(Credit goes to Toast for making the backstory)
June 4th, 2132
A date that, even now, few know the significance of. It was on that day, at approximately nine o’clock in the evening, that the Verrier-Adams deep space observatory solved a century old mystery. An anomaly in the orbits of Kupiter belt objects first recognized at the beginning of the twenty first century, largely believed to have been caused by a distant and dim planet orbiting the sun, was found to be indicative of something far more substantial.
A brown dwarf, the dimmest ever discovered, was rapidly approaching the solar system. The space observatories findings were rapidly disseminated, and one by one, scientists the world over not only confirmed them but recognized their meaning. The brown dwarf, still nameless, would enter the solar system and dramatically alter the orbits of nearly every planet therein within the next two hundred years.
The earth, at a minimum, would be rendered thoroughly uninhabitable. Governments worldwide attempted to suppress the information, but within days even the most remote peoples on planet Earth had been made aware of their misfortune. The world descended into chaos. Some saw the coming brown dwarf as a sign of the end times, the day of judgement. Others saw it as a hoax. Most just saw it as it was, a ball of gas seventy times more massive than Jupiter that, through sheer dumb luck, had been put on a collision course with Humanity.
Ultimately a billion people died, either from war, unrest, or suicide before the worlds governments restored order. By 2145 there wasn’t a territory on the planet that wasn’t under martial law. Facing an implacable adversary, and the certainty of total annihilation, the nations of the world came together to form a plan. The United Nations was reformed into the Global Emergency Council, and both the Arc, and Longshot Projects were commissioned.
The combined resources of the planet were directed towards space and the construction of any and all technologies necessary to survive without that most venerable pale blue dot to call home. Unconcerned by climate change or an environment that was doomed anyway the Earth was stripped bare so that its children would live on without it.
By the time the Brown Dwarf, by now known as ‘Perses’, entered the Kupiter Belt in 2361 the GEC had constructed five hundred and twelve Arcs. Each one was as large as a city, and in an effort to save as many as possible used cryogenic preservation to keep its occupants safe. However, even that noble effort proved insufficient. In the end one billion people were saved, but by the time the arcs were full there was little those left behind could do.
What transpired as the last arcs left the Earth behind remains one of the things few, if any, have ever attempted to learn. Billions, betrayed, left to die, and with each one absolutely certain they would. There is a reason the Arcs never looked back.
Of course, ahead of them was something many considered just as terrifying. Project Arc had been a success, but its counterpart? There was, regrettably, no way to truly know. Project Longshot had been envisioned as a faster than light drive able to propel Humanity across the stars, and it had delivered, at least in part. Few understood precisely why but it had become clear that even if faster than light travel was possible, it would require set points in space to function.
No ship would be able to carry its own drive, and thus there was no way to tell if any jump had been successful. It was a massive project, and one that many criticized, but ultimately one such fixed point, a ‘jump gate’, was constructed. As Perses began to influence the orbits of the outer planets the Arc fleet was faced with a choice. They could risk a trip through an untested gateway in the hopes that it would propel them towards what was considered the best candidate for habitability known, a planet nearly five thousand light years away, or they could wander the stars in hopes of finding something closer.
In the end, three hundred and sixteen Arcs took the gamble. It was one that, for most, did not pay off. As the gates architects had predicted without a second fixed point to lock onto there was an enormous margin of error in the fleets jump. Just over three hundred ships were scattered over a space nearly seven hundred lightyears across.
It was sheer luck that ten ships ended up within a single lightyear of their target. It was less fortunate that upon closer inspection it was clear that the planet they’d gambled to reach was far from a paradise. In fact, it was far from habitable. A ball of scalding steam that not even the hardiest lifeform from earth could thrive on.
Having risked everything, the few that remained awake on those ten Arcs gave in to despair. Collectively they agreed freeze themselves and leave their Arcs in the hands of the semi-sentient AI that ran them. Those AI’s left buoys behind to indicate their direction to any that would arrive after them and departed on multi century journeys to find another potentially habitable planet.
Another gamble, but this time it paid off. Nine hundred and seventy three years ago the first Arc ship reached a distant star cluster orbiting the Milky Way and found dozens of potentially habitable exoplanets. Choosing the one it determined to be the most conducive to Human life that first arc woke its crew up to a new future for the Human species.
Those first Humans rejoiced, and in their joy they named the star cluster they had found Eden, after that very first paradise. In the next two centuries fifteen other Arcs would colonize star systems within the cluster, and those early settlers would build new jump gates to connect them.
These would become known as the core worlds, and they would be the centers of a human civilization that expanded with the arrival of dozens of other arcs over the next seven hundred years.
Nearly a thousand years have passed since Humanity was granted its second chance, dozens of systems have been connected to the new gate network, and still Arcs arrive in the Eden cluster. At times they find barren worlds, barely fit for habitation, and at times they find veritable utopias. Humanity has firmly established itself as the dominant species in a cluster with more than anyone could have reasonably expected, but they haven’t always come as grateful voyagers.
After all, even in Eden, Humanity is what it is. Men and women, nothing more and nothing less.
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If this has caught yout interest, follow the link below!
roleplayerguild.com/topics/180062-ede…