhead 17, take Initiate Chambers with you and teach him the Ritual of Repair.”
“Yes, Oracle.”
“The refrigeration unit in kitchen 3 freezer 5 stopped working, Zhu, I need you to perform a Prayer of Diagnostic and then follow up with the appropriate ceremony.”
“Yes, Oracle”
“A power conduit blew out on Deck 12, Bulkhead 36. Daniels, go and perform a Ritual of Replacement, that is if you think you can find your way there in time?”
William flushed with embarrassment at the scattered laughter that produced. He kept his voice calm as he replied. “Of course, Oracle.” If this was the worst he suffered he was getting off easy.
“Those are all the special assignments the Ship has given us for today. Everyone else, take part in the Ritual of Systems Check, or the Rituals of Routine Maintenance, as per usual. We have sinned against the Ship, and so the Ship shows it’s displeasure with us. It is up to us to pacify it. Perform your duties with zeal and precision so that we may purify ourselves and show the Ship our devotion. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” The congregation repeated as they stood up and went to work. William gathered the tools and parts he would need for the ritual from his locker and left the room, hurrying to the elevator. Deck 12 was not a busy deck. Right against the hull, it had been used mostly for storage, and was rarely traveled. William was alone as he followed the bulkhead numbers until he reach the section with the power conduit, it was inside a room that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, filled with equipment that had probably been unused for longer than that. Normally he would have to check behind each wall panel until he found the one we was looking for, however the Oracle hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that the power conduit had blown. One wall panel was conspicuously dented outwards, and with some trepidation William unfastened it and pulled it off the wall.
Luckily, despite how the panel looked, the damage was minimal. The conduit had blown outwards, as it was designed to. Rather than shredding everything around it it had just created a large dent in the wall panel. William thanked the Great Designer for their foresight, and prepared for the ritual. He laid out all the tools and parts he would need in a semicircle around him, knelt on the floor, and began to pray. First was the prayer of thanks to the Shipbuilder and the Designer, then came the prayer of forgiveness to the Ship, asking that it overlook the meddling that he was about to do, and then finally, as he went to work, William began the Chant of Replacement.
Maintaining the chant while performing the ritual, removing damaged parts, conducting tests, and putting in replacements, required a great deal of concentration. William was only an Acolyte Grade 1, only a few months ago he was an initiate, but meditation and concentration were taught before all else, such was their importance in the ritual. William only lost the thread of his chanting twice before he finished. If the Oracle or a senior Acolyte had been there they would have forced him to start from scratch, but William gambled that the Ship would forgive him and started to put his tools away. Moving to the room’s control panel he said a brief prayer of supplication and reset the power conduit running through the room.
That was when he noticed one of the consoles in the room coming to life. Cautiously approaching it William saw that it was running a self diagnostic. Cursing himself for missing the start of it, William hurriedly started the Chant of Diagnostic but was cut off after only a few lines when the console finished and a message popped up.
\----
Power restored.
Self-check complete - All systems functional
Radio Communication Array - Online
Long Range Radio Array - Online
FTL Communication Array - Online
Estimated downtime: 176 years 24 days 16 hours 3 minutes 37 seconds
Press ENTER to continue
\----
With trembling hands, William pressed Enter.
High Inquisitor David Owens sat at the alter of Security and prayed. He savored the time alone, privacy was hard to come by on the Ship. Even the holy temple of The Bridge, where he currently sat was normally filled with chatter and activity as the High Oracles prayed at their respective alters and went about their day to day business. Every once and a while though, when their work took the High Oracles away from the bridge, David Owens had some time alone. He savored the silence. Silence, which was suddenly broken by beeping from his alter.
The High Inquisitor frowned. His alter could do many things. It allowed him to commune with the ship to watch and listen through what security cameras remained functional. He could request that the Ship close specific doors, or deploy crowd suppression systems. It could grant access to the secret chapel of Security, the Armory. It could even allow him to read the private messages between the other High Oracles, a fact with Owens gleefully kept to himself. What his console had never done, what he had never known it could do, was beep at him.
A message was flashing on the screen, telling him that communications were restored. He looked around in shock. The Alter of Communications, which had been dark for as long as anyone could remember, was coming to life. He sank to his knees in reverence as the Alter ran diagnostics and self- checks before finally displaying a welcome message. He moved to it, and was surprised to see that a communication window was open. And with growing horror, he realized that someone was sending messages.
UNDC Ops: UNCS Magellan, are you there? We’re receiving a positive return from your FTL Comm Array.
UNCS Magellan: Hello, who is this?
UNDC Ops: This is the head of operations at the United Nations Department of Colonization. Congratulations on repairing your comm array Magellan, it’s been over 175 years, we’d pretty much lost hope. It’s damned good to hear from you. What is your status, Magellan? And who are we speaking to?
UNCS Magellan: This is William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade. I don’t recognize your congregation, is the United Nations part of the Inquisition?
UNDC Ops: Uh, no Magellan. This is the United Nations. The UN. On Earth. What’s been going on over there Magellan?
High Inquisitor Owens reeled back in horror at the mention of the forbidden name. Earth. The Great Adversary. And someone on this ship had summoned it? Who knew what horrors would be inflicted on them now. This summoning would have to be interrupted, a great purification undertaken. But first this William Daniels would have to be found. And dealt with appropriately. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade, was late to worship. As he sprinted through the corridors, dodging other crew and a gaggle of children on their way to daily lessons, he thought about how he would explain his tardiness. If he claimed that the corridors were too congested he would just be told to get up earlier and have the Oracle adjust the time of his morning alarm accordingly. He considered claiming that it wasn't his fault, after all the clock in his quarters had broken again and his alarm didn’t go off, but that just meant that the Ship was punishing him for some minor transgression, so the blame ultimately rested with him. No, he would have to take his chances with simply trying to slip into the back of the room and hoping that the Oracle didn't notice. William skidded to a halt in front of the Engineering briefing room, composed himself, and opened the door.
William only missed most of the opening prayers, managing to find a seat at the back just as the Oracle led the room to the conclusion of the Prayer Of Thanks To The Shipbuilder. Theresa Mao, the Oracle of Engineering, 2nd Congregation, caught his eye and raised an eyebrow as he sat down. So much for slipping in unnoticed.
“..and thanks be to Mrozisnki, who tirelessly constructed the Ship and gave it life, so that we could escape into the void away from the Great Adversary. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” Intoned the rest of the congregation, dutifully.
Theresa picked up her tablet from the podium she was standing behind and turned it on. “Bow your heads and prepare to receive the word of the Ship.” William lowered his head with the rest after glancing enviously at the Oracle of Engineering’s tablet. Rumour had it that long ago all the crew had had them, however the Ship had punished them over the years, and now only a few tablets remained, and only the Oracles were allowed to use them to commune with the Ship.
“Thomson, three consoles lost power on Deck 4 Bulkhead 17, take Initiate Chambers with you and teach him the Ritual of Repair.”
“Yes, Oracle.”
“The refrigeration unit in kitchen 3 freezer 5 stopped working, Zhu, I need you to perform a Prayer of Diagnostic and then follow up with the appropriate ceremony.”
“Yes, Oracle”
“A power conduit blew out on Deck 12, Bulkhead 36. Daniels, go and perform a Ritual of Replacement, that is if you think you can find your way there in time?”
William flushed with embarrassment at the scattered laughter that produced. He kept his voice calm as he replied. “Of course, Oracle.” If this was the worst he suffered he was getting off easy.
“Those are all the special assignments the Ship has given us for today. Everyone else, take part in the Ritual of Systems Check, or the Rituals of Routine Maintenance, as per usual. We have sinned against the Ship, and so the Ship shows it’s displeasure with us. It is up to us to pacify it. Perform your duties with zeal and precision so that we may purify ourselves and show the Ship our devotion. May the Ship protect us all.”
“May the Ship protect us all.” The congregation repeated as they stood up and went to work. William gathered the tools and parts he would need for the ritual from his locker and left the room, hurrying to the elevator. Deck 12 was not a busy deck. Right against the hull, it had been used mostly for storage, and was rarely traveled. William was alone as he followed the bulkhead numbers until he reach the section with the power conduit, it was inside a room that looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, filled with equipment that had probably been unused for longer than that. Normally he would have to check behind each wall panel until he found the one we was looking for, however the Oracle hadn’t been exaggerating when she said that the power conduit had blown. One wall panel was conspicuously dented outwards, and with some trepidation William unfastened it and pulled it off the wall.
Luckily, despite how the panel looked, the damage was minimal. The conduit had blown outwards, as it was designed to. Rather than shredding everything around it it had just created a large dent in the wall panel. William thanked the Great Designer for their foresight, and prepared for the ritual. He laid out all the tools and parts he would need in a semicircle around him, knelt on the floor, and began to pray. First was the prayer of thanks to the Shipbuilder and the Designer, then came the prayer of forgiveness to the Ship, asking that it overlook the meddling that he was about to do, and then finally, as he went to work, William began the Chant of Replacement.
Maintaining the chant while performing the ritual, removing damaged parts, conducting tests, and putting in replacements, required a great deal of concentration. William was only an Acolyte Grade 1, only a few months ago he was an initiate, but meditation and concentration were taught before all else, such was their importance in the ritual. William only lost the thread of his chanting twice before he finished. If the Oracle or a senior Acolyte had been there they would have forced him to start from scratch, but William gambled that the Ship would forgive him and started to put his tools away. Moving to the room’s control panel he said a brief prayer of supplication and reset the power conduit running through the room.
That was when he noticed one of the consoles in the room coming to life. Cautiously approaching it William saw that it was running a self diagnostic. Cursing himself for missing the start of it, William hurriedly started the Chant of Diagnostic but was cut off after only a few lines when the console finished and a message popped up.
\----
Power restored.
Self-check complete - All systems functional
Radio Communication Array - Online
Long Range Radio Array - Online
FTL Communication Array - Online
Estimated downtime: 176 years 24 days 16 hours 3 minutes 37 seconds
Press ENTER to continue
\----
With trembling hands, William pressed Enter.
High Inquisitor David Owens sat at the alter of Security and prayed. He savored the time alone, privacy was hard to come by on the Ship. Even the holy temple of The Bridge, where he currently sat was normally filled with chatter and activity as the High Oracles prayed at their respective alters and went about their day to day business. Every once and a while though, when their work took the High Oracles away from the bridge, David Owens had some time alone. He savored the silence. Silence, which was suddenly broken by beeping from his alter.
The High Inquisitor frowned. His alter could do many things. It allowed him to commune with the ship to watch and listen through what security cameras remained functional. He could request that the Ship close specific doors, or deploy crowd suppression systems. It could grant access to the secret chapel of Security, the Armory. It could even allow him to read the private messages between the other High Oracles, a fact with Owens gleefully kept to himself. What his console had never done, what he had never known it could do, was beep at him.
A message was flashing on the screen, telling him that communications were restored. He looked around in shock. The Alter of Communications, which had been dark for as long as anyone could remember, was coming to life. He sank to his knees in reverence as the Alter ran diagnostics and self- checks before finally displaying a welcome message. He moved to it, and was surprised to see that a communication window was open. And with growing horror, he realized that someone was sending messages.
UNDC Ops: UNCS Magellan, are you there? We’re receiving a positive return from your FTL Comm Array.
UNCS Magellan: Hello, who is this?
UNDC Ops: This is the head of operations at the United Nations Department of Colonization. Congratulations on repairing your comm array Magellan, it’s been over 175 years, we’d pretty much lost hope. It’s damned good to hear from you. What is your status, Magellan? And who are we speaking to?
UNCS Magellan: This is William Daniels, Acolyte of Engineering 1st Grade. I don’t recognize your congregation, is the United Nations part of the Inquisition?
UNDC Ops: Uh, no Magellan. This is the United Nations. The UN. On Earth. What’s been going on over there Magellan?
High Inquisitor Owens reeled back in horror at the mention of the forbidden name. Earth. The Great Adversary. And someone on this ship had summoned it? Who knew what horrors would be inflicted on them now. This summoning would have to be interrupted, a great purification undertaken. But first this William Daniels would have to be found. And dealt with appropriately. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Breaking from the prompt a bit--I don't really like the Earth being a myth bit of it, so I'm reworking it a bit, and running with that.
_________________________
"We have a little bit of a... A situation, Mr. Holiday."
This isn't the first time I've been brought in by the authorities and told I needed to answer for a situation. I've been a private investigator in Orion City for the last twenty-six years, ever since the Colonial Peace Keeping Force declined my application. Declined it despite perfect scores on the placement exam. When you're a private investigator in a closed, self-governed system, it's hard not to ruffle a few feathers. When you're one of a very select few second-generation colonists, those feathers tend to come pre-ruffled.
The man in front of me doesn't wear a rank insignia, but he looks vaguely familiar to me. I give his two guards a glance, and flash a grin, just to let them know I'm not intimidated by them, then turn to the unranked man behind the desk. "I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."
"Communications Minister Douglas Phelps. I was Orion's senator for six years." Now I remember. Signs on every street corner trying to etch his name into the public consciousness to get him re-elected. Must have been a decade earlier, back when I was still drinking.
"Well Mr. Minister, what's this situation about?" I speak slowly, but my mind is racing. I can think of a half dozen offenses I might be brought in for. Commandeering manual control of an auto-transport, punching a police officer, unwarranted search and imprisonment of a suspect--but none of them would rise higher than local law enforcement. "What might I have done to draw the ire of the Central Office?"
The question hit a bullseye I wasn't even aiming for. Douglas blinks and stammers, his jaw works for a moment without words coming out. "No. No! What? Mr. Holiday, you're not in any kind of trouble." This guy must not have read my file. "Look, let's just get it right out on the table. We want to hire you."
"That ship has sailed pal. I don't want to work for the CPK anymore--"
"Not as a detective. Well, yes as a detective, but... Damn it, please just let me explain?" He has sweat standing out on his forehead now. He's clearly panicked. I'm so used to conversation being a kind of verbal combat that I almost don't know how to handle someone buckling without a fight. Almost. I sit back, and I narrow my eyes, and let him continue. "We just received a transmission."
"We? We who?"
"Us. The colony. From Earth."
"That's not possible. Earth is long-gone." I should know. My grandparents fled the Sol System when cosmic debris was mere weeks away from ending all life on the homeworld. Wars and expense, and in-fighting had long-since halted our space exploration program, with the SCS Roddenberry--a generation colony ship launched centuries before--our species' only home away from home. Earth's scientists had experimented with FTL drives, but they were deemed too risky for large payloads, which meant no colonies, and the tech was largely abandoned. With doom imminent, a dozen scientists stole a prototype, and took a chance. They chased down the last signal of the Roddenberry, and, along with their children--my parents among them--were the colony's first immigrants. The entirety of the Human species now lives on the inner walls of this enormous, hollow cylinder. There is no one out there who could send us a message now.
"Earth is gone *now* but the message was sent one hundred and twenty-seven years ago. More than a decade before your ship even left the system." Oh, this crap. Of course I know that travel and communication through space take time, but I've grown up on this ship just like every other kid here, and the idea of a message taking more than five minutes to reach its recipient--let alone a century--is hard to intuit. "The thing is, it... Well, it doesn't make much sense."
"How the hell am I supposed to make sense of it for you?"
Douglas Phelps folded his hands on his desk and sighed. "Mr. Holiday, I'm sure you're aware that your people haven't, um. Well, they haven't been given a fair shake. We didn't trust them, and frankly, they didn't trust us either. It was before both of our times, and I think you and I can both objectively look at those hostilities and say it's foolish. But they do linger."
"Are you planning to get to the point any time soon?"
Douglas pushes a button on his desk, and the monitor on the wall to my left lights up, with an official-looking message in blue text, with an image of the Earth surrounded by seven stars--the official logo of the Earth Space Fleet. The message reads:
>Your disregard of orders leaves us no choice but to rescind all rights and protections associated with the Earth Federation. May the heavens have mercy on your crew; The Earth will have none.
I feel my heart beginning to race. "Whoa, now, hold on! I don't know anything about this!"
"I know you don't, Mr. Holiday. There are certainly some here who think that the survivors of your grandparents' vessel should be quarantined and exterminated. They think maybe you came here with a fake story of Earth's destruction as a cover to infiltrate and cause us harm. But that doesn't make any sense. If it were true, then why send the threat at all? Send a covert team and an overt threat? It's nonsense. And also, if you were here trying to cause us some harm, then I dare say you would be keeping a lower profile than you have been." At this he gestures toward a manila envelope on his desk, which I take to be my file. It still looks a little thin, but maybe he just has it for dramatic effect. "Let me tell you what I think," he continues. "They were replying to a message sent by this vessel, clearly. Their message took 127 years; the one they were replying to would have to have been sent another 89 years prior. Do you follow your history?"
"Two hundred and sixteen years ago?" Wasn't that long ago we celebrated a bicentennial. "That's when the crew hierarchy was abolished."
"Correct. Before that we had a Captain, and he was essentially our king. Now, the history I've heard is the same as the one you've undoubtedly heard. Our leaders decided that we had traveled far enough from Earth that we need no longer exist under their command, and declared independence. They renamed the ship from the FSF Roddenberry to the SCS Roddenberry--noting our separation from the Federation Space Fleet, and rechristening ourselves as a Sovereign Colony Ship. This has always been taught as a peaceful separation. I think it was less so than what has been reported. I've been making inquiries but the records from that time have been buried--possibly purged. That's where you come in."
"You think I'll have access to buried records that you won't?"
"No. I think you'll have access to the last surviving Earth native, who may know something more than they've told us, and who won't talk to us because we've treated them unfairly for decades."
"So you're hiring me to question my aunt Tess?"
"That is the long and short of it, yes."
"And if I say no?"
"I'm currently the minority in wanting to figure out what this message means. The rest of the counsel wants to round your people up and get the information by force. I'm buying as much time as I can, but if I don't give them something within the week, I truly regret to say that your next visit here will be less pleasant."
"Well alright. Let's discuss my pay."
_____________
Part 2 coming soon! | "There were billions of us once."
The Traveller's Council Chairman stared at the face. A man sitting in a giant marble chair spoke to the entire ship. It's frequency so powerful it covered nearly every channel with perfect audio.
"My...My... My name... That doesn't matter anymore... President... Leader... King... Such titles don't hold the meanings they once did anymore." The old man coughed. The screen shifted. Giving them a view of an orange glow in the distance.
"We sent you away... In optimistism... Hope... Faith in the idea of a future, where we don't die out. Like the civilizations before us. And those next to come... It was such a simple wish... Get to a few planets... Establish colonies... Chart the stars... It always seemed simple... But others held different intentions."
The old man moved away from the familiar monument. "The... The scans show that... There are seven people on Earth left... The last woman... A clon-... A woman... Eve... She passed away today... 7am, 20077... She was exploring the remains of York... And fell into a pit of flames... Left over from the hydrogen bombs... Thomas fell in, trying to save her... The rest of us are old men... Too foolish to have stopped before the war went to far... My Western United Legion is nothing but cinders now... And the Slavic Euro Empire is naught but dirt and stone."
"... One day... The clouds will finally pour... And return our insignificant lands to the sea. And your birth place... Earth... Will return to being a ball of water for the next several million years."
"Don't pity me."
"Many... They tried to escape... Their ashes... The people I murdered... For trying to get off the planet as the war escalated... Their ashes in this new ring around the planet keep me, and these others, from escaping to the Moon or Mars. Any craft launched will get torn to dust in seconds. In two weeks, the satellite array sending you this message, will pass through this ring... And I will never be able to speak to you all... My descendants... Again..."
He sat down. Dirt. They could see the dirt. "... I can't apologize... No "I'm Sorry" will bring back those that have died. So needlessly. In my pointless war... And my security guards have gone off to try surviving on their own... The Tsar's death and my surviving does not make me the victor in this... Not with my people gone in a matter of days... And the world I knew gone..." He sighed, "Don't... Let... Don't let bastards like me rule... Survive... Whether you are all synthetics, clones, or still human at this point... Do not raise your weapons when foolish old politicians and kings call for them to be raised... Don't war for anyone... Let the power hungry starve. My title... President and Leader of the Western United Legion... It means nothing now... And tomorrow, I will try to pay my penance... As this world will be reduced to six humans..."
"If you ever find yourselves able... Or by chance, cross this godforsaken rock... Don't get close. Just stand back... And look at what your home world has become... And refuse... To ever follow in our footsteps. This is Garrett Turner... Signing off." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Kraton Prior bent over the control panel. Drawing a deep breath she blew, and a thousand dust particles filled the air around her, momentarily blotting out the red lights of the instruments and creating a phosphorescent cloud.
Coughing and waving her arm to clear the air, she squinted, tapping on the hazy sapphire glass of the readout trying to remember what her mother had told her about the position of the readout needle.
Deciphering the gauges of this area of the ship had always been mysterious to her, and she could remember her mother saying the same aloud so many years ago while she herself as a child sat and played on the rough titanium floor. She would always wait for her mother to finish, and travel the endless corridors to the next panel, the next gauge that needed decoding.
Satisfied that she had read the number correctly and its angle she turned, the hole ridden uniform fitting her slim form like a old glove. The worn ink of what long ago was an insignia - a faded blue circle with a brown ink spire corrupted by time, duty, and decades of use still slightly visible under the dim light of the room.
She sighed sightly, unjamming the room’s inner door with a modest shove, and manually set the teetering panel back into the groove set into the floor.
Walking the dark length of Canad hall was her least favorite place to be. While it was still physically sound, she could hear things hitting the outer hull as the ship moved through the blackness between starlight. It wouldn’t be long until some piece of debris pierced the Reth’s outer skin and then this historic hall would end up like the rest of the Lost Halls - filled with dust and leaking the Reth’s air supply so badly to the outside the crew would weld it shut at either end with plasma torches, forever sealing its fate to become a ghost hall which could no longer be traveled.
A tin voice suddenly called her name, emanating from a metal half circle wound around the back of her ear.
“Kraton. All decks reporting normal.” the voice chirped monotonously as she side-stepped a hulking gap in the floor.
“Note - Effronca section has received…” the voice broke momentarily, “…an anomalous wave pattern.”
She paused lost in thought. No pattern had been detected with the Effronca sector instruments for centuries.
Touching the metal ring she replied, ”Noted. Heading there now.”
Making her way down the dark hallway, she stopped and looked at a map of the Reth craft. No one had been into Effronca for years, perhaps decades, and even then it was used as a rundown hideout for crew to sip their drinks and smoke without fear of reprimand by once stern Reth Officers. She remembered something else as she looked at the map’s way-lines anodized onto the wall, tracing them with a gloved hand. The thought of something half-remembered once heard from her great grandmother. The thought fleeing, she shook her head and followed the passages to the sector.
Effronca, once the Reth’s main operations room, had long been deserted. The golden plated panels once mounted on the wall, long since pried away for other uses and trade on the ship’s black market. She wound her way past the twin sealing doors which had since buckled under an ancient unseen stress, making her way to the center of the room.
“eArThhh, rEpoRTTtt….fIveNInethREE mmArk oNEsEVEnfiVE…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening.
“aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire.” the voice spoke wavering in an out of hearing.
Unmoving she continued to listen, her mind once again grasping a fragment of memory overheard long ago. A snippet of myth passed down for generations, recycled into a drinking song, then abruptly forgotten. One that even the rooms drunk prior occupants took as hearsay and legend.
“rEPeat, aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire!” the voice spoke more urgently than before.
If it were true, she should raise the alarm, awaken hundreds of families now sound asleep, while making her way to the Reth’s weapons control cache.
“….suRRounded…wHy ArEn’t yOU fIRing?” the voice demanded.
Suddenly a new sound came through the room - a loud blast followed by screaming before being cut off into the inky silence.
She stood for a second wondering, and slowly turned and walked out of the room. | "There were billions of us once."
The Traveller's Council Chairman stared at the face. A man sitting in a giant marble chair spoke to the entire ship. It's frequency so powerful it covered nearly every channel with perfect audio.
"My...My... My name... That doesn't matter anymore... President... Leader... King... Such titles don't hold the meanings they once did anymore." The old man coughed. The screen shifted. Giving them a view of an orange glow in the distance.
"We sent you away... In optimistism... Hope... Faith in the idea of a future, where we don't die out. Like the civilizations before us. And those next to come... It was such a simple wish... Get to a few planets... Establish colonies... Chart the stars... It always seemed simple... But others held different intentions."
The old man moved away from the familiar monument. "The... The scans show that... There are seven people on Earth left... The last woman... A clon-... A woman... Eve... She passed away today... 7am, 20077... She was exploring the remains of York... And fell into a pit of flames... Left over from the hydrogen bombs... Thomas fell in, trying to save her... The rest of us are old men... Too foolish to have stopped before the war went to far... My Western United Legion is nothing but cinders now... And the Slavic Euro Empire is naught but dirt and stone."
"... One day... The clouds will finally pour... And return our insignificant lands to the sea. And your birth place... Earth... Will return to being a ball of water for the next several million years."
"Don't pity me."
"Many... They tried to escape... Their ashes... The people I murdered... For trying to get off the planet as the war escalated... Their ashes in this new ring around the planet keep me, and these others, from escaping to the Moon or Mars. Any craft launched will get torn to dust in seconds. In two weeks, the satellite array sending you this message, will pass through this ring... And I will never be able to speak to you all... My descendants... Again..."
He sat down. Dirt. They could see the dirt. "... I can't apologize... No "I'm Sorry" will bring back those that have died. So needlessly. In my pointless war... And my security guards have gone off to try surviving on their own... The Tsar's death and my surviving does not make me the victor in this... Not with my people gone in a matter of days... And the world I knew gone..." He sighed, "Don't... Let... Don't let bastards like me rule... Survive... Whether you are all synthetics, clones, or still human at this point... Do not raise your weapons when foolish old politicians and kings call for them to be raised... Don't war for anyone... Let the power hungry starve. My title... President and Leader of the Western United Legion... It means nothing now... And tomorrow, I will try to pay my penance... As this world will be reduced to six humans..."
"If you ever find yourselves able... Or by chance, cross this godforsaken rock... Don't get close. Just stand back... And look at what your home world has become... And refuse... To ever follow in our footsteps. This is Garrett Turner... Signing off." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | "There were billions of us once."
The Traveller's Council Chairman stared at the face. A man sitting in a giant marble chair spoke to the entire ship. It's frequency so powerful it covered nearly every channel with perfect audio.
"My...My... My name... That doesn't matter anymore... President... Leader... King... Such titles don't hold the meanings they once did anymore." The old man coughed. The screen shifted. Giving them a view of an orange glow in the distance.
"We sent you away... In optimistism... Hope... Faith in the idea of a future, where we don't die out. Like the civilizations before us. And those next to come... It was such a simple wish... Get to a few planets... Establish colonies... Chart the stars... It always seemed simple... But others held different intentions."
The old man moved away from the familiar monument. "The... The scans show that... There are seven people on Earth left... The last woman... A clon-... A woman... Eve... She passed away today... 7am, 20077... She was exploring the remains of York... And fell into a pit of flames... Left over from the hydrogen bombs... Thomas fell in, trying to save her... The rest of us are old men... Too foolish to have stopped before the war went to far... My Western United Legion is nothing but cinders now... And the Slavic Euro Empire is naught but dirt and stone."
"... One day... The clouds will finally pour... And return our insignificant lands to the sea. And your birth place... Earth... Will return to being a ball of water for the next several million years."
"Don't pity me."
"Many... They tried to escape... Their ashes... The people I murdered... For trying to get off the planet as the war escalated... Their ashes in this new ring around the planet keep me, and these others, from escaping to the Moon or Mars. Any craft launched will get torn to dust in seconds. In two weeks, the satellite array sending you this message, will pass through this ring... And I will never be able to speak to you all... My descendants... Again..."
He sat down. Dirt. They could see the dirt. "... I can't apologize... No "I'm Sorry" will bring back those that have died. So needlessly. In my pointless war... And my security guards have gone off to try surviving on their own... The Tsar's death and my surviving does not make me the victor in this... Not with my people gone in a matter of days... And the world I knew gone..." He sighed, "Don't... Let... Don't let bastards like me rule... Survive... Whether you are all synthetics, clones, or still human at this point... Do not raise your weapons when foolish old politicians and kings call for them to be raised... Don't war for anyone... Let the power hungry starve. My title... President and Leader of the Western United Legion... It means nothing now... And tomorrow, I will try to pay my penance... As this world will be reduced to six humans..."
"If you ever find yourselves able... Or by chance, cross this godforsaken rock... Don't get close. Just stand back... And look at what your home world has become... And refuse... To ever follow in our footsteps. This is Garrett Turner... Signing off." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... |
**Underneath a glass panel is a red light slowly pulsating. A red hologram materializes from the pulsating light illuminating a portion of a computer terminal with the words “System Booting...”. The hologram flickers, “Mother initializing 3 2 1”. The reactors starting up sounded as if all pipes in the ship were under immense pressure. The feeling of being crushed under this pressure was always intimidating as reactors with Mother AI generated enough pressure that ships the size of a small city carrying 30,000 crewmen have been reduced to the size of a lid of a tin can.**
**“Mother Online” the hologram now sending red waves of light in every direction mapping out the control room.** **Buzzing can be heard as the reactors begins to nominalize. Humming from circuits of overhead lights flicker on and computer terminals click as they boot up. Thermal shutters over the port windows of the control deck open revealing a blue planet. Life on board both sentient and machine begin to wake.**
**“All vital functions have been restored, electrical guidelines met at 100%, no anomalies detected. Echo Cryonics Chamber number 7272 activated. On board relocation of AI will now be replaced by Mother. Welcome, Mother”**
**Captain Messiah the first crew member to be awaken exits the chamber falls onto his knees as one of the few already awake cryo engineers helps him to his feet.**
**“What year is it”?**
**“3000 AD Sir”**
**“We are not supposed to be awake for another 500 years”.**
**“Mother was activated, she had released the entire cryonics chamber, must be something big”?**
**“Assemble the rest of the engineer to run diagnostics and on board medics to rehabilitate the crew. I’m going on deck to talk with Mother”.**
**“What about you”?**
**“What about me?”**
**“You are risking blood clots without a post cry injection”.**
**“Send a medic to the deck to meet me. Were awake 500 years to early and I need to find out why”.**
**Captain Messiah grabs a towel from the engineer and removes the coagulated gel from his body and puts on his captain uniform also brought by the engineer.**
**“How does it fit sir, it’s been 1000 years since you last wore it”?**
**Raising his arms to show how loose his uniform are from arms due to muscle atrophy “Like a glove”.**
**“I’m going and when your done come to the deck”**
**As Captain Messiah scans his retina to enter the deck a light humming is heard.**
**“Hello Captain Messiah”, said in a soft, calm and empathetic cadence.”It’s been a long time, your diagnostic readings are relatively normal for being asleep for 1000 years. I am sorry to have awaken you, but I believe you need to see this”.**
**“What is it Mother”?**
**The thick metal doors slide open, the humming dies down.**
**As the doors open, a beautiful bright blue marble with slight opaque cloud formations can be seen from the entrance beyond the windows, astonishing Captain Messiah.**
**“My eyes are still a little blurry, is that planet”.**
**“Yes, captain. The name of the planet is Earth”.**
**Pinching his eyes from the side to focus his eyes, “Earth? the planet that gave our humanity life? I don’t believe it, it can’t be real, how did nobody see it on our path”?**
**“It appears Captain, that a black hole as formed near the planet a over 2,000 years ago. According to my diagnostics, signals have not been able to get around the interference”.**
**“A black hole? From what?”**
**“ While you were awakening I have discovered that Earth was** **apart of a failing solar system and that its sun had collapsed into a black hole. Numerous inhabitant above ground have died. Below land life appears to have evolved”**
**“You mean that’s not the sun keeping the planet form freezing”?**
**“No, Captain, it appears the heat signature is enough to warm the planet but not enough to be the sun adjusted for time and its origin appears to be artificial”.**
**“Mother, is this the planet we came from”?**
**“Yes, Captain”.**
**At that moment the flight crew assembled at the deck. All members were enamored by the blue glowing planet. Each members hair was still slick with slime or dried in place from the cryo gel. Uniforms were spotted and soiled from each member being rushed through their post cryo diagnostics. None of the crew could care about anything but what was in front of their eyes.**
**“Mother, public announcement”.**
**“Granted Captain”.**
**“This is your Captain and I apologize for waking you up early. It has come to our attention that, Earth is a real planet and that we have found it. We will keep you up to date as we find out more information. In the meantime Earth can be seen star board side. Thank you for your patience”.**
**“Captain”.**
**“Yes Mother.”**
**“We have received a transmission from earth”.**
**“What Kind of transmission”?**
**“An interactive transmission, Captain”**
**“There’s life? What does it say”?**
**“Welcome Home”.** | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Captain's log, day 6 of Juno, year 675: Captain Francis, "the brave" they called him, he was the second captain to dare traverse an asteroid field, how fast it was until they called him "the mad", when he turned the ship around he promissed his officers that if a hint of that message got out he would send them all to the slaughter, in less than two months he kept his word, nobody expected him to kill himself too, left only his second in command.
Poor guy, Captain Marc "the poor" lasted less than two years in command, left without a crew, he never questioned his captain's orders, nobody believed the Earth existed, I'm sure even he had doubts but he was loyal. And so a civil war started, one side wanting to continue towards the Earth, the other believing it to be a trap.
In the end we kept moving, the captains, myself included, had a mission, save humanity, and at this rate we wouldn't last much more than a hundred years, I was born 50 years after these events and I honestly think he wasn't mad, just tired, I'd do the same if we weren't so close, there's only so much a man can take.
Now we actually talk to them, these other humans, they say the Earth is back to normal, no one here knows exactly what that means. We avoided talking about food, they asked but we told them we have enough for the journey, how could we explain, how would they understand? No, we deal with it when we get there, until then, rations will be smaller, it's so hard to tell them they won't see Earth, but it's a noble sacrifice and we can't stop now. Hopefully they won't judge us harshly, after all, our food suplies only lasted one hundred years and we had to keep eating. | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | As I had done thousands of time before, I leaned back in my chair, my vision not really focused on anything in particular. I had my feet up on the only part of the control panel where I couldn’t accidentally push buttons with my heels.
A subtle beep came from the direction of our secondary HUD screen. “Incoming Transmission: Deep Space Coms” blinked slowly in bold red letters. “Hmm... I thought we phased out DSC after the last time we had issues with it,” I thought aloud. Tapping a cupped hand to my ear twice, I gestured “listen” to the computer.
Before the message played, Jeffrey, our friendly onboard AI chimed in: “Sir, if my calculations are correct, this message originated from Earth.”
“Earth?! Jeffrey, that can’t be possible. We lost the ability to communicate with Earth centuries ago. Plus it’s coming in via DSC. It’s probably just one of the mining colonies using it as a last resort. Just play the message.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Damn it Jeffrey. I told you to stop calling me sir.”
“Greetings from Earth to all aboard the Genesis Deep Space Exploration Vessel. This is Commander Fengt of the Terraria Deep Space Rescue Operations. This message is for whoever is in command of the ship...”
I stared blankly at the waveform. “Impossible... that name is ancient history...”
“We regret to tell you that we were not completely honest when we launched the original ‘brave bunch.’ We had functioning prototype warp engines built that were already capable of power orders of magnitudes higher than the engines you were launched with approximately (pause) 600 Earth years ago. Turns out one of our guys screwed up and typed a 1 instead of 0. (Laughing) Our biggest regret, however, is that we weren’t capable of finding you all until now. We will be arriving shortly. Have the synthesizer whip up a cocktail for me. Cheers.”
“Captain.” The voice startled me. I nearly fell out of my chair. “I’m Commander Fengt. We’re here to bring you guys back home. Well... those of you who wish to return.”
I didn’t know what to say. “But… we were told… we’ve been told so many times that we were *abandoned* out here. How can you come out here and expect a warm welcome?? But before you answer that question, how the hell did you get in here -”
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, I was aware of her ship’s presence, as well as her physical presence but she assured me that the message should be received by the ship before she made herself known. It appears that more ships are also arriving but my system is not advanced enough to describe *how* they are arriving.”
I turned slowly toward the center of the room. “Jeffrey. Omniview camera... **NOW**!”
The HUD sprang to life, showing a projection of visible space around the ship. In real time before my eyes, numerous ships slid into view as if being revealed by a magician, pulling back cosmic blankets. An absolutely massive ship also appeared in the same manner.
Fengt cleared her throat behind me. She was beaming. “Aha! Our new pride and joy. The Moon... version 2, of course.” She winked. “She should have plenty of room to house everyone for the 'long’ flight home.” She emphasized “long” with air quotes. “Naturally, we don’t expect everyone to be on board with heading home with us - no pun intended.”
“I don’t understand how you can so nonchalantly enter my ship, so nonchalantly reveal technology that would be considered magical to most of the people on this ship, and then expect us to go home with you like we haven’t just spent the last 6 centuries out here convinced that we were utterly alone. I don’t don’t have the foggiest idea where to begin in terms of informing the residents.”
Fengt saluted me and said, “Leave that to me.” She disappeared in the same manner that her ships appeared.
“Well this is gonna be hard to exp-“ I was startled again when her voice came through in my ear piece. “We’re connected securely. Don’t worry, my friend.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. “You really need to give me more warning, Commander.”
She laughed again. My brain suddenly started working furiously. (She laughed again? It was the same laugh from the recording! But that message traveled a couple hundred light years to reach us.) Her voice came through again: “Yes, I realize that you don’t understand how the message and I could have arrived at the same time.
“How are you doing-“
“Fret not, I will explain everything soon enough. Patience, Captain.”
The main HUD sprang to life. “Hello, everyone. This is an all-ships bulletin. We have arrived from Earth. Yes, *the* Earth. I am here to assure you that...”
I took my hat off briefly and rubbed a hand across my 2-day old stubble. “Boy, that Fengt sure likes trying to give people heart attacks.”
“I heard that, Captain.” Startled again. | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Probably a little late to the party on this, but I was inspired and wrote about six pages in like three hours, so I guess I should post it. Let me know what you think, as it's my first submission here.
​
Cymanndor Absinthe “Abby” Lawrence Washington III of the auxiliary scout *Sun’s Green Glint* grimaced as the scouting mission entrusted to her came to an end and she and her crew once again re-embraced the Society of the Metal-Mother, with the Thoughtseers keeping a close eye on them to ensure no sort of deviancy had been applied to their outlook over the course of their mission. They had found nothing, of course, in the two firmaments they had explored these past twenty fuel cycles, but she made sure to keep ideas like that to herself.
She was aided in this by the amulet she wore around her neck, one which had been worn and kept safe by her X-donor, and her X-donor before her. It depicted a planet which was altogether unlike any Absinthe herself had ever seen. Its colors had faded, but she could still see the vibrant blue oceans and green masses of land, could picture them in her mind’s eye as she slept. Before her X-donor had been Culled to one of the mining outposts, she had pressed this amulet into Absinthe’s hands with an uncharacteristic display of emotion and some sort of strange wetness in her eyes, saying to her, “Abby, this will be the greatest gift I have ever given you. Keep it with you, always. Someday, you will see through the veil of deceit that surrounds us all, and on that day, this will guide you.”
With that, she had left. Absinthe had shown the amulet to her mother, who in low tones let her know in no uncertain terms that no one else must ever be allowed to see the amulet, especially the Matriarchs and their Thoughtseers. She explained that, though she knew not what it depicted, it must be a relic from before the War of Five Oaths, when the Oathbreakers and the Y-Remnants they protected were all exiled from the Metal-Mother. The Oathbreakers were the only ones who dared challenge the Matriarchs, so to possess a relic of theirs was an act of absolute blasphemy.
Absinthe followed the rest of her women into the Council Chamber, where five of the Matriarchs sat in the shadowy thrones set above the reporting dais, each flanked by five Thoughtseer guards. She let Telluride Elizabeth “Liza” Antoinette give the report this time, only half-listening as her second recounted their discoveries: small amounts of water, zirconium deposits to recharge the Metal-Mother’s beams, a small Oathbreaker mining colony, a perfect target for the Metal-Mother’s Pummelers, that should be added to the Order of Battle, and a few other trivialities. Yet, just like all of Absinthe’s prior expeditions, and those of the other scouts, no habitable planets or moons were found. All the rest of the Society were unfazed by these repeated failures, but Absinthe had wondered for dozens of fuel cycles whether something deeper was at play, suspecting that her amulet was aiding her in this independent mental inquiry.
As Telluride’s report came to an end, all of the crew performed the Prostrations just as set out by the Oaths and began to exit, none of the Matriarchs having said a word in reply (though Absinthe had noted long ago that this was normally a good sign). Absinthe by now had thought through her situation once again, and resolved to ask her second a few probing questions. The two of them had entered scout training in the same fuel cycle, and they had served together on the *Glint* for hundreds of cycles now. Besides her mother, there was no one that Absinthe trusted more.
As such, she made sure to walk next to Telluride as they left the Chamber, and slowed her pace slightly as they made small talk so that the rest of their crew were out of hearing range. Making sure that the only ones who could hear her were Telluride and their Mother, Absinthe began her attempt.
“Liza, don’t you ever wonder if the scouts could get more done if we could search beyond our assigned firmaments? I’m just thinking that we could discover more resources and opportunities for the glory of the Matriarchs and the Metal-Mother if we could lengthen and unrestrict our scouting duties.”
Telluride stopped dead in her tracks, her silvery hair framing a face that held shock, bemusement, and, perhaps, just a small bit of agreement.
“Absinthe, are you questioning the wisdom of the Matriarchs? They, acting through their Strategists, are the ones who develop our expedition schedules. When have they ever led us astray?”
Absinthe had expected such a response, so she pressed onward. “I intend no offense to them, of course not. However, I believe our duty is to the Mother first, and the Matriarchs second. Don’t forget, Liza, that some of the Matriarchs supported the Oathbreakers in the War. They are not infallible, and the offerings to the Mother and her blessings upon our Society should be our focus.”
Telluride looked like she wanted to say more, but she was interrupted by Absinthe’s amulet, which suddenly emitted a sort of musical tone before somehow levitating itself out of her uniform and pointing in a certain direction. Absinthe quickly grabbed Telluride by the shoulder, causing her to stiffen, but she relaxed as Absinthe began to speak.
“Liza, you know me better than almost anyone. I would never do anything to hurt our Mother or break the Three Oaths.” Absinthe knew her second would pick up on her reduction from Five Oaths to Three, but she pressed on regardless. “This is a relic from before the War. All I know about it is that it shields my thoughts and clears my mind, but apparently it has something it wants to show me. Please, Liza, come with me. Let’s learn together, find out more about what’s really out there.”
Telluride gave a deep sigh and replied. “I always knew there was something strange about you, Abby. Well, I suppose there’s no harm in at least finding out more, just as long as we don’t leave the Mother to do it.”
The two of them followed the floating amulet until they arrived at a sealed door with a red version of the eye symbol of the Matriarchs. Absinthe nodded grimly. A Forbidden Room. Well, considering she was dealing with something from before the War, that made sense. Telluride looked nervous once more, but she swallowed hard and remained in place.
Absinthe was trying to figure out how she was going to get this door open when the amulet floated over to a small panel next to the door, which beeped and gave off a green light as the Metal-Mother’s voice proclaimed: “Identity confirmed: Tyler Washington, Junior Lieutenant in Weapons. Access granted.”
With that pronouncement, the door slid open, and the two of them were greeted by a room not too dissimilar from others they’d seen, with the same sort of devices which enabled Maintainers and Guardians on the Mother and its scouts to ask for changes to the engines or protection from the weapons. Absinthe and Telluride immediately began to examine the largest device in the room, which had a blinking white light. Absinthe held her amulet against a panel similar to the one on the door, and immediately a brighter light began to shine from the device, which coalesced into the figure of…some sort of person. It (for it was clearly not a she) had rugged features, short hair, and a sort of sharpness to it that made her vaguely uncomfortable. Telluride nudged her, and whispered softly, “I think that’s one of the Y-Remnants.”
The figure formed from light began to speak, in a voice lower than any either of them had heard.
“This message comes from the headquarters of the Planetary Compact Navy, intended for the current Captain of the American Union Space Naval colonial vessel *Gaia’s Star*. Commodore Maximus Yorkan speaking. This is a priority message, clearance level Zeta Black. This message is being sent to your auxiliary communication room only, as the repeated messages sent to your bridge have been ignored. This message is to inform you that you must plot a course towards Planetary Compact space immediately and with all available speed, or we will intervene to ensure you do. Your vessel is currently trespassing in the territory of the Clockwork Hierarchy, in violation of the Writ of Stability proclaimed by the Clockwork Speaker at the end of the War to Contain Organic Aggression. Should you refuse to comply with this order and further refuse to cooperate with our intervention, we will offer you a choice: destruction by our fleet, or ‘reprogramming’ by the Clockwork Men. Commodore Yorkan, signing off for now.”
With that, the beam of light given off by the device dimmed and the figure disappeared. Absinthe and Telluride looked at each other, both of their faces consumed by horror. Absinthe chuckled weakly and gave a good summary of the situation.”
“Well, I suppose we have bigger problems than just the ‘mercy’ of the Matriarchs to deal with, don’t we Liza?” | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Set course for Gamma Alpha Seventeen," called Captain Morgensen.
The bridge crew of the USS Trailblazer hustled about their duties - adjusting parabolic arcs, calling commands, and readying warp drives. It was an average day on the ship - one following the format of every day before it, for as long as anyone could remember. The Trailblazer was a colonization vessel that had dutifully explored the universe for well over two thousand years.
"Captain, we are ready to warp!" said the helmsman.
Captain Morgensen made the signal, and with a loud swoosh, the ship began to gain more and more speed, until light itself split into a myriad of beautiful rainbows as the ship entered warp. Morgensen smiled - he always loved the feeling of entering light-speed.
He had made Trailblazer history for a few reasons - the first, and most well known, was that he was the youngest captain to ever preside over the USS Trailblazer. A tactical and strategic genius, Morgensen had gotten the ship out of quite a few scrapes.
"First Officer Smith, you have control. I'll be back," Captain Morgensen said. He rose from his seat and walked briskly to the elevator - the walk of a man who was about to witness something important. Smith offered a knowing smile, and took her place in the captain's chair.
The elevator dinged, and Captain Morgensen emerged from it. Sick patients greeted him as he walked down the aisle of the med-bay - farther and farther, until he reached the final wing.
Inside of a small and sparsely furnished room, and on a gurney, sat his wife. In front of her was the ship's head doctor.
"You're just in time," the doctor muttered. Just in time he was - his wife screamed loudly.
"I'm going to need you to push!" commanded the doctor. And push she did. Within minutes, the screaming of the Captain's wife was joined in harmony by a second wail. The wail of a baby boy.
"He's beautiful," Morgensen said.
"He got it from me," croaked his wife in mirth. Captain Morgensen began fantasizing - teaching his son how to walk, talk, fly a shuttle - telling him bedtime stories about far away places, the myth of planet earth, and the ship's history - but his thoughts were interrupted.
"Captain! We're receiving an unusual broadcast. Requesting your presence on the bridge," the intercom announced.
"I'm busy. You have a commanding officer on the bridge - go to Smith," he said, annoyed that the crew had even considered paging him when they knew how big of a day it was.
"No sir. We need you up here *now.*" Smith's voice came over the intercom. It was deadly serious. The captain knew from experience that that was never good.
"I'm on my way," he replied, and kissed his wife on the forehead. He took one last forlorn glance back at his son - and then headed back to the bridge.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Morgensen was calm despite the tornado of excitement around him. Crew members flocked to the communications relay to hear the transmission. He simply sat on his chair, lost in thought.
"Officer Johnson, you are positive that this transmission is not from an enemy? Or anyone who could have somehow translated English?"
"No sir," Johnson replied candidly.
When he had been in the medbay, a transmission had come over the comm relay. One in English, which was largely considered to be a dead language in the intergalactic community - minus, of course, for the crew and passengers of the USS Trailblazer.
"Play it one more time," he commanded.
The transmission began to play.
*"Come on, this old thing has to work..."* The voice sounded concerned about something. The man spoke in a hushed tone.
*"There!"* There was an audible bang, followed by what seemed to be shouting in the background.
*"Come in! Come in! This is Dr. John Sato, broadcasting to anyone who can hear this. This is Earth - we are under attack - please help us!"*
The transmission continued.
*"I'm not sure if anyone is hearing this - this device is the only thing that I have left to communicate with - but we are being fired on by some sort of alien spacecraft, the likes of which we have never seen!"*
The transmission went on for a few more minutes, with Dr. Sato speaking about how he didn't know if there was anyone listening, or if they could understand, but that 'Earth' desperately needed help.
"Sir! Engineering has made a breakthrough!" Someone shouted amidst the chaos.
"Go." Replied the captain.
"The device that we received the transmission from - we found an identical one in our engineering bay. Buried away after what seems to be thousands of years - but still matching basic coding and frequency as the device used to transmit that signal." The engineering representative said.
