[Infinities] [Alt?] CHALLENGE! - "Our time on Earth is ending"

[M Fnord]

Once again, bored at work, tinkering with the setting a little. Got about a page worth of notes before I thought, "why should I have all the fun?"

And so, time for a Challenge. The Challenge is to integrate this:



into Fenspace. You can use pretty much any point in the current Fenspace timeline as a starting line. The one thing you are not allowed to do is moot the situation entirely by throwing handwavium at the problem; that's the cheap way out & I expect better from you.

Considering the source material, a certain level of melancholy is to be expected but outright dystopia should be avoided - shit absolutely may get real, but it can't go wandering off into the utter hole of despair.

Driving far past the current timeline endpoint and cast is encouraged. Some of our cast may be immortal but that doesn't mean they always have to be in the driver's seat. N-generation descendants are always a cool thing, just sayin'.

Bonus points will be awarded for gratuitous SMAC/X references.

Ready? GO!
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Dartz]

Zap...... This clearly didn't fit with what everyone else was doing and I can't delete posts.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

Driving far past the current timeline endpoint and cast is encouraged. Some of our cast may be immortal but that doesn't mean they always have to be in the driver's seat. N-generation descendants are always a cool thing, just sayin'.

Well, this is a pretty big idea for a story ... so what better to do than focus on the lives of two people?

---

I never knew Earth, and I never will.

My great-grandparents came from Earth - I suppose everybody's great-grandparents came from Earth - but my grandparents were born in space, and my parents almost never visited a planetary surface. I never got around to it. (Great-aunt Yayoi - yes, Good Queen Yayoi - says I'm not missing much, but my parents say she's always been a space pilot. What would she know about planets?)

We tried building a set of space mirrors the way we did around Venus, but trying to cool Earth that way caused problems in the biosphere. A few of the Mads proposed building really big radiator fins, but let's be real: there's no place to anchor them on Earth's surface. We finally had to face it: we weren't going to reverse the runaway heating effect as long as people lived on the planet. So mankind decided to abandon Earth and let it heal itself. Nobody gets to go Down now, unless they're piloting ships to bring people Up.

At least we don't have to choose who gets to live in space. There's plenty of room and plenty of work for everyone. Make it to Sanctuary and you can stop running ... and the same with the other cities we'd founded on planets orbiting other stars. It's up to us in the Convention to help ease the way for everyone coming from Earth - to let them know where they can run to, and not overwhelm the famous places. That's what we excel at, here at the endpoint of the Road to the Stars - "Stella Via," or "Stell-Via" in some old documents written by somebody who didn't know how to spell Latin correctly. (Great-aunt says it was my great-grandfather. I don't know much about the near-mythical Noah Scott outside of what's in the history files, but Great-aunt was there.)

So that's why we met - she was fresh Up from Earth, and I was helping people find their space legs. I still remember the first thing she said to me: "Excuse me, but could you help me find my room?"

Yes, it wasn't the most romantic line. But does that really matter?

"Certainly, miss ...?"

"Jemima Swinton."

"And I'm Charles Swansen, but everybody calls me Charlie." Instead of my full name, Charles Jaguar Swansen-Scott. It's a mouthful, and she didn't need to know I'm one of the major shareholders in SV-GW. I checked my safeprim, which had already called up her file. "That's a happy coincidence; you're billeted in the Station Core, near my quarters. The rooms there are quite comfortable; they used to be hotel rooms back in the early 21st."

"Oh, dear. They aren't handwaved, are they?"

I still can't understand that attitude, but even then I knew enough to set people's minds at ease. "Oh, no! They date back to the days of the Whole Fenspace Catalog, so you don't need to worry about that."

I couldn't help but fall in love with her smile.

Long story sideways, I escorted Jemima to her room, and then to dinner, where she told me tales about Earth. Or, at least, about the fascinating things she used to do in England. Riding horses single-file along the narrow paths through the farm fields, boating in the canals between London's towers, playing a game called "tennis" - all things I've never done and never will do. And that evening, I showed her the view from the dome at the top of Stell-Via ... and helped her postpone the next leg of her trip to Sanctuary.

