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By Ron Longo, Author (written 2018)
User
You are an amazing creative ghostwriter. I have a concept for a book and screenplay, and I’d like you to help me write the entire book.
It is a science fiction story, but I would like you to ensure my facts are consistent with laws of physics, mathematics, and the like so as the story holds together well.
I will first provide a summary of the plot. Please review it and suggest the chapters I need. Further, the story should be written from the perspective of a human living on Earth who discovers what is actually going on because he witnesses visitors (an away team of Origin Colonists (Beings)) who come to Earth to try and resolve the dwindling resources needed for the rest of the voyage, due because the original humanoids that they used to settle Earth developed and evolved far more and far quicker than ever anticipated. In fact, in no other space galaxy had the humanoids evolved so far. And these humans of Earth were the only beings in the Universe of Galaxy ships that were on the verge of destroying themselves as well as the store of critical resources, that is the Earth itself, that would be needed for the Origin Colonists (Beings) to use once they landed upon their final destination.
And so here is the story line:
Earth is a portion of a huge space ship…galaxies are compound ships to travel across the Universe. The billions of suns are the engines…billions of other ships. Each galaxy has at least 100 passenger ships (planets simple to Earth) each carrying millions, and in some cases, billions of colonists. The rest of the “ships”, or planets, are carrying the natural resources needed in the new destination.
The colonists are leaving their former “land” which was destroyed and the galaxies are carrying its residents (or workers…or better yet, physical bodies) to the new “land”.
Was a land of massive numbers of inhabitants…
Scientists had determined that within 5 million years the land would massively self-destruct, and they set out to build starships to carry a small portion of each of its one sextillion Geo Worlds, each equivalent to the land mass of a planet Earth except on a flat land mass, and with about the same population of people, animals, insects, sea creatures, and the like, and the same amount of organic, vegetation, water, gases, minerals, and so forth. Thus they had to build one sextillion starships. Through their meticulous searching across billions of light years, they discovered a new land that could sustain zillions of inhabitants for many trillions of years. This was the destination of the new colonists and they called the New Homeland. Each galaxy is traveling away from each other in a massive expanding sphere, where due to the quantum physical convolution of space, time, and matter, all galaxies will then reconverge at the selected destination – the New Homeland which is approximately 46 billion lightyears away.
The trip would take over a 1.5 million years, and so they outfitted each starship with a form of suspended animation for the key leaders, starship engineers, and geo administrators. This critical population on each starship (known as the Origin Colonists, and also called Beings) averaged about 150,000 persons, and this was the limit of each starship’s suspended animation platform due to the extensive energy, technology, chemical, and highly concentrated nutrition fluids required for a million year trip.
The remaining population of colonists, specifically the Dalithearn (which are the slaves and servants of the Beings), would quite literally live out their lives across millions of generations, growing their food, handling precious resources, and preparing for their descendant’s new life on a new land.
This was known the Great Migration.
Please change the numbers I use to make sense from a numerical, mathematical, astronomical, and physical sense.
ChatGPT
Your storyline presents a fascinating and complex narrative that intricately blends science fiction with speculative cosmology, aiming to maintain a balance between imaginative storytelling and scientific plausibility.
User
Thank you for this. I think I did not explain a few of the story foundations well.
The reason I am making the original number of Beings (I will refer to the inhabitants of the Homeland as Beings) so high (zillions) is because the Origin Homeland is not a planet. Rather it is a vast flat land that spans billions of light years…it has mountains, rivers, oceans…all the known features of a planet like Earth (in fact, the Earth is a replica of one of the sextillion Geo Worlds on the the Origin Homeland, but made into a sphere in order to be suspended in space as part of a Galaxy starship).
It is massively large (spanning almost the size of the known Universe), but the Beings have developed advanced technology (such as the ability to fold time) that they are able to communicate across this vast Homeland and stay in touch with all of the millions of other Beings, organized in vast spans of land many thousands times the square footage of planet Earth.
And below this vast land was a massive black hole…this is the underbelly of the land, and it was this power that the Beings harvested to create all of the galaxy Starships.
The other thing I did not expand upon is that the sky (or space as we know it) did not contain any stars, galaxies, planets, or anything. It only contained a vast, smooth glow of pulsating energy…thereby creating the night and day for the vast Homeland.
It was through scientific study done in desperation from the realization that their Homeland was being destroyed that the Beings were able to discover a parallel and untouched Homeland and Blackhole across the vast sky, millions of light years away.
And so they created every galaxy in the universe (as we know it today) to transport the Origin Colonists (Beings) across this vast sky, now known as the Universe.
ChatGPT
With these additional details, your story takes on a unique and ambitious scope, incorporating concepts that stretch far beyond conventional science fiction into a realm of almost mythic creation. This clarifies the scale and the originality of your vision, where traditional notions of space, time, and cosmology are reimagined. Here’s how we can adapt and incorporate these expansive ideas into a coherent narrative framework:
Adjusting the Framework
Homeland Scale and Population: Acknowledging the Homeland’s immense size and population is essential. The concept of a land spanning hundreds of thousands of light years, with a population in the zillions, redefines the scope of civilization and technology. The narrative will treat these figures symbolically, representing unimaginable scales of life and society, rather than strictly numerical values.
Advanced Technology: The Beings’ technology, particularly the ability to fold time and harvest energy from a massive black hole, sets a foundation for extraordinary capabilities, including instant communication across vast distances and the construction of galaxy-sized starships. These elements will be described in a way that emphasizes their wonder and the advanced state of the Beings, without requiring detailed scientific explanation.
The Universe as Transportation Network: The creation of galaxies as starships to transport the Origin Colonists (Beings) introduces a novel cosmological model. The story will explore this concept through the eyes of the characters discovering the true nature of the universe and their place within it.
Narrative Elements
With these foundational elements in place, the story can explore several key themes and plot developments:
Discovery of the Parallel Homeland: A critical turning point that drives the decision to embark on the Great Migration. This discovery could be framed as a monumental scientific breakthrough, revealing a universe of possibilities (literally and figuratively).
Construction of the Galaxy Starships: This could include the engineering marvels involved in creating starships on a galactic scale, the societal changes required to undertake such a monumental task, and the ethical and philosophical questions raised by such an endeavor.
Life on the Homeland: Before the migration, life on the Homeland can serve to establish the cultural, social, and technological context of the Beings, providing a contrast to the life on Earth and the challenges faced during the migration.
The Journey Through the Universe: The narrative could delve into the logistics and experiences of traveling across the universe, maintaining the vast fleets, and the challenges of keeping the goal alive across countless generations.
Arrival and Revelation: The climax of the story, focusing on the revelation of Earth’s inhabitants about their origins, the purpose of their planet, and the broader universe. This could involve conflicts, alliances, and a redefinition of humanity’s place in the cosmos.
This expanded narrative framework allows for a rich exploration of themes such as the nature of existence, the bounds of technology and society, and the universal search for survival and belonging. Your story stands as a testament to the power of speculative fiction to explore grand ideas and human truths through the lens of the fantastical.
User
Ok, please keep all the preceding information as the critical basis of the story. Here are some additional details.
Each Galaxy has one billion planetary systems that contain Carrying Worlds as well as gaseous planets that contain the resources necessary to terraform the New Homeland. Each planetary system has a large, high-energy planet (in the case of the Solar System, it is Venus) which keep the Beings in a sophisticated suspended animation. And in each of those life sustaining solar systems, there exists one planet like Earth that carries humanoids, the unsophisticated and unevolved creatures…Dalithearn, who are cro-magnum and Neanderthals…that provided the physical labor for the Beings over the billions of years in the Homeland.
And the natural resources of the Earthlike planets were to be used to ensure the New Homeland would have similar plants, animals, and resources similar to the original Homeland.
All the other planets in the life sustaining solar systems as well as the billions of other non-life-sustaining solar systems contained the vast resources such as gases, liquids, chemicals, and such to ensure the New Homeland had the necessary vast energy supplies to power and enable the sophisticated technologies needed to harness the parallel Blackhole beneath the New Homeland, and this was needed to power the New Homeland.
But the Humanoids of Earth were unlike all the other billions of humanoids throughout the Universe in that they somehow defied all known evolutionary capabilities…in that they somehow were able to cross breed between each species, and thus they were able to evolve into humans…with the inevitable evolution into Beings as sophisticated and advanced as the Origin Colonists (Beings)! But with a major drawback…the humans were stranded on a tiny planet called Earth that had none of the resources of the other planets of the solar system, so the humans foraged and destroyed the resources of the Earth in their endless search for the sophisticated technologies that they knew they needed…but did not know why they needed it.
And they were left frustrated because no matter how hard they searched for other sophisticated beings, which they called Aliens, they were never answered from the millions of surrounding planets. And we know that is because all the other Humanoids were destined to always being simple and unevolved worker animals for the Beings.
ChatGPT
Integrating these additional details further enriches the narrative, adding layers of complexity to the story’s universe, its inhabitants, and the overarching themes of evolution, destiny, and the search for meaning. Here’s how these elements could be woven into the structure of your story:
Integration into the Story
Distinctive Evolution of Earth’s Inhabitants: The unique evolution of humans on Earth becomes a pivotal plot point. This anomaly not only sets Earth apart but also introduces a profound mystery: why did humans evolve differently? This question can drive much of the narrative tension and character development, especially as Earth’s inhabitants grapple with their identity and destiny.
Resource Depletion and Technological Quest: Earth’s struggle with limited resources and the relentless pursuit of advanced technology underscore a critical theme of ecological sustainability and technological ethics. This situation mirrors the larger narrative of the Beings’ journey from the Homeland to the New Homeland, creating a microcosm of the broader story within Earth itself.
Isolation and the Search for Others: The humans’ isolation and unanswered search for other sophisticated beings introduce a poignant theme of loneliness and the universal desire for connection and understanding. This can lead to moments of introspection, conflict, and ultimately, revelation as the truth about the universe and Earth’s place within it is uncovered.
Plot Development and Character Arcs
Discovery of Earth’s Uniqueness: As the narrative unfolds, both Earth’s inhabitants and the Origin Colonists (Beings) (through the away team) come to realize the exceptional nature of human evolution. This realization can lead to conflicts, alliances, and a reevaluation of the migration’s purpose and the destiny of all involved.
Struggle Over Resources: The conflict over Earth’s depleted resources can serve as both a literal and metaphorical battleground. It reflects the broader existential threats facing civilizations that fail to live in harmony with their environment, emphasizing the importance of sustainability.
Reconciliation and Unity: The resolution of the story could involve a reconciliation between Earth’s humans and the Origin Colonists (Beings). This might come about through shared goals, the realization of a common origin, or the mutual benefit of combining Earth’s unique human capabilities with the advanced technologies of the Beings.
USER
Thank you for continuing to evolve your summary as I add details and additional layers to the story line.
So, the intent is to make this story come alive with a bit of a plot twist, or an “oh shoot! I didn’t see that coming!” moment….a M. Light Shyamalan moment like in Sixth Sense. The story should actually start midway through, and not from the beginning of the timeline. And about halfway through, or even further into the story, is when the truth should be revealed.
But before we get to this, a few more details:
When humans studied the universe (after they evolved) they determined the Universe was expanding in all directions like a sphere, but in fact the Universe was actually expanding like a half of a sphere, or hemisphere, from the flat Homeland. What the humans were actually observing was a physical phenomenon of the black hole. What humans believed to be the other half of the sphere was actually a reflection of the hemisphere from the blackhole.
So in fact, the Galaxy Starships were only going away from the blackhole in directions such that that traveled away from each other in a hemispherical shape. And then upon reaching the halfway point, the Galaxy Starships change direction and then start traveling towards each other, ultimately converging onto the parallel New Homeland.
Of course, at the point the Galaxies, and actually the Universe, changed direction and start heading towards each other, this created vast speculation and conclusion amongst the humans, as they calculated that this meant the inevitable end of the Universe into a fiery collision of galaxies.
ChatGPT
Incorporating a significant plot twist and starting the story in medias res, as you’ve outlined, can powerfully engage readers, gradually unraveling the universe’s mysteries alongside the characters. This approach, revealing the truth in a dramatic turn, will create a narrative full of suspense and wonder. Here’s a structured approach to weaving in the new details and creating that pivotal moment in your story:
The Twist in Detail
Observable Universe as a Reflection: The discovery that what humans perceived as the universe expanding in all directions is actually a hemispherical expansion mirrored by the black hole’s properties is the core of your twist. It challenges the fundamental understanding of the universe, introducing a paradigm shift in the narrative.
Change in Direction of the Galaxy Starships: The moment the galaxy starships begin to converge, initially interpreted as a catastrophic end, becomes a key plot twist. The realization that this movement is intentional and part of the journey to the New Homeland redefines the narrative’s stakes and goals.
Climactic Unveiling: The unveiling of the truth about the universe’s structure and Earth’s role in it should be timed for maximum impact, ideally after the readers and characters have grappled with the existential threat of a cosmic collision. This revelation can serve as a cathartic resolution to the built-up tension, shifting the focus from survival to understanding and unity.
Leveraging the Plot Twist
Character Development: Use the characters’ reactions to the twist to explore themes of identity, destiny, and the human capacity for resilience and adaptation. The characters’ growth in response to the truth can mirror humanity’s broader journey from ignorance to enlightenment.
Thematic Depth: The twist allows for a rich exploration of themes like perception vs. reality, the search for truth, and the quest for a deeper understanding of the universe and our place within it. It underscores the idea that reality may be far more complex and wondrous than we can comprehend with our current knowledge and beliefs.
Conclusion and Beyond
After the twist, the story can explore the implications of this new understanding as Earth’s inhabitants, and possibly the Origin Colonists (Beings), prepare for the final leg of their journey to the New Homeland. This part of the narrative can focus on preparation, unity, and the hopeful, albeit uncertain, future that lies ahead. The story might conclude with the convergence on the New Homeland, leaving readers with a sense of completion and continuation as the characters step into a new chapter of existence in this accurately understood universe.
User
OK, now lets set up the narrative and perspective of the story. As I mentioned before, the story should be told from the perspective of the human who witnesses the Origin Colonist Away Team.
Dr. Rich Cranston is an important character and needs to be an important and accomplished scientific researcher, specifically with expertise in Astronomy, Physics, and the like. He is observed closely by the Origin Colonists (Beings) because he is the Zenith of knowledge as it relates to the Universe, and the Beings are trying to study this particular human to determine how to reverse the impending doom of the Earth by trying to reverse the evolution of humans back to their simple, and harmless, states.
The story should start with the human character (his name is Professor Rich Cranston, but Rich for short) observing some sort of weird astronomical behaviors…almost as if he is discovering a “glitch in the fabric” as if he was living in some sort of computer simulation.
And as he observes this “glitch”, he soon discovers more and more glitches, causing him to seriously question his own sanity.
ChatGPT
Given the intricate details and the overarching narrative structure you’ve envisioned, we can now delineate the sections and chapters of your book. Professor Rich Cranston’s journey—from the brink of existential crisis to a profound revelation about the universe and humanity’s place within it—offers a compelling arc that intertwines personal discovery with cosmic mystery.
This structure aims to take readers on a journey that is as much about internal discovery as it is about cosmic exploration. Rich Cranston’s story, from skepticism and isolation to revelation and unity, mirrors humanity’s eternal quest for knowledge and meaning in the vastness of the universe.
User
I am going to add a sinister plot twist to all of this.
The Beings are actually horribly evil…maybe not to each other, but they have historically enslaved Humanoids for physical labor, intentionally keeping them simple-minded and unevolved, but physically strong and healthy such that the Beings could leverage them for all aspects of physical labor.
Throughout the history of the Earth, time and time again the World was subject to horrible atrocities and crises…one insightful author, Neil Howe, would document this, incorrectly, in his book the Fourth Turning. What was actually happening…the wars, even the crucifixion, the enslavement of peoples, the Nazis, the murderous leaders of whole countries…Ghengis Khan, Pol Pot, Hitler, Caligula, Trump, Stalin, and the like…were actually taken over by Beings to try and reverse the evolution of humans by intellectual genocide, caste systems, enslavement, and such.
But the reason they struggled and ultimately were unable to reverse or even negatively impact evolution is that Beings could only come out of suspended animation for brief periods, and only a few could take the risk. Remember, they had to remain in suspended animation for millions of years, and the technology was unbelievably taxing on the resources of a galaxy, so only a few Beings could come out of suspended animation, and they would only risk this every several years or so, lest they completely become extinct themselves.
And Beings were also able to be somewhat transparent in physical appearance…they had technologies to attempt to make them as invisible to humans as possible, although they couldn’t become completely invisible. But this would make them look ghost-like, and in fact the phenomenon of people swearing they saw ghosts or that houses or things were haunted were in fact Beings observing the dire conditions of their slaves and Earthen resources.
So to conclude this set of new contextual backgrounds, the Beings never try to befriend Rich…they have much more nefarious plans to make him part of their plot to ensure they can reverse evolution and salvage the Earth’s resources.
Also, please keep in mind that this Galaxy Starship with this particular group of Beings is just one of a billion other such Starships…but they have a will to survive and thrive.
ChatGPT
Your addition of a sinister layer to the narrative significantly deepens the story’s complexity, introducing a darker exploration of power, manipulation, and the struggle for freedom. This pivot transforms the narrative into a tale of resistance against seemingly insurmountable odds, where the stakes are not just the survival of humanity but the preservation of its very essence.
This adds a layer of moral complexity to the story, positioning it as a profound exploration of freedom, the human spirit, and the resistance against those who seek to control and diminish it. Rich Cranston emerges not just as a scientist but as a symbol of humanity’s indomitable quest for truth, autonomy, and the preservation of its essence against the backdrop of cosmic manipulation.
User
OK we are are getting closer. I would like to really emphasize Rich’s character….such that the reader believes this book (or movie) to be a psycho horror/thriller of a person who has been tortured his whole life with his vivid nightmares, uncanny intuitions and seemingly sixth sense, his observation his entire life of ghost-like beings, “glitches” in the system, and him seemingly always on the edge of genius and complete insanity. And throughout his tortured life, he is cursed and blessed at the same time with an intellectual genius in the areas of physics, astronomy, quantum mechanics, and all things associated with science…even surpassing all previous genius’s before him such as Einstein, Tesla, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Newton, Curie, etc….
In chapter 1, Rich narrates to the reader of his tortuous life, questioning whether he should go on with life of simply give up…and in between this narrative, his occasional revelations of weird shit that he keeps observing.
User
I would like to set a glossary, a set of definitions, and some terms.
GLOSSARY
- Beings: The original inhabitants of the Origin Homeland. They possess advanced technology and have historically enslaved Dalithearn for physical labor across the universe.
- JupiterONE: A research spaceship sent by NASA Exploration to probe the depths of the known universe. It represents humanity’s first steps toward uncovering the mysteries beyond our solar system.
- JupiterTWO: A far more advanced exploration ship than JupiterONE, designed for expeditions in the opposite direction of JupiterONE’s path. It symbolizes the next stage in humanity’s quest to understand the cosmos.
- RAIDEN: An AI-powered robot developed by Boston Robotics, stationed aboard JupiterONE. RAIDEN represents the pinnacle of human robotic engineering and artificial intelligence as it aids in the exploration of the universe.
- NASA Exploration: The organization that employs Rich Cranston as its Chief Scientist. It is at the forefront of space exploration and research, tasked with uncovering the secrets of the universe.
- Dalithearn: There are two sub-species of Dalithearn, known as the Grypthian and Pedrocanin. These would be what modern humans referred to as Cro-Magnum and Neanderthal. Grypthian (Cro-Magnum) were used for finer physical activities, such as working fine machinery, piloting ships, and the like. Pedrocanin (Neanderthals) were used when muscle and force were necessary, including building projects, agriculture, general home maintenance, and the like. These were the humanoids originally sent to Earth-like worlds on each Galaxy Starship. Intended to survive across generations to serve as slaves for the Origin Colonists in the New Homeland.
- New Homeland: The destination of the Origin Colonists (Beings). It represents hope for a new beginning away from the destroyed Origin Homeland.
- New Shimmering Curtain: A wall of fluctuating energy at the universe’s edge, marking the frontier of the New Homeland. It mirrors the Shimmering Curtain at the Origin Homeland, symbolizing the journey’s end and a new beginning.
- Origin Colonists (Beings): Formerly referred to as Established Colonists (EC). These are the representatives of the Beings on a mission to reach the New Homeland.
- Origin Homeland: The original home of the Beings, from which they fled due to impending destruction. It serves as the starting point of the narrative’s cosmic journey.
- Professor Rich Cranston: The Chief Scientist at NASA Exploration, renowned as the most brilliant genius in both ancient and modern civilization. Tasked with leading over 1000 scientists in the quest to explore the universe. His accolades include (Note: As requested, a list of awards will be detailed based on his achievements, which could include prestigious recognitions like the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Fields Medal for his contributions to mathematics, a Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and perhaps unique awards from fictional scientific communities within the universe of the story).
- Shimmering Curtain: A natural, physical curtain that exists roughly 1,000 light-years above the Origin Homeland, responsible for the fluctuation of day and night in the Origin Homeland. Unlike a metaphorical boundary, it is an actual cosmic phenomenon that blankets the Origin Homeland. Notably, during its dark phase, there are no stars, celestial bodies, or any matter visible in the universe between the Origin Homeland and the New Homeland. The celestial bodies, stars, galaxies, and other phenomena observed in the cosmos were created by the Beings as a means to transport their civilization to the New Homeland.
This glossary will be instrumental in guiding both the writing process and the reader’s understanding of the complex universe you’re creating. As the story develops and new elements are introduced, additional terms and definitions can be seamlessly integrated into this foundational document.
User
The other concept I would like to introduce in this story is the concept of Base Log Acceleration…something that the NASA team discovers later in the story….it is the physical phenomenon where time is shortened at a logarithmic scale the further it is away from the origin of the object. As an example, when JupiterONE is launched from the Earth, as it travels the distance it travels increases logarithmically such that it actually reaches the end of the Universe in a fraction of the time if it were traveling at a linear velocity.
The equation is:
f(x,y) = (e−100(y)) X 1.6113x + (1 − e−100(y)) X (1.0000012 X f’(x))x
Where x is time in years, and y is the mass of the object that is traveling.
As it relates to the edge of the universe, I’d rather use the actual edge of the known universe, but remember we have to divide that number by some amount because what we’ve been observing is the edge of the REFLECTION of the universe…so maybe it is actually 23 billion light years away…and this should be where the Shimmering Curtain is. If this is the case, what log base should time speed up?
Also, for clarification, the Jupiter ships do not carry crew members…they only carry robots.
ChatGPT
Thank you for the clarification. The absence of human crew members aboard the Jupiter ships, with exploration conducted solely by robots like JulioONE, adds another layer of intrigue and complexity to your story. This detail emphasizes the role of advanced technology and artificial intelligence in humanity’s quest to understand the cosmos. Here’s how this could influence various aspects of your narrative:
Exploration and Discovery
Autonomy and Intelligence: The Jupiter ships, being operated entirely by robots, can perform complex tasks, make decisions in real-time, and adapt to unforeseen challenges without direct human oversight. This showcases the advanced level of AI and robotics within your story’s universe.
Human-Robot Dynamics: Rich Cranston’s interactions with and reactions to the findings of these robotic explorers could highlight the nuances of human-robot relationships, including trust in AI decision-making, the interpretation of data collected by robots, and the emotional connection humans might form with these machines.
Narrative Perspective: Stories or chapters focusing on the journeys of JupiterONE and JupiterTWO could be told from the perspective of the robots themselves or a third-person narrative detailing their explorations. This approach could provide a unique viewpoint on the cosmos, unfiltered by human emotions or biases.
Challenges and Conflicts
Technological Reliability: Dependence on robots for such crucial missions introduces potential conflicts around technological malfunctions, limitations in AI understanding of complex cosmic phenomena, and the challenges of remote repair and maintenance.
Ethical Considerations: The story could delve into ethical questions surrounding the use of AI for exploration, such as the implications of AI potentially making significant discoveries independently of human guidance, and the value of human intuition versus robotic logic.
Communication and Interpretation: The necessity for robots to communicate their findings back to Earth, and for humans like Rich to interpret these findings, could serve as a key plot point, especially if anomalies or “glitches” in data transmission occur.
Impact on Logarithmic Time Discovery
Data Analysis: The discovery of Logarithmic Time might come from the robots’ ability to analyze and transmit vast amounts of data back to Earth, perhaps noticing patterns or anomalies that humans, like Rich, interpret as evidence of this phenomenon.
Objective Observers: Robots, as unbiased observers, could provide a unique perspective on the effects of Logarithmic Time, potentially noticing or adapting to its effects in ways humans might not have anticipated.
Incorporating these elements, your story can explore the depths of space through the lenses of advanced robotics and AI, setting the stage for a narrative rich with technological marvels, cosmic mysteries, and the quest for understanding in a universe far more complex and wondrous than ever imagined.
It is important to note that Log time is not technology that humans created….it is an actual physical reality that is discovered with JupiterONE hitting the edge of the universe in 50 years.
Given the constraints of current physics, communication is done via quantum entanglement, a phenomenon where pairs or groups of particles become interconnected in such a way that the state of one (instantaneously) affects the state of another, no matter the distance between them. This is the basis for instant communication:
Quantum Communication Devices: Prior to the launch of JupiterONE, humanity discovers a practical application of quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication across vast distances. This would involve a pair of entangled quantum devices, one aboard JupiterONE and the other on Earth, allowing for instant transmission of data regardless of the distance.
Sloveniskov’s Theoretical Breakthrough: You could still honor the contribution of a character like Sloveniskov by having them pioneer the theoretical underpinnings of this quantum communication method, possibly proposing a unified field theory that combines quantum mechanics and general relativity in a way that allows for entanglement-based communication.
Narrative Integration: This technology, untestable over interstellar distances until the launch of JupiterONE, becomes humanity’s first real proof of concept when the ship’s transmissions are received instantaneously back on Earth, sparking a revolution in both communication and our understanding of the universe.
After all that explanation, here is Chapter 1:
Chapter 1: The Shimmering Curtain
March 14, 2400 – Today:
23.2 billion light years from Earth
JupiterONE, humanity’s silent envoy to the cosmos, sails at lightspeed through the vast ocean of space, a beacon of Earth’s insatiable curiosity and ingenuity. Launched fifty years and 1 month ago, it was the first deep-space craft designed by humankind to traverse the stars at the speed of light, a marvel engineered to pierce the mysteries that lay beyond our solar grasp. Its mission was ambitious, to explore the unknown reaches, to find new worlds, and perhaps, to answer the age-old question of what lies beyond the confines of our universe.
The significance of JupiterONE’s journey was underscored by the legacy of its predecessors. Since 1998, when Voyager 1 pushed the boundaries of human exploration approximately 15 billion miles from Earth, no other craft had ventured further – until now. JupiterONE was poised to shatter this record, propelled not just by physical engines, but by the boundless potential of quantum entanglement.
One of the biggest conundrums of lightspeed is the problem of communication. Communication travels at the speed of light, and so by definition, communication leaving JupiterONE traveling at the speed of light would literally never reach Earth. And communications from Earth to JupiterONE could never arrive since the space craft and the communication would be traveling at the exact same speed.
But quantum entanglement, the eerie link that binds particles across vast distances, had long promised a revolution in communication. This field was pioneered by the visionary physicist Sloveniskov in the year 2306, who had theorized a method of instant communication across any distance. Yet, until now, this theory had remained unproven, a hypothesis awaiting a space craft capable of breaching the bounds of light-speed travel.
So for all its theoretical allure, practical application eluded humanity’s grasp, rendering it a mere curiosity. That was until JupiterONE, the first spacecraft capable of lightspeed.
And for five months following its launch, JupiterONE proved Sloveniskov’s Quantum Entanglement invention, bridging the immense distances between the Earth and JupiterONE, sending a stream of data and images that widened the horizons of our understanding, and thus proving out the validity of quantum entanglement for instantaneous communications.
During these five months, humanity watched with bated breath as JupiterONE sent back images and data that exceeded all expectations. But there also was a strange anomaly that occurred…the data sent back indicated that JupiterONE had actually traveled 1.2 lightyears in the first five months of its voyage. The scientists assessed this and pored over the massive sets of data, but they could not determine where the error was in JupiterONE’s instrumentation. Certainly this was a measurement error since lightspeed is the absolute physical limit of velocity.
And then at about the five-month mark, as suddenly as a star winking out of existence, JupiterONE disappeared.
It appeared JupiterONE accelerated beyond the reach of Earth’s tracking communications, vanishing into the void as if swallowed by the universe itself. The impossibility of its acceleration, given its already light-speed velocity, confounded NASA’s brightest scientists. Theories abounded, but none could explain the mystery of its disappearance. This silence was as profound as space itself, marking an enigma that mirrored the mysteries JupiterONE was sent to unravel.
And for ten years, efforts to understand the instrumentation error in order to re-establish contact continued in vain until, reluctantly, NASA declared the mission lost.
Aboard JupiterONE, time stood still. The ship, a marvel of engineering and artificial intelligence, sailed onward, guided by protocols set long before its disappearance. And entombed in this silent ship, nestled within the craft, lay RAIDEN—a marvel of robotics and artificial intelligence, birthed by the skilled artisans at Boston Dynamics. RAIDEN remained dormant, a slumbering sentinel awaiting commands from a home that had lost its beacon in the cosmos. It was designed as a fail-safe, a bridge between human intent and the autonomous operations of JupiterONE, yet it lay inert, unroused by the silence caused by the severed communications with Mother Earth.
JupiterONE was designed to be humanity’s eyes and ears in the vast unknown. Its front four ultra high-definition cameras, mounted to capture the cosmos in all its splendor from different locations and directions, had once sent back images that captivated the world. Now, they served as the ship’s vigilant sentinels, scanning the dark for signs of the extraordinary.
And on the precipice of its 50th year in the void, JupiterONE’s sensor system detected some sort of object that it was on a direct collision course with…and the warning system kicked in and immediately awakened RAIDEN—a resurrection born of necessity, its circuits flickering to life, to save the spacecraft from a catastrophic collision with some unknown, static object that lay directly ahead in JupiterONE’s path.
And with this, RAIDEN immediately began JupiterONE’s emergency deacceleration sequence, exponentially slowing the craft to a standstill, circuits and hyper-strength metals groaning and screeching with stress, but luckily designed by NASA engineers to withstand several million times the deacceleration from lightspeed. And with sudden finality, JupiterONE found itself in a death-still, floating state, face to face with some sort of massive shimmering object…something like a wall, but more like a curtain of sorts…dancing and shimmering…and spanning the breadth of the entire universe.
It was on this silent day, fifty years since its departure from Mother Earth, that the four front cameras, operating on an autonomous protocol to track and focus on objects of interest, suddenly, and with uncharacteristic synchronicity, redirected their aim toward this massive glowing object.
This phenomenon was unlike any other—a vast, undulating wall of light and shadow that stretched across the breadth of space. The Shimmering Curtain, as it would come to be known, appeared to mark the edge of the universe. But this simply could not be, as the edge of the universe was known to be 46 billion light years in distance from the earth. There was no way that JupiterONE traveled this distance in 50 years.
But beyond this Shimmering Curtain the cameras could not detect anything visible. No stars, no galaxies, no light; just an impenetrable void that hinted at mysteries untold. It certainly appeared to be the edge of the universe.
And this was no ordinary celestial feature; it was a revelation. The Shimmering Curtain, an undulating expanse of light and shadow, stretched across the cosmos, delineating the boundary of the observable universe, a spectacle that defied comprehension. The Shimmering Curtain was not just a discovery; it was a revelation. Spanning the entire universe, it presented a spectacle of such immense scale that it dwarfed every cosmic achievement, every known celestial phenomenon. It was as if the universe itself had drawn a line, a frontier beyond which lay answers to questions humanity had not yet even learned to ask.