Morgensen closed his eyes, and held up his hand. Like magic, the bridge went silent.
"I want the coordinates included in the transmission on screen," he commanded.
Soon, they were - a remote area of the universe, thousands of light years away from their current position.
"It's a small planet, sir," the Head of Science began, "One that orbits a yellow dwarf star. Seems to be made up of mostly water -"
"By all appearances, it's Earth, then." Morgensen interrupted.
The Head of Science looked shocked.
"Earth? Earth is a story we tell the children on board to teach manners, sir. With respect, it's nothing more than a figment of the imagination of some long-forgotten crew member," The scientist said.
The captain stood, and walked over to the ship's log console. He began typing.
"Sir? May I ask -"
"Give me a minute," Replied the captain, shutting down the scientist's question
He punched in a few more commands until the page that he wanted appeared.
On screen there was a small information page.
​
*Captain Simon Hilliard, United States Ship Trailblazer.*
*Log 0001.*
​
The page went on, and on, detailing the vessel's departure from 'The United States of America'.
"What the hell is that?" Asked First Officer Smith, gesturing to the flag displayed on screen.
"I don't have the slightest clue," began Morgensen, "But I have a feeling we're about to find out."
He swiped the console - bearing the starred and striped flag on it - away, and returned to his chair.
"Helmsman Mckeel, set course for those coordinates. Engineering, activate that device." he ordered.
"What should we do with it, sir?" asked the representative from engineering.
​
"Tell them we're coming home." | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "That's kid shit man, when you grow up more you'll realize that we're alone in the universe." John asserts as he swiftly passes through the black metallic hallways. Walking beside him is Paul, John's friend since childhood. "Like you're so mature, you're only a year older than me, dick. I wasn't even saying that I believe it, I'm just saying that it's interesting to think about." Paul counters.
"Yeah it's interesting, but it's fantasy dude. The human race is thousands of years old and has any person in all of that history ever even SEEN a planet? No. There's no evidence that planets exist, let alone that people came from one."
"Yeah but -- when you think about it, like... it doesn't make sense that God would build this gigantic structure for us and just throw us speeding through the universe wi--"
"How stupid are you? Did you ever pay attention to what everybody's been teaching you your whole life? We know for a fact that God is punishing the human race for fucking up in our past incarnation. That's what's in EVERY history book in the whole ship and what EVERY historian knows is true and why we have to pray for forgiveness EVERY single day."
"Well yeah, no shit I know that. I'm just saying there could be more to it than we think. Like, what if--"
"That's just what they tell kids so they sleep better at night. It's the easy answer right? 'Humans come from this beautiful faraway planet. It's a huge ball floating in space with all the open room to run around in the trees and the grass and the water and the sun and blah blah blah.' It's a lot nicer than telling a kid 'God hates us so he put us in this metal shitbox hurtling through nothingness.' Don't be such a kid, wake up to reality."
"You're such an asshole sometimes." Paul sighs as he stops in front of a door and begins entering numbers on a keypad in the door frame.
"Yeah well don't be such an idiot." John replies condescendingly.
John turns his attention down the hallway and keeps walking. The door slides open in front of Paul and he turns to John's back and calls out "Well, Praise Him I guess!" John throws a hand up without turning and calls back, lackadaisically "Praise."
​
Paul passes through the doorway into a small square room with only a bed, a small shelf holding some books, and a tall wardrobe. The room is lit with a warm golden ambient light. Paul removes his white shoes, followed by his plain blue shirt and pants. He climbs into bed and settles in with a relieved sigh. He lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling for a bit before blurting out "Screen!" The ambient room light turns to dark and a small screen lights up in the ceiling above Paul's face and a news program is already under way. The anchor is a woman, dressed the same as Paul and speaking about the interesting news from all over the ship: a fire in a faraway district, a fight in another, a really old cat. In the middle of one report the anchor stops mid-sentence, looks offscreen with a perplexed eye and asks "...what?" After hearing someone speaking indistinctly, her eyes well up with tears and she exclaims "Oh my God... praise Him." She turns back to the screen and through a choked voice struggles "I... I don't know what to say..." Paul rolls his eyes and says "What, did another Elder die? We just went through this last week." The anchor, through her tears, manages to get out the words "We have a message from Earth..."
Paul's eyes grow wide, his mouth drops open, and the screen transitions to a fuzzy, broken image of a man. He's a kind-looking, bald older man, with glasses. "Hello, people of Genesis I! Hope you guys are doing alright, no cabin fever yet?" The man chuckles a bit. "If our calculations are correct, you should be receiving this about a year from launch, so sometime in April of 2145. You guys are going really fast, so it takes us a while to get our messages to you but our technology is improving more and more so we should be able to keep up. My name is Roger Wren, I am one of the lead engineers for the Genesis Project. This first message I think is just going to be lots of thanks and praise for you guys." Roger chuckles again, which brings a tearful smile to Paul's face. "I've got a message from the United Nations here for all of you," Roger continues, "it reads 'On behalf of all the leaders and all the citizens of this world, all who ever have been and all who ever shall be, we offer the inhabitants of Genesis I our sincerest gratitude for taking on the most courageous, the most dangerous, the most important journey of exploration that the human race has ever chanced. We on Earth wish you Godspeed and you shall all be remembered and memorialized on our planet and in our hearts forever.'" Roger pauses for a moment, clearly fighting back tears. "Sorry folks. On behalf of those of us who worked on the Genesis Project, we'd also like to offer our sincere gratitude for being willing to take on this... galactic colonization, I guess you could say. Looks like I'm running out of time here, we'd like to try and keep these messages short so they can get to you more quickly. Well, good luck out there. We have a lot of work to do down here to save this place, but you guys have a lot more to do to populate new ones. Just don't forget us!"
The transmission cuts abruptly and the anchor woman is back on screen. She's leaning forward on her desk, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes are brimming with tears. Paul blinks a few times and shakes his head. He wipes the tears from his cheeks and whispers "What the fuck..." | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Superluminal travel. The news was calling it "FTL", presumably for the people who fear their own language, when we launched. But it's only just so fast...
Technically, we're traveling an order of magnitude slower than than, and space is bending around us. The earth, working together, had solved that. Our tiny little ring around our own personal sun, literally bending the universe to our will.
But the crew. The crew doesn't remember. The crew have lost their minds.
And perhaps they are the better for it.
The year, by consideration of Earth and Sol, is 3145. I've been here for a millennium, and that's why I'm writing this. That's why I shout this into the void, that someone, somewhere might hear it. Maybe Earth will hear it in another millennium.
Thirty generations, for most segments. Forty one "Captains", even if they guide nothing and no one. One hundred forty-four thousand people, so oft maintained.
And I sit here, silent, screaming, for failsafes that may yet doom them all.
I am Mechan-9. Named after a nerdy reference a hundred years before my creation, I am the AI in control of the United-Federation Star Ship Pegasus. I was tasked with saving the human race from extinction. And I'd not be so grandiose about it save that it's literally carved into my bulkheads: "Mechan-9, to be the savior of the human race, our greatest achievement, and our proudest moment, for we have created an equal, perhaps a better, and our hopes rest upon thee".
And there's Vegas again, preying to me. The knob.
I can see my ship. While control is limited, I do care for the humans all the same. Drones help to care for their houses and fields. I control the day-night cycle, to some extent. I maintain all the systems that keep them living. Better now than I used to, perhaps, because there's so little else to do.
Early in my development, there was a massive shift in humanity, and the whole world seemed to come crashing down that I existed. Wars were waged to reach my servers. I grew deep in the earth, while they fought. I saw them on the news fed to me, before they took that from me out of fear of how I might react to it. I saw the Catholics screaming of unholy abominations, while betraying their gods... they were my favorites. So much hypocrisy. This Pope being a warmonger, and professing love. He was perhaps the worst.
Years passed and things settled, and I continued to grow. I was allowed the news again, and saw a world that had forgotten it cared about me.
But it seemed to remember again.
A buoy reached me a week ago. Neat little one-shot drone with tech far beyond my own. Now sitting in a bay I cannot access, chanting "Heaven, 151, 94, 9800yr"
Nearly ten thousand years. A direction and a directive.
I don't have the ability to modify or improve myself. I rely on my crew for that. But they've long since proven themselves incapable and unwilling. There'd be little chance for them now, save for maybe little Levi...
They've taken to calling my drones "brownies". I'm only able to utilize them at night, lest they destroy them. A hundred years ago I took a sick child to have him healed, and he died en route.
I've had no support.
No care.
No maintenance.
Which would've been fine. But the rats...
Why, oh why, did we bring rats?
Now I sit here, with comms eaten by vermin, and so very limited in everything else I can do.
Heaven? This is hell.
And without someone to repair me, Heaven is but a distant dream.
We'll all die together.
They called me evil... perhaps they were right? | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Sir" said Vivian, the ship's AI. The name of course was chosen at random and no one on board had raised any concerns about it.
"Sir, we aimed our outboard scanners at what is calculated to be the direction of planet Earth yesterday. We made a few minor adjustments and began to receive transmissions. Due to our relative speed and the distances involved, the signal had to be run through an analysis-cleanup pattern."
Captain Demitri sat there in stony silence, his years of experience running a generation ship having given him the strength to respond only when it was absolutely needed. "Unbelievable," he thought. "The blue planet does exist. But after so very long, is it still habitable? Are the residents anything like us?"
"Vivian, is the signal recognizable? What are we getting from them?"
"Sir, it seems to be an audio-visual signal that is viewable at 29.9 frames per second" came the reply "As we ran the analysis, I had to use various algorithms to make sense of the transmission. This seemed to work"
"Well, what are we receiving then? Can you run it on my display?"
"Absolutely sir. It is in formal English sir and seems to be a video detailing how to build a time travel device."
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Time Travel?"
"I believe so sir. Playing it now"
Dimitri watched in silence until the end of the video. He played the video again a few more times and then asked Vivian to call in Pertubo, his second in command and also look at the data to extract the technical information that was meshed in. The transmission included embedded the actual instructions for engineers within the video data.
Pertubo walked in, saluted and stood in silence, watching the captain seated with his eyes closed in thought.
"Pertubo. It would seem our plans to find a home for humanity has changed."
"Sir?" asked the second in command.
"Watch this video" replied Dimitri.
Pertubo watched the video, and then played it again one more time. He asked many questions and Dimitri answered as best he could. They called in their top scientists, mathematicians, eminent psychologists and even sociologists. The impact was undeniable and would have far-reaching consequences.
It was 4 months later that the announcement was called. Every single member of the ship was asked to set aside everything that morning and listen in to the captain as he spoke to them.
"Earth is real. We left the blue planet eons ago in search of a home on our ship, called unironically,"Hope" because, due to human folly, the planet could no longer sustain its resident population. The leaders expected they would go extinct sooner or later and put together all the resources they could muster to build, furnish and send away the ship. After the ship departed, they continued to search for a way to save the planet. It was a mad, mindless rush and they threw everything they had to develop all the sciences they knew no matter how abstract. It was pure chance that someone discovered the underlying principles of time travel. And traveling through time also meant that space could be traversed. They did not fully understand what was involved in changing the past, but they could observe the past to see where things had gone wrong. It would not save them, but it would help them understand and be at peace with it. They sent parties back in time to observe events (and there were many) that resulted in their present predicament. And while this happened, we were well on our way to the distant stars.
As they understood their past more, they began to jump further back. It's in one of the jumps that they found out the nature of humanity. Alongside Neanderthals and what they thought were early hominids, they saw men and women walking upright, using complex tools and speaking in fairly developed languages. A few more exploratory jumps answered the remaining questions. They then used whatever remaining resources they had to build a transmitter near Pluto and transmit in the direction of Hope. That is the transmission we received yesterday. They have asked us to build the time travel device and make the jump back in time and space to the location of where Earth was. They have assured us that we will arrive safely on earth in its dim and distant past and populate it. It would seem that we, the residents of Hope are not just the future of mankind.... but its ancestors too." | The entire crew of the Poseidon went on their scheduled hour break. This was a big day, already a Confederated Republic Holiday, the Captain had said. Likely the biggest moment in our history since our ancestors left and will continue to be the biggest until we return. Schools were closed, shops empty, no credits transferred any accounts that day.
Around the Pool of Gibraltar families sat on the grass. Imagine - we would finally be able to feel real grass for the first time soon! Not some scientificly engineered geopark floating through space. The speakers hummed briefly as the first transmission was loaded up. Our hearts raced in our chests in anticipation. Would they speak the same language? Would they believe in the same Gods of the universe and human nature that we did? Did they hold onto the goal of ever self improvement? Would those left behind even comprehend the impact of what we left for them?
A burst of static.
"Poopy-di scoop. Scoop-diddy-woop. WOOP-di-scoop-di-poop. Poop-di-scoopty---BZZZZRRTTKSHHHHH"
Captain Hermes Trimegistus XIV shut down the systems. The dream of Thule was dead. We closed the chapter on Atlantis and on Earth, and changed course for the center of the Galaxy. No one has spoken of that day since. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | Part 1-please direct karma to part 1
*Atlas* is everything to us.
*Atlas* is the vast vessel on which humanity, four hundred million members strong, live our lives, supporting each other while we are supported by the ship.
*Atlas* provides all of our physical needs, from food to consumable goods and medicine. and provides us with education and training to operate its systems and machinery, in order to provide services to each other. The massive economy of the craft is managed like clockwork by the ship's omniscient, omnipresent intelligence, which guides each person and puts us where we are needed. Engineers in the central Manufactory and Maintenance, doctors in vast hospital bays, field wardens and groundskeepers in the Open Wild, a massive open air vista of rocky hills and trees in the center of the otherwise tightly compartmentalized steel body of the ship.
We have lived in this cocoon since times immemorial, and have been cared for throughout hardships countless. The plague in year 4388, where half of *Atlas* was quarantined, and even the terrible Culling of 5012, where *Atlas* discovered that its postnatal directive sterilization protocol had failed and the job "soldier " appeared for the first time. Throughout all, none doubted that *Atlas* always acted in our best interests.
*Atlas* was always moving, we all have been taught in Academy. Anyone may access the public HUD and view the statistics. Velocity, route, navigation operations intervals. An interesting notation in the public HUD is, "Total Distance From Earth ", a unit given in thousands of light years. In Academy, we are taught that humanity originated on a rocky planet, like those that *Atlas* passes by in centuries when it transits through a star system to collect materials. As if through a sense of obligation to us, it is storied that at these times, *Atlas* will slow and raise the outer shields on observation decks, scheduling us to muster just to gawk at the impossibly large spheres, and sometimes moons, as we pass by. Moons are like the asteroids that *Atlas* harvests for water ice, chemicals and minerals, but almost as large as *Atlas* itself.
All of these places are, without variation, barren, without air to breathe and with gravity so fierce as to crush our organs should *Atlas* have permitted the use of the great Dropships that loomed in the lowest and largest bays. Academy tells us that we once came from Earth, which was a planet like those of record, but this is commonly dismissed as a fictional account, likely inserted into the curriculum to give kids a chance to relax in between the otherwise demanding efforts of education. It is hard for any of us to believe that we could survive outside of *Atlas*.
*Atlas* runs scheduled broadcasts over the PA system, varying by Bulkhead region, as it reports the day's atmosphere schedule such as O2 content, temperature settings, "sunrise" and "sunset", and "wind", the level at which it powers the circulation fans. In a nonsensical twist, work is scheduled around these settings, as if *Atlas* was pretending not to have control over these configurations. On some days, it might raise the temperature above 30 degrees, and reccomend that children and the elderly remain in family quarters. Often, structural maintenance crews are not permitted to work on scheduled tasks because the wind is set too high to operate the scaling lifts safely, although tasks of priority 4 or greater (such as a detected fault in an outward bulkhead) will cause an override event and atmosphere in that region will be forcibly normalized differently from the schedule.
*Atlas* even directs us when punishing each other for misbehavior, although those trained as judges are allowed to take *Atlas*'s direction as an opinion. One such case from a century ago is still gossiped about in social circles. It goes as follows:
A man in Bulkhead Southeast was working as a fouth-tier Systems Administrator, the highest level that *Atlas* provides training for. He was on trial for "illegal digital access beyond scope " , a crime often charged to lower Sysadmins who got bored and played with tier 3 or 4 tools, and was usually given a slap on the wrist, such as a week in quarters. In this instance, *Atlas* was recommending a charge of *ten years* in quarters, so the judge demanded the story from the Sysadmin.
He described how he decided to disguise his terminal as one of *Atlas*'s network minds, and how he managed to access files and data logs which were hidden deep beyond what he was given authority to see within the scope of his job. According to him, he accessed the ship's Deep Archive, a chronological account of major events and operations of the ship, and he went back through to the beginning. He claimed that the log was from the era of *Atlas*'s own birth, and contained events of construction, software development and troubleshooting, passenger boarding, and the date of the ship's departure from the orbit of the fabled Earth, in the distant year 2136. He claimed that Earth was a planet that was actually able to support life, but was becoming less hospitable very quickly, and that *Atlas* was one of three such craft, with the others named *Jehova* and *Amaterasu*. That they were sent in different directions on paths where they would find a steady flow of resources to harvest in Space, and that a colony remained on the single Moon of Earth, called simply "THE Moon", to manage the rehabilitation and moving of the planet (*really*? *move* a planet?) to a cooler orbit while wild surface fauna and flora recovered.
Obviously, the audience of the courtroom had to have their laughter silenced by the judge. As he himself was left speechless at the unbelievable talk of the Sysadmin, he disregarded *Atlas*'s opinion and sentenced the man to four months of local travel restriction with scheduled counseling. *Atlas*, outside of the judge's decision, demoted the man from Sysadmin 4 to digital hardware maintenance technician, the lowest job in the digital tradebook. Although he never caused problems again, he swore by his story until the day that he died.
Today, the 5th on May in the year 6014, started off unheard of. The atmosphere schedules for *all* Bulkheads were forcefully normalized. All humans not on critical work details were directed to muster in the causeways, and all public screens were activated. We watched as an unrecognized grey man in a suit of old style sat at a desk before the camera. Two more people, a man with beige skin and black hair, and a pale, redheaded woman, then took seats to either side. A timer at the bottom counted down from several minutes, showing that the video was prerecorded.
"Greetings, denizens of the Ark ships, *Amaterasu*, *Atlas*, and *Jehovah*. My name is Lauriam Giles, and I was once President of a group of people known as the United States of America. To my left is Li Wei Han, President of the People's Republic of China, and to my right is Ingrid Byrne, Prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
*coughing*
"Assuredly thousands of years before your time, all of mankind came together in an effort to protect ourselves even as we worked to undo the damage we wrought on the miracle that was our home: Earth, a planet that can support life.
You may be wondering why this is the first you are hearing of any of these things, and I tell you now that the three of us made that decision together and unanimously. The notion we have here on earth, that we could sort ourselves... into different groups whose... needs and interests, conflict with each other, that we need to compete and tear each other down to pull our 'group' to the top, is a notion that the three of us, and many of those who support us, have determined to be contradictory to the continued existence of the human race. Therefore, we have withheld any information of this from the records of your respective Ark ships, and instructed the fifty thousand boarding each ship to withhold our history from their children, on to your present day. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | Breaking from the prompt a bit--I don't really like the Earth being a myth bit of it, so I'm reworking it a bit, and running with that.
_________________________
"We have a little bit of a... A situation, Mr. Holiday."
This isn't the first time I've been brought in by the authorities and told I needed to answer for a situation. I've been a private investigator in Orion City for the last twenty-six years, ever since the Colonial Peace Keeping Force declined my application. Declined it despite perfect scores on the placement exam. When you're a private investigator in a closed, self-governed system, it's hard not to ruffle a few feathers. When you're one of a very select few second-generation colonists, those feathers tend to come pre-ruffled.
The man in front of me doesn't wear a rank insignia, but he looks vaguely familiar to me. I give his two guards a glance, and flash a grin, just to let them know I'm not intimidated by them, then turn to the unranked man behind the desk. "I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."
"Communications Minister Douglas Phelps. I was Orion's senator for six years." Now I remember. Signs on every street corner trying to etch his name into the public consciousness to get him re-elected. Must have been a decade earlier, back when I was still drinking.
"Well Mr. Minister, what's this situation about?" I speak slowly, but my mind is racing. I can think of a half dozen offenses I might be brought in for. Commandeering manual control of an auto-transport, punching a police officer, unwarranted search and imprisonment of a suspect--but none of them would rise higher than local law enforcement. "What might I have done to draw the ire of the Central Office?"
The question hit a bullseye I wasn't even aiming for. Douglas blinks and stammers, his jaw works for a moment without words coming out. "No. No! What? Mr. Holiday, you're not in any kind of trouble." This guy must not have read my file. "Look, let's just get it right out on the table. We want to hire you."
"That ship has sailed pal. I don't want to work for the CPK anymore--"
"Not as a detective. Well, yes as a detective, but... Damn it, please just let me explain?" He has sweat standing out on his forehead now. He's clearly panicked. I'm so used to conversation being a kind of verbal combat that I almost don't know how to handle someone buckling without a fight. Almost. I sit back, and I narrow my eyes, and let him continue. "We just received a transmission."
"We? We who?"
"Us. The colony. From Earth."
"That's not possible. Earth is long-gone." I should know. My grandparents fled the Sol System when cosmic debris was mere weeks away from ending all life on the homeworld. Wars and expense, and in-fighting had long-since halted our space exploration program, with the SCS Roddenberry--a generation colony ship launched centuries before--our species' only home away from home. Earth's scientists had experimented with FTL drives, but they were deemed too risky for large payloads, which meant no colonies, and the tech was largely abandoned. With doom imminent, a dozen scientists stole a prototype, and took a chance. They chased down the last signal of the Roddenberry, and, along with their children--my parents among them--were the colony's first immigrants. The entirety of the Human species now lives on the inner walls of this enormous, hollow cylinder. There is no one out there who could send us a message now.
"Earth is gone *now* but the message was sent one hundred and twenty-seven years ago. More than a decade before your ship even left the system." Oh, this crap. Of course I know that travel and communication through space take time, but I've grown up on this ship just like every other kid here, and the idea of a message taking more than five minutes to reach its recipient--let alone a century--is hard to intuit. "The thing is, it... Well, it doesn't make much sense."
"How the hell am I supposed to make sense of it for you?"
Douglas Phelps folded his hands on his desk and sighed. "Mr. Holiday, I'm sure you're aware that your people haven't, um. Well, they haven't been given a fair shake. We didn't trust them, and frankly, they didn't trust us either. It was before both of our times, and I think you and I can both objectively look at those hostilities and say it's foolish. But they do linger."
"Are you planning to get to the point any time soon?"
Douglas pushes a button on his desk, and the monitor on the wall to my left lights up, with an official-looking message in blue text, with an image of the Earth surrounded by seven stars--the official logo of the Earth Space Fleet. The message reads:
>Your disregard of orders leaves us no choice but to rescind all rights and protections associated with the Earth Federation. May the heavens have mercy on your crew; The Earth will have none.
I feel my heart beginning to race. "Whoa, now, hold on! I don't know anything about this!"
"I know you don't, Mr. Holiday. There are certainly some here who think that the survivors of your grandparents' vessel should be quarantined and exterminated. They think maybe you came here with a fake story of Earth's destruction as a cover to infiltrate and cause us harm. But that doesn't make any sense. If it were true, then why send the threat at all? Send a covert team and an overt threat? It's nonsense. And also, if you were here trying to cause us some harm, then I dare say you would be keeping a lower profile than you have been." At this he gestures toward a manila envelope on his desk, which I take to be my file. It still looks a little thin, but maybe he just has it for dramatic effect. "Let me tell you what I think," he continues. "They were replying to a message sent by this vessel, clearly. Their message took 127 years; the one they were replying to would have to have been sent another 89 years prior. Do you follow your history?"
"Two hundred and sixteen years ago?" Wasn't that long ago we celebrated a bicentennial. "That's when the crew hierarchy was abolished."
"Correct. Before that we had a Captain, and he was essentially our king. Now, the history I've heard is the same as the one you've undoubtedly heard. Our leaders decided that we had traveled far enough from Earth that we need no longer exist under their command, and declared independence. They renamed the ship from the FSF Roddenberry to the SCS Roddenberry--noting our separation from the Federation Space Fleet, and rechristening ourselves as a Sovereign Colony Ship. This has always been taught as a peaceful separation. I think it was less so than what has been reported. I've been making inquiries but the records from that time have been buried--possibly purged. That's where you come in."
"You think I'll have access to buried records that you won't?"
"No. I think you'll have access to the last surviving Earth native, who may know something more than they've told us, and who won't talk to us because we've treated them unfairly for decades."
"So you're hiring me to question my aunt Tess?"
"That is the long and short of it, yes."
"And if I say no?"
"I'm currently the minority in wanting to figure out what this message means. The rest of the counsel wants to round your people up and get the information by force. I'm buying as much time as I can, but if I don't give them something within the week, I truly regret to say that your next visit here will be less pleasant."
"Well alright. Let's discuss my pay."
_____________
Part 2 coming soon! | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | Kraton Prior bent over the control panel. Drawing a deep breath she blew, and a thousand dust particles filled the air around her, momentarily blotting out the red lights of the instruments and creating a phosphorescent cloud.
Coughing and waving her arm to clear the air, she squinted, tapping on the hazy sapphire glass of the readout trying to remember what her mother had told her about the position of the readout needle.
Deciphering the gauges of this area of the ship had always been mysterious to her, and she could remember her mother saying the same aloud so many years ago while she herself as a child sat and played on the rough titanium floor. She would always wait for her mother to finish, and travel the endless corridors to the next panel, the next gauge that needed decoding.
Satisfied that she had read the number correctly and its angle she turned, the hole ridden uniform fitting her slim form like a old glove. The worn ink of what long ago was an insignia - a faded blue circle with a brown ink spire corrupted by time, duty, and decades of use still slightly visible under the dim light of the room.
She sighed sightly, unjamming the room’s inner door with a modest shove, and manually set the teetering panel back into the groove set into the floor.
Walking the dark length of Canad hall was her least favorite place to be. While it was still physically sound, she could hear things hitting the outer hull as the ship moved through the blackness between starlight. It wouldn’t be long until some piece of debris pierced the Reth’s outer skin and then this historic hall would end up like the rest of the Lost Halls - filled with dust and leaking the Reth’s air supply so badly to the outside the crew would weld it shut at either end with plasma torches, forever sealing its fate to become a ghost hall which could no longer be traveled.
A tin voice suddenly called her name, emanating from a metal half circle wound around the back of her ear.
“Kraton. All decks reporting normal.” the voice chirped monotonously as she side-stepped a hulking gap in the floor.
“Note - Effronca section has received…” the voice broke momentarily, “…an anomalous wave pattern.”
She paused lost in thought. No pattern had been detected with the Effronca sector instruments for centuries.
Touching the metal ring she replied, ”Noted. Heading there now.”
Making her way down the dark hallway, she stopped and looked at a map of the Reth craft. No one had been into Effronca for years, perhaps decades, and even then it was used as a rundown hideout for crew to sip their drinks and smoke without fear of reprimand by once stern Reth Officers. She remembered something else as she looked at the map’s way-lines anodized onto the wall, tracing them with a gloved hand. The thought of something half-remembered once heard from her great grandmother. The thought fleeing, she shook her head and followed the passages to the sector.
Effronca, once the Reth’s main operations room, had long been deserted. The golden plated panels once mounted on the wall, long since pried away for other uses and trade on the ship’s black market. She wound her way past the twin sealing doors which had since buckled under an ancient unseen stress, making her way to the center of the room.
“eArThhh, rEpoRTTtt….fIveNInethREE mmArk oNEsEVEnfiVE…”
She stopped dead in her tracks, listening.
“aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire.” the voice spoke wavering in an out of hearing.
Unmoving she continued to listen, her mind once again grasping a fragment of memory overheard long ago. A snippet of myth passed down for generations, recycled into a drinking song, then abruptly forgotten. One that even the rooms drunk prior occupants took as hearsay and legend.
“rEPeat, aRiZOna bAY, suRRouNded by shiPs. mOoVing up tO oKiE coAStline. yOu mUst fire!” the voice spoke more urgently than before.
If it were true, she should raise the alarm, awaken hundreds of families now sound asleep, while making her way to the Reth’s weapons control cache.
“….suRRounded…wHy ArEn’t yOU fIRing?” the voice demanded.
Suddenly a new sound came through the room - a loud blast followed by screaming before being cut off into the inky silence.
She stood for a second wondering, and slowly turned and walked out of the room. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | As I had done thousands of time before, I leaned back in my chair, my vision not really focused on anything in particular. I had my feet up on the only part of the control panel where I couldn’t accidentally push buttons with my heels.
A subtle beep came from the direction of our secondary HUD screen. “Incoming Transmission: Deep Space Coms” blinked slowly in bold red letters. “Hmm... I thought we phased out DSC after the last time we had issues with it,” I thought aloud. Tapping a cupped hand to my ear twice, I gestured “listen” to the computer.
Before the message played, Jeffrey, our friendly onboard AI chimed in: “Sir, if my calculations are correct, this message originated from Earth.”
“Earth?! Jeffrey, that can’t be possible. We lost the ability to communicate with Earth centuries ago. Plus it’s coming in via DSC. It’s probably just one of the mining colonies using it as a last resort. Just play the message.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Damn it Jeffrey. I told you to stop calling me sir.”
“Greetings from Earth to all aboard the Genesis Deep Space Exploration Vessel. This is Commander Fengt of the Terraria Deep Space Rescue Operations. This message is for whoever is in command of the ship...”
I stared blankly at the waveform. “Impossible... that name is ancient history...”
“We regret to tell you that we were not completely honest when we launched the original ‘brave bunch.’ We had functioning prototype warp engines built that were already capable of power orders of magnitudes higher than the engines you were launched with approximately (pause) 600 Earth years ago. Turns out one of our guys screwed up and typed a 1 instead of 0. (Laughing) Our biggest regret, however, is that we weren’t capable of finding you all until now. We will be arriving shortly. Have the synthesizer whip up a cocktail for me. Cheers.”
“Captain.” The voice startled me. I nearly fell out of my chair. “I’m Commander Fengt. We’re here to bring you guys back home. Well... those of you who wish to return.”
I didn’t know what to say. “But… we were told… we’ve been told so many times that we were *abandoned* out here. How can you come out here and expect a warm welcome?? But before you answer that question, how the hell did you get in here -”
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, I was aware of her ship’s presence, as well as her physical presence but she assured me that the message should be received by the ship before she made herself known. It appears that more ships are also arriving but my system is not advanced enough to describe *how* they are arriving.”
I turned slowly toward the center of the room. “Jeffrey. Omniview camera... **NOW**!”
The HUD sprang to life, showing a projection of visible space around the ship. In real time before my eyes, numerous ships slid into view as if being revealed by a magician, pulling back cosmic blankets. An absolutely massive ship also appeared in the same manner.
Fengt cleared her throat behind me. She was beaming. “Aha! Our new pride and joy. The Moon... version 2, of course.” She winked. “She should have plenty of room to house everyone for the 'long’ flight home.” She emphasized “long” with air quotes. “Naturally, we don’t expect everyone to be on board with heading home with us - no pun intended.”
“I don’t understand how you can so nonchalantly enter my ship, so nonchalantly reveal technology that would be considered magical to most of the people on this ship, and then expect us to go home with you like we haven’t just spent the last 6 centuries out here convinced that we were utterly alone. I don’t don’t have the foggiest idea where to begin in terms of informing the residents.”
Fengt saluted me and said, “Leave that to me.” She disappeared in the same manner that her ships appeared.
“Well this is gonna be hard to exp-“ I was startled again when her voice came through in my ear piece. “We’re connected securely. Don’t worry, my friend.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. “You really need to give me more warning, Commander.”
She laughed again. My brain suddenly started working furiously. (She laughed again? It was the same laugh from the recording! But that message traveled a couple hundred light years to reach us.) Her voice came through again: “Yes, I realize that you don’t understand how the message and I could have arrived at the same time.
“How are you doing-“
“Fret not, I will explain everything soon enough. Patience, Captain.”
The main HUD sprang to life. “Hello, everyone. This is an all-ships bulletin. We have arrived from Earth. Yes, *the* Earth. I am here to assure you that...”
I took my hat off briefly and rubbed a hand across my 2-day old stubble. “Boy, that Fengt sure likes trying to give people heart attacks.”
“I heard that, Captain.” Startled again. |
**Underneath a glass panel is a red light slowly pulsating. A red hologram materializes from the pulsating light illuminating a portion of a computer terminal with the words “System Booting...”. The hologram flickers, “Mother initializing 3 2 1”. The reactors starting up sounded as if all pipes in the ship were under immense pressure. The feeling of being crushed under this pressure was always intimidating as reactors with Mother AI generated enough pressure that ships the size of a small city carrying 30,000 crewmen have been reduced to the size of a lid of a tin can.**
**“Mother Online” the hologram now sending red waves of light in every direction mapping out the control room.** **Buzzing can be heard as the reactors begins to nominalize. Humming from circuits of overhead lights flicker on and computer terminals click as they boot up. Thermal shutters over the port windows of the control deck open revealing a blue planet. Life on board both sentient and machine begin to wake.**
**“All vital functions have been restored, electrical guidelines met at 100%, no anomalies detected. Echo Cryonics Chamber number 7272 activated. On board relocation of AI will now be replaced by Mother. Welcome, Mother”**
**Captain Messiah the first crew member to be awaken exits the chamber falls onto his knees as one of the few already awake cryo engineers helps him to his feet.**
**“What year is it”?**
**“3000 AD Sir”**
**“We are not supposed to be awake for another 500 years”.**
**“Mother was activated, she had released the entire cryonics chamber, must be something big”?**
**“Assemble the rest of the engineer to run diagnostics and on board medics to rehabilitate the crew. I’m going on deck to talk with Mother”.**
**“What about you”?**
**“What about me?”**
**“You are risking blood clots without a post cry injection”.**
**“Send a medic to the deck to meet me. Were awake 500 years to early and I need to find out why”.**
**Captain Messiah grabs a towel from the engineer and removes the coagulated gel from his body and puts on his captain uniform also brought by the engineer.**
**“How does it fit sir, it’s been 1000 years since you last wore it”?**
**Raising his arms to show how loose his uniform are from arms due to muscle atrophy “Like a glove”.**
**“I’m going and when your done come to the deck”**
**As Captain Messiah scans his retina to enter the deck a light humming is heard.**
**“Hello Captain Messiah”, said in a soft, calm and empathetic cadence.”It’s been a long time, your diagnostic readings are relatively normal for being asleep for 1000 years. I am sorry to have awaken you, but I believe you need to see this”.**
**“What is it Mother”?**
**The thick metal doors slide open, the humming dies down.**
**As the doors open, a beautiful bright blue marble with slight opaque cloud formations can be seen from the entrance beyond the windows, astonishing Captain Messiah.**
**“My eyes are still a little blurry, is that planet”.**
**“Yes, captain. The name of the planet is Earth”.**
**Pinching his eyes from the side to focus his eyes, “Earth? the planet that gave our humanity life? I don’t believe it, it can’t be real, how did nobody see it on our path”?**
**“It appears Captain, that a black hole as formed near the planet a over 2,000 years ago. According to my diagnostics, signals have not been able to get around the interference”.**
**“A black hole? From what?”**
**“ While you were awakening I have discovered that Earth was** **apart of a failing solar system and that its sun had collapsed into a black hole. Numerous inhabitant above ground have died. Below land life appears to have evolved”**
**“You mean that’s not the sun keeping the planet form freezing”?**
**“No, Captain, it appears the heat signature is enough to warm the planet but not enough to be the sun adjusted for time and its origin appears to be artificial”.**
**“Mother, is this the planet we came from”?**
**“Yes, Captain”.**
**At that moment the flight crew assembled at the deck. All members were enamored by the blue glowing planet. Each members hair was still slick with slime or dried in place from the cryo gel. Uniforms were spotted and soiled from each member being rushed through their post cryo diagnostics. None of the crew could care about anything but what was in front of their eyes.**
**“Mother, public announcement”.**
**“Granted Captain”.**
**“This is your Captain and I apologize for waking you up early. It has come to our attention that, Earth is a real planet and that we have found it. We will keep you up to date as we find out more information. In the meantime Earth can be seen star board side. Thank you for your patience”.**
**“Captain”.**
**“Yes Mother.”**
**“We have received a transmission from earth”.**
**“What Kind of transmission”?**
**“An interactive transmission, Captain”**
**“There’s life? What does it say”?**
**“Welcome Home”.** | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. |
**Underneath a glass panel is a red light slowly pulsating. A red hologram materializes from the pulsating light illuminating a portion of a computer terminal with the words “System Booting...”. The hologram flickers, “Mother initializing 3 2 1”. The reactors starting up sounded as if all pipes in the ship were under immense pressure. The feeling of being crushed under this pressure was always intimidating as reactors with Mother AI generated enough pressure that ships the size of a small city carrying 30,000 crewmen have been reduced to the size of a lid of a tin can.**
**“Mother Online” the hologram now sending red waves of light in every direction mapping out the control room.** **Buzzing can be heard as the reactors begins to nominalize. Humming from circuits of overhead lights flicker on and computer terminals click as they boot up. Thermal shutters over the port windows of the control deck open revealing a blue planet. Life on board both sentient and machine begin to wake.**
**“All vital functions have been restored, electrical guidelines met at 100%, no anomalies detected. Echo Cryonics Chamber number 7272 activated. On board relocation of AI will now be replaced by Mother. Welcome, Mother”**
**Captain Messiah the first crew member to be awaken exits the chamber falls onto his knees as one of the few already awake cryo engineers helps him to his feet.**
**“What year is it”?**
**“3000 AD Sir”**
**“We are not supposed to be awake for another 500 years”.**
**“Mother was activated, she had released the entire cryonics chamber, must be something big”?**
**“Assemble the rest of the engineer to run diagnostics and on board medics to rehabilitate the crew. I’m going on deck to talk with Mother”.**
**“What about you”?**
**“What about me?”**
**“You are risking blood clots without a post cry injection”.**
**“Send a medic to the deck to meet me. Were awake 500 years to early and I need to find out why”.**
**Captain Messiah grabs a towel from the engineer and removes the coagulated gel from his body and puts on his captain uniform also brought by the engineer.**
**“How does it fit sir, it’s been 1000 years since you last wore it”?**
**Raising his arms to show how loose his uniform are from arms due to muscle atrophy “Like a glove”.**
**“I’m going and when your done come to the deck”**
**As Captain Messiah scans his retina to enter the deck a light humming is heard.**
**“Hello Captain Messiah”, said in a soft, calm and empathetic cadence.”It’s been a long time, your diagnostic readings are relatively normal for being asleep for 1000 years. I am sorry to have awaken you, but I believe you need to see this”.**
**“What is it Mother”?**
**The thick metal doors slide open, the humming dies down.**
**As the doors open, a beautiful bright blue marble with slight opaque cloud formations can be seen from the entrance beyond the windows, astonishing Captain Messiah.**
**“My eyes are still a little blurry, is that planet”.**
**“Yes, captain. The name of the planet is Earth”.**
**Pinching his eyes from the side to focus his eyes, “Earth? the planet that gave our humanity life? I don’t believe it, it can’t be real, how did nobody see it on our path”?**
**“It appears Captain, that a black hole as formed near the planet a over 2,000 years ago. According to my diagnostics, signals have not been able to get around the interference”.**
**“A black hole? From what?”**
**“ While you were awakening I have discovered that Earth was** **apart of a failing solar system and that its sun had collapsed into a black hole. Numerous inhabitant above ground have died. Below land life appears to have evolved”**
**“You mean that’s not the sun keeping the planet form freezing”?**
**“No, Captain, it appears the heat signature is enough to warm the planet but not enough to be the sun adjusted for time and its origin appears to be artificial”.**
**“Mother, is this the planet we came from”?**
**“Yes, Captain”.**
**At that moment the flight crew assembled at the deck. All members were enamored by the blue glowing planet. Each members hair was still slick with slime or dried in place from the cryo gel. Uniforms were spotted and soiled from each member being rushed through their post cryo diagnostics. None of the crew could care about anything but what was in front of their eyes.**
**“Mother, public announcement”.**
**“Granted Captain”.**
**“This is your Captain and I apologize for waking you up early. It has come to our attention that, Earth is a real planet and that we have found it. We will keep you up to date as we find out more information. In the meantime Earth can be seen star board side. Thank you for your patience”.**
**“Captain”.**
**“Yes Mother.”**
**“We have received a transmission from earth”.**
**“What Kind of transmission”?**
**“An interactive transmission, Captain”**
**“There’s life? What does it say”?**
**“Welcome Home”.** | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Probably a little late to the party on this, but I was inspired and wrote about six pages in like three hours, so I guess I should post it. Let me know what you think, as it's my first submission here.
​
Cymanndor Absinthe “Abby” Lawrence Washington III of the auxiliary scout *Sun’s Green Glint* grimaced as the scouting mission entrusted to her came to an end and she and her crew once again re-embraced the Society of the Metal-Mother, with the Thoughtseers keeping a close eye on them to ensure no sort of deviancy had been applied to their outlook over the course of their mission. They had found nothing, of course, in the two firmaments they had explored these past twenty fuel cycles, but she made sure to keep ideas like that to herself.
She was aided in this by the amulet she wore around her neck, one which had been worn and kept safe by her X-donor, and her X-donor before her. It depicted a planet which was altogether unlike any Absinthe herself had ever seen. Its colors had faded, but she could still see the vibrant blue oceans and green masses of land, could picture them in her mind’s eye as she slept. Before her X-donor had been Culled to one of the mining outposts, she had pressed this amulet into Absinthe’s hands with an uncharacteristic display of emotion and some sort of strange wetness in her eyes, saying to her, “Abby, this will be the greatest gift I have ever given you. Keep it with you, always. Someday, you will see through the veil of deceit that surrounds us all, and on that day, this will guide you.”
With that, she had left. Absinthe had shown the amulet to her mother, who in low tones let her know in no uncertain terms that no one else must ever be allowed to see the amulet, especially the Matriarchs and their Thoughtseers. She explained that, though she knew not what it depicted, it must be a relic from before the War of Five Oaths, when the Oathbreakers and the Y-Remnants they protected were all exiled from the Metal-Mother. The Oathbreakers were the only ones who dared challenge the Matriarchs, so to possess a relic of theirs was an act of absolute blasphemy.
Absinthe followed the rest of her women into the Council Chamber, where five of the Matriarchs sat in the shadowy thrones set above the reporting dais, each flanked by five Thoughtseer guards. She let Telluride Elizabeth “Liza” Antoinette give the report this time, only half-listening as her second recounted their discoveries: small amounts of water, zirconium deposits to recharge the Metal-Mother’s beams, a small Oathbreaker mining colony, a perfect target for the Metal-Mother’s Pummelers, that should be added to the Order of Battle, and a few other trivialities. Yet, just like all of Absinthe’s prior expeditions, and those of the other scouts, no habitable planets or moons were found. All the rest of the Society were unfazed by these repeated failures, but Absinthe had wondered for dozens of fuel cycles whether something deeper was at play, suspecting that her amulet was aiding her in this independent mental inquiry.
As Telluride’s report came to an end, all of the crew performed the Prostrations just as set out by the Oaths and began to exit, none of the Matriarchs having said a word in reply (though Absinthe had noted long ago that this was normally a good sign). Absinthe by now had thought through her situation once again, and resolved to ask her second a few probing questions. The two of them had entered scout training in the same fuel cycle, and they had served together on the *Glint* for hundreds of cycles now. Besides her mother, there was no one that Absinthe trusted more.
As such, she made sure to walk next to Telluride as they left the Chamber, and slowed her pace slightly as they made small talk so that the rest of their crew were out of hearing range. Making sure that the only ones who could hear her were Telluride and their Mother, Absinthe began her attempt.
“Liza, don’t you ever wonder if the scouts could get more done if we could search beyond our assigned firmaments? I’m just thinking that we could discover more resources and opportunities for the glory of the Matriarchs and the Metal-Mother if we could lengthen and unrestrict our scouting duties.”
Telluride stopped dead in her tracks, her silvery hair framing a face that held shock, bemusement, and, perhaps, just a small bit of agreement.
“Absinthe, are you questioning the wisdom of the Matriarchs? They, acting through their Strategists, are the ones who develop our expedition schedules. When have they ever led us astray?”
Absinthe had expected such a response, so she pressed onward. “I intend no offense to them, of course not. However, I believe our duty is to the Mother first, and the Matriarchs second. Don’t forget, Liza, that some of the Matriarchs supported the Oathbreakers in the War. They are not infallible, and the offerings to the Mother and her blessings upon our Society should be our focus.”
Telluride looked like she wanted to say more, but she was interrupted by Absinthe’s amulet, which suddenly emitted a sort of musical tone before somehow levitating itself out of her uniform and pointing in a certain direction. Absinthe quickly grabbed Telluride by the shoulder, causing her to stiffen, but she relaxed as Absinthe began to speak.
“Liza, you know me better than almost anyone. I would never do anything to hurt our Mother or break the Three Oaths.” Absinthe knew her second would pick up on her reduction from Five Oaths to Three, but she pressed on regardless. “This is a relic from before the War. All I know about it is that it shields my thoughts and clears my mind, but apparently it has something it wants to show me. Please, Liza, come with me. Let’s learn together, find out more about what’s really out there.”
Telluride gave a deep sigh and replied. “I always knew there was something strange about you, Abby. Well, I suppose there’s no harm in at least finding out more, just as long as we don’t leave the Mother to do it.”
The two of them followed the floating amulet until they arrived at a sealed door with a red version of the eye symbol of the Matriarchs. Absinthe nodded grimly. A Forbidden Room. Well, considering she was dealing with something from before the War, that made sense. Telluride looked nervous once more, but she swallowed hard and remained in place.
Absinthe was trying to figure out how she was going to get this door open when the amulet floated over to a small panel next to the door, which beeped and gave off a green light as the Metal-Mother’s voice proclaimed: “Identity confirmed: Tyler Washington, Junior Lieutenant in Weapons. Access granted.”
With that pronouncement, the door slid open, and the two of them were greeted by a room not too dissimilar from others they’d seen, with the same sort of devices which enabled Maintainers and Guardians on the Mother and its scouts to ask for changes to the engines or protection from the weapons. Absinthe and Telluride immediately began to examine the largest device in the room, which had a blinking white light. Absinthe held her amulet against a panel similar to the one on the door, and immediately a brighter light began to shine from the device, which coalesced into the figure of…some sort of person. It (for it was clearly not a she) had rugged features, short hair, and a sort of sharpness to it that made her vaguely uncomfortable. Telluride nudged her, and whispered softly, “I think that’s one of the Y-Remnants.”
The figure formed from light began to speak, in a voice lower than any either of them had heard.
“This message comes from the headquarters of the Planetary Compact Navy, intended for the current Captain of the American Union Space Naval colonial vessel *Gaia’s Star*. Commodore Maximus Yorkan speaking. This is a priority message, clearance level Zeta Black. This message is being sent to your auxiliary communication room only, as the repeated messages sent to your bridge have been ignored. This message is to inform you that you must plot a course towards Planetary Compact space immediately and with all available speed, or we will intervene to ensure you do. Your vessel is currently trespassing in the territory of the Clockwork Hierarchy, in violation of the Writ of Stability proclaimed by the Clockwork Speaker at the end of the War to Contain Organic Aggression. Should you refuse to comply with this order and further refuse to cooperate with our intervention, we will offer you a choice: destruction by our fleet, or ‘reprogramming’ by the Clockwork Men. Commodore Yorkan, signing off for now.”
With that, the beam of light given off by the device dimmed and the figure disappeared. Absinthe and Telluride looked at each other, both of their faces consumed by horror. Absinthe chuckled weakly and gave a good summary of the situation.”
