[Unknown_Enemy]

TYREAN HISTORY : PART 2 introduction

2402.8

Monthly entry of Commander Ostaliat's Diary

“Tonight we shall pray by the lights of past dramas”
That sentence was in a book. I do not remember which one. But fiction has blurred into reality. As I do not remember the story, I will stick to reality.
Tonight we shall pray.
Tonight, the light generated by our dying homeworld, 6 centuries ago is about to reach us.
Tonight we will witness the death of 7 billion Tyreans.
Tonight we will witness the death of a small, overpopulated and polluted world.
Our world.
But I will not pray. I have lost faith 2 years ago.
I was then a rising star in his Holiness Space Research Institute, a trusted Inquisitor, but when two of my own children started showing advanced signs of the New Death, I have lost faith.
I have lost faith in God.
I have lost faith in the Churches.
Then the AI Consensus proposed me the leading position of the Magellan Contact Project.
Nearly 200 shuttles/tugs/service craft working around two central ships. One is the population ship, the second is nothing more than a supply cargo, the biggest our technology could afford. 34 millions people waiting in stasis, while a crew of 14000 attend to the daily life tasks. Our mission was to find the originator of the hyperwave signals that we detect on a regular basis and establish a science mission not too far from them. The signal we detected was just the random distortions created by two or more unknown hyperwave devices linked together. This is no radio. You have to build the two devices together, so when you separate them, they will stay in resonance. Then if you apply a particular magnetic field to one part of the device, the second part will share the same reactions whatever the distance separating them. Thus enabling instantaneous communication. Each colony ship is sent with an hyperwave device, so when they settle down, they can start building the fusion power facilities needed to operate it. In less than one year, they get a permanent and instantaneous comlink to Tyran Secondis. Until that point, there are no contacts between out-system colonies and the homeworld.
We have such a device. But we do not intend to settle down as long as we have supplies left.
The Magellan Fleet is now 600 lights years away from the place of our birth.
We left our world 14 months ago.
The equations that gave our fleet's bearing have proven false. The xeno are nowhere our science teams told us they should be. We never had sufficient supplies to come back.
No return.
We will never see again the place of our birth. And I don't care about it.
No comeback.
I had long conversations with some AI that are on board with us. They intend to help us building a new society, in which the Churches will not rule our life. Religious faith will be separated from political power. Their analysis is that when our homeworld's technology will enable it to reach us again, our sin will be irrelevant. I did not really understand that Last part, just enough to get that we won't be punished for what we will set up. This is why we are cruising at full speed toward the center of the galaxy. To get out of reach of Tyrean's near future.

We are The Damned.

[ October 22, 2002, 18:27: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]