Yes, it was a terrible abuse of my power. If we let people stay, where would the next shipload of Earth people wait for their ships?

But it meant being able to spend more time with Jem.

---

More later...

Oh, and a quote:

The Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.
-- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 1895
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

FWIW.... something I wrote up some part ago without planning to ever post it here.

##################

Outrageous Contingency Plan 21
»Times when things go right and well are perfect to think about what could go wrong. Our job is to think about scenarios where things go very wrong.«
- Nina Ustinyavna, 2021

OCP 21 began in the early 2020s as a long term simulation of social processes, based on events that happened in the past on Earth and the behavior of a few small but extreme social parties.

"We know that biomods are and most likely will ever be a minority among the Fen… even more if we compare them to the population of Earth. In fact most biomods are just singular events, there is practically no other group considering them as their true form and trying to raise children. Obvious Biomods are something common and accepted in Fenspace… but could this change in the future?"

Its a well known phenomenon that small minorities can go from accepted parts of a population to something that is considered bad or misguided. The OCP group began to look into possible scenarios where the public opinion in the Solar System could turn against biomodded people. Some of the scenarios were copied from other OCPs and were direct invasions of Fenspace by Earth or an unknown outside force. Others were more subtle, like a slowly decreasing influence of the Fen because of larger number of Daneverse people settling off Earth. A few of them looked into the dynamics between large and small Fen Factions and the tendency for the larger groups to assimilate the smaller ones.

In the end the result of the OCP 21 study were stark, but did not make for easy reading.

"There is no way we can keep our way of living if the rest of the Solar System think we are doing it wrong. They might not even hate us, they might pity us, trapped in a social dead end without a way out. There would be people asking for a stop of new biomods of our type, maybe even attempts to 'cure' us. Just leaving the Solar System would not even be an option, because they would not want to let this 'problem' literally grow out of control. We would need a way to leave without being followed."

OCP 21 was the first one that called for some way for all the catgirls of CI to leave the solar system in a stealthy way. It also listed the huge number of challenges of this project. To get away from the influence of Earth and the other Fen, the spacecraft would need an enormous range, maybe thousands of lightyears. The craft had to be big enough to carry every catgirl and the necessary infrastructure to start somewhere else from scratch, which contradicted the idea of being stealthy.

As many OCP's before, OCP 21 was put into secure storage with the tag 'not technologically feasible' on it.

The Ark (Fenspace Nevernever Land)

»We have the technology, we have the choice... even if we never need it, we should be prepared.«
- heard in an 'four eye' conversation with Cortana on the LBBL in 2025

»You say that our transportation tech doesn't scale up to get a billion people out of the solar system? I would say you are wrong… you are just thinking about the wrong kind of technology.«
- first tech conference about the Great Exodus 2040

In March 2027 a number of production complexes left the LBBL for an experimental deployment of long range sensor drones. Unknown to the rest of the Fen one factory carried the parts of another factory module, which was assembled in deep space and departed from the mission a month later.

Half a year later the module reached its goal, a large nickel iron asteroid more than two light years away from Earth. Contrary to the normal factories the catgirls had built, the module didn't had any parts with an atmosphere, the workforce was a mix of Exocomps and Geths. Inside the computer systems of the module were the uploads of a group of 20 catgirls, who had volunteered for this mission.

Over the next year the factory was expanded into a specialized shipyard, similar to the facility that had built the first Normandy Class. As soon as it was classified operational, they began with the construction of a new ship.

The ship

The Ark is designed to carry a maximum of 20000 people towards a new home between the stars and help them to set up a new infrastructure. It is also quite small for its job, smaller than any other colonization ship known to the Fen. It also carries no living space, only a large cryogenic freezing unit for up to a thousand bodies.

The 'passengers' are taking the journey as uploads within the ships computer system, living in a virtual reality to pass the time of the journey without skipping it. While offline storage would be theoretically possible, the catgirls want to give everyone the chance to life through the journey together.

The ship carries three Factory Seeds and a large amount of frozen biomatter and Handwavium to kickstart the new colony. It carries a workforce of Exocomps and Geth, both for doing repairs and maintenance on the trip and set up the new colony later.