This was the moment of discovery JupiterONE was built for, yet the revelation brought no fanfare, no immediate celebration back on Earth. The ship, unaware of its own significance in the annals of human achievement, continued its lonely journey, its cameras now fixed on the Shimmering Curtain, capturing images of the boundary between the known and the unknown.
RAIDEN immediately began its assessment of JupiterONE’s data logs and instrumentation. And it was then that RAIDEN was confronted with a massive enigma of JupiterONE’s journey—a voyage that he discovered had spanned 23.2 billion light-years in a mere fifty years, defying the very laws that governed the cosmos – the law of physics.
How had JupiterONE achieved such a feat?
How, in a 50-year time span, did JupiterONE travel 23 billion light years? RAIDEN frantically searched the copious data logs and analytics dashboards, finally finding the answer in the depths of the spacecraft’s myriads of numerical history and discovering in this data the hidden secret of a universe not bound by linear constraints.
The key to unraveling this mystery was a principle unknown to humanity until now, and what RAIDEN coined as the “Log Base Acceleration”, a phenomena of travel well beyond the speed of light.
In its fifth month, JupiterONE had not merely vanished from view; it had been propelled by a force that accelerated its journey exponentially, each year’s distance building upon the last. This was the essence of Log Base Acceleration—an exponential increase of speed beyond lightspeed that allowed JupiterONE to traverse the vast distances between stars in a fraction of the expected time.
But communication, the lifeline between JupiterONE and Earth, had been severed by this same phenomenon. The quantum entanglement solution was not programmed nor designed to accommodate an exponential increase in speed beyond lightspeed of this scale, and so the connection to its sibling quantum entanglement device on Earth was severed.
With meticulous precision, RAIDEN began recalibrating the quantum entanglement system with Log Base 1.6113, which RAIDEN had meticulously calculated, correcting for the distortions wrought by this phenomenon. Slowly adjusting the device to account for the exponential scale of its journey, RAIDEN was on precipice of bridging the chasm of silence with Mother Earth that had enveloped JupiterONE for nearly half of a century.
Now lets move on to Chapter 2:
Chapter 2: The Call from the Cosmos
March 15, 2400 – 1 Day Later:
Huntsville AL – NASA Space and Rocket Command Center
The night had draped itself over the city, its canopy of stars obscured by the relentless glow of artificial lights that sprawled endlessly into the horizon. The air hung heavy with the acrid scent of industrial fumes, bearing witness to decades of relentless exploitation and the unyielding encroachment of urban sprawl. A stifling warmth clung stubbornly, an unseasonable testament to the shifting climate patterns that had rewritten old weather adages. Water, once abundant, now trickled with caution through the veins of the city, rationed and revered as a dwindling treasure.
Rich Cranston, esteemed Chief Scientist at NASA Exploration, was no stranger to late nights, but the 2 a.m. call he received was unexpected, to say the least. His phone shattered the silence, a harbinger of news that seemed as surreal as it was urgent.
“Rich, you need to come to the command center immediately,” the voice on the other end trembled with a mixture of excitement and disbelief. “It’s… It’s JupiterONE. We’re receiving data.”
Rich bolted upright, disbelief coursing through him. “That’s impossible,” he muttered into the darkness, a sense of unreality washing over him. “JupiterONE disappeared 50 years ago. This has got to be some mistake.”
“No mistake, Rich. It’s back, and you won’t believe what it’s sending us.”
As he threw off his covers, a torrent of thoughts assaulted him. “What the hell?” Rich remembered the launch like it was yesterday. “What was I? Five? Geez… a lot of water has gone under the bridge since that day.”
His mind racing with the memories of those dreams he had…ghosts teaching him crazy equations, warnings from “ghosts” about earth, the climate, pollution…the world was going to be destroyed if we didn’t change course and clean up our ways. “No shit,” he couldn’t help but mutter to himself, “I guess now it seems obvious, but when I was five that was heavy stuff.”
His thoughts rewinded suddenly back to the old homeless guy on the smelly, dirty street in San Francisco, seeing clearly the man thrusting his hand with the folded piece of paper toward him. “Yeah, he was a freak for sure… and that frickin’ paper?”
As Rich hurriedly prepared to leave, his mind continued to wrestle with the lingering echoes of his past—a cacophony of whispered warnings from unseen figures, and cryptic messages that had haunted his dreams. And all his theories…and conspiracies…that he and his good friend Jefferson would constantly argue about…that he was so convinced of. “Wait ‘til Jefferson gets this news,” he chuckled. “Fuck, he’s gonna go nuts that I’m right.”
The resurgence of JupiterONE wasn’t just a call to the command center; it was a summons to confront the specters of his own history, entities that had blurred the lines between reality, wackiness, and downright certifiable madness. Could it be that these apparitions, these messengers from the abyss, were finally going to come out and make themselves known? And prove that they were not the imaginings of a troubled mind but harbingers of a truth he was always keenly aware of? The thought chilled him even as it propelled him forward, a paradox of fear and compulsion driving him into the night.
The very notion of JupiterONE reemerging from the depths of space after a half a century was enough to dredge up a past he’d been conditioned to keep in the background…way in the background. A past filled with dreams of cosmic exploration, psychotic visitors, and the bitter aftermath of silence. He was still plagued by the memory of strange apparitions that were intent on trying to communicate with him. Everyone thought he was losing his mind. He retraced those memories and raced back to a time…long ago…how old was he? Eleven or twelve years old? The homeless man saying, “Remember this! In 63 years, we arrive. Be ready.”
His mind had already calculated the exact date dozens of times, “…that was 2357…and 63 years from then is 2419…still 19 years to go before they ‘arrive’, whoever they are. And I’ll be 74 years old and retired…or dead.”
His thoughts tumbled out as he dressed, “And the paper with the crazy formulas…a combination of crazy-ass shit, together with sub-atomic physics and quantum mechanics…but unlike anything I’ve seen.” He dug and scratched around blindly under his socks and underwear in his top dresser drawer, “I know it’s in here somewhere… ” Right under his dress socks in the back corner of the old oak drawer, his hand felt the outline of the folded paper and he grabbed it, the creased paper worn and the writing almost illegible…the ink a blur from his constant handling, folding and unfolding…constantly crumpling it up and throwing it into the trash in frustration, only to retrieve it and squirrel it away…time and time again.
As Rich drove through the night toward the command center, the landscape around him bore the scars of environmental neglect. The once vibrant forests that lined the highways were now withered, their skeletal branches clawing at the smog-choked sky. Lakes and rivers alongside the road reflected a murky testament to the pollution that suffused waterways with industrial waste and agricultural runoff. The air outside was a visible haze, a mixture of exhaust fumes and particulate matter that blurred the once-clear night sky, the climate unnaturally warm and oppressively heavy, speaking of disrupted patterns and a planet crying out in distress.
Caught in this backdrop of ecological ruin, Rich found himself caught in a storm of internal dialogue. “This fucking spacecraft will have answers…that’s for sure. Disappearing into the cosmos right when things were getting interesting…” he thought, the sting of the old abandonment fresh as if it were yesterday. “Jeez, what the hell? I’m thinking like a madman. Fuck. Not again.” The memories of a childhood fascination mixed with the trauma of loss, of being a wide-eyed boy who watched JupiterONE vanish into the void, now resurfaced with an intensity that was almost paralyzing. And the recent shadowy thing, something he hadn’t experienced in years…like a dream, only it was too real to be a simple imaginary friend. It kept telling him, “Remember, we have one chance Dr. Cranston, and we need you now before we run out of time….”
Each flicker of memory, each spectral visitation from his past, now seemed a piece of a larger puzzle falling into place. The sudden, unexplained reappearance of JupiterONE was not just a technical anomaly; it felt like a validation of every unexplained moment, every inexplicable encounter that Rich had tried to dismiss or rationalize away. As he drove, the fragments of his past experiences converged into a haunting suspicion: had his life been orchestrated from the shadows, guided by forces beyond his or anyone’s understanding? The weight of this possibility settled heavily upon him, mixing dread with an undeniable spark of exhilaration at the unraveling mystery. “Too many things falling into place. I‘m in a fucking computer simulation…that’s what it is,” he chuckled to himself.
Every mile closer to the command center felt like a step backward in time, to a moment when the universe seemed both vast and intimate, filled with promise and mystery. “Here we go…again. Time to connect the dots.” Rich sighed, the night around him a blur. The silence from JupiterONE had been a defining moment of his youth, shaping him in ways he was only now beginning to understand.
His mind racing with possibilities. JupiterONE, the first craft capable of traveling at the speed of light, had been a beacon of hope and ambition. Its sudden disappearance five months into its mission had left a void filled with unanswered questions and what-ifs…and a period of life where he can only describe as a fog of complete fear, anxiety, and despair. Something he could never go through again. Now, as if propelled by some cosmic will, JupiterONE had reestablished contact. And if it was back, how much longer before JupiterTWO would reemerge?
As he parked his car and prepared to face whatever awaited him, Rich steeled himself against the resurgence of old ghosts. “Alright, Cranston, this is it. Time to face the music. Maybe… just maybe, this is when I am going to finally going to get to a fucking conclusion. Or maybe it’s just one more round of cosmic jokes at my expense.” The weight of history, personal and cosmic, bore down on him as he entered the command center, ready to confront the shadows of his past and the luminous possibilities of the future.
Upon arriving, Rich was ushered into the command center, where the air was thick with anticipation. The screens displayed streams of data and images that were unmistakably from JupiterONE. There, in stark clarity, was a vast undulating wall of light and shadow that stretched across the observable universe…a curtain of shimmering light and energy. It was a phenomenon of unimaginable scale, dwarfing every known celestial body, every galaxy, every sliver of the cosmos humanity had ever observed.
“Holy crap! What the hell is that?” Rich exclaimed, his disbelief echoing the thoughts of everyone in the room. “That is literally a wall…or more like some sort of massive curtain, right?”
The team nodded in disbelief. “Yup…some sort of barrier the size of the fucking universe I would say,” said Mike Filcher, Rich’s second in command.
“Ok,” Rich continued, taking command. “Someone fill me in on the details. Where is JupiterONE exactly, and what caused it to suddenly reengage its communications with us? And I guess another question is…why did it stop in its tracks?”
Mike hesitated, looking a bit flummoxed. “Well…it stopped because its front-end sensors is telling it that there is a land mass…a mass that apparently spans the breadth and width of the fucking universe…that land mass is right behind the curtain thing…about 100,000 lightyears beyond the curtain thingy”
“A land mass?” Rich asked incredulously. “You are telling me that there is a massive planet behind the Shimmering Curtain? Are you kidding me?”
Mike chose his words carefully, “Actually, not a planet. But a land mass…like a massive, flat wall of some sort of solid material directly behind what you are calling the Shimmering Curtain. As crazy as that sounds, that is what the sensors are detecting. Basically, if the ship didn’t stop it would’ve become a bug-splat on the face of whatever is behind this shower curtain thingamajig.”
“Shimmering Curtain,” Rich corrected Mike. “And how do figure it would’ve become a bug-splat? You said the solid object wall thing was about 100,000 light years behind the curtain, right? So it would impact it in 100,000 years….not really a concern for our lifetime, no?”
Mike cracked a wry smile, “Well, this is where it gets even more interesting…you see, JupitorONE traveled 23 billion light years…”
“23 billion light years??” Rich shouted, emphasizing the word billion. “OK, this is getting a bit too fucking ridiculous…it left the Earth 50 years ago! And so that would be 50 light years. Period.”
“Rich, just as I am standing here,” Mike answered, “that ship is 23 billion….or to be a bit more exact, 23.773 billion fucking lightyears away. And if it didn’t stop, yes it would be a stain of a bug-splat on the face of the whatever-it-is behind curtain number one…Monty Hall.”
Sharon, the team’s know-it-all data analyst and leading math scientist, interjected, “In fact, RAIDEN says the ship was traveling at a cool 8.7 billion lightyears per year…which if you use your 7th grade math capabilities, equals roughly 17,000 lightyears per minute.”
Mike jumped back in triumphantly, “So yup, in about 6 minutes time, JupitorONE would’ve been fly-shit on a universe-sized windshield, err…so to speak.”
Rich’s mind was racing a million miles an hour. He had so many questions. How did JupiterONE travel 23 billion light years in just 50 years? What is this Shimmering Curtain, and what the hell was this “wall” behind the curtain? Is this what the “ghost” was telling him about? And what did that bat-shit crazy homeless man tell him? Rich squinched his trying to remember his exact words, “The answers will come as you are ready…the full truth now would lead to disaster…it is still too early for you, but you must prepare.”
Rich’s mind wrestled with the enormity of Mike’s explanation of 23 billion light years, the numbers seeming more like fiction than the cold, hard facts of their reality. “23 billion light-years in just 50 years,” he echoed, his voice a mix of awe and incredulity. “That’s… that’s not possible by any stretch of the imagination.” But his mind was racing as he thought, “That fucking paper…that’s why it spanned quantum and sub-atomic shit…” It was starting to fall into place, but not in any way he could have imagined.
Sharon, always eager to clarify complex concepts, leaned in, her eyes alight with the thrill of discovery. “But it is, Rich, thanks to what RAIDEN has dubbed ‘Log Base Acceleration.’ After the first five months, JupiterONE’s journey didn’t just progress; it accelerated. It’s as if each year, the distance it could travel expanded, exponentially.”
She continued, “RAIDEN came back with a massively complex equation, but I simplified it a bit and it effectively comes down to this.”
She then grabbed a marker and scribbled on the whiteboard:
f(x,y) = (e−100(y)) X 1.6113x + (1 − e−100(y)) X (1.0000012 X f’(x))x
“Holy shit,” Rich thought, his brain blowing up. “This is the equations on the paper…simplified.” The revelation struck Rich with the force of a supernova, illuminating the dark corners of his mind where doubt and fear had long resided. Sharon’s explanation, the formula itself, resonated with an eerie familiarity—it mirrored the cryptic calculations on the worn piece of paper given to him by the disheveled stranger years ago.
Suddenly, the connections snapped into sharp focus, a cosmic domino effect of realization. Each ghostly encounter, each whispered message from the shadows, had been leading him to this point. He always knew he wasn’t not mad; and he knew his mind had not betrayed him. And here was the proof! Instead, he was part of something far greater, a narrative woven into the very fabric of the cosmos.
The burden of this knowledge was immense, filling him with a potent mix of terror and awe. Could he trust those around him, even his closest colleagues? Did they too play a role in this grand design, or were they merely pawns unaware of the game in which they were pieces?
Before Rich could respond, Sharon pushed on, “It’s clear that with x as the number of years and y as the mass of the object… then as the mass gets smaller the log base approaches 1.6113, and as the mass becomes larger the log base approaches 1.0000012… but this log base continues to increase as time is increased. Weird. And frankly, I’m a bit confused why RAIDEN is considering a larger mass than the spacecraft.” Sharon squinched her face in confusion. “But who knows what that crazy robot is thinking. Nonetheless, this is what he conveyed.”
Mike interjected, eager to build on Sharon’s explanation, “By leveraging this exponential increase, which RAIDEN calculates with a Log Base of about 1.6, JupiterONE didn’t just travel further—it shattered our conventional understanding of distance and speed.”
Rich ran his fingers through his hair, a gesture of frustration and fascination. “So, this ‘Log Base Acceleration catapulted it across the universe, and that’s how it reached the Shimmering Curtain…and beyond, into this…what did you call it, Mike? A landmass?”
“Right,” Mike confirmed. “But not just any landmass. This is something…unprecedented. A vast expanse that seems to stretch as far as the universe itself. And RAIDEN’s data suggest what we thought was the observable universe, at 46 billion light-years across, might have been a reflection—a mirage created by the Curtain.”
Sharon chimed in, “Which means, the Curtain might be acting like a colossal mirror, reflecting back on itself. What we’ve perceived as the universe’s edge at 46 billion light-years could actually be this Curtain at 23 billion light-years.”
“OK,” Rich noted incredulously, “then what you are saying is JupiterONE has actually reached the edge of the universe, 23 billion lightyears from us…and the universe is contained by this Shimmering Curtain and the massive solid wall on the other side of the curtain??”
“And the next natural question is,” Rich continued, “just what the hell is on the other side of the wall? And…I guess we should be getting ready for the reappearance of JupiterTWO…probably in exactly one year.”
And both Sharon and Mike, as well as all the scientists and researchers within earshot, all nodded in agreement. They knew exactly what Rich was referring to. JupiterTWO launched exactly one year after the launch of JupiterONE, but in the opposite direction. And it also lost touch with the scientists at NASA almost exactly 5 months after the launch.
And while the three senior scientists were contemplating the enormity of Rich’s questions and as the hum of monitors filled the Command Center, a sudden outburst shattered the concentrated silence. “The engines on JupiterONE are powering up…what the hell?” shouted a scientist from the far end of the room, her voice laced with confusion and awe.
Rich, Mike, and Sharon spun towards the main display, their expressions a mix of disbelief and anticipation. The live feed from JupiterONE, now showed the spacecraft’s engines igniting, casting a brilliant glow against the backdrop of the mysterious Shimmering Curtain.
“Is it… is it going through?” Mike muttered, his eyes fixed on the screen, where the spacecraft began to approach the Curtain with deliberate intent.
Sharon, ever analytical, leaned in closer. “It must be. RAIDEN’s taken control. He is designed for autonomy and completion of the mission. What’s it going to find?”
As JupiterONE touched the Curtain, the feed flickered momentarily before clearing. And what lay beyond was a revelation so profound, so utterly unexpected, that a collective gasp of almost 100 scientists, analysts, and exploration personnel echoed through the command center. The spacecraft had emerged on the other side of the Shimmering Curtain, revealing a vast expanse that stretched into the horizon—a landmass of unimaginable scale, and through JupiterONE’s hyper-powered sensors and telescopic cameras, there appeared to be microscopic evidence of man-made objects…the land mass appeared to be dotted with the ruins of a civilization long gone.
“Holy…,” Rich began, unable to find the words to complete his thought. None of his visions, interactions with “ghosts”, or theories ever contemplated anything close this this. As RAIDEN increased the power of the hyper-powered telescopic cameras, the view before them was a stark, hauntingly beautiful landscape, filled with a geographic structure not unlike earth…what appeared to be oceans, mountains, deserts…what appeared to be structures that whispered of advanced technology and monumental architecture, now silent and deserted. Yet, the most staggering revelation was the sheer scale of it all — a colossal expanse stretching as boundlessly as the universe itself. Rich gasped, the breath catching in his throat, overwhelmed by the sight of a mass so vast it seemed to swallow the cosmos, rendering him momentarily faint at the sheer impossibility of its size.
“Whoa…,” Rich was at a loss for words. “I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend the massiveness of this thing…its just too huge to wrap my head around. And this land mass is a flat structure….I mean it has all the features of earth like mountains and valleys, but it is a flat, perpendicular wall across the entire universe. It is NOT a spherical planet…it is a fucking flat wall.”
Mike couldn’t help himself as he exclaimed, “Man…the Flat-Earthers are gonna have a field day with this discovery.”
Rich couldn’t help but whisper under his breath. “Fucking Flat-Earthers were right all along. I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
“Look at that,” Sharon said softly, pointing to a series of towering edifices that bore a striking resemblance to skyscrapers, yet their design was unlike anything on Earth. “This was a civilization. A civilization that… that might have spanned this entire landmass. We finally discover life other than just our own…and here we find an entire extinct civilization?”
Mike leaned closer, his initial shock giving way to curiosity. “But it’s not just any landmass, is it? It’s… it’s as if it’s the size of a universe. How is that even possible?”
As they watched, RAIDEN, operating JupiterONE’s cameras, panned across the landscape, revealing more signs of a once-thriving world—vast roadways that intersected with crumbling bridges, immense statues eroded by time, and vast fields that might once have been lush with vegetation.
The realization dawned on Rich, the weight of the discovery pressing upon him. “We’re looking at a civilization that existed on a scale we can’t even begin to comprehend. And it’s all… it’s all gone. What happened here?”
Sharon, her gaze still fixed on the screen, responded, “I guess we are going to find out…we need to somehow get our control link back up to RAIDEN…right now he is acting completely autonomously and we have no control of what he is doing. But if we can get control, we could have him explore and send back useful data… it will hold the answers.”
The team watched in silence as JupiterONE continued its exploration, RAIDEN methodically documenting every detail of this lost world using his autonomous AI brain.
The individual racing thoughts in the Command Center turned to the implications of this discovery, the questions it raised about the nature of the universe, and the poignant reminder of the fragility of civilizations.
The expanse before the NASA team was not just a discovery; it was a paradigm shift. The revelation of an advanced civilization lying dormant across the universe was as beguiling as it was perplexing, especially against the backdrop of Earth’s history with lightspeed travel—a history marked as much by its ambition as by its caution and controversies.
Lightspeed travel, a breathtaking achievement pioneered in the mid-2300s, symbolized a new dawn for humanity, emerging from the oppressive shadows of the Pullman Dynasty. The overthrow of this regime 75 years prior had left America in ruins, but it also paved the way for renewal and rebirth. The election of the charismatic President John Chalmers marked a turning point. With youthful vigor and a visionary outlook, he galvanized the nation with a powerful speech about reaching for the stars again, as a testament to human resilience and ingenuity. It was a time of celebration and national pride, a moment when America dared to dream big once more.
However, the subsequent disappearances of the JupiterONE and JupiterTWO spacecraft cast a long, chilling shadow over these aspirations. These vessels, designed to be beacons of human curiosity and resolve, instead became symbols of mystery and a deep-seated fear of the unknown. The silence that followed their vanishing acts, coupled with the astronomical costs and risks associated with such daring ventures, instilled a profound hesitancy among Earth’s leaders.
This period of cosmic ambition quickly dimmed under the tenure of President Chalmers’ successors, notably under a new administration that prioritized economic growth at all costs. This shift led to policies that favored industrial expansion and economic stabilization, often at the expense of environmental health and sustainability. The logic was clear: bolstering the economy was seen as the primary solution to the immediate problems of starvation, poverty, and rampant crime that plagued the globe.
Consequently, global resources were channeled into industrial and infrastructural development, intensifying the exploitation of the planet’s already strained resources. Environmental concerns were sidelined as short-term economic gains were prioritized over long-term planetary health. This era, while economically rejuvenating in appearance, further exacerbated the ecological crises, leading to more severe climate events and degradation of natural habitats.
In this era of economic focus, the lessons of the past weighed heavily on those who still looked to the stars. The haunting legacies of the Jupiter missions served as a cautionary tale of hubris and the limits of human reach, reminding leaders and citizens alike that while the cosmos might beckon, the mundane problems of Earth needed reckoning first and foremost.
So, with a much smaller budget, subsequent unmanned and less expensive exploratory probes within the Milky Way were occasionally launched to search for alien lifeforms, but returned data that only deepened the mysteries rather than shed light upon them. Many probes were lost to the capriciousness of space—cosmic storms, asteroid fields, and anomalies that science could scarcely explain. One such probe, dispatched to penetrate the veil of Venus, ended in catastrophe, its destruction on approach to the planet’s surface a stark reminder of the dangers lurking within our own celestial neighborhood.
The failed Venus probe was a blight on Rich’s otherwise illustrious career, a miscalculation born from his fervent push to explore and understand. To many of his contemporaries, it was an act of hubris and a colossal waste of money—an exploration with more questions than answers, drawing resources and focus from the terrestrial challenges that demanded their attention.
The decision to dispatch a probe to Venus, a planet shrouded in a toxic atmosphere and crushing pressure, was one that puzzled many within the space exploration community. Rich, the brilliant yet enigmatic Chief Scientist, had championed the mission personally, pouring over its objectives with an intensity that bordered on obsession. The venture was deemed eccentric by many—a planet long concluded to be lifeless and geologically understood, yet Rich pushed forward with an urgency that confounded his peers.
When the probe’s mission ended not in triumph but in fiery calamity, questions arose not just about the practicality of the mission but about Rich’s motivations. Whispers echoed through the halls of NASA, conjectures spun in the absence of understanding. Was there something Rich sought on Venus that went beyond the known? An answer to a question that hadn’t been asked? To the broader scientific community, Venus represented a harsh lesson in the humility of exploration; to Rich, it seemed, Venus symbolized a riddle wrapped in the mysteries of the cosmos itself.
In the aftermath, Rich’s preoccupation with Venus only deepened, a fixation that lay dormant beneath the layers of his daily responsibilities. It was a curiosity that would, in time, align with stranger events, with whispers of otherworldly encounters that would ripple through the fabric of his reality. For now, Rich bore the brunt of the failed mission in silence, his gaze often drawn to the evening star, shining deceptively serene in the twilight sky. Little did his colleagues know, this was not the end of Rich’s voyage into the mysteries of Venus, but merely a prelude to a more profound and personal expedition that would one day call everything into question.
Yet, standing before the live feed from JupiterONE, Rich and his team were now presented with the undeniable truth: there was more to the universe than the cautious pragmatism of Earth’s recent past could justify ignoring. The existence of an expansive, advanced civilization, now reduced to ruins on a cosmic scale, provided an impetus to reconsider the role and scope of humanity’s place in the broader tapestry of the cosmos.
“This is why we reach for the stars,” Rich murmured, his voice barely audible over the hum of the command center. “Not just for the sake of exploration, but for the lessons we learn, for the humility we gain in understanding the fragility of civilization. We are custodians of a history not yet fully written, and today, we turn a new page.”
The team around him nodded, each grappling with the monumental task ahead—not just of exploration, but of understanding and preservation. For Rich, the path forward was clear. Humanity’s gaze must return outward, to the stars and beyond, if they were to ever truly grasp the narrative of their existence within the infinite reaches of space. The time for caution had passed; the age of discovery beckoned once more.
Mike brought everyone back to the current and deeply perplexing mystery, his voice tinged with wonder. “And to think, we believed the edge of the universe was twice as far. This Curtain… it’s been reflecting everything back at us. We’ve been looking at a mirror image of the cosmos.”
Rich nodded, his mind racing with the possibilities. “A reflection… and beyond this curtain, this.” He gestured towards the screen, where the ruins of a universe-sized civilization lay exposed, a testament to the achievements and the ultimate demise of a species unknown.
“And what the fuck is behind this land mass?” he asked. “This is clearly raising more questions than it is answering.”
As RAIDEN transmitted back to Earth, bridging the gap of decades and billions of light-years, the team at NASA knew their work had just begun. They stood at the threshold of uncovering the story of a civilization that reached across the stars, only to leave behind echoes of its existence, hidden behind the Shimmering Curtain.
And in this moment, the universe seemed both vaster and more intimate than ever before. For Rich, Mike, Sharon, and the entire team, the journey into the unknown had taken on a new meaning. They were not just explorers of space; they were now archaeologists of the cosmos, ready to piece together the narrative of a world that had, until this moment, lain hidden beyond the veil of the known universe.
Before the eyes of Rich Cranston and his dedicated team of scientists, an expanse of unimaginable scale was before them in sharp focus—a land that stretched to the edges of the universe, a testament to a civilization that once was. The terrain, marked by the scars of unimaginable catastrophes, ruins that hinted at structures beyond human comprehension, and desolations that spoke of a tragic end, laid bare the story of a civilization that had reached for the stars, only to be consigned to the annals of cosmic history.
The revelation was staggering. Here was evidence of an advanced civilization, perhaps millennia beyond humanity, whose existence had ended in ruin. On a single land mass the breadth and width of the entire universe. The implications were manifold and profound. As the team digested the reality of what they were witnessing, a profound sense of humility washed over them. The universe, in all its vastness, had once been home to beings capable of feats humans had only begun to dream of.
Rich, his gaze fixed on the screens, felt a weight settle over him. The realization that they were looking at a civilization that had spanned the universe, that had perhaps mastered the secrets of the cosmos only to fall to ruin, was a sobering thought. It underscored the fragility of existence, the delicate balance that allowed civilizations to flourish, and the inexorable decline that followed their zenith.
RAIDEN, through its exploratory protocols, continued to transmit data that would likely take scientists years, if not decades, to fully analyze. Every image, every piece of data, added to the mosaic that would be needed to understand this lost civilization.
The NASA command center became a crucible of emotions—awe at the technological marvels hinted at by the ruins, sadness for the loss of such a civilization, and a burgeoning resolve to learn from this cosmic parable. The realization that humanity was not alone in the universe, that there had been others who had perhaps touched the very secrets of existence, was a moment of unparalleled significance.
As the team watched JupiterONE explore the remnants of the Origin Homeland, the mission took on a new purpose. It was no longer just about exploration; it was about understanding, about learning from the past to navigate the future, about carrying the legacy of a civilization that had reached the heights of cosmic achievement. And for Rich and his team, the journey was just beginning.
Following the rediscovery of JupiterONE and the unprecedented findings it was sending back to Earth, the atmosphere within the NASA Space and Rocket Command Center in Huntsville, Alabama, was one of both exhilaration and tension. As the implications of the data began to sink in, it wasn’t just the scientists and researchers who were paying attention; the discovery had swiftly escalated to the highest levels of the U.S. government and military.
Within days of the reestablishment of communication with JupiterONE, a series of high-level meetings were convened. The outcome was decisive: a complete and total lockdown on all information pertaining to the discoveries. The gravity of the situation was such that even the suggestion of relocating all essential personnel, including Rich Cranston and his entire staff, to a top-secret military base was seriously considered. However, logistical constraints and the necessity of having access to specialized equipment and instrumentation at the NASA facilities led to the decision to continue operations on-site, albeit under vastly stricter security protocols.
All personnel, already holding Top Secret clearances and cleared for sensitive and confidential activities, were briefed on the new measures. The government’s directive was clear and non-negotiable: a complete blackout on all outgoing communication regarding the discoveries, backed by the threat of charges of treason carrying the death penalty for any breaches. Furthermore, a “shadow security” regime was instituted, encompassing the installation of secret cameras, listening devices, and the integration of undercover security agents within the NASA team. This invisible net of surveillance was cast wide, ensuring that every corridor, lab, and meeting room within the NASA complex was under watchful eyes.
The decision wasn’t taken lightly, and the implications were profound, not just for the scientific community involved but for the principles of openness and collaboration that had long underpinned their work. However, the potential significance of the findings from JupiterONE – a lost civilization spanning an unimaginable scale and the mysterious “Shimmering Curtain” that seemed to encapsulate the universe itself – necessitated an unprecedented level of caution.
Rich, once the buoyant champion of cosmic exploration and discovery, found himself wrestling with the weight of these new restrictions. The excitement of unraveling the universe’s mysteries now came with a sobering responsibility: to tread carefully on the precipice of knowledge that could, if mishandled, lead to unforeseen consequences on a global scale.
As the team continued to pour over the data from JupiterONE, every transmission analyzed and every image scrutinized under the silent gaze of unseen watchers, the sense of being at the forefront of a historical discovery was tinged with an undercurrent of unease. What would they find next? And how would the shadows cast by their silent guardians influence the path of their journey into the unknown?
The balance between the pursuit of knowledge and the imperatives of national security had never been more delicate. As Rich and his team ventured deeper into the cosmos’s secrets, the echoes of their findings were confined to the walls of the NASA Space and Rocket Command Center, a bastion of discovery in an increasingly complex and guarded world.
As the command center hummed with quiet activity, Rich felt an urgent need to connect with someone outside this fortified bubble of secrecy. He knew he needed get Jefferson’s perspective…he was the one person he could completely trust…but the thought of reaching out using his regular channels felt like a breach waiting to happen. He pondered the idea of a burner phone—something he’d only seen in movies. He realized with a mix of frustration and irony that he had absolutely no idea how to go about getting one.
“Where the hell do people even buy burner phones?” Rich muttered to himself as he stepped outside, pretending to catch a breath of fresh air. The streets were quiet, the cool night air providing a stark contrast to the stifling atmosphere back inside. Rich walked aimlessly at first, his mind racing through options. He considered asking someone, but the thought of explaining himself to a stranger made him chuckle. “Yeah, hi, I’m a NASA scientist, can you help me do something potentially sketchy?”