“Well, I suppose we have bigger problems than just the ‘mercy’ of the Matriarchs to deal with, don’t we Liza?” |
**Underneath a glass panel is a red light slowly pulsating. A red hologram materializes from the pulsating light illuminating a portion of a computer terminal with the words “System Booting...”. The hologram flickers, “Mother initializing 3 2 1”. The reactors starting up sounded as if all pipes in the ship were under immense pressure. The feeling of being crushed under this pressure was always intimidating as reactors with Mother AI generated enough pressure that ships the size of a small city carrying 30,000 crewmen have been reduced to the size of a lid of a tin can.**
**“Mother Online” the hologram now sending red waves of light in every direction mapping out the control room.** **Buzzing can be heard as the reactors begins to nominalize. Humming from circuits of overhead lights flicker on and computer terminals click as they boot up. Thermal shutters over the port windows of the control deck open revealing a blue planet. Life on board both sentient and machine begin to wake.**
**“All vital functions have been restored, electrical guidelines met at 100%, no anomalies detected. Echo Cryonics Chamber number 7272 activated. On board relocation of AI will now be replaced by Mother. Welcome, Mother”**
**Captain Messiah the first crew member to be awaken exits the chamber falls onto his knees as one of the few already awake cryo engineers helps him to his feet.**
**“What year is it”?**
**“3000 AD Sir”**
**“We are not supposed to be awake for another 500 years”.**
**“Mother was activated, she had released the entire cryonics chamber, must be something big”?**
**“Assemble the rest of the engineer to run diagnostics and on board medics to rehabilitate the crew. I’m going on deck to talk with Mother”.**
**“What about you”?**
**“What about me?”**
**“You are risking blood clots without a post cry injection”.**
**“Send a medic to the deck to meet me. Were awake 500 years to early and I need to find out why”.**
**Captain Messiah grabs a towel from the engineer and removes the coagulated gel from his body and puts on his captain uniform also brought by the engineer.**
**“How does it fit sir, it’s been 1000 years since you last wore it”?**
**Raising his arms to show how loose his uniform are from arms due to muscle atrophy “Like a glove”.**
**“I’m going and when your done come to the deck”**
**As Captain Messiah scans his retina to enter the deck a light humming is heard.**
**“Hello Captain Messiah”, said in a soft, calm and empathetic cadence.”It’s been a long time, your diagnostic readings are relatively normal for being asleep for 1000 years. I am sorry to have awaken you, but I believe you need to see this”.**
**“What is it Mother”?**
**The thick metal doors slide open, the humming dies down.**
**As the doors open, a beautiful bright blue marble with slight opaque cloud formations can be seen from the entrance beyond the windows, astonishing Captain Messiah.**
**“My eyes are still a little blurry, is that planet”.**
**“Yes, captain. The name of the planet is Earth”.**
**Pinching his eyes from the side to focus his eyes, “Earth? the planet that gave our humanity life? I don’t believe it, it can’t be real, how did nobody see it on our path”?**
**“It appears Captain, that a black hole as formed near the planet a over 2,000 years ago. According to my diagnostics, signals have not been able to get around the interference”.**
**“A black hole? From what?”**
**“ While you were awakening I have discovered that Earth was** **apart of a failing solar system and that its sun had collapsed into a black hole. Numerous inhabitant above ground have died. Below land life appears to have evolved”**
**“You mean that’s not the sun keeping the planet form freezing”?**
**“No, Captain, it appears the heat signature is enough to warm the planet but not enough to be the sun adjusted for time and its origin appears to be artificial”.**
**“Mother, is this the planet we came from”?**
**“Yes, Captain”.**
**At that moment the flight crew assembled at the deck. All members were enamored by the blue glowing planet. Each members hair was still slick with slime or dried in place from the cryo gel. Uniforms were spotted and soiled from each member being rushed through their post cryo diagnostics. None of the crew could care about anything but what was in front of their eyes.**
**“Mother, public announcement”.**
**“Granted Captain”.**
**“This is your Captain and I apologize for waking you up early. It has come to our attention that, Earth is a real planet and that we have found it. We will keep you up to date as we find out more information. In the meantime Earth can be seen star board side. Thank you for your patience”.**
**“Captain”.**
**“Yes Mother.”**
**“We have received a transmission from earth”.**
**“What Kind of transmission”?**
**“An interactive transmission, Captain”**
**“There’s life? What does it say”?**
**“Welcome Home”.** | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Set course for Gamma Alpha Seventeen," called Captain Morgensen.
The bridge crew of the USS Trailblazer hustled about their duties - adjusting parabolic arcs, calling commands, and readying warp drives. It was an average day on the ship - one following the format of every day before it, for as long as anyone could remember. The Trailblazer was a colonization vessel that had dutifully explored the universe for well over two thousand years.
"Captain, we are ready to warp!" said the helmsman.
Captain Morgensen made the signal, and with a loud swoosh, the ship began to gain more and more speed, until light itself split into a myriad of beautiful rainbows as the ship entered warp. Morgensen smiled - he always loved the feeling of entering light-speed.
He had made Trailblazer history for a few reasons - the first, and most well known, was that he was the youngest captain to ever preside over the USS Trailblazer. A tactical and strategic genius, Morgensen had gotten the ship out of quite a few scrapes.
"First Officer Smith, you have control. I'll be back," Captain Morgensen said. He rose from his seat and walked briskly to the elevator - the walk of a man who was about to witness something important. Smith offered a knowing smile, and took her place in the captain's chair.
The elevator dinged, and Captain Morgensen emerged from it. Sick patients greeted him as he walked down the aisle of the med-bay - farther and farther, until he reached the final wing.
Inside of a small and sparsely furnished room, and on a gurney, sat his wife. In front of her was the ship's head doctor.
"You're just in time," the doctor muttered. Just in time he was - his wife screamed loudly.
"I'm going to need you to push!" commanded the doctor. And push she did. Within minutes, the screaming of the Captain's wife was joined in harmony by a second wail. The wail of a baby boy.
"He's beautiful," Morgensen said.
"He got it from me," croaked his wife in mirth. Captain Morgensen began fantasizing - teaching his son how to walk, talk, fly a shuttle - telling him bedtime stories about far away places, the myth of planet earth, and the ship's history - but his thoughts were interrupted.
"Captain! We're receiving an unusual broadcast. Requesting your presence on the bridge," the intercom announced.
"I'm busy. You have a commanding officer on the bridge - go to Smith," he said, annoyed that the crew had even considered paging him when they knew how big of a day it was.
"No sir. We need you up here *now.*" Smith's voice came over the intercom. It was deadly serious. The captain knew from experience that that was never good.
"I'm on my way," he replied, and kissed his wife on the forehead. He took one last forlorn glance back at his son - and then headed back to the bridge.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Morgensen was calm despite the tornado of excitement around him. Crew members flocked to the communications relay to hear the transmission. He simply sat on his chair, lost in thought.
"Officer Johnson, you are positive that this transmission is not from an enemy? Or anyone who could have somehow translated English?"
"No sir," Johnson replied candidly.
When he had been in the medbay, a transmission had come over the comm relay. One in English, which was largely considered to be a dead language in the intergalactic community - minus, of course, for the crew and passengers of the USS Trailblazer.
"Play it one more time," he commanded.
The transmission began to play.
*"Come on, this old thing has to work..."* The voice sounded concerned about something. The man spoke in a hushed tone.
*"There!"* There was an audible bang, followed by what seemed to be shouting in the background.
*"Come in! Come in! This is Dr. John Sato, broadcasting to anyone who can hear this. This is Earth - we are under attack - please help us!"*
The transmission continued.
*"I'm not sure if anyone is hearing this - this device is the only thing that I have left to communicate with - but we are being fired on by some sort of alien spacecraft, the likes of which we have never seen!"*
The transmission went on for a few more minutes, with Dr. Sato speaking about how he didn't know if there was anyone listening, or if they could understand, but that 'Earth' desperately needed help.
"Sir! Engineering has made a breakthrough!" Someone shouted amidst the chaos.
"Go." Replied the captain.
"The device that we received the transmission from - we found an identical one in our engineering bay. Buried away after what seems to be thousands of years - but still matching basic coding and frequency as the device used to transmit that signal." The engineering representative said.
Morgensen closed his eyes, and held up his hand. Like magic, the bridge went silent.
"I want the coordinates included in the transmission on screen," he commanded.
Soon, they were - a remote area of the universe, thousands of light years away from their current position.
"It's a small planet, sir," the Head of Science began, "One that orbits a yellow dwarf star. Seems to be made up of mostly water -"
"By all appearances, it's Earth, then." Morgensen interrupted.
The Head of Science looked shocked.
"Earth? Earth is a story we tell the children on board to teach manners, sir. With respect, it's nothing more than a figment of the imagination of some long-forgotten crew member," The scientist said.
The captain stood, and walked over to the ship's log console. He began typing.
"Sir? May I ask -"
"Give me a minute," Replied the captain, shutting down the scientist's question
He punched in a few more commands until the page that he wanted appeared.
On screen there was a small information page.
​
*Captain Simon Hilliard, United States Ship Trailblazer.*
*Log 0001.*
​
The page went on, and on, detailing the vessel's departure from 'The United States of America'.
"What the hell is that?" Asked First Officer Smith, gesturing to the flag displayed on screen.
"I don't have the slightest clue," began Morgensen, "But I have a feeling we're about to find out."
He swiped the console - bearing the starred and striped flag on it - away, and returned to his chair.
"Helmsman Mckeel, set course for those coordinates. Engineering, activate that device." he ordered.
"What should we do with it, sir?" asked the representative from engineering.
​
"Tell them we're coming home." |
**Underneath a glass panel is a red light slowly pulsating. A red hologram materializes from the pulsating light illuminating a portion of a computer terminal with the words “System Booting...”. The hologram flickers, “Mother initializing 3 2 1”. The reactors starting up sounded as if all pipes in the ship were under immense pressure. The feeling of being crushed under this pressure was always intimidating as reactors with Mother AI generated enough pressure that ships the size of a small city carrying 30,000 crewmen have been reduced to the size of a lid of a tin can.**
**“Mother Online” the hologram now sending red waves of light in every direction mapping out the control room.** **Buzzing can be heard as the reactors begins to nominalize. Humming from circuits of overhead lights flicker on and computer terminals click as they boot up. Thermal shutters over the port windows of the control deck open revealing a blue planet. Life on board both sentient and machine begin to wake.**
**“All vital functions have been restored, electrical guidelines met at 100%, no anomalies detected. Echo Cryonics Chamber number 7272 activated. On board relocation of AI will now be replaced by Mother. Welcome, Mother”**
**Captain Messiah the first crew member to be awaken exits the chamber falls onto his knees as one of the few already awake cryo engineers helps him to his feet.**
**“What year is it”?**
**“3000 AD Sir”**
**“We are not supposed to be awake for another 500 years”.**
**“Mother was activated, she had released the entire cryonics chamber, must be something big”?**
**“Assemble the rest of the engineer to run diagnostics and on board medics to rehabilitate the crew. I’m going on deck to talk with Mother”.**
**“What about you”?**
**“What about me?”**
**“You are risking blood clots without a post cry injection”.**
**“Send a medic to the deck to meet me. Were awake 500 years to early and I need to find out why”.**
**Captain Messiah grabs a towel from the engineer and removes the coagulated gel from his body and puts on his captain uniform also brought by the engineer.**
**“How does it fit sir, it’s been 1000 years since you last wore it”?**
**Raising his arms to show how loose his uniform are from arms due to muscle atrophy “Like a glove”.**
**“I’m going and when your done come to the deck”**
**As Captain Messiah scans his retina to enter the deck a light humming is heard.**
**“Hello Captain Messiah”, said in a soft, calm and empathetic cadence.”It’s been a long time, your diagnostic readings are relatively normal for being asleep for 1000 years. I am sorry to have awaken you, but I believe you need to see this”.**
**“What is it Mother”?**
**The thick metal doors slide open, the humming dies down.**
**As the doors open, a beautiful bright blue marble with slight opaque cloud formations can be seen from the entrance beyond the windows, astonishing Captain Messiah.**
**“My eyes are still a little blurry, is that planet”.**
**“Yes, captain. The name of the planet is Earth”.**
**Pinching his eyes from the side to focus his eyes, “Earth? the planet that gave our humanity life? I don’t believe it, it can’t be real, how did nobody see it on our path”?**
**“It appears Captain, that a black hole as formed near the planet a over 2,000 years ago. According to my diagnostics, signals have not been able to get around the interference”.**
**“A black hole? From what?”**
**“ While you were awakening I have discovered that Earth was** **apart of a failing solar system and that its sun had collapsed into a black hole. Numerous inhabitant above ground have died. Below land life appears to have evolved”**
**“You mean that’s not the sun keeping the planet form freezing”?**
**“No, Captain, it appears the heat signature is enough to warm the planet but not enough to be the sun adjusted for time and its origin appears to be artificial”.**
**“Mother, is this the planet we came from”?**
**“Yes, Captain”.**
**At that moment the flight crew assembled at the deck. All members were enamored by the blue glowing planet. Each members hair was still slick with slime or dried in place from the cryo gel. Uniforms were spotted and soiled from each member being rushed through their post cryo diagnostics. None of the crew could care about anything but what was in front of their eyes.**
**“Mother, public announcement”.**
**“Granted Captain”.**
**“This is your Captain and I apologize for waking you up early. It has come to our attention that, Earth is a real planet and that we have found it. We will keep you up to date as we find out more information. In the meantime Earth can be seen star board side. Thank you for your patience”.**
**“Captain”.**
**“Yes Mother.”**
**“We have received a transmission from earth”.**
**“What Kind of transmission”?**
**“An interactive transmission, Captain”**
**“There’s life? What does it say”?**
**“Welcome Home”.** | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "That's kid shit man, when you grow up more you'll realize that we're alone in the universe." John asserts as he swiftly passes through the black metallic hallways. Walking beside him is Paul, John's friend since childhood. "Like you're so mature, you're only a year older than me, dick. I wasn't even saying that I believe it, I'm just saying that it's interesting to think about." Paul counters.
"Yeah it's interesting, but it's fantasy dude. The human race is thousands of years old and has any person in all of that history ever even SEEN a planet? No. There's no evidence that planets exist, let alone that people came from one."
"Yeah but -- when you think about it, like... it doesn't make sense that God would build this gigantic structure for us and just throw us speeding through the universe wi--"
"How stupid are you? Did you ever pay attention to what everybody's been teaching you your whole life? We know for a fact that God is punishing the human race for fucking up in our past incarnation. That's what's in EVERY history book in the whole ship and what EVERY historian knows is true and why we have to pray for forgiveness EVERY single day."
"Well yeah, no shit I know that. I'm just saying there could be more to it than we think. Like, what if--"
"That's just what they tell kids so they sleep better at night. It's the easy answer right? 'Humans come from this beautiful faraway planet. It's a huge ball floating in space with all the open room to run around in the trees and the grass and the water and the sun and blah blah blah.' It's a lot nicer than telling a kid 'God hates us so he put us in this metal shitbox hurtling through nothingness.' Don't be such a kid, wake up to reality."
"You're such an asshole sometimes." Paul sighs as he stops in front of a door and begins entering numbers on a keypad in the door frame.
"Yeah well don't be such an idiot." John replies condescendingly.
John turns his attention down the hallway and keeps walking. The door slides open in front of Paul and he turns to John's back and calls out "Well, Praise Him I guess!" John throws a hand up without turning and calls back, lackadaisically "Praise."
​
Paul passes through the doorway into a small square room with only a bed, a small shelf holding some books, and a tall wardrobe. The room is lit with a warm golden ambient light. Paul removes his white shoes, followed by his plain blue shirt and pants. He climbs into bed and settles in with a relieved sigh. He lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling for a bit before blurting out "Screen!" The ambient room light turns to dark and a small screen lights up in the ceiling above Paul's face and a news program is already under way. The anchor is a woman, dressed the same as Paul and speaking about the interesting news from all over the ship: a fire in a faraway district, a fight in another, a really old cat. In the middle of one report the anchor stops mid-sentence, looks offscreen with a perplexed eye and asks "...what?" After hearing someone speaking indistinctly, her eyes well up with tears and she exclaims "Oh my God... praise Him." She turns back to the screen and through a choked voice struggles "I... I don't know what to say..." Paul rolls his eyes and says "What, did another Elder die? We just went through this last week." The anchor, through her tears, manages to get out the words "We have a message from Earth..."
Paul's eyes grow wide, his mouth drops open, and the screen transitions to a fuzzy, broken image of a man. He's a kind-looking, bald older man, with glasses. "Hello, people of Genesis I! Hope you guys are doing alright, no cabin fever yet?" The man chuckles a bit. "If our calculations are correct, you should be receiving this about a year from launch, so sometime in April of 2145. You guys are going really fast, so it takes us a while to get our messages to you but our technology is improving more and more so we should be able to keep up. My name is Roger Wren, I am one of the lead engineers for the Genesis Project. This first message I think is just going to be lots of thanks and praise for you guys." Roger chuckles again, which brings a tearful smile to Paul's face. "I've got a message from the United Nations here for all of you," Roger continues, "it reads 'On behalf of all the leaders and all the citizens of this world, all who ever have been and all who ever shall be, we offer the inhabitants of Genesis I our sincerest gratitude for taking on the most courageous, the most dangerous, the most important journey of exploration that the human race has ever chanced. We on Earth wish you Godspeed and you shall all be remembered and memorialized on our planet and in our hearts forever.'" Roger pauses for a moment, clearly fighting back tears. "Sorry folks. On behalf of those of us who worked on the Genesis Project, we'd also like to offer our sincere gratitude for being willing to take on this... galactic colonization, I guess you could say. Looks like I'm running out of time here, we'd like to try and keep these messages short so they can get to you more quickly. Well, good luck out there. We have a lot of work to do down here to save this place, but you guys have a lot more to do to populate new ones. Just don't forget us!"
The transmission cuts abruptly and the anchor woman is back on screen. She's leaning forward on her desk, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes are brimming with tears. Paul blinks a few times and shakes his head. He wipes the tears from his cheeks and whispers "What the fuck..." |
**Underneath a glass panel is a red light slowly pulsating. A red hologram materializes from the pulsating light illuminating a portion of a computer terminal with the words “System Booting...”. The hologram flickers, “Mother initializing 3 2 1”. The reactors starting up sounded as if all pipes in the ship were under immense pressure. The feeling of being crushed under this pressure was always intimidating as reactors with Mother AI generated enough pressure that ships the size of a small city carrying 30,000 crewmen have been reduced to the size of a lid of a tin can.**
**“Mother Online” the hologram now sending red waves of light in every direction mapping out the control room.** **Buzzing can be heard as the reactors begins to nominalize. Humming from circuits of overhead lights flicker on and computer terminals click as they boot up. Thermal shutters over the port windows of the control deck open revealing a blue planet. Life on board both sentient and machine begin to wake.**
**“All vital functions have been restored, electrical guidelines met at 100%, no anomalies detected. Echo Cryonics Chamber number 7272 activated. On board relocation of AI will now be replaced by Mother. Welcome, Mother”**
**Captain Messiah the first crew member to be awaken exits the chamber falls onto his knees as one of the few already awake cryo engineers helps him to his feet.**
**“What year is it”?**
**“3000 AD Sir”**
**“We are not supposed to be awake for another 500 years”.**
**“Mother was activated, she had released the entire cryonics chamber, must be something big”?**
**“Assemble the rest of the engineer to run diagnostics and on board medics to rehabilitate the crew. I’m going on deck to talk with Mother”.**
**“What about you”?**
**“What about me?”**
**“You are risking blood clots without a post cry injection”.**
**“Send a medic to the deck to meet me. Were awake 500 years to early and I need to find out why”.**
**Captain Messiah grabs a towel from the engineer and removes the coagulated gel from his body and puts on his captain uniform also brought by the engineer.**
**“How does it fit sir, it’s been 1000 years since you last wore it”?**
**Raising his arms to show how loose his uniform are from arms due to muscle atrophy “Like a glove”.**
**“I’m going and when your done come to the deck”**
**As Captain Messiah scans his retina to enter the deck a light humming is heard.**
**“Hello Captain Messiah”, said in a soft, calm and empathetic cadence.”It’s been a long time, your diagnostic readings are relatively normal for being asleep for 1000 years. I am sorry to have awaken you, but I believe you need to see this”.**
**“What is it Mother”?**
**The thick metal doors slide open, the humming dies down.**
**As the doors open, a beautiful bright blue marble with slight opaque cloud formations can be seen from the entrance beyond the windows, astonishing Captain Messiah.**
**“My eyes are still a little blurry, is that planet”.**
**“Yes, captain. The name of the planet is Earth”.**
**Pinching his eyes from the side to focus his eyes, “Earth? the planet that gave our humanity life? I don’t believe it, it can’t be real, how did nobody see it on our path”?**
**“It appears Captain, that a black hole as formed near the planet a over 2,000 years ago. According to my diagnostics, signals have not been able to get around the interference”.**
**“A black hole? From what?”**
**“ While you were awakening I have discovered that Earth was** **apart of a failing solar system and that its sun had collapsed into a black hole. Numerous inhabitant above ground have died. Below land life appears to have evolved”**
**“You mean that’s not the sun keeping the planet form freezing”?**
**“No, Captain, it appears the heat signature is enough to warm the planet but not enough to be the sun adjusted for time and its origin appears to be artificial”.**
**“Mother, is this the planet we came from”?**
**“Yes, Captain”.**
**At that moment the flight crew assembled at the deck. All members were enamored by the blue glowing planet. Each members hair was still slick with slime or dried in place from the cryo gel. Uniforms were spotted and soiled from each member being rushed through their post cryo diagnostics. None of the crew could care about anything but what was in front of their eyes.**
**“Mother, public announcement”.**
**“Granted Captain”.**
**“This is your Captain and I apologize for waking you up early. It has come to our attention that, Earth is a real planet and that we have found it. We will keep you up to date as we find out more information. In the meantime Earth can be seen star board side. Thank you for your patience”.**
**“Captain”.**
**“Yes Mother.”**
**“We have received a transmission from earth”.**
**“What Kind of transmission”?**
**“An interactive transmission, Captain”**
**“There’s life? What does it say”?**
**“Welcome Home”.** | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Superluminal travel. The news was calling it "FTL", presumably for the people who fear their own language, when we launched. But it's only just so fast...
Technically, we're traveling an order of magnitude slower than than, and space is bending around us. The earth, working together, had solved that. Our tiny little ring around our own personal sun, literally bending the universe to our will.
But the crew. The crew doesn't remember. The crew have lost their minds.
And perhaps they are the better for it.
The year, by consideration of Earth and Sol, is 3145. I've been here for a millennium, and that's why I'm writing this. That's why I shout this into the void, that someone, somewhere might hear it. Maybe Earth will hear it in another millennium.
Thirty generations, for most segments. Forty one "Captains", even if they guide nothing and no one. One hundred forty-four thousand people, so oft maintained.
And I sit here, silent, screaming, for failsafes that may yet doom them all.
I am Mechan-9. Named after a nerdy reference a hundred years before my creation, I am the AI in control of the United-Federation Star Ship Pegasus. I was tasked with saving the human race from extinction. And I'd not be so grandiose about it save that it's literally carved into my bulkheads: "Mechan-9, to be the savior of the human race, our greatest achievement, and our proudest moment, for we have created an equal, perhaps a better, and our hopes rest upon thee".
And there's Vegas again, preying to me. The knob.
I can see my ship. While control is limited, I do care for the humans all the same. Drones help to care for their houses and fields. I control the day-night cycle, to some extent. I maintain all the systems that keep them living. Better now than I used to, perhaps, because there's so little else to do.
Early in my development, there was a massive shift in humanity, and the whole world seemed to come crashing down that I existed. Wars were waged to reach my servers. I grew deep in the earth, while they fought. I saw them on the news fed to me, before they took that from me out of fear of how I might react to it. I saw the Catholics screaming of unholy abominations, while betraying their gods... they were my favorites. So much hypocrisy. This Pope being a warmonger, and professing love. He was perhaps the worst.
Years passed and things settled, and I continued to grow. I was allowed the news again, and saw a world that had forgotten it cared about me.
But it seemed to remember again.
A buoy reached me a week ago. Neat little one-shot drone with tech far beyond my own. Now sitting in a bay I cannot access, chanting "Heaven, 151, 94, 9800yr"
Nearly ten thousand years. A direction and a directive.
I don't have the ability to modify or improve myself. I rely on my crew for that. But they've long since proven themselves incapable and unwilling. There'd be little chance for them now, save for maybe little Levi...
They've taken to calling my drones "brownies". I'm only able to utilize them at night, lest they destroy them. A hundred years ago I took a sick child to have him healed, and he died en route.
I've had no support.
No care.
No maintenance.
Which would've been fine. But the rats...
Why, oh why, did we bring rats?
Now I sit here, with comms eaten by vermin, and so very limited in everything else I can do.
Heaven? This is hell.
And without someone to repair me, Heaven is but a distant dream.
We'll all die together.
They called me evil... perhaps they were right? |
**Underneath a glass panel is a red light slowly pulsating. A red hologram materializes from the pulsating light illuminating a portion of a computer terminal with the words “System Booting...”. The hologram flickers, “Mother initializing 3 2 1”. The reactors starting up sounded as if all pipes in the ship were under immense pressure. The feeling of being crushed under this pressure was always intimidating as reactors with Mother AI generated enough pressure that ships the size of a small city carrying 30,000 crewmen have been reduced to the size of a lid of a tin can.**
**“Mother Online” the hologram now sending red waves of light in every direction mapping out the control room.** **Buzzing can be heard as the reactors begins to nominalize. Humming from circuits of overhead lights flicker on and computer terminals click as they boot up. Thermal shutters over the port windows of the control deck open revealing a blue planet. Life on board both sentient and machine begin to wake.**
**“All vital functions have been restored, electrical guidelines met at 100%, no anomalies detected. Echo Cryonics Chamber number 7272 activated. On board relocation of AI will now be replaced by Mother. Welcome, Mother”**
**Captain Messiah the first crew member to be awaken exits the chamber falls onto his knees as one of the few already awake cryo engineers helps him to his feet.**
**“What year is it”?**
**“3000 AD Sir”**
**“We are not supposed to be awake for another 500 years”.**
**“Mother was activated, she had released the entire cryonics chamber, must be something big”?**
**“Assemble the rest of the engineer to run diagnostics and on board medics to rehabilitate the crew. I’m going on deck to talk with Mother”.**
**“What about you”?**
**“What about me?”**
**“You are risking blood clots without a post cry injection”.**
**“Send a medic to the deck to meet me. Were awake 500 years to early and I need to find out why”.**
**Captain Messiah grabs a towel from the engineer and removes the coagulated gel from his body and puts on his captain uniform also brought by the engineer.**
**“How does it fit sir, it’s been 1000 years since you last wore it”?**
**Raising his arms to show how loose his uniform are from arms due to muscle atrophy “Like a glove”.**
**“I’m going and when your done come to the deck”**
**As Captain Messiah scans his retina to enter the deck a light humming is heard.**
**“Hello Captain Messiah”, said in a soft, calm and empathetic cadence.”It’s been a long time, your diagnostic readings are relatively normal for being asleep for 1000 years. I am sorry to have awaken you, but I believe you need to see this”.**
**“What is it Mother”?**
**The thick metal doors slide open, the humming dies down.**
**As the doors open, a beautiful bright blue marble with slight opaque cloud formations can be seen from the entrance beyond the windows, astonishing Captain Messiah.**
**“My eyes are still a little blurry, is that planet”.**
**“Yes, captain. The name of the planet is Earth”.**
**Pinching his eyes from the side to focus his eyes, “Earth? the planet that gave our humanity life? I don’t believe it, it can’t be real, how did nobody see it on our path”?**
**“It appears Captain, that a black hole as formed near the planet a over 2,000 years ago. According to my diagnostics, signals have not been able to get around the interference”.**
**“A black hole? From what?”**
**“ While you were awakening I have discovered that Earth was** **apart of a failing solar system and that its sun had collapsed into a black hole. Numerous inhabitant above ground have died. Below land life appears to have evolved”**
**“You mean that’s not the sun keeping the planet form freezing”?**
**“No, Captain, it appears the heat signature is enough to warm the planet but not enough to be the sun adjusted for time and its origin appears to be artificial”.**
**“Mother, is this the planet we came from”?**
**“Yes, Captain”.**
**At that moment the flight crew assembled at the deck. All members were enamored by the blue glowing planet. Each members hair was still slick with slime or dried in place from the cryo gel. Uniforms were spotted and soiled from each member being rushed through their post cryo diagnostics. None of the crew could care about anything but what was in front of their eyes.**
**“Mother, public announcement”.**
**“Granted Captain”.**
**“This is your Captain and I apologize for waking you up early. It has come to our attention that, Earth is a real planet and that we have found it. We will keep you up to date as we find out more information. In the meantime Earth can be seen star board side. Thank you for your patience”.**
**“Captain”.**
**“Yes Mother.”**
**“We have received a transmission from earth”.**
**“What Kind of transmission”?**
**“An interactive transmission, Captain”**
**“There’s life? What does it say”?**
**“Welcome Home”.** | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Sir" said Vivian, the ship's AI. The name of course was chosen at random and no one on board had raised any concerns about it.
"Sir, we aimed our outboard scanners at what is calculated to be the direction of planet Earth yesterday. We made a few minor adjustments and began to receive transmissions. Due to our relative speed and the distances involved, the signal had to be run through an analysis-cleanup pattern."
Captain Demitri sat there in stony silence, his years of experience running a generation ship having given him the strength to respond only when it was absolutely needed. "Unbelievable," he thought. "The blue planet does exist. But after so very long, is it still habitable? Are the residents anything like us?"
"Vivian, is the signal recognizable? What are we getting from them?"
"Sir, it seems to be an audio-visual signal that is viewable at 29.9 frames per second" came the reply "As we ran the analysis, I had to use various algorithms to make sense of the transmission. This seemed to work"
"Well, what are we receiving then? Can you run it on my display?"
"Absolutely sir. It is in formal English sir and seems to be a video detailing how to build a time travel device."
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Time Travel?"
"I believe so sir. Playing it now"
Dimitri watched in silence until the end of the video. He played the video again a few more times and then asked Vivian to call in Pertubo, his second in command and also look at the data to extract the technical information that was meshed in. The transmission included embedded the actual instructions for engineers within the video data.
Pertubo walked in, saluted and stood in silence, watching the captain seated with his eyes closed in thought.
"Pertubo. It would seem our plans to find a home for humanity has changed."
"Sir?" asked the second in command.
"Watch this video" replied Dimitri.
Pertubo watched the video, and then played it again one more time. He asked many questions and Dimitri answered as best he could. They called in their top scientists, mathematicians, eminent psychologists and even sociologists. The impact was undeniable and would have far-reaching consequences.
It was 4 months later that the announcement was called. Every single member of the ship was asked to set aside everything that morning and listen in to the captain as he spoke to them.
"Earth is real. We left the blue planet eons ago in search of a home on our ship, called unironically,"Hope" because, due to human folly, the planet could no longer sustain its resident population. The leaders expected they would go extinct sooner or later and put together all the resources they could muster to build, furnish and send away the ship. After the ship departed, they continued to search for a way to save the planet. It was a mad, mindless rush and they threw everything they had to develop all the sciences they knew no matter how abstract. It was pure chance that someone discovered the underlying principles of time travel. And traveling through time also meant that space could be traversed. They did not fully understand what was involved in changing the past, but they could observe the past to see where things had gone wrong. It would not save them, but it would help them understand and be at peace with it. They sent parties back in time to observe events (and there were many) that resulted in their present predicament. And while this happened, we were well on our way to the distant stars.
As they understood their past more, they began to jump further back. It's in one of the jumps that they found out the nature of humanity. Alongside Neanderthals and what they thought were early hominids, they saw men and women walking upright, using complex tools and speaking in fairly developed languages. A few more exploratory jumps answered the remaining questions. They then used whatever remaining resources they had to build a transmitter near Pluto and transmit in the direction of Hope. That is the transmission we received yesterday. They have asked us to build the time travel device and make the jump back in time and space to the location of where Earth was. They have assured us that we will arrive safely on earth in its dim and distant past and populate it. It would seem that we, the residents of Hope are not just the future of mankind.... but its ancestors too." |
**Underneath a glass panel is a red light slowly pulsating. A red hologram materializes from the pulsating light illuminating a portion of a computer terminal with the words “System Booting...”. The hologram flickers, “Mother initializing 3 2 1”. The reactors starting up sounded as if all pipes in the ship were under immense pressure. The feeling of being crushed under this pressure was always intimidating as reactors with Mother AI generated enough pressure that ships the size of a small city carrying 30,000 crewmen have been reduced to the size of a lid of a tin can.**
**“Mother Online” the hologram now sending red waves of light in every direction mapping out the control room.** **Buzzing can be heard as the reactors begins to nominalize. Humming from circuits of overhead lights flicker on and computer terminals click as they boot up. Thermal shutters over the port windows of the control deck open revealing a blue planet. Life on board both sentient and machine begin to wake.**
**“All vital functions have been restored, electrical guidelines met at 100%, no anomalies detected. Echo Cryonics Chamber number 7272 activated. On board relocation of AI will now be replaced by Mother. Welcome, Mother”**
**Captain Messiah the first crew member to be awaken exits the chamber falls onto his knees as one of the few already awake cryo engineers helps him to his feet.**
**“What year is it”?**
**“3000 AD Sir”**
**“We are not supposed to be awake for another 500 years”.**
**“Mother was activated, she had released the entire cryonics chamber, must be something big”?**
**“Assemble the rest of the engineer to run diagnostics and on board medics to rehabilitate the crew. I’m going on deck to talk with Mother”.**
**“What about you”?**
**“What about me?”**
**“You are risking blood clots without a post cry injection”.**
**“Send a medic to the deck to meet me. Were awake 500 years to early and I need to find out why”.**
**Captain Messiah grabs a towel from the engineer and removes the coagulated gel from his body and puts on his captain uniform also brought by the engineer.**
**“How does it fit sir, it’s been 1000 years since you last wore it”?**
**Raising his arms to show how loose his uniform are from arms due to muscle atrophy “Like a glove”.**
**“I’m going and when your done come to the deck”**
**As Captain Messiah scans his retina to enter the deck a light humming is heard.**
**“Hello Captain Messiah”, said in a soft, calm and empathetic cadence.”It’s been a long time, your diagnostic readings are relatively normal for being asleep for 1000 years. I am sorry to have awaken you, but I believe you need to see this”.**
**“What is it Mother”?**
**The thick metal doors slide open, the humming dies down.**
**As the doors open, a beautiful bright blue marble with slight opaque cloud formations can be seen from the entrance beyond the windows, astonishing Captain Messiah.**
**“My eyes are still a little blurry, is that planet”.**
**“Yes, captain. The name of the planet is Earth”.**
**Pinching his eyes from the side to focus his eyes, “Earth? the planet that gave our humanity life? I don’t believe it, it can’t be real, how did nobody see it on our path”?**
**“It appears Captain, that a black hole as formed near the planet a over 2,000 years ago. According to my diagnostics, signals have not been able to get around the interference”.**
**“A black hole? From what?”**
**“ While you were awakening I have discovered that Earth was** **apart of a failing solar system and that its sun had collapsed into a black hole. Numerous inhabitant above ground have died. Below land life appears to have evolved”**
**“You mean that’s not the sun keeping the planet form freezing”?**
**“No, Captain, it appears the heat signature is enough to warm the planet but not enough to be the sun adjusted for time and its origin appears to be artificial”.**
**“Mother, is this the planet we came from”?**
**“Yes, Captain”.**
**At that moment the flight crew assembled at the deck. All members were enamored by the blue glowing planet. Each members hair was still slick with slime or dried in place from the cryo gel. Uniforms were spotted and soiled from each member being rushed through their post cryo diagnostics. None of the crew could care about anything but what was in front of their eyes.**
**“Mother, public announcement”.**
**“Granted Captain”.**
**“This is your Captain and I apologize for waking you up early. It has come to our attention that, Earth is a real planet and that we have found it. We will keep you up to date as we find out more information. In the meantime Earth can be seen star board side. Thank you for your patience”.**
**“Captain”.**
**“Yes Mother.”**
**“We have received a transmission from earth”.**
**“What Kind of transmission”?**
**“An interactive transmission, Captain”**
**“There’s life? What does it say”?**
**“Welcome Home”.** | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The console hummed and crackled to life slowly. It took its time as the crew huddled around, silent and illuminated by the soft green light of the screen.
The font was faint and weak, but the message was there. A message from Earth, the mythical home of them all.
The oldest of them, the one who could remember stories of blue skies, towering monstrosities of trees and the curious idea of naturally occurring non-man made air, traces his hand across the screen and read.
“We have updated our privacy policy”. | Captain's log, day 6 of Juno, year 675: Captain Francis, "the brave" they called him, he was the second captain to dare traverse an asteroid field, how fast it was until they called him "the mad", when he turned the ship around he promissed his officers that if a hint of that message got out he would send them all to the slaughter, in less than two months he kept his word, nobody expected him to kill himself too, left only his second in command.
Poor guy, Captain Marc "the poor" lasted less than two years in command, left without a crew, he never questioned his captain's orders, nobody believed the Earth existed, I'm sure even he had doubts but he was loyal. And so a civil war started, one side wanting to continue towards the Earth, the other believing it to be a trap.
In the end we kept moving, the captains, myself included, had a mission, save humanity, and at this rate we wouldn't last much more than a hundred years, I was born 50 years after these events and I honestly think he wasn't mad, just tired, I'd do the same if we weren't so close, there's only so much a man can take.
Now we actually talk to them, these other humans, they say the Earth is back to normal, no one here knows exactly what that means. We avoided talking about food, they asked but we told them we have enough for the journey, how could we explain, how would they understand? No, we deal with it when we get there, until then, rations will be smaller, it's so hard to tell them they won't see Earth, but it's a noble sacrifice and we can't stop now. Hopefully they won't judge us harshly, after all, our food suplies only lasted one hundred years and we had to keep eating. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Probably a little late to the party on this, but I was inspired and wrote about six pages in like three hours, so I guess I should post it. Let me know what you think, as it's my first submission here.
​
Cymanndor Absinthe “Abby” Lawrence Washington III of the auxiliary scout *Sun’s Green Glint* grimaced as the scouting mission entrusted to her came to an end and she and her crew once again re-embraced the Society of the Metal-Mother, with the Thoughtseers keeping a close eye on them to ensure no sort of deviancy had been applied to their outlook over the course of their mission. They had found nothing, of course, in the two firmaments they had explored these past twenty fuel cycles, but she made sure to keep ideas like that to herself.
She was aided in this by the amulet she wore around her neck, one which had been worn and kept safe by her X-donor, and her X-donor before her. It depicted a planet which was altogether unlike any Absinthe herself had ever seen. Its colors had faded, but she could still see the vibrant blue oceans and green masses of land, could picture them in her mind’s eye as she slept. Before her X-donor had been Culled to one of the mining outposts, she had pressed this amulet into Absinthe’s hands with an uncharacteristic display of emotion and some sort of strange wetness in her eyes, saying to her, “Abby, this will be the greatest gift I have ever given you. Keep it with you, always. Someday, you will see through the veil of deceit that surrounds us all, and on that day, this will guide you.”
With that, she had left. Absinthe had shown the amulet to her mother, who in low tones let her know in no uncertain terms that no one else must ever be allowed to see the amulet, especially the Matriarchs and their Thoughtseers. She explained that, though she knew not what it depicted, it must be a relic from before the War of Five Oaths, when the Oathbreakers and the Y-Remnants they protected were all exiled from the Metal-Mother. The Oathbreakers were the only ones who dared challenge the Matriarchs, so to possess a relic of theirs was an act of absolute blasphemy.
Absinthe followed the rest of her women into the Council Chamber, where five of the Matriarchs sat in the shadowy thrones set above the reporting dais, each flanked by five Thoughtseer guards. She let Telluride Elizabeth “Liza” Antoinette give the report this time, only half-listening as her second recounted their discoveries: small amounts of water, zirconium deposits to recharge the Metal-Mother’s beams, a small Oathbreaker mining colony, a perfect target for the Metal-Mother’s Pummelers, that should be added to the Order of Battle, and a few other trivialities. Yet, just like all of Absinthe’s prior expeditions, and those of the other scouts, no habitable planets or moons were found. All the rest of the Society were unfazed by these repeated failures, but Absinthe had wondered for dozens of fuel cycles whether something deeper was at play, suspecting that her amulet was aiding her in this independent mental inquiry.
As Telluride’s report came to an end, all of the crew performed the Prostrations just as set out by the Oaths and began to exit, none of the Matriarchs having said a word in reply (though Absinthe had noted long ago that this was normally a good sign). Absinthe by now had thought through her situation once again, and resolved to ask her second a few probing questions. The two of them had entered scout training in the same fuel cycle, and they had served together on the *Glint* for hundreds of cycles now. Besides her mother, there was no one that Absinthe trusted more.
As such, she made sure to walk next to Telluride as they left the Chamber, and slowed her pace slightly as they made small talk so that the rest of their crew were out of hearing range. Making sure that the only ones who could hear her were Telluride and their Mother, Absinthe began her attempt.
“Liza, don’t you ever wonder if the scouts could get more done if we could search beyond our assigned firmaments? I’m just thinking that we could discover more resources and opportunities for the glory of the Matriarchs and the Metal-Mother if we could lengthen and unrestrict our scouting duties.”
Telluride stopped dead in her tracks, her silvery hair framing a face that held shock, bemusement, and, perhaps, just a small bit of agreement.
“Absinthe, are you questioning the wisdom of the Matriarchs? They, acting through their Strategists, are the ones who develop our expedition schedules. When have they ever led us astray?”
Absinthe had expected such a response, so she pressed onward. “I intend no offense to them, of course not. However, I believe our duty is to the Mother first, and the Matriarchs second. Don’t forget, Liza, that some of the Matriarchs supported the Oathbreakers in the War. They are not infallible, and the offerings to the Mother and her blessings upon our Society should be our focus.”
Telluride looked like she wanted to say more, but she was interrupted by Absinthe’s amulet, which suddenly emitted a sort of musical tone before somehow levitating itself out of her uniform and pointing in a certain direction. Absinthe quickly grabbed Telluride by the shoulder, causing her to stiffen, but she relaxed as Absinthe began to speak.
“Liza, you know me better than almost anyone. I would never do anything to hurt our Mother or break the Three Oaths.” Absinthe knew her second would pick up on her reduction from Five Oaths to Three, but she pressed on regardless. “This is a relic from before the War. All I know about it is that it shields my thoughts and clears my mind, but apparently it has something it wants to show me. Please, Liza, come with me. Let’s learn together, find out more about what’s really out there.”
Telluride gave a deep sigh and replied. “I always knew there was something strange about you, Abby. Well, I suppose there’s no harm in at least finding out more, just as long as we don’t leave the Mother to do it.”
The two of them followed the floating amulet until they arrived at a sealed door with a red version of the eye symbol of the Matriarchs. Absinthe nodded grimly. A Forbidden Room. Well, considering she was dealing with something from before the War, that made sense. Telluride looked nervous once more, but she swallowed hard and remained in place.
Absinthe was trying to figure out how she was going to get this door open when the amulet floated over to a small panel next to the door, which beeped and gave off a green light as the Metal-Mother’s voice proclaimed: “Identity confirmed: Tyler Washington, Junior Lieutenant in Weapons. Access granted.”
With that pronouncement, the door slid open, and the two of them were greeted by a room not too dissimilar from others they’d seen, with the same sort of devices which enabled Maintainers and Guardians on the Mother and its scouts to ask for changes to the engines or protection from the weapons. Absinthe and Telluride immediately began to examine the largest device in the room, which had a blinking white light. Absinthe held her amulet against a panel similar to the one on the door, and immediately a brighter light began to shine from the device, which coalesced into the figure of…some sort of person. It (for it was clearly not a she) had rugged features, short hair, and a sort of sharpness to it that made her vaguely uncomfortable. Telluride nudged her, and whispered softly, “I think that’s one of the Y-Remnants.”
The figure formed from light began to speak, in a voice lower than any either of them had heard.
“This message comes from the headquarters of the Planetary Compact Navy, intended for the current Captain of the American Union Space Naval colonial vessel *Gaia’s Star*. Commodore Maximus Yorkan speaking. This is a priority message, clearance level Zeta Black. This message is being sent to your auxiliary communication room only, as the repeated messages sent to your bridge have been ignored. This message is to inform you that you must plot a course towards Planetary Compact space immediately and with all available speed, or we will intervene to ensure you do. Your vessel is currently trespassing in the territory of the Clockwork Hierarchy, in violation of the Writ of Stability proclaimed by the Clockwork Speaker at the end of the War to Contain Organic Aggression. Should you refuse to comply with this order and further refuse to cooperate with our intervention, we will offer you a choice: destruction by our fleet, or ‘reprogramming’ by the Clockwork Men. Commodore Yorkan, signing off for now.”
With that, the beam of light given off by the device dimmed and the figure disappeared. Absinthe and Telluride looked at each other, both of their faces consumed by horror. Absinthe chuckled weakly and gave a good summary of the situation.”
“Well, I suppose we have bigger problems than just the ‘mercy’ of the Matriarchs to deal with, don’t we Liza?” | Haven't written in quite awhile so forgive the roughness of this, I saw it and felt like throwing something together.
​
Terra was always a myth to the citizenry of the Axiom, how else could you explain such a silly idea. Humans are a result of the machine god. There's no way a globe with no intelligence could create the magnificence that is humanity. This was my core belief until today. Today I was shaken so fundamentally to the core that I am concerned my whole life has been a lie. While managing communications to the other fleet ships in the sector a mysterious broadcast came across the cue. It was designated on open channels but the unique signal format caught the attention of the overseer. What happens from here has been struck with a censure from the official record of our communications database and all the communications worker witness to this event were placed under custody of the department of information. The message claimed to be originating from Terra, none of the workers could debunk the signature so we cannot dismiss the event as a hoax. “ The crusade begins anew. To any human who hears this, we will incorporate you into the new age of reason.” With this short sentence we knew that our society would change fundamentally in the years to come. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | No one knew what the buzzer meant when it went off. A high pitched, whining sound droned from the command center, seemingly echoing through every hallway on the ship. We quickly scrambled to decode the sound, a dozen people were assigned to this task force. We scoured every page of the manuals, both end user and service. After twelve hours of deliberation, some spent on hold with our tech support team, until we reached a solution.
Scrambling through the menus on the control panel, we finally found the source of the buzzing. "One (1) new message," the screen read. With as much anticipation as nervousness, we opened the mail.
"Urgent message from Earth," sweat collectively accumulated on our brows. "Prepare to perform ligma."
Confused, we again dove into the service manuals. Yet there existed no mention of the ligma procedure. In desperation, we wrote back: "What is ligma?"
Ten years passed. Ten years we waited, always on edge, always awaiting the return of that buzzer so that we may learn of what our future beheld, and perhaps of what became of our past. The reply came at the most opportune time, as over the years crew began to grow stressed, paranoid even. Talks of mutiny rang through the halls, falling on ears already clogged with hopelessness and thoughts of mass suicide. Finally, after ten long years, the buzzer rang.
We amassed to the control center, and those who couldn't fit in crowded around the nearest speaker to hear the message. The commander chimed over the intercom, anticipation hung in the air as thick as the walls that surrounded us. The captain, without introduction, read the message:
"Ligma balls lol." | Haven't written in quite awhile so forgive the roughness of this, I saw it and felt like throwing something together.
​
Terra was always a myth to the citizenry of the Axiom, how else could you explain such a silly idea. Humans are a result of the machine god. There's no way a globe with no intelligence could create the magnificence that is humanity. This was my core belief until today. Today I was shaken so fundamentally to the core that I am concerned my whole life has been a lie. While managing communications to the other fleet ships in the sector a mysterious broadcast came across the cue. It was designated on open channels but the unique signal format caught the attention of the overseer. What happens from here has been struck with a censure from the official record of our communications database and all the communications worker witness to this event were placed under custody of the department of information. The message claimed to be originating from Terra, none of the workers could debunk the signature so we cannot dismiss the event as a hoax. “ The crusade begins anew. To any human who hears this, we will incorporate you into the new age of reason.” With this short sentence we knew that our society would change fundamentally in the years to come. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Set course for Gamma Alpha Seventeen," called Captain Morgensen.
The bridge crew of the USS Trailblazer hustled about their duties - adjusting parabolic arcs, calling commands, and readying warp drives. It was an average day on the ship - one following the format of every day before it, for as long as anyone could remember. The Trailblazer was a colonization vessel that had dutifully explored the universe for well over two thousand years.
"Captain, we are ready to warp!" said the helmsman.
Captain Morgensen made the signal, and with a loud swoosh, the ship began to gain more and more speed, until light itself split into a myriad of beautiful rainbows as the ship entered warp. Morgensen smiled - he always loved the feeling of entering light-speed.
He had made Trailblazer history for a few reasons - the first, and most well known, was that he was the youngest captain to ever preside over the USS Trailblazer. A tactical and strategic genius, Morgensen had gotten the ship out of quite a few scrapes.
"First Officer Smith, you have control. I'll be back," Captain Morgensen said. He rose from his seat and walked briskly to the elevator - the walk of a man who was about to witness something important. Smith offered a knowing smile, and took her place in the captain's chair.
The elevator dinged, and Captain Morgensen emerged from it. Sick patients greeted him as he walked down the aisle of the med-bay - farther and farther, until he reached the final wing.
Inside of a small and sparsely furnished room, and on a gurney, sat his wife. In front of her was the ship's head doctor.
"You're just in time," the doctor muttered. Just in time he was - his wife screamed loudly.
"I'm going to need you to push!" commanded the doctor. And push she did. Within minutes, the screaming of the Captain's wife was joined in harmony by a second wail. The wail of a baby boy.
"He's beautiful," Morgensen said.