The ships hull is made from a special waved stealth material that keeps the ship at a temperature close to the cosmic background temperature and absorbs most long range sensor signals. Its faster than light engine can be dialed down to 100c to dampen the ripples it creates in spacetime, which makes it difficult to detect even in FTL flight.

The few catgirls that know about the Ark hope that the day the ship is needed will never come. The construction crew of the Ark went into offline storage when the ship was finished, at least that is what the OCP group knows.

[Dartz]

Nobody wants to be Jamestown.
Nobody wants to be Plymouth.

Everybody's cool with going to other worlds and being the first to take that one small step, or when the hard job's done and everything's shiny and safe and you're kids have a future. But nobody wants that bit in the middle. Nobody wants to be the one to do the hard work, wresting their homestead with their bare hands from the cold uncaring wilderness.

The world is too comfortable, too secure.

The solution we came up with, well, it dated right back to the foundation of the Convention itself.

If you don't want to leave your home, bring your home with you. The first village arrived on Arcadia 6 months afterwards.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[LilFluff]

I'm reminded of part of the conclusion of the Unity storyline of fluffy's busybee webcomic. In which the AI of a generation ship has it go from star to star leaving behind a trail of colonies.
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Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

[Dakota]

LilFluff wrote:

---

I'm reminded of part of the conclusion of the Unity storyline of fluffy's busybee webcomic. In which the AI of a generation ship has it go from star to star leaving behind a trail of colonies.

Which is also the basic idea behind the 'Colony Train' in Slow Train to Arcturus by Eric Flint. The 'train' itself didn't slow down, but instead dropped off colony habitats at each star it flew by. Of course the story itself was about aliens noticing the colony ship inbound and sending out a interception party.
_______________________________________________________________
Characters
Sabre Fang
Dakota

[LilFluff]

Dakota wrote:

---

LilFluff wrote:

---

I'm reminded of part of the conclusion of the Unity storyline of fluffy's busybee webcomic. In which the AI of a generation ship has it go from star to star leaving behind a trail of colonies.

Which is also the basic idea behind the 'Colony Train' in Slow Train to Arcturus by Eric Flint. The 'train' itself didn't slow down, but instead dropped off colony habitats at each star it flew by. Of course the story itself was about aliens noticing the colony ship inbound and sending out a interception party.

In Unity the vessel wasn't originally intended to be a 'colony train', the original colonists treated it as a single use ship, abandoning it to continue drifting on after departing in their landing craft. 
But having been designed to support many generations during the slower than light journey the ship survived long enough for intelligent life to evolve among some of the creatures left behind. 
-----

Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.

[Dartz]

Let's try something else....

A Husk-Nation of the Old World, Old Man Sam and his puppet, the Britannian Empire. Maybe a bit too dark..... but an idea nonetheless that I'd like to explore.

The guards marched her through, heelboots clacking out the final countdown of her life. Her rank insignia was gone. Her sceptre destroyed. They'd taken her tiara and crushed it underfoot, shattering the Emerald gem. Anything that marked her as a member of the Navy, destroyed as part of the session.

They allowed her to wear was an orange prisoner's jumpsuit. The fabric shoes they graciously offered her just didn't work with her body's ankles, however, but they were still better than going barefoot. She shambled down the corridor, nudged in the back occasionally with the butt of a blaster to keep her moving.

It was the last kilometre, leading to an ancient door right at the city walls.

Airlock 04.

Four was Death.

One of the Guards stood between her and the door, faceless behind the mask in his or her black SSP uniform. Two others stood behind her. Each one bore the golden triple-prong crown of House Brittania on a gold field.

“Mellisa Kyle. For the Crimes of Sedition against House Brittania, deliberate sabotage of economic assets and terrorism contrary to social justice, you have been sentenced to exile to the surface. Do you understand why this is so?”

He spoke calmly, almost gently, like a priest offering absolution.

“I do,” she said with a weak nod.

“Do you accept the sentence of the House Court?”