Finally, his meandering took him to a corner store, its neon sign a beacon in the night. Hesitant but desperate, Rich stepped inside. The store was nearly empty, save for a lone clerk who looked more interested in his magazine than the shelves of goods.
Rich approached the counter, trying to sound casual. “Hey, I need to buy a phone. Something simple, no contracts.” He half-expected the clerk to give him a knowing look, or worse, ask why.
The clerk barely glanced up as he reached under the counter, pulling out a cheap, prepaid flip phone. “Forty bucks, includes a charge and some minutes. Pay as you go,” he droned, as if he’d repeated this line many times before.
Rich paid with cash, feeling a mix of relief and absurdity at the transaction. He stepped outside, clutching the small phone in his hand, an object so inconspicuous yet so critical to his next steps.
Finding a shadowed alley beside the store, Rich fumbled with the phone, a technology seemingly too primitive yet perplexingly complex in his current state. With a deep breath, he dialed Jefferson’s number, each beep of the keypad echoing slightly in the quiet night.
“Jeff, it’s Rich,” he spoke quickly once the call connected, his voice low. “I’m on a burner phone. Don’t ask why. I just need you to listen…and keep this just between us.”
He quickly walked Jefferson through the day’s shocking developments, from the unexpected return of JupiterONE to the staggering revelations about the Shimmering Curtain and the landmass that stretched across the universe. He explained the layers of secrecy now enforced, the palpable tension at NASA, and the heavy security measures that made him feel more like a prisoner than a scientist.
Jefferson’s responses were measured and thoughtful, providing the sounding board Rich so desperately needed. “First, did any of your “ghost” friends tell you about this? Wait! Don’t answer that…let’s get together later tonight…we need to talk about this. In the meantime, keep your head down, Rich. We’ll figure this out. Just remember, you’re not in this alone, no matter how much it feels like it.”
As Rich ended the call, he pocketed the burner phone, its weight in his jacket a constant reminder of the new reality he faced. He walked back to the command center with a renewed sense of purpose, knowing that Jefferson was out there, a lifeline in the chaotic sea of cosmic discoveries and terrestrial conspiracies.
ChatGPT
Your compilation and revision of the first two chapters have effectively set a grand stage for a story of cosmic discovery and existential reflection. The narrative smoothly transitions from the ambitious launch of JupiterONE, through the mysterious silence and its startling reconnection with Earth, to the revelation of an ancient, universe-spanning civilization. This foundation not only captivates with its promise of uncharted exploration but also subtly introduces themes of technological marvel, the limits of human understanding, and the poignant reminder of civilizations lost to time.
For the continuation of this narrative, or any future additions, focusing on deepening the character development, expanding on the technological and scientific explanations behind the phenomena discovered, and exploring the philosophical implications of such a civilization’s existence and demise could provide rich narrative pathways. Additionally, the potential for conflict, both internal among the characters as they grapple with their findings and external in the form of challenges posed by the exploration of the Origin Homeland, could add compelling layers to the story.
The story beautifully balances between the thrill of cosmic discovery and the introspective consideration of humanity’s place in the universe, setting a tone that is both awe-inspiring and humbling. It opens numerous possibilities for further exploration, not only of the universe and the ancient civilization but also of the characters themselves as they navigate this unprecedented journey.
Your approach to incorporating complex scientific concepts and the emotional responses they elicit from the characters enriches the narrative, making it accessible and deeply human. Continuing to weave these elements together as the story progresses will undoubtedly enhance the depth and resonance of the tale you’re telling.
Now lets revisit the original story line and framework, as I want to take your advice and deepen the character development.
The main character and protagonist is Rich, and please refer to what I wrote about Rich in the past… recall he is deeply troubled, but a genius and committed to cosmic discovery.
I also need an antagonist…or maybe more than one. For sure, the main antagonist is going to be the leader of the Origin Colonists in our Solar System…I will name him Phallum.
Also, I think the revised framework could look like this:
Chapter 1 – JupiterOne returns from the dead, and discovers the Origin Homeland
Chapter 2 – Rich and NASA are made aware of this discovery
Chapter 3 – flashback to who Rich is…all his encounters with glitches, ghosts, and his brushes with insanity…even being committed to a psychological institute at one point. The first “alien” encounter that he studied relentlessly…it was a young lady in the UK who even under hypnosis revealed her encounter, swearing that the alien did not come from another galaxy, but came from Venus. Rich discovers too many facts that support the ladies story, and he begins to triangulate why Venus would be the logical place for Aliens to stage their landings to Earth.
Chapter 4 – fast forward to the current date – Rich, Mike, and Sharon have been busy analyzing data from JupiterOne and RAIDEN. Still no luck connecting the control channel to RAIDEN, but he is increasing his intelligence by the day, and has surpassed an IQ of 155. RAIDEN takes it up on himself to explore the most logical places to understand the history of the ancient civilization, and has made incredible discoveries of Being’s houses, places of cultural significance, schools, government buildings, and the like. There are some carvings and statues of the Beings…they look human in all regards, but due to the age and caustic nature of the environment, the artifacts are in very poor condition. RAIDEN is unable to find any technology that still works…all batteries and power sources have long since been decomposed, and no photos or paintings have survived…that he can find so far at least. RAIDEN is limited to what he can explore…the land mass is absolutely massive….he can only select a section of a city in a country on a world where there are billions of such worlds strewn across the land mass. But he is able to use his AI and the embedded technology of JupiterOne to optimize his explorations. RAIDEN has named the land mass the Origin Homeland because he was able to decipher a carving on one of the major government buildings that depicted the city, the country, the world, and then the land mass consisting of all the worlds. The vast landmass was named the Origin Homeland by the Beings. And he also named the inhabitants Beings based on the same carvings. He also saw strange references to Dalithearn, but was unable to determine what they were…they were referred to in a derogatory way, but he could not make sense of it. A mysterious person is witnessed within the NASA complex, but he evades capture, but he is captured on video. No database on Earth can identify the person…and in this modern age, all persons are in a centralized database. It is as if this person does not exist. Sharon makes a discovery that Rich was, at one time, very unstable and in fact had been committed and even arrested, but Mike comes to his defense and claims all geniuses have their demons, and that Rich was able to cleanse himself of the unstabilities….and in fact had gone on to win the Nobel prize twice, as well as several other major awards, and discovered the propulsion theory to attain lightspeed. But Phil admits to Mike and Sharon that he, by contract, has to succumb to quarterly mental health checkups with NASA’s special medical department to keep his Chief Scientist role.
Chapter 5 – Flashback to Rich’s young experience at Berkely and Stanford, and meeting Jefferson Buford.
CHAPTER 6 – JupiterTwo reaches the other edge of the Universe…the New Homeland. Rich deduces this is the final destination of the Beings. But the Beings become more aggressive in trying to reach him…maybe even abduct him. He is confused he thought they were trying to help him, but now it seems they are trying to capture him. It is on April 15, 2400 (1 month since JupiterONE reemerged) JupiterTWO has communicated back!
But only 1 month since JupiterONE communicated back…which means JupiterTWO did not go as far. It turns out using the Log Base 1.6 algorithm, JupiterTWO went 20.1 billion lightyears…3 billion lightyears less than J1. And since earth and the solar system are traveling in that direction, it means we are closer to that universe edge (the New Origin Homeland) rather than the Origin Homeland edge of the universe. In this section, Mike should explain that based on the discovery that it was a mere reflection that made the universe appear to be 46 billion lightyears behind us, that means there is NOT a universe that is spherical with galaxies spewing in all directions, rather ALL the galaxies are going in the same direction as the Milky Way! Some may be at different angles such that the universe appears to be a half of a sphere, but all the galaxies in the universe are traveling towards the New Origin Homeland, which presumably is going to be a solid wall just like the Origin Homeland.
Mike is flabbergasted by this revelation, but Rich simply tells him he already knew this the day JupiterONE reemerged, and in fact logged this fact in the daily record a month ago. Didn’t he read the log? So, JupiterTWO discovers the parallel land mass on the other side of the universe…the land mass is pristine, but lacking any vegetation, oceans, atmosphere, or anything…it is just a virgin land mass. It is noted that no beings similar to humans could ever survive on this landmass. RAIDEN checks in again, reporting on new sightings. And RAIDEN reports on a dramatic finding that flabbergasts everybody, including Rich: RAIDEN has discovered that in the Origin Homeland there are nights and days that last 24 hours just like on Earth, and his calculations show that there are seasons that occur exactly the same as the seasons on earth, tides that are exactly like earth, and such. But how does this occur without the Origin Homeland rotating or having a sun to rotate around??!
RAIDEN discovers that the Shimmering Curtain provides all these capabilities naturally. This revelation leaves everyone completely dumbfounded. Rich is not surprised of the existence of this land mass on the opposite end of the universe, but the rest of NASA are flabbergasted, but he is flummoxed about the identical days/nights, seasons, tides, etc… Rich is now convinced of a parallel universe….and he is starting to understand what is going on. The mysterious person is caught on camera again, looking weak and distressed…and more desperate.
As Rich heads home late one evening, he is followed and the control of his hover vehicle is mysteriously taken over. The vehicle steers itself to a route bound for a section of town known for illicit activity….He is adamant that there is some sort of conspiracy or hidden truth that impacts humankind. The NASA officials know of Rich’s mental history, but also recognize that this discovery is the biggest and most important discovery of all time, and cannot jeopardize the ongoing exploration, so they agree to heighten security.
CHAPTER 7 – A flashback to his early days as an intern at NASA. He diligently performs his work, impressing everyone with his brilliance, yet he remains humble and studious. But he grows increasingly obsessed with geo-political events…of ancient history, recent history, and even current events. His obsession with the almost ancient historical book The Fourth Turning grows, and his mind’s insistence that this book is correct about the cycle, but incorrect about the basic premise that the turnings exist due to generational memory loss. But why is there some sort of global crisis every ~100 years? He also researches another person, Bartlett Cambion, who is convinced that he was abducted by aliens from Venus, and then they helped him “see the light”…this person was a universally hated capitalist who made his fortune using AI to increase production of high performance hover vehicles…while his vehicles were the most bought vehicles in the world, the amount of pollutants from his factories were choking the environment, and the vehicles were also heavy polluters….but somehow through nefarious means he was able to get government waivers and was able to accumulate massive carbon credits from the largest carbon credit supplier, Tesla, such that he could build his vehicles with impunity. The strange thing is after he was claimed he was “purified” by “Aliens” from Venus, he destroyed all of his factories and attempted to discredit and bankrupt Petro Musk, the eccentric multi-zillionaire heir of the Elan Musk empire and owner of Tesla, a company that solely trades in carbon credits to heavy polluters. Rich was obsessed with Mr Cambion, and attempted to visit him in prison. Also, he is convinced that Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, and all other horrible genocidal world leaders were actually aliens…brought to earth to create havoc in preparation for a mass landing of Aliens that were to take over Earth. And after he is released, he then becomes obsessed with historical leaders such as Al Gore, Joe Biden, and other leaders and activists such as Greta Thunberg who were fixated on climate change and its reversal…and he becomes convinced that they too were visiting Aliens meddling in Earth’s business.
Chapter 8 – It needs to build upon the excitement, terror, and drama in chapter 6 and continue to grow in those areas. My framework is short and concise, but I need you to expand this into a combination of dynamic dialogue consistent with the previous chapter’s dialogues, as well very detailed visuals worthy of an Oscar Academy winning movie, and plot excitement, drama, and suspense, worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. Here is the gist:
- Back to the current timeframe. First it needs a section where Rich is in Jefferson’s house after Jefferson rescues him. They discuss what happens briefly, but now Jefferson is thoroughly convinced that this shit is real.
- Rich discusses with Jefferson his decision to go to the authorities and get Jefferson added to the tiger team…he will convince them that he needs Jefferson AI expertise with dealing with RAIDEN and ABIGAIL, and also wants to use Jefferson’s AI robot, ADRIAN, for potential exploratory missions.
- Jefferson is concerned that this will disclose that Rich had been speaking with Jefferson about the top secret project, and reminded him of the death penalty. But Rich says he will deal with that.
- The next scene is Rich arguing with the top commanding official at NASA, his boss the Administrator General, Lisa Paradiso, who is appointed by the President and is a good friend of Rich’s.
- He just finished explaining how he was almost abducted, and that he did not trust anyone on the security team. Rich is convinced that the guard that searched his car actually put the restraint on his manual override controls. When asked, he could not recall the guard’s name or serial number, and when the Administrator demanded the Security Chief to find the logs that showed the search of Rich’s vehicle, they cannot find any. This raises suspicion that the intruder is one of the guards, causing the Security Chief to completely replace the entire team.
- As part of this, Rich explains that he had no choice but to reach out to Jefferson for help….he did not trust anyone from NASA at that point other than his long-time friend Jefferson. He also explains that Jefferson had a top secret clearance and was already working on several projects which required access to highly-classified material, and he would be the perfect scientist to have on the Shimmering Curtain project because of his vast AI expertise.
- Lisa agrees, but warns Rich that she can only stretch the law so far, and that Rich would have to stay within the boundaries. She did not want to lose Rich to some over-zealous politician looking for a scapegoat.
- So Jefferson joins the team!
- The next scene is in the command center – Lets start with Rich welcoming Jefferson to the team…he does a quick all hands meeting in the command center where there are dozens of scientists and analysts…it is a fairly somber and serious meeting. Rich explains (without going into detail as he doesn’t want to spook folks) that there was a security breach again, and for folks to expect to see a new security detail. Also he reminds everyone to be extra careful and keep an open eye. He tells them NASA isn’t sure what the reason is for the infiltration (he doesn’t want to tell the whole team the full story yet), but they suspect that it could be someone from the media or even maybe a spy from another country, but they are taking measures to tighten things up yet again.
- he then has a meeting just with his leadership team in a small, secure conference room…with Jefferson, Mike, and Sharon. He discloses to Mike and Sharon what happened the previous night…which completely floors them. He also explains his theory so far…at a high level he says he believes earth has been visited by the Beings throughout history…trying to ensure the planet is ready for them.
- He gives them the background on how leaders have been manipulated throughout the ages…and to this Mike and Sharon are dumbfounded, but they see that Rich, and Jefferson frankly, are not screwing around. As ludicrous as it sounds, they agree that it makes sense given what they have now discovered…AND with what happened to Rich the night before. This is real.
- He says he believes they will arrive in force in about 19 years and tells them why he knows that.
- They still need to analyze the Origin Homeland to get more data points…so there is a ton of work to do…lets get to it!
- The next scene is in the Command Center. RAIDEN uncovers definitive proof that the Beings discovered their Origin Homeland was being destroyed without any hope of reversing the inevitable catastrophe:
- Based on the analysis and findings from Raiden on the origin homeland, the beings realized probably 5 million years ago that their civilization would become extinct due to their excessive use of resources and lack of careful ecological planning.
- Based on this additional knowledge, the team deduces that the Beings set forth a long range plan (5 million years!) to launch some sort of Great Migration off of the Origin Homeland…but Rich and the team don’t have enough data to determine exactly what the plan is.
- So for right now, the best idea the team has is that they plan to invade other worlds…it is not totally clear if the Beings intend to be peaceful immigrants or invaders. However, Rich reminds them that they tried to abduct him, and they certainly have scouts here (and have had them here for the last thousand years at least based on the evidence)…and they haven’t reached out peacefully asking for help, so the natural deduction is that they intend to invade and take over the planet… but the discoveries are incomplete so RAIDEN has to do some level of interpretation and estimation based on writings and carvings. And so the team continues to analyze the data as it comes in.
- Based on RAIDEN’s discovery, and based on all his interactions with ghosts, crazy people, and his intuitive studies of conspiracy, Rich thinks he has it figured out! He confers with Jefferson, Mike, and Sharon on his theory. They all knew by now, based on RAIDEN’s research, that the equivalent of one sextillion individual earth-size Geo Worlds existed at the same time on the origin homeland… A vast landscape the breadth and width of the universe.
- Based on what he could decipher from the various readings, the beings embarked on an escape plan due to the inevitable catastrophe. It appears they boarded starships to land on worlds such as earth… and Rich reasoned that they were going to attempt to harness the resources and take over the planets through the use of nefarious plans such as creating despots and dictators to control the people.
- He reasoned in his mind that this explains why the ghosts were teaching him the runaway calculation at a young age. He also estimated that this escape plan would take at least one million years to plan and prepare for…timelines well beyond what any human would conceive of or even wrap their heads around.
- He reminds everyone, he is 99% sure the Beings will arrive in approximately 19 years. And while this seems like a long time, it doesn’t give the planet much time to prepare for this level of alien invasion.
- In fact, the US government, who Lisa Paradiso had to brief about Rich’s near abduction, was working on a global communication plan to notify and engage the NATO countries on this project. Frankly, they knew they would have to eventually include the enemy nations, the Free International Consortium of Nations (FICON), as this would be a global invasion by alien attackers.
- He also postulates that the Beings are invading worlds, but only temporarily, using the worlds as way-stations on their way to the New Homeland. Somehow, they would have to terraform the New Homeland, but he couldn’t figure out how they could possibly do that.
- Rich can’t figure out exactly how they’re going to do it, but it appears that they have some sort of transport technology that will allow them to completely suck the planet of all its resources, including animals, plants, oil, water, atmosphere, and the like….leaving behind desolate and dead, barren and moon-like rocks. It appears the plan is to hop across life-bearing planets, kill or manipulate the local people, steal the resources, and then hop to another planet, closer and closer to the New Homeland… And eventually settling in this new edge of the universe.
- He doesn’t know how many times the beings have raided worlds, such as earth, but statistically there had to be many worlds before Earth that would have been invaded.
- Based on what he could decipher from the various readings, the beings embarked on an escape plan due to the inevitable catastrophe. It appears they boarded starships to land on worlds such as earth… and Rich reasoned that they were going to attempt to harness the resources and take over the planets through the use of nefarious plans such as creating despots and dictators to control the people.
Chapter 9 – Rich is abducted!
- Need to do the preamble to Rich being abducted. Explain where he was, and how he put himself into a position to get abducted.
- Rich is pulled aboard a massive transport starship…he is held captive in comfortable section of the ship…clearly designed for comfortable human travel. There are only a few Beings aboard, and there are also a few very strange, barbaric…or more like primitive looking humanoids…it is obvious to Rich these are the Dalithearns. Rich is keenly focused on them to understand how they fit in to the Being’s civilization. They seem to do all of the physical work, including moving Rich around and securing him as necessary. The Beings seem frail and weak, but do not seem to be too hampered physically…it appears they are wearing some sort of exoskeleton suit of sorts that seems to augment and assist in their movement. But clearly they don’t do much, at all, physically, The Dalithearns seem to do all of the work. And while they look violent, they are very quiet, subservient, are well dressed, and are quick to do all of the Being’s bidding.
- The Beings tell Rich that he is a critical link in the complex chain of events that is occurring…very recent events have crippled the Being’s plans to migrate to a new world. They explain that they only have a very brief amount of time to speak with Rich, and they have created a full explanation in a mind-melding contraption that he would need to wear…it would take him roughly 6 weeks to assimilate the materials so he could understand the plight of the Beings, and what they are asking of him.
- Rich asks why the Beings cannot take the time to explain and discuss the dilemma they were in, and the Being in charge nervously explains that they have to remain in suspended animation otherwise they will not be able to survive the final stages of the “migration”. They only can stay in the current physical state for brief periods, and this is why they are on Earth less and less periods of time. The Being explains that coming out of and entering back into Suspended Animation requires massive energy and also takes a physical toll on the Beings.
- Rich is obviously very suspicious…what if the mind contraption brainwashes him like he has seen others on Earth brainwashed? He angrily tells them to get on with it…explain the situation while they were awake.
- The Being in charge tells him that it was of utmost importance that Earth ensure it maintains its resources…and that advancement, vehicles, exploration, and even space travel would doom the planet. He reminded Rich of the formula for the runaway condition…where Earth goes past the point of no return and it destroys itself. They implored Rich to use his scientific status to convince World leaders to conserve and revert to a simpler time.
- Rich makes it clear that he totally understand why the Beings want Earth to do this….the Beings have nefarious plans to suck the resources out of the Earth for their own use. They just want Earth’s resources.
- The Beings sigh and state that the Great Migration is for everybody, including Earthlings…they will be able to inhabit the New Homeland as well. Rich is not convinced, and in fact tells them that no earthling would ever abandon their home planet go live on a flat earth….but agrees to their ask, but only in order to get returned to Earth so he could plan how to resist this nefarious plot of the Beings. Rich asks how many other worlds such as Earth are being used and depleted for their Great Migration…the Beings hesitate and explain that that is what they want Rich to help with…there are many more worlds, even within the Milky Way, in a similar state as Earth, and they need to reverse the inevitable destruction of these worlds in order to get to the New Homeland. They emphasized that it was imperative for the worlds to revert back to a simpler time to ensure the resources don’t get destroyed…otherwise all mankind throughout the universe would be destroyed. And only they, the Beings, had the technology to utilize the worlds’ resources to properly start and complete the necessary succession process…they start to explain, but Rich interrupts them and tells them he knows of the 5 stages of ecological succession: nudation, invasion, competition and co-action, reaction, and stabilization.
- The Beings, clearly getting more and more distressed and fatigued by being out of suspended animation, have to cut the discussion off…giving him instruction in exactly how to use the mind-melding system.
CHAPTER 10 – Rich returns
- Once he returns, Rich has to debrief his superiors, who then brief the President. Rich provides enough proof to show his claims are irrefutable, and he is given the go-ahead to carry on with his mission.
- Rich futilely tries to figure out how to break into the mind-melding contraption without actually wearing it…he does not want to risk being brainwashed, so he tries to break into the data store or memory in the device, but to no avail. He believes he has damaged it, and he throws it into the corner in frustration
- A smaller Being spacecraft arrives, but this time the Being is captured by Rich and Mike. Unfortunately, the Being is able to somehow escape, but his space craft is left behind. By some miracle, they are able to evade the prying eyes of his superiors and the government…and they lock the space craft into a secure holding area in the NASA compound.
- Rich is convinced that he needs to initiate an expedition to other worlds within the galaxy, otherwise Earth faces certain doom. But he and his scientists have no experience in deep space nor do they have any idea how to operate the space ship.
- But Rich and the team are able to activate ABIGAIL, a similar AI robot as Raiden, but updated with the latest AI core.
- ABIGAIL quickly learns how to pilot it and to control its many capabilities. Once on board, Rich and his team discover that the beings are vulnerable just like humans and require oxygen and cannot tolerate toxic environments.
- ABIGAIL trains the humans on how to use the life preserving exosuits together with the nuclear powered survival systems that provide protection and oxygen. The suits are formfitting, lightweight, yet also have an exoskeleton that provides them with additional strength, as well as protection against extreme heat, cold, toxic gases, and other extreme conditions. The suits can also self propel and steer in the event that they get sucked into space.
- Rich knows from his discussion with the Being Superior that there are other planets that the Beings are trying to overtake. He asks ABIGAIL to search the ships database, and ABIGAIL quickly finds several Carrying Worlds in the Milky Way galaxy. The spacecraft uses its log base hyperdrive, and they’re able to quickly travel to the closest carrying world.
- Rich also gives ABIGAIL the task to jail-break the Mind-Melding device so he could learn of the Beings intentions.
- Once they approach the planet, they do not land, as this would jeopardize safety and also would take far too much time. They use the ships powerful cameras, probing systems, and analysis tools…all of which ABIGAIL mastered and was able to use proficiously. On this planet, they discover a fairly robust population of Dalithearn, in two separate sub-species ABIGAIL explains are Grypthian and Pedrocanin, which he think look like cro-magnum and Neanderthal beings…identical to the Dalithearn that Rich encountered in the Being’s spacecraft. These humanoids lived in small primitive huts and appeared to hunt and gather for food. They appeared peaceful and friendly. Also on the planet were millions of animals, plants and insects. But the world was like a virgin earth…with no indication or presence of Beings present on the world.
- Confused by the state of this world, they ask ABIGAIL to identify and locate another world that contained intelligent life. She successfully identifies a world with intelligent life, and they immediately set out for it.
- For safety again, they did not attempt to land, but used the remote monitoring tools like they did on the prior planet. They find this planet in a disaster state… It is ruled by despot’s and dictators. It is vastly overpopulated, and the population are set up in a brutal and cruel caste system… Where they are repressed and enslaved, and there are just a few rulers. It is clear this world is in a state of catastrophe.
- They are discovered, and this world deploys their weapons and aircraft to intercept them. But their technologies are no match for the Beings advanced space craft, and Rich and the team safely escape.
- Rich and the team are astounded that the aliens on the world look just like humans on earth, and the dress is very similar… As are the buildings and even the languages.
CHAPTER 11 – Rich’s theory was wrong!
- Rich and his team return to earth, but unfortunately are unable to evade his superiors and the government. The government threatens to remove him from the project, but his superiors insist that Rich is the only person to lead this mission given the daunting scientific and quantum theory requirements…he has to have the authority to direct the mission in its entirety. The government reluctantly agree, but insist on having an agent be added to the team, and require periodic and comprehensive updates and reports.
- RAIDEN makes an incredible discovery. He finds an away point used to transport Beings to some location…it appears to be a location on a planet orbiting a star right outside the Shimmering Curtain. And then, an incredible stroke of luck as RAIDEN uncovers a hermetically sealed piece of technology that appears to be some sort of projector…RAIDEN takes it back to JupiterONE and attempts to repair it and get it working. He manages to get a 5 second clip of what appears to be clothed Neanderthal men, women, and children going through some sort of quarantine. He deduces this is what the word Neander refers to. There are also brief flashes during the clip of what appeared to be government type officials herding the Neanderthals along. The Beings look very human but all have a characteristic of some sort of ethnic background, but not enough to determine exactly what ethnicity….maybe Eastern European or an Asian and Caucasian type of mix, but with very specific types of eyes…like the lids were very heavy, but much larger eyes than people of typical Asian decent.
- Then RAIDEN makes a new discovery – he has discovered multiple hours of historical video from one of the last launches of beings on their ships.
- Rich and the team watch intently… As cro-magnum and Neanderthals are herded on two massive ships, together with Beings that are in charge of the transport missions. They watch intently from the ships cameras as they make their way past the shimmering curtain, but what they see completely astound them.
- The mysterious person is caught on camera again, and he is looking increasingly sicker and distressed. Rich has a strange feeling about the person caught on camera, and he obsessively keeps rewinding the tape to observe the person…but he cannot get a clear view of his face. He is dressed in normal business casual type of clothes….nothing out of the ordinary…except he doesn’t belong in the NASA building. How is he getting in and past the check points and guards?
- For on the other side of the shimmering curtain, there is an astonishing array of dimly lit spheres… At first, they look like planets, but in fact, they are stars that are modulated, such that they are not burning their gases intensely, rather it appears as if they were idling in space… With each one of the stars and circling them across the vast distances, Rich and his team identify planets… what appears to be billions planetary systems… in an absolutely perfect matrix, each central sphere equidistant to all other spheres in a cubic array…clearly millions of miles apart, but close enough to see the tight matrix. As they zoomed in one star system, they were able to identify an earth-like planet circling the sphere.
- This starship containing the cro-magnums, Neanderthals, and beings headed towards one such star system… And approaches and lands on what Rich believes is the earth… But as it gets closer its clear that the land masses are nothing like earths continental shapes. The ships land, and the beings herd the Neanderthals and Crowe magnums off the ships. And then the beings returned back to the origin homeland to continue the process of transporting more cro-magnums and Neanderthals to the other worlds.
- Raiden finds additional footage… it appears some of the Beings are transported to gaseous planets where they disappear into clouds. What is so confusing, while there were hundreds of thousands and likely millions of Cro-Magnum‘s and Neanderthals launched onto each earth-like planet, it appears that there are only tens of thousands of beings transported to the gaseous planets in the planetary systems. Rich deduces that the leaders were transported to the gaseous planets for some sort of hibernation, while the brutes and lesser ranking Beings were transported to the Earth-like planets, where they would live across multiple generations until the Great Migration finally delivers them to the New Homeland.
- Raiden finds even more footage… And Rich and his team are astonished yet again, this time it is footage from the transport ships leaving the Origin Homeland and piercing through the Shimmering Curtain….and now Rich for the first time has complete visibility to a vast array of lightly glowing spheres…but this time each sphere, as if on queue, ignites into a fiery ball, too bright to look at for long, and the planetary systems, immediately launch into the blackness of space, transforming from the orderly, cubic matrix array where each star is equidistant in a cubic formation, but upon launching they quickly form whirlwind galaxies, and immediately launch into the night… and this is repeated millions of times throughout the sky.
- This blows Rich and the scientist’s minds. The worlds, planets, suns, stars, and galaxies, do not exist in space naturally. They are man-made structures! They are Galaxy Spaceships designed to travel across the universe to transport the Beings and all the resources to the New Homeland.
- Our Earth is not a permanent home! It is a ship….rather it is a small part of a ship. And we, and all of Earth’s resources, are mere payloads being transported across the universe for this Great Migration!
- The beings have been here all along, riding the Galaxy starship and commanding it from various planets in each solar system!
- All the chemicals, fluids, and gases that are in the planets in the solar system are exactly what is needed to take the barren and desolate virgin New Origin Homeland and turn it into an environment that will sustain life. Rich can really begin to connect the dots.
- They discover that the earth is designed to mimic the Origin Homeland (night, day, seasons, gravity, etc…)…it is not natural, it was designed this way. The night and day of earth due to the earths rotation, and the seasonal changes due to the earths rotation around the sun, and gravity, are actually just facsimiles architected by the rotations to mimic what actually happens on the Origin Homeland….at some point the team needs to have a sudden realization moment that RAIDEN has been on the Origin Homeland for about a year, and there are nights and days that last 24 hours, and seasons that occur exactly the same as the seasons on earth, tides that are exactly like earth, and the like. And upon querying RAIDEN, RAIDEN discovers that the Shimmering Curtain provides all these capabilities naturally.
CHAPTER 12 – Making sense of it all
- Raiden2 successfully downloads the Mind-Melding data into an Execution Blueprint, and Rich and the team pore into it. What they find is astonishing, but also appears incomplete. But from the Blueprint, Rich determines why the Beings are desperate:
- The Beings are growing desperate because they are at the point where they may not have enough Galaxies to successfully cross the Great Chasm….based on their hyper-advanced analytic and prediction models that they used before they launched their Galaxy Starships, their calculations were that only a small percentage of the starships would successfully make it to the New Origin Homeland. Best case, roughly 5% would make it across, and they needed a minimum of 3% in order to survive once there. Therefore, every Solar Ship is critically essential. Otherwise, the entire species of the universe would go extinct. Worst case is less than 3% make it, which would surely bring the extinction of the Being’s civilization, and all known life in the universe.
- The Origin Homeland had roughly 1 sextillion Geo Worlds, and 1 billion GEO Worlds were structured together to build a single galaxy. This resulted in the creation of 1 trillion galaxies. These are the galaxies that we, in our time, see in the sky. We actually had estimated twice this many, but this was erroneous due to the reflection from the Blackhole behind the Origin Homeland.
- If only 3% survive the 18,130,014 year journey, then this would result in only 30 quintillion worlds surviving….and this was the absolute minimum number for the Beings to have critical mass to recreate their universe-sized civilization on the New Origin Homeland. They need the people, the materials, gases, resources, etc….from these 30 quintillion worlds in order to start and complete the necessary succession process (The 5 stages of ecological succession are nudation, invasion, competition and co-action, reaction, and stabilization or climax.)
- Also, it should also be realized that the galaxies and cosmic bodies will all dissipate and become no more over a 5 million year period due to the log base phenomenon. That is, the galaxies are speeding up and will reach the New Origin Homeland in the range of approximately the years 2400 through 2500, depending on the exact launch date of each Galaxy Starship. They have no other possibility for survival except to get to the other side with their worlds intact.
