Chapter 1: Humanity in 3500AD

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Humanity had come a long long way, from being Hunters and gatherers to becoming a space civilization. the Humans had colonized the whole solar system till the Heliopause. It took a while but still, they reached this level and now they were preparing for the next level THE INTERSTELLAR SPACE.

With the help of advanced technology, humans were able to make inhabitable places habitable, using the Terraformer machine Mars was terraformed into a planet similar to earth and also, Moon was heavily mined for Helium 3, so artificial colonies were created on it as well. Similarly, Venus, Europa, and Titan were also colonized for their semi habitable atmosphere and physical resources But the most exploited planet in the solar system was non-other than Mercury.

Its core takes up nearly 3/4 of the planet's diameter. Mercury's iron core is about the size of the moon. Iron makes up about 70% of Mercury's total weight making Mercury the most iron-rich planet in the Solar System, hence it was heavily mined for the creation of the Dyson sphere.

After the creation of the Dyson sphere, the journey to evolution became much easier for humans due to abundant energy. With so much extra time, they wae now focused on expanding human civilization hence Population grew to 157 Billion.

Due to better living conditions nature of humans also changed, everyone had a job, food to eat and a place to live, all this affected human psychology and made them more tolerant, ambient and kind. There were no wars anymore but it was not always like this and history tells us that the path to present was dark and bloody.

There had been 3rd World war(energy war which nearly destroyed earth), 4th World war(The Unification war for the creation of world government) and the most recent Santient war(A.I vs Humans which resulted in a peace treaty). Now, although humans had made much more destructive weapons but they were kept only for a possible encounter with advanced alien civilizations, but no signs of alien life had been found yet, even with their super-advanced telescopes and life scanners.

After conquering the solar system humans decided to focus on the dark unknown interstellar space and for this, they developed EM Drives, Older rocket engines used Nuclear fusion for propulsion and it was enough to explore nearby places but not for far away star systems.

Nuclear Fusion had become a day to day usage object for current civilization, everything from a small communication device to transport robots used Nuclear Fusion cores for energy.

Due to this clean energy, the earth's atmosphere was also purified and cleansed. Designated areas were assigned for cities and forests, the current earth had become a utopia.

But even after so many advancements, the colonies could not hold more population so new Space rings were constructed (like in the video game Halo), these Space rings were placed near every planet and were named after those planets for example Ring of Mars, Ring of Saturn and so on. Each of these Rings Could Hold Up to 20 Billion People.

But now Humanity needed more resources for further development because they had already consumed 70% of it in the solar system. A new Galactic class Spaceship was built for the exploration mission of new habitable and valuable planets and all this was backed up by newly made EM Drives. The Mission and the Ship was named "NEW DAWN". It could hold up to 90,000 people, this mission was planned to be a long-term mission and all of humanity was looking forward to 25 June 3500 A.D because that day would mark the beginning of a new era, a transition from Level 2 civilization to level 3 civilization.

...

Present Day: 20 June 3500AD

Loud trumpets buzzing [pa paaa papa pa paaa papa...]

5000 Cadets standing in neat Matrix formation in front of a huge stage, singing the world peace song (national anthem of the world) with proud faces and their chest puffed out.

After the world anthem, an old man walked to the front of the stage and started giving his speech.

"Hello everyone, I am Lieutenant General Alex Marshal the Commander of New Dawn Spaceship. Today we have all gathered here for this happy occasion, all of you are graduating from the Academy of Space Corps and are also handpicked for the mission NEW DAWN.

You all have decided to sacrifice your warm, cozy and safe life here on earth and for this, the whole of humanity will remember all of you, nobody knows how long this mission will take to be completed, maybe 10...50....or 100 years so I want all of you to go to your loved ones and spend some quality time with them after the end of the ceremony because no one knows when you will get to see them again." By now, most of the cadets had wet eyes.

"But you must remember one thing, What we are doing is for the sake of all of humanity including your friends and family, you all are heroes, you all are meant for something great and this mission is the greatest chance life can offer us to prove ourselves and fulfill our destiny..."

"FOR THE FUTURE" Alex shouted

"FOR THE FUTURE... FOR THE FUTURE... FOR THE FUTURE... FOR THE FUTURE "all the 5000 cadets started screaming and shouting in unison. After the ceremony, everyone dispersed and headed toward their home.

it was a warm, sunny day yet very few people could be seen on the road because it was office hours, on the road you could see a man walking calmly while looking at his surroundings, he was 6.4 feet tall with short length black hair and black eyes, his face looked average but his body compensated for his face, his name was Aariv Hector.

He went to a 3 story house at the end of the street and rang the bell, he could have entered without ringing but he wanted to surprise his family. After waiting for a minute someone opened the door.

"Brother?... MOM! BROTHER IS BACK" it was his younger brother Sam who opened the door.

before he could even enter the door he saw his mother rushing towards him from the kitchen, she had happy tears on her face. Aariv also opened his arms to hug his mother, He really missed his family, in the 3-year training he could not go to his home due to heavy training and he also had to work extra hard to get selected for NEW DAWN mission.

"My child, welcome back, I missed you so much"

His mother got very emotional because she knew that he wasn't gonna stay with them for much longer and he would be going far away, probably will not return in their remaining life span.

"you go to your room and take a bath, your dad will be coming soon"

"Okay mom"

Aariv released his mother from his embrace and put his hand around his brother's shoulders and took him with himself to his room.

"How is everyone Sam?"

"well, when mom found out that you were going on that mission she got really depressed but father talked to her and now she also decided to support you"

"Thanks, Lil brother, for taking care of mom and dad and I guess now you'll have to continue on doing so because I have no idea when I'll be back," said Aariv with a little sorrow in his voice.

"Cheer up brother, you are a hero in the eyes of the public now and am sure that mom and dad are very proud of you"

"I hope so, alright I'll go take a bath, you go see if mom needs anything"

...

"In today's news, A suspicious gravitational interference was recorded near the Heliopause, scientists stationed in a nearby space station have already sent a probe towards it. In the past 10 days, these kinds of strange phenomena have been recorded in many sectors but we are yet to identify it's cause... On the next news..." T.V was showing the news while everyone was at the dinner table.

"So Aariv when is the mission launch ?" his father asked.

"It's set to 5 in the evening, tomorrow and I'll be leaving an hour earlier to report to the ship, I wish for you all to come to the spaceport with me tomorrow" Aariv answered his father while looking at him, waiting for his response.

"Yes, we will all come to see you off son" his father replied calmly.