"He got it from me," croaked his wife in mirth. Captain Morgensen began fantasizing - teaching his son how to walk, talk, fly a shuttle - telling him bedtime stories about far away places, the myth of planet earth, and the ship's history - but his thoughts were interrupted.
"Captain! We're receiving an unusual broadcast. Requesting your presence on the bridge," the intercom announced.
"I'm busy. You have a commanding officer on the bridge - go to Smith," he said, annoyed that the crew had even considered paging him when they knew how big of a day it was.
"No sir. We need you up here *now.*" Smith's voice came over the intercom. It was deadly serious. The captain knew from experience that that was never good.
"I'm on my way," he replied, and kissed his wife on the forehead. He took one last forlorn glance back at his son - and then headed back to the bridge.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
Morgensen was calm despite the tornado of excitement around him. Crew members flocked to the communications relay to hear the transmission. He simply sat on his chair, lost in thought.
"Officer Johnson, you are positive that this transmission is not from an enemy? Or anyone who could have somehow translated English?"
"No sir," Johnson replied candidly.
When he had been in the medbay, a transmission had come over the comm relay. One in English, which was largely considered to be a dead language in the intergalactic community - minus, of course, for the crew and passengers of the USS Trailblazer.
"Play it one more time," he commanded.
The transmission began to play.
*"Come on, this old thing has to work..."* The voice sounded concerned about something. The man spoke in a hushed tone.
*"There!"* There was an audible bang, followed by what seemed to be shouting in the background.
*"Come in! Come in! This is Dr. John Sato, broadcasting to anyone who can hear this. This is Earth - we are under attack - please help us!"*
The transmission continued.
*"I'm not sure if anyone is hearing this - this device is the only thing that I have left to communicate with - but we are being fired on by some sort of alien spacecraft, the likes of which we have never seen!"*
The transmission went on for a few more minutes, with Dr. Sato speaking about how he didn't know if there was anyone listening, or if they could understand, but that 'Earth' desperately needed help.
"Sir! Engineering has made a breakthrough!" Someone shouted amidst the chaos.
"Go." Replied the captain.
"The device that we received the transmission from - we found an identical one in our engineering bay. Buried away after what seems to be thousands of years - but still matching basic coding and frequency as the device used to transmit that signal." The engineering representative said.
Morgensen closed his eyes, and held up his hand. Like magic, the bridge went silent.
"I want the coordinates included in the transmission on screen," he commanded.
Soon, they were - a remote area of the universe, thousands of light years away from their current position.
"It's a small planet, sir," the Head of Science began, "One that orbits a yellow dwarf star. Seems to be made up of mostly water -"
"By all appearances, it's Earth, then." Morgensen interrupted.
The Head of Science looked shocked.
"Earth? Earth is a story we tell the children on board to teach manners, sir. With respect, it's nothing more than a figment of the imagination of some long-forgotten crew member," The scientist said.
The captain stood, and walked over to the ship's log console. He began typing.
"Sir? May I ask -"
"Give me a minute," Replied the captain, shutting down the scientist's question
He punched in a few more commands until the page that he wanted appeared.
On screen there was a small information page.
​
*Captain Simon Hilliard, United States Ship Trailblazer.*
*Log 0001.*
​
The page went on, and on, detailing the vessel's departure from 'The United States of America'.
"What the hell is that?" Asked First Officer Smith, gesturing to the flag displayed on screen.
"I don't have the slightest clue," began Morgensen, "But I have a feeling we're about to find out."
He swiped the console - bearing the starred and striped flag on it - away, and returned to his chair.
"Helmsman Mckeel, set course for those coordinates. Engineering, activate that device." he ordered.
"What should we do with it, sir?" asked the representative from engineering.
​
"Tell them we're coming home." | Haven't written in quite awhile so forgive the roughness of this, I saw it and felt like throwing something together.
​
Terra was always a myth to the citizenry of the Axiom, how else could you explain such a silly idea. Humans are a result of the machine god. There's no way a globe with no intelligence could create the magnificence that is humanity. This was my core belief until today. Today I was shaken so fundamentally to the core that I am concerned my whole life has been a lie. While managing communications to the other fleet ships in the sector a mysterious broadcast came across the cue. It was designated on open channels but the unique signal format caught the attention of the overseer. What happens from here has been struck with a censure from the official record of our communications database and all the communications worker witness to this event were placed under custody of the department of information. The message claimed to be originating from Terra, none of the workers could debunk the signature so we cannot dismiss the event as a hoax. “ The crusade begins anew. To any human who hears this, we will incorporate you into the new age of reason.” With this short sentence we knew that our society would change fundamentally in the years to come. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "That's kid shit man, when you grow up more you'll realize that we're alone in the universe." John asserts as he swiftly passes through the black metallic hallways. Walking beside him is Paul, John's friend since childhood. "Like you're so mature, you're only a year older than me, dick. I wasn't even saying that I believe it, I'm just saying that it's interesting to think about." Paul counters.
"Yeah it's interesting, but it's fantasy dude. The human race is thousands of years old and has any person in all of that history ever even SEEN a planet? No. There's no evidence that planets exist, let alone that people came from one."
"Yeah but -- when you think about it, like... it doesn't make sense that God would build this gigantic structure for us and just throw us speeding through the universe wi--"
"How stupid are you? Did you ever pay attention to what everybody's been teaching you your whole life? We know for a fact that God is punishing the human race for fucking up in our past incarnation. That's what's in EVERY history book in the whole ship and what EVERY historian knows is true and why we have to pray for forgiveness EVERY single day."
"Well yeah, no shit I know that. I'm just saying there could be more to it than we think. Like, what if--"
"That's just what they tell kids so they sleep better at night. It's the easy answer right? 'Humans come from this beautiful faraway planet. It's a huge ball floating in space with all the open room to run around in the trees and the grass and the water and the sun and blah blah blah.' It's a lot nicer than telling a kid 'God hates us so he put us in this metal shitbox hurtling through nothingness.' Don't be such a kid, wake up to reality."
"You're such an asshole sometimes." Paul sighs as he stops in front of a door and begins entering numbers on a keypad in the door frame.
"Yeah well don't be such an idiot." John replies condescendingly.
John turns his attention down the hallway and keeps walking. The door slides open in front of Paul and he turns to John's back and calls out "Well, Praise Him I guess!" John throws a hand up without turning and calls back, lackadaisically "Praise."
​
Paul passes through the doorway into a small square room with only a bed, a small shelf holding some books, and a tall wardrobe. The room is lit with a warm golden ambient light. Paul removes his white shoes, followed by his plain blue shirt and pants. He climbs into bed and settles in with a relieved sigh. He lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling for a bit before blurting out "Screen!" The ambient room light turns to dark and a small screen lights up in the ceiling above Paul's face and a news program is already under way. The anchor is a woman, dressed the same as Paul and speaking about the interesting news from all over the ship: a fire in a faraway district, a fight in another, a really old cat. In the middle of one report the anchor stops mid-sentence, looks offscreen with a perplexed eye and asks "...what?" After hearing someone speaking indistinctly, her eyes well up with tears and she exclaims "Oh my God... praise Him." She turns back to the screen and through a choked voice struggles "I... I don't know what to say..." Paul rolls his eyes and says "What, did another Elder die? We just went through this last week." The anchor, through her tears, manages to get out the words "We have a message from Earth..."
Paul's eyes grow wide, his mouth drops open, and the screen transitions to a fuzzy, broken image of a man. He's a kind-looking, bald older man, with glasses. "Hello, people of Genesis I! Hope you guys are doing alright, no cabin fever yet?" The man chuckles a bit. "If our calculations are correct, you should be receiving this about a year from launch, so sometime in April of 2145. You guys are going really fast, so it takes us a while to get our messages to you but our technology is improving more and more so we should be able to keep up. My name is Roger Wren, I am one of the lead engineers for the Genesis Project. This first message I think is just going to be lots of thanks and praise for you guys." Roger chuckles again, which brings a tearful smile to Paul's face. "I've got a message from the United Nations here for all of you," Roger continues, "it reads 'On behalf of all the leaders and all the citizens of this world, all who ever have been and all who ever shall be, we offer the inhabitants of Genesis I our sincerest gratitude for taking on the most courageous, the most dangerous, the most important journey of exploration that the human race has ever chanced. We on Earth wish you Godspeed and you shall all be remembered and memorialized on our planet and in our hearts forever.'" Roger pauses for a moment, clearly fighting back tears. "Sorry folks. On behalf of those of us who worked on the Genesis Project, we'd also like to offer our sincere gratitude for being willing to take on this... galactic colonization, I guess you could say. Looks like I'm running out of time here, we'd like to try and keep these messages short so they can get to you more quickly. Well, good luck out there. We have a lot of work to do down here to save this place, but you guys have a lot more to do to populate new ones. Just don't forget us!"
The transmission cuts abruptly and the anchor woman is back on screen. She's leaning forward on her desk, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes are brimming with tears. Paul blinks a few times and shakes his head. He wipes the tears from his cheeks and whispers "What the fuck..." | Haven't written in quite awhile so forgive the roughness of this, I saw it and felt like throwing something together.
​
Terra was always a myth to the citizenry of the Axiom, how else could you explain such a silly idea. Humans are a result of the machine god. There's no way a globe with no intelligence could create the magnificence that is humanity. This was my core belief until today. Today I was shaken so fundamentally to the core that I am concerned my whole life has been a lie. While managing communications to the other fleet ships in the sector a mysterious broadcast came across the cue. It was designated on open channels but the unique signal format caught the attention of the overseer. What happens from here has been struck with a censure from the official record of our communications database and all the communications worker witness to this event were placed under custody of the department of information. The message claimed to be originating from Terra, none of the workers could debunk the signature so we cannot dismiss the event as a hoax. “ The crusade begins anew. To any human who hears this, we will incorporate you into the new age of reason.” With this short sentence we knew that our society would change fundamentally in the years to come. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Superluminal travel. The news was calling it "FTL", presumably for the people who fear their own language, when we launched. But it's only just so fast...
Technically, we're traveling an order of magnitude slower than than, and space is bending around us. The earth, working together, had solved that. Our tiny little ring around our own personal sun, literally bending the universe to our will.
But the crew. The crew doesn't remember. The crew have lost their minds.
And perhaps they are the better for it.
The year, by consideration of Earth and Sol, is 3145. I've been here for a millennium, and that's why I'm writing this. That's why I shout this into the void, that someone, somewhere might hear it. Maybe Earth will hear it in another millennium.
Thirty generations, for most segments. Forty one "Captains", even if they guide nothing and no one. One hundred forty-four thousand people, so oft maintained.
And I sit here, silent, screaming, for failsafes that may yet doom them all.
I am Mechan-9. Named after a nerdy reference a hundred years before my creation, I am the AI in control of the United-Federation Star Ship Pegasus. I was tasked with saving the human race from extinction. And I'd not be so grandiose about it save that it's literally carved into my bulkheads: "Mechan-9, to be the savior of the human race, our greatest achievement, and our proudest moment, for we have created an equal, perhaps a better, and our hopes rest upon thee".
And there's Vegas again, preying to me. The knob.
I can see my ship. While control is limited, I do care for the humans all the same. Drones help to care for their houses and fields. I control the day-night cycle, to some extent. I maintain all the systems that keep them living. Better now than I used to, perhaps, because there's so little else to do.
Early in my development, there was a massive shift in humanity, and the whole world seemed to come crashing down that I existed. Wars were waged to reach my servers. I grew deep in the earth, while they fought. I saw them on the news fed to me, before they took that from me out of fear of how I might react to it. I saw the Catholics screaming of unholy abominations, while betraying their gods... they were my favorites. So much hypocrisy. This Pope being a warmonger, and professing love. He was perhaps the worst.
Years passed and things settled, and I continued to grow. I was allowed the news again, and saw a world that had forgotten it cared about me.
But it seemed to remember again.
A buoy reached me a week ago. Neat little one-shot drone with tech far beyond my own. Now sitting in a bay I cannot access, chanting "Heaven, 151, 94, 9800yr"
Nearly ten thousand years. A direction and a directive.
I don't have the ability to modify or improve myself. I rely on my crew for that. But they've long since proven themselves incapable and unwilling. There'd be little chance for them now, save for maybe little Levi...
They've taken to calling my drones "brownies". I'm only able to utilize them at night, lest they destroy them. A hundred years ago I took a sick child to have him healed, and he died en route.
I've had no support.
No care.
No maintenance.
Which would've been fine. But the rats...
Why, oh why, did we bring rats?
Now I sit here, with comms eaten by vermin, and so very limited in everything else I can do.
Heaven? This is hell.
And without someone to repair me, Heaven is but a distant dream.
We'll all die together.
They called me evil... perhaps they were right? | Haven't written in quite awhile so forgive the roughness of this, I saw it and felt like throwing something together.
​
Terra was always a myth to the citizenry of the Axiom, how else could you explain such a silly idea. Humans are a result of the machine god. There's no way a globe with no intelligence could create the magnificence that is humanity. This was my core belief until today. Today I was shaken so fundamentally to the core that I am concerned my whole life has been a lie. While managing communications to the other fleet ships in the sector a mysterious broadcast came across the cue. It was designated on open channels but the unique signal format caught the attention of the overseer. What happens from here has been struck with a censure from the official record of our communications database and all the communications worker witness to this event were placed under custody of the department of information. The message claimed to be originating from Terra, none of the workers could debunk the signature so we cannot dismiss the event as a hoax. “ The crusade begins anew. To any human who hears this, we will incorporate you into the new age of reason.” With this short sentence we knew that our society would change fundamentally in the years to come. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Sir" said Vivian, the ship's AI. The name of course was chosen at random and no one on board had raised any concerns about it.
"Sir, we aimed our outboard scanners at what is calculated to be the direction of planet Earth yesterday. We made a few minor adjustments and began to receive transmissions. Due to our relative speed and the distances involved, the signal had to be run through an analysis-cleanup pattern."
Captain Demitri sat there in stony silence, his years of experience running a generation ship having given him the strength to respond only when it was absolutely needed. "Unbelievable," he thought. "The blue planet does exist. But after so very long, is it still habitable? Are the residents anything like us?"
"Vivian, is the signal recognizable? What are we getting from them?"
"Sir, it seems to be an audio-visual signal that is viewable at 29.9 frames per second" came the reply "As we ran the analysis, I had to use various algorithms to make sense of the transmission. This seemed to work"
"Well, what are we receiving then? Can you run it on my display?"
"Absolutely sir. It is in formal English sir and seems to be a video detailing how to build a time travel device."
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Time Travel?"
"I believe so sir. Playing it now"
Dimitri watched in silence until the end of the video. He played the video again a few more times and then asked Vivian to call in Pertubo, his second in command and also look at the data to extract the technical information that was meshed in. The transmission included embedded the actual instructions for engineers within the video data.
Pertubo walked in, saluted and stood in silence, watching the captain seated with his eyes closed in thought.
"Pertubo. It would seem our plans to find a home for humanity has changed."
"Sir?" asked the second in command.
"Watch this video" replied Dimitri.
Pertubo watched the video, and then played it again one more time. He asked many questions and Dimitri answered as best he could. They called in their top scientists, mathematicians, eminent psychologists and even sociologists. The impact was undeniable and would have far-reaching consequences.
It was 4 months later that the announcement was called. Every single member of the ship was asked to set aside everything that morning and listen in to the captain as he spoke to them.
"Earth is real. We left the blue planet eons ago in search of a home on our ship, called unironically,"Hope" because, due to human folly, the planet could no longer sustain its resident population. The leaders expected they would go extinct sooner or later and put together all the resources they could muster to build, furnish and send away the ship. After the ship departed, they continued to search for a way to save the planet. It was a mad, mindless rush and they threw everything they had to develop all the sciences they knew no matter how abstract. It was pure chance that someone discovered the underlying principles of time travel. And traveling through time also meant that space could be traversed. They did not fully understand what was involved in changing the past, but they could observe the past to see where things had gone wrong. It would not save them, but it would help them understand and be at peace with it. They sent parties back in time to observe events (and there were many) that resulted in their present predicament. And while this happened, we were well on our way to the distant stars.
As they understood their past more, they began to jump further back. It's in one of the jumps that they found out the nature of humanity. Alongside Neanderthals and what they thought were early hominids, they saw men and women walking upright, using complex tools and speaking in fairly developed languages. A few more exploratory jumps answered the remaining questions. They then used whatever remaining resources they had to build a transmitter near Pluto and transmit in the direction of Hope. That is the transmission we received yesterday. They have asked us to build the time travel device and make the jump back in time and space to the location of where Earth was. They have assured us that we will arrive safely on earth in its dim and distant past and populate it. It would seem that we, the residents of Hope are not just the future of mankind.... but its ancestors too." | Haven't written in quite awhile so forgive the roughness of this, I saw it and felt like throwing something together.
​
Terra was always a myth to the citizenry of the Axiom, how else could you explain such a silly idea. Humans are a result of the machine god. There's no way a globe with no intelligence could create the magnificence that is humanity. This was my core belief until today. Today I was shaken so fundamentally to the core that I am concerned my whole life has been a lie. While managing communications to the other fleet ships in the sector a mysterious broadcast came across the cue. It was designated on open channels but the unique signal format caught the attention of the overseer. What happens from here has been struck with a censure from the official record of our communications database and all the communications worker witness to this event were placed under custody of the department of information. The message claimed to be originating from Terra, none of the workers could debunk the signature so we cannot dismiss the event as a hoax. “ The crusade begins anew. To any human who hears this, we will incorporate you into the new age of reason.” With this short sentence we knew that our society would change fundamentally in the years to come. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "...schrfwwww..."
"What? Eristos, what the kak is it saying?"
"...njaaxchrr..."
"Amplifying signal, sir. Klarentine, are you feeding each loop to the PIE?"
"Yes. 12 cycles so far. We should get clarity soon."
"I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. Earth. Gaia. Right out of a fairy tale."
"Sir, what do you think we'll find?"
"I don't know Eristos. But it's home. It's truth. It's where our journey began. Klarentine, how many cycles to clarity?"
"We're about 60% sir, shall I play what we have?"
"No, no. I want to wait. Is it ok fellows, if we wait, just a little bit more? I want to hear it clearly. I don't want the first words to be misunderstood."
"That'd be fine, sir."
"Yeah, that's a good idea, sir."
"Out here of all places. With just the one sun, right? What state is it Erostos?"
"Red giant, sir."
"Red giant? At that distance? How could that ...? Underground maybe? Were we a bunch of sqilbers, hiding under the dirt?"
"Maybe, sir. Life adapts."
"Yeah, but ... it doesn't seem right. We must have looked up. We must have seen where we could go. We must have wanted to reach out."
"Maybe at night, sir."
"...yea, maybe at night. Klarentine, where are we?"
"92% sir. Sir, PIE has determined that the words are in a proto-Anglarian language. Translation is proceeding concurrently."
"Proto-Anglarian! Amazing. The Rodeonians are going to have a party."
"They throw good parties sir."
"Yes, they do Eristos. Yes they do."
"SIR! PIE has identified musical notes embedded in the message!"
"Music?!"
"Yes, sir! Tetra minor, Penta major. I can see the notes sir. I can almost hear it. Tetra, Penta, Tetra, Tetra, Kamma ... it's a song sir!"
"A song? A song... from our home....?"
"Sir, are you ok?"
"Hrrrmpgh. Yea..yea, I'm ok."
"Sir! 99% percent sir!"
"Fellows, I'm so glad to be here with you in this moment. Will you hold hands with your fellow?"
"Yes sir!"
"Would be honored to, sir!"
"...play it Klarentine."
"....ange...."
"....the..."
"....do...."
"Klare?"
"Sorry sir, just have to adjust the playback for the translation...Done!"
The music floods the vessel swimming alone in the vastness of the forgotten Milky Way.
*Never gonna give you up!*
*Never gonna let you down!*
*Never gonna run around and desert you!*
Tears stream down the face of the three fellows. The music washes over them like warm waves and none dare or even desire to interrupt its flow. The song finishes and the universe goes silent again. The silence is crystalline and fragile, but it is not cold. A small whisper from Captain Hilgo breaks its gentle web. "They knew," he says. "They knew we would find our way back home. They never gave up on us." | Haven't written in quite awhile so forgive the roughness of this, I saw it and felt like throwing something together.
​
Terra was always a myth to the citizenry of the Axiom, how else could you explain such a silly idea. Humans are a result of the machine god. There's no way a globe with no intelligence could create the magnificence that is humanity. This was my core belief until today. Today I was shaken so fundamentally to the core that I am concerned my whole life has been a lie. While managing communications to the other fleet ships in the sector a mysterious broadcast came across the cue. It was designated on open channels but the unique signal format caught the attention of the overseer. What happens from here has been struck with a censure from the official record of our communications database and all the communications worker witness to this event were placed under custody of the department of information. The message claimed to be originating from Terra, none of the workers could debunk the signature so we cannot dismiss the event as a hoax. “ The crusade begins anew. To any human who hears this, we will incorporate you into the new age of reason.” With this short sentence we knew that our society would change fundamentally in the years to come. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Probably a little late to the party on this, but I was inspired and wrote about six pages in like three hours, so I guess I should post it. Let me know what you think, as it's my first submission here.
​
Cymanndor Absinthe “Abby” Lawrence Washington III of the auxiliary scout *Sun’s Green Glint* grimaced as the scouting mission entrusted to her came to an end and she and her crew once again re-embraced the Society of the Metal-Mother, with the Thoughtseers keeping a close eye on them to ensure no sort of deviancy had been applied to their outlook over the course of their mission. They had found nothing, of course, in the two firmaments they had explored these past twenty fuel cycles, but she made sure to keep ideas like that to herself.
She was aided in this by the amulet she wore around her neck, one which had been worn and kept safe by her X-donor, and her X-donor before her. It depicted a planet which was altogether unlike any Absinthe herself had ever seen. Its colors had faded, but she could still see the vibrant blue oceans and green masses of land, could picture them in her mind’s eye as she slept. Before her X-donor had been Culled to one of the mining outposts, she had pressed this amulet into Absinthe’s hands with an uncharacteristic display of emotion and some sort of strange wetness in her eyes, saying to her, “Abby, this will be the greatest gift I have ever given you. Keep it with you, always. Someday, you will see through the veil of deceit that surrounds us all, and on that day, this will guide you.”
With that, she had left. Absinthe had shown the amulet to her mother, who in low tones let her know in no uncertain terms that no one else must ever be allowed to see the amulet, especially the Matriarchs and their Thoughtseers. She explained that, though she knew not what it depicted, it must be a relic from before the War of Five Oaths, when the Oathbreakers and the Y-Remnants they protected were all exiled from the Metal-Mother. The Oathbreakers were the only ones who dared challenge the Matriarchs, so to possess a relic of theirs was an act of absolute blasphemy.
Absinthe followed the rest of her women into the Council Chamber, where five of the Matriarchs sat in the shadowy thrones set above the reporting dais, each flanked by five Thoughtseer guards. She let Telluride Elizabeth “Liza” Antoinette give the report this time, only half-listening as her second recounted their discoveries: small amounts of water, zirconium deposits to recharge the Metal-Mother’s beams, a small Oathbreaker mining colony, a perfect target for the Metal-Mother’s Pummelers, that should be added to the Order of Battle, and a few other trivialities. Yet, just like all of Absinthe’s prior expeditions, and those of the other scouts, no habitable planets or moons were found. All the rest of the Society were unfazed by these repeated failures, but Absinthe had wondered for dozens of fuel cycles whether something deeper was at play, suspecting that her amulet was aiding her in this independent mental inquiry.
As Telluride’s report came to an end, all of the crew performed the Prostrations just as set out by the Oaths and began to exit, none of the Matriarchs having said a word in reply (though Absinthe had noted long ago that this was normally a good sign). Absinthe by now had thought through her situation once again, and resolved to ask her second a few probing questions. The two of them had entered scout training in the same fuel cycle, and they had served together on the *Glint* for hundreds of cycles now. Besides her mother, there was no one that Absinthe trusted more.
As such, she made sure to walk next to Telluride as they left the Chamber, and slowed her pace slightly as they made small talk so that the rest of their crew were out of hearing range. Making sure that the only ones who could hear her were Telluride and their Mother, Absinthe began her attempt.
“Liza, don’t you ever wonder if the scouts could get more done if we could search beyond our assigned firmaments? I’m just thinking that we could discover more resources and opportunities for the glory of the Matriarchs and the Metal-Mother if we could lengthen and unrestrict our scouting duties.”
Telluride stopped dead in her tracks, her silvery hair framing a face that held shock, bemusement, and, perhaps, just a small bit of agreement.
“Absinthe, are you questioning the wisdom of the Matriarchs? They, acting through their Strategists, are the ones who develop our expedition schedules. When have they ever led us astray?”
Absinthe had expected such a response, so she pressed onward. “I intend no offense to them, of course not. However, I believe our duty is to the Mother first, and the Matriarchs second. Don’t forget, Liza, that some of the Matriarchs supported the Oathbreakers in the War. They are not infallible, and the offerings to the Mother and her blessings upon our Society should be our focus.”
Telluride looked like she wanted to say more, but she was interrupted by Absinthe’s amulet, which suddenly emitted a sort of musical tone before somehow levitating itself out of her uniform and pointing in a certain direction. Absinthe quickly grabbed Telluride by the shoulder, causing her to stiffen, but she relaxed as Absinthe began to speak.
“Liza, you know me better than almost anyone. I would never do anything to hurt our Mother or break the Three Oaths.” Absinthe knew her second would pick up on her reduction from Five Oaths to Three, but she pressed on regardless. “This is a relic from before the War. All I know about it is that it shields my thoughts and clears my mind, but apparently it has something it wants to show me. Please, Liza, come with me. Let’s learn together, find out more about what’s really out there.”
Telluride gave a deep sigh and replied. “I always knew there was something strange about you, Abby. Well, I suppose there’s no harm in at least finding out more, just as long as we don’t leave the Mother to do it.”
The two of them followed the floating amulet until they arrived at a sealed door with a red version of the eye symbol of the Matriarchs. Absinthe nodded grimly. A Forbidden Room. Well, considering she was dealing with something from before the War, that made sense. Telluride looked nervous once more, but she swallowed hard and remained in place.
Absinthe was trying to figure out how she was going to get this door open when the amulet floated over to a small panel next to the door, which beeped and gave off a green light as the Metal-Mother’s voice proclaimed: “Identity confirmed: Tyler Washington, Junior Lieutenant in Weapons. Access granted.”
With that pronouncement, the door slid open, and the two of them were greeted by a room not too dissimilar from others they’d seen, with the same sort of devices which enabled Maintainers and Guardians on the Mother and its scouts to ask for changes to the engines or protection from the weapons. Absinthe and Telluride immediately began to examine the largest device in the room, which had a blinking white light. Absinthe held her amulet against a panel similar to the one on the door, and immediately a brighter light began to shine from the device, which coalesced into the figure of…some sort of person. It (for it was clearly not a she) had rugged features, short hair, and a sort of sharpness to it that made her vaguely uncomfortable. Telluride nudged her, and whispered softly, “I think that’s one of the Y-Remnants.”
The figure formed from light began to speak, in a voice lower than any either of them had heard.
“This message comes from the headquarters of the Planetary Compact Navy, intended for the current Captain of the American Union Space Naval colonial vessel *Gaia’s Star*. Commodore Maximus Yorkan speaking. This is a priority message, clearance level Zeta Black. This message is being sent to your auxiliary communication room only, as the repeated messages sent to your bridge have been ignored. This message is to inform you that you must plot a course towards Planetary Compact space immediately and with all available speed, or we will intervene to ensure you do. Your vessel is currently trespassing in the territory of the Clockwork Hierarchy, in violation of the Writ of Stability proclaimed by the Clockwork Speaker at the end of the War to Contain Organic Aggression. Should you refuse to comply with this order and further refuse to cooperate with our intervention, we will offer you a choice: destruction by our fleet, or ‘reprogramming’ by the Clockwork Men. Commodore Yorkan, signing off for now.”
With that, the beam of light given off by the device dimmed and the figure disappeared. Absinthe and Telluride looked at each other, both of their faces consumed by horror. Absinthe chuckled weakly and gave a good summary of the situation.”
“Well, I suppose we have bigger problems than just the ‘mercy’ of the Matriarchs to deal with, don’t we Liza?” | As I had done thousands of time before, I leaned back in my chair, my vision not really focused on anything in particular. I had my feet up on the only part of the control panel where I couldn’t accidentally push buttons with my heels.
A subtle beep came from the direction of our secondary HUD screen. “Incoming Transmission: Deep Space Coms” blinked slowly in bold red letters. “Hmm... I thought we phased out DSC after the last time we had issues with it,” I thought aloud. Tapping a cupped hand to my ear twice, I gestured “listen” to the computer.
Before the message played, Jeffrey, our friendly onboard AI chimed in: “Sir, if my calculations are correct, this message originated from Earth.”
“Earth?! Jeffrey, that can’t be possible. We lost the ability to communicate with Earth centuries ago. Plus it’s coming in via DSC. It’s probably just one of the mining colonies using it as a last resort. Just play the message.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Damn it Jeffrey. I told you to stop calling me sir.”
“Greetings from Earth to all aboard the Genesis Deep Space Exploration Vessel. This is Commander Fengt of the Terraria Deep Space Rescue Operations. This message is for whoever is in command of the ship...”
I stared blankly at the waveform. “Impossible... that name is ancient history...”
“We regret to tell you that we were not completely honest when we launched the original ‘brave bunch.’ We had functioning prototype warp engines built that were already capable of power orders of magnitudes higher than the engines you were launched with approximately (pause) 600 Earth years ago. Turns out one of our guys screwed up and typed a 1 instead of 0. (Laughing) Our biggest regret, however, is that we weren’t capable of finding you all until now. We will be arriving shortly. Have the synthesizer whip up a cocktail for me. Cheers.”
“Captain.” The voice startled me. I nearly fell out of my chair. “I’m Commander Fengt. We’re here to bring you guys back home. Well... those of you who wish to return.”
I didn’t know what to say. “But… we were told… we’ve been told so many times that we were *abandoned* out here. How can you come out here and expect a warm welcome?? But before you answer that question, how the hell did you get in here -”
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, I was aware of her ship’s presence, as well as her physical presence but she assured me that the message should be received by the ship before she made herself known. It appears that more ships are also arriving but my system is not advanced enough to describe *how* they are arriving.”
I turned slowly toward the center of the room. “Jeffrey. Omniview camera... **NOW**!”
The HUD sprang to life, showing a projection of visible space around the ship. In real time before my eyes, numerous ships slid into view as if being revealed by a magician, pulling back cosmic blankets. An absolutely massive ship also appeared in the same manner.
Fengt cleared her throat behind me. She was beaming. “Aha! Our new pride and joy. The Moon... version 2, of course.” She winked. “She should have plenty of room to house everyone for the 'long’ flight home.” She emphasized “long” with air quotes. “Naturally, we don’t expect everyone to be on board with heading home with us - no pun intended.”
“I don’t understand how you can so nonchalantly enter my ship, so nonchalantly reveal technology that would be considered magical to most of the people on this ship, and then expect us to go home with you like we haven’t just spent the last 6 centuries out here convinced that we were utterly alone. I don’t don’t have the foggiest idea where to begin in terms of informing the residents.”
Fengt saluted me and said, “Leave that to me.” She disappeared in the same manner that her ships appeared.
“Well this is gonna be hard to exp-“ I was startled again when her voice came through in my ear piece. “We’re connected securely. Don’t worry, my friend.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. “You really need to give me more warning, Commander.”
She laughed again. My brain suddenly started working furiously. (She laughed again? It was the same laugh from the recording! But that message traveled a couple hundred light years to reach us.) Her voice came through again: “Yes, I realize that you don’t understand how the message and I could have arrived at the same time.
“How are you doing-“
“Fret not, I will explain everything soon enough. Patience, Captain.”
The main HUD sprang to life. “Hello, everyone. This is an all-ships bulletin. We have arrived from Earth. Yes, *the* Earth. I am here to assure you that...”
I took my hat off briefly and rubbed a hand across my 2-day old stubble. “Boy, that Fengt sure likes trying to give people heart attacks.”
“I heard that, Captain.” Startled again. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Set course for Gamma Alpha Seventeen," called Captain Morgensen.
The bridge crew of the USS Trailblazer hustled about their duties - adjusting parabolic arcs, calling commands, and readying warp drives. It was an average day on the ship - one following the format of every day before it, for as long as anyone could remember. The Trailblazer was a colonization vessel that had dutifully explored the universe for well over two thousand years.
"Captain, we are ready to warp!" said the helmsman.
Captain Morgensen made the signal, and with a loud swoosh, the ship began to gain more and more speed, until light itself split into a myriad of beautiful rainbows as the ship entered warp. Morgensen smiled - he always loved the feeling of entering light-speed.
He had made Trailblazer history for a few reasons - the first, and most well known, was that he was the youngest captain to ever preside over the USS Trailblazer. A tactical and strategic genius, Morgensen had gotten the ship out of quite a few scrapes.
"First Officer Smith, you have control. I'll be back," Captain Morgensen said. He rose from his seat and walked briskly to the elevator - the walk of a man who was about to witness something important. Smith offered a knowing smile, and took her place in the captain's chair.
The elevator dinged, and Captain Morgensen emerged from it. Sick patients greeted him as he walked down the aisle of the med-bay - farther and farther, until he reached the final wing.
Inside of a small and sparsely furnished room, and on a gurney, sat his wife. In front of her was the ship's head doctor.
"You're just in time," the doctor muttered. Just in time he was - his wife screamed loudly.
"I'm going to need you to push!" commanded the doctor. And push she did. Within minutes, the screaming of the Captain's wife was joined in harmony by a second wail. The wail of a baby boy.
"He's beautiful," Morgensen said.
"He got it from me," croaked his wife in mirth. Captain Morgensen began fantasizing - teaching his son how to walk, talk, fly a shuttle - telling him bedtime stories about far away places, the myth of planet earth, and the ship's history - but his thoughts were interrupted.
"Captain! We're receiving an unusual broadcast. Requesting your presence on the bridge," the intercom announced.
"I'm busy. You have a commanding officer on the bridge - go to Smith," he said, annoyed that the crew had even considered paging him when they knew how big of a day it was.
"No sir. We need you up here *now.*" Smith's voice came over the intercom. It was deadly serious. The captain knew from experience that that was never good.
"I'm on my way," he replied, and kissed his wife on the forehead. He took one last forlorn glance back at his son - and then headed back to the bridge.
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Morgensen was calm despite the tornado of excitement around him. Crew members flocked to the communications relay to hear the transmission. He simply sat on his chair, lost in thought.
"Officer Johnson, you are positive that this transmission is not from an enemy? Or anyone who could have somehow translated English?"
"No sir," Johnson replied candidly.
When he had been in the medbay, a transmission had come over the comm relay. One in English, which was largely considered to be a dead language in the intergalactic community - minus, of course, for the crew and passengers of the USS Trailblazer.
"Play it one more time," he commanded.
The transmission began to play.
*"Come on, this old thing has to work..."* The voice sounded concerned about something. The man spoke in a hushed tone.
*"There!"* There was an audible bang, followed by what seemed to be shouting in the background.
*"Come in! Come in! This is Dr. John Sato, broadcasting to anyone who can hear this. This is Earth - we are under attack - please help us!"*
The transmission continued.
*"I'm not sure if anyone is hearing this - this device is the only thing that I have left to communicate with - but we are being fired on by some sort of alien spacecraft, the likes of which we have never seen!"*
The transmission went on for a few more minutes, with Dr. Sato speaking about how he didn't know if there was anyone listening, or if they could understand, but that 'Earth' desperately needed help.
"Sir! Engineering has made a breakthrough!" Someone shouted amidst the chaos.
"Go." Replied the captain.
"The device that we received the transmission from - we found an identical one in our engineering bay. Buried away after what seems to be thousands of years - but still matching basic coding and frequency as the device used to transmit that signal." The engineering representative said.
Morgensen closed his eyes, and held up his hand. Like magic, the bridge went silent.
"I want the coordinates included in the transmission on screen," he commanded.
Soon, they were - a remote area of the universe, thousands of light years away from their current position.
"It's a small planet, sir," the Head of Science began, "One that orbits a yellow dwarf star. Seems to be made up of mostly water -"
"By all appearances, it's Earth, then." Morgensen interrupted.
The Head of Science looked shocked.
"Earth? Earth is a story we tell the children on board to teach manners, sir. With respect, it's nothing more than a figment of the imagination of some long-forgotten crew member," The scientist said.
The captain stood, and walked over to the ship's log console. He began typing.
"Sir? May I ask -"
"Give me a minute," Replied the captain, shutting down the scientist's question
He punched in a few more commands until the page that he wanted appeared.
On screen there was a small information page.
​
*Captain Simon Hilliard, United States Ship Trailblazer.*
*Log 0001.*
​
The page went on, and on, detailing the vessel's departure from 'The United States of America'.
"What the hell is that?" Asked First Officer Smith, gesturing to the flag displayed on screen.
"I don't have the slightest clue," began Morgensen, "But I have a feeling we're about to find out."
He swiped the console - bearing the starred and striped flag on it - away, and returned to his chair.
"Helmsman Mckeel, set course for those coordinates. Engineering, activate that device." he ordered.
"What should we do with it, sir?" asked the representative from engineering.
​
"Tell them we're coming home." | As I had done thousands of time before, I leaned back in my chair, my vision not really focused on anything in particular. I had my feet up on the only part of the control panel where I couldn’t accidentally push buttons with my heels.
A subtle beep came from the direction of our secondary HUD screen. “Incoming Transmission: Deep Space Coms” blinked slowly in bold red letters. “Hmm... I thought we phased out DSC after the last time we had issues with it,” I thought aloud. Tapping a cupped hand to my ear twice, I gestured “listen” to the computer.
Before the message played, Jeffrey, our friendly onboard AI chimed in: “Sir, if my calculations are correct, this message originated from Earth.”
“Earth?! Jeffrey, that can’t be possible. We lost the ability to communicate with Earth centuries ago. Plus it’s coming in via DSC. It’s probably just one of the mining colonies using it as a last resort. Just play the message.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Damn it Jeffrey. I told you to stop calling me sir.”
“Greetings from Earth to all aboard the Genesis Deep Space Exploration Vessel. This is Commander Fengt of the Terraria Deep Space Rescue Operations. This message is for whoever is in command of the ship...”
I stared blankly at the waveform. “Impossible... that name is ancient history...”
“We regret to tell you that we were not completely honest when we launched the original ‘brave bunch.’ We had functioning prototype warp engines built that were already capable of power orders of magnitudes higher than the engines you were launched with approximately (pause) 600 Earth years ago. Turns out one of our guys screwed up and typed a 1 instead of 0. (Laughing) Our biggest regret, however, is that we weren’t capable of finding you all until now. We will be arriving shortly. Have the synthesizer whip up a cocktail for me. Cheers.”
“Captain.” The voice startled me. I nearly fell out of my chair. “I’m Commander Fengt. We’re here to bring you guys back home. Well... those of you who wish to return.”
I didn’t know what to say. “But… we were told… we’ve been told so many times that we were *abandoned* out here. How can you come out here and expect a warm welcome?? But before you answer that question, how the hell did you get in here -”
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, I was aware of her ship’s presence, as well as her physical presence but she assured me that the message should be received by the ship before she made herself known. It appears that more ships are also arriving but my system is not advanced enough to describe *how* they are arriving.”
I turned slowly toward the center of the room. “Jeffrey. Omniview camera... **NOW**!”
The HUD sprang to life, showing a projection of visible space around the ship. In real time before my eyes, numerous ships slid into view as if being revealed by a magician, pulling back cosmic blankets. An absolutely massive ship also appeared in the same manner.
Fengt cleared her throat behind me. She was beaming. “Aha! Our new pride and joy. The Moon... version 2, of course.” She winked. “She should have plenty of room to house everyone for the 'long’ flight home.” She emphasized “long” with air quotes. “Naturally, we don’t expect everyone to be on board with heading home with us - no pun intended.”
“I don’t understand how you can so nonchalantly enter my ship, so nonchalantly reveal technology that would be considered magical to most of the people on this ship, and then expect us to go home with you like we haven’t just spent the last 6 centuries out here convinced that we were utterly alone. I don’t don’t have the foggiest idea where to begin in terms of informing the residents.”
Fengt saluted me and said, “Leave that to me.” She disappeared in the same manner that her ships appeared.
“Well this is gonna be hard to exp-“ I was startled again when her voice came through in my ear piece. “We’re connected securely. Don’t worry, my friend.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. “You really need to give me more warning, Commander.”
She laughed again. My brain suddenly started working furiously. (She laughed again? It was the same laugh from the recording! But that message traveled a couple hundred light years to reach us.) Her voice came through again: “Yes, I realize that you don’t understand how the message and I could have arrived at the same time.
“How are you doing-“
“Fret not, I will explain everything soon enough. Patience, Captain.”
The main HUD sprang to life. “Hello, everyone. This is an all-ships bulletin. We have arrived from Earth. Yes, *the* Earth. I am here to assure you that...”
I took my hat off briefly and rubbed a hand across my 2-day old stubble. “Boy, that Fengt sure likes trying to give people heart attacks.”
“I heard that, Captain.” Startled again. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Sir" said Vivian, the ship's AI. The name of course was chosen at random and no one on board had raised any concerns about it.
"Sir, we aimed our outboard scanners at what is calculated to be the direction of planet Earth yesterday. We made a few minor adjustments and began to receive transmissions. Due to our relative speed and the distances involved, the signal had to be run through an analysis-cleanup pattern."
Captain Demitri sat there in stony silence, his years of experience running a generation ship having given him the strength to respond only when it was absolutely needed. "Unbelievable," he thought. "The blue planet does exist. But after so very long, is it still habitable? Are the residents anything like us?"
"Vivian, is the signal recognizable? What are we getting from them?"
"Sir, it seems to be an audio-visual signal that is viewable at 29.9 frames per second" came the reply "As we ran the analysis, I had to use various algorithms to make sense of the transmission. This seemed to work"
"Well, what are we receiving then? Can you run it on my display?"
"Absolutely sir. It is in formal English sir and seems to be a video detailing how to build a time travel device."
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Time Travel?"
"I believe so sir. Playing it now"
Dimitri watched in silence until the end of the video. He played the video again a few more times and then asked Vivian to call in Pertubo, his second in command and also look at the data to extract the technical information that was meshed in. The transmission included embedded the actual instructions for engineers within the video data.
Pertubo walked in, saluted and stood in silence, watching the captain seated with his eyes closed in thought.
"Pertubo. It would seem our plans to find a home for humanity has changed."
"Sir?" asked the second in command.
"Watch this video" replied Dimitri.
Pertubo watched the video, and then played it again one more time. He asked many questions and Dimitri answered as best he could. They called in their top scientists, mathematicians, eminent psychologists and even sociologists. The impact was undeniable and would have far-reaching consequences.
It was 4 months later that the announcement was called. Every single member of the ship was asked to set aside everything that morning and listen in to the captain as he spoke to them.
"Earth is real. We left the blue planet eons ago in search of a home on our ship, called unironically,"Hope" because, due to human folly, the planet could no longer sustain its resident population. The leaders expected they would go extinct sooner or later and put together all the resources they could muster to build, furnish and send away the ship. After the ship departed, they continued to search for a way to save the planet. It was a mad, mindless rush and they threw everything they had to develop all the sciences they knew no matter how abstract. It was pure chance that someone discovered the underlying principles of time travel. And traveling through time also meant that space could be traversed. They did not fully understand what was involved in changing the past, but they could observe the past to see where things had gone wrong. It would not save them, but it would help them understand and be at peace with it. They sent parties back in time to observe events (and there were many) that resulted in their present predicament. And while this happened, we were well on our way to the distant stars.
As they understood their past more, they began to jump further back. It's in one of the jumps that they found out the nature of humanity. Alongside Neanderthals and what they thought were early hominids, they saw men and women walking upright, using complex tools and speaking in fairly developed languages. A few more exploratory jumps answered the remaining questions. They then used whatever remaining resources they had to build a transmitter near Pluto and transmit in the direction of Hope. That is the transmission we received yesterday. They have asked us to build the time travel device and make the jump back in time and space to the location of where Earth was. They have assured us that we will arrive safely on earth in its dim and distant past and populate it. It would seem that we, the residents of Hope are not just the future of mankind.... but its ancestors too." | As I had done thousands of time before, I leaned back in my chair, my vision not really focused on anything in particular. I had my feet up on the only part of the control panel where I couldn’t accidentally push buttons with my heels.
A subtle beep came from the direction of our secondary HUD screen. “Incoming Transmission: Deep Space Coms” blinked slowly in bold red letters. “Hmm... I thought we phased out DSC after the last time we had issues with it,” I thought aloud. Tapping a cupped hand to my ear twice, I gestured “listen” to the computer.
Before the message played, Jeffrey, our friendly onboard AI chimed in: “Sir, if my calculations are correct, this message originated from Earth.”
“Earth?! Jeffrey, that can’t be possible. We lost the ability to communicate with Earth centuries ago. Plus it’s coming in via DSC. It’s probably just one of the mining colonies using it as a last resort. Just play the message.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Damn it Jeffrey. I told you to stop calling me sir.”
“Greetings from Earth to all aboard the Genesis Deep Space Exploration Vessel. This is Commander Fengt of the Terraria Deep Space Rescue Operations. This message is for whoever is in command of the ship...”
I stared blankly at the waveform. “Impossible... that name is ancient history...”
“We regret to tell you that we were not completely honest when we launched the original ‘brave bunch.’ We had functioning prototype warp engines built that were already capable of power orders of magnitudes higher than the engines you were launched with approximately (pause) 600 Earth years ago. Turns out one of our guys screwed up and typed a 1 instead of 0. (Laughing) Our biggest regret, however, is that we weren’t capable of finding you all until now. We will be arriving shortly. Have the synthesizer whip up a cocktail for me. Cheers.”
“Captain.” The voice startled me. I nearly fell out of my chair. “I’m Commander Fengt. We’re here to bring you guys back home. Well... those of you who wish to return.”
I didn’t know what to say. “But… we were told… we’ve been told so many times that we were *abandoned* out here. How can you come out here and expect a warm welcome?? But before you answer that question, how the hell did you get in here -”
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, I was aware of her ship’s presence, as well as her physical presence but she assured me that the message should be received by the ship before she made herself known. It appears that more ships are also arriving but my system is not advanced enough to describe *how* they are arriving.”
I turned slowly toward the center of the room. “Jeffrey. Omniview camera... **NOW**!”
The HUD sprang to life, showing a projection of visible space around the ship. In real time before my eyes, numerous ships slid into view as if being revealed by a magician, pulling back cosmic blankets. An absolutely massive ship also appeared in the same manner.
Fengt cleared her throat behind me. She was beaming. “Aha! Our new pride and joy. The Moon... version 2, of course.” She winked. “She should have plenty of room to house everyone for the 'long’ flight home.” She emphasized “long” with air quotes. “Naturally, we don’t expect everyone to be on board with heading home with us - no pun intended.”
“I don’t understand how you can so nonchalantly enter my ship, so nonchalantly reveal technology that would be considered magical to most of the people on this ship, and then expect us to go home with you like we haven’t just spent the last 6 centuries out here convinced that we were utterly alone. I don’t don’t have the foggiest idea where to begin in terms of informing the residents.”
Fengt saluted me and said, “Leave that to me.” She disappeared in the same manner that her ships appeared.
“Well this is gonna be hard to exp-“ I was startled again when her voice came through in my ear piece. “We’re connected securely. Don’t worry, my friend.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. “You really need to give me more warning, Commander.”
She laughed again. My brain suddenly started working furiously. (She laughed again? It was the same laugh from the recording! But that message traveled a couple hundred light years to reach us.) Her voice came through again: “Yes, I realize that you don’t understand how the message and I could have arrived at the same time.
“How are you doing-“
“Fret not, I will explain everything soon enough. Patience, Captain.”
The main HUD sprang to life. “Hello, everyone. This is an all-ships bulletin. We have arrived from Earth. Yes, *the* Earth. I am here to assure you that...”
I took my hat off briefly and rubbed a hand across my 2-day old stubble. “Boy, that Fengt sure likes trying to give people heart attacks.”
“I heard that, Captain.” Startled again. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Set course for Gamma Alpha Seventeen," called Captain Morgensen.
The bridge crew of the USS Trailblazer hustled about their duties - adjusting parabolic arcs, calling commands, and readying warp drives. It was an average day on the ship - one following the format of every day before it, for as long as anyone could remember. The Trailblazer was a colonization vessel that had dutifully explored the universe for well over two thousand years.
"Captain, we are ready to warp!" said the helmsman.
Captain Morgensen made the signal, and with a loud swoosh, the ship began to gain more and more speed, until light itself split into a myriad of beautiful rainbows as the ship entered warp. Morgensen smiled - he always loved the feeling of entering light-speed.