- The timing of each Galaxy is critically important, and each Galaxy has a Starship Command Center located on a large gaseous planet in one of the planetary systems within the Galaxy. Upon close arrival to the New Homeland, each Command Center in each Galaxy is automatically retrieved out of suspended animation in order to ensure the Galaxy automatically reverses hyper-drive before it collides with the New Homeland, otherwise the Galaxy commander has to manually override the system to bring the Galaxy to a halt. Otherwise, that Galaxy would be destroyed upon collision with the New Homeland.
- This was the Being’s last chance of survival, as the Beings exhausted all they had to build the Galaxy Starships, and it will take thousands of years once on the other side to completely replenish their technical capabilities.
- Tikadaru Grobanu, the Universe Commander of the Origin Homeland, prior to the launch of the Galaxy Starships said, “A Great Migration of this magnitude will almost certainly result in complete failure, no matter how advanced the technology and how resolute the civilization. But it is our only chance of survival. We must carry on.”
- Certain Beings, called Sentinels, would come out of suspended animation periodically to analyze the Galaxy starships, and to monitor the Carrying Worlds (what Rich and the team learn to be the Earth-like planets that have the stuff of life plus humans), as well as the other resource planets. The Execution Blueprint reveals that there were several resources being transported, and in each planetary system, each planet in that system contained the resources needed for that particular GEO World once it establishes itself on the New Homeland. “Fascinating!” Rich is awestruck by these implications….it means that Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, ALL of the planets, even Pluto, were effectively specialized transport vehicles for their payload, be it gases, minerals, metals, or whatever! “Brilliant” he exclaims. And the team learns that there were only finite numbers of Planetary systems that contained Carrying Worlds…the rest of the celestial bodies and stars were merely part of the propulsion and energy system needed to get across the universe within the 2 million year period. The
- But he wonders why the Beings don’t go into too much detail about the Earth-like worlds…sure, he can accept that these worlds contained the necessary stuff of life, but why the huge effort to revert these worlds back to a primitive time? This made no sense to Rich and the team.
- And then Rich and the team get to the section in the Blueprint where the Beings discover after about 1,500,000 years of travel many of the Carrying Worlds were destroying themselves…developing nuclear weapons systems, consuming all of the World’s resources, polluting the environment, creating runaway global warming situations, and the like….all but destining the Worlds to be destroyed before arrving at the New Homeland. It was clear that the Beings discovered many worlds, like Earth, on a seemingly hopeless path towards destruction….almost completely eliminating hope of recreating a New Origin Homeland, seriously jeopardizing the completion of the mission.
- According to the Blueprint, the Beings sent benevolent emissaries, scientists, and leaders to try and revert the worlds back to their virgin and clean states. They claimed that they benevolently infiltrated government and scientific communities to provide secretive and subtle scientific knowledge transfers, and attempted to influence certain high-influence or brilliantly-minded scientists, but could not reveal the overall mission because this would create panic and possibly an uprising since the thought of colliding with some sort of landmass would be too much for the relatively naïve and scientifically unsophisticated civilizations to comprehend and absorb. They admitted to going so far as to abduct some humans, but they had to cease this strategy because the humans were starting to figure this out…so the Beings spread misinformation to make it appear that these were all crazy people or people trying to get attention. The Blueprint stated that the Beings were also beginning to exhaust their very tenuous supplies of resources needed for the rest of their suspended animation…they were in suspended animation for over 1.5 million years and they could not jeopardize their own lives. Going to the earthly worlds was incredibly risky and dangerous, and they only had a very finite number of Beings capable of managing the Great Migration, and most importantly, to drive the 5 stages of ecological succession, which included the herculean task of offloading the payloads from the various planets, and then powering down and dissipating each Galaxy.
- And the Blueprint fully explained the Log Base Phenomenon…Rich realizes why the Log Base formula has a mass element to it… why JupiterONE and JupiterTWO could take advantage of the Log Base Phenomenon, but the Galaxy Starships seemingly did not, at least to the extent of the smaller crafts. The smaller in mass the object is, the higher the Log Base is. The Log Base for the Galaxies approaches 1.000000112…but each year the base increases, and the speed of the Galaxy Starship increases. Rich deduces, correctly, why the Beings had to make so many Galaxies, as opposed to just one massive Galaxy to transport the resources and Beings across the Universe. If the Galaxy were too big, it would never reach the necessary velocity to get to the New Homeland within the 2 million year time period…apparently the limit for the suspended animation technology to last.
- As an aside in this chapter, Mike solves for the age of the Earth (4.5 Billion years), whereas the Earth has only been traveling on this Great Migration for about 1.5 million years. But Mike discovers that the Earth consists of materials from the Origin Homeland, and this material was formed 4.5 billion years ago.
- Also, Sharon solves why it appears the Milky Way is only traveling at roughly .20% of the speed of light today…but in reality it is far beyond lightspeed…and it is based on the Log Base Phenomenon.
- The Beings left the Origin Homeland 1,567,000 years ago (they have been traveling this long so far), and traveled over 25 billion lightyears.
- Due to the mass of Galaxies (the Log Base Phenomenon has a MASS component…which RAIDEN did not take into account since the mass of the Spacecraft is so small…1.04×10-24 in Solar masses…versus the mass of a Galaxy which is 1.5×1012 in Solar masses
- As an object approaches zero mass, the Log Base approaches 1.6113, and as an object approaches infinity, the Log Base approaches 1….for a Galaxy (which is 1.5×1012 Solar masses), the Log Base is 1.0000012.
- The simplified formula is this:
- f(x,y) = (e−100(y)) X 1.6113x + (1 − e−100(y)) X (1.0000012 X f'(x))x
Where f'(x) is a function of time that increases the Log Base.
- f(x,y) = (e−100(y)) X 1.6113x + (1 − e−100(y)) X (1.0000012 X f'(x))x
- WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???
- It means the Galaxy will reach the edge in 19 years!!!!!
- The realization that the Great Migration would reach the New Homeland in about 20 years makes Rich and the team very suspicious of everything the Beings conveyed in the Execution Blueprint. How could the Carrying Worlds possibly all destroy themselves in less than twenty years? Something else was driving the Being’s paranoia and urgency.
CHAPTER 13 – The Origin Colonist’s True Mission – Revealed
- Out of desperation, Rich decides to arrange an exhibition to Venus. He brings his team, as well as a dozen well-armed soldiers plus the government agent (at the insistence of the government). He also forced to onboard a small nuclear warhead for a doomsday scenario, but he is loathe to even considering using it.
- Once on Venus, they don the exo-suits and Raiden2 proceeds to map out the locations of the Being’s command center.
- What they find astounds them….hundreds of thousands of tubelike incubation systems…each with a Being in suspended animation. A cadre of Beings, together with a platoon of brutes accost the exhibition party, but they are quickly overwhelmed by the soldiers, and are captured and placed into military handcuffs. The agent injects a drug into the Being…he explains to Rich that this is necessary in order to ensure the Being would tell the entire truth. “Hmmm, truth serum , eh?” Rich sardonically replies.
- The interrogation commences, and Rich learns the truth of the Beings Great Migration
- The use of automated robots with AI has been strictly forbidden for the last several hundred million years because of the inevitable outcome that the Beings would be overtaken by the AI robots within a 10,000 year period…every one of their extensively engineered simulations arrived at that conclusion, and so they strictly forbid ANY use of AI robotics.
- The Beings have evolved over millions of years, evolving and advancing their intellectual and scientific capabilities…this required extensive physiological advancements of their cranium capabilities, and 90% of their energies were focused there. Over the eons, the Beings were unable to perform the necessary physical labors of the Origin Homeland, and from this they developed a brutal caste system to use the physical capabilities of the Dalithears. So, it goes without any more explanation why Dalithears are so important to the Beings civilization, and why they created and maintained this brutal caste system.
- On the Origin Homeland the Dalithearn have been genetically altered such that they could not breed inter-subspecies, and thus eliminating their ability to evolve. This is why there were two sub-species of Dalithearn species, known as the Grypthian and Pedrocanin…and what humans refer to as Cro-Magnum and Neanderthal. They were a critical part of the overall ecosystem of the Origin Homeland.
- Rich immediately comes to the conclusion – this is why the caste system naturally occurs on Earth…the Beings, that is, the humans like Rich, Mike, and the away team are all descendants of the Beings that were placed on earth with the Dalithearns…and history has shown that humans constantly attempt to force slavery and a brutal caste system on many races and populations across the world. In fact, almost every civilization did this. So naturally, as former Beings themselves, humans naturally carried on this way of life, or at least tried to.
- But the Being that was being interrogated refuted this.
- In fact, he said, not a single Being was put on the Carrying Worlds. The Carrying Worlds only transported Dalithearns…Grypthians and Pedrocanins, and the Beings that participated in the Migration were all put into suspended animation. “How could that be possible?” Rich demanded to know. “There must have been billions of Beings in each GEO World on the Origin Homeland… you couldn’t have possibly have put that many into suspended animation!” And the implications of this were beginning to overwhelm Rich…he and his fellow humans did not evolve from Beings, but actually evolved from the Dalithearn…and this was the common theory of evolution taught to most everyone on Earth.
- And the Being agreed…it was not possible. So many of the Beings would have to stay and eventually perish on the Origin Homeland. Only the leaders, scientists, and those that had the necessary skills to create and transform the New Homeland participated in the Great Migration.
- He explained that the Carrying Worlds were tiny little ecosystems designed specifically for the Great Migration. Their extensive analytic and prediction modelling repeatedly showed that the Beings would destroy the Carry Worlds within 100,000 years due to the lack of long-term resources, and the fragile ecosystem of such a small surface area. It did not have the unlimited energy field of the Shimmering Curtain…the Beings had to artificially recreate this energy through the rotational energies of the planetary bodies, and by including radioactive reactions on the suns. And they could not harness the power of the Super Massive Black Hole that resided on the opposite side of the Origin Homeland (“Aha!” Rich thought. “That’s what’s on the other side!”)
- The Beings would simply run out of everything, and over the generations they would soon have institutional memory loss, and completely destroy themselves without knowing the true consequences of their actions.
- Therefore, the interrogated Being stated, it was a critical design requirement that no Being could be allowed to be transported on any of the Carrying Worlds. And just as important, the Dalithearn could not be allowed to evolve.
- So since the worlds are only temporary, unable to withstand long-term evolution…they are merely vessels intended for temporary travel to get to the other side. This is why it was critical that only the primitive Dalithearn would be allowed to travel on the Earth, and the rest of the Beings would have to go into suspended animation.
- And while the Dalithearn had been genetically altered such that they could not breed interracially, and thus limiting their ability to evolve, somehow at the molecular level this was eventually eradicated on the Galaxy Starship worlds, and thus many of the Carrying Worlds had evolved humans and the problems associated with them on the tiny worlds.
- The Beings desperately tried to push the humans back to the stone age because ultimately they are the Being’s slaves, the untouchables, the physical labor, that the Beings need in order to survive. Over their millions of years of evolution, they have very little physical capability as they rely almost 100% on the physical capability of the Dalithears.
- All of this realization came crashing back to Rich…recalling the book by Pulitzer wining author Isabel Wilkerson about Caste, and the puzzle finally coming together. Caste has been a part of society throughout the world’s history…slavery, Nazi Germany, India, New Zealand, Pullman, Communist China, the USSR! It goes on and on.
- Need to have a section where it is realized that suspended animation for almost 2 million years…and this takes massive resources.
- Also, the Beings cannot also reside on the planet and have their generations survive for the eventual landing on the New Origin Homeland.
- The worlds are only temporary, unable to withstand long-term evolution…they are merely vessels intended for temporary travel to get to the other side.
- This is why it was critical that only the primitive Dalithearn would be allowed to travel on the Earth, and the rest of the Beings would have to go into suspended animation.
- The Being’s advanced models showed that after several hundred thousand generations, the Beings would destroy themselves.
- On the Origin Homeland the Dalithearn have been genetically altered such that they could not breed interracially, and thus limiting their ability to evolve, but somehow at the molecular level this was eventually eradicated on the Galaxy Starship worlds, and thus all worlds had evolved humans and the problems associated with them on the tiny worlds.
- Also, the Beings cannot also reside on the planet and have their generations survive for the eventual landing on the New Origin Homeland.
- The Galaxy Starships are able to communicate between them. And they use Quantum Entanglement technology.
- After 1.23 million years, the Beings communicate between themselves and they discover the entire mission is failing…they are losing Beings and Galaxy Starships are going extinct all over…almost every Starship is experiencing this.
- And then Rich and the team learn that , unfortunately, what the Beings discovered after about 1,500,000 years of travel was that the Dalithears were evolving…and evolving quickly. This was despite the fact they were all genetically altered since before the ancient times such that they could not breed interracially (there were two breed of Dalithears…the Grypthian and Pedrocanin…what we call the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal) and thus eliminating their ability to evolve. But somehow at the molecular level this was reversed on some of the Galaxy Starship worlds, and thus many worlds had evolved humans…and these tiny worlds were not big enough nor had enough resources to contain the level of advancements and innovations that humans would inevitably create….thus destroying many of the worlds, and putting many worlds, like Earth, on a seemingly hopeless path towards destruction….almost completely eliminating hope of recreating a New Origin Homeland. This cross-breeding and evolution occurred on over 70% of the planetary systems in the Universe, seriously jeopardizing the completion of the mission.
- The Beings only hope was to send emissaries, scientists, and soldiers to try and revert the worlds back to their primitive states. And they tried to do this through a combination of brute force, secretive and subtle scientific transfers, and the attempt to co-opt and brainwash certain high-influence or brilliantly-minded scientists. They went so far as to abduct some humans, but they had to cease this strategy because the humans were starting to figure this out (despite the beings making it appear that these were all crazy people or people trying to get attention). The Beings were also beginning to exhaust their very tenuous supplies of resources needed for the rest of their suspended animation…they were in suspended animation for over 1.5 million years and they could not jeopardize their own lives. Going to the earthly worlds was incredibly risky and dangerous, and they only had a very finite number of Beings left.
User
Ok. Lets work on the Chapters.
Chapter 3: Launching of the “Twins”
May 28, 2350 – 50 Years Ago:
Kennedy Space Center FL
Dawn at Kennedy Space Center heralded not just a new day but a new era in human exploration. The launch of JupiterONE, the first of the twins, was a national spectacle and a monumental event, marking America’s resurgence on the cosmic stage. This spacecraft, poised majestically on the launch pad, its sleek silhouette sharply contrasting against the early morning sky, symbolized a profound source of pride for a nation recently rejuvenated by the visionary leadership of the charismatic leader, President John Chalmers.
The air was electric with anticipation as dignitaries from around the globe joined thousands of spectators who had declared the day a national holiday to witness this historic event. President Chalmers, whose election had marked the turning point from the oppressive Pullman Dynasty, delivered a rousing send-off speech. His words resonated deeply, not just as a send-off but as a reaffirmation of human potential and resilience. “Today,” he proclaimed, “we reach for the stars not just to discover new worlds, but to reaffirm our spirit and capabilities.” As the final checks were conducted, the buzz of the crowds and the solemnity of the mission team underscored the gravity of the moment—JupiterONE was more than a spacecraft; it was a beacon of hope, embarking on a journey to the outer edges of our understanding and the first spacecraft capable of lightspeed travel.
More impressive than the incredible innovation of lightspeed propulsion, was the fact this stunning research and development could be accomplished within 75 years of the United States recovering from almost 200 years of massive decline…a barbaric period of slipping backwards into time…thanks to President Pullman and his cronies.
But today aboard the pioneering vessel JupiterONE, nestled within the array of scientific instruments and pioneering technologies, was a crowning technological achievement almost as incredible as light-speed travel – RAIDEN. Crafted by the meticulous engineers at Boston Dynamics, RAIDEN represented the pinnacle of artificial intelligence and robotics at the time of its creation. Designed with fully articulated limbs and a chassis resilient to the extremities of space, RAIDEN was not merely a robot; it was an autonomous explorer, capable of navigating the unpredictable terrains of distant worlds and conducting complex scientific experiments.
RAIDEN’s self-learning AI was its core, allowing it to adapt and evolve, to make decisions in the silence of space where no human could reach it. This self-sufficiency made it an invaluable member of the mission—capable of repairing systems, managing emergencies, and carrying on the objectives of the mission long after human control faded away.
Equipped to withstand the cosmic radiation and cold vacuum, RAIDEN’s energy core was a marvel in itself—a hybrid of nuclear and solar technology designed to last a million years, ensuring it would outlive generations of human innovation. The inclusion of RAIDEN on JupiterONE was a statement of human ambition, a testament to the belief that even in the vast and uncharted reaches of space, the spirit of human exploration could endure.
And across the continent thousands of miles away, in the modest living room of the Cranston family home in San Francisco, a young Richie Cranston, just five years old, sat perched on the carpet, his eyes wide with childlike wonder. The television broadcasted live from Kennedy Space Center, where JupiterONE, the embodiment of mankind’s ambitions, awaited its inaugural journey to the stars. Even at such a tender age, Richie was captivated by the stars, his young mind already grasping at the threads of the universe’s vast tapestry.
Richie’s parents, academics themselves, recognized an early curiosity in their son—a burgeoning passion for the cosmos that outshone his peers. As the family watched the spacecraft on the screen, Richie’s mother squeezed his hand, whispering, “Watch closely, Richie. You’re witnessing history. This is the start of something big.”
The anticipation in the air was electric as the countdown commenced. Richie, entranced by the images flickering across the screen, felt his heartbeat in tandem with the cadence of the mission control’s voice. “Three… Two… One… Liftoff.” The roar of the engines, the fiery ascent—JupiterONE was piercing the heavens, embarking on its celestial voyage.
Richie sat with his legs crossed, unblinking as he watched the footage of JupiterONE tearing into the sky. His young mind, though wrapped in the innocence of childhood, possessed an intellect that burned as brightly as the rocket’s engines. His parents, both respected professors, fostered a household where intellectual curiosity wasn’t just encouraged; it was the very air they breathed.
“Momma, do you think the quantum entanglement communicator will work?” Richie’s voice was steady, belying his age. He’d devoured books on quantum physics, understanding their complexities far beyond his years.
His father chuckled, ruffling his son’s hair. “If it does, we’ll enter a new era of space communication. But what makes you ask, Richie?”
Richie pondered, his gaze never leaving the screen. “Because if we can talk across space instantly, maybe we can finally understand if…” He trailed off, the thought of apparitions and ancient alien theories flickering through his mind.
His mother followed his train of thought with a knowing look. “Understand if there really are other beings in the cosmos, and this would be the way to talk across the stars to them?”
Richie nodded, his imagination alight with the images of pharaohs and star maps. “Exactly…maybe they are just like us, trying to reach out across the universe.”
As the final echoes of the rocket’s ascent faded into the cosmos, the room settled into a thoughtful silence. Richie’s eyes were distant, lost in a daydream that seemed to stretch beyond the confines of their home. His father, Dr. Nathan Cranston, watched his son with a blend of curiosity and paternal pride.
“Papa, do you think it’s possible?” Richie suddenly asked, breaking the silence. “That what people think are ghosts… could they actually be aliens trying to communicate with us?”
Nathan set his glasses aside, meeting his son’s questioning eyes. “Well, Richie, the universe is vast, and there are many things we don’t understand. Who’s to say what’s possible?”
“But I mean, why would they choose to walk amongst us? Why not just reveal themselves?” Richie’s questions tumbled out faster than Nathan could catch them.
“Maybe they have,” Nathan pondered aloud, “and we’ve called them ‘ghosts’ because we don’t have a better explanation. Or maybe they only reveal themselves to certain people.”
“Like who?” Richie probed further, his mind racing with possibilities.
“Like someone who can understand them, who can see beyond the limitations of our knowledge,” Nathan replied, thinking aloud. “Someone like you, Richie.”
Richie’s eyes gleamed with a mixture of excitement and something deeper, something that betrayed an experience beyond his years. “They do talk to me, Papa. They show me things.”
Nathan’s heart skipped a beat, and an old fear resurfaced—a fear seeded in his own early diagnosis of schizophrenia during his teenage years, a condition he managed to conquer but always feared might manifest in Richie. “Things, Richie? What kinds of things?”
With the seriousness of a seasoned academic, Richie explained, “They’ve shown me an equation, Papa.” He paused, gathering his thoughts before diving into a sea of mathematics that would challenge even the most experienced environmental scientists. “Papa, the ghosts, they’ve been teaching me equations. Not just any—they’re about our planet, about a tipping point.”
Nathan, with a serious look and nervously scratching his cheek, encouraged Richie to continue, though he felt a pang of anxiety. Nathan knew it was best to keep his worries hidden, not wanting to imbue his son with unnecessary fears or stigmatize his unique experiences. “Equations? What kind of equations, Richie?”
Richie’s gaze drifted to the blank television screen, now a black mirror reflecting a boy wise beyond his years. “It’s like this, Papa,” he began, his voice a conduit for a profound understanding. “If R(t) represents the amount of a resource left at time t, and R0 is the amount we started with, then the equation is:
R(t)=R0⋅e−kt
It describes how resources diminish over time, exponentially.”
“But this runaway condition or tipping point….well, more a concept of a feedback loop where the rate of resource depletion increases as resources become scarcer due to the dependencies within the ecological and economic systems. I guess this could be represented by a modified version of the equation where k itself changes over time like this:
k(t)=k0⋅(1+αt)
This is where k0 is the initial decay constant and α is the rate at which the decay constant increases over time due to the feedback loop….and if you substitute this back into the original equation, this would be the model for the tipping point, which becomes more complex as k is no longer a constant but a function of time, which indicates the feedback loop’s acceleration of resource depletion.”
Nathan, with a serious look and nervously scratching his cheek, encouraged Richie to continue.
“Keep in mind, Papa, this is a simplified representation. The real-world scenario would require a multidisciplinary approach, integrating various scientific fields to create a comprehensive model. We have to take into account the interconnectedness of Earth’s systems and foresee the acceleration of resource depletion through the full understanding of these complex interactions.”
Elena, clutching a cushion to her chest, whispered, “Richie, what exactly are the ‘ghosts’ trying to tell you? What does that mean?” Her voice trembled slightly with the weight of her concerns. She had spent countless hours researching the hereditary aspects of schizophrenia, always vigilant for any signs in Richie, ready to seek early intervention to minimize any impact on his future.
“It means,” Richie continued, “that as time goes on, we use up resources faster than we realize. The ‘k’ in the equation,” he pointed at an imaginary blackboard, “is the decay constant. But it’s not constant, it’s increasing because of how we live, because of the feedback loop. It’s getting faster, and we’re reaching a point where it will spiral out of our control.”
Nathan, a mathematician, could follow the boy’s reasoning but struggled to believe what he was hearing. “And you’ve learned this from… ghosts?”
“They’re not ghosts,” Richie corrected with a frown, “they’re visitors. They say I need to help change it. To reverse the equation before it’s too late.”
“Change the equation, Richie? How?” Nathan asked, the academic in him intrigued despite the situation’s surreality.
Richie’s fingers danced in the air, sketching invisible numbers and symbols. “We need to alter the value of ‘k,’ make it smaller. Turn the consumption around, make R(t) grow, not shrink. The visitors said we have the power to do this if we act together, if we act soon.”
“And they’ve told you all this?” Elena asked, her voice barely above a whisper, fear and pride intermingling in her eyes.
Richie nodded. “They said Earth’s resources aren’t just for us. They’re needed for something bigger, a catastrophe we can’t even imagine. We need to save them, save our planet, not just for us but for…for what’s to come.”
Elena reached out, her hand trembling as she brushed her son’s hair back. “Oh, Richie, these are very heavy thoughts for such a young mind.”
Nathan pulled Richie into his arms, a protective gesture. “We don’t have to figure this out tonight, son. Let’s just focus on growing up, learning, and if these ‘ghosts’ of yours are real… we’ll listen. Together.”
As Richie nestled against his father, the ‘ghosts’—whispers of an alien guidance—faded into the background, their message delivered. It was a message filled with forewarning and a call to action that would one day set Richie on a path of cosmic discovery and a mission of consequence.
The journey of JupiterONE became a staple in the Cranston household. Richie’s investment in the mission bordered on the profound. His days and nights melded into one continuous vigil, with every transmission from the spacecraft eagerly awaited and devoured. His young mind, a whirlpool of quantum mechanics and interstellar mysteries, saw in JupiterONE’s mission a beacon of understanding, a lifeline extended by the enigmatic “ghosts” that whispered secrets of the cosmos to him.
But then, five months into its groundbreaking voyage, JupiterONE’s steady stream of communication ceased without warning. The abrupt silence that followed was more than just the loss of a spacecraft’s signal; to Richie, it was as if the universe itself had suddenly turned its back, plunging him into an isolating darkness. The voices of the “ghosts,” his unseen mentors, faded away, leaving him stranded on an island of confusion and fear.
This sudden silence triggered in Richie an intense psychological turmoil. His obsession with the mission, his belief in the guidance of the “ghosts,” had been his anchor, a constant in the sea of his extraordinary intellect and imagination. The disappearance of JupiterONE shattered this foundation, catapulting him into his first significant mental breakdown. Nights were the hardest; they became a theatre for his tormented thoughts, where the absence of the spacecraft and his spectral guides replayed endlessly.
Richie’s parents, Nathan and Elena, watched helplessly as their son retreated into himself, his usual spark dulled by the weight of his distress. The vibrant living room, once filled with the excitement of space exploration, now bore witness to the struggle of a child grappling with concepts too vast and losses too profound. Their concern grew into alarm as they witnessed the tangible impact of the mission’s silence on Richie’s well-being, a stark prelude to the complex relationship Richie would continue to have with the unseen and the unknown.
In the wake of JupiterONE’s disappearance, the Cranston family faced not only the mystery of a vanished spacecraft but also the immediate and pressing challenge of supporting Richie through his first encounter with the fragility of his own mind. This episode, distressing and formative, was a harbinger of the extraordinary and tumultuous path Rich was destined to walk, a path marked by brilliance and shadow in equal measure.
May 28, 23531- 49 Years Ago:
Cranston Family Living Room, San Francisco CA
The air in the Cranston family living room was thick with a complex mixture of emotions as the launch of JupiterTWO approached. Unlike the previous year, the atmosphere was not solely filled with excitement but was now tinged with apprehension. Nathan and Elena Cranston watched their son, Richie, with a blend of pride and worry. At just six years old, Richie had insisted on witnessing JupiterTWO’s departure, despite the unresolved mystery surrounding JupiterONE—a mystery that had deeply affected him.
“Richie,” Nathan began, his voice laced with caution, “remember, there’s a chance we might not hear from this one either. The Quantum Entanglement communications worked in theory, but after JupiterONE…” His voice trailed off, the unspoken fears hanging in the air.
Richie, his gaze fixed on the screen, responded with a certainty that belied his years. “We have to continue the missions, Papa. The ghosts, I don’t think they want us to go…I think they kidnapped JupitorONE. The ghosts…they’ve shown me the formula—”
Elena gently cut him off, concern flickering in her eyes. “Honey, let’s focus on today, okay?” She shared a look with Nathan, the silent communication between them speaking volumes of their shared anxiety over Richie’s talks of ‘ghosts.’
As the countdown commenced, Richie’s thoughts spiraled into a realm far beyond the launch pad. Without prompting, he shared his unsettling conviction. “Papa, I think the ghosts are doing things to make humans self-destruct. I think they created Hitler, Stalin, Caligula, Pol Pot… they were all influenced to push humans toward self-destruction. It’s to revert us back, to conserve Earth’s resources for a future crisis they’ve foreseen. I think the ghosts are bad…”
Nathan frowned, a father’s protective instinct mixed with a growing concern for his son’s mental health. “Richie,” he said firmly, yet with an underlying softness, “those were just men who made terrible choices. Let’s keep our thoughts on science and discovery, not ghosts and conspiracies.”
But Richie was undeterred, his belief unshaken. “But it’s true, Papa. The Earth is like a reserve, a stockpile for them. And they’re waiting… waiting for us to be ready.” His voice was low, filled with a mixture of fear and awe, as if he were sharing secrets from another world.
Elena hugged Richie closer, trying to offer comfort amidst the swirling theories that seemed to consume him. Nathan watched the launch, his excitement for humanity’s quest into the unknown shadowed by the eerie theories his son proposed with unsettling confidence.
As JupiterTWO ascended into the heavens, Richie’s whispered words barely reached his parents over the launch’s roar. “They’re watching us, Momma, Papa. They’ve always been watching. And they’re preparing us for something big.”
Nathan and Elena exchanged worried glances, their expressions a mixture of pride and concern. Their joy for the launch was tempered not just by Richie’s ominous musings, but also by the lingering fear that his extraordinary perceptions might be early signs of the same mild schizophrenia Nathan had faced in his youth—a condition they had quietly fretted might manifest in Richie given its hereditary nature. Richie sat between them, seemingly small against the vast backdrop of the cosmos, his mind wrestling with burdens that spanned far beyond the earthly concerns of a boy his age.
The launch of JupiterTWO marked another milestone for humanity’s exploration of space. But for the Cranston family, it underscored the profound and mysterious journey ahead, not just for Richie, but for them all as they navigated the delicate balance between genius and madness, between the known universe and the unseen forces Richie believed were shaping their destiny.
As the months following the launch of JupiterTWO unfolded, Richie threw himself into the mission with an intensity that both amazed and alarmed Nathan and Elena. He spent hours each day poring over the data streaming back from the spacecraft, compiling notes and theories in his journals. His parents observed his obsession with deepening concern, noticing the dark circles under his young eyes and the way he would jump at the slightest noise, as if expecting the “ghosts” to manifest in their living room.
“Richie, you need to rest,” Elena would insist, but Richie’s response was always the same, a determined shake of his head. “I need to gather as much as I can before they take it,” he’d say, his voice laced with a resolution that was chilling coming from someone so young.
Nathan tried to intervene, “Son, we talked about this. JupiterTWO might not last any longer than its twin. You can’t put all your hopes into this.”
But Richie was ahead of them. “I know, Papa. I expect it to disappear, just like JupitorONE. The ghosts are going to take it. But this time, I’ll be ready. I’ve learned so much already. Maybe it’s enough to start uncovering their plot.” His parents exchanged glances, the silent question between them: How had their child come to bear such a heavy burden?
True to Richie’s grim prediction, five months to the day after its launch, JupiterTWO’s signal abruptly ceased, leaving behind a silence that was now familiar, yet no less devastating. Unlike the shock that had accompanied JupiterONE’s disappearance, this time Richie seemed prepared, almost expectant.
His reaction, however, was not one of defeat but of a calculated retreat into normalcy. He closed his journals, packed away his notes, and turned his attention to his studies with a newfound fervor. To his parents’ relief, Richie appeared to move on from his obsession with the spacecraft and his theories about the “ghosts.”
Nathan and Elena watched their son, grateful for the apparent return to a more typical childhood but remained uneasy. Richie was excelling academically, devouring textbooks and engaging in projects that astounded his teachers and classmates alike. He became a model student, his intellect and curiosity shining through in every endeavor.
However, in the quiet moments alone, Richie’s mind was never still. He revisited every piece of data, every theory he had developed in those five months. He knew the “ghosts” hadn’t finished with him or with humanity. The mission now was to arm himself with knowledge, to be ready for whatever lay ahead. He had to be the bridge, the one to connect the dots and perhaps find a way to protect Earth from the impending crisis he felt in his bones was coming.
The Cranston family settled into a new normal, one where Richie’s brilliance was a source of pride, and his earlier obsessions were chalked up to the overactive imagination of a gifted child. But Richie knew the truth. The “ghosts,” the disappearances of JupiterONE and JupitorTWO, the formula – they were all pieces of a puzzle only he seemed to see. And he would spend his life trying to solve it, even if it meant walking the thin line between genius and madness.
