Babylon

Prologue

What is space?  It is empty, desolate, and punctuated by the periodical start or other celestial body spaced light years away from each other.  Aristotle once believed that the heavens revolved around Earth in concentric circles made out of some type of crystal.  No matter how intelligent he may have been, he was absolutely wrong.  In fact, we weren’t the center, nor even close to the center, wherever that may be.  We aren’t the center of attention, far from it, far from the center, and it’s far unlikely we are the only advanced form of life in the infinity plus light years of space that we reside in.

The universe is a desolate place, much like the Sahara or Death Valley or the Kobe Desert.  The rolling dark plains of space continue to fascinate us as we discover more and more, but only to find out there are more doors behind the ones we just opened.  In three thousand years though, local space can be tamed, much like everything else a human comes in contact with.  Since the turn of the millennium humanity has trapped the solar system in its iron grip.  The only threat to our reign is the death of the sun and the absence of oxygen.  But that could change.

In our tamed solar system, in our little niche in the arm of the Milky Way galaxy a species was clamoring for life and risking an apocalypse from overpopulation. The solution was clear: expansion.  The New Frontier fell as they managed to establish homesteads on the surface of the moon.  Terraforming was just a fanciful concept, the materials for that are staggering, and they are materials that must stay on earth.  “What next?” was the question.  The push for residence on Mars came into play, and billions and trillions of capital from all two hundred something nations pooled together and they were able to establish large metropolises that were self-sustaining and able to generate revenue.  What became of the Earth?  The siphoning off of the world’s population had remedial effects.  As stuffy populations thinned elbow room was regained and people could once again breathe preacefully.  Forests sprung up once more.  But soon it was apparent Mars and the Moon weren’t enough.

Within a century Venus and Mercury, with some difficulty (solar flares ripping nascent civilizations apart and scorching them), but ingenuity (digging under the surface and establishing subterranean residential areas as well as establishing daytime and night time curfews) saved the day.  As living on these new planets became a popular fad among humanity, living on Earth became unappealing, thus spurring The Grand Exodus.  If one could imagine what living on Earth was like, it was simply boring.  But as the masses left life on Earth improved.  The thirst to unite the solar system was unquenchable, and in a short century and thousands of innovations and investments, larger than life transport ships came into play.  It was as if they were pulled from the digital pages of a science fiction book and placed into the panoramic backdrop of space.

When the rest of the planets and moons were civilized it became clear that the only thing to do was wait.  For what exactly?  The desire to push beyond our protective heliosphere.  In the three hundredth year following the beginning of the third Millennium they aspired to leave their spatial cradle and bring man into a new frontier.