By the time humanity realized it, it was already too late. Earth was doomed and so would be the rest of the human race. At least, that would have been the case if not for some of humanity's best and brightest scientists and engineers across the globe. For the first time in recorded history, nations whose weapons were pointed at each others' heads were put aside for mutual, albeit necessary, cooperation. Language barriers were overcome. Cultural barriers too. Even ideologies; ancient tools used by the great powers of the days to justify their violent crusades on foreign lands, were also abandoned all for the sake of making humanity's swansong not end in vain. All existing conflicts ground to a halt overnight. Entire economies were rewired and entire populations began to dedicate their lives to their work so that perhaps, they may be lucky enough to live for just a little while longer. Life always seems brighter and more meaningful in the end. When one's time alive is numbered, they learn to never ever take it for granted.
Chua Fei-Hong was a leading scientist in biology in one of the world's largest economies and most impressive scientific hub. As a child, living under the rule of one of the more authoritarian governments in the world had great influence over her interests and philosophies in life. Every night she would look up into the rural skies of her poverty stricken mountain village. The ocean of stars amid the dark blue backdrop of the infinite void seemed so close that one could reach out and pluck one of the flickering beacons of light up there. It was as though the stars were made for all of humanity... No, made for Fei-Hong herself. It seemed that there was greater meaning to life than to plough fields of infertile silt for the rest of her fleeting time on Earth. She thought that humanity belonged among the stars. Not oppressed under an iron-fist dictatorship, fooled by a misshaped theocracy nor be openly swindled by an eroding democracy. No. Each and every human deserved to be free. Free to do what he or she pleases and free to pursue his or her dreams... With the exception that said dream brings harm to others of course.
Naturally, Fei-Hong held this dream of hers' dear to her heart and passed her high school education final examination and was accepted into the prestigious course of Biological and Genetic Engineering in the university of her choice. There is a thing called the butterfly effect. It is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. The number of choices that Fei-Hong had made leading up to this point was infinitely large and the probability that Fei-Hong would end up in the position that she held was even more so impossibly small. Therefore one could say that her rise to prominence was a miracle. As far as she was concerned, this was perhaps the closest she would ever come to realizing her dream. For without her and her team of talented individuals, Earth and the several billion souls living on it would have perished. The 21st century was drawing to a close and Chua Fei-Hong invented the Chua "Bingli" Cryosleep Casket.
Julian Siegfried was a distinguished engineer with a masters in particle physics in the world's leading free enterprise for electricity which satisfied almost 50% of the world's energy demands in its prime. Unlike Fei-Hong's altruistic desire to witness a new golden age of peace and happiness for humanity, Julian's motives were more inwards and even selfish in some respects. Julian grew up in a well to do family of four. It would have been a typical family of his cultural group if not for the fact that his step-father and elder brother bore brilliant blond hair and icy blue eyes, prominent features of an ancient Germanic people. The two were among the last hundred members of a dying racial group, still ostracized by society for the crimes their ancestors had committed countless decades ago. When Julian was 15, his elder brother together with twelve other innocent people were brutally murdered by gunfire at a peaceful equal rights protest. No words could describe the resentment Julian harbored against his people and country.
Fortunately, Julian was not a man known for violence nor did he believe in the effectiveness of it. With the last remaining funds his parents could scrape from their coffers, Julian received a decent education which many on Earth still did not have the privilege to enjoy. Julian vowed to avenge his brother's death, not through bloodshed but with his own pair of hands. He wanted to show to the world that his culture and people were not evil genocidal bigots but humans. Living, breathing humans with feelings that are not as cold and hard as many make them out to be. Julian graduated top of his high school cohort and enrolled in a university that specialized in nuclear research. He was ready to show the world what he... No, what members of his people were capable of. When Julian graduated from university with top honors and most hearty congratulations from the chancellor, he was already the proud owner of the patented "Sternenlicht" Initial Confinement Fusion Reactor.
Kholwa was a normal citizen of an impoverished nation with no significant achievements up till the early 22nd century. That was not because she was lazy nor mentally challenged but because the infrastructure and education facilities in her country were so pitifully sub-standard, she had no opportunities provided for her to fulfill her potential, whatever that may have been. Kholwa's father was a construction worker who worked overseas, twelve hours a day for a pitiful income below the minimum wage. Only being able to send money home once every six months, Kholwa's family budget had always been unpredictable and extremely tight. Using whatever funds that remained after making ends meet, Kholwa's mother saved and eventually was able to afford an old, second hand desktop for Kholwa to pursue her passion with animals. As a child, Kholwa loved the wilderness. It was like a home away from home, a place to escape the struggles of poverty she and her community faced on a day to day basis.