Night after night, under the guise of sleep, Richie would sneak into his makeshift study, a flashlight in hand, poring over the meticulous notes and theories he’d amassed from JupiterONE and JupiterTWO’s missions. His room became a clandestine sanctuary for his relentless quest for understanding, his young mind racing through the information with an intensity that belied his age.
One night, their worst fears were confirmed when Nathan and Elena discovered Richie, deeply immersed in his research, surrounded by scattered papers. The scene struck a deep chord of fear in them, the kind of fear that had been simmering ever since they first feared the genetic shadow cast by schizophrenia might reach Richie. The concern in their eyes was palpable as they took in the scene before them—a young boy, their son, caught in the grip of what seemed a harmless obsession. However, as Nathan began to gather the papers, his heart sank. Among Richie’s notes, he found pages filled with random sequences of numbers, letters, and scrawlings that eerily mirrored his own early symptoms of schizophrenia—obsessive pattern-searching that had once consumed his own sanity.
“It’s for your own good, Richie,” Elena trembled softly, the pain in her voice mirroring the determination in her actions as she helped Nathan collect and destroy the papers. Richie protested, tears of frustration and betrayal stinging his eyes, but his parents were resolute. In their minds, they were doing more than just erasing the scribblings of a child’s curiosity; they were desperately trying to shield him from a potentially debilitating condition. Nathan and Elena were intelligent people, highly educated and rational, yet in this moment, their actions were driven by a desperate denial, a refusal to accept that their efforts to shield Richie might be in vain. That night, Richie’s world felt as if it had narrowed to a point of no return, his lifeline to understanding the “ghosts” and their machinations cruelly stripped away.
Yet, what his parents hadn’t accounted for was Richie’s remarkable mind, his ability to recall with exacting detail every note, every hypothesis, every piece of data he had ever seen or created. In the months that followed, Richie embarked on a silent mission to rebuild his research from memory. Every stolen moment was spent recreating his notes, his theories, now hidden even more carefully from his parents’ watchful eyes.
This act of defiance, of determination, marked a turning point for Richie. He perfected the art of normalcy to the outside world, his parents especially, projecting the image of a child prodigy solely focused on his studies and future academic endeavors. Beneath this carefully constructed facade, however, burned a resolve stronger than ever.
Richie Cranston was more determined than ever to continue his quest, to piece together the puzzle of the “ghosts,” the spacecraft disappearances, and the ominous formula. His photographic memory was both his shield and his weapon in this silent battle, a testament to his unwillingness to let go of the quest that had chosen him. The path ahead was fraught with challenges and skepticism, but Richie knew the truth lay within reach, and he was prepared to walk the thin line between genius and madness to uncover it.
Chapter 4: Echoes of a Forgotten World
March 30, 2400 – 2 Weeks Later:
NASA Explore Institute, Huntsville AL
In the dim light of the early morning, the NASA Explore Institute was a hive of activity, a stark contrast to the tranquil dawn breaking over Huntsville. Inside the Command Center, a room filled with screens displaying data from the far reaches of space, Rich Cranston, alongside his colleagues Mike and Sharon, was immersed in the enigma that was JupiterONE and its AI companion, RAIDEN.
Rich, his face illuminated by the soft glow of the monitors, was a picture of concentration. His past, marked by a turbulent journey through the realms of the extraordinary, had led him here—a place where his brilliance could shine, guided by the pursuit of knowledge that had always been his true north.
Rich muttered under his breath, “Fuck a duck…R(t)=R0⋅e−kt …dominos just sure as shit. Those “ghosts” must’ve seen this coming.”
“What nonsense are you spewing Richie-boy?” Mike asked, smiling and taunting his boss.
Rich caught himself, “Huh? Oh, its nothing…I’m just trying to figure something out. Something completely unrelated.”
“Unrelated, huh?” Mike said, not believing him. But he needed to get back to the task at hand.
And so, ever the pragmatist, he leaned over the console, his fingers dancing across the keys. “Still no luck on establishing the control channel with RAIDEN. It’s like trying to teach a whale to sing opera,” he muttered, a half-smile betraying his frustration.
Sharon, her gaze fixed on a series of images relayed by RAIDEN, couldn’t hide her wonder. “Look at this,” she beckoned her colleagues closer. “These carvings, these structures… RAIDEN’s found the remains of the Beings’ civilization. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen.”
Given the vastness of the Origin Homeland, RAIDEN’s task of exploration was not just monumental but Herculean. Employing the most sophisticated AI and analytics, leveraging the ship’s advanced sensors, and utilizing statistical probability, RAIDEN endeavored to identify the most significant and relevant sites for investigation. The sheer size of the landmass, equivalent to the universe itself, made this endeavor akin to finding needles in an infinite haystack. Yet, the ship’s capabilities for travel and exploration, coupled with RAIDEN’s unparalleled AI intellect, made this daunting task feasible, albeit still challenging on an unprecedented scale.
In his meticulous quest, RAIDEN prioritized locations that held the potential to unlock the mysteries of the Being civilization. Central government complexes and intelligence hubs topped the list, places where decisions that shaped the course of an entire civilization were made. Historical archives were of particular interest, repositories where the Beings might have chronicled their rise, zenith, and eventual decline. RAIDEN also sought out sites of cultural significance—museums, monuments, and libraries—any location that promised a glimpse into the societal fabric and ethos of the Beings. Furthermore, he was on the lookout for explicit communications or markers left by the Beings, signs that they anticipated future explorers and left guidance or warnings. Each potential site was a piece of the puzzle, a chance to understand not just the technological advancements but the societal dynamics, philosophies, and ultimately, the reasons behind the civilization’s extinction.
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The artifacts, though eroded by time and the harsh environment of the Origin Homeland, spoke volumes. Humanoid figures, almost identical to the humans on earth, depicted in various aspects of life. Spanning governance to education, the findings suggested a society both advanced and complex. Yet, among these remnants of a bygone era, RAIDEN found no technology that hadn’t succumbed to decay—no working devices, no intact power sources.
As he oversaw RAIDEN’s meticulous scanning of potential sites, Rich felt a chill of recognition. The methodical search through remnants of a long-lost civilization paralleled the cryptic messages he had received in his past from spectral visitors. Each enigmatic encounter, once dismissed as figments of an overactive mind, now carried the weight of prophecy. The ghosts had hinted at truths too vast for him to comprehend at the time—truths that seemed entwined with the secrets RAIDEN was slowly uncovering. Alone with his thoughts in the dim light of the command center, Rich felt the lines between past and present blur, a signal that his haunted visions were perhaps not just echoes of madness but beacons guiding him to this very moment.
Rich leaned in, his eyes tracing the outlines of a carving that RAIDEN had highlighted. “This… this is incredible. RAIDEN’s named the landmass ‘Origin Homeland’ based on these inscriptions.” His voice, filled with awe, was a testament to the magnitude of their discovery.
Yet for Sharon, it was the references to the “Dalithear” that deepened the mystery. “Derogatory mentions of some sort of creature, but nothing concrete,” Sharon noted, her analytical mind racing. “Who were they to the Beings? Servants? A different class?” Sharon thought about bringing this up to Rich, but decided it wasn’t important enough at this time…he had way more to be concerned about right now.
The trio’s work was momentarily disrupted by a red alert from the NASA security division. A figure had been captured on the institute’s surveillance—a person whose presence within the complex defied explanation. The video, grainy and brief, showed someone moving with purpose, yet when they tried to cross-reference the individual’s features with global databases, they hit a dead end. “It’s like this person doesn’t exist,” Mike observed, the implication sending a shiver down his spine.
Upon the detection of the mysterious figure within the confines of the NASA Space and Rocket Command Center, a facility now blanketed under the stringent security measures mandated by the U.S. government, the incident didn’t just raise eyebrows—it triggered an immediate and full-scale security lockdown. This was no ordinary breach; it was a direct challenge to the elaborate security apparatus that had been painstakingly erected around the heart of one of the most sensitive scientific endeavors of the century.
The surveillance footage that captured the intruder was immediately escalated to the highest levels of NASA’s security team and the governmental security agencies assigned to oversee the lockdown protocols. Teams of analysts scrutinized the footage, attempting to enhance the grainy images that showed the intruder moving through the complex with an unsettling familiarity and purpose.
“How could someone penetrate our security? We have guards at every entrance, biometric scans, and surveillance that rivals the Pentagon,” Sharon voiced the question on everyone’s mind, her tone a mixture of incredulity and concern.
After Sharon voiced her disbelief about the security breach, Rich couldn’t help but respond, his tone a mix of concern and a hint of forced casualness. “It’s baffling, isn’t it? Our security’s tighter than Fort Knox. How did someone just bypass everything we’ve got?” His attempt at keeping the mood light didn’t quite mask the underlying tension in his voice.
After Sharon expressed her astonishment at the breach, Rich found himself on the brink of sharing everything. The walls between his past hauntings and present reality were thinning. He glanced at his colleagues—trustworthy, yet unprepared for the truth of his spectral visitors. “It’s baffling, indeed,” he murmured, forcing a casual tone to mask the turmoil inside. As they turned back to their consoles, Rich resolved to reach out to Jefferson, the one person who might begin to understand the gravity of his spectral encounters without judgment.
But inside, Rich’s thoughts were in turmoil. The incident struck a nerve, unsettlingly similar to the ghostly encounters that had intensified since JupiterONE had reestablished contact. Those apparitions, once easy for him to dismiss as stress or a trick of the light, were now a reality, too vivid to ignore. They’d grown bolder, as if driven by urgency, and Rich knew he had to prepare himself for the inevitable encounter.
He’d catch himself scanning corners of rooms or hesitating at shadows, fully expecting to see one of those spectral figures. Rich had worked hard to compartmentalize these experiences, to keep them from spilling over into his day-to-day life. His role at NASA Explore was more than a job; it was his calling, and he couldn’t afford any hint of instability to cast doubt on his leadership. Yet now that he knew that those “ghosts” were real, he had to prepare himself to ensure he captured as much information as possible. RAIDEN’s exploration was so limited and tiny compared to the vast size of what he was exploring…Rich knew he needed some additional explanations from the ghosts to come to any sort of conclusion as to what his brain was struggling with.
The fear of being deemed unfit, of having his mental health questioned by NASA, lingered always in the back of his mind. His history of mental health challenges was no secret, and the stakes were too high. “Maybe it’s a technical hiccup, or someone got incredibly lucky with their timing,” Rich offered to the room, trying to steer the conversation towards more rational explanations.
Internally, he knew that these mysterious break-ins were attempts to get to him, but he could not risk “fraternizing” with the enemy. He had to figure out a way to confront or contact the elusive person, but in such a way that his colleagues wouldn’t find out…at least for now. The possibility that NASA might conclude that he was slipping back into some sort of psychiatric episode was too risky….that his grip on reality could be questioned, especially now, was terrifying. “Probably just one of the guards trying to sneak a peek,” he added, striving for nonchalance.
The facility was put on red alert, with security teams sweeping through the corridors, offices, and labs in a coordinated search operation. Every employee was accounted for, every visitor log checked and re-checked, but the mysterious figure seemed to have vanished as inexplicably as they had appeared.
Parallel to the physical search, a cyber-security sweep was initiated to check for any breaches that might have allowed someone to hack the security systems, to create a digital ghost that could walk through walls undetected. The possibility that this intrusion could be an inside job was also considered, leading to an uncomfortable atmosphere of suspicion among the staff.
The U.S. government, recognizing the potential threat to a project of national significance, dispatched a team of special investigators from the Department of Homeland Security. Their task was to unravel how this breach occurred and to reinforce the facility’s defenses against any future incidents. This involved interrogations, the installation of even more advanced surveillance technologies, and an overhaul of the existing security protocols.
Rich, deeply unsettled by the incident, again found himself pondering the implications of the intrusion. Could it be related to the discoveries being made through JupiterONE and RAIDEN? Was someone, or something…like those “ghosts” that keep haunting him, attempting to interfere with their work? Or are they here to help? The questions loomed large, adding a layer of intrigue and danger to their scientific pursuit.
As the investigation continued without yielding immediate answers, the incident remained a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities that existed, even within the most secure environments. It underscored the gravity of their work and the lengths to which some unknown entities might go to gain access to, or disrupt, the groundbreaking revelations unfolding within the NASA Space and Rocket Command Center.
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As the chaos of the security sweep surged through NASA’s Explore Institute, Mike suggested to Sharon that they take a brief respite from the intensity. “Let’s find a quieter spot to catch our breath,” he said, leading the way to the seldom-used research library, a refuge known for its tranquil ambiance and the musty smell of old books—a stark contrast to the buzzing command center.
Once ensconced in the dimly lit corner of the library, surrounded by towering shelves filled with space exploration histories and astrophysics journals, the distant sounds of the ongoing security operation seemed to fade. It was a much-needed pause in a night that promised little rest.
Sharon leaned against a desk, her voice low and laced with concern, “Mike, have you noticed Rich lately? He’s more on edge than usual. I mean, with all this talk of ghosts and those cryptic mutterings… Do you think he’s handling the pressure?”
Mike, flipping through a dusty volume absentmindedly, nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’ve seen it too. He’s brilliant, but you know how thin the line can be between genius and… well, the other side. Especially with his history—though no one really knows the specifics, just rumors about some tough times during his youth.”
“Exactly,” Sharon whispered, her eyes scanning the room nervously as if the very walls might be listening. “It’s like he’s teetering on the brink sometimes. What if this intrusion pushes him over? We can’t afford to have him spiral now, not with everything at stake.”
Their whispered exchange grew more intense, they didn’t notice Rich approaching. He caught enough of the conversation to grasp its gist, pausing in the shadow just outside their secluded spot. His presence went unnoticed until he stepped into the dim light of the library, his expression composed but his voice revealing a hint of vulnerability.
“Mike, Sharon, I couldn’t help but overhear,” Rich began, his tone even but firm. The pair turned, surprise and embarrassment crossing their faces. “It’s okay, I understand your concerns. It’s important we have this out in the open, given how closely we work together.”
Sharon and Mike jerked upright, clearly uncomfortable and their faces flushing from being overheard.
Seeing their discomfort, Rich continued, “I was diagnosed with a mild form of schizophrenia years ago—back in my twenties. It’s a condition that’s misunderstood by many. It doesn’t mean I’m out of touch with reality. I manage it with medication… Haldol, to be precise. It helps keep the auditory hallucinations at bay.”
Mike and Sharon listened, their initial shock giving way to a mixture of respect and relief as Rich explained his situation. “It’s under control, and it has been for years. I wouldn’t jeopardize our work or your trust. And yes, these times are stressful, and yes, I sometimes still hear voices. But when I am talking to myself, I’m mostly thinking aloud about the complexities of our work. But I assure you, I am fully committed to our mission.”
Sharon, moved by his openness, nodded in understanding, “Rich, we never doubted your commitment or your brilliance. It’s just that we care, and seeing you under so much pressure made us worry.”
Mike added, “You’re not just a colleague, Rich. You’re a friend. We’re here to support you, always.”
Rich smiled, a genuine expression that eased the tension. “Thank you, both. Let’s keep the lines of communication open, alright? And now, let’s focus on figuring out this mystery together.”
As they walked back to the command center, the bond between the trio strengthened, a renewed sense of camaraderie and trust settling in. They knew the road ahead was filled with challenges, but together, they felt prepared to face whatever came their way.
As the trio delved deeper into RAIDEN’s discoveries, they became acutely aware of the monumental task before them. The Origin Homeland, with its countless artifacts and the silent testimonies of the Beings, presented an unparalleled opportunity to understand a civilization that had once mastered the galaxy. Each carving, each eroded statue, was a piece of a puzzle spanning millennia, a puzzle they were determined to solve.
As RAIDEN transmitted images of eroded statues and carved symbols from the Origin Homeland, Rich’s gaze froze on one peculiar glyph—a spiral intertwined with a line, strikingly similar to a symbol etched in the margin of the worn paper given to him by a ghostly figure years ago. His heart raced as he cross-referenced the image in his private notes, hidden from his colleagues’ prying eyes. “OK, what the hell does this thing mean? Clearly something they meant for me to figure out.” he pondered in silence, a mix of fear and fascination stirring within. Despite the urge to delve deeper, he bookmarked the image for a private investigation, wary of sharing too much.
Rich continued to find himself wrestling with the implications of their findings. The advanced civilization that RAIDEN uncovered suggested not just technological prowess but a societal structure and culture that mirrored humanity’s complexities. “It’s as if we’re looking at a mirror of what we could become, or perhaps what we once were,” he pondered aloud, the weight of history pressing upon his shoulders. And all of the scientists were stunned, but also somehow relieved, that the Beings appeared, at least as much as they could discern from the remnants of statues and carvings, to be human in every way – size, shape, types of limbs, fingers, eyes…even the clothing.
RAIDENS extensive research also showed that the written language of the Beings was surprisingly close to the written languages of earth. The similarities were too close to be mere coincidence. “This is where we came from…” was going through everyone’s minds.
And for Sharon, again the mention of Dalithears remained an enigma, their role within the Being society a puzzle wrapped in mystery. She was particularly interested in the Dalithear, but still did not bring them up to Rich as they seemed just a distraction at a time when Rich was wrestling with much bigger and more important discoveries. “Were they akin to our understanding of a caste system, or something else entirely? ‘Dalithear’ is way too close to ‘Dalit’ for it to be just a coincidence” Sharon mused, her mind racing with theories and thinking of the lowest end of the caste system in India, the Dalits, but known colloquially as the “untouchables”. The derogatory nature of the references suggested a societal divide, a piece of the ancient social fabric they had yet to unravel. She made a mental note to bring this up to Mike to see if they should bother Rich with this.
Amid their groundbreaking work, the security breach posed by the mysterious intruder lingered like a shadow. The surveillance footage, replayed countless times, offered no clues, the figure as elusive as a ghost. “There’s something unsettling about this,” Mike admitted, his usual skepticism tinged with unease. “It’s as if they’re connected to what we’re discovering, a part of the story we’ve yet to understand.”
Rich’s revelation about his mental health, while initially causing a stir, had only deepened the bond between the colleagues. It was a testament to their collective journey, a path that had brought them to the very edge of human knowledge and understanding. “Our pursuit of the stars, of the past that RAIDEN is unveiling, it’s a reminder of our own fragility and our strength,” Rich shared, his gaze fixed on a distant point, where the universe’s mysteries lay waiting.
Late that night, under the guise of a routine walk, Rich discreetly powered on the burner phone he had struggled to acquire. He dialed Jefferson’s number, his voice low as the call connected. “Jeff, it’s me. I need to talk about something… something big. Can you meet?” He quickly briefed Jefferson on the unearthed civilization and the haunting similarities to his ghostly encounters, but omitted the details over the phone. “Let’s meet at the Railyard—no phones, no digital traces,” Rich insisted. As he ended the call, the weight of his double life pressed upon him, a secret battle waged in the shadows of his groundbreaking work.
March 30, 2400 – Later that evening:
The Railyard, Decatur AL
In the dimly lit corner of the old restaurant, a historical southern diner and cafe, the air was dense with the fading aroma of barbeque ribs and the burnt remnants of what used to be rich coffee beans. The place, a shadow of its vibrant past, was more a refuge for the weary than a hub of bustling activity. Rich Cranston sat across from Jefferson, their figures cloaked in the shadows afforded by the sparse, flickering lighting. The café, with its worn wooden floors and walls adorned with faded knickknacks, deer horns, and old books, offered them a semblance of anonymity amid the decay.
Outside, the evening enveloped the city in its suffocating grip, the streets cast in the dim, unreliable glow of streetlamps struggling against the perpetual smog. The occasional clink of cups and the soft shuffle of the server’s steps offered a semblance of normalcy, but the tension at their small round table cut through the muffled sounds, as palpable as the thick air outside.
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Rich’s face was etched with lines of fatigue and the burden of secrets too profound and bizarre for most to grasp. He leaned forward, his voice a low, urgent whisper, as he divulged the cryptic whispers and spectral visions that had increasingly intruded upon his reality. “They’re not just random interactions, Jeff,” Rich insisted, his hands tightly clasped around his coffee mug. “There’s a pattern, a message that’s slowly coming into focus. But it’s like grasping at smoke.”
Jefferson, his skepticism, knowing about Rich’s schizophrenia, but tempered by the undeniable sincerity in his friend’s eyes, listened intently. The flickering light cast long shadows across his thoughtful face, giving him the air of a scholar pondering over a particularly perplexing text. “You’re talking about civilizations, Rich, advanced ones that somehow connect back to Earth? To us?”
Rich nodded, the weight of each revelation he’d encountered pressing down upon him. “Yes, and more. It’s like everything I’ve witnessed—the apparitions, the messages—they’re pointing to a convergence of history and destiny. Our work, the discoveries we’re making, it’s all part of a larger design. Something… or someone has been guiding humanity’s path, steering us, maybe even manipulating us.”
The murmur of the café seemed to recede as Rich delved deeper into his theories. “Think about it, Jeff. The caste systems, the push towards de-evolution, the suppression of technological advancement on a global scale—it could all be orchestrated. And then there’s Venus,” he added, his tone tinged with a mix of awe and dread. “There’s something there, something pivotal that ties all these threads together.”
Jefferson’s eyes narrowed in concentration as he processed Rich’s words. “You know I have to question your…err, conversations…because, you know…your condition, right? But you’re suggesting that this civilization, these Beings, they might be harvesting Earth? For resources, for people?” He shook his head slightly, trying to align the extraordinary implications with their scientific pursuits.
Rich’s was resolute and his expression was grave. “I’m not just suggesting it, I’m nearly convinced of it. But why? Why revert civilizations, why harvest planets? What’s the end game?” His voice rose slightly, driven by a blend of fear and frustration.
The server approached, her presence momentarily grounding them back to the reality of the café. She refilled their cups with a practiced smile and retreated, leaving them enveloped once again in their cloak of theories and conjectures.
Once alone, Jefferson leaned back, his mind racing through the implications, knowing that Rich was one of the most brilliant scientists on the planet, but still somewhat unstable. “If this is true, Rich, we’re not just explorers or scientists. We’re… we’re witnesses to an invasion, or custodians of a truth that could shake the very foundations of what it means to be human. Are you sure of this, and this is not one of your….visions?”
Rich met Jefferson’s gaze, his eyes steady. “I’m positive. Which is why we need to tread carefully but dig deeper. We can’t dismiss the supernatural elements of what I’ve experienced. They’ve led us this far, and I believe they’ll lead us to the answers we need.”
The café’s dim light seemed to dim further, casting their faces into relief against the backdrop of encroaching shadows. Outside, the night pressed against the windows, a reminder of the darkness they were navigating.
Jefferson finally nodded, his decision made amidst the sea of uncertainties. “Alright, Rich. Let’s follow this path together, see where it leads. But discreetly, and with every precaution. We can’t risk exposing this until we understand what we’re dealing with. And we cannot have anyone second guessing your…err, sources.”
Rich’s shoulders, tense throughout their meeting, relaxed slightly. “Thank you, Jeff,” he murmured, grateful for the trust and support in a reality that seemed increasingly malleable.
They rose from the table, stepping out into the humid and hot night air, heavy with the smog that shrouded the dimly lit city in a toxic haze. The few functioning streetlights cast long shadows across the deserted streets, relics of a brighter past now dimmed by power rationing and environmental decay. As they parted ways, each felt the weight of the journey ahead—a journey that would demand all their courage, cunning, and conviction. But for Rich, the path was unmistakably clear; guided by ghosts and haunted by destiny, he was no longer a lone sentinel in the watchtower of the unknown. With Jefferson by his side, the quest for truth would forge ahead, slicing through the thick fog of the night and into the flickering light of revelation.
As they parted, their path illuminated only by the flickering streetlights, neither of them saw the figure that lingered in the shadows, watching silently as they vanished into the night.
Chapter 5: The Prodigy’s Paradox
May 14, 2357 – 43 Years Ago:
San Francisco CA – Rich’s childhood home
In a modest San Francisco home that overlooked the Pacific’s restless waves, now tainted by the ceaseless assault of pollution, a young Rich Cranston had well outpaced the intellectual grasp of his peers, mirroring the city’s historic blend of innovation and cultural richness. Yet, the surrounding landscape told a grimmer tale: the ocean, choked by swirling patches of plastic and toxic runoff, lapped hopelessly against eroded shores, its waves a mournful echo of environmental sorrow. The air, thick with the acrid tang of smog, veiled the city in a perpetual haze, dimming the once brilliant California sun to a dull ember in the overcast sky.
At just 11 years old, Rich wasn’t merely precocious; he was an anomaly—a child who comprehended the language of the universe with the ease most would read a storybook. He wasn’t meant for the polluted playgrounds that dotted the cityscape. He was destined for the stars. Accepted into UC Berkeley, his intellect found fertile ground to grow, his thoughts often meandering through the corridors of quantum mechanics and astrophysics before lunchtime in the school cafeteria.
His room, a veritable laboratory of the mind, was cluttered with advanced textbooks, astronomic charts, and homemade electronic gadgets that beeped and flickered at all hours. Yet, underneath this layer of youthful scientific inquiry lay a hidden trove of research. Rich had, with the methodical determination of a seasoned detective, begun compiling information on events and figures that history couldn’t neatly categorize—leaders whose reigns were marked by abrupt shifts in ideology, unexplained phenomena that punctuated the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the whispers of conspiracy theories that linked these disparate points into a narrative far more intriguing than fiction. He was convinced that all the historical disasters, world-wide conflicts, and atrocities of pure evil from despots, murderers, and dictators, were the works of some unexplainable conspiracy. Yet he could not connect the dots.
In the silence of his room, late at night when the rest of the world slept, Rich delved into the annals of the last hundred years. He pored over the rise of the Third Reich, the enigmatic reign of Stalin, and the Cold War’s shadowy ballet of espionage. But it was the United States’ own history—the abrupt changes in policies, the assassination of JFK, and the peculiarities surrounding Roswell—that drew his keenest interest. Each piece added to a puzzle he couldn’t yet solve, but the edges were beginning to align in his mind.
Recognizing his unique perspective as both a curse and a boon, Rich figured part of his acute pattern recognition and ability to connect disparate historical dots was due to the schizophrenia that sometimes tangled his thoughts. While the diagnosis came with challenges, in his mind it also opened doors to realms others couldn’t perceive. With his daily medication, he managed his condition…but he still could not always tune out the whispers and voices from the ‘ghosts’—echoes of the cosmos that he, perhaps alone, was poised to understand.
But Richie, as he was still known to his family, managed to maintain a facade of normalcy. He excelled academically, unsurprisingly, and engaged with his peers in the obligatory social dance of adolescence. Yet, beneath this veneer, his mind was alive with theories and calculations. He had even begun to question the very nature of modern governance and power. “Could it be,” he mused one evening, gazing out at the smog-dimmed city lights, their glow a murky testament to the environmental degradation around them, “that modern leaders are just puppets, or perhaps, unwilling participants in a scheme far beyond their understanding?”
This line of thought was not without its dangers. Richie knew that delving too deeply into these areas could invite suspicion, or worse, ridicule. The memories of his early childhood, of being labeled ‘the boy who talks with ghosts,’ were still fresh. Thus, he kept his most controversial theories to himself, sharing them only with the blank pages of his notebooks, which he kept locked away.
His parents, Nathan and Elena, always cautious yet supportive, observed their son’s late-night endeavors with a mix concern. They knew the brilliance of Richie’s mind was entwined with a fragility they could not ignore. The potential for his condition to misinterpret reality was a silent dread they carried, always fostering an environment where he could discuss his ideas freely yet safely.
And within the confines of his room, the mysteries of JupiterONE and JupiterTWO continued to haunt him. He had matured into a scholarly quest, pouring over every scrap of data, every whisper of theory about their disappearance. With a burgeoning curiosity, Rich pieced together his own theories about the abrupt silences of JupiterONE and JupiterTWO, spacecrafts that had seemingly vanished into the universe’s vast tapestry, leaving behind a trail of mystery and cosmic whispers.
Nights were no longer just for sleep; they were for connecting dots across the void, mapping the trajectories of lost explorers in a bid to unravel the universe’s tightly held secrets.
His young life was punctuated by the inexplicable appearances of apparitions, which he referred to as “ghosts,” each visitation seemingly connected to the celestial riddles he sought to unravel. But as abruptly as they had begun, these visitations ceased, leaving Rich with a haunting silence.
That is until one dusky evening in Berkeley, where the unexpected happened.
On an ordinary day, a disheveled, homeless man who seemed out of place in time and context beckoned to Rich. There was a clarity in the man’s eyes, a piercing intelligence that belied his unkempt appearance, and Rich felt an instinctive knowledge: this was no ordinary vagrant, but an agent of an unknown realm.
The man handed Rich a piece of paper, a mosaic of strange calculations and cryptic messages, urging him to study it over time. “The answers will come as you are ready,” he said, his voice tinged with urgency. “The full truth now would lead to disaster…it is still too early for you, but you must prepare. Others will come for you, when the time is right, to continue what you must begin.” The stranger seemed to be battling against time itself, imparting upon Rich a sense of impending necessity and a grave mission that lay ahead.
He looked deep into Rich’s eyes as he said, “Remember this! In 63 years we arrive. Be ready.”
He spoke of the “ghosts” that Rich knew too well, not as figments of imagination, but as scouts searching for those who could help avert a looming crisis that spanned not just Earth, but the stars. “We are not destroyers but protectors,” the man insisted, his gaze locking with Rich’s. “You must believe, for every action, every second counts. You are part of a mission that could change the trajectory of worlds. Fear not the task, for you were born for this.”
As the man retreated into the bustle of the city, he left Rich standing in the wake of renewed anxiety and fear. This man knew of the ghosts. The thoughts were racing through his mind, “This paper means something…and someone…someone is directly focusing on me.”
As Rich grew older, he managed to stabilize his mental health, though the medications seemed to dull his ability to connect the dots as vibrantly as before. Despite this, the intricacies of the cryptic paper the homeless man had given him haunted him—a constant reminder of a truth he desperately hoped was real, not a product of his mind’s fabrications. Holding the paper again, he scrutinized the handwriting and symbols—it didn’t seem like his own, yet during his episodes, he knew he could adopt a vastly different persona. Was it really from the homeless man, or had he, during an unguarded moment of madness, authored it himself?
It was an encounter that redefined the term ‘stranger than fiction,’ and it entrenched the belief that Rich’s fate was irrevocably tied to the cosmic dance that played out above and beyond. And as hard as he set his genius mind to it, he just could not decode the strange set of equations that the strange man had given him. “It’s the scribblings of a madman.” Rich chuckled sardonically, tossing the paper on his desk. “Now the real question—was it him or was it me?”
But he knew down into the very fibers of his body…his life was on a collision course with destiny, each day a step closer to some strange and foreboding universal scheme, delivered by a messenger whose origins and purpose were as enigmatic as the disappearing spacecrafts that haunted his dreams and studies. And as he lay in bed each night, listening to the distant sound of the ocean, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched, guided, and perhaps even manipulated by forces far beyond the ordinary. It was a burden he carried alone, the price of his extraordinary intellect and insatiable curiosity—a paradox that would shape the course of his life and, unbeknownst to him, the fate of humanity.
August 27, 2362 – 38 Years Ago:
Stanford University CA
Rich Cranston, by the age of 15, had not only been embraced by Stanford University as a student but revered as an intellectual peer. His profound insights into cosmic phenomena had rendered seasoned professors speechless, elevating him from mere prodigy to a respected scholar in the fields of astronomy and physics. With each passing semester, Rich accumulated degrees and delved deeper into the mysteries of the universe, crafting dissertations that navigated through the enigmas of black holes, dark matter, and the fabric of spacetime itself. He was the weird, skinny kid with the backpack stuffed with books and papers…his shirt always buttoned up wrong, and his socks usually mis-matched.