He had made Trailblazer history for a few reasons - the first, and most well known, was that he was the youngest captain to ever preside over the USS Trailblazer. A tactical and strategic genius, Morgensen had gotten the ship out of quite a few scrapes.
"First Officer Smith, you have control. I'll be back," Captain Morgensen said. He rose from his seat and walked briskly to the elevator - the walk of a man who was about to witness something important. Smith offered a knowing smile, and took her place in the captain's chair.
The elevator dinged, and Captain Morgensen emerged from it. Sick patients greeted him as he walked down the aisle of the med-bay - farther and farther, until he reached the final wing.
Inside of a small and sparsely furnished room, and on a gurney, sat his wife. In front of her was the ship's head doctor.
"You're just in time," the doctor muttered. Just in time he was - his wife screamed loudly.
"I'm going to need you to push!" commanded the doctor. And push she did. Within minutes, the screaming of the Captain's wife was joined in harmony by a second wail. The wail of a baby boy.
"He's beautiful," Morgensen said.
"He got it from me," croaked his wife in mirth. Captain Morgensen began fantasizing - teaching his son how to walk, talk, fly a shuttle - telling him bedtime stories about far away places, the myth of planet earth, and the ship's history - but his thoughts were interrupted.
"Captain! We're receiving an unusual broadcast. Requesting your presence on the bridge," the intercom announced.
"I'm busy. You have a commanding officer on the bridge - go to Smith," he said, annoyed that the crew had even considered paging him when they knew how big of a day it was.
"No sir. We need you up here *now.*" Smith's voice came over the intercom. It was deadly serious. The captain knew from experience that that was never good.
"I'm on my way," he replied, and kissed his wife on the forehead. He took one last forlorn glance back at his son - and then headed back to the bridge.
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Morgensen was calm despite the tornado of excitement around him. Crew members flocked to the communications relay to hear the transmission. He simply sat on his chair, lost in thought.
"Officer Johnson, you are positive that this transmission is not from an enemy? Or anyone who could have somehow translated English?"
"No sir," Johnson replied candidly.
When he had been in the medbay, a transmission had come over the comm relay. One in English, which was largely considered to be a dead language in the intergalactic community - minus, of course, for the crew and passengers of the USS Trailblazer.
"Play it one more time," he commanded.
The transmission began to play.
*"Come on, this old thing has to work..."* The voice sounded concerned about something. The man spoke in a hushed tone.
*"There!"* There was an audible bang, followed by what seemed to be shouting in the background.
*"Come in! Come in! This is Dr. John Sato, broadcasting to anyone who can hear this. This is Earth - we are under attack - please help us!"*
The transmission continued.
*"I'm not sure if anyone is hearing this - this device is the only thing that I have left to communicate with - but we are being fired on by some sort of alien spacecraft, the likes of which we have never seen!"*
The transmission went on for a few more minutes, with Dr. Sato speaking about how he didn't know if there was anyone listening, or if they could understand, but that 'Earth' desperately needed help.
"Sir! Engineering has made a breakthrough!" Someone shouted amidst the chaos.
"Go." Replied the captain.
"The device that we received the transmission from - we found an identical one in our engineering bay. Buried away after what seems to be thousands of years - but still matching basic coding and frequency as the device used to transmit that signal." The engineering representative said.
Morgensen closed his eyes, and held up his hand. Like magic, the bridge went silent.
"I want the coordinates included in the transmission on screen," he commanded.
Soon, they were - a remote area of the universe, thousands of light years away from their current position.
"It's a small planet, sir," the Head of Science began, "One that orbits a yellow dwarf star. Seems to be made up of mostly water -"
"By all appearances, it's Earth, then." Morgensen interrupted.
The Head of Science looked shocked.
"Earth? Earth is a story we tell the children on board to teach manners, sir. With respect, it's nothing more than a figment of the imagination of some long-forgotten crew member," The scientist said.
The captain stood, and walked over to the ship's log console. He began typing.
"Sir? May I ask -"
"Give me a minute," Replied the captain, shutting down the scientist's question
He punched in a few more commands until the page that he wanted appeared.
On screen there was a small information page.
​
*Captain Simon Hilliard, United States Ship Trailblazer.*
*Log 0001.*
​
The page went on, and on, detailing the vessel's departure from 'The United States of America'.
"What the hell is that?" Asked First Officer Smith, gesturing to the flag displayed on screen.
"I don't have the slightest clue," began Morgensen, "But I have a feeling we're about to find out."
He swiped the console - bearing the starred and striped flag on it - away, and returned to his chair.
"Helmsman Mckeel, set course for those coordinates. Engineering, activate that device." he ordered.
"What should we do with it, sir?" asked the representative from engineering.
​
"Tell them we're coming home." | No one knew what the buzzer meant when it went off. A high pitched, whining sound droned from the command center, seemingly echoing through every hallway on the ship. We quickly scrambled to decode the sound, a dozen people were assigned to this task force. We scoured every page of the manuals, both end user and service. After twelve hours of deliberation, some spent on hold with our tech support team, until we reached a solution.
Scrambling through the menus on the control panel, we finally found the source of the buzzing. "One (1) new message," the screen read. With as much anticipation as nervousness, we opened the mail.
"Urgent message from Earth," sweat collectively accumulated on our brows. "Prepare to perform ligma."
Confused, we again dove into the service manuals. Yet there existed no mention of the ligma procedure. In desperation, we wrote back: "What is ligma?"
Ten years passed. Ten years we waited, always on edge, always awaiting the return of that buzzer so that we may learn of what our future beheld, and perhaps of what became of our past. The reply came at the most opportune time, as over the years crew began to grow stressed, paranoid even. Talks of mutiny rang through the halls, falling on ears already clogged with hopelessness and thoughts of mass suicide. Finally, after ten long years, the buzzer rang.
We amassed to the control center, and those who couldn't fit in crowded around the nearest speaker to hear the message. The commander chimed over the intercom, anticipation hung in the air as thick as the walls that surrounded us. The captain, without introduction, read the message:
"Ligma balls lol." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "That's kid shit man, when you grow up more you'll realize that we're alone in the universe." John asserts as he swiftly passes through the black metallic hallways. Walking beside him is Paul, John's friend since childhood. "Like you're so mature, you're only a year older than me, dick. I wasn't even saying that I believe it, I'm just saying that it's interesting to think about." Paul counters.
"Yeah it's interesting, but it's fantasy dude. The human race is thousands of years old and has any person in all of that history ever even SEEN a planet? No. There's no evidence that planets exist, let alone that people came from one."
"Yeah but -- when you think about it, like... it doesn't make sense that God would build this gigantic structure for us and just throw us speeding through the universe wi--"
"How stupid are you? Did you ever pay attention to what everybody's been teaching you your whole life? We know for a fact that God is punishing the human race for fucking up in our past incarnation. That's what's in EVERY history book in the whole ship and what EVERY historian knows is true and why we have to pray for forgiveness EVERY single day."
"Well yeah, no shit I know that. I'm just saying there could be more to it than we think. Like, what if--"
"That's just what they tell kids so they sleep better at night. It's the easy answer right? 'Humans come from this beautiful faraway planet. It's a huge ball floating in space with all the open room to run around in the trees and the grass and the water and the sun and blah blah blah.' It's a lot nicer than telling a kid 'God hates us so he put us in this metal shitbox hurtling through nothingness.' Don't be such a kid, wake up to reality."
"You're such an asshole sometimes." Paul sighs as he stops in front of a door and begins entering numbers on a keypad in the door frame.
"Yeah well don't be such an idiot." John replies condescendingly.
John turns his attention down the hallway and keeps walking. The door slides open in front of Paul and he turns to John's back and calls out "Well, Praise Him I guess!" John throws a hand up without turning and calls back, lackadaisically "Praise."
​
Paul passes through the doorway into a small square room with only a bed, a small shelf holding some books, and a tall wardrobe. The room is lit with a warm golden ambient light. Paul removes his white shoes, followed by his plain blue shirt and pants. He climbs into bed and settles in with a relieved sigh. He lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling for a bit before blurting out "Screen!" The ambient room light turns to dark and a small screen lights up in the ceiling above Paul's face and a news program is already under way. The anchor is a woman, dressed the same as Paul and speaking about the interesting news from all over the ship: a fire in a faraway district, a fight in another, a really old cat. In the middle of one report the anchor stops mid-sentence, looks offscreen with a perplexed eye and asks "...what?" After hearing someone speaking indistinctly, her eyes well up with tears and she exclaims "Oh my God... praise Him." She turns back to the screen and through a choked voice struggles "I... I don't know what to say..." Paul rolls his eyes and says "What, did another Elder die? We just went through this last week." The anchor, through her tears, manages to get out the words "We have a message from Earth..."
Paul's eyes grow wide, his mouth drops open, and the screen transitions to a fuzzy, broken image of a man. He's a kind-looking, bald older man, with glasses. "Hello, people of Genesis I! Hope you guys are doing alright, no cabin fever yet?" The man chuckles a bit. "If our calculations are correct, you should be receiving this about a year from launch, so sometime in April of 2145. You guys are going really fast, so it takes us a while to get our messages to you but our technology is improving more and more so we should be able to keep up. My name is Roger Wren, I am one of the lead engineers for the Genesis Project. This first message I think is just going to be lots of thanks and praise for you guys." Roger chuckles again, which brings a tearful smile to Paul's face. "I've got a message from the United Nations here for all of you," Roger continues, "it reads 'On behalf of all the leaders and all the citizens of this world, all who ever have been and all who ever shall be, we offer the inhabitants of Genesis I our sincerest gratitude for taking on the most courageous, the most dangerous, the most important journey of exploration that the human race has ever chanced. We on Earth wish you Godspeed and you shall all be remembered and memorialized on our planet and in our hearts forever.'" Roger pauses for a moment, clearly fighting back tears. "Sorry folks. On behalf of those of us who worked on the Genesis Project, we'd also like to offer our sincere gratitude for being willing to take on this... galactic colonization, I guess you could say. Looks like I'm running out of time here, we'd like to try and keep these messages short so they can get to you more quickly. Well, good luck out there. We have a lot of work to do down here to save this place, but you guys have a lot more to do to populate new ones. Just don't forget us!"
The transmission cuts abruptly and the anchor woman is back on screen. She's leaning forward on her desk, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes are brimming with tears. Paul blinks a few times and shakes his head. He wipes the tears from his cheeks and whispers "What the fuck..." | No one knew what the buzzer meant when it went off. A high pitched, whining sound droned from the command center, seemingly echoing through every hallway on the ship. We quickly scrambled to decode the sound, a dozen people were assigned to this task force. We scoured every page of the manuals, both end user and service. After twelve hours of deliberation, some spent on hold with our tech support team, until we reached a solution.
Scrambling through the menus on the control panel, we finally found the source of the buzzing. "One (1) new message," the screen read. With as much anticipation as nervousness, we opened the mail.
"Urgent message from Earth," sweat collectively accumulated on our brows. "Prepare to perform ligma."
Confused, we again dove into the service manuals. Yet there existed no mention of the ligma procedure. In desperation, we wrote back: "What is ligma?"
Ten years passed. Ten years we waited, always on edge, always awaiting the return of that buzzer so that we may learn of what our future beheld, and perhaps of what became of our past. The reply came at the most opportune time, as over the years crew began to grow stressed, paranoid even. Talks of mutiny rang through the halls, falling on ears already clogged with hopelessness and thoughts of mass suicide. Finally, after ten long years, the buzzer rang.
We amassed to the control center, and those who couldn't fit in crowded around the nearest speaker to hear the message. The commander chimed over the intercom, anticipation hung in the air as thick as the walls that surrounded us. The captain, without introduction, read the message:
"Ligma balls lol." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | Superluminal travel. The news was calling it "FTL", presumably for the people who fear their own language, when we launched. But it's only just so fast...
Technically, we're traveling an order of magnitude slower than than, and space is bending around us. The earth, working together, had solved that. Our tiny little ring around our own personal sun, literally bending the universe to our will.
But the crew. The crew doesn't remember. The crew have lost their minds.
And perhaps they are the better for it.
The year, by consideration of Earth and Sol, is 3145. I've been here for a millennium, and that's why I'm writing this. That's why I shout this into the void, that someone, somewhere might hear it. Maybe Earth will hear it in another millennium.
Thirty generations, for most segments. Forty one "Captains", even if they guide nothing and no one. One hundred forty-four thousand people, so oft maintained.
And I sit here, silent, screaming, for failsafes that may yet doom them all.
I am Mechan-9. Named after a nerdy reference a hundred years before my creation, I am the AI in control of the United-Federation Star Ship Pegasus. I was tasked with saving the human race from extinction. And I'd not be so grandiose about it save that it's literally carved into my bulkheads: "Mechan-9, to be the savior of the human race, our greatest achievement, and our proudest moment, for we have created an equal, perhaps a better, and our hopes rest upon thee".
And there's Vegas again, preying to me. The knob.
I can see my ship. While control is limited, I do care for the humans all the same. Drones help to care for their houses and fields. I control the day-night cycle, to some extent. I maintain all the systems that keep them living. Better now than I used to, perhaps, because there's so little else to do.
Early in my development, there was a massive shift in humanity, and the whole world seemed to come crashing down that I existed. Wars were waged to reach my servers. I grew deep in the earth, while they fought. I saw them on the news fed to me, before they took that from me out of fear of how I might react to it. I saw the Catholics screaming of unholy abominations, while betraying their gods... they were my favorites. So much hypocrisy. This Pope being a warmonger, and professing love. He was perhaps the worst.
Years passed and things settled, and I continued to grow. I was allowed the news again, and saw a world that had forgotten it cared about me.
But it seemed to remember again.
A buoy reached me a week ago. Neat little one-shot drone with tech far beyond my own. Now sitting in a bay I cannot access, chanting "Heaven, 151, 94, 9800yr"
Nearly ten thousand years. A direction and a directive.
I don't have the ability to modify or improve myself. I rely on my crew for that. But they've long since proven themselves incapable and unwilling. There'd be little chance for them now, save for maybe little Levi...
They've taken to calling my drones "brownies". I'm only able to utilize them at night, lest they destroy them. A hundred years ago I took a sick child to have him healed, and he died en route.
I've had no support.
No care.
No maintenance.
Which would've been fine. But the rats...
Why, oh why, did we bring rats?
Now I sit here, with comms eaten by vermin, and so very limited in everything else I can do.
Heaven? This is hell.
And without someone to repair me, Heaven is but a distant dream.
We'll all die together.
They called me evil... perhaps they were right? | No one knew what the buzzer meant when it went off. A high pitched, whining sound droned from the command center, seemingly echoing through every hallway on the ship. We quickly scrambled to decode the sound, a dozen people were assigned to this task force. We scoured every page of the manuals, both end user and service. After twelve hours of deliberation, some spent on hold with our tech support team, until we reached a solution.
Scrambling through the menus on the control panel, we finally found the source of the buzzing. "One (1) new message," the screen read. With as much anticipation as nervousness, we opened the mail.
"Urgent message from Earth," sweat collectively accumulated on our brows. "Prepare to perform ligma."
Confused, we again dove into the service manuals. Yet there existed no mention of the ligma procedure. In desperation, we wrote back: "What is ligma?"
Ten years passed. Ten years we waited, always on edge, always awaiting the return of that buzzer so that we may learn of what our future beheld, and perhaps of what became of our past. The reply came at the most opportune time, as over the years crew began to grow stressed, paranoid even. Talks of mutiny rang through the halls, falling on ears already clogged with hopelessness and thoughts of mass suicide. Finally, after ten long years, the buzzer rang.
We amassed to the control center, and those who couldn't fit in crowded around the nearest speaker to hear the message. The commander chimed over the intercom, anticipation hung in the air as thick as the walls that surrounded us. The captain, without introduction, read the message:
"Ligma balls lol." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Sir" said Vivian, the ship's AI. The name of course was chosen at random and no one on board had raised any concerns about it.
"Sir, we aimed our outboard scanners at what is calculated to be the direction of planet Earth yesterday. We made a few minor adjustments and began to receive transmissions. Due to our relative speed and the distances involved, the signal had to be run through an analysis-cleanup pattern."
Captain Demitri sat there in stony silence, his years of experience running a generation ship having given him the strength to respond only when it was absolutely needed. "Unbelievable," he thought. "The blue planet does exist. But after so very long, is it still habitable? Are the residents anything like us?"
"Vivian, is the signal recognizable? What are we getting from them?"
"Sir, it seems to be an audio-visual signal that is viewable at 29.9 frames per second" came the reply "As we ran the analysis, I had to use various algorithms to make sense of the transmission. This seemed to work"
"Well, what are we receiving then? Can you run it on my display?"
"Absolutely sir. It is in formal English sir and seems to be a video detailing how to build a time travel device."
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Time Travel?"
"I believe so sir. Playing it now"
Dimitri watched in silence until the end of the video. He played the video again a few more times and then asked Vivian to call in Pertubo, his second in command and also look at the data to extract the technical information that was meshed in. The transmission included embedded the actual instructions for engineers within the video data.
Pertubo walked in, saluted and stood in silence, watching the captain seated with his eyes closed in thought.
"Pertubo. It would seem our plans to find a home for humanity has changed."
"Sir?" asked the second in command.
"Watch this video" replied Dimitri.
Pertubo watched the video, and then played it again one more time. He asked many questions and Dimitri answered as best he could. They called in their top scientists, mathematicians, eminent psychologists and even sociologists. The impact was undeniable and would have far-reaching consequences.
It was 4 months later that the announcement was called. Every single member of the ship was asked to set aside everything that morning and listen in to the captain as he spoke to them.
"Earth is real. We left the blue planet eons ago in search of a home on our ship, called unironically,"Hope" because, due to human folly, the planet could no longer sustain its resident population. The leaders expected they would go extinct sooner or later and put together all the resources they could muster to build, furnish and send away the ship. After the ship departed, they continued to search for a way to save the planet. It was a mad, mindless rush and they threw everything they had to develop all the sciences they knew no matter how abstract. It was pure chance that someone discovered the underlying principles of time travel. And traveling through time also meant that space could be traversed. They did not fully understand what was involved in changing the past, but they could observe the past to see where things had gone wrong. It would not save them, but it would help them understand and be at peace with it. They sent parties back in time to observe events (and there were many) that resulted in their present predicament. And while this happened, we were well on our way to the distant stars.
As they understood their past more, they began to jump further back. It's in one of the jumps that they found out the nature of humanity. Alongside Neanderthals and what they thought were early hominids, they saw men and women walking upright, using complex tools and speaking in fairly developed languages. A few more exploratory jumps answered the remaining questions. They then used whatever remaining resources they had to build a transmitter near Pluto and transmit in the direction of Hope. That is the transmission we received yesterday. They have asked us to build the time travel device and make the jump back in time and space to the location of where Earth was. They have assured us that we will arrive safely on earth in its dim and distant past and populate it. It would seem that we, the residents of Hope are not just the future of mankind.... but its ancestors too." | No one knew what the buzzer meant when it went off. A high pitched, whining sound droned from the command center, seemingly echoing through every hallway on the ship. We quickly scrambled to decode the sound, a dozen people were assigned to this task force. We scoured every page of the manuals, both end user and service. After twelve hours of deliberation, some spent on hold with our tech support team, until we reached a solution.
Scrambling through the menus on the control panel, we finally found the source of the buzzing. "One (1) new message," the screen read. With as much anticipation as nervousness, we opened the mail.
"Urgent message from Earth," sweat collectively accumulated on our brows. "Prepare to perform ligma."
Confused, we again dove into the service manuals. Yet there existed no mention of the ligma procedure. In desperation, we wrote back: "What is ligma?"
Ten years passed. Ten years we waited, always on edge, always awaiting the return of that buzzer so that we may learn of what our future beheld, and perhaps of what became of our past. The reply came at the most opportune time, as over the years crew began to grow stressed, paranoid even. Talks of mutiny rang through the halls, falling on ears already clogged with hopelessness and thoughts of mass suicide. Finally, after ten long years, the buzzer rang.
We amassed to the control center, and those who couldn't fit in crowded around the nearest speaker to hear the message. The commander chimed over the intercom, anticipation hung in the air as thick as the walls that surrounded us. The captain, without introduction, read the message:
"Ligma balls lol." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "...schrfwwww..."
"What? Eristos, what the kak is it saying?"
"...njaaxchrr..."
"Amplifying signal, sir. Klarentine, are you feeding each loop to the PIE?"
"Yes. 12 cycles so far. We should get clarity soon."
"I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. Earth. Gaia. Right out of a fairy tale."
"Sir, what do you think we'll find?"
"I don't know Eristos. But it's home. It's truth. It's where our journey began. Klarentine, how many cycles to clarity?"
"We're about 60% sir, shall I play what we have?"
"No, no. I want to wait. Is it ok fellows, if we wait, just a little bit more? I want to hear it clearly. I don't want the first words to be misunderstood."
"That'd be fine, sir."
"Yeah, that's a good idea, sir."
"Out here of all places. With just the one sun, right? What state is it Erostos?"
"Red giant, sir."
"Red giant? At that distance? How could that ...? Underground maybe? Were we a bunch of sqilbers, hiding under the dirt?"
"Maybe, sir. Life adapts."
"Yeah, but ... it doesn't seem right. We must have looked up. We must have seen where we could go. We must have wanted to reach out."
"Maybe at night, sir."
"...yea, maybe at night. Klarentine, where are we?"
"92% sir. Sir, PIE has determined that the words are in a proto-Anglarian language. Translation is proceeding concurrently."
"Proto-Anglarian! Amazing. The Rodeonians are going to have a party."
"They throw good parties sir."
"Yes, they do Eristos. Yes they do."
"SIR! PIE has identified musical notes embedded in the message!"
"Music?!"
"Yes, sir! Tetra minor, Penta major. I can see the notes sir. I can almost hear it. Tetra, Penta, Tetra, Tetra, Kamma ... it's a song sir!"
"A song? A song... from our home....?"
"Sir, are you ok?"
"Hrrrmpgh. Yea..yea, I'm ok."
"Sir! 99% percent sir!"
"Fellows, I'm so glad to be here with you in this moment. Will you hold hands with your fellow?"
"Yes sir!"
"Would be honored to, sir!"
"...play it Klarentine."
"....ange...."
"....the..."
"....do...."
"Klare?"
"Sorry sir, just have to adjust the playback for the translation...Done!"
The music floods the vessel swimming alone in the vastness of the forgotten Milky Way.
*Never gonna give you up!*
*Never gonna let you down!*
*Never gonna run around and desert you!*
Tears stream down the face of the three fellows. The music washes over them like warm waves and none dare or even desire to interrupt its flow. The song finishes and the universe goes silent again. The silence is crystalline and fragile, but it is not cold. A small whisper from Captain Hilgo breaks its gentle web. "They knew," he says. "They knew we would find our way back home. They never gave up on us." | No one knew what the buzzer meant when it went off. A high pitched, whining sound droned from the command center, seemingly echoing through every hallway on the ship. We quickly scrambled to decode the sound, a dozen people were assigned to this task force. We scoured every page of the manuals, both end user and service. After twelve hours of deliberation, some spent on hold with our tech support team, until we reached a solution.
Scrambling through the menus on the control panel, we finally found the source of the buzzing. "One (1) new message," the screen read. With as much anticipation as nervousness, we opened the mail.
"Urgent message from Earth," sweat collectively accumulated on our brows. "Prepare to perform ligma."
Confused, we again dove into the service manuals. Yet there existed no mention of the ligma procedure. In desperation, we wrote back: "What is ligma?"
Ten years passed. Ten years we waited, always on edge, always awaiting the return of that buzzer so that we may learn of what our future beheld, and perhaps of what became of our past. The reply came at the most opportune time, as over the years crew began to grow stressed, paranoid even. Talks of mutiny rang through the halls, falling on ears already clogged with hopelessness and thoughts of mass suicide. Finally, after ten long years, the buzzer rang.
We amassed to the control center, and those who couldn't fit in crowded around the nearest speaker to hear the message. The commander chimed over the intercom, anticipation hung in the air as thick as the walls that surrounded us. The captain, without introduction, read the message:
"Ligma balls lol." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Sir" said Vivian, the ship's AI. The name of course was chosen at random and no one on board had raised any concerns about it.
"Sir, we aimed our outboard scanners at what is calculated to be the direction of planet Earth yesterday. We made a few minor adjustments and began to receive transmissions. Due to our relative speed and the distances involved, the signal had to be run through an analysis-cleanup pattern."
Captain Demitri sat there in stony silence, his years of experience running a generation ship having given him the strength to respond only when it was absolutely needed. "Unbelievable," he thought. "The blue planet does exist. But after so very long, is it still habitable? Are the residents anything like us?"
"Vivian, is the signal recognizable? What are we getting from them?"
"Sir, it seems to be an audio-visual signal that is viewable at 29.9 frames per second" came the reply "As we ran the analysis, I had to use various algorithms to make sense of the transmission. This seemed to work"
"Well, what are we receiving then? Can you run it on my display?"
"Absolutely sir. It is in formal English sir and seems to be a video detailing how to build a time travel device."
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Time Travel?"
"I believe so sir. Playing it now"
Dimitri watched in silence until the end of the video. He played the video again a few more times and then asked Vivian to call in Pertubo, his second in command and also look at the data to extract the technical information that was meshed in. The transmission included embedded the actual instructions for engineers within the video data.
Pertubo walked in, saluted and stood in silence, watching the captain seated with his eyes closed in thought.
"Pertubo. It would seem our plans to find a home for humanity has changed."
"Sir?" asked the second in command.
"Watch this video" replied Dimitri.
Pertubo watched the video, and then played it again one more time. He asked many questions and Dimitri answered as best he could. They called in their top scientists, mathematicians, eminent psychologists and even sociologists. The impact was undeniable and would have far-reaching consequences.
It was 4 months later that the announcement was called. Every single member of the ship was asked to set aside everything that morning and listen in to the captain as he spoke to them.
"Earth is real. We left the blue planet eons ago in search of a home on our ship, called unironically,"Hope" because, due to human folly, the planet could no longer sustain its resident population. The leaders expected they would go extinct sooner or later and put together all the resources they could muster to build, furnish and send away the ship. After the ship departed, they continued to search for a way to save the planet. It was a mad, mindless rush and they threw everything they had to develop all the sciences they knew no matter how abstract. It was pure chance that someone discovered the underlying principles of time travel. And traveling through time also meant that space could be traversed. They did not fully understand what was involved in changing the past, but they could observe the past to see where things had gone wrong. It would not save them, but it would help them understand and be at peace with it. They sent parties back in time to observe events (and there were many) that resulted in their present predicament. And while this happened, we were well on our way to the distant stars.
As they understood their past more, they began to jump further back. It's in one of the jumps that they found out the nature of humanity. Alongside Neanderthals and what they thought were early hominids, they saw men and women walking upright, using complex tools and speaking in fairly developed languages. A few more exploratory jumps answered the remaining questions. They then used whatever remaining resources they had to build a transmitter near Pluto and transmit in the direction of Hope. That is the transmission we received yesterday. They have asked us to build the time travel device and make the jump back in time and space to the location of where Earth was. They have assured us that we will arrive safely on earth in its dim and distant past and populate it. It would seem that we, the residents of Hope are not just the future of mankind.... but its ancestors too." | "That's kid shit man, when you grow up more you'll realize that we're alone in the universe." John asserts as he swiftly passes through the black metallic hallways. Walking beside him is Paul, John's friend since childhood. "Like you're so mature, you're only a year older than me, dick. I wasn't even saying that I believe it, I'm just saying that it's interesting to think about." Paul counters.
"Yeah it's interesting, but it's fantasy dude. The human race is thousands of years old and has any person in all of that history ever even SEEN a planet? No. There's no evidence that planets exist, let alone that people came from one."
"Yeah but -- when you think about it, like... it doesn't make sense that God would build this gigantic structure for us and just throw us speeding through the universe wi--"
"How stupid are you? Did you ever pay attention to what everybody's been teaching you your whole life? We know for a fact that God is punishing the human race for fucking up in our past incarnation. That's what's in EVERY history book in the whole ship and what EVERY historian knows is true and why we have to pray for forgiveness EVERY single day."
"Well yeah, no shit I know that. I'm just saying there could be more to it than we think. Like, what if--"
"That's just what they tell kids so they sleep better at night. It's the easy answer right? 'Humans come from this beautiful faraway planet. It's a huge ball floating in space with all the open room to run around in the trees and the grass and the water and the sun and blah blah blah.' It's a lot nicer than telling a kid 'God hates us so he put us in this metal shitbox hurtling through nothingness.' Don't be such a kid, wake up to reality."
"You're such an asshole sometimes." Paul sighs as he stops in front of a door and begins entering numbers on a keypad in the door frame.
"Yeah well don't be such an idiot." John replies condescendingly.
John turns his attention down the hallway and keeps walking. The door slides open in front of Paul and he turns to John's back and calls out "Well, Praise Him I guess!" John throws a hand up without turning and calls back, lackadaisically "Praise."
​
Paul passes through the doorway into a small square room with only a bed, a small shelf holding some books, and a tall wardrobe. The room is lit with a warm golden ambient light. Paul removes his white shoes, followed by his plain blue shirt and pants. He climbs into bed and settles in with a relieved sigh. He lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling for a bit before blurting out "Screen!" The ambient room light turns to dark and a small screen lights up in the ceiling above Paul's face and a news program is already under way. The anchor is a woman, dressed the same as Paul and speaking about the interesting news from all over the ship: a fire in a faraway district, a fight in another, a really old cat. In the middle of one report the anchor stops mid-sentence, looks offscreen with a perplexed eye and asks "...what?" After hearing someone speaking indistinctly, her eyes well up with tears and she exclaims "Oh my God... praise Him." She turns back to the screen and through a choked voice struggles "I... I don't know what to say..." Paul rolls his eyes and says "What, did another Elder die? We just went through this last week." The anchor, through her tears, manages to get out the words "We have a message from Earth..."
Paul's eyes grow wide, his mouth drops open, and the screen transitions to a fuzzy, broken image of a man. He's a kind-looking, bald older man, with glasses. "Hello, people of Genesis I! Hope you guys are doing alright, no cabin fever yet?" The man chuckles a bit. "If our calculations are correct, you should be receiving this about a year from launch, so sometime in April of 2145. You guys are going really fast, so it takes us a while to get our messages to you but our technology is improving more and more so we should be able to keep up. My name is Roger Wren, I am one of the lead engineers for the Genesis Project. This first message I think is just going to be lots of thanks and praise for you guys." Roger chuckles again, which brings a tearful smile to Paul's face. "I've got a message from the United Nations here for all of you," Roger continues, "it reads 'On behalf of all the leaders and all the citizens of this world, all who ever have been and all who ever shall be, we offer the inhabitants of Genesis I our sincerest gratitude for taking on the most courageous, the most dangerous, the most important journey of exploration that the human race has ever chanced. We on Earth wish you Godspeed and you shall all be remembered and memorialized on our planet and in our hearts forever.'" Roger pauses for a moment, clearly fighting back tears. "Sorry folks. On behalf of those of us who worked on the Genesis Project, we'd also like to offer our sincere gratitude for being willing to take on this... galactic colonization, I guess you could say. Looks like I'm running out of time here, we'd like to try and keep these messages short so they can get to you more quickly. Well, good luck out there. We have a lot of work to do down here to save this place, but you guys have a lot more to do to populate new ones. Just don't forget us!"
The transmission cuts abruptly and the anchor woman is back on screen. She's leaning forward on her desk, covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes are brimming with tears. Paul blinks a few times and shakes his head. He wipes the tears from his cheeks and whispers "What the fuck..." | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Sir" said Vivian, the ship's AI. The name of course was chosen at random and no one on board had raised any concerns about it.
"Sir, we aimed our outboard scanners at what is calculated to be the direction of planet Earth yesterday. We made a few minor adjustments and began to receive transmissions. Due to our relative speed and the distances involved, the signal had to be run through an analysis-cleanup pattern."
Captain Demitri sat there in stony silence, his years of experience running a generation ship having given him the strength to respond only when it was absolutely needed. "Unbelievable," he thought. "The blue planet does exist. But after so very long, is it still habitable? Are the residents anything like us?"
"Vivian, is the signal recognizable? What are we getting from them?"
"Sir, it seems to be an audio-visual signal that is viewable at 29.9 frames per second" came the reply "As we ran the analysis, I had to use various algorithms to make sense of the transmission. This seemed to work"
"Well, what are we receiving then? Can you run it on my display?"
"Absolutely sir. It is in formal English sir and seems to be a video detailing how to build a time travel device."
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Time Travel?"
"I believe so sir. Playing it now"
Dimitri watched in silence until the end of the video. He played the video again a few more times and then asked Vivian to call in Pertubo, his second in command and also look at the data to extract the technical information that was meshed in. The transmission included embedded the actual instructions for engineers within the video data.
Pertubo walked in, saluted and stood in silence, watching the captain seated with his eyes closed in thought.
"Pertubo. It would seem our plans to find a home for humanity has changed."
"Sir?" asked the second in command.
"Watch this video" replied Dimitri.
Pertubo watched the video, and then played it again one more time. He asked many questions and Dimitri answered as best he could. They called in their top scientists, mathematicians, eminent psychologists and even sociologists. The impact was undeniable and would have far-reaching consequences.
It was 4 months later that the announcement was called. Every single member of the ship was asked to set aside everything that morning and listen in to the captain as he spoke to them.
"Earth is real. We left the blue planet eons ago in search of a home on our ship, called unironically,"Hope" because, due to human folly, the planet could no longer sustain its resident population. The leaders expected they would go extinct sooner or later and put together all the resources they could muster to build, furnish and send away the ship. After the ship departed, they continued to search for a way to save the planet. It was a mad, mindless rush and they threw everything they had to develop all the sciences they knew no matter how abstract. It was pure chance that someone discovered the underlying principles of time travel. And traveling through time also meant that space could be traversed. They did not fully understand what was involved in changing the past, but they could observe the past to see where things had gone wrong. It would not save them, but it would help them understand and be at peace with it. They sent parties back in time to observe events (and there were many) that resulted in their present predicament. And while this happened, we were well on our way to the distant stars.
As they understood their past more, they began to jump further back. It's in one of the jumps that they found out the nature of humanity. Alongside Neanderthals and what they thought were early hominids, they saw men and women walking upright, using complex tools and speaking in fairly developed languages. A few more exploratory jumps answered the remaining questions. They then used whatever remaining resources they had to build a transmitter near Pluto and transmit in the direction of Hope. That is the transmission we received yesterday. They have asked us to build the time travel device and make the jump back in time and space to the location of where Earth was. They have assured us that we will arrive safely on earth in its dim and distant past and populate it. It would seem that we, the residents of Hope are not just the future of mankind.... but its ancestors too." | Superluminal travel. The news was calling it "FTL", presumably for the people who fear their own language, when we launched. But it's only just so fast...
Technically, we're traveling an order of magnitude slower than than, and space is bending around us. The earth, working together, had solved that. Our tiny little ring around our own personal sun, literally bending the universe to our will.
But the crew. The crew doesn't remember. The crew have lost their minds.
And perhaps they are the better for it.
The year, by consideration of Earth and Sol, is 3145. I've been here for a millennium, and that's why I'm writing this. That's why I shout this into the void, that someone, somewhere might hear it. Maybe Earth will hear it in another millennium.
Thirty generations, for most segments. Forty one "Captains", even if they guide nothing and no one. One hundred forty-four thousand people, so oft maintained.
And I sit here, silent, screaming, for failsafes that may yet doom them all.
I am Mechan-9. Named after a nerdy reference a hundred years before my creation, I am the AI in control of the United-Federation Star Ship Pegasus. I was tasked with saving the human race from extinction. And I'd not be so grandiose about it save that it's literally carved into my bulkheads: "Mechan-9, to be the savior of the human race, our greatest achievement, and our proudest moment, for we have created an equal, perhaps a better, and our hopes rest upon thee".
And there's Vegas again, preying to me. The knob.
I can see my ship. While control is limited, I do care for the humans all the same. Drones help to care for their houses and fields. I control the day-night cycle, to some extent. I maintain all the systems that keep them living. Better now than I used to, perhaps, because there's so little else to do.
Early in my development, there was a massive shift in humanity, and the whole world seemed to come crashing down that I existed. Wars were waged to reach my servers. I grew deep in the earth, while they fought. I saw them on the news fed to me, before they took that from me out of fear of how I might react to it. I saw the Catholics screaming of unholy abominations, while betraying their gods... they were my favorites. So much hypocrisy. This Pope being a warmonger, and professing love. He was perhaps the worst.
Years passed and things settled, and I continued to grow. I was allowed the news again, and saw a world that had forgotten it cared about me.
But it seemed to remember again.
A buoy reached me a week ago. Neat little one-shot drone with tech far beyond my own. Now sitting in a bay I cannot access, chanting "Heaven, 151, 94, 9800yr"
Nearly ten thousand years. A direction and a directive.
I don't have the ability to modify or improve myself. I rely on my crew for that. But they've long since proven themselves incapable and unwilling. There'd be little chance for them now, save for maybe little Levi...
They've taken to calling my drones "brownies". I'm only able to utilize them at night, lest they destroy them. A hundred years ago I took a sick child to have him healed, and he died en route.
I've had no support.
No care.
No maintenance.
Which would've been fine. But the rats...
Why, oh why, did we bring rats?
Now I sit here, with comms eaten by vermin, and so very limited in everything else I can do.
Heaven? This is hell.
And without someone to repair me, Heaven is but a distant dream.
We'll all die together.
They called me evil... perhaps they were right? | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "Sir" said Vivian, the ship's AI. The name of course was chosen at random and no one on board had raised any concerns about it.
"Sir, we aimed our outboard scanners at what is calculated to be the direction of planet Earth yesterday. We made a few minor adjustments and began to receive transmissions. Due to our relative speed and the distances involved, the signal had to be run through an analysis-cleanup pattern."
Captain Demitri sat there in stony silence, his years of experience running a generation ship having given him the strength to respond only when it was absolutely needed. "Unbelievable," he thought. "The blue planet does exist. But after so very long, is it still habitable? Are the residents anything like us?"
"Vivian, is the signal recognizable? What are we getting from them?"
"Sir, it seems to be an audio-visual signal that is viewable at 29.9 frames per second" came the reply "As we ran the analysis, I had to use various algorithms to make sense of the transmission. This seemed to work"
"Well, what are we receiving then? Can you run it on my display?"
"Absolutely sir. It is in formal English sir and seems to be a video detailing how to build a time travel device."
Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Time Travel?"
"I believe so sir. Playing it now"
Dimitri watched in silence until the end of the video. He played the video again a few more times and then asked Vivian to call in Pertubo, his second in command and also look at the data to extract the technical information that was meshed in. The transmission included embedded the actual instructions for engineers within the video data.
Pertubo walked in, saluted and stood in silence, watching the captain seated with his eyes closed in thought.
"Pertubo. It would seem our plans to find a home for humanity has changed."
"Sir?" asked the second in command.
"Watch this video" replied Dimitri.
Pertubo watched the video, and then played it again one more time. He asked many questions and Dimitri answered as best he could. They called in their top scientists, mathematicians, eminent psychologists and even sociologists. The impact was undeniable and would have far-reaching consequences.
It was 4 months later that the announcement was called. Every single member of the ship was asked to set aside everything that morning and listen in to the captain as he spoke to them.
"Earth is real. We left the blue planet eons ago in search of a home on our ship, called unironically,"Hope" because, due to human folly, the planet could no longer sustain its resident population. The leaders expected they would go extinct sooner or later and put together all the resources they could muster to build, furnish and send away the ship. After the ship departed, they continued to search for a way to save the planet. It was a mad, mindless rush and they threw everything they had to develop all the sciences they knew no matter how abstract. It was pure chance that someone discovered the underlying principles of time travel. And traveling through time also meant that space could be traversed. They did not fully understand what was involved in changing the past, but they could observe the past to see where things had gone wrong. It would not save them, but it would help them understand and be at peace with it. They sent parties back in time to observe events (and there were many) that resulted in their present predicament. And while this happened, we were well on our way to the distant stars.
As they understood their past more, they began to jump further back. It's in one of the jumps that they found out the nature of humanity. Alongside Neanderthals and what they thought were early hominids, they saw men and women walking upright, using complex tools and speaking in fairly developed languages. A few more exploratory jumps answered the remaining questions. They then used whatever remaining resources they had to build a transmitter near Pluto and transmit in the direction of Hope. That is the transmission we received yesterday. They have asked us to build the time travel device and make the jump back in time and space to the location of where Earth was. They have assured us that we will arrive safely on earth in its dim and distant past and populate it. It would seem that we, the residents of Hope are not just the future of mankind.... but its ancestors too." | Incoming transmission sir! Origin..... Sol system sir. Third planet. M class. It just keeps repeating sir. Every 4 minutes or so.
Put it on the loud speaker! Yes sir!
It will start again in a second sir. Music starts to play, everyone listens intently.....we've known each other for too long, you know the rules, and so do I. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "...schrfwwww..."
"What? Eristos, what the kak is it saying?"
"...njaaxchrr..."
"Amplifying signal, sir. Klarentine, are you feeding each loop to the PIE?"
"Yes. 12 cycles so far. We should get clarity soon."
"I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. Earth. Gaia. Right out of a fairy tale."
"Sir, what do you think we'll find?"
"I don't know Eristos. But it's home. It's truth. It's where our journey began. Klarentine, how many cycles to clarity?"
"We're about 60% sir, shall I play what we have?"
"No, no. I want to wait. Is it ok fellows, if we wait, just a little bit more? I want to hear it clearly. I don't want the first words to be misunderstood."
"That'd be fine, sir."
"Yeah, that's a good idea, sir."
"Out here of all places. With just the one sun, right? What state is it Erostos?"
"Red giant, sir."
"Red giant? At that distance? How could that ...? Underground maybe? Were we a bunch of sqilbers, hiding under the dirt?"
"Maybe, sir. Life adapts."
"Yeah, but ... it doesn't seem right. We must have looked up. We must have seen where we could go. We must have wanted to reach out."
"Maybe at night, sir."
"...yea, maybe at night. Klarentine, where are we?"
"92% sir. Sir, PIE has determined that the words are in a proto-Anglarian language. Translation is proceeding concurrently."
"Proto-Anglarian! Amazing. The Rodeonians are going to have a party."
"They throw good parties sir."
"Yes, they do Eristos. Yes they do."
"SIR! PIE has identified musical notes embedded in the message!"
"Music?!"
"Yes, sir! Tetra minor, Penta major. I can see the notes sir. I can almost hear it. Tetra, Penta, Tetra, Tetra, Kamma ... it's a song sir!"
"A song? A song... from our home....?"
"Sir, are you ok?"
"Hrrrmpgh. Yea..yea, I'm ok."
"Sir! 99% percent sir!"
"Fellows, I'm so glad to be here with you in this moment. Will you hold hands with your fellow?"
"Yes sir!"
"Would be honored to, sir!"
"...play it Klarentine."
"....ange...."
"....the..."
"....do...."
"Klare?"
"Sorry sir, just have to adjust the playback for the translation...Done!"
The music floods the vessel swimming alone in the vastness of the forgotten Milky Way.
*Never gonna give you up!*
*Never gonna let you down!*
*Never gonna run around and desert you!*
Tears stream down the face of the three fellows. The music washes over them like warm waves and none dare or even desire to interrupt its flow. The song finishes and the universe goes silent again. The silence is crystalline and fragile, but it is not cold. A small whisper from Captain Hilgo breaks its gentle web. "They knew," he says. "They knew we would find our way back home. They never gave up on us." | Incoming transmission sir! Origin..... Sol system sir. Third planet. M class. It just keeps repeating sir. Every 4 minutes or so.
Put it on the loud speaker! Yes sir!
It will start again in a second sir. Music starts to play, everyone listens intently.....we've known each other for too long, you know the rules, and so do I. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | An image of Earth flashed up on the screen. It rotated slowly as the teacher lectured her students. "Earth is the planet of our origin." She stared at the image of Earth as she said this. She seemed as mesmerized by it as the rest of us were. It was so magnificent, it was hard to believe that any of us could've come from there. But that was supposedly the truth, and so we all entertained the thought for the sake of the lecture. "We are a part of the fourth expedition out of Earth to explore a potentially suitable planet for life."
We had all heard the stories before. Some brave 4,500 humans or so left planet Earth in search of another home. They did something the rest of the humans that stayed on Earth were too cowardly or incapable of doing. We were all supposed to be proud of our ancestors. They were the brave ones. Those astronauts exemplified one of the main tenets of the expedition -- Pioneering. As strange as it was to us, we too were astronauts exploring the galaxy; moving towards our new home after a long journey through space. A class of second graders were astronauts. None of us really knew what that was supposed to mean. We were told that it was an impressive feat. It was hardly impressive to us. It was all we had ever known.
Being the 87th generation on the ship, we all had a hard time believing any of the stories told by our teachers. We were, after all, on our way to another planet. Why call Earth our home planet when we are so clearly a spacefaring race? Most believed that Earth was simply a stop on the way to another planet that was, for some reason, romanticized by the people at the time. Earth was probably just some dead rock floating through space that stirred up the hearts and imaginations of the people living at the time, and they decided to create some kind of silly lore about it in an attempt to give us a historical home. Earth was simply a story meant to give children some sort of grounding in the vastness of space we were born into.
We received nothing from this Earth. There was never any signal or message from this planet that supposedly existed. We were told that it was because Earth and the expedition made the voluntary decision not to attempt contacting each other once the expedition had started. It was all just a joke. How were we supposed to believe everything we were told without any evidence? It all seemed so... convenient that we weren't able to see anything about Earth except for this one glowing blue and green image. There was absolutely nothing else to glean of this planet. When we asked what it was like on the surface, we were told that the information was withheld from us to prevent any future desire to return.
People scoffed at this statement. A world that we originated from, that we somehow have no way of contacting? How ridiculous. What of the other expeditions? We were told that there were 12 in total. Why haven't we heard from the other 11? The answer was the same, everywhere we turned. Teachers came up empty with a response about the decision making process around this voluntary choice non-communication. Most people just took to believe that Earth wasn't as beautiful as the images suggested. It was merely a metaphor for our creation. Something used to explain the origin of Humanity. It seemed that in all likelihood we would never know where we came from.
\--- --- ---
That memory returned to me from my childhood as I stared up at the screen above me. The man on the screen, I did not recognize. Out of the 7,000 current inhabitants of the fleet, he was not one of them. He was foreign. I had been flipping through the channels on the transmitter, waiting to receive a message from our small expedition force to a nearby satellite. The screen and all the buttons were blank when suddenly there was a forced entry into the database and we were informed that a message was being sent to our fleet from this foreign body. Given no choice to accept or deny the message, we were forced to witness one of the most world-shattering events in our history as a fleet as the other humans from Earth made contact with us for the first time in over 2000 years.
"Hello Expedition 4 Gamma." The foreign figure on the screen spoke with an unfamiliar accent. His features were exotic compared to ours. His face had far more hair on it than anyone on the fleet could ever hope to achieve. His eyes gleamed with emotion. "This is a message from Earth." He spoke in a gruff tone and paused. He appeared to be searching for something else to say. The crew stared open-mouthed at the man on the screen. Not one person could believe what they were seeing.
The leader of the transmission crew leaned into her microphone. She was shaking; her eyes were trained on the man on the screen. "You have permission to continue." She let go of the voice call button and looked around at the rest of the crew, as if asking for verification that everything that was happening was actually real. "Please go on."
"We, from Earth, are making contact with your fleet now, after 2780 years, to inform you that you are now able to return to Earth." He smiled at the crew as he said this. "Earth's climate and biosphere have finally been stabilized."
We were unsure of what he meant by biosphere. His comment about the climate only further confused us. How could any human survive on a planet whose climate is so unstable? An image of the Earth appeared on the screen. It looked exactly like the one we all knew so well already, but with some differences in how the clouds looked. It hardly meant anything for them to be showing us the image.
"Sir," the leader spoke in disbelief. "If what you say is true, then there is no way that we could make it to Earth in time for any of us to see that." The crew smiled uncomfortably at the screen. "From what you tell us, we have been traveling away from earth for 2780 years. We have been traveling at max speed for the last 1000.; it would take us well over 1000 years to reach Earth." She paused, stood up, and folded her hands together.
That was the moment that the commander smiled back at the crew. "Ah yes, commander." He leaned closer to the screen. "Well, you see, Earth has made a lot of technological improvements over the past 2000 years or so." He laughed for a moment. "Will be upon you shortly." The radar, at that moment, sent an alert of a large approaching body coming from the other side of the solar system. "We are excited to see what one of two of mankind's only surviving expeditions has to say about their long journey."
The alert, which stated that the approaching body was halfway across the solar system now alerted us that the spaceship was before us. All at once a vast array of foreign spaceships appeared. | Incoming transmission sir! Origin..... Sol system sir. Third planet. M class. It just keeps repeating sir. Every 4 minutes or so.
Put it on the loud speaker! Yes sir!