“I do,” she repeated, her beaten voice cracking.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind there was fear. A small voice screamed in protest, drowned out by the baying screams of the struggle session and the court. The airlock door opened with a whine and she stepped weakly inside, aware that she was going to her death, but feeling strangely good about it.

Standing in that airlock, she saw the truth of the Brittanian motto. She understood it as much as it was possible for a human being to understand it. This was her own fate, that she made herself.

The outer door hissed open, a draught of hot air embracing her like an oven door had been opened. For a moment, she thought of her father's cooking decades ago, and how that how that hot waft had always carried the smell of something nice.

Now, all it brought was the smell of death,. She felt it hot in her chest, parching her throat dry. Melissa couldn't even sweat.

Beyond the door, beyond the city walls was nothing but a blasted desert and an acrid heat that stung at her eyes and burned her chest. Hot rock nipped at her feet as she stumbled out away from the city walls, making it impossible to stand still for all but the shortest of moments.

The door slammed shut behind her, leaving only sound of the hot wind and the crunch of pebbles under her feet
---------------

The Imperial Office reminded him so much of his Father's it hurt. It'd once been the observation deck on Serenity tower, offering views across the entire city. Now, it was home to one man, his desk, and the flag of House Brittania.

The austere eyes of Lelouch of Brittannia gazed at him over a pair of steepled hands.

Shinji knew he was doing it on purpose. It didn't faze him.

“Another traitor in the Navy?” said the Emperor, his voice cold and sepucheral in the cavernous office.

“Yes, Highness,” Shinji nodded, keeping his voice soft.

Brittania placed his hands on his desk, offering a broad, paternal grin. It came on like a lightswitch.

“Good work, m'boy,”

Shinji took a breath, keeping his head slightly bowed. “With respect, Highness, I am not a boy,”

“You should move, then!” The Emperor suggested. “Why do you think I adopted this body after I took the throne?” A father's body. Seasoned with age, with a broad chest, strong arms within a military uniform. The face was middle-aged and imperfect with a pushbroom moustach beneath the noise, all framed by short-cut, combed over hair that shined black under the overhead lights. A long, deep breath swelled the chest further, highlighting the gold medals hanging from colourful ribbons above his heart. “People will keep underestimating you if you keep that frame.” A single finger was pointed at Shinji, aimed right for the point in his chest where a heart should've been.

“In my line of work, it pays to be underestimated, highness.” Shinji allowed a deliberate smile to crawl across his lips

“I suppose it does, Commander.” The Emperor sat back, folding his arms across his chest. “We're surrounded by Disloyalty. It rots at the core of the Revolution and weakens us all, it weakens this world we're trying to build.”

“The enemies of the revolution often mask themselves as it's strongest supporters,” said Shinji, mildly. He smothered the laugh.

“Perhaps,” the Emperor breathed. “The Americans were starting to worry about their supplies for Titusville, and our security forces ability to put down the resistance.”

“They worry too easily. They always have,” Shinji dismissed them with a flippant wave.

The gregarious mask dissapeared from the Emperor's face, swept away by a stone cold ruthlessness and iron gaze that fixed Shinji to the spot. “The last thing I need is Old Man Sam worrying about our competence.” The Emperor returned to his preferred position, gazing over his hands. “The Captain of the Kellerman is asking for coordinates of rebel bases in the wasteland. I want you to give him some.”

For a moment, Shinji's mind spinlocked as he worked through the implications.

“That might take some time,” he managed to say.

“I don't care. Give him coordinates to a few homesteads if you can't find anywhere legitimate. Just get them up to him by the end of the day and get them off our back.”

The Emperor dismissed the lives of dozens with a flippant wave of his hand.

“Venus day?” Shinji hoped.

“Their day.”

“Yes, highness.” He bowed his head. “I'll get on that now,”

Somehow. It was as good a point as any to escape from this room.

“One more thing, Ikari.” Shinji felt himself just stop inside for a moment. “How close are you to tracking down this Starscream?”

A human being might've blanched. A human being would've damned himself.

“I do not believe she really exists, highness,” he answered, keeping his tone measured. “If she did, she would have to be someone at the highest echelon of government. We've eliminated most possibilities.”

Literally, thought Shinji.