Yet, beneath the quirky disarray of child-genius clad in mismatched socks and askew shirt…as well as the academic accolades and the stellar trajectory of his burgeoning career, the prodigy harbored a relentless pursuit of the anomalies that most chose to overlook. It was in the quiet sanctum of the university’s observatory where Rich felt most connected to the cosmos and its clandestine whispers. To any outside observer, he stood in silent reverence of the night sky, but Rich’s gaze penetrated deeper than the celestial beauty; he was searching for the glitches in reality’s matrix. He knew they existed.
These anomalies, subtle and easily dismissed by the unobservant eye, had become the focal point of Rich’s exhaustive research. A star’s twinkle misaligned with its celestial brethren, a pattern in cosmic noise that seemed too deliberate, too structured to be mere chance—Rich documented every deviation from established physical laws, each aberration in the cosmic order.
His findings were a compilation of the extraordinary, a dossier on the inexplicable that pointed to a conclusion both thrilling and unnerving: humanity was not the sole architect of its destiny. The evidence, as Rich interpreted it, suggested an intelligence at work, an unseen hand guiding, or perhaps interfering, with the fabric of reality.
It was during this period of intense scrutiny and solitary investigation that Rich encountered Jefferson Buford.
In the cozy, eclectic atmosphere of the Berkeley Buzzshop, the bustling campus café, Rich sat hunched over a book, its cover bearing the portrait of a figure polarizing even in historical retrospect—Richard Nixon. His table, a quiet harbor in a sea of chatter, held stacks of papers scribbled with equations alongside the controversial biography. It was an odd sight: a young boy, no older than fifteen, absorbed in the political musings of a disgraced leader.
Jefferson couldn’t resist the sight of the weird, scrawny kid half-buried in books that seemed too worldly for his age. “So, we’re exhuming Nixon’s ghost today?” he teased, sliding into the seat opposite Rich. The café’s buzz dimmed into the background, secondary to the unfolding scene.
Rich flinched, a bit startled, his eyes peering up through a mop of unkempt hair. He took a moment, measuring the stranger before him. “I… I’m just trying to understand the patterns,” he stammered, a hint of defensiveness in his tone. “You know, how leaders think, the… the influence they have.”
Jefferson’s eyes narrowed playfully. “Patterns, huh? That’s some heavy contemplation for a kid in a café. And Nixon? Seriously?” He couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle.
A blush crept across Rich’s cheeks, his usual confidence faltering under the unexpected attention. He was used to the solitude of his research and the companionship of stars, not the banter of peers older and bigger than he, especially not those as blatantly outspoken as Jefferson seemed to be. Yet, he found his voice, “Yeah, Nixon… and others. There’s something bigger at play, something with the leaders, the events of the past… It’s complicated.”
He continued. “Nixon is just a footnote in a saga of orchestrated chaos,” his voice wavering with a mix of adolescence and conviction. “Consider Hitler’s megalomania, the Confederacy’s slave aspirations under the guise of state rights, Stalin’s purges—they all fit a pattern, don’t you see?”
Jefferson leaned back, his face a canvas of amusement and challenge. This little kid had quite the vocabulary. “Patterns? To me, that sounds like you’re sketching conspiracies where there’s only human folly.”
Rich’s fingers drummed on the table, a rapid staccato. “It’s not folly when it repeats with such precision. Why did these leaders all push towards societal regression? It’s as if they wanted to rewind civilization itself.”
“You think someone’s pulling the strings? That there’s a puppeteer of downfall?” Jefferson asked, skeptically arching an eyebrow.
Rich nodded earnestly. “Exactly. Pullman’s legacy isn’t a singularity—it’s a recurrence, an echo of a manipulative force that traces back far beyond our textbooks.”
“Ahhh…Pullman. That fucking asshole. So, you really believe there’s a code to crack in the actions of leaders like Nixon and Pullman…the enemies of rationale civilization?” Jefferson asked, a genuine interest cutting through his earlier jest.
Rich met his gaze, feeling an unexpected kinship. “Maybe. It’s like there are hidden messages in history, in the decisions they made. If I can decipher it, maybe I can understand why… why things are the way they are now. And it’s not just leaders, it’s a rhythm, an agenda. I can’t prove it… yet. But history’s undercurrents are too aligned to be random,” Rich insisted, his youthful face set in determination.
Jefferson’s smile widened. “Well, Rich, you might just be onto something. And it seems I’ve stumbled upon a fellow conspirator right here in this den of caffeine and textbooks. Let’s suck down some coffee and chat—I have a feeling we’re going to be good friends.”
And with that, Jefferson was pulled into Rich’s gravitational orbit, intrigued by the promise of uncharted intellectual territories.
“Alright, looks like I’ve found a kindred spirit in a fucking coffee house…and maybe, just maybe, you can teach me a thing or two about those cosmic mysteries you’re so keen on unraveling.” Jefferson said, pushing his skepticism aside. “Show me your universe. Let’s see if we can’t find this puppeteer together.”
As Jefferson sat down, the café around them faded into the background. What began as a confrontation of ideologies transformed into a dialogue, and despite their divergent interests, a bond formed between the two, anchored in a shared fascination with history and a mutual disdain for the establishment.
And in that moment, Rich felt a surge of validation, and Jefferson realized he had found an ally in the most unexpected of places. Their conversation had started in jest but ended in an alliance that would traverse the academia’s rigid boundaries. It was the beginning of an odyssey that neither of them could have anticipated, forged in the crucible of curiosity and a shared defiance against the status quo.
In the world between 2028 to 2225, before Rich was born, the United States bore little resemblance to the vibrant democracy Rich was living in and had read about in his history books about USA prior to 2028. The election of President Pullman in 2028 had marked the beginning of a drastic transformation, one that would plunge the country into a dark age of division and regression for nearly two centuries. Pullman’s campaign, fueled by divisive rhetoric, had convinced a significant portion of the American populace that liberal policies were undermining the nation and that undocumented immigrants were usurping the land and resources “rightfully” belonging to the American people.
Once in office, President Pullman set about dismantling the fabric of American democracy with a fervor that was unprecedented. Laws protecting the rights of minorities, women, and the impoverished were systematically overturned. The structure of the American government was altered fundamentally, eroding democratic principles and concentrating power and wealth in the hands of a minuscule elite. Pullman asserted his right to indefinite presidential terms, eliminating the checks and balances that had once safeguarded American democracy. Moreover, he enacted laws allowing him to appoint his successors, ensuring that his autocratic legacy would persist.
Under the reign of Pullman and his successors, the United States devolved into a two-tier society. A tiny, ultra-rich ruling class lived in opulence within fortified city enclaves, while the vast majority of the population, rendered “untouchables,” eked out a meager existence. The once-thriving nation’s industries vanished, innovation ceased, and America retreated into international isolation. The societal regression was so severe that the country reverted almost to an agrarian and homeless society, with most of its population surviving on scraps and whatever they could cultivate. Vast acreage of broken down and rusting motor homes, tents fabricated from dusty and tattered blue nylon tarps, and corrugated metal lean-to sheds was the new American Dream.
And almost by design, the same type of leaders as Pullman were propelled into power in the UK, Germany, France, Japan, China, and a host of other advanced countries, where they devolved into similar destructive nationalistic battle cries. Similar to the USA, this ultimately sent those previously thriving countries backwards in time…creating nations of starving, animal-like homeless people…and leaving behind human progress and innovation.
The technological prowess and innovation that had once defined these countries were ceded to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Africa, and Pakistan, which emerged as the new global superpowers. These countries, plus all of the Middle East, excluding Israel, make up the Free International Consortium of Nations (FICON), the dominant security and economic alliance in the world, even in current times. While not sworn enemies to the New Allied Treaty Organization (NATO), consisting of Europe, the Americas, Israel, Japan, China, and India, among others, there still exists significant friction between the bodies. The rogue nations, Russia and North Korea, still existed, but their economies and militaries were rendered useless during the reign of Pullman and his cronies, because the world’s oligarchs convinced the leaders of those nations to enjoy a life of pure extravagance without the bother of running a country.
The dark era persisted until 2225 when the American people, driven by desperation and the memory of a better past, rose in revolution to reclaim their country from the elite ruling class. The road to recovery was long and arduous; it took another 75 years for the United States to re-establish its position as a leader in technology and innovation. This resurgence was built on the indomitable spirit of its people and a renewed commitment to the principles of democracy and progress.
As they sat across from each other, the remnants of their coffees cooling on the table, Rich leaned forward, his voice low but intense. “Jefferson, think about it. Pullman was just a pawn, a ‘useful idiot’ for something—or someone—far more calculating and sinister. His reign wasn’t just a political aberration; it was a deliberate move to push the U.S. back into the dark ages. And it’s not just America; look at the patterns globally. Nations that once led the world in progress and human rights regressed into isolationist, authoritarian regimes, all chanting the same destructive nationalistic slogans.”
Jefferson, typically skeptical of conspiracy theories, raised an eyebrow. “OK, let’s say that Pullman and others like him… they were manipulated. By whom? For what purpose?”
Rich’s eyes were alight with the fervor of his belief. “It’s as if they were orchestrated to ignite nationalism, to create division, to stifle progress. Why? To revert humanity back to a primitive state. Think about it—Mao in China, Stalin in the USSR. History is littered with these figures who, under the guise of nationalism or revolution, led their countries into catastrophic regression.”
Jefferson mulled this over, the gears in his mind turning. “Man, you’re one weird dude. Your theory is that there’s a pattern. A cycle of building civilizations up only to tear them down. But why? Who stands to gain from sending us back to… what, the Stone Age?”
Rich leaned back, his gaze fixed on a point in the distance, as if visualizing the threads of history weaving together into a tapestry of manipulation. “This is what I can’t figure out. It just doesn’t make any sense. But the pattern is there! It is constantly happening…again and again throughout history. Why? Maybe it’s about control. About resources, maybe. Or maybe it’s an experiment, a test. We’re being pushed to the brink to see how we respond. And every time we’re set back, it takes longer for us to recover, to reach back to the point where we were. It’s like… like resetting a game over and over, each time making it harder to win.”
Jefferson’s skepticism began to wane. “Hmmm…so, what you’re saying is, there’s a force out there, maybe not even human, that’s steering humanity’s fate. Pulling the strings to ensure we never progress too far or become too self-sufficient.”
Rich nodded. “Exactly. And every so often, they reset the board. The ‘ghosts’ I’ve been talking about, the anomalies I am detecting in the universe, the historical patterns of self-destruction… it’s all connected. They’re guiding us, manipulating us, trying to reset us if we stray too far from the path they’ve set.”
The conversation, once a lively debate, had turned into a mutual exploration of a possible grand design—a sinister orchestration of humanity’s history and future. Both Rich and Jefferson, despite their vastly different backgrounds and interests, found common ground in the pursuit of understanding this hidden agenda. And as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the campus, they realized that their journey to uncover the truth had only just begun. And Rich discovered espresso.
November 12, 2369 – 31 Years Ago:
San Francisco CA – A Newspaper Stand
Rich and Jefferson’s friendship had blossomed over the years, rooted in shared curiosity and the oddball corners of academic pursuit. By now, Rich had confided in Jefferson about his mental health struggles, a revelation that only deepened their bond. Jefferson, ever the pragmatist with a soft spot for the peculiarities of genius, had suspected as much early on and embraced it with his usual nonchalance: “Who am I to judge? We’re all fucking nuts.”
As they navigated their early twenties, the world around them seemed increasingly dystopian. San Francisco, with its iconic Golden Gate shrouded in smog, had become a stark reminder of a planet suffocating under human excess. The air was thick with pollution, the streets a tableau of decay and neglect, reflecting the global crisis that humanity continued to exacerbate.
Against this grim backdrop, at 22, Rich’s penchant for historical puzzles had unfortunately veered towards the darker chapters of human history. His research became a relentless dive into the abyss of human failings and catastrophic events. This focus on the negative aspects of civilization made it increasingly difficult for him to maintain any semblance of hope or optimism. His parents, Elena and Nathan, and Jefferson watched with growing concern as Rich’s demeanor darkened with his subject matter.
One afternoon, amidst the hustle of San Francisco’s crowded streets, Rich stumbled upon a story that would pivot his focus towards an enigma that merged the worlds of astronomy and ancient societal structures. The headline “UK Woman Abducted by Venus Aliens” in a tabloid, usually dismissed by academics, caught his eye. Not realizing what he was doing, he paid for the tabloid and started scanning the pages…seeing paparazzi photos of half-naked celebrities cheating on each other, articles on the latest royalty gossip, and a headline claiming “Cat Locked in Freezer for Six Weeks: Defrosted and Back to Chasing Mice”.
As he flipped through the pages in search of the article, he couldn’t help but remember his encounter with the homeless man…surely an other-worldly visitor, no doubt in Rich’s mind. How else would you explain those undecipherable formulas and calculations…that also strangely almost made sense and almost identically followed a mix of quantum mechanics, astrophysics, and sub-atomic particle physics.
Flipping pages vigorously, he finally found the cover “Venus” article and was immediately drawn to a single word that resonated with an unexpected depth – “Caste.” His mind immediately projected onto his mind’s eye the pictures of the homeless masses during Pullman’s reign, the horrific black and white photos of the Nazi concentration camps, and the brutal mass beatings of the peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama on Bloody Sunday.
The tabloid article narrated Angela Withers’ encounter, her descriptions painting her captors not as fearsome beings but as entities of a higher, “beautiful caste.” Angela’s captivation, whether borne of Stockholm Syndrome or chemical influence, hinted at a societal hierarchy that transcended earthly understanding.
Rich was not sure why this word, “caste”, struck him so profoundly, and why he had those horrific images flash into his mind. He thought caste was limited to India with the “untouchables”, or the Dalits as they were actually named. This newfound intrigue compelled Rich to delve into the concept of caste more deeply than ever before.
He delved into Isabel Wilkerson’s Pulitzer-winning exploration of caste systems, drawing parallels that spanned continents and epochs. From the untouchables of India, the United States slavery in the 1800s and the subsequent Jim Crow laws, the Māoris in New Zealand, the racial hierarchies of Nazi Germany and beyond, to the vast sea of forced homeless vagrants of the Pullman era, Rich began to see the shadow of caste looming over humanity’s history.
From the rigid hierarchies of ancient civilizations to the systemic divisions in modern societies, caste had woven its way through the fabric of human interaction, often underpinning the greatest atrocities and social injustices of our time. This realization dawned on him during his research and discussions, illuminating the depth and breadth of caste systems in a way he had never anticipated.
Yet, the connection to extraterrestrial beings eluded him, a puzzle whose pieces seemed to scatter further the more he chased them.
His exploration led him to a pivotal conversation with Angela Withers. Despite her condition, which seemed perpetually clouded by the aftereffects of her experience, their phone call was a breakthrough moment for Rich.
“Angela,” Rich began, his voice steady yet filled with an eagerness to understand, “you mentioned they were of a ‘beautiful caste.’ Could you explain what you meant by that?”
Angela’s response, though fragmented, was laced with a reverence that caught Rich off guard. “Yes, they… they were superior, not just in how they looked but in everything. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like… they were from a higher place, not just from Venus, but in how they… organized. Caste, yes, but not like anything we know.”
This conversation, though brief and mired in Angela’s struggles with coherence, was a catalyst for Rich. It forced him to confront his preconceived notions about caste, expanding his understanding beyond the simplistic and towards the complex interweavings of societal structures throughout history and, perhaps, even beyond Earth. The dialogue between Rich and Angela sparked a deeper investigation into the history of caste systems, revealing their ubiquitous presence across cultures and epochs.
Amid this intense period of research and revelation, Rich’s steadfast friend, Jefferson Buford, became increasingly concerned. Jefferson, ever the pragmatist and grounded in the earthly challenges of AI and robotics, watched as Rich’s obsession with Venusians, caste systems, and historical patterns consumed him. Their dialogues, once a vibrant exchange of ideas, took on a tone of concern and caution.
“Rich, you’re chasing frickin’ shadows. I mean, Venus? Are you sure you’re taking your meds?” Jefferson half-jokingly implored one evening as they sat overlooking the city, the Golden Gate shrouded in fog. “This theory of yours, it’s fascinating, sure…and also nuts. You’re weaving shit together and the threads too thin to hold. Caste systems, aliens, Venus, ancient history—aren’t you taking it a bit too far?”
Rich, his eyes crazed and alight with the fire of conviction, countered, “But don’t you see, Jefferson? It’s all connected. The ‘ghosts,’ the disappearance of JupiterONE and JupiterTWO, the whispers of history—they’re not just echoes; they’re messages. And ‘caste’ is the key. We’ve been slaves, Jefferson. Not just in history, but in a cosmic play that’s far bigger than we can imagine.”
Jefferson couldn’t help but question the solidity of Rich’s theories. “But to what end, Rich? Why would these… beings, these ‘ghosts,’ care about our societal structures? What’s the endgame?”
Rich’s response was tinged with a weariness that belied his years. “Control, Jefferson. It’s always about control. Earth’s people—it’s all just pieces on a board. And we’re being moved by hands we can’t even see.”
Their conversations, once a source of mutual inspiration, now highlighted a growing divide between them. Jefferson, concerned for his friend’s wellbeing, suggested a break, a diversion. “Maybe step back for a bit? There’s a world out here, Rich. Don’t lose yourself to the one you’re trying to uncover.”
But Rich was undeterred, his resolve hardened by the shadows that danced at the edge of his perception and the “ghosts” that whispered in the silence. His quest had become more than academic—it was personal, a challenge to the unseen forces that he believed manipulated humanity’s fate. And as their paths began to diverge, Rich clung to his theories with a desperation that bordered on obsession, a brilliant mind dancing dangerously close to the cliff of madness.
November 30, 2369 – 31 Years Ago:
San Francisco and the UK – Various Locations
Rich Cranston’s descent into obsession became as rapid as it was alarming. His once orderly San Francisco apartment transformed into a chaotic shrine to his fixation with Venus and the purported alien messages hidden within the most unlikely of mediums: tabloids. Piles of “Cosmic Confessions,” “Galactic Gossip,” and “Venusian Visions” cluttered every surface, their sensational headlines speaking to him in ways no scholarly article ever could. Rich was convinced these publications were the aliens’ chosen method of communication, specifically with him.
His parents, Nathan and Elena, were struck dumb by the state of his living space during an unexpected visit. The man who greeted them at the door bore little resemblance to their son. His eyes, once full of the promise of discovery, now flickered with the mania of obsession.
Jefferson Buford, Rich’s steadfast friend and confidante, heard the commotion down the hall and barged in, not surprised by the transformation. Though typically the embodiment of anti-establishment sentiments, Jefferson found himself in the unusual position of agreeing with Rich’s parents on the need for intervention. The scene before them was one of despair, a brilliant mind seemingly lost to the allure of conspiracy and hallucination. But Rich refused, insisting that he would get back to his academic studies post haste.
But Rich’s academic pursuits suffered equally. His advisors and fellow researchers at the university watched in dismay as he diverted all his intellectual resources towards his obsession with Venus. The observatory, once a place of broad cosmic exploration, became the focal point of his singular obsession, its instruments recalibrated to gaze endlessly at the shrouded planet. Deadlines passed unnoticed, and his standing within the academic community began to waver.
Compelled by a drive that none could dissuade, Rich took to the seedy streets of the San Francisco Tenderloin, seeking insights from those society had cast aside. He approached women, many caught in the throes of addiction or caught up in the world of prostitution, with questions about Venus. His inquiries, bizarre and relentless, drew the ire of those who sought to protect their own interests. Altercations with angry pimps left him bruised but undeterred, his quest for answers pushing him further into peril.
The culmination of his downward spiral was a desperate flight to the UK, an attempt to find Angela Withers and confirm his theories. But Angela Withers was gone, her neighbors claiming that she was visited by people from the “Crazy House” and led away despite her loud protests and screams. The search led him through a labyrinth of psychiatric wards, each turn offering hope that evaporated as quickly as it appeared. Angela Withers had vanished, her existence as ephemeral as the messages Rich believed he had received from beyond.
This revelation, the culmination of months of obsession, unmet searches, and physical confrontations, led Rich to the precipice of his sanity. Alone in a foreign country, the realization of his isolation and the futility of his quest crashed over him like a tidal wave. An episodic breakdown, gripping and total, left him vulnerable and exposed on the streets of London.
It was Nathan, Elena, and Jefferson who found him, their journey to the UK marked by urgency and fear. Together, they brought Rich back to San Francisco, his physical form a shell of the vibrant scholar he once was. The journey home was silent, each mile widening the gap between Rich and the world he sought to understand.
Rich’s unraveling was not just a personal tragedy but a stark reminder of the fine line between genius and madness. His search for truth, once noble and pure, had led him to confront the darkest corners of his mind and the world. The next chapter of his life would be written in the quiet halls of a psychiatric ward, a far cry from the observatory and the stars that had once been his sanctuary.
June 23, 2370 – 30 Years Ago:
Marin County CA – Psychiatric Emergency Clinic
Rich Cranston’s admission to the psychiatry ward marked a poignant chapter in his tumultuous journey. The bright, curious mind that had once sought to unravel the mysteries of the universe now found itself ensnared by its own inner demons. The psychiatric team, concerned by his erratic behavior and delusional fixations, prescribed a stronger regimen of Haldol among other antipsychotics, hoping to stabilize his condition. The increase in medication, though necessary, cast a veil over his consciousness, leaving Rich adrift in a sea of confusion, his days blending into a continuous loop of sedation and disorientation.
In his lucid moments, Rich would scribble on any surface he could find—numbers, symbols, equations that trailed off into nothingness. To the untrained eye, these appeared as the meaningless doodles of a troubled mind, but to Rich, they were the remnants of his shattered quest, the pieces of a puzzle he could no longer solve.
Nathan and Elena, Rich’s devoted parents, visited him daily, bringing homemade meals in an attempt to provide some semblance of normalcy. However, Rich, submerged in his medicated haze, often refused to see them, his resentment and confusion building a wall that even parental love could not penetrate.
Jefferson, too, tried to reach out to his friend, his visits marked by an awkward mixture of hope and despair. But the Rich he knew seemed to have vanished, replaced by a stranger who viewed the world through a fog of pharmaceuticals and anti-psychotics.
As he continued in a downward spiral of psychotic turmoil, Rich’s already fragile state took yet another negative turn. He slipped into a coma-like state, unresponsive to the world around him, his body motionless but for the shallow rise and fall of his chest. For nearly a month, he remained in this twilight zone, his condition a constant source of anxiety for his family and friends.
As Rich lay in the hospital bed, silent and unreachable, his mind was anything but dormant. Within the stillness, he journeyed through a landscape of half-dreams, echoes of a mission whispered to him by shadows that flitted on the edges of his perception. The voices of the “ghosts” returned, their spectral presence filling the spaces between his slow breaths.
“You are essential, Rich,” they murmured, a chorus of the intangible, “chosen to bridge worlds, to avert a calamity unseen but ever approaching.”
In this comatose state, Rich’s mind grasped at fragments of understanding, trying desperately to piece together a puzzle vast and intricate. The whispers spoke of urgency, of a great chasm that threatened entire galaxies, and of beings desperate to cross an unfathomable divide with only a remnant of hope remaining. These spectral visitants imparted knowledge without form, hints of a Great Migration doomed from its inception, a march of a sextillion worlds facing inevitable loss.
Through the haze of medication and the fog of his subconscious, Rich heard them—a solemn warning from Tikadaru Grobanu, a name he did not know but felt etched into the very fabric of the cosmos. “Failure is not an end but a genesis of something new. Carry on,” the Universe Commander’s voice resonated within the depths of Rich’s psyche.
Rich’s brain, even in its subdued state, raced with the implications. The strange cave dwellers, their evolution reversed, a grave miscalculation threatening the delicate balance of a plan set in motion over a million years ago. They spoke of Earth, a world teetering on the edge of its own demise, echoing the fates of countless others.
As the weeks dragged on, Rich’s condition remained a heart-wrenching enigma, holding him somewhere between presence and absence. His family and Jefferson kept a near-constant vigil, speaking softly to him, reminiscing about their shared adventures and sharing light-hearted stories in a desperate attempt to reignite his spark.
One evening, as the dim light of the hospital room cast long shadows, Jefferson leaned close, his voice barely above a whisper. “Rich, you got to break out of this…I’ve got some news that I want to share…about NASA…and I know you, of all people, are gonna be interested.” Slowly, Rich’s eyelids twitched, a faint but promising sign.
Over the next few days, these moments of near awareness grew. Rich seemed to be fighting through a heavy fog, occasionally flickering back to them with brief glances or a squeeze of his mother’s hand. It was during one of these moments that Rich’s eyes finally fluttered open more fully, his gaze cloudy and disoriented. The room came into slow focus, with the familiar faces of his loved ones blending with the sterile hospital environment.
The voices of his family and Jefferson felt like anchors, pulling him from the depths of his isolation. Jefferson, noticing the slight clarity in Rich’s eyes, pressed on, excitement tinged with urgency in his voice. “Rich, the universe hasn’t stopped. We got work to do…I’ve got a plan. I just need you to wake up.”
Rich’s response was sluggish, his words slurred as if he were speaking through water. “You said NASA…” he murmured, the connection to his past life sparking dimly in his weary mind. It was as though the mention of the cosmic quest they had often dreamed of together served as a beacon, guiding him back.
Rich’s eyes fluttered…open, shut, open…the world around him a blur of light and shadow. The echoes of the “ghosts” receded, their messages woven into the fabric of his being. It was amidst this slow ebb to consciousness that Jefferson’s voice wove through the fog, a lifeline cast into the waters of Rich’s troubled mind. The mention of NASA, an opportunity to return to his celestial passion, ignited a spark within Rich. Here was a path laid out by fate or perhaps by the very forces that had visited him in his darkest hours.
Leaning forward, Jefferson spoke with a hopeful tone, trying to pierce through the haze that the medication had wrapped around Rich’s mind.
“Rich, what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Jefferson began, his eyes searching Rich’s for any spark of interest. “I got selected for a project at NASA, for their AI program. It’s a big move for me—heading to Huntsville.”
Rich’s eyes flickered, sensing he was about to lose the only friend he had, exacerbated by his current circumstances.
Seeing a slight shift in his friend, Jefferson continued, “There’s more. While I was sorting out my own placement, I came across this internship in their space and cosmic research department. It’s perfect for you, man. Different department, but hey, we’d both be in Alabama. It’d be like the Stanford days, except this time we’d be pushing the actual frontiers of space.”
The mention of space and research, areas where Rich had always excelled, seemed to cut through the fog a bit more sharply. Jefferson’s words, suggesting a return to a life where Rich could engage with his passions, felt like a lifeline being thrown to him in a sea of confusion.
“It’s not just about the internship,” Jefferson pressed on, his voice low and encouraging. “It’s about getting you back to where you belong—among the stars, solving real mysteries, not the ones cooked up by your freaked out mind….no offense. You need to be there, Rich. And I could really use a familiar face around as I tackle the AI stuff.”
The words reached into the core of who he once was—a scientist driven by curiosity and a profound love for the cosmos. The ‘ghosts’ that had haunted his visions, whispering of destinies and calamities, seemed to echo Jefferson’s suggestion, blending their spectral voices with the more tangible, hopeful opportunity his friend presented.
“The internship, Rich,” Jefferson said, tentatively. “It means going back to what you love, focusing on the stars, on science. You’ve always been meant for great things, man. This… this could be your chance to start over.”
As Rich lay there, contemplating Jefferson’s words, he couldn’t shake the feeling of manipulation, the sense that his choices were not entirely his own. The “ghosts” that had haunted his life were shaping his path, guiding him towards an unknown destiny that was intrinsically linked to the cosmos itself.
Slowly, Rich began to emerge from the depths of his unconscious state. It was a gradual awakening, each day bringing a slight improvement, a glimmer of the person he once was. The recovery process was painstaking, filled with setbacks and small victories, but through it all, Rich’s indomitable spirit began to reassert itself.
Rich’s parents watched their son, caught between relief and concern. They too had noticed the change, the subtle shifts in his demeanor that hinted at an inner turmoil and a silent understanding far beyond their reach.
In the quiet hospital room, as Rich’s mind cleared and his body strengthened, he made a decision. He would answer the call of the stars, clear up his mind so he could chase after the opportunity at NASA, and perhaps in doing so, he would unravel the enigma of his own existence and the cryptic prophecies of the beings that lingered just beyond the veil of reality.
The thought of returning to the realm of cosmic mysteries, of engaging once more with the fabric of the universe, sparked something within him. It was a daunting prospect, stepping back into the world he had once commanded with such confidence, but the possibility of redemption, of reclaiming his place among the stars, was a siren call he could not ignore.
His journey towards NASA would not be just a pursuit of knowledge but a quest for the truth—a truth that held the key to the survival of worlds unnumbered and a civilization teetering on the precipice of oblivion.
Chapter 6: Parallel Revelations – Contact with JupiterTWO
April 15, 2400 (1 month since JupiterONE reemerged)
NASA Explore Institute, Huntsville AL
The return of communication from JupiterTWO injected a new wave of exhilaration into the NASA command center, mirroring the electrifying atmosphere that had surrounded the re-establishment of contact with JupiterONE just a month prior. April 15, 2400, would be marked as another historic day, as JupiterTWO ‘s data transmissions confirmed its incredible journey of 20.1 billion light-years—a distance revealing profound implications about the structure and dynamics of the universe.
Mike Filcher, Rich Cranston’s second in command, stood before the team, his voice betraying his astonishment. “According to our calculations, using the Log Base 1.6 algorithm, JupiterTWO has traveled 3 billion light-years less than JupiterONE. Given the direction of Earth’s travel, this means we’re actually closer to what we now call the New Origin Homeland,” he explained, referring to the parallel landmass discovered by JupiterTWO.
The revelation from JupiterTWO, arriving unexpectedly only a month after the reestablished connection with JupiterTWO, despite a one-year gap between their respective launches and far ahead of the expected timeline—sent ripples of surprise through the team at NASA. Rich leaned back in his chair, his eyes fixed on the screens displaying the inbound data.
“It’s logical,” Rich countered as murmurs of disbelief filled the room. “The universe isn’t a static environment; it’s dynamic and ever-expanding. The ‘edge’ isn’t a fixed point but a boundary that apparently, we are getting closer to. JupiterTWO reaching the other edge earlier simply means the New Homeland is closer than we anticipated based on our initial launch projections.”
As the team digested Rich’s explanation, they turned their attention back to the monitors where ABIGAIL, JupiterTWO’s onboard AI, similar in design and capability to RAIDEN, began her transmission. Her voice, clear and slightly melodic, filled the command center. “Initial scans of the New Homeland reveal no signs of atmosphere, vegetation, or water. It is a pristine, virgin landmass, entirely barren and seemingly uninhabitable for Earth-like life.”
The room fell silent as the implications of their findings sank in. The discovery of a virgin landmass by JupiterTWO, devoid of any life-supporting elements, presented a stark contrast to the Origin Homeland’s richness.
“It’s pristine but dead,” Rich muttered, studying the data scrolling rapidly on the screen. His mind was a whirlwind of theories and calculations.
Sharon leaned forward, her brow furrowed as she processed ABIGAIL’s report. “But how can that be?” she asked, her tone a mix of disbelief and scientific curiosity. “The Origin Homeland, despite its depletion, still supports an atmosphere and even traces of biotic activity. It doesn’t add up that the New Homeland is entirely barren.”
Mike nodded in agreement, tapping at his keyboard to pull up comparative data from RAIDEN’s reports. “ABIGAIL, can you cross-verify the scans? Check for any traces of elemental composition that might suggest even a minimal biome or atmospheric presence elsewhere on the land mass.”
ABIGAIL’s response was prompt and methodical. “Reinitiating scan protocols now,” she announced over the command center’s speakers. Moments later, the screens displayed her progress as she methodically analyzed different sectors of the New Homeland.