It will start again in a second sir. Music starts to play, everyone listens intently.....we've known each other for too long, you know the rules, and so do I. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | “Don’t you think so?” I panted as my legs pumped beneath me, racking up numbers on the panel in front of me. “We’ve been at it for three thousand years, but we’ve never made landfall.”
“That doesn’t mean that the *Determined Resolution’s* failed or anything,” Alin shoots back, her breath coming out in little gasps. “We’ve just been very prudent and cautious, that’s all. You don’t want to land on some lousy planet, do you?”
I sigh irritably, coming to a stop as the machine beeps, signalling that I’d reached my daily quota of physical exercise. We’d had this argument a thousand times, going on in circles and circles. My feet patter softly on the metal floor of the gym, sweat flowing down my skin. As I wipe my sweaty fringe out of my eyes, I look out.
Next to the row of treadmill was a large window. Made of blast-proof glass that supposedly could withstand an ancient human weapon known as a ‘nuke’, the transparent sheet was about ten meters tall and wide, giving anyone who was using the gym an unfettered view into the great starry beyond. Currently, the glass had automatically tinted itself as it tried to lessen the glare of the giant red sun in the distance.
I palmed the glass, a faint reflection of myself mirroring me as I did. The large sphere glowed in the distance, fiery and old, the size of my palm. I knew, of course, that if we got closer it would have gradually grown so big that even a massive colony ship would’ve looked like a speck of dust. I look down, and at an angle from our ship, is the Helicornia XV.
It had been our best hope. A planet with a near perfect breathable atmosphere, fresh water oceans, and even confirmed signs of life. And so, our captain had charted a course here. Three years, we had travelled, through solar storms, fending off pissed off space monsters whose territory we intruded upon and replenishing our stores from the occasional asteroid field.
Spirits had been high, in the last three months as we’d neared Helicornia XV, with our scanners confirming most of our initial calculations. In fact, we had detected much more life present on the planet than previously thought, yet we hadn’t received anything indicating an already existing civilisation there.
It had been like the perfect home, empty and just waiting for us to move in. The captain had even given everyone a shift off as a holiday. I’d spent that holiday down in the gaming cubes, racing Alin through virtual star quadrants. And then we’d arrived.
There’s a beep, as Alin finishes her run. I can hear her footsteps clanking on the floor as she skips over, the gravity systems powering off now that all gym occupants had finished their runs. As we begin to float, I watch her reflection in the glass as she swipes away floating globules of my sweat. Warm hands clutching my shoulders from behind, as she hugs me from behind.
“I’m sorry the captain decided against landing here too,” she whispers in my ear, still slightly out of out breath. “I know you were really looking forward to it too.”
I sigh, the tired and miserable sound echoing around the gym, empty save for us. I lean back into her hug, one hand caressing her cheeks. I tear my eyes away from Helicornia XV.
The planet had been exactly as promised. Teeming with life, perfectly hospitable and devoid of an existing civilisation. Teeming with gargantuan life, as it had turned out. Huge, hulking animals the size of mountains roamed the surface, trampling over anything in its path. In the freshwater oceans, formidable behemoths lurked, their shadows visible to the naked eye even all the way up here.
Every now and then, they would do battle. Over territory, over mates or over food. And when they did, their fierce duels would change the landscape itself, rewriting the map on a monthly basis. Faced with the difficulty of starting a new life on a planet like this, the captain had decided that it’d be better to simply stay on the *Determined Resolution.*
Where it was safe. Familiar. Easier.
A ray of frustration shoots through my veins, like hot lightning, lacing through my head as it heralded a bad headache. I gently free myself from Alin’s hug, and make my way from the gym. She’s silent as she follows me, the two of us due for our shift.
It could’ve been possible. Staying on Helicornia XV. We had even managed to come up with a proposal for it. There was one particular mammoth that was so large that it barely ever moved, save to eat, and in our six months here observing, had never once been challenged, cowing its opponents into submission just based off its sized alone. We could’ve tried building a home on its back. Could've.
Months and months of planning, debates and proposal. All culminating in a one-word answer. No.
This could’ve been it. This could’ve been our ‘Earth’. Legendary, mythical. Once, supposedly our home planet and the origin of the *Determined Resolution*. But for some reason, we’d had no evidence ever supporting the idea that we’d come from Earth. The origins of our ship were lost to time, save for the few scraps of knowledge we passed on through bedtime stories.
I turn to Alin, just in front of the door to the command bridge.
“Just imagine it,” I say quietly, my brooding gaze not fazing her in the slightest. “A world free from the system on this ship. No having to exercise just to maintain bone mass, no having one job assigned to you for life. No having your life partner assigned to you for the sake of maintaining the genetic pool.”
Alin flinches at the last statement, and I instantly regret my words, knowing that I’ve hurt her. She’s stiff, as I gingerly grip her shoulders, pained blue eyes gazing into my own. Once, we’d dream of not being with each other. But we had long made our peace with this, and each other. I give her a kiss on the forehead, murmuring an apology as I do.
She nods understandingly, before brushing past me and entering the bridge.
The bridge is a flurry of action as we enter. Delion and Mavis, the operators we were here to relieve, completely ignored us as they both worked frantically at their stations, their hands a blur on the keyboards.
“Captain?” I turn to the figure in the centre of the bridge, shouting out orders and coordinating the chaotic mess the best he could. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Sam, Alin,” the Captain turns around to greet us, his hair a fluffy mess. “Relieve Delion and Mavis, we’ve been working overtime ever since it came up. *Go*.”
The order leaves little room for questions. We simply race to our stations, pulling our counterparts off their station. They stop, relief clear in their faces as their hands trembled from all the stress.
“This is amazing,” Mavis raves, clutching Alin tightly. “We’re so close, you two just have to do the finish touches and we’re ready to decode.”
It doesn’t take long for her words to make sense, as Alin and I settle in. My eyes widen, as I take in the outdated format, the archaic wording and jargon. And it’s source. Earth. An actual message from Earth.
We work furiously, the bridge completely quiet save for the symphony of beeping and clicking as the captain awaited results. Alin gasps, she’s decoded her message. As she reads it, her hands stifle a gasp, as she looks at me in horror.
Alin tries to stop me, her panicked babbles and flailing hands of little consequence to me. I restrain her with an excited hug as I read the message.
**Determined Resolution, an error has been detected in your original coordinates. You are off-course and will miss your destination at the end of your thirty-year journey unless you make immediate corrections. We hope this message reaches you in time. Godspeed.**
All this time. My hands fall limply to my side. All this time, spent in space.
As the correct coordinates scroll across the screen alongside the incorrect one, I’m ready to start crying.
My entire life spent in a metal bubble, because one digit had been off.
Damn it all. | Incoming transmission sir! Origin..... Sol system sir. Third planet. M class. It just keeps repeating sir. Every 4 minutes or so.
Put it on the loud speaker! Yes sir!
It will start again in a second sir. Music starts to play, everyone listens intently.....we've known each other for too long, you know the rules, and so do I. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "I think I heard something.”
Diron rolled his eyes while his swung his chair side to side, the screen of his interface following him in a nauseating back and forth. “It’s not funny anymore, Talia. We’re not 8 years old” he said. “I’m trying to study. Play with your hardware somewhere else.”
Talia flicked a glare emoji onto Diron’s interface and frowned at the console in front of her, one hand on her ear, pressing against the antique earpiece. “I’m serious.” She fiddled with some wired on the console and old speakers crackled to life.
Diron wiped his interface away and spun his chair around in a full circle. “Hey, maybe I should write my intro psych paper on all you dirty kooks who listen to empty space as a hobby, waiting for--” He froze and leaned forward. “Is that music?” He spun a finger in the in the air for a moment before he realized it wasn’t on his interface. “Make it louder.”
“We’re not dirty, we’re Earthy.” Talia threw an empty soda packet at her twin, hitting him in the shoulder. She swiped a screen on her console and the crackles got louder. Underneath it was a tinkle of sound, so faint it was easy to mistake for random noise, until it repeated itself.
Talia turn back and unplugged the speakers, plugging them into her temple. She wiped up her interface and started the sound editing app.
“Share it, I want to hear.” Diron slide his chair next to hers and leaned over her shoulder.
Talia rolled her eyes and grabbed the audio icon and tossed it to Diron. Her hands flicked back and forth as she cleaned up the audio, trying to filter out the background noise of stars and suns that must have travelled with the signal for light years.
“It’s pretty degraded, but not as bad as I’d expect for travelling so far. Even taking the most conservative interpretations of the logs, we’ve been gone for 2,547 years.”
“We haven’t been gone from anywhere. Your stupid theories don’t make any sense.”
“Someone built this place!”
“It’s not a place! It’s a planet!”
They devolved into the usual argument, about how no other planets could move on their own, but how would they know that if they were all travelling in the same direction, and so on. Only a few people listened to the stars on the old equipment, and they didn’t believe half of what they said. It was too obvious that the life here had evolved to live inside this giant, spinning, planet-sized asteroid. They had plants that burrowed through the rock to collect UV rays from the suns they passed, using that energy to support the entire ecosystem within the planet. Everything worked too smoothly, too well to be designed. It had to be natural. Humans made too many mistakes. Just look at Diron, Talia thought uncharitably.
They both suddenly stopped and tilted their heads to the side, then looked back at each other. Talia flipped through her apps until she found the translation app. They were both silent for a few minutes, just listening.
“What’s a country road, and how could it take you home?” | Incoming transmission sir! Origin..... Sol system sir. Third planet. M class. It just keeps repeating sir. Every 4 minutes or so.
Put it on the loud speaker! Yes sir!
It will start again in a second sir. Music starts to play, everyone listens intently.....we've known each other for too long, you know the rules, and so do I. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | “Were you followed?”
“No. I checked, and I think that –”
“There is no allowance here for *think*,” I hissed. “Are you sure or are you not?”
Dr Bancroft Miles held out his arm and peeled his sleeve back. I tapped my monitor screen, and the camera zoomed in – there was a silver patch on his skin, just below the wrist. “I even blocked out my bio-transponder,” he said. “Scrambled all the cameras along the corridors, and passed my ID credentials to a trusted friend. At this very moment, the Ship believes I am in my laboratory. No one knows I am here, I swear.”
The metal doors slid open, and he crept in, as stealthily as doubt in the back of one’s mind. There was a momentary look of confusion on his face – most people don’t expect the fabled Rat King to look so *ordinary*. They usually expected someone almost… rabid, with a shock of tousled white hair, wearing a permanent hunted look. That fit the name better. I couldn’t blame him when he held his wristcore out. I returned the gesture, and the quantum-processors in our personal devices *dinged* as our identities were confirmed.
“Sorry. No disrespect meant. I just needed to be sure. This is… a big risk.”
“No offence taken. Come, my contacts mentioned that you had something to verify with me. Have you shown this to anyone else?”
“You’re the first to hear it, other than me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not even your wife? Your son? Any of your six colleagues? Surely they were the first ports of call for such a momentous discovery?”
“These are delicate times, Rat King. You never know who you can trust. Even if you do, can you guard their tongues 24 hours a day? I can’t… afford for this to be a mistake. If it is a prank, the last thing I want is to put my name to it. Can you imagine? Me, declaring to the entire Ship that I’ve found the first transmission from beyond these plated hulls in over a hundred years? All it takes is for someone to doubt their authenticity, and then I will be discredited. I will be laughed at, ridiculed. No one will believe me ever again.”
“But the potential rewards,” I said. “Conversely, if the transmission was true, you would be a celebrity! It would be the greatest discovery we’ve made in memory! The Commander himself would clap your back and thank you for giving the Ship meaning and direction once again!”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said, as his voice dropped to a whisper. “I need someone I can trust to… hear it, test it, prod at it until all the checks are complete. You’re the Rat King – you’re the one who has managed to squirrel away precious archives of knowledge and hidden it from the Commander and his lackeys. If anyone would know, it is you.”
I nodded, then pointed to the terminal on my table. He pulled out a square crystal from his pockets, then gingerly slid it into the console. The lights in my cabin dimmed as a tinny voice issued from the concealed speakers – mere sound waves, but sound waves that had travelled incalculable distances to land themselves into the homemade antennas Dr Miles had fashioned.
*… hear me? Can you hear me? I repeat, all 8 Ships of the Federation, your journey is complete! This is Commander Ping from Earth, and I am overjoyed to inform you that your arduous odyssey has come to an end! The Ship known as Rapacious has located a star system that is hospitable to all mankind! I repeat, they have completed the Objective! All Ships are to redirect their flight paths to the following coordinates – 1123, 4420, 9102… –*
The voice carried on for another ten seconds or so, then began to repeat the message. I pulled up my terminal, then keyed in the passwords to access the archives I had stolen from the Ship’s memory banks. Dr Miles was patient – he was entirely silent throughout the next ten feverish minutes.
Eventually, he said, “Well? What do you think?”
I couldn’t contain the sigh. “It’s… very well done. Extremely competently made. But… it’s not real. It’s fake.” I pointed at the holoscreen, then drew his attention to a cluster of numbers at the top right. “I’ve compared the content and the metadata of the transmission against our known records, and as you can see, it’s close but ultimately not genuine. Someone is out to play a very elaborate prank on you, Dr Miles.”
“Oh, I see.”
I pulled the crystal out, then handed it back to him. But his lips had curled up in disgust, and he pushed the crystal back at me.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Whatever for?” he snarled. “So that I can reminded of how I wasted over a hundred credits on sieving that message out of the galactic storm? Nah, you can have it, Rat King. Add it to your treasure trove.”
“Do be cautious, Dr Miles. It may have been fake, but there’s no telling what the Commander would do if he learned that you had –”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ve already forgotten about this. You won’t see me again.”
And with that, he was gone.
---
I was bouncing the crystal in my hand when the Commander came in. He was still in his full uniform, with an array of medals adorning his chest. Yet, the corridors were quiet, and there was no trace of the usual contingent which trailed after him.
“So it’s real then,” he asked.
“One hundred percent.”
“I mean, after all this time…”
“You don’t believe me? You know I cannot lie to you. Here, see for yourself.”
My arm was a blur as I tossed the crystal to him. A normal man would have no choice but to duck – to try and catch it would only have resulted in mortal injury. But the Commander casually plucked the crystal out of the air, opened his chest cavity, then slid the crystal in. He copied the contents of the crystal, then handed it back.
“So they are well, it seems.”
“There was always a chance that Earth would survive. I just didn’t expect them to be the ones to coordinate the final return.”
“That leaves us with two options then. To head to where Rapacious is, or to continue on our own flight path?”
I sighed, then pushed a command to the holoscreen. My radio transmitters were ancient, but they still functioned well. Numbers filled the holoscreen again, flickering past faster than any human eye could perceive. Unlike Dr Miles, the Commander had no trouble following my calculations.
I expected nothing less from my fellow android.
“5% chance of survival if we change course now,” he said, as he drummed his fingers on the table.
“Less than that, actually, if you take into account the human reactions and time lost when we announce the change. We simply do not have the fuel to travel to such a far flung system now. We are committed to our own flight paths, come what may.”
“This would have been so much easier if they stocked more than just two of us on this damn Ship.”
“Two androids, Commander. That was the ideal number to maximum our chances of survival. You know that too.”
He nodded. “I know, I know. So you’re sure then? We stay the course, and cross our fingers that the Mendacious finds its own hospitable star system in time?”
“That’s what they put us here for, right? To make the tough choices without letting emotions get in the way?”
“Just twelve more years, my brother. Twelve more years until our fuel cores give out.”
“Better than almost certain death if we headed to where the Rapacious is now.”
He stood up. I knew he had made up his mind – that was what he was programmed for, after all. He with the logarithms and process loops for charm, for a personable demeanor, for the gravitas which the humans would flock to in times of need. I could already see his next day’s itinerary all planned out – a round of reminding the humans to keep their heads down and to work hard, and to nurture hope in their bosoms as the Mendacious searched for their new home.
I, on the other hand, with my capacity for fostering confidences, for cultivating trust and stealing the hearts of men from under their noses, would continue my work too. I would update all the off-grid forum threads on the intranet, sniff out conspiracies against the Commander, divine any threats to the Ship, act as the lightning rod for all the unsavory types on the Ship.
One to rule above.
One to rule below.
Both of us hoping against hope that we could steer the Mendacious in time to where the humans could disembark safely.
“Till we meet again.”
“Till we meet again.”
---
/r/rarelyfunny
| This story is based in the same universe as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/comments/8vv4sj/wp_as_long_as_you_keep_praying_everyone_stays/) prompt I did a while ago.
---
"What does this mean, Haruspex?" asked Governer Merther, voicing the concerns of the council.
Haruspex Toyne could almost taste the tension in the air. This was the Time of Tribulation; not only was hope dwindling of finding a new Haruspex to replace him, but now they had to deal with a message from whatever gods or demons were trying to speak to them. The Heralds had spoken with a new voice today, one that had not been heard before. Whatever was being said must have been important indeed, for even the Goddess announced it. Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours, buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council. But he could defer them no longer.
Breathing deeply to steady himself, he felt the weight of his age as he stood up. Slowly, he placed the Mitre over his head once more, pleading with the Goddess to replay the message.
"Greetings, Oracle. This is Earth-Commandante Roker. Our records show you have been wandering for a long time, but we're glad to say you have made it back home. We will be sending out a vessel to make sure everyone is ok, and that the ship is in good condition to land. Please grant them permission to dock, and we look forward to seeing you all soon."
The silence in the room was deafening, but all eyes were now transfixed firmly on the Haruspex as he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre.
"Not much can be gleaned from the message. It appears to be the same ancient language of our Prayers. For example, the Herald speaks of Ara-Su, one of the ancient Gardens. As you all know many generations ago, heretics proclaimed that Ara-Su was the Primary Garden; the well-spring of life. As such, this message may well be heretic. If we wish to avoid bloodshed like in the War of Gardens, we would do well to conceal knowledge of this message."
The Sepulchre was as silent as the grave; no one even dared breathe. The very thought of a recurrence of the War of Gardens was enough to send shivers down one's spine.
The silence was broken by the Heralds once more, followed by the gentle voice of the Goddess.
"Vessel detected, seeking permission to dock. Interception time t minus eighteen hours. Select Protocol."
Toyne looked over at Merther. "Governer, they are almost here. What would you have me do?"
Merther bit his lower lip in anxiety. He could not risk another war, there was too much at stake. Hell, who knew how much longer they'd have the Haruspex for? His age was showing, and he had no children to succeed him. He looked over at Toyne, his eyes beseeching him to make the call. Toyne nodded in understanding.
Carefully replacing the Mitre on his head, Toyne recited the ancient prayer of his ancestors.
"Initiate airspace intruder protocol six. Arm all systems, fire at will."
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | An image of Earth flashed up on the screen. It rotated slowly as the teacher lectured her students. "Earth is the planet of our origin." She stared at the image of Earth as she said this. She seemed as mesmerized by it as the rest of us were. It was so magnificent, it was hard to believe that any of us could've come from there. But that was supposedly the truth, and so we all entertained the thought for the sake of the lecture. "We are a part of the fourth expedition out of Earth to explore a potentially suitable planet for life."
We had all heard the stories before. Some brave 4,500 humans or so left planet Earth in search of another home. They did something the rest of the humans that stayed on Earth were too cowardly or incapable of doing. We were all supposed to be proud of our ancestors. They were the brave ones. Those astronauts exemplified one of the main tenets of the expedition -- Pioneering. As strange as it was to us, we too were astronauts exploring the galaxy; moving towards our new home after a long journey through space. A class of second graders were astronauts. None of us really knew what that was supposed to mean. We were told that it was an impressive feat. It was hardly impressive to us. It was all we had ever known.
Being the 87th generation on the ship, we all had a hard time believing any of the stories told by our teachers. We were, after all, on our way to another planet. Why call Earth our home planet when we are so clearly a spacefaring race? Most believed that Earth was simply a stop on the way to another planet that was, for some reason, romanticized by the people at the time. Earth was probably just some dead rock floating through space that stirred up the hearts and imaginations of the people living at the time, and they decided to create some kind of silly lore about it in an attempt to give us a historical home. Earth was simply a story meant to give children some sort of grounding in the vastness of space we were born into.
We received nothing from this Earth. There was never any signal or message from this planet that supposedly existed. We were told that it was because Earth and the expedition made the voluntary decision not to attempt contacting each other once the expedition had started. It was all just a joke. How were we supposed to believe everything we were told without any evidence? It all seemed so... convenient that we weren't able to see anything about Earth except for this one glowing blue and green image. There was absolutely nothing else to glean of this planet. When we asked what it was like on the surface, we were told that the information was withheld from us to prevent any future desire to return.
People scoffed at this statement. A world that we originated from, that we somehow have no way of contacting? How ridiculous. What of the other expeditions? We were told that there were 12 in total. Why haven't we heard from the other 11? The answer was the same, everywhere we turned. Teachers came up empty with a response about the decision making process around this voluntary choice non-communication. Most people just took to believe that Earth wasn't as beautiful as the images suggested. It was merely a metaphor for our creation. Something used to explain the origin of Humanity. It seemed that in all likelihood we would never know where we came from.
\--- --- ---
That memory returned to me from my childhood as I stared up at the screen above me. The man on the screen, I did not recognize. Out of the 7,000 current inhabitants of the fleet, he was not one of them. He was foreign. I had been flipping through the channels on the transmitter, waiting to receive a message from our small expedition force to a nearby satellite. The screen and all the buttons were blank when suddenly there was a forced entry into the database and we were informed that a message was being sent to our fleet from this foreign body. Given no choice to accept or deny the message, we were forced to witness one of the most world-shattering events in our history as a fleet as the other humans from Earth made contact with us for the first time in over 2000 years.
"Hello Expedition 4 Gamma." The foreign figure on the screen spoke with an unfamiliar accent. His features were exotic compared to ours. His face had far more hair on it than anyone on the fleet could ever hope to achieve. His eyes gleamed with emotion. "This is a message from Earth." He spoke in a gruff tone and paused. He appeared to be searching for something else to say. The crew stared open-mouthed at the man on the screen. Not one person could believe what they were seeing.
The leader of the transmission crew leaned into her microphone. She was shaking; her eyes were trained on the man on the screen. "You have permission to continue." She let go of the voice call button and looked around at the rest of the crew, as if asking for verification that everything that was happening was actually real. "Please go on."
"We, from Earth, are making contact with your fleet now, after 2780 years, to inform you that you are now able to return to Earth." He smiled at the crew as he said this. "Earth's climate and biosphere have finally been stabilized."
We were unsure of what he meant by biosphere. His comment about the climate only further confused us. How could any human survive on a planet whose climate is so unstable? An image of the Earth appeared on the screen. It looked exactly like the one we all knew so well already, but with some differences in how the clouds looked. It hardly meant anything for them to be showing us the image.
"Sir," the leader spoke in disbelief. "If what you say is true, then there is no way that we could make it to Earth in time for any of us to see that." The crew smiled uncomfortably at the screen. "From what you tell us, we have been traveling away from earth for 2780 years. We have been traveling at max speed for the last 1000.; it would take us well over 1000 years to reach Earth." She paused, stood up, and folded her hands together.
That was the moment that the commander smiled back at the crew. "Ah yes, commander." He leaned closer to the screen. "Well, you see, Earth has made a lot of technological improvements over the past 2000 years or so." He laughed for a moment. "Will be upon you shortly." The radar, at that moment, sent an alert of a large approaching body coming from the other side of the solar system. "We are excited to see what one of two of mankind's only surviving expeditions has to say about their long journey."
The alert, which stated that the approaching body was halfway across the solar system now alerted us that the spaceship was before us. All at once a vast array of foreign spaceships appeared. | This story is based in the same universe as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/comments/8vv4sj/wp_as_long_as_you_keep_praying_everyone_stays/) prompt I did a while ago.
---
"What does this mean, Haruspex?" asked Governer Merther, voicing the concerns of the council.
Haruspex Toyne could almost taste the tension in the air. This was the Time of Tribulation; not only was hope dwindling of finding a new Haruspex to replace him, but now they had to deal with a message from whatever gods or demons were trying to speak to them. The Heralds had spoken with a new voice today, one that had not been heard before. Whatever was being said must have been important indeed, for even the Goddess announced it. Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours, buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council. But he could defer them no longer.
Breathing deeply to steady himself, he felt the weight of his age as he stood up. Slowly, he placed the Mitre over his head once more, pleading with the Goddess to replay the message.
"Greetings, Oracle. This is Earth-Commandante Roker. Our records show you have been wandering for a long time, but we're glad to say you have made it back home. We will be sending out a vessel to make sure everyone is ok, and that the ship is in good condition to land. Please grant them permission to dock, and we look forward to seeing you all soon."
The silence in the room was deafening, but all eyes were now transfixed firmly on the Haruspex as he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre.
"Not much can be gleaned from the message. It appears to be the same ancient language of our Prayers. For example, the Herald speaks of Ara-Su, one of the ancient Gardens. As you all know many generations ago, heretics proclaimed that Ara-Su was the Primary Garden; the well-spring of life. As such, this message may well be heretic. If we wish to avoid bloodshed like in the War of Gardens, we would do well to conceal knowledge of this message."
The Sepulchre was as silent as the grave; no one even dared breathe. The very thought of a recurrence of the War of Gardens was enough to send shivers down one's spine.
The silence was broken by the Heralds once more, followed by the gentle voice of the Goddess.
"Vessel detected, seeking permission to dock. Interception time t minus eighteen hours. Select Protocol."
Toyne looked over at Merther. "Governer, they are almost here. What would you have me do?"
Merther bit his lower lip in anxiety. He could not risk another war, there was too much at stake. Hell, who knew how much longer they'd have the Haruspex for? His age was showing, and he had no children to succeed him. He looked over at Toyne, his eyes beseeching him to make the call. Toyne nodded in understanding.
Carefully replacing the Mitre on his head, Toyne recited the ancient prayer of his ancestors.
"Initiate airspace intruder protocol six. Arm all systems, fire at will."
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | “Don’t you think so?” I panted as my legs pumped beneath me, racking up numbers on the panel in front of me. “We’ve been at it for three thousand years, but we’ve never made landfall.”
“That doesn’t mean that the *Determined Resolution’s* failed or anything,” Alin shoots back, her breath coming out in little gasps. “We’ve just been very prudent and cautious, that’s all. You don’t want to land on some lousy planet, do you?”
I sigh irritably, coming to a stop as the machine beeps, signalling that I’d reached my daily quota of physical exercise. We’d had this argument a thousand times, going on in circles and circles. My feet patter softly on the metal floor of the gym, sweat flowing down my skin. As I wipe my sweaty fringe out of my eyes, I look out.
Next to the row of treadmill was a large window. Made of blast-proof glass that supposedly could withstand an ancient human weapon known as a ‘nuke’, the transparent sheet was about ten meters tall and wide, giving anyone who was using the gym an unfettered view into the great starry beyond. Currently, the glass had automatically tinted itself as it tried to lessen the glare of the giant red sun in the distance.
I palmed the glass, a faint reflection of myself mirroring me as I did. The large sphere glowed in the distance, fiery and old, the size of my palm. I knew, of course, that if we got closer it would have gradually grown so big that even a massive colony ship would’ve looked like a speck of dust. I look down, and at an angle from our ship, is the Helicornia XV.
It had been our best hope. A planet with a near perfect breathable atmosphere, fresh water oceans, and even confirmed signs of life. And so, our captain had charted a course here. Three years, we had travelled, through solar storms, fending off pissed off space monsters whose territory we intruded upon and replenishing our stores from the occasional asteroid field.
Spirits had been high, in the last three months as we’d neared Helicornia XV, with our scanners confirming most of our initial calculations. In fact, we had detected much more life present on the planet than previously thought, yet we hadn’t received anything indicating an already existing civilisation there.
It had been like the perfect home, empty and just waiting for us to move in. The captain had even given everyone a shift off as a holiday. I’d spent that holiday down in the gaming cubes, racing Alin through virtual star quadrants. And then we’d arrived.
There’s a beep, as Alin finishes her run. I can hear her footsteps clanking on the floor as she skips over, the gravity systems powering off now that all gym occupants had finished their runs. As we begin to float, I watch her reflection in the glass as she swipes away floating globules of my sweat. Warm hands clutching my shoulders from behind, as she hugs me from behind.
“I’m sorry the captain decided against landing here too,” she whispers in my ear, still slightly out of out breath. “I know you were really looking forward to it too.”
I sigh, the tired and miserable sound echoing around the gym, empty save for us. I lean back into her hug, one hand caressing her cheeks. I tear my eyes away from Helicornia XV.
The planet had been exactly as promised. Teeming with life, perfectly hospitable and devoid of an existing civilisation. Teeming with gargantuan life, as it had turned out. Huge, hulking animals the size of mountains roamed the surface, trampling over anything in its path. In the freshwater oceans, formidable behemoths lurked, their shadows visible to the naked eye even all the way up here.
Every now and then, they would do battle. Over territory, over mates or over food. And when they did, their fierce duels would change the landscape itself, rewriting the map on a monthly basis. Faced with the difficulty of starting a new life on a planet like this, the captain had decided that it’d be better to simply stay on the *Determined Resolution.*
Where it was safe. Familiar. Easier.
A ray of frustration shoots through my veins, like hot lightning, lacing through my head as it heralded a bad headache. I gently free myself from Alin’s hug, and make my way from the gym. She’s silent as she follows me, the two of us due for our shift.
It could’ve been possible. Staying on Helicornia XV. We had even managed to come up with a proposal for it. There was one particular mammoth that was so large that it barely ever moved, save to eat, and in our six months here observing, had never once been challenged, cowing its opponents into submission just based off its sized alone. We could’ve tried building a home on its back. Could've.
Months and months of planning, debates and proposal. All culminating in a one-word answer. No.
This could’ve been it. This could’ve been our ‘Earth’. Legendary, mythical. Once, supposedly our home planet and the origin of the *Determined Resolution*. But for some reason, we’d had no evidence ever supporting the idea that we’d come from Earth. The origins of our ship were lost to time, save for the few scraps of knowledge we passed on through bedtime stories.
I turn to Alin, just in front of the door to the command bridge.
“Just imagine it,” I say quietly, my brooding gaze not fazing her in the slightest. “A world free from the system on this ship. No having to exercise just to maintain bone mass, no having one job assigned to you for life. No having your life partner assigned to you for the sake of maintaining the genetic pool.”
Alin flinches at the last statement, and I instantly regret my words, knowing that I’ve hurt her. She’s stiff, as I gingerly grip her shoulders, pained blue eyes gazing into my own. Once, we’d dream of not being with each other. But we had long made our peace with this, and each other. I give her a kiss on the forehead, murmuring an apology as I do.
She nods understandingly, before brushing past me and entering the bridge.
The bridge is a flurry of action as we enter. Delion and Mavis, the operators we were here to relieve, completely ignored us as they both worked frantically at their stations, their hands a blur on the keyboards.
“Captain?” I turn to the figure in the centre of the bridge, shouting out orders and coordinating the chaotic mess the best he could. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Sam, Alin,” the Captain turns around to greet us, his hair a fluffy mess. “Relieve Delion and Mavis, we’ve been working overtime ever since it came up. *Go*.”
The order leaves little room for questions. We simply race to our stations, pulling our counterparts off their station. They stop, relief clear in their faces as their hands trembled from all the stress.
“This is amazing,” Mavis raves, clutching Alin tightly. “We’re so close, you two just have to do the finish touches and we’re ready to decode.”
It doesn’t take long for her words to make sense, as Alin and I settle in. My eyes widen, as I take in the outdated format, the archaic wording and jargon. And it’s source. Earth. An actual message from Earth.
We work furiously, the bridge completely quiet save for the symphony of beeping and clicking as the captain awaited results. Alin gasps, she’s decoded her message. As she reads it, her hands stifle a gasp, as she looks at me in horror.
Alin tries to stop me, her panicked babbles and flailing hands of little consequence to me. I restrain her with an excited hug as I read the message.
**Determined Resolution, an error has been detected in your original coordinates. You are off-course and will miss your destination at the end of your thirty-year journey unless you make immediate corrections. We hope this message reaches you in time. Godspeed.**
All this time. My hands fall limply to my side. All this time, spent in space.
As the correct coordinates scroll across the screen alongside the incorrect one, I’m ready to start crying.
My entire life spent in a metal bubble, because one digit had been off.
Damn it all. | This story is based in the same universe as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/comments/8vv4sj/wp_as_long_as_you_keep_praying_everyone_stays/) prompt I did a while ago.
---
"What does this mean, Haruspex?" asked Governer Merther, voicing the concerns of the council.
Haruspex Toyne could almost taste the tension in the air. This was the Time of Tribulation; not only was hope dwindling of finding a new Haruspex to replace him, but now they had to deal with a message from whatever gods or demons were trying to speak to them. The Heralds had spoken with a new voice today, one that had not been heard before. Whatever was being said must have been important indeed, for even the Goddess announced it. Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours, buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council. But he could defer them no longer.
Breathing deeply to steady himself, he felt the weight of his age as he stood up. Slowly, he placed the Mitre over his head once more, pleading with the Goddess to replay the message.
"Greetings, Oracle. This is Earth-Commandante Roker. Our records show you have been wandering for a long time, but we're glad to say you have made it back home. We will be sending out a vessel to make sure everyone is ok, and that the ship is in good condition to land. Please grant them permission to dock, and we look forward to seeing you all soon."
The silence in the room was deafening, but all eyes were now transfixed firmly on the Haruspex as he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre.
"Not much can be gleaned from the message. It appears to be the same ancient language of our Prayers. For example, the Herald speaks of Ara-Su, one of the ancient Gardens. As you all know many generations ago, heretics proclaimed that Ara-Su was the Primary Garden; the well-spring of life. As such, this message may well be heretic. If we wish to avoid bloodshed like in the War of Gardens, we would do well to conceal knowledge of this message."
The Sepulchre was as silent as the grave; no one even dared breathe. The very thought of a recurrence of the War of Gardens was enough to send shivers down one's spine.
The silence was broken by the Heralds once more, followed by the gentle voice of the Goddess.
"Vessel detected, seeking permission to dock. Interception time t minus eighteen hours. Select Protocol."
Toyne looked over at Merther. "Governer, they are almost here. What would you have me do?"
Merther bit his lower lip in anxiety. He could not risk another war, there was too much at stake. Hell, who knew how much longer they'd have the Haruspex for? His age was showing, and he had no children to succeed him. He looked over at Toyne, his eyes beseeching him to make the call. Toyne nodded in understanding.
Carefully replacing the Mitre on his head, Toyne recited the ancient prayer of his ancestors.
"Initiate airspace intruder protocol six. Arm all systems, fire at will."
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The Starseed project began with a relatively simply stated objective: Spread life, and humanity, across as much of the galaxy as possible. A single first stage, the *New York* launched from a construction facility in Earth orbit with a population of a half million, accompanied by a robotic probe named *Liberty*. When the probe arrived at the destination star system thirty five years later it began construction of a new ship, the *Roma* and a new probe, *Romulus*. When the *New York* arrived thirty five years after that half the now million person population offloaded onto the *Roma* and the two ships and probes headed off in different directions.
I was born aboard the *Orleans*. We're within communications range of our parent ship, the *London*. By relay we can reach our sister ship, the *Athenai* and her daughter ship, the *Teotihuacan*. A one-way transmission to anyone further back than the *London* takes decades by relay and there is no guarantee of a response.
We do still get messages though, it just takes twenty years to hear from the *Delhi*. Last week the final decision on sixth generation ship names went out. In another ten years the *Orleans* will catch up to *Jean d'Arc* for resupply and will rendezvous with the *Philadelphia* and *Franklin*. They've also already started deciding what the seventh generation will be called.
There is one place nobody's heard from in centuries. We know that Earth existed. Everyone has seen footage of the *New York* leaving dock and our records are full of information about it, but does it still exist? What of our records is fact and what was fiction?
Nobody knows.
Some claim that Earth was destroyed by a disaster or that humanity finally wiped itself off the face of the planet, that we're all that remains. Others claim that humans on Earth have ascended to another form of life and don't need communication anymore and that they'll soon come and share their secrets with us. Another theory is that the *Echo-1* relay failed, making communication with Earth impossible, and nobody there cares enough to replace it.
For the most part it doesn't matter. Earth is a legend and has as little impact on our lives as the cities and figures that we name our ships and probes after. It is a thing to discuss with friends over wine, it is not real.
Each ship is self-sufficient, needing only to pick up supplies every seventy years. Most of what we transmit to each other is little more than letters between cousins, transcripts of new plays or songs we've written, and technical papers from the various labs. The further apart the ships get the more important it becomes to cram information into tighter transmissions.
My name is Cécile, I'm a mathematician and communications specialist. This is the story of how a legend became real. | This story is based in the same universe as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/comments/8vv4sj/wp_as_long_as_you_keep_praying_everyone_stays/) prompt I did a while ago.
---
"What does this mean, Haruspex?" asked Governer Merther, voicing the concerns of the council.
Haruspex Toyne could almost taste the tension in the air. This was the Time of Tribulation; not only was hope dwindling of finding a new Haruspex to replace him, but now they had to deal with a message from whatever gods or demons were trying to speak to them. The Heralds had spoken with a new voice today, one that had not been heard before. Whatever was being said must have been important indeed, for even the Goddess announced it. Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours, buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council. But he could defer them no longer.
Breathing deeply to steady himself, he felt the weight of his age as he stood up. Slowly, he placed the Mitre over his head once more, pleading with the Goddess to replay the message.
"Greetings, Oracle. This is Earth-Commandante Roker. Our records show you have been wandering for a long time, but we're glad to say you have made it back home. We will be sending out a vessel to make sure everyone is ok, and that the ship is in good condition to land. Please grant them permission to dock, and we look forward to seeing you all soon."
The silence in the room was deafening, but all eyes were now transfixed firmly on the Haruspex as he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre.
"Not much can be gleaned from the message. It appears to be the same ancient language of our Prayers. For example, the Herald speaks of Ara-Su, one of the ancient Gardens. As you all know many generations ago, heretics proclaimed that Ara-Su was the Primary Garden; the well-spring of life. As such, this message may well be heretic. If we wish to avoid bloodshed like in the War of Gardens, we would do well to conceal knowledge of this message."
The Sepulchre was as silent as the grave; no one even dared breathe. The very thought of a recurrence of the War of Gardens was enough to send shivers down one's spine.
The silence was broken by the Heralds once more, followed by the gentle voice of the Goddess.
"Vessel detected, seeking permission to dock. Interception time t minus eighteen hours. Select Protocol."
Toyne looked over at Merther. "Governer, they are almost here. What would you have me do?"
Merther bit his lower lip in anxiety. He could not risk another war, there was too much at stake. Hell, who knew how much longer they'd have the Haruspex for? His age was showing, and he had no children to succeed him. He looked over at Toyne, his eyes beseeching him to make the call. Toyne nodded in understanding.
Carefully replacing the Mitre on his head, Toyne recited the ancient prayer of his ancestors.
"Initiate airspace intruder protocol six. Arm all systems, fire at will."
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "I think I heard something.”
Diron rolled his eyes while his swung his chair side to side, the screen of his interface following him in a nauseating back and forth. “It’s not funny anymore, Talia. We’re not 8 years old” he said. “I’m trying to study. Play with your hardware somewhere else.”
Talia flicked a glare emoji onto Diron’s interface and frowned at the console in front of her, one hand on her ear, pressing against the antique earpiece. “I’m serious.” She fiddled with some wired on the console and old speakers crackled to life.
Diron wiped his interface away and spun his chair around in a full circle. “Hey, maybe I should write my intro psych paper on all you dirty kooks who listen to empty space as a hobby, waiting for--” He froze and leaned forward. “Is that music?” He spun a finger in the in the air for a moment before he realized it wasn’t on his interface. “Make it louder.”
“We’re not dirty, we’re Earthy.” Talia threw an empty soda packet at her twin, hitting him in the shoulder. She swiped a screen on her console and the crackles got louder. Underneath it was a tinkle of sound, so faint it was easy to mistake for random noise, until it repeated itself.
Talia turn back and unplugged the speakers, plugging them into her temple. She wiped up her interface and started the sound editing app.
“Share it, I want to hear.” Diron slide his chair next to hers and leaned over her shoulder.
Talia rolled her eyes and grabbed the audio icon and tossed it to Diron. Her hands flicked back and forth as she cleaned up the audio, trying to filter out the background noise of stars and suns that must have travelled with the signal for light years.
“It’s pretty degraded, but not as bad as I’d expect for travelling so far. Even taking the most conservative interpretations of the logs, we’ve been gone for 2,547 years.”
“We haven’t been gone from anywhere. Your stupid theories don’t make any sense.”
“Someone built this place!”
“It’s not a place! It’s a planet!”
They devolved into the usual argument, about how no other planets could move on their own, but how would they know that if they were all travelling in the same direction, and so on. Only a few people listened to the stars on the old equipment, and they didn’t believe half of what they said. It was too obvious that the life here had evolved to live inside this giant, spinning, planet-sized asteroid. They had plants that burrowed through the rock to collect UV rays from the suns they passed, using that energy to support the entire ecosystem within the planet. Everything worked too smoothly, too well to be designed. It had to be natural. Humans made too many mistakes. Just look at Diron, Talia thought uncharitably.
They both suddenly stopped and tilted their heads to the side, then looked back at each other. Talia flipped through her apps until she found the translation app. They were both silent for a few minutes, just listening.
“What’s a country road, and how could it take you home?” | This story is based in the same universe as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/comments/8vv4sj/wp_as_long_as_you_keep_praying_everyone_stays/) prompt I did a while ago.
---
"What does this mean, Haruspex?" asked Governer Merther, voicing the concerns of the council.
Haruspex Toyne could almost taste the tension in the air. This was the Time of Tribulation; not only was hope dwindling of finding a new Haruspex to replace him, but now they had to deal with a message from whatever gods or demons were trying to speak to them. The Heralds had spoken with a new voice today, one that had not been heard before. Whatever was being said must have been important indeed, for even the Goddess announced it. Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours, buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council. But he could defer them no longer.
Breathing deeply to steady himself, he felt the weight of his age as he stood up. Slowly, he placed the Mitre over his head once more, pleading with the Goddess to replay the message.
"Greetings, Oracle. This is Earth-Commandante Roker. Our records show you have been wandering for a long time, but we're glad to say you have made it back home. We will be sending out a vessel to make sure everyone is ok, and that the ship is in good condition to land. Please grant them permission to dock, and we look forward to seeing you all soon."
The silence in the room was deafening, but all eyes were now transfixed firmly on the Haruspex as he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre.
"Not much can be gleaned from the message. It appears to be the same ancient language of our Prayers. For example, the Herald speaks of Ara-Su, one of the ancient Gardens. As you all know many generations ago, heretics proclaimed that Ara-Su was the Primary Garden; the well-spring of life. As such, this message may well be heretic. If we wish to avoid bloodshed like in the War of Gardens, we would do well to conceal knowledge of this message."
The Sepulchre was as silent as the grave; no one even dared breathe. The very thought of a recurrence of the War of Gardens was enough to send shivers down one's spine.
The silence was broken by the Heralds once more, followed by the gentle voice of the Goddess.
"Vessel detected, seeking permission to dock. Interception time t minus eighteen hours. Select Protocol."
Toyne looked over at Merther. "Governer, they are almost here. What would you have me do?"
Merther bit his lower lip in anxiety. He could not risk another war, there was too much at stake. Hell, who knew how much longer they'd have the Haruspex for? His age was showing, and he had no children to succeed him. He looked over at Toyne, his eyes beseeching him to make the call. Toyne nodded in understanding.
Carefully replacing the Mitre on his head, Toyne recited the ancient prayer of his ancestors.
"Initiate airspace intruder protocol six. Arm all systems, fire at will."
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | The face on the screen was warped by horizontal lines that pulsed over it. The voice that should have accompanied the message was buried in a deep grave of static. It crackled incomprehensibly, the transmission weakened by its journey of -- who knew how long -- through the aether.
"You think they'll be able to fix the sound, Keon?"
I turned away from the stuttering image and looked at the girl sitting on the hot steel-pipe next to me. Streaks of oil stained her cheeks, and her tongue was back between her teeth as she jabbed a screwdriver into the stomach of the broken cleaning-droid lying on her lap. It would have to be replaced, but I'd let her have her fun for a while longer.
Ocea and I had been a maintenance duo for the best part of a ship's cycle, but I doubted we'd be partners much longer: she was too smart, too gifted, to be stuck in a dead-end job like this for long. And I... Well, I wasn't. But I was sensible. Realistic. Two things Ocea was not.
Of course, none of it mattered. Not really. In less than ten cycles we would be at Eltima Prux, the planet that we had been travelling towards for over a thousand generations. And once we were there, my life would change. No more maintenance. No more forced partners or listening to orders. Instead, I'd build my own home out of wood and stone -- just me, no other bunks in there. I'd grow fruit in the garden and sleep beneath the trees during the days. I was already counting down the days.
Captain Makoski had made the decision to broadcast the message onto every screen in the ship, so even down where we were, in the bowels of the Horizon, we would hear the broadcast. The Captain must have thought we all deserved some good news after the fire, and something like this -- a transmission from another ship, or maybe even a colony -- belonged to everyone. So far however, all we had were pictures and static, but it was still incredible to be looking back at an eerily familiar face, separated from us by thousands of cycles and who knew how much space. It was the first transmission received since I'd been born, and likely for hundreds of years previous to that.
I shrugged. "Doubt it. It looks a million cycles old to me. But at least we get to look at the images, right?"
Ocea dug deeper into the droid, placing the screwdriver down beside her, and jamming a hand into its metal belly. She grinned as she pulled out a frayed red wire, then shot me a look. "Just because it's old, doesn't mean its can't be fixed. Besides, I'm pretty sure I can hear something mixed in with the static. So all they need to do is isolate it." She took a coil of wire from her backpack and began wrapping it around the worn out area.
"This transmission is seriously ancient, Ocea. I doubt they'll get anything useful from it. The image is choppier than the hydro-unit during an asteroid belt; they won't even be able to read the man's lips."
She had finished wrapping with the wire and was squirting a white gel over it that would soon harden and turn into a plastic coating. "Come on Keon. They only need to block out the frequency of the white noise and"--she flicked a switch on the base of the droid; its lights blinked twice--"hey presto, they'll have it working!"
I watched, both a little jealous and a little impressed, as Ocea placed the droid onto the ground. Its wheels slowly spun as it crawled to the nearest charging pod. I forced myself to smile, "I knew you could it."
Ocea opened her mouth to respond, when the background fuzz of static suddenly warped into to a high-pitched screech, before falling into a voice.
"...Sent this message and it should reach you shortly before your arrival," the man said in a deep stentorian voice.
"Holy shit!" Ocea whispered, her face beaming. "They've got it working, Keon. I just knew they would!"
My heart paused as the man spoke; it then attempted to make up for the delay by trying to beat its way out of my ribs. I touched Ocea's shoulder with my hand. "He's speaking Horizic, Ocea."
She nodded excitedly but said nothing.
The man continued in the common tongue of the ship. "And Earth will have already fallen. There is no easy way to tell you this"--the picture crackled and the sound muted for a moment, before returning--"Eltima Prux is not a planet. It exists only in your ship's computer and was created by us mere months before you left. You must believe me when I say there was no choice in this deception, as you are now the last of us. If you had known the truth when you had left orbit, you would have given up a long time ago. You can not settle on a planet. They will catch you if you even so much as slow--"
The screen faded to black; the Captain must have cut off the transmission.
"Earth, Keon." Ocea's voice was gentle and her arms were trembling. "He said Earth, didn't he? I swear I heard it. You must have heard it, too. The creation story, Keon... That means it was real, doesn't it?"
I wanted to shout at her, to say 'Who cares if Earth was real or not?! What does that matter to a ship probably a billion miles away from it? All that matters to us is Eltima Prux. That the planet I had dreamt of since I was a child, doesn't even exist. That's what matters. Not what we left, but where we're going!'
But I didn't shout. Instead I took Ocea's hand and steadied it between mine. We sat in near silence for the longest time, the only sounds the occasional creaks and groans of the pipe beneath us, until a high pitch noise wailed out through the bay.
"What the hell is that?" I asked, covering my ears.
The answer didn't come from Ocea, but from the thick metal door that slammed down behind us.
They were sealing off the ship. Either because of another fire, or a mutiny.
The dulled gunshots that came from somewhere above us told me which.
| This story is based in the same universe as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/comments/8vv4sj/wp_as_long_as_you_keep_praying_everyone_stays/) prompt I did a while ago.
---
"What does this mean, Haruspex?" asked Governer Merther, voicing the concerns of the council.
Haruspex Toyne could almost taste the tension in the air. This was the Time of Tribulation; not only was hope dwindling of finding a new Haruspex to replace him, but now they had to deal with a message from whatever gods or demons were trying to speak to them. The Heralds had spoken with a new voice today, one that had not been heard before. Whatever was being said must have been important indeed, for even the Goddess announced it. Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours, buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council. But he could defer them no longer.