“Perhaps it's you,” The Emperor looked at him through the side of his eyes, reading him.

Shinji did the only thing he could do. He held up his hands.

“You got me.”

“Hah!” The Emperor barked, rewarding him with that same paternal smile. “Of course not you! Shinji Ikari is one of the few who understand the meaning of loyalty these days. And humour.”

A deep belly laught rolled up through his throat, rumbling like distant thunder.

“I do my duty to the motherworld, Highness,” Shinjo bowed his head, hiding his relief.

“That you do. That you do, And do well. And neither shall your duty remain unrecognised when this rebellion is finished, that's a promise!”

“You can trust me, highness,” Shinji bowed again.

“These days, I can't even trust myself. Dismissed, Commander.”

Shinji saluted the Emperor with a snap of his bootheel, and a clenched first across his chest, then left.

------------

It was an office out of time, held in stasis for centuries by the scent of ancient cosmoline, musty paper and wood polish .The red flag of the Soviet Union hung on the wall, alongside the Ensign of the Navy. A cabinet made from cheap veneered wood held a variety of works, from the old masters of Russia, to Dallas, a biography of Malaclypse Fnord and photo-album from Frigga.

A bronze bust of Lenin on a pedestal gazed with lifeless eyes at the room's sole occupant.

Lun sat behind her wooden desk, with nine speakers on it it facing her, each one labelled with a name. Pinned between her shoulder and her neck was a red bakelite telephone headset.

“On the proposal to reduce our attack frequency for a period of three weeks, how have you voted?” she asked.

Major; “Major votes in favour”

The voice through the speaker was tinny and modulated artificially to give it a false, Lezherruskie accent to hide the true identity and gender of the person on the other side.

Snowball; “Snowball has voted in agreement.”

Boxer; “Boxer votes against.”

Clover; “Clover votes yes,”

Minumus; “Minumus says no,”

Mollie; “Mollie agrees.”

Benjamin; “Benjy is in favour.”

Muriel; “Muriel votes against, not that it makes any difference at this stage,”

“Jessie also votes in favour,” said Lun after a few moments.“The motion is carries six to three. The soviets will curtail their attacks on Mr. Jones for a period of three weeks.”

She noted it down on her personal pad.

Minimus; “Damn,”

Clover; “With luck, they'll believe they killed the right person.”

There were a few murmurs of assent from the sound-only speakers

Mollie; “I'd like to bring a matter before the council. The Royalists are refusing to play ball again. They think we're being too timid.” A pause allowed the mystery to sink in. “I've heard they found their own backer,”

Major; “What? You're shitting me?”

Mollie; “No. Someone's giving them weapons that aren't coming from us.”

“I'll put it to Starscream. They might be in a position to know more,” said Lun. The gears in her mind had already begun to turn.

Boxer; “Maybe we can use Starscream on them?”

Benjamin; “Let's save the civil war until after we've had the Revolution, please.”

Boxer; “I don't want to sound cold, here, but if they take a kicking it does relax the heat on us a little. I lost five people last week!”

Snowball; “The royalists have the European Archipelago to themselves, except for Moscow. More people are sympathetic to them, even if they're not out in the streets with it. It'll set the whole resistance back if they take a pasting.”

Muriel; “If more people are sympathetic and they take a hit, it could tip more people over the line into active resistance.”

Mollie; “Or, if the SSP has its way, it'll terrify them into silence.”

Major; “I know hard decisions must be made, but I don't like throwing people under the SSP bus. ”

Lun glared at the bust of Lenin, feeling herself go Cold inside. “We are not Bolsheviks. Right now, our aim is to overthrow the regime. They have the same aim. Therefore, we are allies. What happens after the regime does not matter if we destroy the resistance ourselves before we reach that point.”

Boxer; “And what if they wake the Sleeping Giant? I don't know about you, but one railgun strike is enough for me.”

“We have to trust that they have come to the same understanding,” said Lun.

Snowball; “I'm pretty sure the majority of us are against giving the Royalists a slap, do we even need a vote?”

Boxer; “I still think I'm right, but I won't contest it.”

A red light shone bright on her desk, flashing for her attention.