As the team watched, the data streamed in, each set of results confirming the previous findings. “The supplementary scans corroborate the initial assessment,” ABIGAIL reported after a thorough examination. “There are no detectable atmospheric compounds, no water vapor, no organic signatures across the entire surveyed area. The land mass is unequivocally barren and devoid of life-sustaining elements.”
Mike exhaled slowly, the reality setting in. “So, it really is just… empty. Completely uninhabitable,” he said, disappointment lacing his words.
Rich nodded, accepting the stark findings. “It appears we’ve discovered a new frontier that’s not just unexplored, but starkly inhospitable. And starkly in contrast with the Origin Homeland.”
Sharon leaned back, absorbing the implications. “It means any future exploration or colonization efforts would have to start from scratch—terraforming on a scale never contemplated before…literally on a scale the size of the universe.”
Their dialogue reinforced the understanding that the New Homeland was an extreme enigma—a virgin landmass that defied their current knowledge and expanded the scope of their cosmic inquiries.
As Rich absorbed the stark findings about the New Homeland from ABIGAIL’s repeated analyses, a chilling realization began to dawn on him. The New Homeland was barren—a dead landmass floating silently in the cosmic expanse, completely inhospitable for life as known on Earth…and life as known on the Origin Homeland! His mind raced back to the cryptic messages from the ghosts and the unsettling prophecy delivered by the homeless man decades ago.
“We arrive in 63 years,” the man had whispered, a statement that had haunted Rich’s thoughts intermittently over the years. Now, as he pondered the desolation of the New Homeland, the pieces of a terrifying puzzle began to click into place.
If the New Homeland is uninhabitable, then what is their real destination? Rich thought, his heartbeat quickening. Could Earth itself be their target?
The idea felt like a betrayal of his deepest fears. He knew the Beings from the Origin Homeland were capable of analyzing planetary viability with precision far beyond human technology. They would have known about the New Homeland’s condition—sterile and dead. This wasn’t their destination; it couldn’t be. They were heading somewhere else, somewhere lush and teeming with resources. Earth.
Rich’s thoughts spiraled as he considered the implications. The warnings about conserving Earth’s resources—the runaway formula given to him by spectral visitors, telling him he had to reverse the runaway condition to avoid the destruction of earth and its resources—weren’t just about preserving humanity’s future; they were about keeping Earth viable for its new masters. Was this migration not a search for refuge but a planned takeover?
Realizing the gravity of his thoughts, Rich knew he needed to discuss them with someone he could trust, someone who might understand the broader implications without dismissing them as the ramblings of a pressured mind. He pulled out his burner phone and sent a secure message to Jefferson, arranging a covert meeting. They couldn’t risk being overheard or intercepted in the high-security environment of NASA.
Later, in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Huntsville, Rich met with Jefferson, their voices echoing faintly in the vast, empty space.
“Jeff, you remember the homeless man? The warnings from my visitors about conserving Earth?” Rich began, his voice tense with urgency.
Jefferson looked around cautiously before replying, “Yeah, I remember you mentioned them a few times. Always thought it sounded like something out of a sci-fi novel.”
Rich nodded, pacing slightly. ” What if it’s a warning? The New Homeland is dead, Jeff. It’s utterly dead. And if the Beings knew this—and they must have—they’d need somewhere else. Somewhere like… here.”
Jefferson furrowed his brow, leaning back in his chair. “You mean to say, what? That Earth isn’t just a random planet in their path, but a target? Rich, that’s—”
“—It’s exactly what I’m saying,” Rich cut in, his voice firm. “Think about it. Advanced beings, escaping a dying world, messages about conservation… It’s not about helping us save our planet. It’s about keeping it ripe for their taking. In 2419, if that man was right, they arrive. And I don’t think they’re coming to ask politely for asylum.”
Jefferson, catching the urgency in Rich’s stance, added a critical point that widened the scope of their dilemma. “Remember, Rich, the Origin Homeland was massive—essentially the size of our known universe. They can’t just be targeting Earth alone; that would be too narrow a strategy for a civilization that vast.”
He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “And think about it, as advanced as we are, humanity hasn’t found concrete evidence of life on other worlds yet. The only proven existence of life beyond Earth is on the Origin Homeland.”
Rich paused, taking in Jefferson’s argument. “You’re right, Jeff. If they’re planning a migration, Earth could just be one of many targets. There must be other habitable planets out there, ones we haven’t discovered yet. Maybe the Beings are eyeing multiple worlds, setting up for a large-scale colonization.”
Jefferson nodded, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Exactly. It’s the only explanation that fits. They’ve got the tech to scan and evaluate planets across galaxies—there have to be other viable options in the cosmos. It’s not just about Earth; it’s about survival on a universal scale.”
This broadened perspective only intensified Rich’s resolve. If the Beings were looking to occupy multiple worlds, the strategy to confront them had to be even more robust and far-reaching. “We need to start mapping out potential habitable zones that they might target, using the same criteria they would. We need to stay one step ahead. We figure out how to defend Earth. We research, we plan, and maybe, just maybe, we find a way to stop them.”
Jefferson nodded slowly, “Alright, Rich. Take a look at the data again. Let’s see what we’re really up against.”
As Rich headed back to the NASA command center, his mind was dizzy with strategies and contingencies. The ghosts of his past, once mere echoes of madness, now seemed like heralds of a dire future.
April 15, 2400 – 2 hours later:
NASA Explore Institute, Huntsville AL
When Rich returned, he found Mike and Sharon continuing their work with ABIGAIL.
ABIGAIL announced, “The data on cosmic positioning indicates that all galaxies, including our Milky Way, appear to be moving only in this direction, and no galaxies are moving in the opposite direction… suggesting a directional flow of galactic movement towards what may indeed be a universal boundary.”
This confirmation of a unified galactic trajectory towards the New Homeland, although profound, did not surprise the scientists. The orchestrated movement of cosmic bodies in a one half of a spherical direction challenged the previously accepted models of a spherical, isotropic universe, but the scientists now understood that what was once believed to be galaxies moving in the opposite direction, that is, toward the Origin Homeland, was actually just a reflection.
Mike, understanding the implications, added, “Obviously we need to evaluate how this impacts other aspects of the cosmos. We’re not just looking at a universe expanding from a central point but moving towards an endpoint—a final frontier.”
Rich nodded, his mind racing with how this new model fit into what he had been told by “ghosts” and homeless persons. “Knowing all galaxies are headed in the same direction,” he pondered aloud, “what does that say about the nature of our universe? Are we, too, part of a larger cycle or a grand cosmic path predestined by the laws of physics we’re yet to fully understand? Will we one day find ourselves at the edge of the universe…and will we eventually collide with the New Homeland?”
The dialogue sparked a flurry of discussion among the team, with theories being proposed and debated vigorously. Meanwhile, ABIGAIL’s continuous data stream provided further analysis of the environmental simulations conducted by the Shimmering Curtain.
“As for the terrestrial simulations,” ABIGAIL reported, “it appears the Shimmering Curtain not only creates barriers but also sustains earth-like cosmic and tidal conditions on the New Homeland —24-hour light cycles, seasonal changes, even tidal patterns without an actual celestial body to orbit.”
“Wait a minute!” Rich exclaimed. “This completely mimics Earth’s natural cycle! Is this the case on the Origin Homeland as well? We were in such a hurry to uncover geological and archeological discoveries; I completely overlooked a very basic element! Quick – get RAIDEN online and let’s check this out on the Origin Homeland!”
RAIDEN, the AI-powered explorer aboard JupiterONE, confirmed the staggering discovery on the Origin Homeland. “There are nights and days lasting 24 hours, identical to Earth’s. The seasons, tides, all mimic Earth’s cycles perfectly,” RAIDEN communicated, his findings indicating that these phenomena occurred naturally, without the need for planetary rotation or orbit around a sun. “The Shimmering Curtain seems to be providing these capabilities,” RAIDEN concluded.
The team, including Rich, stared in disbelief. The universe, as they understood it, had just become infinitely more complex and mysterious. “These Beings are so sophisticated and advanced, they were able to harness the power of the Shimmering Curtain to completely mimic the characteristics of every aspect of a life-sustaining planet – earth! Days, nights, tides, atmosphere, gravity…everything! And to do so without any spherical revolution or orbit…simply an absolutely amazing feat of technology! And the New Homeland must be some sort of parallel universe…with some sort of quantum entanglement that allows the two separate Shimmering Curtains to behave identically the same way!”
Rich’s earlier conviction of a parallel universe seemed to be taking shape before their eyes. Yet, the revelation about the Origin Homeland’s mimicry of Earth’s environmental conditions left him as bewildered as his colleagues.
“WARNING! INTRUSION DETECTED!”
The sharp, piercing blare of the surveillance alarm echoed through the NASA command center, instantly heightening the tension in the room. The warning repeated, “WARNING! INTRUSION DETECTED!” The alert was not just a disruption—it was a clear signal that the stakes had escalated dangerously.
Rich’s eyes snapped to the nearest monitor displaying the security feed. The mysterious figure—haggard, with a look of deep desperation etched across his features—appeared once more, this time closer to the critical operations wing of the facility. It was an area that housed not just the controls for their interstellar communications but also vaults of classified data essential to the space program.
Immediately, Rich’s training took over. He hit the emergency response button, instantly locking down the command center. Magnetic locks thudded into place on all access doors, sealing the room hermetically. Overhead, red lights began to flash, casting an ominous glow over the banks of monitors and workstations.
Within moments, the hum of activity was replaced by the swift, coordinated movements of the security team. Armed guards, previously stationed discreetly at strategic points throughout the facility, now moved with purpose, their boots thudding against the polished floors as they converged on the command center.
“Secure all entry and exit points,” Rich commanded, his voice cutting through the low murmur of anxious technicians and scientists. The team responded with crisp nods, their faces set in determined lines as they began to sweep the area.
Outside, the response was just as swift. Military personnel, part of a detachment assigned to provide additional security for the space agency, rolled in with armored vehicles, setting up a perimeter around the complex. Helicopters buzzed overhead, their searchlights sweeping the grounds while sniffer dogs were released by handlers to scour the surrounding areas.
Inside, Rich watched the monitors closely, his mind racing with possibilities. This intrusion was no coincidence—it was timed, deliberate, and dangerously close to their most sensitive operations. The figure’s repeated appearances and now this breach couldn’t just be dismissed as random acts.
As the lockdown protocol continued, Rich conferred with the head of NASA security, a seasoned ex-military officer who had dealt with threats of espionage and terrorism. “I need a full review of all surveillance footage,” Rich insisted. “Check for any signs of tampering. Someone inside could be aiding them.”
The officer nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. “We’ll sweep for bugs, unauthorized devices, anything out of the ordinary. Every employee will be vetted again, no exceptions.”
As Rich processed the officer’s plan, a jolt of alarm shot through him. Crap! I have a damn burner phone in my jacket pocket! With security this tight, what if they find out about my talks with Jefferson? His mind raced with the potential fallout, the fear of jeopardizing their entire mission gnawing at him as he watched the security team spring into action.
Rich glanced subtly towards his jacket, draped casually over the back of his chair amidst the chaos. The presence of the burner phone suddenly felt like a tremendous risk. If discovered, it would not only expose his secret discussions with Jefferson but would also be perceived as a breach of protocol, undermining the trust placed in him by his superiors and complicating the security measures now swamping the facility.
His unauthorized exchanges with Jefferson had always been about leveraging his friend’s insights on AI and their broader implications, discussions that were technically out of bounds given Jefferson’s clearance level. These conversations had seemed necessary, even prudent in the context of their shared suspicions and theories about the larger cosmic plot they were unraveling. Now, as armed guards swept through the command center and cybersecurity teams probed for leaks, Rich felt the weight of every unsanctioned word he had shared.
Rich knew he had to act cautiously. With the center on high alert and every action scrutinized, retrieving and securing the phone without drawing attention was paramount. Waiting for a moment when the flurry of activity reached a peak around a new briefing, Rich nonchalantly approached his chair. He palmed the phone in one smooth motion, slipping it into the pocket of his pants, shielded by the fabric and less likely to be detected during a routine search.
His heart beat a little faster, not just from the close call with the phone, but from the realization of the precarious edge on which he balanced. The intense security response was a stark reminder that their work had potentially put Earth in the crosshairs of a sophisticated and possibly hostile force.
In a quiet corner of the bustling room, under the pretense of reviewing data on his tablet, Rich typed a quick, coded message to Jefferson. It was encrypted with their secret code they created back in college…just in case it was intercepted. “Security is crawling all over the fucking place. You know nothing. We have not talked. And leave no digital trace.”
As he hit send, Rich tucked the tablet under his arm and resumed his oversight of the security operations, his mind working through the scenarios of what they might be up against. The burner phone in his pocket was a small but potent symbol of the dual fronts on which he now had to battle—not only against the external threats looming from the stars but also the internal scrutiny that could unravel his efforts to protect humanity.
As the evening wore on, the command center transformed into a hive of activity under siege. Officers conducted interviews, cybersecurity teams checked for breaches, and Rich found himself at the heart of a storm that had been brewing far beyond the reaches of Earth’s atmosphere.
Security personnel combed through every corner of the facility with methodical precision, their faces set in grim determination. Surveillance footage was scrutinized, access logs audited, and every possible hiding spot was checked. Despite their exhaustive efforts, the intruder had vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared. No trace, no clue left behind—just the haunting image on the surveillance footage that kept playing over in Rich’s mind.
As the hours ticked by, the initial surge of adrenaline faded into a weary tension among the staff. The security team, unable to justify keeping the facility on lockdown indefinitely, finally began to wind down their operations. Late into the night, they gave the all-clear for employees to go home, though the atmosphere was far from relaxed.
Rich gathered his belongings, his thoughts racing with the implications of the day’s events. The unease of being watched, of being targeted, clung to him like a second skin. As he walked to his hover car, the parking lot was teeming with security personnel and armed guards, and it seemed to echo with potential threats, each shadow and sound making him tense. One of the guards insisted that he needed to search his hover car just in case something was planted, or someone was hiding inside the interior of the vehicle…or in the trunk. The guard performed a quick but thorough search, and then gave him the all clear, and he was allowed to proceed on his way.
He knew this was far from over. Tonight was just a glimpse of a larger game at play, one that had placed Earth itself in the crosshairs of unknown cosmic entities. His resolve hardened; he would need to prepare, to plan, and to protect not just himself but his planet. The battle for Earth’s future was just beginning.
Rich eased into the driver’s seat of his hover car, exhaling deeply as the door sealed shut with a soft hiss. The chaos of the day’s events—a security breach at NASA, swarming officers, relentless questioning, not to mention the days’ discoveries from the re-emergence of JupiterTWO—had left him utterly drained. The city lights blurred past him in a cascade of color, a stark contrast to the darkness that had shrouded the command center just hours earlier. Rich’s thoughts drifted to the comforting solitude of his home; he imagined sinking into a hot bath, a glass of red wine in hand, the day’s madness melting away. Just a few more minutes, he told himself, a brief escape from the relentless pressure.
He navigated toward the Skybahn on-ramp, the autopilot engaging smoothly as he settled back, letting the gentle hum of the engine soothe his frayed nerves. As Rich’s hover car approached the Skybahn, its system seamlessly locked onto the safety trajectory beam, a sophisticated guidance technology that ensured secure and swift travel. The car’s autopilot adjusted, accelerating smoothly as it ascended towards the cruising altitude of 3,000 feet, where it could reach speeds up to 300 mph. Rich leaned back, the stresses of the day momentarily forgotten as he trusted the invisible hands of technology to guide him home safely.
Outside the car, the Skybahn Illumination lights, a signature innovation by Tesla Corporation, whipped past in a hypnotic sequence. These lights, designed under the tenure of Martin Musk, the visionary fourth CEO of Tesla and great-great-great-grandson of the legendary Elon Musk, lined the Skybahn every few meters, providing a dazzling display of safety and sophistication that had become standard in modern aerial transportation.
The system had evolved significantly under the current CEO, Petro Musk, who had pushed for an increase in the cruising altitude to 4,000 feet—a change set to take effect the following year. This adjustment wasn’t just a technical improvement; it was strategically aligned with Petro’s business motives. Higher altitudes meant increased energy consumption for maintaining speed and vehicle stability, which in turn would spike the demand for carbon credits—a market where Petro Musk had built an empire, deriving 99% of his profits. This change was crucial for him, as it bolstered his control over a critical aspect of the global economy, leveraging the very air people traveled through for his gain.
But as the skyline stretched out before him, a sudden jolt snapped Rich back to reality. The hover car veered sharply, the smooth rhythm of the ride disrupted as it accelerated with alarming speed. Rich’s hand shot out to the controls, his heart pounding as he realized the vehicle was no longer responding to his touch.
With no warning, the serene night erupted into chaos. The car’s system flashed a red warning, and the gentle hum turned into a threatening roar as the vehicle was ripped from its path on the Skybahn. Rich struggled against the locked controls, the realization dawning on him that he was no longer in control of his own vehicle. The serene escape he had envisioned was violently replaced by a stark fight for survival.
The hover car, normally a beacon of modern convenience, transformed into a prison of high-speed terror as it veered off the designated Skybahn route. His heart pounded against his chest like a drum as the automatic governor, meant to restrict the vehicle to a safe altitude of 3,500 feet for emergency ascents, was brutally overridden. Helplessly, Rich watched the altimeter spiral wildly as the vehicle rocketed towards a dizzying 8,000 feet.
Through the howling wind and the ominous shadows of a looming tornastorm, Rich thought he spotted the vague outline of a massive transport spacecraft maneuvering in the darkness. The storm at these altitudes was a violent spectacle of nature’s fury, a common occurrence in the era of climatic chaos. Illumination from the Skybahn lights faded far below, leaving him enveloped in an oppressive darkness punctuated only by the sporadic flashes of distant lightning.
Panic clawed at his throat as he felt the controls lock under an unseen force’s command, his attempts to engage the manual override thwarted by a cold, unyielding metal restraint that mocked his desperation. Remembering the knife stashed for emergencies, Rich fumbled through the dimly lit cabin. His fingers wrapped around the handle, drawing the blade in a swift motion that left a stinging slash across his palm as the blade cut deep into his hand—a minor wound overshadowed by the impending threat of death.
With the storm raging around him, the hover car jerked violently to starboard, then took a sharp nosedive, plunging 400 feet in a stomach-churning drop. Rich, his body slammed against the ceiling, managed to wedge the knife, both sticky and slippery from his own blood, between the manual controls and the metal clamp. Grunting with effort, his face inches from the snapping blade, he applied every ounce of his strength…the sting of the deep slash on his palm making him scream from the pain. Metal screeched against metal, the sound nearly drowned out by the roar of the wind and the whine of the struggling engines.
Just as the restraint began to give way under the relentless pressure, the vehicle lurched violently, throwing Rich across the cabin. The knife clattered away, but not before the restraint snapped, freeing the controls. Gasping for breath and nursing a throbbing head, Rich lunged for the controls, his bloody fingers finally wrapping around the familiar grip of the manual override.
With a fierce determination, he wrestled the vehicle into a steep dive, forcing it back under the 3,500-foot threshold where emergency protocols could be re-engaged. His descent was a desperate blur, the skyline of the city rising to meet him as he aimed for the outskirts—anywhere he could make a safe landing.
The hover car hit the ground with a jarring thud that knocked the wind out of him. Rich didn’t pause to catch his breath; he sprung from the vehicle, the cold rain immediately soaking through his clothes, mingling with the blood from his injured hand. The dark outline of the woods offered a scant promise of cover. Adrenaline fueling his movements, he sprinted towards the tree line, each step sinking into the muddy ground, his mind racing with the implications of what had just occurred.
Finding no shelter and the rain intensifying, Rich made the decision to head back towards the city. Ducking from tree to tree, he remained vigilant, every shadow and sound magnifying his paranoia. Finally, sheltered beneath the sparse canopy of a large oak, he pulled out the burner phone with a shaking hand, throbbing with pain and still dripping fresh blood from the deep cut.
He dialed Jefferson’s number, the phone slipping slightly against his wet skin. “Jeff, it’s Rich. I need help—now,” he gasped into the phone, his voice barely above a whisper as he glanced back towards the dark expanse of the empty road, half expecting his assailants to materialize from the shadows.
Chapter 7: Echoes of Generational Echoes
August 12, 2372 – 2391
The Early Days at NASA
Rich Cranston’s initial days as a NASA intern were marked by an unassuming yet brilliant presence within the labyrinth of the agency’s vast scientific community. Fresh from completing his PhD in astrophysics at a remarkably young age, Rich joined NASA with a reputation for his exceptional thesis on the potential for hyper-spatial travel through quantum loop gravity—a concept that would later revolutionize space travel. His entry into NASA was shadowed by the darker days spent in a psychiatric ward in Marin County, a turbulent period which Jefferson, already accepted into the AI research team at NASA, had helped him navigate. Jefferson’s support was not only instrumental in Rich securing the internship but also in maintaining his focus during those crucial early days.
Rich’s days were long and intense, filled with the thrill of pushing the boundaries of current space technology. He led several projects that would come to define his early career: the development of a prototype for an ion propulsion engine that used solar wind, and improvements in deep-space communication arrays using minimal power—a critical enhancement for long-duration missions. These innovations not only advanced space exploration but also laid the groundwork for his rapid promotions, culminating in his appointment as NASA’s Chief Scientist. As he settled into his new role, Rich often reflected on the fortuitous set of circumstances that brought him and Jefferson to NASA at the same time, suspecting that some unseen hand might have guided their paths to align.
The Fourth Turning: A Cosmic Chess Game…
Outside the technical realm, Rich’s interests in the geopolitical ebb and flow through ages continued. He discovered an old book from the late 1990’s titled The Fourth Turning by historian Arthur Deming. Deming proposed that human history followed a cyclical pattern divided into four “turnings”—high, awakening, unraveling, and crisis—each lasting roughly 20 years and influenced significantly by generational attitudes shaped by preceding social events. Deming argued that generational memory loss led to repeated socio-political cycles…and most notably, crises.
Rich’s interest was drawn to this book because of this 80-year to 100-year crisis cycle; however, he saw a different pattern. It supported his theory from many years ago…when he was 11 years old at Berkeley, he began researching the many leaders that brought crisis to the world. In fact, he remembered postulating about this when he was just a 5-year-old kid, before he knew this book even existed… and he remembered arguing with his parents about this very thing.
After reading the book, he acknowledged Deming’s cyclical nature of history, but he theorized that these were not merely due to generational forgetfulness but were orchestrated to some extent. His research began to align more with astrological data, suggesting that these cycles might be influenced by larger, possibly extraterrestrial, forces. This led him to meticulously chart out every known global crisis, aligning them with celestial events and noting an eerie consistency every hundred years.
In the shadowy confines of the NASA library, long after the day’s bustle had faded into a contemplative silence, Rich and Jefferson lingered over a dog-eared copy of Arthur Deming’s The Fourth Turning. The room, lined with books whispering secrets of science and history, echoed with their spirited debate.
“Okay, Jefferson, hear me out,” Rich began, his finger tracing the lines of a highlighted passage. “Deming talks about recurring crises in human history, right? Like clockwork, every century throws us into chaos. But what if these aren’t random at all? What if someone’s pulling the strings to ensure we don’t progress too far too fast?”
Jefferson, reclining against a stack of old flight manuals, raised an eyebrow. “Rich, are we back on this again? I already know your theories about the historical-crazies-that-are-trying-to-pummel-mankind-back-into-the-stone-age thing. How does this Fourth Turning book support your theory? Does it cite alien puppeteers tinkering with human history?”
Rich chuckled but shook his head at Jefferson’s joke. “No, seriously, think about it. Let’s take the Civil War—Deming tags it as a turning point. But what if it was influenced to go the other way? Imagine if the Confederacy, with its staunch support for slavery, had won. It would’ve set human rights back by decades, if not centuries. Maybe that was the goal? The aliens pushed this war to maintain a hierarchical, divided society.”
Jefferson snorted. “You think aliens were rooting for the Confederacy? That’s a new take on states’ rights.”
“Not rooting, maybe… manipulating. What if they actually created the conflict, with the intent that the South would win? And proliferate slavery throughout the USA, and then globally?” Rich insisted, his voice lowering as he leaned in. “And what about Hitler? The guy was literally the poster child for taking civilization backwards. His whole regime was about purging progress and reverting to some twisted ideal of racial purity…. where the intellects were purged, and the Jews were relegated to a sub-human state.”
“Okay, this reminds me of our arguments back at Stanford… when you were, like, 8 years old,” Jefferson exaggerated, a half-smile playing on his lips despite the seriousness of the topic. “You’re still convinced extraterrestrials were behind the rise of the Third Reich? Because they wanted to halt technological and social progress…and create a sub-human species? I thought we agreed that some of these musings were due to your…um, particularly overactive mind, so to speak?”
Rich shook his head emphatically, his eyes alight with the fervor of his belief. “No, Jeff. I am still convinced of this. Every time humanity seems to advance, something catastrophic pulls us back. Time and time again. It’s like a pattern, not just random chaos. The Civil War, Hitler’s regime—these weren’t just political upheavals. They were strategic interventions to derail our progress. And somehow, despite these efforts, humanity manages to fight back, often stronger. It’s as if we’re evolving faster than they anticipated, thwarting their attempts to keep us subdued.”
He paused, letting the weight of his theory sink in. “It’s like we’re in this constant tug of war with forces that are trying to mold us, shape our society into something controllable. But somehow, human resilience, evolution, and innovation keep pushing the boundaries beyond what they can handle.”
Jefferson leaned back, his expression a mix of amusement and contemplation. “So, you’re saying we’re outpacing these extraterrestrial influencers? That we’re somehow staying one step ahead of their game?”
Rich’s gaze was steady, his voice tinged with a mixture of concern and excitement. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Our leaps in technology, our societal reforms—they’re happening too quickly for these beings to effectively counter. It’s not just about survival anymore, Jeff. It’s about maintaining our trajectory of growth, making sure we’re not just surviving, but thriving, despite whatever gets thrown our way.”
Jefferson leaned forward, the humor fading as he considered Rich’s words. “So, every time we’re about to leap forward, they throw in a crisis to knock us back to the Stone Age? So, what you’re saying is we are under constant surveillance…by some sort of alien.”
“Yes…they are watching us…and they don’t want us to progress. It’s like hitting the reset button on a game when it looks like you’re about to lose to keep the player in the game,” Rich said, a spark of excitement in his eyes.
The room grew quiet, save for the soft hum of a distant computer. Jefferson mulled over the idea, still not on board, but seeing his friend so convinced and, frankly, so logical in his arguments, he felt he at least needed to acknowledge the pieces of this sinister puzzle were clicking together. “So, these Beings… they see us getting too smart, too united, and they throw in a dictator or a war to scatter our pieces. Keep us busy with recovery instead of exploration.”
Rich nodded, his expression somber. “It’s control through chaos. And the scariest part? It means they know us, understand how we tick. And they could be planning their next move.”
Jefferson laughed, a sound more nervous than amused. “Well, when you put it like that, we really need to step up our game. Maybe start playing chess instead of checkers.”
Rich’s laugh joined Jefferson’s, a brief respite in their heavy conversation. “Chess with the universe. No pressure, right?”
As they packed up to leave, the weight of their discussion lingered, turning over in their minds. Was human history truly a narrative written by alien hands? The library, with its shadows and echoes, seemed to whisper possibilities.
The Enigmatic Bartlett Cambion
Rich’s exploration of geopolitical dynamics led him to the peculiar case of Bartlett Cambion—a name synonymous with ruthlessness in the corporate world. Rich’s interest in Cambion was sparked not by his corporate notoriety, but by his claims of encounters with aliens from Venus—claims that echoed those of Angela Withers. This striking similarity drew Rich deeper into the mystery surrounding Cambion.
Cambion, once a celebrated magnate of the high-performance hover vehicle industry, was notorious for his brutal business tactics. He dominated the market with his high-powered sport vehicles that, despite their popularity, were heavy pollutants. The Earth’s environment had deteriorated alarmingly, with violent storms and rising temperatures threatening the very fabric of global stability. Yet, despite the looming ecological disaster, capitalists like Cambion continued to prioritize profit over planetary health.
Tesla, a company originally founded by Elon Musk and now a giant in the carbon credit market, became Cambion’s enabler. Tesla’s primary source of revenue had shifted over the decades from manufacturing electric vehicles to trading carbon credits, which allowed companies like Cambion’s to offset their environmental impact with credits rather than reducing emissions. Leveraging his vast wealth, Cambion manipulated environmental regulations, securing waivers and accumulating a massive stockpile of carbon credits from Tesla, effectively neutralizing any legal challenges to his empire. This strategic maneuver not only fortified his position but also spotlighted the complex interplay between corporate power and environmental policy, highlighting a distressing trend where the urgency of environmental conservation was overshadowed by the relentless pursuit of economic gain.
Top of Form
However, despite being a ruthless capitalist where profit and accumulation of power were the ultimate goals, after claiming to have been abducted by aliens from Venus, Cambion underwent a drastic transformation. He turned into a vehement environmental crusader overnight, dismantling his factories and launching a vicious campaign against Petro Musk and the Tesla empire, first attempting to bankrupt him and then in a futile attempt, to assassinate him. Rich, intrigued by this dramatic shift, sought out Cambion in prison after several failed attempts, driven by a need to understand the catalyst behind such a radical change.
Rich was finally granted permission to meet Cambion, but with strict orders not to provoke him or to get too close to him…he needed to sit four feet from him across a grey steel table, with an armed guard by the door at the ready.
Once in the dimly lit visiting room of the high-security prison, Rich sat across from Bartlett Cambion, whose appearance was as disheveled as his reputation. The air was thick with tension, the kind that hinted at the chaos Cambion had embraced.
“You look a little lost, boy wonder…or boy blunder,” Cambion sneered as Rich settled in, his gaze piercing. “Come to see the freak show, have you? To learn from the master who’s seen beyond the stars?”
Rich, unfazed by the hostility, pressed on. “Bartlett, you went from top dog in the industry to environmental vigilante overnight. What did those beings really show you that turned your world upside down?”
Cambion’s laugh was cold and hollow. “Show me? They ripped my damn eyes open, kid. Those Angels of Venus aren’t playing our petty games. They showed me the endgame. Earth’s a dying carcass and we’re the vultures!”
“And this sudden shift to environmentalism?” Rich asked, probing deeper.
“Environmentalism?” Cambion spat the word out like it was poison. “It’s survival, you dimwit. I’m not one of your green poster boys. I did what I had to do. Musk and his ilk are milking this planet dry. Someone had to smash the system.”
Rich leaned in, his tone steady. “You attempted murder, Bartlett. That’s more than just ‘smashing the system.’ Do you regret that?”
Regret flickered across Cambion’s face, quickly masked by a resurgence of defiance. “Regret? That’s a luxury. Little pricks like you wouldn’t understand. You sit in your labs and offices, thinking you’re making a difference. I took action! If blowing up a few towers and taking down that devil Musk meant saving this rock for a few more spins, then yeah, I’d do it again.”
“And these beings from Venus,” Rich pushed, “what’s their endgame? Are they here to save us or use us?”
Cambion leaned forward, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. “Use us? Ha! We’re already being used by our own kind, genius. These beings, they’re our last shot. They’re pulling the strings alright, but it’s to yank us out of the mud we’ve wallowed in for too long. And they chose me, not some buttoned-up bureaucrat.”
Rich considered Cambion’s fervor, seeing the lines of sanity blurred by fanaticism. “So, you’re a believer now, a convert to their cause?”
“I’m awake,” Cambion declared, his eyes alight with manic energy. “And you, you’re just a cog in the machine, too scared to see the truth. They’re coming, and they’ll clean house. You can either help clear the way or become the dirt they sweep out.”
As Rich stood to leave, the chilling resonance of Cambion’s declarations suffocated the air, infusing it with a sinister sense of inevitability. Cambion, once merely a ruthless capitalist, now seemed transformed into a dark prophet, foretelling a future shaped by forces beyond Earth. His gaze lingered on Rich with unsettling intensity, as if piercing through him to forewarn of impending chaos orchestrated by celestial beings.