Breathing deeply to steady himself, he felt the weight of his age as he stood up. Slowly, he placed the Mitre over his head once more, pleading with the Goddess to replay the message.
"Greetings, Oracle. This is Earth-Commandante Roker. Our records show you have been wandering for a long time, but we're glad to say you have made it back home. We will be sending out a vessel to make sure everyone is ok, and that the ship is in good condition to land. Please grant them permission to dock, and we look forward to seeing you all soon."
The silence in the room was deafening, but all eyes were now transfixed firmly on the Haruspex as he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre.
"Not much can be gleaned from the message. It appears to be the same ancient language of our Prayers. For example, the Herald speaks of Ara-Su, one of the ancient Gardens. As you all know many generations ago, heretics proclaimed that Ara-Su was the Primary Garden; the well-spring of life. As such, this message may well be heretic. If we wish to avoid bloodshed like in the War of Gardens, we would do well to conceal knowledge of this message."
The Sepulchre was as silent as the grave; no one even dared breathe. The very thought of a recurrence of the War of Gardens was enough to send shivers down one's spine.
The silence was broken by the Heralds once more, followed by the gentle voice of the Goddess.
"Vessel detected, seeking permission to dock. Interception time t minus eighteen hours. Select Protocol."
Toyne looked over at Merther. "Governer, they are almost here. What would you have me do?"
Merther bit his lower lip in anxiety. He could not risk another war, there was too much at stake. Hell, who knew how much longer they'd have the Haruspex for? His age was showing, and he had no children to succeed him. He looked over at Toyne, his eyes beseeching him to make the call. Toyne nodded in understanding.
Carefully replacing the Mitre on his head, Toyne recited the ancient prayer of his ancestors.
"Initiate airspace intruder protocol six. Arm all systems, fire at will."
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "It's a lie. Or fake."
"Its a message from the gods"
"I told you earth was real"
These phrases and many more were heard throughout the hull of the space ship. Every single crewmemeber, old and young, Male and female, were questioning the origin and intent of the message received. This time however the questions were not coming from some lowly engineer or cook... no this time they were said by members of the supreme command council.
"Silence!" the skipper roared at the assembled members. "We must decide how to act!" "The signal was truly along the path of travel so if there was or rather is an earth it is genuinely from there" the head of navigation interjected. "As far as I am concerned there is an actual earth" the lead astronomist said. At this point the head priest angrily interrupted "impossible! The earth is but an allegory! The message is the work of dark forces trying to tempt us to evil!" This understandably stalled the conversation for a minute until from the back of the room a quiet voice asked "but what exactly was the message?"
"The message," the skipper said, "is the following: 'earth is doomed. Destruction imminent. Catastrophic asteroid to destroy us. Continue on for you are the last of us. The age of the dinosaur is over.'"
Edit: spelling fix | This story is based in the same universe as [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/comments/8vv4sj/wp_as_long_as_you_keep_praying_everyone_stays/) prompt I did a while ago.
---
"What does this mean, Haruspex?" asked Governer Merther, voicing the concerns of the council.
Haruspex Toyne could almost taste the tension in the air. This was the Time of Tribulation; not only was hope dwindling of finding a new Haruspex to replace him, but now they had to deal with a message from whatever gods or demons were trying to speak to them. The Heralds had spoken with a new voice today, one that had not been heard before. Whatever was being said must have been important indeed, for even the Goddess announced it. Dutifully, Toyne had poured over the message for hours, buying as much time as he could from the curiosity of the council. But he could defer them no longer.
Breathing deeply to steady himself, he felt the weight of his age as he stood up. Slowly, he placed the Mitre over his head once more, pleading with the Goddess to replay the message.
"Greetings, Oracle. This is Earth-Commandante Roker. Our records show you have been wandering for a long time, but we're glad to say you have made it back home. We will be sending out a vessel to make sure everyone is ok, and that the ship is in good condition to land. Please grant them permission to dock, and we look forward to seeing you all soon."
The silence in the room was deafening, but all eyes were now transfixed firmly on the Haruspex as he removed the mitre carefully and replaced it on the Sepulchre.
"Not much can be gleaned from the message. It appears to be the same ancient language of our Prayers. For example, the Herald speaks of Ara-Su, one of the ancient Gardens. As you all know many generations ago, heretics proclaimed that Ara-Su was the Primary Garden; the well-spring of life. As such, this message may well be heretic. If we wish to avoid bloodshed like in the War of Gardens, we would do well to conceal knowledge of this message."
The Sepulchre was as silent as the grave; no one even dared breathe. The very thought of a recurrence of the War of Gardens was enough to send shivers down one's spine.
The silence was broken by the Heralds once more, followed by the gentle voice of the Goddess.
"Vessel detected, seeking permission to dock. Interception time t minus eighteen hours. Select Protocol."
Toyne looked over at Merther. "Governer, they are almost here. What would you have me do?"
Merther bit his lower lip in anxiety. He could not risk another war, there was too much at stake. Hell, who knew how much longer they'd have the Haruspex for? His age was showing, and he had no children to succeed him. He looked over at Toyne, his eyes beseeching him to make the call. Toyne nodded in understanding.
Carefully replacing the Mitre on his head, Toyne recited the ancient prayer of his ancestors.
"Initiate airspace intruder protocol six. Arm all systems, fire at will."
---
If you enjoyed this story and would like to see more from me, please consider subscribing to my subreddit [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/phreaklikeme/)! | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | An image of Earth flashed up on the screen. It rotated slowly as the teacher lectured her students. "Earth is the planet of our origin." She stared at the image of Earth as she said this. She seemed as mesmerized by it as the rest of us were. It was so magnificent, it was hard to believe that any of us could've come from there. But that was supposedly the truth, and so we all entertained the thought for the sake of the lecture. "We are a part of the fourth expedition out of Earth to explore a potentially suitable planet for life."
We had all heard the stories before. Some brave 4,500 humans or so left planet Earth in search of another home. They did something the rest of the humans that stayed on Earth were too cowardly or incapable of doing. We were all supposed to be proud of our ancestors. They were the brave ones. Those astronauts exemplified one of the main tenets of the expedition -- Pioneering. As strange as it was to us, we too were astronauts exploring the galaxy; moving towards our new home after a long journey through space. A class of second graders were astronauts. None of us really knew what that was supposed to mean. We were told that it was an impressive feat. It was hardly impressive to us. It was all we had ever known.
Being the 87th generation on the ship, we all had a hard time believing any of the stories told by our teachers. We were, after all, on our way to another planet. Why call Earth our home planet when we are so clearly a spacefaring race? Most believed that Earth was simply a stop on the way to another planet that was, for some reason, romanticized by the people at the time. Earth was probably just some dead rock floating through space that stirred up the hearts and imaginations of the people living at the time, and they decided to create some kind of silly lore about it in an attempt to give us a historical home. Earth was simply a story meant to give children some sort of grounding in the vastness of space we were born into.
We received nothing from this Earth. There was never any signal or message from this planet that supposedly existed. We were told that it was because Earth and the expedition made the voluntary decision not to attempt contacting each other once the expedition had started. It was all just a joke. How were we supposed to believe everything we were told without any evidence? It all seemed so... convenient that we weren't able to see anything about Earth except for this one glowing blue and green image. There was absolutely nothing else to glean of this planet. When we asked what it was like on the surface, we were told that the information was withheld from us to prevent any future desire to return.
People scoffed at this statement. A world that we originated from, that we somehow have no way of contacting? How ridiculous. What of the other expeditions? We were told that there were 12 in total. Why haven't we heard from the other 11? The answer was the same, everywhere we turned. Teachers came up empty with a response about the decision making process around this voluntary choice non-communication. Most people just took to believe that Earth wasn't as beautiful as the images suggested. It was merely a metaphor for our creation. Something used to explain the origin of Humanity. It seemed that in all likelihood we would never know where we came from.
\--- --- ---
That memory returned to me from my childhood as I stared up at the screen above me. The man on the screen, I did not recognize. Out of the 7,000 current inhabitants of the fleet, he was not one of them. He was foreign. I had been flipping through the channels on the transmitter, waiting to receive a message from our small expedition force to a nearby satellite. The screen and all the buttons were blank when suddenly there was a forced entry into the database and we were informed that a message was being sent to our fleet from this foreign body. Given no choice to accept or deny the message, we were forced to witness one of the most world-shattering events in our history as a fleet as the other humans from Earth made contact with us for the first time in over 2000 years.
"Hello Expedition 4 Gamma." The foreign figure on the screen spoke with an unfamiliar accent. His features were exotic compared to ours. His face had far more hair on it than anyone on the fleet could ever hope to achieve. His eyes gleamed with emotion. "This is a message from Earth." He spoke in a gruff tone and paused. He appeared to be searching for something else to say. The crew stared open-mouthed at the man on the screen. Not one person could believe what they were seeing.
The leader of the transmission crew leaned into her microphone. She was shaking; her eyes were trained on the man on the screen. "You have permission to continue." She let go of the voice call button and looked around at the rest of the crew, as if asking for verification that everything that was happening was actually real. "Please go on."
"We, from Earth, are making contact with your fleet now, after 2780 years, to inform you that you are now able to return to Earth." He smiled at the crew as he said this. "Earth's climate and biosphere have finally been stabilized."
We were unsure of what he meant by biosphere. His comment about the climate only further confused us. How could any human survive on a planet whose climate is so unstable? An image of the Earth appeared on the screen. It looked exactly like the one we all knew so well already, but with some differences in how the clouds looked. It hardly meant anything for them to be showing us the image.
"Sir," the leader spoke in disbelief. "If what you say is true, then there is no way that we could make it to Earth in time for any of us to see that." The crew smiled uncomfortably at the screen. "From what you tell us, we have been traveling away from earth for 2780 years. We have been traveling at max speed for the last 1000.; it would take us well over 1000 years to reach Earth." She paused, stood up, and folded her hands together.
That was the moment that the commander smiled back at the crew. "Ah yes, commander." He leaned closer to the screen. "Well, you see, Earth has made a lot of technological improvements over the past 2000 years or so." He laughed for a moment. "Will be upon you shortly." The radar, at that moment, sent an alert of a large approaching body coming from the other side of the solar system. "We are excited to see what one of two of mankind's only surviving expeditions has to say about their long journey."
The alert, which stated that the approaching body was halfway across the solar system now alerted us that the spaceship was before us. All at once a vast array of foreign spaceships appeared. | “Were you followed?”
“No. I checked, and I think that –”
“There is no allowance here for *think*,” I hissed. “Are you sure or are you not?”
Dr Bancroft Miles held out his arm and peeled his sleeve back. I tapped my monitor screen, and the camera zoomed in – there was a silver patch on his skin, just below the wrist. “I even blocked out my bio-transponder,” he said. “Scrambled all the cameras along the corridors, and passed my ID credentials to a trusted friend. At this very moment, the Ship believes I am in my laboratory. No one knows I am here, I swear.”
The metal doors slid open, and he crept in, as stealthily as doubt in the back of one’s mind. There was a momentary look of confusion on his face – most people don’t expect the fabled Rat King to look so *ordinary*. They usually expected someone almost… rabid, with a shock of tousled white hair, wearing a permanent hunted look. That fit the name better. I couldn’t blame him when he held his wristcore out. I returned the gesture, and the quantum-processors in our personal devices *dinged* as our identities were confirmed.
“Sorry. No disrespect meant. I just needed to be sure. This is… a big risk.”
“No offence taken. Come, my contacts mentioned that you had something to verify with me. Have you shown this to anyone else?”
“You’re the first to hear it, other than me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not even your wife? Your son? Any of your six colleagues? Surely they were the first ports of call for such a momentous discovery?”
“These are delicate times, Rat King. You never know who you can trust. Even if you do, can you guard their tongues 24 hours a day? I can’t… afford for this to be a mistake. If it is a prank, the last thing I want is to put my name to it. Can you imagine? Me, declaring to the entire Ship that I’ve found the first transmission from beyond these plated hulls in over a hundred years? All it takes is for someone to doubt their authenticity, and then I will be discredited. I will be laughed at, ridiculed. No one will believe me ever again.”
“But the potential rewards,” I said. “Conversely, if the transmission was true, you would be a celebrity! It would be the greatest discovery we’ve made in memory! The Commander himself would clap your back and thank you for giving the Ship meaning and direction once again!”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said, as his voice dropped to a whisper. “I need someone I can trust to… hear it, test it, prod at it until all the checks are complete. You’re the Rat King – you’re the one who has managed to squirrel away precious archives of knowledge and hidden it from the Commander and his lackeys. If anyone would know, it is you.”
I nodded, then pointed to the terminal on my table. He pulled out a square crystal from his pockets, then gingerly slid it into the console. The lights in my cabin dimmed as a tinny voice issued from the concealed speakers – mere sound waves, but sound waves that had travelled incalculable distances to land themselves into the homemade antennas Dr Miles had fashioned.
*… hear me? Can you hear me? I repeat, all 8 Ships of the Federation, your journey is complete! This is Commander Ping from Earth, and I am overjoyed to inform you that your arduous odyssey has come to an end! The Ship known as Rapacious has located a star system that is hospitable to all mankind! I repeat, they have completed the Objective! All Ships are to redirect their flight paths to the following coordinates – 1123, 4420, 9102… –*
The voice carried on for another ten seconds or so, then began to repeat the message. I pulled up my terminal, then keyed in the passwords to access the archives I had stolen from the Ship’s memory banks. Dr Miles was patient – he was entirely silent throughout the next ten feverish minutes.
Eventually, he said, “Well? What do you think?”
I couldn’t contain the sigh. “It’s… very well done. Extremely competently made. But… it’s not real. It’s fake.” I pointed at the holoscreen, then drew his attention to a cluster of numbers at the top right. “I’ve compared the content and the metadata of the transmission against our known records, and as you can see, it’s close but ultimately not genuine. Someone is out to play a very elaborate prank on you, Dr Miles.”
“Oh, I see.”
I pulled the crystal out, then handed it back to him. But his lips had curled up in disgust, and he pushed the crystal back at me.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Whatever for?” he snarled. “So that I can reminded of how I wasted over a hundred credits on sieving that message out of the galactic storm? Nah, you can have it, Rat King. Add it to your treasure trove.”
“Do be cautious, Dr Miles. It may have been fake, but there’s no telling what the Commander would do if he learned that you had –”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ve already forgotten about this. You won’t see me again.”
And with that, he was gone.
---
I was bouncing the crystal in my hand when the Commander came in. He was still in his full uniform, with an array of medals adorning his chest. Yet, the corridors were quiet, and there was no trace of the usual contingent which trailed after him.
“So it’s real then,” he asked.
“One hundred percent.”
“I mean, after all this time…”
“You don’t believe me? You know I cannot lie to you. Here, see for yourself.”
My arm was a blur as I tossed the crystal to him. A normal man would have no choice but to duck – to try and catch it would only have resulted in mortal injury. But the Commander casually plucked the crystal out of the air, opened his chest cavity, then slid the crystal in. He copied the contents of the crystal, then handed it back.
“So they are well, it seems.”
“There was always a chance that Earth would survive. I just didn’t expect them to be the ones to coordinate the final return.”
“That leaves us with two options then. To head to where Rapacious is, or to continue on our own flight path?”
I sighed, then pushed a command to the holoscreen. My radio transmitters were ancient, but they still functioned well. Numbers filled the holoscreen again, flickering past faster than any human eye could perceive. Unlike Dr Miles, the Commander had no trouble following my calculations.
I expected nothing less from my fellow android.
“5% chance of survival if we change course now,” he said, as he drummed his fingers on the table.
“Less than that, actually, if you take into account the human reactions and time lost when we announce the change. We simply do not have the fuel to travel to such a far flung system now. We are committed to our own flight paths, come what may.”
“This would have been so much easier if they stocked more than just two of us on this damn Ship.”
“Two androids, Commander. That was the ideal number to maximum our chances of survival. You know that too.”
He nodded. “I know, I know. So you’re sure then? We stay the course, and cross our fingers that the Mendacious finds its own hospitable star system in time?”
“That’s what they put us here for, right? To make the tough choices without letting emotions get in the way?”
“Just twelve more years, my brother. Twelve more years until our fuel cores give out.”
“Better than almost certain death if we headed to where the Rapacious is now.”
He stood up. I knew he had made up his mind – that was what he was programmed for, after all. He with the logarithms and process loops for charm, for a personable demeanor, for the gravitas which the humans would flock to in times of need. I could already see his next day’s itinerary all planned out – a round of reminding the humans to keep their heads down and to work hard, and to nurture hope in their bosoms as the Mendacious searched for their new home.
I, on the other hand, with my capacity for fostering confidences, for cultivating trust and stealing the hearts of men from under their noses, would continue my work too. I would update all the off-grid forum threads on the intranet, sniff out conspiracies against the Commander, divine any threats to the Ship, act as the lightning rod for all the unsavory types on the Ship.
One to rule above.
One to rule below.
Both of us hoping against hope that we could steer the Mendacious in time to where the humans could disembark safely.
“Till we meet again.”
“Till we meet again.”
---
/r/rarelyfunny
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | “Don’t you think so?” I panted as my legs pumped beneath me, racking up numbers on the panel in front of me. “We’ve been at it for three thousand years, but we’ve never made landfall.”
“That doesn’t mean that the *Determined Resolution’s* failed or anything,” Alin shoots back, her breath coming out in little gasps. “We’ve just been very prudent and cautious, that’s all. You don’t want to land on some lousy planet, do you?”
I sigh irritably, coming to a stop as the machine beeps, signalling that I’d reached my daily quota of physical exercise. We’d had this argument a thousand times, going on in circles and circles. My feet patter softly on the metal floor of the gym, sweat flowing down my skin. As I wipe my sweaty fringe out of my eyes, I look out.
Next to the row of treadmill was a large window. Made of blast-proof glass that supposedly could withstand an ancient human weapon known as a ‘nuke’, the transparent sheet was about ten meters tall and wide, giving anyone who was using the gym an unfettered view into the great starry beyond. Currently, the glass had automatically tinted itself as it tried to lessen the glare of the giant red sun in the distance.
I palmed the glass, a faint reflection of myself mirroring me as I did. The large sphere glowed in the distance, fiery and old, the size of my palm. I knew, of course, that if we got closer it would have gradually grown so big that even a massive colony ship would’ve looked like a speck of dust. I look down, and at an angle from our ship, is the Helicornia XV.
It had been our best hope. A planet with a near perfect breathable atmosphere, fresh water oceans, and even confirmed signs of life. And so, our captain had charted a course here. Three years, we had travelled, through solar storms, fending off pissed off space monsters whose territory we intruded upon and replenishing our stores from the occasional asteroid field.
Spirits had been high, in the last three months as we’d neared Helicornia XV, with our scanners confirming most of our initial calculations. In fact, we had detected much more life present on the planet than previously thought, yet we hadn’t received anything indicating an already existing civilisation there.
It had been like the perfect home, empty and just waiting for us to move in. The captain had even given everyone a shift off as a holiday. I’d spent that holiday down in the gaming cubes, racing Alin through virtual star quadrants. And then we’d arrived.
There’s a beep, as Alin finishes her run. I can hear her footsteps clanking on the floor as she skips over, the gravity systems powering off now that all gym occupants had finished their runs. As we begin to float, I watch her reflection in the glass as she swipes away floating globules of my sweat. Warm hands clutching my shoulders from behind, as she hugs me from behind.
“I’m sorry the captain decided against landing here too,” she whispers in my ear, still slightly out of out breath. “I know you were really looking forward to it too.”
I sigh, the tired and miserable sound echoing around the gym, empty save for us. I lean back into her hug, one hand caressing her cheeks. I tear my eyes away from Helicornia XV.
The planet had been exactly as promised. Teeming with life, perfectly hospitable and devoid of an existing civilisation. Teeming with gargantuan life, as it had turned out. Huge, hulking animals the size of mountains roamed the surface, trampling over anything in its path. In the freshwater oceans, formidable behemoths lurked, their shadows visible to the naked eye even all the way up here.
Every now and then, they would do battle. Over territory, over mates or over food. And when they did, their fierce duels would change the landscape itself, rewriting the map on a monthly basis. Faced with the difficulty of starting a new life on a planet like this, the captain had decided that it’d be better to simply stay on the *Determined Resolution.*
Where it was safe. Familiar. Easier.
A ray of frustration shoots through my veins, like hot lightning, lacing through my head as it heralded a bad headache. I gently free myself from Alin’s hug, and make my way from the gym. She’s silent as she follows me, the two of us due for our shift.
It could’ve been possible. Staying on Helicornia XV. We had even managed to come up with a proposal for it. There was one particular mammoth that was so large that it barely ever moved, save to eat, and in our six months here observing, had never once been challenged, cowing its opponents into submission just based off its sized alone. We could’ve tried building a home on its back. Could've.
Months and months of planning, debates and proposal. All culminating in a one-word answer. No.
This could’ve been it. This could’ve been our ‘Earth’. Legendary, mythical. Once, supposedly our home planet and the origin of the *Determined Resolution*. But for some reason, we’d had no evidence ever supporting the idea that we’d come from Earth. The origins of our ship were lost to time, save for the few scraps of knowledge we passed on through bedtime stories.
I turn to Alin, just in front of the door to the command bridge.
“Just imagine it,” I say quietly, my brooding gaze not fazing her in the slightest. “A world free from the system on this ship. No having to exercise just to maintain bone mass, no having one job assigned to you for life. No having your life partner assigned to you for the sake of maintaining the genetic pool.”
Alin flinches at the last statement, and I instantly regret my words, knowing that I’ve hurt her. She’s stiff, as I gingerly grip her shoulders, pained blue eyes gazing into my own. Once, we’d dream of not being with each other. But we had long made our peace with this, and each other. I give her a kiss on the forehead, murmuring an apology as I do.
She nods understandingly, before brushing past me and entering the bridge.
The bridge is a flurry of action as we enter. Delion and Mavis, the operators we were here to relieve, completely ignored us as they both worked frantically at their stations, their hands a blur on the keyboards.
“Captain?” I turn to the figure in the centre of the bridge, shouting out orders and coordinating the chaotic mess the best he could. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Sam, Alin,” the Captain turns around to greet us, his hair a fluffy mess. “Relieve Delion and Mavis, we’ve been working overtime ever since it came up. *Go*.”
The order leaves little room for questions. We simply race to our stations, pulling our counterparts off their station. They stop, relief clear in their faces as their hands trembled from all the stress.
“This is amazing,” Mavis raves, clutching Alin tightly. “We’re so close, you two just have to do the finish touches and we’re ready to decode.”
It doesn’t take long for her words to make sense, as Alin and I settle in. My eyes widen, as I take in the outdated format, the archaic wording and jargon. And it’s source. Earth. An actual message from Earth.
We work furiously, the bridge completely quiet save for the symphony of beeping and clicking as the captain awaited results. Alin gasps, she’s decoded her message. As she reads it, her hands stifle a gasp, as she looks at me in horror.
Alin tries to stop me, her panicked babbles and flailing hands of little consequence to me. I restrain her with an excited hug as I read the message.
**Determined Resolution, an error has been detected in your original coordinates. You are off-course and will miss your destination at the end of your thirty-year journey unless you make immediate corrections. We hope this message reaches you in time. Godspeed.**
All this time. My hands fall limply to my side. All this time, spent in space.
As the correct coordinates scroll across the screen alongside the incorrect one, I’m ready to start crying.
My entire life spent in a metal bubble, because one digit had been off.
Damn it all. | “Were you followed?”
“No. I checked, and I think that –”
“There is no allowance here for *think*,” I hissed. “Are you sure or are you not?”
Dr Bancroft Miles held out his arm and peeled his sleeve back. I tapped my monitor screen, and the camera zoomed in – there was a silver patch on his skin, just below the wrist. “I even blocked out my bio-transponder,” he said. “Scrambled all the cameras along the corridors, and passed my ID credentials to a trusted friend. At this very moment, the Ship believes I am in my laboratory. No one knows I am here, I swear.”
The metal doors slid open, and he crept in, as stealthily as doubt in the back of one’s mind. There was a momentary look of confusion on his face – most people don’t expect the fabled Rat King to look so *ordinary*. They usually expected someone almost… rabid, with a shock of tousled white hair, wearing a permanent hunted look. That fit the name better. I couldn’t blame him when he held his wristcore out. I returned the gesture, and the quantum-processors in our personal devices *dinged* as our identities were confirmed.
“Sorry. No disrespect meant. I just needed to be sure. This is… a big risk.”
“No offence taken. Come, my contacts mentioned that you had something to verify with me. Have you shown this to anyone else?”
“You’re the first to hear it, other than me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not even your wife? Your son? Any of your six colleagues? Surely they were the first ports of call for such a momentous discovery?”
“These are delicate times, Rat King. You never know who you can trust. Even if you do, can you guard their tongues 24 hours a day? I can’t… afford for this to be a mistake. If it is a prank, the last thing I want is to put my name to it. Can you imagine? Me, declaring to the entire Ship that I’ve found the first transmission from beyond these plated hulls in over a hundred years? All it takes is for someone to doubt their authenticity, and then I will be discredited. I will be laughed at, ridiculed. No one will believe me ever again.”
“But the potential rewards,” I said. “Conversely, if the transmission was true, you would be a celebrity! It would be the greatest discovery we’ve made in memory! The Commander himself would clap your back and thank you for giving the Ship meaning and direction once again!”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said, as his voice dropped to a whisper. “I need someone I can trust to… hear it, test it, prod at it until all the checks are complete. You’re the Rat King – you’re the one who has managed to squirrel away precious archives of knowledge and hidden it from the Commander and his lackeys. If anyone would know, it is you.”
I nodded, then pointed to the terminal on my table. He pulled out a square crystal from his pockets, then gingerly slid it into the console. The lights in my cabin dimmed as a tinny voice issued from the concealed speakers – mere sound waves, but sound waves that had travelled incalculable distances to land themselves into the homemade antennas Dr Miles had fashioned.
*… hear me? Can you hear me? I repeat, all 8 Ships of the Federation, your journey is complete! This is Commander Ping from Earth, and I am overjoyed to inform you that your arduous odyssey has come to an end! The Ship known as Rapacious has located a star system that is hospitable to all mankind! I repeat, they have completed the Objective! All Ships are to redirect their flight paths to the following coordinates – 1123, 4420, 9102… –*
The voice carried on for another ten seconds or so, then began to repeat the message. I pulled up my terminal, then keyed in the passwords to access the archives I had stolen from the Ship’s memory banks. Dr Miles was patient – he was entirely silent throughout the next ten feverish minutes.
Eventually, he said, “Well? What do you think?”
I couldn’t contain the sigh. “It’s… very well done. Extremely competently made. But… it’s not real. It’s fake.” I pointed at the holoscreen, then drew his attention to a cluster of numbers at the top right. “I’ve compared the content and the metadata of the transmission against our known records, and as you can see, it’s close but ultimately not genuine. Someone is out to play a very elaborate prank on you, Dr Miles.”
“Oh, I see.”
I pulled the crystal out, then handed it back to him. But his lips had curled up in disgust, and he pushed the crystal back at me.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Whatever for?” he snarled. “So that I can reminded of how I wasted over a hundred credits on sieving that message out of the galactic storm? Nah, you can have it, Rat King. Add it to your treasure trove.”
“Do be cautious, Dr Miles. It may have been fake, but there’s no telling what the Commander would do if he learned that you had –”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ve already forgotten about this. You won’t see me again.”
And with that, he was gone.
---
I was bouncing the crystal in my hand when the Commander came in. He was still in his full uniform, with an array of medals adorning his chest. Yet, the corridors were quiet, and there was no trace of the usual contingent which trailed after him.
“So it’s real then,” he asked.
“One hundred percent.”
“I mean, after all this time…”
“You don’t believe me? You know I cannot lie to you. Here, see for yourself.”
My arm was a blur as I tossed the crystal to him. A normal man would have no choice but to duck – to try and catch it would only have resulted in mortal injury. But the Commander casually plucked the crystal out of the air, opened his chest cavity, then slid the crystal in. He copied the contents of the crystal, then handed it back.
“So they are well, it seems.”
“There was always a chance that Earth would survive. I just didn’t expect them to be the ones to coordinate the final return.”
“That leaves us with two options then. To head to where Rapacious is, or to continue on our own flight path?”
I sighed, then pushed a command to the holoscreen. My radio transmitters were ancient, but they still functioned well. Numbers filled the holoscreen again, flickering past faster than any human eye could perceive. Unlike Dr Miles, the Commander had no trouble following my calculations.
I expected nothing less from my fellow android.
“5% chance of survival if we change course now,” he said, as he drummed his fingers on the table.
“Less than that, actually, if you take into account the human reactions and time lost when we announce the change. We simply do not have the fuel to travel to such a far flung system now. We are committed to our own flight paths, come what may.”
“This would have been so much easier if they stocked more than just two of us on this damn Ship.”
“Two androids, Commander. That was the ideal number to maximum our chances of survival. You know that too.”
He nodded. “I know, I know. So you’re sure then? We stay the course, and cross our fingers that the Mendacious finds its own hospitable star system in time?”
“That’s what they put us here for, right? To make the tough choices without letting emotions get in the way?”
“Just twelve more years, my brother. Twelve more years until our fuel cores give out.”
“Better than almost certain death if we headed to where the Rapacious is now.”
He stood up. I knew he had made up his mind – that was what he was programmed for, after all. He with the logarithms and process loops for charm, for a personable demeanor, for the gravitas which the humans would flock to in times of need. I could already see his next day’s itinerary all planned out – a round of reminding the humans to keep their heads down and to work hard, and to nurture hope in their bosoms as the Mendacious searched for their new home.
I, on the other hand, with my capacity for fostering confidences, for cultivating trust and stealing the hearts of men from under their noses, would continue my work too. I would update all the off-grid forum threads on the intranet, sniff out conspiracies against the Commander, divine any threats to the Ship, act as the lightning rod for all the unsavory types on the Ship.
One to rule above.
One to rule below.
Both of us hoping against hope that we could steer the Mendacious in time to where the humans could disembark safely.
“Till we meet again.”
“Till we meet again.”
---
/r/rarelyfunny
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "I think I heard something.”
Diron rolled his eyes while his swung his chair side to side, the screen of his interface following him in a nauseating back and forth. “It’s not funny anymore, Talia. We’re not 8 years old” he said. “I’m trying to study. Play with your hardware somewhere else.”
Talia flicked a glare emoji onto Diron’s interface and frowned at the console in front of her, one hand on her ear, pressing against the antique earpiece. “I’m serious.” She fiddled with some wired on the console and old speakers crackled to life.
Diron wiped his interface away and spun his chair around in a full circle. “Hey, maybe I should write my intro psych paper on all you dirty kooks who listen to empty space as a hobby, waiting for--” He froze and leaned forward. “Is that music?” He spun a finger in the in the air for a moment before he realized it wasn’t on his interface. “Make it louder.”
“We’re not dirty, we’re Earthy.” Talia threw an empty soda packet at her twin, hitting him in the shoulder. She swiped a screen on her console and the crackles got louder. Underneath it was a tinkle of sound, so faint it was easy to mistake for random noise, until it repeated itself.
Talia turn back and unplugged the speakers, plugging them into her temple. She wiped up her interface and started the sound editing app.
“Share it, I want to hear.” Diron slide his chair next to hers and leaned over her shoulder.
Talia rolled her eyes and grabbed the audio icon and tossed it to Diron. Her hands flicked back and forth as she cleaned up the audio, trying to filter out the background noise of stars and suns that must have travelled with the signal for light years.
“It’s pretty degraded, but not as bad as I’d expect for travelling so far. Even taking the most conservative interpretations of the logs, we’ve been gone for 2,547 years.”
“We haven’t been gone from anywhere. Your stupid theories don’t make any sense.”
“Someone built this place!”
“It’s not a place! It’s a planet!”
They devolved into the usual argument, about how no other planets could move on their own, but how would they know that if they were all travelling in the same direction, and so on. Only a few people listened to the stars on the old equipment, and they didn’t believe half of what they said. It was too obvious that the life here had evolved to live inside this giant, spinning, planet-sized asteroid. They had plants that burrowed through the rock to collect UV rays from the suns they passed, using that energy to support the entire ecosystem within the planet. Everything worked too smoothly, too well to be designed. It had to be natural. Humans made too many mistakes. Just look at Diron, Talia thought uncharitably.
They both suddenly stopped and tilted their heads to the side, then looked back at each other. Talia flipped through her apps until she found the translation app. They were both silent for a few minutes, just listening.
“What’s a country road, and how could it take you home?” | “Were you followed?”
“No. I checked, and I think that –”
“There is no allowance here for *think*,” I hissed. “Are you sure or are you not?”
Dr Bancroft Miles held out his arm and peeled his sleeve back. I tapped my monitor screen, and the camera zoomed in – there was a silver patch on his skin, just below the wrist. “I even blocked out my bio-transponder,” he said. “Scrambled all the cameras along the corridors, and passed my ID credentials to a trusted friend. At this very moment, the Ship believes I am in my laboratory. No one knows I am here, I swear.”
The metal doors slid open, and he crept in, as stealthily as doubt in the back of one’s mind. There was a momentary look of confusion on his face – most people don’t expect the fabled Rat King to look so *ordinary*. They usually expected someone almost… rabid, with a shock of tousled white hair, wearing a permanent hunted look. That fit the name better. I couldn’t blame him when he held his wristcore out. I returned the gesture, and the quantum-processors in our personal devices *dinged* as our identities were confirmed.
“Sorry. No disrespect meant. I just needed to be sure. This is… a big risk.”
“No offence taken. Come, my contacts mentioned that you had something to verify with me. Have you shown this to anyone else?”
“You’re the first to hear it, other than me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Not even your wife? Your son? Any of your six colleagues? Surely they were the first ports of call for such a momentous discovery?”
“These are delicate times, Rat King. You never know who you can trust. Even if you do, can you guard their tongues 24 hours a day? I can’t… afford for this to be a mistake. If it is a prank, the last thing I want is to put my name to it. Can you imagine? Me, declaring to the entire Ship that I’ve found the first transmission from beyond these plated hulls in over a hundred years? All it takes is for someone to doubt their authenticity, and then I will be discredited. I will be laughed at, ridiculed. No one will believe me ever again.”
“But the potential rewards,” I said. “Conversely, if the transmission was true, you would be a celebrity! It would be the greatest discovery we’ve made in memory! The Commander himself would clap your back and thank you for giving the Ship meaning and direction once again!”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said, as his voice dropped to a whisper. “I need someone I can trust to… hear it, test it, prod at it until all the checks are complete. You’re the Rat King – you’re the one who has managed to squirrel away precious archives of knowledge and hidden it from the Commander and his lackeys. If anyone would know, it is you.”
I nodded, then pointed to the terminal on my table. He pulled out a square crystal from his pockets, then gingerly slid it into the console. The lights in my cabin dimmed as a tinny voice issued from the concealed speakers – mere sound waves, but sound waves that had travelled incalculable distances to land themselves into the homemade antennas Dr Miles had fashioned.
*… hear me? Can you hear me? I repeat, all 8 Ships of the Federation, your journey is complete! This is Commander Ping from Earth, and I am overjoyed to inform you that your arduous odyssey has come to an end! The Ship known as Rapacious has located a star system that is hospitable to all mankind! I repeat, they have completed the Objective! All Ships are to redirect their flight paths to the following coordinates – 1123, 4420, 9102… –*
The voice carried on for another ten seconds or so, then began to repeat the message. I pulled up my terminal, then keyed in the passwords to access the archives I had stolen from the Ship’s memory banks. Dr Miles was patient – he was entirely silent throughout the next ten feverish minutes.
Eventually, he said, “Well? What do you think?”
I couldn’t contain the sigh. “It’s… very well done. Extremely competently made. But… it’s not real. It’s fake.” I pointed at the holoscreen, then drew his attention to a cluster of numbers at the top right. “I’ve compared the content and the metadata of the transmission against our known records, and as you can see, it’s close but ultimately not genuine. Someone is out to play a very elaborate prank on you, Dr Miles.”
“Oh, I see.”
I pulled the crystal out, then handed it back to him. But his lips had curled up in disgust, and he pushed the crystal back at me.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Whatever for?” he snarled. “So that I can reminded of how I wasted over a hundred credits on sieving that message out of the galactic storm? Nah, you can have it, Rat King. Add it to your treasure trove.”
“Do be cautious, Dr Miles. It may have been fake, but there’s no telling what the Commander would do if he learned that you had –”
“Don’t you worry about me. I’ve already forgotten about this. You won’t see me again.”
And with that, he was gone.
---
I was bouncing the crystal in my hand when the Commander came in. He was still in his full uniform, with an array of medals adorning his chest. Yet, the corridors were quiet, and there was no trace of the usual contingent which trailed after him.
“So it’s real then,” he asked.
“One hundred percent.”
“I mean, after all this time…”
“You don’t believe me? You know I cannot lie to you. Here, see for yourself.”
My arm was a blur as I tossed the crystal to him. A normal man would have no choice but to duck – to try and catch it would only have resulted in mortal injury. But the Commander casually plucked the crystal out of the air, opened his chest cavity, then slid the crystal in. He copied the contents of the crystal, then handed it back.
“So they are well, it seems.”
“There was always a chance that Earth would survive. I just didn’t expect them to be the ones to coordinate the final return.”
“That leaves us with two options then. To head to where Rapacious is, or to continue on our own flight path?”
I sighed, then pushed a command to the holoscreen. My radio transmitters were ancient, but they still functioned well. Numbers filled the holoscreen again, flickering past faster than any human eye could perceive. Unlike Dr Miles, the Commander had no trouble following my calculations.
I expected nothing less from my fellow android.
“5% chance of survival if we change course now,” he said, as he drummed his fingers on the table.
“Less than that, actually, if you take into account the human reactions and time lost when we announce the change. We simply do not have the fuel to travel to such a far flung system now. We are committed to our own flight paths, come what may.”
“This would have been so much easier if they stocked more than just two of us on this damn Ship.”
“Two androids, Commander. That was the ideal number to maximum our chances of survival. You know that too.”
He nodded. “I know, I know. So you’re sure then? We stay the course, and cross our fingers that the Mendacious finds its own hospitable star system in time?”
“That’s what they put us here for, right? To make the tough choices without letting emotions get in the way?”
“Just twelve more years, my brother. Twelve more years until our fuel cores give out.”
“Better than almost certain death if we headed to where the Rapacious is now.”
He stood up. I knew he had made up his mind – that was what he was programmed for, after all. He with the logarithms and process loops for charm, for a personable demeanor, for the gravitas which the humans would flock to in times of need. I could already see his next day’s itinerary all planned out – a round of reminding the humans to keep their heads down and to work hard, and to nurture hope in their bosoms as the Mendacious searched for their new home.
I, on the other hand, with my capacity for fostering confidences, for cultivating trust and stealing the hearts of men from under their noses, would continue my work too. I would update all the off-grid forum threads on the intranet, sniff out conspiracies against the Commander, divine any threats to the Ship, act as the lightning rod for all the unsavory types on the Ship.
One to rule above.
One to rule below.
Both of us hoping against hope that we could steer the Mendacious in time to where the humans could disembark safely.
“Till we meet again.”
“Till we meet again.”
---
/r/rarelyfunny
| |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | “Don’t you think so?” I panted as my legs pumped beneath me, racking up numbers on the panel in front of me. “We’ve been at it for three thousand years, but we’ve never made landfall.”
“That doesn’t mean that the *Determined Resolution’s* failed or anything,” Alin shoots back, her breath coming out in little gasps. “We’ve just been very prudent and cautious, that’s all. You don’t want to land on some lousy planet, do you?”
I sigh irritably, coming to a stop as the machine beeps, signalling that I’d reached my daily quota of physical exercise. We’d had this argument a thousand times, going on in circles and circles. My feet patter softly on the metal floor of the gym, sweat flowing down my skin. As I wipe my sweaty fringe out of my eyes, I look out.
Next to the row of treadmill was a large window. Made of blast-proof glass that supposedly could withstand an ancient human weapon known as a ‘nuke’, the transparent sheet was about ten meters tall and wide, giving anyone who was using the gym an unfettered view into the great starry beyond. Currently, the glass had automatically tinted itself as it tried to lessen the glare of the giant red sun in the distance.
I palmed the glass, a faint reflection of myself mirroring me as I did. The large sphere glowed in the distance, fiery and old, the size of my palm. I knew, of course, that if we got closer it would have gradually grown so big that even a massive colony ship would’ve looked like a speck of dust. I look down, and at an angle from our ship, is the Helicornia XV.
It had been our best hope. A planet with a near perfect breathable atmosphere, fresh water oceans, and even confirmed signs of life. And so, our captain had charted a course here. Three years, we had travelled, through solar storms, fending off pissed off space monsters whose territory we intruded upon and replenishing our stores from the occasional asteroid field.
Spirits had been high, in the last three months as we’d neared Helicornia XV, with our scanners confirming most of our initial calculations. In fact, we had detected much more life present on the planet than previously thought, yet we hadn’t received anything indicating an already existing civilisation there.
It had been like the perfect home, empty and just waiting for us to move in. The captain had even given everyone a shift off as a holiday. I’d spent that holiday down in the gaming cubes, racing Alin through virtual star quadrants. And then we’d arrived.
There’s a beep, as Alin finishes her run. I can hear her footsteps clanking on the floor as she skips over, the gravity systems powering off now that all gym occupants had finished their runs. As we begin to float, I watch her reflection in the glass as she swipes away floating globules of my sweat. Warm hands clutching my shoulders from behind, as she hugs me from behind.
“I’m sorry the captain decided against landing here too,” she whispers in my ear, still slightly out of out breath. “I know you were really looking forward to it too.”
I sigh, the tired and miserable sound echoing around the gym, empty save for us. I lean back into her hug, one hand caressing her cheeks. I tear my eyes away from Helicornia XV.
The planet had been exactly as promised. Teeming with life, perfectly hospitable and devoid of an existing civilisation. Teeming with gargantuan life, as it had turned out. Huge, hulking animals the size of mountains roamed the surface, trampling over anything in its path. In the freshwater oceans, formidable behemoths lurked, their shadows visible to the naked eye even all the way up here.
Every now and then, they would do battle. Over territory, over mates or over food. And when they did, their fierce duels would change the landscape itself, rewriting the map on a monthly basis. Faced with the difficulty of starting a new life on a planet like this, the captain had decided that it’d be better to simply stay on the *Determined Resolution.*
Where it was safe. Familiar. Easier.
A ray of frustration shoots through my veins, like hot lightning, lacing through my head as it heralded a bad headache. I gently free myself from Alin’s hug, and make my way from the gym. She’s silent as she follows me, the two of us due for our shift.
It could’ve been possible. Staying on Helicornia XV. We had even managed to come up with a proposal for it. There was one particular mammoth that was so large that it barely ever moved, save to eat, and in our six months here observing, had never once been challenged, cowing its opponents into submission just based off its sized alone. We could’ve tried building a home on its back. Could've.
Months and months of planning, debates and proposal. All culminating in a one-word answer. No.
This could’ve been it. This could’ve been our ‘Earth’. Legendary, mythical. Once, supposedly our home planet and the origin of the *Determined Resolution*. But for some reason, we’d had no evidence ever supporting the idea that we’d come from Earth. The origins of our ship were lost to time, save for the few scraps of knowledge we passed on through bedtime stories.
I turn to Alin, just in front of the door to the command bridge.
“Just imagine it,” I say quietly, my brooding gaze not fazing her in the slightest. “A world free from the system on this ship. No having to exercise just to maintain bone mass, no having one job assigned to you for life. No having your life partner assigned to you for the sake of maintaining the genetic pool.”
Alin flinches at the last statement, and I instantly regret my words, knowing that I’ve hurt her. She’s stiff, as I gingerly grip her shoulders, pained blue eyes gazing into my own. Once, we’d dream of not being with each other. But we had long made our peace with this, and each other. I give her a kiss on the forehead, murmuring an apology as I do.
She nods understandingly, before brushing past me and entering the bridge.
The bridge is a flurry of action as we enter. Delion and Mavis, the operators we were here to relieve, completely ignored us as they both worked frantically at their stations, their hands a blur on the keyboards.
“Captain?” I turn to the figure in the centre of the bridge, shouting out orders and coordinating the chaotic mess the best he could. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Sam, Alin,” the Captain turns around to greet us, his hair a fluffy mess. “Relieve Delion and Mavis, we’ve been working overtime ever since it came up. *Go*.”
The order leaves little room for questions. We simply race to our stations, pulling our counterparts off their station. They stop, relief clear in their faces as their hands trembled from all the stress.
“This is amazing,” Mavis raves, clutching Alin tightly. “We’re so close, you two just have to do the finish touches and we’re ready to decode.”
It doesn’t take long for her words to make sense, as Alin and I settle in. My eyes widen, as I take in the outdated format, the archaic wording and jargon. And it’s source. Earth. An actual message from Earth.
We work furiously, the bridge completely quiet save for the symphony of beeping and clicking as the captain awaited results. Alin gasps, she’s decoded her message. As she reads it, her hands stifle a gasp, as she looks at me in horror.
Alin tries to stop me, her panicked babbles and flailing hands of little consequence to me. I restrain her with an excited hug as I read the message.
**Determined Resolution, an error has been detected in your original coordinates. You are off-course and will miss your destination at the end of your thirty-year journey unless you make immediate corrections. We hope this message reaches you in time. Godspeed.**
All this time. My hands fall limply to my side. All this time, spent in space.
As the correct coordinates scroll across the screen alongside the incorrect one, I’m ready to start crying.
My entire life spent in a metal bubble, because one digit had been off.
Damn it all. | An image of Earth flashed up on the screen. It rotated slowly as the teacher lectured her students. "Earth is the planet of our origin." She stared at the image of Earth as she said this. She seemed as mesmerized by it as the rest of us were. It was so magnificent, it was hard to believe that any of us could've come from there. But that was supposedly the truth, and so we all entertained the thought for the sake of the lecture. "We are a part of the fourth expedition out of Earth to explore a potentially suitable planet for life."
We had all heard the stories before. Some brave 4,500 humans or so left planet Earth in search of another home. They did something the rest of the humans that stayed on Earth were too cowardly or incapable of doing. We were all supposed to be proud of our ancestors. They were the brave ones. Those astronauts exemplified one of the main tenets of the expedition -- Pioneering. As strange as it was to us, we too were astronauts exploring the galaxy; moving towards our new home after a long journey through space. A class of second graders were astronauts. None of us really knew what that was supposed to mean. We were told that it was an impressive feat. It was hardly impressive to us. It was all we had ever known.
Being the 87th generation on the ship, we all had a hard time believing any of the stories told by our teachers. We were, after all, on our way to another planet. Why call Earth our home planet when we are so clearly a spacefaring race? Most believed that Earth was simply a stop on the way to another planet that was, for some reason, romanticized by the people at the time. Earth was probably just some dead rock floating through space that stirred up the hearts and imaginations of the people living at the time, and they decided to create some kind of silly lore about it in an attempt to give us a historical home. Earth was simply a story meant to give children some sort of grounding in the vastness of space we were born into.
We received nothing from this Earth. There was never any signal or message from this planet that supposedly existed. We were told that it was because Earth and the expedition made the voluntary decision not to attempt contacting each other once the expedition had started. It was all just a joke. How were we supposed to believe everything we were told without any evidence? It all seemed so... convenient that we weren't able to see anything about Earth except for this one glowing blue and green image. There was absolutely nothing else to glean of this planet. When we asked what it was like on the surface, we were told that the information was withheld from us to prevent any future desire to return.
People scoffed at this statement. A world that we originated from, that we somehow have no way of contacting? How ridiculous. What of the other expeditions? We were told that there were 12 in total. Why haven't we heard from the other 11? The answer was the same, everywhere we turned. Teachers came up empty with a response about the decision making process around this voluntary choice non-communication. Most people just took to believe that Earth wasn't as beautiful as the images suggested. It was merely a metaphor for our creation. Something used to explain the origin of Humanity. It seemed that in all likelihood we would never know where we came from.
\--- --- ---
That memory returned to me from my childhood as I stared up at the screen above me. The man on the screen, I did not recognize. Out of the 7,000 current inhabitants of the fleet, he was not one of them. He was foreign. I had been flipping through the channels on the transmitter, waiting to receive a message from our small expedition force to a nearby satellite. The screen and all the buttons were blank when suddenly there was a forced entry into the database and we were informed that a message was being sent to our fleet from this foreign body. Given no choice to accept or deny the message, we were forced to witness one of the most world-shattering events in our history as a fleet as the other humans from Earth made contact with us for the first time in over 2000 years.
"Hello Expedition 4 Gamma." The foreign figure on the screen spoke with an unfamiliar accent. His features were exotic compared to ours. His face had far more hair on it than anyone on the fleet could ever hope to achieve. His eyes gleamed with emotion. "This is a message from Earth." He spoke in a gruff tone and paused. He appeared to be searching for something else to say. The crew stared open-mouthed at the man on the screen. Not one person could believe what they were seeing.