“I have to drop out. I'll be in contact after my meeting with Starscream,” said Lun, quickly.

She closed her eyes and the office dissolved around her, her mind rushing back to her body. The scent of stale peroxide, engine oils and lemon polish tingled at her nose as she opened them, finding herself in the Captain's Cabin of the cruiser that bore her

“Come in,” she said.

The door squeaked open, a catgirl's grinning face appearing through the gap. “Next tour's in five minutes, Lun.”

“Thanks Dizzy.”

She didn't sound thankful. Lun wasn't sure what was worse. Running a resistance, or running a museum ship.
-------

The office was small and sparsly furnished, with a single flag looming opressively over its occupier, alongside the banner of the SSP. On the occupiers desk sat a simple workstation... unusual because it utilised a jealously maintained, sheaves of dataleafs, a pushbutton intercom and a single ornament of three monkeys.

One covering its eyes. One covering it's ears. One covering it's mouth. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. For the commander of the Secret State Police, it was a perpetual reminder of how precarious his position truly was.

On his desk were orders to locate, interrogate and then terminate in the most vicious manner. The purge was in full flow. Some of the regime's most ardent supporters had found themselves exiled to the surface. Army commanders, Naval admirals... all had been implicated in plots to overthrow the royal household. And all paid the penalty for their treachery.

In a way, it seemed oddly appropriate.

The intercom on his desk buzzed. He answered with an irritated bark.

"What is it?"

"A woman to see you for you Commander. She gives her name as Tomizawa."

"She's expected. Check her for weapons and send her up."

"Yes Commander."

It clicked shut. He settled back into his leather chair, watching video footage of her purposeful stride... and visible irritation at being patted down. The guards were thorough beyond the call of duty. She was... in a word, stunning. The commander checked the mass readings for the elevator car. A small smile crept accross his lips for amoment, before he slammed it down with the mask his position demanded.

Fixing his AR glasses with a nudge from his finger, her settled down behind steepled hands in a pose that gave him the perfect poker face. Not imitating the Emperor. Shinji thought of his Father the whole time.

His door opened a moment later.

"Miss Tomizawa."

"Commander Ikari."

Her voice was like liquid silk. There was something safe and reassuring in it. He was in the presence of a friend. Someone who knew the truth.

"What have you found?"

"Names Commander. Of those who would work to undermine the regime. And evidence that proves their treachery."

A dataleaf emerged from her coat, being placed upon his desk. He gave it a cursory scan, recognising many colleagues among the list. A few commanders who'd escaped the last round. He felt himself smirk despite himself.

"The royal household thanks you for your loyalty citizen. It shall be rewarded."

"It is my pleasure to do my duty."

Shinji sighed, glancing out the window.

"I wonder, when can we expect a change in this weather."

Green eyes seemed almost sympathetic for a moment. "Soon." she assured him. "Clouds are gathering."

A genuine smile crawled across his lips.

"Thank you, Miss Tomizawa."

"Your mother would be proud to see you do your duty with such dedication."

She departed with the same purposeful elegance in her stride, the door slamming shut behind her. Commander Ikari quietly arranged the dataleaves on his desk, cross-referencing the information that'd just arrived with a list of the regime's most critical personnel. It would only serve to make the Emperor more paranoid to learn that those he thought were his closest allies were plotting against him. And the replacements, they were always far less competent... too busy showing their devotion to do any good.

But he, he was incapable of disloyalty. He had no spine. No will of his own. He was just Shinji Ikari... overwhelmed by circumstances and just following orders, doing what was expected of him.

Shinji took a few minutes to stare at Yuu's face on the monitor, asking her quietly if what he was doing was the right thing. The photograph didn't answer. It just smiled back at him with a warmth he no longer felt he deserved, dressed in a black uniform, with a pen in his hands that'd signed the Death Note for far too many.

He shut his monitor off, getting a good look at his reflection alongside the orders on the table, instructing him to deploy all possible resources to locate STARSCEAM. And the intelligence STARSCREAM was expected to deliver to the resistance.

Old Man Sam and the homesteads could wait. He had places to be.

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?