The Third Voyager

Prologue 1 - The Human Race

The universe is a big place.

Now that's an understatement and a half.

Reality is incomprehensibly big, so big that any measurement unit that exists can never truly give a proper perspective to just how vast space is.

And you can't forget the things that exist in it: planets of varying sizes and colors, new baby stars and those as old as the universe itself, clouds of gas that put even the greatest art to shame, infinite dots of light scattered everywhere like sparkling dust, giving a sense of life to the darkness, impossible systems that somehow balance themselves, entities that defy the laws of physics as we know them and so much more.

Truly, space is fantastical, to forever remain free from the grasp of any empire, to be explored and cherished by all.

Who's "all" you ask?

The anthros, of course!

Sure, the universe is a playground, but what's a playground without players?

Across different galaxies, life had evolved in different ways; canids, felines, avians, reptilians, aquatics, and so on and so forth, all sharing a common trait under the anthropomorphic category, or bipedal if you want to be more scientifically accurate.

How and why such a phenomena occurred in so many different placed across the universe was still a mystery even in present time, but it didn't matter anymore.

Because life had to face a new threat; extinction.

Now, that wasn't anything new to the anthros. The universe liked to throw everything it had at them from time to time; be it a shower of asteroids, a stray black hole zooming through a few systems, a sun unexpectedly going supernova.

However, the reason of the looming disaster was entirely natural. The problem was quite simple, really, it was a basic principle that even children can understand.

In order to make a baby, there needs to be a mommy and a daddy that love each other.

The problems was that there was no "daddy" in the picture.

Through war, famine, disease, a growing reluctance on the females' part, and the male to female ratio tilting towards the latter like a tower without a base standing on muddy ground, the males just disappeared.

Although it should've been the end right then and there, it wasn't. No, far from it actually. The anthros were technologically advanced, combined with the will to preserve and survive, they found an unorthodox way to reproduce, though some wouldn't even call it that.

Cloning.

Indeed, desperate times called for desperate measures. They found a way to not only create perfect clones, but also de-age each template so the clone could live a full life. So, that should've been the end, right?

Wrong.

Because just like everything, the templates decay. The more it's recycled, the worse it becomes, and the more likely mutations, that will gradually become more and more severe to the point where euthanasia is a mercy, will happen.

So, what could they do?

Nothing.

Because there were no males left.

But saying they missed them would also be wrong.

The situation was complicated, but is was reality, their reality. By their estimates, they had around six to eight more generations before they were done for, so they had plenty of time to find a permanent solution.

But as the saying goes: "Time flies by whether you're having fun or not."

Before you know it, a year has passed.