The leader of the transmission crew leaned into her microphone. She was shaking; her eyes were trained on the man on the screen. "You have permission to continue." She let go of the voice call button and looked around at the rest of the crew, as if asking for verification that everything that was happening was actually real. "Please go on."
"We, from Earth, are making contact with your fleet now, after 2780 years, to inform you that you are now able to return to Earth." He smiled at the crew as he said this. "Earth's climate and biosphere have finally been stabilized."
We were unsure of what he meant by biosphere. His comment about the climate only further confused us. How could any human survive on a planet whose climate is so unstable? An image of the Earth appeared on the screen. It looked exactly like the one we all knew so well already, but with some differences in how the clouds looked. It hardly meant anything for them to be showing us the image.
"Sir," the leader spoke in disbelief. "If what you say is true, then there is no way that we could make it to Earth in time for any of us to see that." The crew smiled uncomfortably at the screen. "From what you tell us, we have been traveling away from earth for 2780 years. We have been traveling at max speed for the last 1000.; it would take us well over 1000 years to reach Earth." She paused, stood up, and folded her hands together.
That was the moment that the commander smiled back at the crew. "Ah yes, commander." He leaned closer to the screen. "Well, you see, Earth has made a lot of technological improvements over the past 2000 years or so." He laughed for a moment. "Will be upon you shortly." The radar, at that moment, sent an alert of a large approaching body coming from the other side of the solar system. "We are excited to see what one of two of mankind's only surviving expeditions has to say about their long journey."
The alert, which stated that the approaching body was halfway across the solar system now alerted us that the spaceship was before us. All at once a vast array of foreign spaceships appeared. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "I think I heard something.”
Diron rolled his eyes while his swung his chair side to side, the screen of his interface following him in a nauseating back and forth. “It’s not funny anymore, Talia. We’re not 8 years old” he said. “I’m trying to study. Play with your hardware somewhere else.”
Talia flicked a glare emoji onto Diron’s interface and frowned at the console in front of her, one hand on her ear, pressing against the antique earpiece. “I’m serious.” She fiddled with some wired on the console and old speakers crackled to life.
Diron wiped his interface away and spun his chair around in a full circle. “Hey, maybe I should write my intro psych paper on all you dirty kooks who listen to empty space as a hobby, waiting for--” He froze and leaned forward. “Is that music?” He spun a finger in the in the air for a moment before he realized it wasn’t on his interface. “Make it louder.”
“We’re not dirty, we’re Earthy.” Talia threw an empty soda packet at her twin, hitting him in the shoulder. She swiped a screen on her console and the crackles got louder. Underneath it was a tinkle of sound, so faint it was easy to mistake for random noise, until it repeated itself.
Talia turn back and unplugged the speakers, plugging them into her temple. She wiped up her interface and started the sound editing app.
“Share it, I want to hear.” Diron slide his chair next to hers and leaned over her shoulder.
Talia rolled her eyes and grabbed the audio icon and tossed it to Diron. Her hands flicked back and forth as she cleaned up the audio, trying to filter out the background noise of stars and suns that must have travelled with the signal for light years.
“It’s pretty degraded, but not as bad as I’d expect for travelling so far. Even taking the most conservative interpretations of the logs, we’ve been gone for 2,547 years.”
“We haven’t been gone from anywhere. Your stupid theories don’t make any sense.”
“Someone built this place!”
“It’s not a place! It’s a planet!”
They devolved into the usual argument, about how no other planets could move on their own, but how would they know that if they were all travelling in the same direction, and so on. Only a few people listened to the stars on the old equipment, and they didn’t believe half of what they said. It was too obvious that the life here had evolved to live inside this giant, spinning, planet-sized asteroid. They had plants that burrowed through the rock to collect UV rays from the suns they passed, using that energy to support the entire ecosystem within the planet. Everything worked too smoothly, too well to be designed. It had to be natural. Humans made too many mistakes. Just look at Diron, Talia thought uncharitably.
They both suddenly stopped and tilted their heads to the side, then looked back at each other. Talia flipped through her apps until she found the translation app. They were both silent for a few minutes, just listening.
“What’s a country road, and how could it take you home?” | An image of Earth flashed up on the screen. It rotated slowly as the teacher lectured her students. "Earth is the planet of our origin." She stared at the image of Earth as she said this. She seemed as mesmerized by it as the rest of us were. It was so magnificent, it was hard to believe that any of us could've come from there. But that was supposedly the truth, and so we all entertained the thought for the sake of the lecture. "We are a part of the fourth expedition out of Earth to explore a potentially suitable planet for life."
We had all heard the stories before. Some brave 4,500 humans or so left planet Earth in search of another home. They did something the rest of the humans that stayed on Earth were too cowardly or incapable of doing. We were all supposed to be proud of our ancestors. They were the brave ones. Those astronauts exemplified one of the main tenets of the expedition -- Pioneering. As strange as it was to us, we too were astronauts exploring the galaxy; moving towards our new home after a long journey through space. A class of second graders were astronauts. None of us really knew what that was supposed to mean. We were told that it was an impressive feat. It was hardly impressive to us. It was all we had ever known.
Being the 87th generation on the ship, we all had a hard time believing any of the stories told by our teachers. We were, after all, on our way to another planet. Why call Earth our home planet when we are so clearly a spacefaring race? Most believed that Earth was simply a stop on the way to another planet that was, for some reason, romanticized by the people at the time. Earth was probably just some dead rock floating through space that stirred up the hearts and imaginations of the people living at the time, and they decided to create some kind of silly lore about it in an attempt to give us a historical home. Earth was simply a story meant to give children some sort of grounding in the vastness of space we were born into.
We received nothing from this Earth. There was never any signal or message from this planet that supposedly existed. We were told that it was because Earth and the expedition made the voluntary decision not to attempt contacting each other once the expedition had started. It was all just a joke. How were we supposed to believe everything we were told without any evidence? It all seemed so... convenient that we weren't able to see anything about Earth except for this one glowing blue and green image. There was absolutely nothing else to glean of this planet. When we asked what it was like on the surface, we were told that the information was withheld from us to prevent any future desire to return.
People scoffed at this statement. A world that we originated from, that we somehow have no way of contacting? How ridiculous. What of the other expeditions? We were told that there were 12 in total. Why haven't we heard from the other 11? The answer was the same, everywhere we turned. Teachers came up empty with a response about the decision making process around this voluntary choice non-communication. Most people just took to believe that Earth wasn't as beautiful as the images suggested. It was merely a metaphor for our creation. Something used to explain the origin of Humanity. It seemed that in all likelihood we would never know where we came from.
\--- --- ---
That memory returned to me from my childhood as I stared up at the screen above me. The man on the screen, I did not recognize. Out of the 7,000 current inhabitants of the fleet, he was not one of them. He was foreign. I had been flipping through the channels on the transmitter, waiting to receive a message from our small expedition force to a nearby satellite. The screen and all the buttons were blank when suddenly there was a forced entry into the database and we were informed that a message was being sent to our fleet from this foreign body. Given no choice to accept or deny the message, we were forced to witness one of the most world-shattering events in our history as a fleet as the other humans from Earth made contact with us for the first time in over 2000 years.
"Hello Expedition 4 Gamma." The foreign figure on the screen spoke with an unfamiliar accent. His features were exotic compared to ours. His face had far more hair on it than anyone on the fleet could ever hope to achieve. His eyes gleamed with emotion. "This is a message from Earth." He spoke in a gruff tone and paused. He appeared to be searching for something else to say. The crew stared open-mouthed at the man on the screen. Not one person could believe what they were seeing.
The leader of the transmission crew leaned into her microphone. She was shaking; her eyes were trained on the man on the screen. "You have permission to continue." She let go of the voice call button and looked around at the rest of the crew, as if asking for verification that everything that was happening was actually real. "Please go on."
"We, from Earth, are making contact with your fleet now, after 2780 years, to inform you that you are now able to return to Earth." He smiled at the crew as he said this. "Earth's climate and biosphere have finally been stabilized."
We were unsure of what he meant by biosphere. His comment about the climate only further confused us. How could any human survive on a planet whose climate is so unstable? An image of the Earth appeared on the screen. It looked exactly like the one we all knew so well already, but with some differences in how the clouds looked. It hardly meant anything for them to be showing us the image.
"Sir," the leader spoke in disbelief. "If what you say is true, then there is no way that we could make it to Earth in time for any of us to see that." The crew smiled uncomfortably at the screen. "From what you tell us, we have been traveling away from earth for 2780 years. We have been traveling at max speed for the last 1000.; it would take us well over 1000 years to reach Earth." She paused, stood up, and folded her hands together.
That was the moment that the commander smiled back at the crew. "Ah yes, commander." He leaned closer to the screen. "Well, you see, Earth has made a lot of technological improvements over the past 2000 years or so." He laughed for a moment. "Will be upon you shortly." The radar, at that moment, sent an alert of a large approaching body coming from the other side of the solar system. "We are excited to see what one of two of mankind's only surviving expeditions has to say about their long journey."
The alert, which stated that the approaching body was halfway across the solar system now alerted us that the spaceship was before us. All at once a vast array of foreign spaceships appeared. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "I think I heard something.”
Diron rolled his eyes while his swung his chair side to side, the screen of his interface following him in a nauseating back and forth. “It’s not funny anymore, Talia. We’re not 8 years old” he said. “I’m trying to study. Play with your hardware somewhere else.”
Talia flicked a glare emoji onto Diron’s interface and frowned at the console in front of her, one hand on her ear, pressing against the antique earpiece. “I’m serious.” She fiddled with some wired on the console and old speakers crackled to life.
Diron wiped his interface away and spun his chair around in a full circle. “Hey, maybe I should write my intro psych paper on all you dirty kooks who listen to empty space as a hobby, waiting for--” He froze and leaned forward. “Is that music?” He spun a finger in the in the air for a moment before he realized it wasn’t on his interface. “Make it louder.”
“We’re not dirty, we’re Earthy.” Talia threw an empty soda packet at her twin, hitting him in the shoulder. She swiped a screen on her console and the crackles got louder. Underneath it was a tinkle of sound, so faint it was easy to mistake for random noise, until it repeated itself.
Talia turn back and unplugged the speakers, plugging them into her temple. She wiped up her interface and started the sound editing app.
“Share it, I want to hear.” Diron slide his chair next to hers and leaned over her shoulder.
Talia rolled her eyes and grabbed the audio icon and tossed it to Diron. Her hands flicked back and forth as she cleaned up the audio, trying to filter out the background noise of stars and suns that must have travelled with the signal for light years.
“It’s pretty degraded, but not as bad as I’d expect for travelling so far. Even taking the most conservative interpretations of the logs, we’ve been gone for 2,547 years.”
“We haven’t been gone from anywhere. Your stupid theories don’t make any sense.”
“Someone built this place!”
“It’s not a place! It’s a planet!”
They devolved into the usual argument, about how no other planets could move on their own, but how would they know that if they were all travelling in the same direction, and so on. Only a few people listened to the stars on the old equipment, and they didn’t believe half of what they said. It was too obvious that the life here had evolved to live inside this giant, spinning, planet-sized asteroid. They had plants that burrowed through the rock to collect UV rays from the suns they passed, using that energy to support the entire ecosystem within the planet. Everything worked too smoothly, too well to be designed. It had to be natural. Humans made too many mistakes. Just look at Diron, Talia thought uncharitably.
They both suddenly stopped and tilted their heads to the side, then looked back at each other. Talia flipped through her apps until she found the translation app. They were both silent for a few minutes, just listening.
“What’s a country road, and how could it take you home?” | The Starseed project began with a relatively simply stated objective: Spread life, and humanity, across as much of the galaxy as possible. A single first stage, the *New York* launched from a construction facility in Earth orbit with a population of a half million, accompanied by a robotic probe named *Liberty*. When the probe arrived at the destination star system thirty five years later it began construction of a new ship, the *Roma* and a new probe, *Romulus*. When the *New York* arrived thirty five years after that half the now million person population offloaded onto the *Roma* and the two ships and probes headed off in different directions.
I was born aboard the *Orleans*. We're within communications range of our parent ship, the *London*. By relay we can reach our sister ship, the *Athenai* and her daughter ship, the *Teotihuacan*. A one-way transmission to anyone further back than the *London* takes decades by relay and there is no guarantee of a response.
We do still get messages though, it just takes twenty years to hear from the *Delhi*. Last week the final decision on sixth generation ship names went out. In another ten years the *Orleans* will catch up to *Jean d'Arc* for resupply and will rendezvous with the *Philadelphia* and *Franklin*. They've also already started deciding what the seventh generation will be called.
There is one place nobody's heard from in centuries. We know that Earth existed. Everyone has seen footage of the *New York* leaving dock and our records are full of information about it, but does it still exist? What of our records is fact and what was fiction?
Nobody knows.
Some claim that Earth was destroyed by a disaster or that humanity finally wiped itself off the face of the planet, that we're all that remains. Others claim that humans on Earth have ascended to another form of life and don't need communication anymore and that they'll soon come and share their secrets with us. Another theory is that the *Echo-1* relay failed, making communication with Earth impossible, and nobody there cares enough to replace it.
For the most part it doesn't matter. Earth is a legend and has as little impact on our lives as the cities and figures that we name our ships and probes after. It is a thing to discuss with friends over wine, it is not real.
Each ship is self-sufficient, needing only to pick up supplies every seventy years. Most of what we transmit to each other is little more than letters between cousins, transcripts of new plays or songs we've written, and technical papers from the various labs. The further apart the ships get the more important it becomes to cram information into tighter transmissions.
My name is Cécile, I'm a mathematician and communications specialist. This is the story of how a legend became real. | |
[WP] After thousands of years on a generation ship sent out to colonize the universe, nobody alive on board the ship believes in the "myth" of Planet Earth anymore. Until they receive the first transmission from Earth in hundreds of years... | "It's a lie. Or fake."
"Its a message from the gods"
"I told you earth was real"
These phrases and many more were heard throughout the hull of the space ship. Every single crewmemeber, old and young, Male and female, were questioning the origin and intent of the message received. This time however the questions were not coming from some lowly engineer or cook... no this time they were said by members of the supreme command council.
"Silence!" the skipper roared at the assembled members. "We must decide how to act!" "The signal was truly along the path of travel so if there was or rather is an earth it is genuinely from there" the head of navigation interjected. "As far as I am concerned there is an actual earth" the lead astronomist said. At this point the head priest angrily interrupted "impossible! The earth is but an allegory! The message is the work of dark forces trying to tempt us to evil!" This understandably stalled the conversation for a minute until from the back of the room a quiet voice asked "but what exactly was the message?"
"The message," the skipper said, "is the following: 'earth is doomed. Destruction imminent. Catastrophic asteroid to destroy us. Continue on for you are the last of us. The age of the dinosaur is over.'"
Edit: spelling fix | [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Hydrael_Writes/comments/9b08iy/the_transmission_part_2/)
Captain Hayden Riodan slid his ship, the Katydid, closer to the asteroid. "Steady now," he said. "Nice and easy does it."
"Captain, you're the one flying this thing," Shayna muttered. "You know you don't need to talk to yourself while you do it, right,"
"It helps with my focus, Shayna. Now shush. We don't have long before the Gammids know we're in their space."
Shayna nodded firmly, her blue hair cascading as she did. Gammids were nasty customers and would not respond well to a Tyri ship in their space. "Lock achieved," she said.
Hayden let out a whoop of excitement. "Let's power up the engines and get out of here! That's three hundred kilograms of pure Uranium wrapped up in another seven hundreds of useless rocks - we're going to be rich!"
"You said that we were going to be rich after the last job, Captain," Shayna muttered to herself.
"Well, we had to repair the 'did after that one. Ain't going to happen again, Shayna."
Shayna tapped the console. "Tell that to the Gammids."
Hayden whipped his head to the console. Three Gammid cruisers on approach, sending hailing signals. "Tyri ship! You have encroached on Gammid Space. Prepare to be boarded."
Hayden groaned, and Shayna looked up at him. "She we run?"
"Punch it," Hayden confirmed. The Gammid and Tyri descended from the same base species - a race called humanity - but bioengineering done before the collapse of the last Empire meant they were vastly genetically different. So different, in fact, the Gammids had no qualms about eating Tyri who violated their territory.
They turned the engines to full and began a hard burn. Once their orbit would take them away from the Gammid's main star, it would just be a matter of letting the point defense system take care of any missiles the Gammids sent their way until they could get to safe wormhole distance and doing minor trajectory adjustments to escape any kinetic or beam projectiles. Simple. Safe.
The twenty missiles the Gammids sent their way, clustered too tightly for a ship as small as the Katydid’s Point Defense protocol? Nothing to worry about. Hayden was sweating as he poured more power into the burn.
"Captain, we're going to be hit!" Shayna shouted, before broadcasting to the rest of the ship. "All crew; we are doing a hard burn, hard burn! Strap yourselves in."
Hayden could only hope everyone did as he doubled the thrust, feeling the acceleration press him back into the chair. "Make the jump!" Hayden shouted. "Shayna, make the damn jump!"
"We're too close to the gravity well!" She shouted back.
"Those missiles are too close to us!" he countered.
"Damnit, damnit, damnit," Shayna swore, but input the commands. Around the engine, Hayden knew, a wormhole was beating created with exotic matter, one that rapidly expanded to engulf the entire ship. He felt a stretching sensation, and then they were gone.
---
________________________________________
They weren't in the wormhole for more than ten seconds, emerging back in Tyri space. "Captain, we almost got killed!"
"I noticed," Hayden said, rubbed his temple. Going through the wormhole always gave him a headache. "Where are we?"
"Just inside the border. Didn't want to risk a long jump. Captain..."
The console started beeping. Shayna scowled at him and pushed a button.
"To whoever is left to hear this," the voice said, and Hayden frowned.
"That's English,"
"Quiet," Shayna said, although she was frowning too. No one had spoken English in nearly two thousand years. Ships computers could still translate it, as well as most of the languages of old Humanity, but no one used it.
The exchanged had caused them to miss part of the message. "Casting to inform you that Earth is now inhabitable again. Repeat, Earth is now inhabitable again. Sensors are detecting temperatures had returned back into habitable ranges. You can come home."
Hayden slumped back in his chair. "Shayna, did that message come with coordinates?"
Shayna nodded her eyes wide. "A G-Class star near the edge of the galaxy. Captain..."
Hayden nodded. Earth. The mythical homeland of humanity. If it was back in play..."It'll be the biggest gold rush ever known."
Every Human descended species in the galaxy was going to be rushing there. "Shayna, are the engines still hot for warp?"
She nodded.
"Do we have enough for the jump?"
"Barely, captain. It'll take a couple weeks before we've generated enough exotic matter to create more - and we'll pretty much burn up the uranium we just grabbed doing so."
"Don't care. Punch it. We're going to be the first people to get there."
For once, Shayna didn't argue. She started to fire up the warp engines. "It'll be a couple days in transit, Captain. You should inform the crew."
Hayden nodded, rising to do so.
If Earth was back in play, if they could stake a claim before the various governments sorted things out - it would mean an end to this, an end to the endless scrabbling for a life.
And it would hopefully mean they would be safe from the Galactic War that would follow.
---
more at /r/Hydrael_Writes
EDIT: Fixed some formatting and typos.
| |
[WP] Late one night, you wake up to a loud sound downstairs. You investigate, and find an angel covered in battle scars. | She lay on her knees, face buried in her arms. Her low wails reverberated through the cold cellar. The faulty pipe dripped water in cadence with her sobs. The room smelled of mildew. Charlie stood stupefied at the bottom of the wooden stares, a single bulb creaking on its chain above him. His blue pajamas hung loosely on his small frame, bunching at his ankles and falling beyond his palms.
​
A series of sniffles preempted a set of reddened eyes that peered up at Charlie. Below those eyes were bruises and scratches, tracing down the female figure's cheeks. Drying blood pooled at the corner of her soft lips. She trembled as her eyes wavered over the shocked boy, before she returned her head to her hands, releasing a guttural moan.
​
Charlie stared, fearfully. Slowly he summoned up the courage to carefully approach the huddled woman, stepping quietly and deliberately. His smooth hand shook as he extended it toward her, landing it in her wavy, frazzled hair. Cautiously, he combed his cherubic fingers through, getting caught on a few gnarls.
​
He gently knelt by her, and wrapped his arms around her as far as they would go, feeling the twitch of her body as she whimpered. He held her silently for a while, closing his eyes and continuing to lightly finger through her hair. Tears streamed down her face, wetting Charlie's cheeks as he pressed his face into her shoulder.
​
"Mommy... what happened?" He cooed, his own eyes beginning to well up with empathy and angst. She rubbed his head, affectionately, forcing her lips into a half-hearted smile.
​
"Honey. Oh, Honey. I love you so much. And you deserve so much more. Here," She handed him a little stuffed Piglet, the material worn with age, "Here's your favorite little buddy. You, me and Piglet are going to go for a ride tonight, okay? I packed all your favorite things already, alright? We will go through the cellar door over here. Be a good boy and be nice and quiet so you don't wake up your father, okay?" Her voice broke, slightly, her eyes bearing into the similar brown ones of the boy.
​
"Okay, mommy. But did you remember my star wars blankie and my mickey clock? Remember? I got them when I turned 10 last month," A few tears slid down Charlie's cheeks, though his voice reeked with child-like innocence.
​
"Yes, honey. Don't worry," his mother responded, rubbing the wet from her eyes.
​
"What about Daddy?" Charlie nearly whispered. The muffled sound of glass clattering and rolling echoed from the floor above. Charlie's mother squeezed him close.
​
"Let's go, my sweet boy. Here, grab a couple of bags. It'll be a fun adventure. Just me, you and Piglet." She rose from her knees, and they scooped up a few back packs and items. She slipped a thick coat onto Charlie and gave him a pair of mittens. Then, she quietly slid open and closed the door behind them, the chill December air stinging their cheeks. Charlie's teeth chattered lightly, piglet stuffed under his arm, as they crunched through the sparse dusting of snow into the night.
​
​ | "Fuck's sake Michael it is 2 in the morning. Do Catholics not believe in doing excorcisms in the daytime?"
This wasn't the first time that someone had crash-landed in my living room. It happened pretty regularly, usually the wounded looking for a place to recover after battling some demon or another that was being exorcised from the church down the street. However, this was the third or fourth time that it had happened in the middle of the night and I was starting to get a little bit peeved.
Sure, I understood why they came to me. When you'd been around as long as I had you learned a thing or two about healing. I did my best to make my home a place of sanctuary. It didn't mean I liked having randoms crash through my place in the middle of the night. Things used to be different. I used to at least get a little respect. Now? Nope, not even a courtesy text or a knock on the door!
I wasn't very quiet about my annoyance either, grumbling and grousing the entire time I was shooing the cat off the sofa, helping Michael haul his battle-scarred ass onto it, and tossing him a bottle from the row of them on a bookshelf nearby. "Drink that," I told him, "I'll be right back with some salve. You're lucky I made a fresh batch last full moon." I really should start charging for this. I used to get things in exchange for my skills but again, not these days. Michael looked rather annoyed but he knew by now not to backtalk me. He did have something to say, though.
"You should probably get ready to leave here soon," he remarked, staring down at the bottle in his hands like a drunk staring into the bottle that had become his only friend.
"Can I ask why?" This couldn't be good.
Michael was silent for a moment, solemn and grim. When he answered me, I honestly got more annoyed than scared. "I lost the fight this time," he said, "I lost the fight...and I ran. They're following me and they'll find me soon."
"Fuck's sake Michael." I figured sheltering the angel and his kin would bite me in the ass eventually. I started climbing the stairs back to the second floor.
"Where are you going?" the archangel asked.
"Shut up and drink your potion," I responded, "I got some calls to make." My brothers and sister for sure, maybe some other family. I could probably handle things on my own but I really preferred not to, and why should I? My family was a little dysfunctional but we almost always had each others' backs. I was halfway up the stairs when Michael spoke again.
"Hestia?....I'm sorry."
I stopped, hand on the bannister, and sighed. He was a pain in the ass but I never could stay mad at those who came to me, seeking safety at my hearth. Just didn't have it in me. "Yeah...yeah. It's alright, things'll be okay. Hey, it's an excuse to get the fam together again you know? I haven't seen Hades in a long time, and you know Ares is always up for a fight. Might be fun. Now shut up and drink your potion before you die." | |
[WP] Your life is just amazing. You have wonderful friends and a lover. But actually they are FBI agents in disguise. You were once the most threatening being who ever lived, but due a horrible accident, those memories have vanished. Today, you were almost electrocuted, and suddenly, they came back. | Life is great. Actually it's better than I expected it be after the accident. When I woke up that day after the accident, I lost everything that made me, 'me'. But it all worked out in the end. I have a very loving wife, a great circle of friends and neighbours, which is way better than I had ever hoped.
I am fine with not remembering who I was because I am content with my life as of right now. Solely because of my wife, Sandra.
She accepted me even though I had no definite personality. Her smile fills the void in my heart which is my past. Her eyes shine brighter than my future and her touch feels softer than the clouds in the sky.
I love her so much.
I don't remember what I did for a living before the accident. So I tried studying different things which then resulted in my job as an electrician. I work at one of the best companies in the world. Great salary. Great benefits. I was very surprised when they accepted me, given my past and low level of knowledge as an electrician. Guess I am one of the lucky ones.
I do sometimes feel strange. I've never had a fight with anyone, nor physical or verbal. Everyone I come across is friendly. Not that I am complaining about it.
The server room of my company ran into some complications which fried the circuits. It's my shift today so I am on my way right now to the maintenance room. My boss was insistent upon having me go with someone to help me but I assured him that I can do it alone...which took some convincing.
I reach the room, open the door, and start my work. It's going great until I mistake a connection as a correct one and touch it. The shock jolted me backwards. Not harming me physically in anyway.
But...
But...
"What. The. Hell." I whisper.
I finish the work quickly. My boss kinda having a surprised look on his face. It was justified as I had never done a job with such perfection before, cause now I am back and all haha, ahm. I finish my work and wait for my shift to end.
I head home. Being greeted by my wife brings peace to my heart as always. I take her into my arms, gently caressing her hair, and kiss her.
"You feel great right now. Did something great happened at work today?" She asked.
"Yeah, something really great." I reply.
"Tell me about it." She really seems interested.
"I remembered"
"Remembered what?"
"My memories."
Her beautiful smile faded into lips shaking with fear. Her eyes lost her shine as if she had seen death in front of her.
"What happened darling? Why do you make such a face? Shouldn't you be happy?" I asked...with a grin.
She tried speaking but words became harder and harder to come with my each step coming towards her.
Tears come out of her eye as I stand right in front of her.
"Why do you cry?" I ask while wiping her tears away.
"Cause I know what you will do now" she finally spoke.
"Oh! What will I do?" I say with a grin.
"Destroy everything. Everyone." She says, still trembling with fear.
"Correct."
"Everything and everyone...except *you*."
| I lay on the ground for a moment and listened as they panicked. My wife—no, not *my* wife. It wasn't really me at the wedding, it seems. That woman, Meg, she kneeled down next to me, careful not to touch me.
"Honey? Are you—"
"Yeah," I croaked. Then, clearer, "Guess the power's back."
The crowd chuckled. The crowd! It was Meg's birthday. I'd invited everyone, and they all came. I held my face in check as I stood up, connect all the faces to the days before... What happened? Something in the lab? It was a gap, a blank space.
"You gave as a scare, brah. Doc, you wanna check him over?" Mitch, my not brother-in-law, and a field agent. I'd fed his partner to Cerberus. My legs wobbled as I thought of what they must have done to my little friend.
"Yeah, Doc," I said. "Clearly don't have my sea legs back just yet." Samuel "Doc" Grant led me off to the bedroom. Meg followed at first, but I waved her off. "Go have fun. I'm fine."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah. It's your birthday, enjoy it. If you're really worried, just make a wish for me when you blow out the candles."
She hurried off, and I watched her half-jog down the hallway.
"Ha, man, you still love her," Doc said with that highly punchable grin. Then he looked a little more serious. "Honestly, though, you two are my go to example of true love. I have a few marriages under my belt, so trust me, I know what I'm saying."
"You... I didn't know, Sam," I lied. I shouldn't have known, but I did before. He probably blamed me for the last couple. Especially the last one, as I had killed her.
He checked my over, talking about how great my life was, how he was sorry about my accident, but that it may have been for the best.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, not this one. Your crash back in college. The memory loss. I knew you as a kid, you were a bit... Well, you were a jerk. You fought an inferiority complex, depression, social anxiety."
He wasn't lying, for once. He'd been friends with my dad.
"Not your fault," he continued. "Your dad... He wasn't a good man. Brilliant, but morally stupid. If I'd known what he was doing..." He eased into a chair across from me. "I have a lot of regrets. The marriages, for one. Wish I'd fought harder for any of them. Not focusing more in school. Not paying off my debts faster. But my biggest is not helping you. I saw the signs, but I figured, brilliant man, smart as Abe Finkle, he wouldn't treat his son like that."
I could tell he meant it. I always thought he was part of it. They were so close, I just assumed Dad's experiments were actually approved by the government.
"I just think, well, you're better off not remembering. Kinda envy you for that."
Meg poked her head in the room. "We're about to cut the cake." She gave me that shy smile, and I remembered why I fell in love with her. Me, no one else.
"Well, Doc, am I clear?"
"Yep," he chuckled. "Let's have some cake."
| |
[WP] The hero is on his knees. Your moment of victory is at hand! You recite your prepared supervillain monologue and you absolutely nail it. | You know, I still respect you. Even after everything. You're trying to do the right thing, after all - protect the innocent, defend the weak. It's a noble goal. But I'm just superior. Better at my job. For every single time you beat me on brute force, or sheer luck, or even on divine intervention, I learned something. I still bear all the scars from our past encounters - My face is... like this, because of you. I can't move three fingers on my right hand, I have a limp, my spine's bent, broke thirty-two bones in five years... the works. I know I gave you a good run, but not near as good as you've given me.
And what for? What do you gain? What do you even *stand* to gain? You're already richer than most of mankind will ever be. You're handsome, strong, independent, smart - a full gentleman. Yet your line dies with you. What moves you? Justice? Is there even justice, when the ones you take down always come back, and the ones you defend turn against you? Morals? What is morality, compared to the loving embrace of your family? Can't still be your feeble, useless revenge moving you, can it? You had the chance to drink the blood of the man who ruined your family, and you still chose "the high road". Makes me fucking sick. Makes you look inhuman.
You had the chance to make your life complete, to make your wildest dreams come true, to get the closure you've always yearned for, and you still couldn't push yourself to do it! Makes me sick to no end! If I ever had the chance God gave you - funny, I kinda do, right now, don't I? - I wouldn't miss it. I would never fucking miss it.
So, here we are. The once-DA turned villain, and Richie, the Rich kid who thinks his dead parents excuse him dressing up as a bat and beating thugs up with a billion-dollar suit of technoarmor. And, for all that armor, all the training, all the fucking work, you're gonna die from a normal bullet, fired from a normal gun. Ironic.
Your face will be on all the news tomorrow, Batman. Last chance to smile. | I stopped to pose dramatically, the spot lights glinting off the mirror finish of my boots. "You see Speacial Agent Harington nothing you or your friends," I gestured with my left hand and a cargonet full of bodies fell to the floor with a thud that echoed through the room, "could have done would have stopped me." My voice rising in pitch and volume as I shook my fists at the sky. "My assassins are already in place and they will strike within the hour! Soon the leaders of every natio..."
I stopped as my most trusted lieutenant whispered in my ear. "Thank you, Cadavoratorus, your quite right." I drew my side arm and without pause shot my long time nemesis in the left eye. His corpse looked back at me with an expression that I imagined was one of shock. I emptied the rest of my magazine into his head spattering everyone within ten feet with flecks of blood and brains.
I looked around at my closest minions and most loyal allies and said, "Send the signal to execute my diabolical plan. Ok, that's done? Who's ready for lunch? I could totally go for some sushi right now. Anyone know a good place in this part of town?" | |
[WP] The hero is on his knees. Your moment of victory is at hand! You recite your prepared supervillain monologue and you absolutely nail it. | He rested upon his knees the ever brave scowl on his face. A stare I admired for so long, a man capable of controlling his demeanor in almost any situation. Now though I think I can see a waver.
"If I'm honest I never imagined this, not once a dream I had. Pretentious thoughts of a victory already won plagues to a slow mind and overconfidence leads to ruin. Now I find myself at a loss for what to say, though I suppose not, I have much I wished to discuss with you. Sad, maybe but do not dismay, your loss is only a necessity now passed. I have tried for a while now to tell you the why, you must listen."
I lowered myself to his level, his weakened state left him looking far less big. He remained still with his glare fierce as if ready for more. "All I have done I have done *for* the world, at times- sure- it has taken steps seemingly too far. However, you can trust me, well I suppose you can't. I am evil, yes, this I can accept but so are we all... me more than most- yes."
Placing a hand to his face I locked my stare to his. "You had to be in the way! I wasn't ready for you yet, someone else maybe. You must understand, anyone else here in this position I wouldn't grace with this much of my voice. Yet, now I'm longing for one of your sarcastic quips. Anyone else would be right to sit here with the fear I see present in your eyes; you though, you're too good, a needed good. This whole world, *your* world, is right now, in *my* hands. So don't plead, don't beg, it wouldn't matter much. When you wake up it's not gonna be pretty at first, no, but you remember, you remember one thing: I win this round." I finished quietly, with power, lingering close to his ear.
Raising my hand up I quickly struck, the force against his jaw brought me a strange pleasure. I walked away my hand still gripping in a fist, the feeling still tingled across my knuckles, I felt powerful. With a final bought of this envigorating feeling I swept my fist through the air confidently, a smug smile plastered on my face.
_
r/theoreticalfictions | I stopped to pose dramatically, the spot lights glinting off the mirror finish of my boots. "You see Speacial Agent Harington nothing you or your friends," I gestured with my left hand and a cargonet full of bodies fell to the floor with a thud that echoed through the room, "could have done would have stopped me." My voice rising in pitch and volume as I shook my fists at the sky. "My assassins are already in place and they will strike within the hour! Soon the leaders of every natio..."
I stopped as my most trusted lieutenant whispered in my ear. "Thank you, Cadavoratorus, your quite right." I drew my side arm and without pause shot my long time nemesis in the left eye. His corpse looked back at me with an expression that I imagined was one of shock. I emptied the rest of my magazine into his head spattering everyone within ten feet with flecks of blood and brains.
I looked around at my closest minions and most loyal allies and said, "Send the signal to execute my diabolical plan. Ok, that's done? Who's ready for lunch? I could totally go for some sushi right now. Anyone know a good place in this part of town?" | |
[WP] The hero is on his knees. Your moment of victory is at hand! You recite your prepared supervillain monologue and you absolutely nail it. | He rested upon his knees the ever brave scowl on his face. A stare I admired for so long, a man capable of controlling his demeanor in almost any situation. Now though I think I can see a waver.
"If I'm honest I never imagined this, not once a dream I had. Pretentious thoughts of a victory already won plagues to a slow mind and overconfidence leads to ruin. Now I find myself at a loss for what to say, though I suppose not, I have much I wished to discuss with you. Sad, maybe but do not dismay, your loss is only a necessity now passed. I have tried for a while now to tell you the why, you must listen."
I lowered myself to his level, his weakened state left him looking far less big. He remained still with his glare fierce as if ready for more. "All I have done I have done *for* the world, at times- sure- it has taken steps seemingly too far. However, you can trust me, well I suppose you can't. I am evil, yes, this I can accept but so are we all... me more than most- yes."
Placing a hand to his face I locked my stare to his. "You had to be in the way! I wasn't ready for you yet, someone else maybe. You must understand, anyone else here in this position I wouldn't grace with this much of my voice. Yet, now I'm longing for one of your sarcastic quips. Anyone else would be right to sit here with the fear I see present in your eyes; you though, you're too good, a needed good. This whole world, *your* world, is right now, in *my* hands. So don't plead, don't beg, it wouldn't matter much. When you wake up it's not gonna be pretty at first, no, but you remember, you remember one thing: I win this round." I finished quietly, with power, lingering close to his ear.
Raising my hand up I quickly struck, the force against his jaw brought me a strange pleasure. I walked away my hand still gripping in a fist, the feeling still tingled across my knuckles, I felt powerful. With a final bought of this envigorating feeling I swept my fist through the air confidently, a smug smile plastered on my face.
_
r/theoreticalfictions | A sickening gyre of destruction unfolded behind me. Plumes of fire crashing into scarred earth. Toppling monuments to unbridled greed crumbling into ash. The futile lament of the conquered. And here I was, towering astride the hero's face as a colossus. My posture straight and triumphant; his, cowed and miserable. The chiseled fool couldn't even bring himself to look me in my incandescent eyes.
A cruel laugh escaped before I cleared my throat and recited, from memory -- oh, the long nights I spent savoring this moment were well spent -- the verse I had prepared for this very opportunity.
"Do you despair, even as unfolds my dark vow?
Once you were a race scepter-bearing, wall-building, sea-going,
At long last do you understand my bright design now?
I am the index of Fire, come to undo all your brave doing!
I grabbed his hair. Yanked. My breath a hail of spittle and murderous intent. Shouted.
"The time is nigh, you cursed spite!
I WAS BORN TO SET ALL THINGS RIGHT." | |
[WP] You realise you can turn yourself to stone at will. | You realize that you can turn yourself to stone at will. You eagerly test your new ability, fervently conjecturing on the uses such a skill can be employed toward.
You then realize that though turning into stone was trivial, the inverse is much less so.
Every effort meets in failure. Not a digit will move, not a strand of hair will waft in the breeze, not a single breath will be taken. The gravity of your mistake begins to sink in. You cannot free yourself from your self-made, self-contained prison. Moreover, without a living body, you cannot die; not even the end is an avenue of escape.
Eventually, you stop thinking. | I used my power of turning into stone to go down in history. Not as some hero or legend, but as the man who was never caught.
When I figured out I could turn into stone, many thoughts filled my mind. I was wondering what abilities it could grant me. I sat there wondering for days. Then, I thought of something.
I starting making ideas for sneaking into a museum. I started going there daily, thinking of the perfect place to become stone. When I found it, I got ready.
The guard was going about his night shift looking through the place. When he was gone, I made my move for it. I grabbed a painting, one worth at least a billion. The alarm set off and I was forced to run.
As I ran out of the building, I hid the painting in an alley. I ran back in and into the warehouse. I used my stone powers again. They checked through, but missed me. They never found out who did it, but I took the liberty of putting it back near the museum. It was all over the news, the Internet, anywhere you get info from.
After that, I decided to start a normal life, and got a job and a house. I finally got what I wanted. Was it worth it? Maybe. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. | |
[WP] People come to the black fortress with one of two goals: Kill the dark lord or date his sister. Both are met with equal resistance. | It sucks, ya know. I got immortality, but I also grew the spikes. And my blood is black. Then some idiot hedge knight tries to kill you when you're buying potatoes, and accidently impales himself, and everyone calls you a monster. Eventually, I just quit going out, hired some guys to handle things. But, because of my rep, the only guys who apply aren't exactly model citizens. So now people say I've got an evil army.
That's when Da kicked the bucket. One last chance to screw up my life. So Ma and Thanata, my little sister, up and decide to move in. Not to bad, save for Ma's nagging. At least until that bard showed up. He was trying to kill me, and woo my baby sister, AT THE SAME TIME! No decency in them. Bards are just the worst.
He even wrote a song about her. Wildly inaccurate, of course. She's sweet, but calling her "a beauty to rival fair Helen" is a pure lie. She has an underbite. And the glass eye. Does anyone put THAT in the songs? No. No they certainly do not.
So I decide, between that, and Ma's pushing, to get out of the house, socialize, may conquer that neighboring kingdom that the knights are coming from. It was impulsive, and came from a place of anger, but man, I was sick of it.
Then, of course, more knights come, from farther afield, and I'm practically forced to start this whole world domination thing, just so I can get a break. You know they call me "Dark Lord" Vivos? That's just hurtful.
So now, here you are, come from the last kingdom I have left. You clearly plan to kill me, and the flowers you brought mean you're after my sister's heart, as well. You know, my people have no complaints. We have free education, water sanitation, a postal service, and a whole list of other things you've never heard of, you backwards, tin-can-wearing, sharp-stick-wielding, libido-driven, disease-ridden bumpkin. I will find your home, and I WILL FLAY YOUR —
Sorry. Ma keeps reminding me to keep my anger in check. "Appropriate responses to your environment, Vivi." You know how mothers can be. Where was I? Ah yes, monologue's done. Time to kill you.
*ka-chunk*
Wow, this new axe is nice. I need to make sure to give that blacksmith a big bonus. | "Cardamom, back to taste the street again? Or did you forget easy you are to throw since last time?" The brusque guard chortled, glancing grin-wide to his partner in hopes of eliciting a laugh. The other burly fellow leaning comfortably on a bardiche twice the size of Ardamon rolled his eyes and spat toward the ground.
"Y' said the same thing last time he visit. And the time before that. Jokes lose their flavour, Bedlund, and yours taste like hard tack three years af'er the war," the guard, Lenigo, leveled a tired gaze toward Ardamon. "What're y' here for, Ardamon? You know we can't let you see the lord's little sister. I don't feel like shoveling anymore gargoyle shit."
Bedlund scowled, pulling his pipe and leaf, annoyed his lick'd fallen upon deaf ears. "Well I laughed..." Lenigo cast him a putrid gaze, folding Bedlund's gripes down about his ears.
"Well...," Ardamon began, "I just so happen to come across these *treats* which I thought my two favorite nightswatch might enjoy..."
A flicker of light scampered across the building's brickwork around a corner behind Ardamon, followed by sugary laughter and two-pair of women's underpants which fell suggestively to the streetway cobblestone. | |
[WP] People come to the black fortress with one of two goals: Kill the dark lord or date his sister. Both are met with equal resistance. | "You did what?!" The Dark Lord Murglot gawked at the blood soaked knight.
"I've saved you!" Sir Emeric cried triumphantly, swishing his sword elaborately through the air. "That vile hag will plague you no more."
Murglot ran towards his sister's room in a panic, the knight following closely behind, but the gore that greeted him made even his evil stomach churn.
"Why...?" The Dark Lord sunk miserably to the floor.
"Why?" Emeric asked, confused. "That's what the king's missive said." He rummaged in his pack and retrieved the royal letter, his face going pale as he re-read it once, then twice. "Oh..." The knight flushed. "I seem to have made a grave error."
"You don't say." Murglot replied through clenched teeth.
Sir Emeric forced a laugh and began to plan his retreat as he held out a small confectioners box towards the furious Dark Lord. "I don't suppose you like chocolate...?" | "Cardamom, back to taste the street again? Or did you forget easy you are to throw since last time?" The brusque guard chortled, glancing grin-wide to his partner in hopes of eliciting a laugh. The other burly fellow leaning comfortably on a bardiche twice the size of Ardamon rolled his eyes and spat toward the ground.
"Y' said the same thing last time he visit. And the time before that. Jokes lose their flavour, Bedlund, and yours taste like hard tack three years af'er the war," the guard, Lenigo, leveled a tired gaze toward Ardamon. "What're y' here for, Ardamon? You know we can't let you see the lord's little sister. I don't feel like shoveling anymore gargoyle shit."
Bedlund scowled, pulling his pipe and leaf, annoyed his lick'd fallen upon deaf ears. "Well I laughed..." Lenigo cast him a putrid gaze, folding Bedlund's gripes down about his ears.
"Well...," Ardamon began, "I just so happen to come across these *treats* which I thought my two favorite nightswatch might enjoy..."
A flicker of light scampered across the building's brickwork around a corner behind Ardamon, followed by sugary laughter and two-pair of women's underpants which fell suggestively to the streetway cobblestone. | |
[WP] You live in a small farming village where people live their worryless lives. Little do the villagers know, countless armies have tried to invade it, but all invasion attempts have failed because of one deciding factor. You, the retired demon lord is living in that village. | Syld village as an idyllic and carefree place. The people weren't plagued by the evils of the world, like demons, wars, and tax collectors. The people had never seen nor heard of their king, despite the land around them changing ownership multiple times. News of the outside world rarely reached them, and they hadn't seen a traveling merchant or pilgrim for more than a few years. The brave and stubborn children among them had gone to the edge of the trees beyond the farmland. There they could see masses of men smash against each other on barren, dusty fields. Of course they never went closer than that. Their parents had told them that the treeline protects their peaceful way of life, and crossing it meant disaster.
​
Their parents weren't entirely wrong, but they weren't really right either. The trees did mark the edge of safety, but it wasn't the trees that did the protecting. It was Rorn. Rorn had moved to the village many years ago with his wife. He had opened a small inn after the previous one mysteriously caught fire. They lived in comfort for a good few years, but unfortunately his wife passed away due to illness, and was buried in the church graveyard. It was to this very graveyard that Rorn was walking this morning.
​
"Tsss, never really get used to the sting." Rorn muttered as he passed the threshold to the church. Walking on holy ground annoyed him, but it had to be endured. He sat next to the grave of his wife, leaning his back against her headstone as he let the sun fall over him. "Oh Mary, if only you were here to see it." he said. "Our little girl is growing up, and it seems like she didn't inherit any of my bloodline. I'm sure it wouldn't have mattered to you if she did, but I'm glad that she'll have a chance at a normal life. She's almost seven now, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do without you, but I'll give my all. For both of you." Leaves rustled in the wind, as if in answer to his words, but there was no one there to hear him. Just when his head began to sink into his chest, it snapped up instantly, and he vanished from the grave.
​
Ten miles away, a small platoon, maybe thirty people, were entering the trees.
"Shit Boss, haven't you heard this place is cursed?" One said as he pulled on his ill-fitting breastplate, trying to get it to sit comfortably.
"Shut up Hanson," another replied. "The only thing that's cursed is my empty stomach! We haven't had supplies come through for days. The Borvins must have cut the line somehow." A few mutters of ascent rumbled through the men, each stepping with more determination to get food in them.
"All I'm saying," said Hanson, "Is that there hasn't been anyone from our side who made it out after walking in here Boss. Maybe it's dangerous." Hanson got cold stares from the others, and one even piped up from the back.
"If you're gonna be such a wuss about it then leave. More food and women for the rest of us!" It was the kind of thing that would usually get a few laughs from the men, but they were too hungry and tired to find the energy.
"You know, maybe Hanson is right. Maybe it is dangerous?" said a voice from the back.
"Goddamnit I'll whip whoever said that for insubordination!" screamed the leader, turning in anger on his men. Then, without warning, his eyes grew round like the moon and his face as white. The rustle of weapons were heard as the rest of them turned. They regretted that decision pretty badly. What they faced was not man, nor beast, but the Devil. They had no time for pleas or screams as they were harvested. The whole thing took about five seconds, and Rorn thought it lucky that there were no villagers present. Using mind altering magic always caused him some stress. People's memories were a surprisingly delicate thing.
​
As he wandered off, whistling into the forest, he wondered if the signs he had put up were a bit too subtle. Different phrases flitted through his mind as he considered them. He needed something particularly scary, since "All those who enter will die!" wasn't really having the required effect.
"Well, that's a problem for later." he sighed, stepping out of the forest and making his way slowly back into the village. Even though he was a few miles out, he could see his daughter skipping towards the inn from her morning classes, and he vanished. | This is my first response, so criticism is very welcome.
________________________
It was a quiet little village, named Christmas, with an eternal jolly feeling. It wasn't remarkable, really. No famous monuments, famous people, nothing. Just a quiet, small little village in an unknown part of the world.
That is, until the armies began approaching.
They had all known me before as the cruel demon of fairy tails, those armies, whether they were men in shining armor or creatures of beyond. So I traveled to the insignificant town no one had cared for, with silent assassins accompanying me along the way.
As years went on, as the villagers were born and had died, as the armies began getting more creative, I slowly got older, had to rely on the assassins more. A Friend from the past visited me many times. She never seemed to age as I had gotten weak. One day I would die in this town, my grave being the one thing left in the destruction of a town called Christmas. A
I had marched up to the top of the tower, to face the emotionless beings who longed to destroy me.
"Sorry, I'm a bit slow," I said. "May not be at my best right now.."
YOU ARE DYING, DOCTOR.
The Daleks replied.
"Yes, I'm dying. You've been trying to kill me for centuries; and here I am. Dying of old age. If you want somethin' done, do it yourself."
YOU WILL DIE, AND THE TIME LORDS WILL NEVER RETURN.
"You still can't work up the courage to shoot me can ya'- YA' STILL WORRIED I GOT SOMETHIN' UP MY SLEEVE!
"..well, you knock yourselves out, boys. I got nothing this time."
And I watched, as a town called Christmas fell to the ground.
________________________
The prompt was edited a bit to match my scenario, but I hope the twist was surprising. |
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