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Whist limiting in many aspects, Kholwa still managed to use her desktop to its greatest potential, documenting the behavioral patterns of every lion, every zebra, every insect and even that of many humans. Granted, the documents she produced may not have used the proper scientific terminology and that it was written in her native language but it was very detailed and in between each line of text, was woven with Kholwa's passion for nature. Only a handful of people spoke her language and even fewer could read it. It came as no surprise when Kholwa's work was overlooked and went unrecognized for at least a decade before an artificial intelligence expert going by the name of Edward Stewards contacted Kholwa in her native language; no less, requesting the use of the terabytes of text Kholwa accumulated over the course of her youth. Doubtlessly, Kholwa consented to the use of her work and Edward using all the software and programs at his disposal, accidentally created the world's first sentient computer. In Kholwa's honor, the code was affectionately named "Lowo-ovikela" or "The one who protects".
Project Starship, was humanity's final shot at survival. A last 'hurrah' if you will. A project so large and so grandiose it could minimally be described only as 'epic'. Millions of rockets and SSTOs lit up the skies across the planet with brilliant ribbons of orange light, like countless shooting stars as the people below bestowed their wishes upon them for a future for their families. A future was all they asked for. Just a bit more time. More time to spend with loved ones and to live life as it was intended to be lived. A sliver of hope kept humanity going. The belief that everything would be alright kept that little flame called humanity burning. It would not be extinguished so easily. At least not without a fight. Tens of millions of tiny ships silently orbited the beautiful blue-green planet called Earth at an altitude of nearly 200 000 kilometers above sea-level. They could be described as the modern manifestation of the ancient individual known as Moses, leading everybody from the cradle they were born in to a new, safer promise land. Where that was and how long it would take was a terrifying thought in itself. Ignorance is bliss.
Finally, the day of reckoning arrived. The moment of truth. For a period of a couple of days, the combined light of the simultaneous firing of the massive fusion engines of each and every single little ship outshined every star in the galaxy as humanity departed Earth, saying goodbye to their home for the very last time. The beautiful blue-green ball called Earth receded from sight slowly but steadily until it became a mere speck among the stars. The once vibrant and bustling metropolises of the old days now stood silent and unmoving as though time itself had stopped. Skyscrapers stood proudly as a testament to all of humanity's accomplishments leading up to this date. Majestic but lonely, their silent frames blended well with the peaceful chirping of birds and buzzing of insects. Eventually, these buildings will be overgrown with flora and overrun by fauna. Not that it mattered though. Nobody would be there to bear witness to Earth finally healing after a millennium of environmental abuse by the very humans she raised.
Artificial Intelligences were sophisticated enough to have the processing power of a quantum computer, yet feel empathy and sympathy just like a human can. Therefore it came as no surprise when the 42nd copy of Lowo-ovikela renamed itself 'Ryuzu', like its name sake, as one to guide and protect. She was the commanding AI of the 14522nd exodus vessel of humanity, aptly named 'Seedship'. Unlike an ark, it was not a grandiose vessel. Instead, it was a modest freighter approximately 40 meters in length which carried all the equipment it needed for independent operation. Most importantly, it carried 1100 humans peacefully frozen in cryosleep chambers awaiting landfall on a brave new world and together with it, the hopes and dreams of all of humanity, wished upon the ship as it was being constructed.
Ryuzu awoke from her hibernation a month into the long voyage for a routine maintenance. It trained the ship's sensors in the direction that it came from. Towards Earth. She was met with nothing but silence. No more than the background static of interstellar space. A dull crackle of the background radiation that has permeated the fabrics of space and time since the big bang. Earth was no more than another planet among the countless others that existed in the galaxy. Earth was special as it was the only planet that humanity knew bore life. No longer. Seedship, and her commanding AI was truly alone in the endless cosmos, cruising silently through the void at a half the speed of light.
Being an AI, Ryuzu was not programmed to feel sorrow. If she was, she would have doubtlessly felt her synthetic heart strings being tugged by the endless unforgiving vacuum. Instead, Ryuzu silently monitored the vital signs of her 1100 passengers and conducted the final calibrations and checks on the shipboard sensors and encryption of the scientific and cultural databases. The long range telescopes on the ship responded positively when it was directed towards a small red dwarf just a mere 14 light years away, indicating that a planet was present and perhaps, present these 1100 souls a new home to live. Course corrections were made and Seedship silently eased herself into onto the new vector.
Ryuzu could not help but feel a bit of regret for the unavoidable voyage humanity had to embark on. A home forcefully taken away. Was it too harsh a punishment to atone for the sins of mankind?
All the checks were complete. Ryuzu began running a self diagnostics program on herself as she began to hibernate again. No matter how she felt about her current circumstance, she had a mission to accomplish. After all, she was just an AI. She tried to wish her passengers goodnight, but hesitated and decided not to.
The ship will remain silent for 28 years.