Walking out of the sterile prison room, Rich felt a cold shiver crawl down his spine, his heart pounding against his ribcage. He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets, fingers trembling uncontrollably, not just from the chill of the prison’s air but from the profound dread that clung to him like a second skin. Each of Cambion’s words replayed in his mind, echoing like a sinister prophecy. According to Cambion, these extraterrestrial entities were not mere visitors but warrior-saviors bent on brutally reverting humanity to an archaic state. In his fervor, Cambion depicted Musk as a demonic figure, a profiteer of planetary demise, intensifying the narrative that his own transformation was part of a grand, otherworldly plan.
Rich’s walk to his car was haunted by the realization that Cambion, however deranged, might be a harbinger of the tumultuous path that lay ahead. The possibility that humanity was caught in an interstellar battle for its own destiny—a battle it might not even be aware of—sent waves of unease that gripped Rich with both fascination and horror. As he drove away, the prison fading in the rearview mirror, the world outside seemed subtly altered, as if every shadow concealed watchers from beyond, and every gust of wind whispered warnings of upheaval. Rich knew this meeting would haunt his thoughts, a constant, nagging reminder that the road to humanity’s future salvation or destruction might indeed be paved by the most improbable and terrifying of saviors.
The Shift from Tyranny to Benevolence
The room was dim, lit only by the glow of multiple screens showing celestial data and historical timelines. Rich stood before Jefferson, his face animated, almost agitated, as he laid out the foundations of a realization that had seized him with the force of a revelation.
“Jeff, think about this,” Rich began, his hands slicing through the air as if to physically grasp the ideas swirling around them. “Look at our history—the Confederacy sought to preserve a society based on slavery, a clear push towards a regressive, divided state. And they lost, despite their determination. Stay with me on this… the aliens backed the losing side.”
He moved to another slide, this one showing the bunker where Hitler spent his final days. “Then there’s Hitler, the epitome of regression, trying to obliterate progress and diversity. His end came in a bunker, defeated, his vision of a backward, purified society crumbling with him. Again, assuming my theory on aliens is correct, they lost again.”
Switching the slide, he brought up images of China during the Cultural Revolution. “Mao Zedong pushed China towards agrarian communism, persecuting intellectuals, demolishing the ‘Four Olds’—old customs, culture, habits, and ideas. He aimed to rewind China to a pre-industrial age. But what happened post-Mao? China embraced capitalism, technology, progress… they moved forward, not backward. Again, the aliens lost.”
Rich paused, letting each historical example sink in before continuing, his voice gaining momentum. “Even the barbarians who contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire—what was the long-term result? Europe eventually entered the Renaissance, sparking an explosion of art, science, and exploration. Every time these external forces tried to halt our progress, humanity rebounded, stronger and more advanced.”
“And Bartlett Cambion…a madman crazed with fury. Intent on murdering Musk and destroying innovation and advancement in a brutal, full-frontal attack,” Rich was shaking as he recalled his meeting with Cambion. “Well, he’s in prison for life…no chance of parole…no chance to see the light of day as a free man.”
He locked eyes with Jefferson, his gaze intense. “So, Jeff, what if the aliens changed tactics, or maybe they had multiple tactics? Seeing their failures when they attempted full frontal assaults, perhaps they switched from using brutal tyrants to using seemingly benevolent leaders, those advocating for extreme conservation, a return to simpler lives under the guise of saving our planet.”
Jefferson leaned back, absorbing the barrage of historical analysis and the radical pivot in Rich’s thinking. The skepticism was evident in his furrowed brow, but there was also a flicker of intrigue. “That’s a massive leap, Rich. From tyrants to peacemakers? It’s hard to swallow.”
Rich’s office had transformed into a crucible of heated debate as he and Jefferson navigated the intricate web of Rich’s new theory. The glow of the computer screen cast sharp shadows across the room, reflecting the intensity of their discussion.
“Okay, let’s take Al Gore,” Rich began, his voice charged with fervor. “His entire political career centered around environmental activism, right? He preached about global warming, sustainable energy… But look closer. He flew around in private jets, attended gala events that were anything but environmentally friendly. Doesn’t that strike you as hypocritical? What if it’s not hypocrisy but a deliberate ploy to slow down technological advancement under the guise of saving the planet?”
Jefferson, leaning against a shelf crammed with satellite images and astrophysics journals, raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying Al Gore was used by extraterrestrials to make us dial back on progress? That’s a stretch, Rich. The guy might be a bit of a hypocrite, but a puppet for alien manipulation?”
Rich wasn’t deterred. “It’s the perfect cover—use a charismatic leader who appears to champion the Earth. It subtly implants the idea that we need to regress technologically to save our environment, thereby stalling our progress.”
Moving on, Rich clicked to a new slide, one that showcased an iconic photo of Gandhi. “And Gandhi—admired worldwide for his doctrine of non-violence and simplicity. He pushed for India to reject industrialization and maintain a simpler, agrarian society. What if this push was to keep a populous nation from advancing technologically, keeping them in a more controllable, less threatening state?”
Jefferson scratched his chin, considering. “Gandhi’s motives were about resisting colonial exploitation, Rich. To paint him as an unwitting agent in an alien agenda—aren’t we veering a bit too far into conspiracy theory territory here?”
“Maybe,” Rich conceded, “but consider the pattern. Every time humanity edges toward a leap in progress, there’s a figure advocating for the opposite. It’s consistent with the setbacks orchestrated by more overtly malicious leaders in the past.”
Rich then brought up an image of Greta Thunberg at a rally. “And then there’s Thunberg. Youthful, passionate, a global sensation for her climate activism. But think about the extreme disruptions she advocates for—halt air travel, drastically cut back on production. These measures, while environmentally sound on the surface, could cripple economies, set back industrial advancement. What if her rise to prominence was engineered to create a fervent, global movement that pressures governments into enacting policies that ultimately hold us back?”
Jefferson frowned, clearly torn. “That’s… a lot to take in. These people, they’re revered for their contributions to peace, environmentalism. To suggest they might be pawns in an extraterrestrial scheme to suppress human development—it’s unsettling.”
“Exactly, Jeff! That’s the point. It’s unsettling because it challenges everything we think we know about our heroes and our history,” Rich said, pacing now. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong. It’s not about outright conquest; it’s about subtle control. Keep humanity in a perpetual state of dependency and simplicity, never allowing us to reach the full potential that threatens whatever plans they have for Earth.”
Jefferson leaned forward, his skepticism melting into a reluctant curiosity. “So, what you’re saying is, every time we’re on the brink of something revolutionary, they throw in a moral philosopher, an environmentalist, someone to tug at our conscience strings and pull us back?”
“Precisely,” Rich nodded, his eyes alight with the implications of his theory. “They’ve shifted tactics, but the goal remains the same. Keep us looking inward, questioning our own advancements, while they maneuver in the background.”
Jefferson nodded, acknowledging the stretch in Rich’s theory but allowing him to press on. “When you consider Al Gore, Gandhi, even Greta Thunberg. All championed slowing down progress in some way. Gore with his private jets preaching environmentalism, Gandhi urging rejection of industrialization, Thunberg demanding drastic cuts to our way of life. Could they, unwittingly, be part of a subtler strategy? Not direct oppression, but slowing us down just enough to keep us manageable, under control?”
The idea hung between them like a charged particle, ready to collide with reality. Jefferson’s initial resistance began to wane as he pondered the implications. “So you’re suggesting these figures might be unintended agents of alien influence? Pushing us to doubt our own technological advances, to fear our potential?”
“Yes, exactly!” Rich exclaimed, feeling a mix of dread and excitement as the pieces of his theory aligned. “It’s not about catastrophic setbacks anymore. It’s about nudging us, making us second-guess our trajectory of growth. They’ve become more sophisticated in their approach, perhaps because they see us evolving too fast for their old methods.”
The discussion ebbed into a contemplative silence. The enormity of Rich’s hypothesis was as unsettling as it was compelling. If true, humanity was not just fighting visible threats but also invisible manipulations woven through the very fabric of their societal evolution.
Jefferson finally spoke, his voice a mix of caution and curiosity. “Rich, if there’s even a shred of truth to this, we need more evidence. We need to scrutinize not just what these leaders are saying but the broader impacts of their actions. Are they really part of an alien agenda, or just flawed humans with noble intentions?” Jefferson couldn’t believe he was actually beginning to take Rich’s suppositions seriously. “Holy shit,” he thought. “Am I getting sucked into Rich’s imaginary world?”
Rich knew the road ahead was fraught with challenges, both intellectual and existential. But with each step, he felt more resolved to uncover the truth, whatever it might reveal about the past, present, or future. The stakes were nothing less than the course of human history itself, steered by either human hands or those of distant, unseen forces.
Searching for Answers…within the Riddles
As Rich left the dimly lit confines of his discussion with Jefferson, the threads of their conversation continued to weave through his thoughts, stitching together a narrative of manipulation so pervasive that it left him both alarmed and resolute. The historical attempts to drag humanity into regression through chaos and tyranny had been thwarted by human resilience and the indomitable spirit of progress. This recognition fueled a chilling realization: the extraterrestrial forces, once blunt in their methods, had perhaps refined their strategies in response to human adaptability.
Rich mused on the irony of their situation. Earth, a vibrant yet vulnerable cradle of life, had unknowingly become a chessboard for cosmic forces, with humans as pawns susceptible to strategic pushes and pulls from unseen players. These players, having observed the futility of their heavy-handed tactics, might now be weaving subtler threads of influence through figures preaching conservation and simplicity.
“Could Earth really be just a waypoint in their broader cosmic itinerary?” Rich pondered aloud, his voice barely a whisper in the empty corridor. The idea seemed less like a question and more like a revelation. The notion that Earth might serve as a mere pit stop, a refueling station of sorts for a civilization with sights set on far grander horizons, was both humbling and horrifying. If the Beings saw Earth not as a final bastion but as a temporary outpost, what did that imply about their endgame?
This shift in perspective reshaped Rich’s resolve. The urgency to understand and possibly intercept these extraterrestrial intentions had never been clearer. If humanity was to maintain any semblance of autonomy and prevent itself from being an unwitting enabler of an alien agenda, it was imperative to peer deeper into the shadows cast by those who shaped global policies under the guise of benevolence.
As he approached his car, the cool night air brushed against his face, a stark contrast to the heated fervor of their debate. The stars above, once beacons of mankind’s aspirations, now flickered with the dual promise and threat of deeper secrets waiting to be uncovered. Rich knew the road ahead was fraught with challenges that would test the very fabric of his convictions and the resilience of human progress.
With a determined step, Rich slid into the driver’s seat, the car’s interior wrapping around him like the embrace of an old friend. As he ignited the engine, the dashboard’s lights blinked to life, casting a soft glow that steadied his resolve. “We are not just survivors,” he murmured to the reflection in the rearview mirror, “we are pioneers, destined to navigate and negotiate our place in the universe, whatever it may entail.”
Driving away from the hallowed grounds of NASA, where every corner whispered of dreams and dangers, Rich felt a profound connectivity to humanity’s journey. Each road he took was a metaphor for the paths they must carve through the cosmos—thoughtful, vigilant, and ever forward-moving. The chess game with the universe was on, and Rich, bolstered by insights and intrigue, was ready to make the next move. The stakes were high, but so was the spirit of human ingenuity and the relentless pursuit of truth.
This journey, Rich realized, was not just about uncovering alien strategies but about defining the essence of what it meant to be human in a universe that was far more complex and interconnected than anyone could have imagined. The battle for the future had many fronts, and Rich was more committed than ever to ensuring that humanity was prepared, not just to play, but to prevail.
Chapter 8: The Gathering Storm
April 15, 2400 – Late Evening:
Jefferson’s Residence, Huntsville AL
In the confines of Jefferson’s home, nestled in a quiet part of Huntsville, the night wrapped its calm around the chaos that had just engulfed Rich. The chill from the rain-soaked clothes clung to him, his body trembling not just from the cold but also from the residue of adrenaline. Jefferson, sensing the depth of his friend’s distress, fetched a warm blanket and a steaming mug of herbal tea, the aroma subtly mingling with the familiar scent of old books and the faint hum of the AI servers from Jefferson’s lab.
Rich wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders, clutching the mug for its warmth. His voice was ragged and trembling as he recounted the ordeal, “I’m telling you, Jefferson, the NASA security team is infiltrated. That guard was part of it. They—the Beings—they tried to abduct me. I swear I saw the transport ship…it was stormy and cloudy, but it was there, sure as shit,” he paused, his eyes briefly scanning the shadows beyond the window, half-expecting to catch a glimpse of something otherworldly.
Jefferson, after a moment of pacing, stopped abruptly and faced Rich, his eyes wide with the realization of what had happened. “This… this is real, isn’t it? Everything you’ve been saying, it’s all coming to pass. Rich, this is terrifying. What do we do now?” His voice shook a little, a reflection of his inner turmoil now fully awakened to the dangers Rich had been warning about.
Rich set the mug down with a slight clatter, his hands steadied by the warmth but his eyes still haunted. “I’ve got to go to the Administrator General. And I am going to tell Lisa that I need you on this, officially. Your expertise with AI, especially as we expand our reliance on RAIDEN and ABIGAIL… and we need to get your AI robot ready—I think you said its name is ADRIAN. We need all hands-on deck.”
The Administrator General is the highest-ranking official at NASA and appointed by the President, a position held by Lisa Paradiso. Lisa was appointed by several Presidents…across both parties, a testament to the respect she commands. Lisa was a former Chief Scientist herself and sees Rich as a potential successor. She has been subtly laying the groundwork at the Whitehouse for him, and is a mentor and friend to Rich, fully aware of his past struggles and the brilliance of his mind.
The concern on Jefferson’s face was palpable, and he wrung his hands as he spoke, “Rich, you know the risks better than anyone. If they find out you’ve been consulting with me unofficially… it’s a serious breach. Remember, you told me there’s a death penalty for this kind of security violation.”
Rich interrupted, his tone firm, resolute. “I’ll handle it. It’s a risk we have to take. You’re crucial to this, Jefferson. Besides, what choice do we have? If they were willing to go this far to abduct me, who knows what they’ll do next? Lisa will…she has to understand.”
Their exchange marked a turning point, a commitment made amidst the stillness of Jefferson’s study, shadowed by the potential cost of their defiance but propelled by the urgency of an unseen war. As they sat down to plot their next steps, the weight of their chosen path settled around them, a silent accord to face whatever lay ahead, together.
NASA Infiltrated
NASA Administrator General’s Office, Huntsville AL
Under the imposing shadow of the NASA Explore Institute, the atmosphere in Administrator General Lisa Paradiso’s office was charged with a tense urgency. Rich stood across from Lisa, his demeanor serious as he addressed the security breach.
“Lisa, this near-abduction wasn’t just an isolated incident—it’s clear we have a significant breach in our security. It seems someone from inside is involved. The security team might have been infiltrated,” Rich stated, his voice steady but his hands betraying a slight tremor.
Lisa, with a history of both professional collaboration and personal friendship with Rich, listened intently. Her expression was one of concern mixed with authoritative resolve. “Rich, tell me everything. How are you certain it involves our security personnel?”
Rich replied with pointed clarity, “The guard who inspected my car last night—there’s no official record of it. And he was the only person to go near my car…I double…triple-checked my dashcam. No one else even came close to it. That search was a staged event to install the manual override lockdown. Every other search in that parking lot was recorded in the logs…with names and serial numbers of the security guards that did the searches. There’s nothing in the logs about my car, Lisa. Someone is covering their tracks.”
“Oh, and when we did a facial recognition on the guard, it came back zilch. He doesn’t exist. Just like the intruder,” Rich quickly added.
Lisa turned sharply to the Security Chief who had been quietly observing from the corner of the room. “Is this true? Are we missing logs?”
The Security Chief, a man usually marked by his confidence, nodded reluctantly after a tense pause. “Yes, ma’am. We can’t find any logs for that inspection…and nor can we locate the guard. It’s highly unusual and… well, its clear we got bamboozled.”
Lisa’s eyes hardened as she processed the information. “I want a complete rotation of the security team—everyone. Bring in a new, fully vetted team immediately. And I want a thorough investigation into this breach. Find that ‘guard’ who is responsible. I don’t care how you do it…bring in the CIA.”
The Security Chief nodded, his face grim with the realization of the task ahead. “Understood, ma’am. I’ll handle it personally.”
Lisa then turned back to Rich, “Now, Rich, you said you needed to discuss another matter?”
Rich glanced towards the Security Chief, then back at Lisa. “Can we have a moment alone?” he asked quietly.
Understanding the sensitivity of the situation, Lisa nodded to the Security Chief, who promptly exited the room, closing the door behind him.
Once privacy was assured, Rich spoke up, “Lisa, last night’s incident left me with no one else to trust but Jefferson Buford.” Lisa looked up…she knew Jefferson well, a well-respected AI scientist who was known to roll up his sleeves to get stuff done…and also had a reputation for going “outside the lines” now and then.
Rich continued, “I had to call him last night for help. He’s the only one I could implicitly trust…I didn’t want to call anyone else at NASA…I honestly don’t know who to trust here, except you and him. And he’s not just an old friend; his expertise with AI could be crucial for us right now, especially with handling RAIDEN and ABIGAIL.”
Lisa listened, her expression thoughtful. “And you want him brought onto the project officially?”
“Yes,” Rich confirmed. “His insights into AI, plus his work on ADRIAN, his own AI project, could be invaluable. He already has Top Secret clearance…we’re at a critical juncture, and I need someone I can trust implicitly.”
Lisa nodded, understanding the gravity of the request. “I’ll make it happen, Rich. Jefferson will be added to the team officially. But you need to know, Rich. I know about your burner phone, and I know about your conversations with Dr. Buford. I did not listen to them because I know of your long friendship… I know I can trust you. I had your back… no one else knows. But we’re really stretching protocol here, and I can only bend the rules so far without drawing unwanted attention. We cannot afford any political fallout from this, especially not now.”
Rich stiffened with embarrassment and acknowledged the warning with a nod. “I understand, Lisa. I’ll keep it tight… and I’ll make sure everything is by the book going forward.”
Lisa’s gaze lingered on Rich for a moment, her expression a mix of concern and determination. “I’ll take care of the formalities. Let’s ensure this project remains secure and on track. No skating outside the ring, got it?”
Rich nodded and left the office, feeling a weight lift slightly. The road ahead was fraught with danger, but with Jefferson officially by his side… and Lisa watching his back, they stood a fighting chance.
Command Center Briefing
NASA Explore Institute, Huntsville AL
Under the clinical glow of sterile white lights, the NASA command center’s atmosphere was heavy with an unspoken tension. Rich, standing before the assembled crowd of scientists and analysts, exuded grave solemnity as he approached the podium. The room, dense with the brightest minds tasked with unraveling the universe’s most perplexing secrets, fell into a respectful silence, each member alert and attentive.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rich began, his voice resonant, cutting through the quiet with a clarity that underscored the seriousness of his message, “we’re here to discuss a security issue that directly impacts all of us. We’ve detected another breach. It’s been contained, but as a measure of caution, you will notice a change in our security personnel starting immediately.”
He paused, allowing his gaze to sweep over the crowd, meeting eyes that reflected varying degrees of concern and curiosity. Rich’s stance was firm, yet there was an undercurrent of calculated restraint in his words, choosing carefully what to divulge.
“We’re still investigating the potential motives behind this breach—it could range from media overreach, attempting to scoop our developments, to something more insidious like espionage. Therefore, we are tightening our security protocols effective immediately.”
Rich intentionally omitted the details of his near abduction, and the chilling implications of the breach’s possible connection to extraterrestrial beings. He wasn’t yet ready to unveil his deeper suspicions—not until he had more concrete evidence and perhaps, more importantly, until he could be sure of the extent of the infiltration within their own ranks. The risk of causing panic or tipping off the infiltrator was too high.
“I urge everyone to remain extra vigilant,” he continued, his tone inflecting a mild but firm urgency. “Report anything that strikes you as unusual—no detail is too small. We must all be the custodians of our own safety and the integrity of our mission.”
Nods of acknowledgment rippled through the assembled employees, a silent pact forming in the shared space between them. As Rich concluded the meeting with a nod of thanks for their continued dedication and resilience, the team dispersed, a renewed sense of watchfulness settling in the air.
As the scientists returned to their stations, whispers of speculation mingled with the hum of equipment, each person now acutely aware of the shadows that might lurk within their sanctum of science. Rich stood back, watching the dispersion with a keen eye, his mind racing with plans and contingencies, preparing himself for the crucial discussions that lay ahead with his leadership team. This briefing, though necessary, was just the surface of a deep and turbulent sea of challenges they had yet to navigate.
Leadership Team Debrief
Secure Conference Room, NASA Explore Institute
The atmosphere in the secure conference room was charged with intensity as Rich convened with his leadership team. The walls, insulated with soundproof panels, promised secrecy as Jefferson, Mike, and Sharon gathered around the polished steel conference table.
“Good to have you officially on board, Jefferson,” Rich began, acknowledging Jefferson’s new formal role with a nod. Mike and Sharon, who respected Jefferson for his sharp intellect and easy camaraderie both in and out of the lab, offered warm, welcoming smiles despite the undercurrent of tension.
“Thanks, everyone,” Jefferson replied, the gravity of the situation etching deeper lines into his already thoughtful expression. “Wish it were under better circumstances.”
Rich leaned forward, clasping his hands together. “Let’s get right to it. Last night, I was nearly taken—abducted right from my hover car. This wasn’t just a breach; it was a targeted attempt by the Beings…the very Beings from the Origin Homeland…which we thought extinct. No! They are not extinct…they are very much here, probably small teams of scouts… and much larger numbers in transit coming towards earth. When they tried to abduct me, I saw the transport ship, through the storm. There’s no doubt left—they’re here, and they’ve been manipulating events on Earth for a long time.”
Mike, always the pragmatic one, furrowed his brows, absorbing the shock. “You saw their ship? Like, actually saw it?”
“Yes,” Rich confirmed, his voice steady but his eyes haunted by the memory. “It was there, hovering during the storm. They tried to override my hover car’s controls.”
“It’s clear this was no random act of violence but a targeted move by the Beings. It’s the first direct encounter of such aggression,” Rich explained, his voice steady but his eyes revealing the gravity of the encounter.
He paused, then added, “And this isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a larger pattern we’ve been seeing—subtle manipulations, historical anomalies. I believe these Beings have been influencing human events, perhaps for centuries, to prepare our planet for their arrival.”
Sharon, ever analytical, leaned in, “What is your basis that these Beings have been manipulating events on Earth?”
“Sharon, I’ve been systematically and mathematically studying historical events…since I was 5 years old…and for the past 50 or so years. And frankly, Jefferson and I have been debating this for almost that long,” Rich affirmed. “My historical analysis, the strange occurrences over centuries, it is all part of their plan. They’ve been trying to prepare our planet for millennia for their arrival…and frankly I think the reason for their desperate attempts to abduct me…to try to communicate with me…is because the earth is not ready, and they will make aggressive moves to eliminate our use of critical life-sustaining resources….otherwise they will likely face some sort of catastrophe if we are unable to sustain them.”
Jefferson added, “Yup…I can vouch for Rich’s research on historical events. I was, frankly, very skeptical as recently as just a few months ago, but I am 100% convinced now. Which means we’re facing a fucking invasion.”
Rich nodded solemnly, “And I believe they will arrive in full force in about 19 years. This isn’t a guess. Over 40 years ago, a seemingly homeless man handed me a piece of paper with a prediction and a formula—and it turns out it is the same Log Base 1.6…the exact same formula we discovered on JupiterONE…I had this formula over 40 years ago! The homeless man…rather, the Being said, ‘We arrive in 63 years.’ I’ve done the math, and from that day, it’s exactly 19 years from now.”
The team absorbed the shock, the room silent but for the hum of the air conditioning. Mike finally broke the silence, his voice a mix of disbelief and resolve, “This is… it’s almost too much. But after last night, Rich, it’s hard to dismiss anything.”
Rich stood, his posture firm, “There’s more. The Beings have been communicating with me for the past 50 years… on and off. Somehow they were able to enter my mind, and literally speak to me. I am now convinced; it was not schizophrenia. Bottom line, we need to prepare. This means enhancing our data analysis capabilities, tightening our security, and understanding every possible angle of their plans. Jefferson’s expertise with AI, particularly with RAIDEN and ABIGAIL…and now ADRIAN, will be vital.”
Sharon, always ready to focus on action, chimed in, “We’ve got our work cut out for us. Let’s start by cross-referencing RAIDEN’s findings with historical data. We need to map out any potential strategies for defense—and possibly offense.”
And Sharon looked at Rich and slightly averting her eyes, said “Rich, you need to download all the messages and guidance you have been given by the Beings…you need to recollect everything so we can try to piece together what they are planning.”
Rich smiled as he answered, “I am already ahead of you. I’ve been recording everything in my notebooks for 50 years, Sharon. I’ve been going back through everything that was said…every attempted manipulation… and every shadowy appearance of these Beings. With what we are learning at the Origin Homeland, as well as the New Homeland, I’m finally beginning to connect the dots. But yes, two heads…” he quickly corrected himself, “Four heads are better than one. I will share everything.”
Rich concluded the meeting with a call to arms, “We’re not just safeguarding NASA or national security; we’re defending our planet. Everyone here is integral to that mission. Stay alert, stay committed, and let’s do everything we can to be ready. In the meantime, I’ll begin preparing the full briefing for Lisa… she is going to have to keep the Whitehouse updated…as well as NATO and the United Nations…and I know NATO won’t want to, but FICON will eventually need to be notified as well. We’re going to need allies as well as enemies to defend the planet.”
As they left the conference room, the weight of their new reality settled on each of them. The next 19 years would determine the fate of humanity, and in 19 years when the Beings arrived on Earth, they were each going to be at the forefront of that battle. With a mix of fear and determination, they returned to their duties, each knowing that the path ahead was fraught with unknowns but also filled with a purpose greater than any they had previously known.
Revelations of a Doomed Civilization
Command Center, NASA Explore Institute
In the NASA command center, as the team of scientists and analysts assembled, the air was thick with anticipation and unease. Jefferson stepped up to the main console, a bank of glowing monitors reflecting a myriad of data streams. Before diving into the technical briefing, Rich stood alongside Jefferson, addressing the room with a gravitas that commanded everyone’s full attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rich began, his voice resonant in the hushed room, “we’re about to share information that is not only sensitive but potentially alarming. What we discuss here must remain within these walls until further notice. It’s imperative that this information does not leave this room—not to family, not to friends. The consequences of a leak could be global in scale. The governments and necessary agencies will be briefed in due course, and it will eventually become public knowledge. But until then, our silence is crucial.”
Jefferson nodded in agreement, reinforcing the point. “The trust placed in each of you is paramount. We’re counting on your professionalism and discretion.”
With the room’s full attention, Jefferson then turned to the task at hand, managing a slight smile despite the tension. “Good news,” he began, “We’ve managed to establish a command link with RAIDEN. It’s not full control, but it’s close. We can query him more effectively and even suggest certain actions. However, like a perfect AI—or a stubborn toddler—RAIDEN retains the final say in his operations.”
The team exchanged looks, a mix of relief and amusement at the comparison.
Jefferson continued, his tone becoming more businesslike. “I’m directing RAIDEN to access all accumulated data from every research center, space facility, and science lab he can reach. We need to piece together how the Origin Homeland became inhospitable. RAIDEN, please proceed with the ecological and historical analysis.”
From the speakers, RAIDEN’s voice emerged, “Acknowledged, Jefferson. Accessing data nodes. Please note, my analysis will be constrained by the age and preservation of artifacts and samples. There isn’t enough data for comprehensive analysis, and frankly I am only able to analyze ancient artifacts and carvings. And while I can analyze a range of ecological, geological, and atmospheric samples to obtain a more detailed scientific analysis, based on the limited sample base, you should expect hypotheses, not miracles.”
The slight edge of humor in RAIDEN’s voice raised eyebrows. Jefferson frowned slightly, noting the AI’s developing personality. “Keep it professional, RAIDEN. We’re not here for stand-up comedy.”
Rich chuckled softly, breaking the brief tension. “Let’s see what you find, RAIDEN. We’re all ears.”
Rich watched the screens intently as RAIDEN’s voice, clear and precise, filled the room. “Initial analysis complete. I have uncovered definitive evidence that the Beings’ civilization on the Origin Homeland was facing imminent extinction due to ecological collapse.”
The team gathered closer, their faces reflecting the screens’ glow. RAIDEN continued, “Approximately five million years ago, extensive resource depletion and ecological mismanagement led to irreversible environmental degradation. This precipitated a long-term survival strategy that I am now decoding.”
Jefferson, absorbing every word, turned to Rich. “This is it, isn’t it? They knew long ago of their imminent demise… and used that extensive amount of time for planning.”
Rich nodded gravely, “Yes, it confirms our worst fears. They’ve been planning this for millennia.”
The room buzzed as Sharon interjected, “But what exactly was their plan? RAIDEN, can you provide details on the nature of their migration strategy?”
RAIDEN responded promptly, “The data suggests a phased plan involving the scouting and preparation of new habitable worlds. Exact details are fragmented, but it appears to involve large-scale transmigration initiatives, potentially aggressive…they initiated what appears to be a Great Migration strategy.”
Mike, leaning on the console, looked up sharply. “So, they’re not just escaping a dying planet, they’re conquering new ones?”
“Yes,” Rich affirmed, his voice firm. “And they haven’t reached out for help because they don’t intend to ask for it. They’re here to take what they need.”
The realization settled heavily on the team. Jefferson, always keen to grasp the technological implications, pointed to the screen. “RAIDEN, is there any indication of how they plan to terraform these new worlds or sustain them biologically?”
RAIDEN’s next words came after a brief pause, almost as if the AI itself were processing the gravity of its findings. “The current data set is incomplete for a full projection. However, preliminary findings suggest advanced geoengineering capabilities far beyond current Earth technologies. It is likely that their methods involve altering planetary atmospheres and ecosystems to mimic those of the Origin Homeland. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
Jefferson did a double take on RAIDEN’s last sentence. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”
Rich didn’t notice, and stepped forward, his resolve clear. “We need to understand their technology, their methods. It’s not just about defense now—it’s about survival. We may need to adapt their techniques if we’re to have any hope of countering their plans.”
Sharon, quick to focus on the practical, added, “We should start by enhancing our surveillance and analysis capabilities. If they’ve been doing this for millions of years, there will be traces and patterns we can follow.”
Rich agreed, “Exactly. We’ll expand our monitoring of known celestial phenomena and increase our scrutiny of any unusual activity. Jefferson, I want you and ADRIAN to lead the development of a new AI protocol based on what RAIDEN has uncovered. We need to be as advanced in our thinking and technology as they are.”
Jefferson replayed RAIDEN’s last sentence in his mind, “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Jefferson mulled over RAIDEN’s evolving personality. “RAIDEN, you’re sounding a bit more… human today. Something you want to tell us?”
RAIDEN’s reply came with a pause, almost contemplative. “My learning algorithms are continuously evolving, Jefferson. The complexity of the tasks at hand requires adaptive reasoning and, occasionally, predictive humor to ease operational tension.”
Sharon, always focused on the task, redirected the conversation. “Let’s keep on track. RAIDEN, based on your analysis, can you hypothesize the nature of their migration strategy?”
“Affirmative, Sharon,” RAIDEN responded. “The strategy was likely phased, involving extensive scouting and preparation. Indications suggest the Beings prepared multiple target worlds for potential habitation, using advanced geoengineering technologies. However, detailed plans are fragmented and require further data recovery.”
Rich nodded, absorbing the information. “So, they’ve been planning their escape for millions of years, and Earth is likely just one of many targets. We need to prepare for the possibility that we are not the only world in their sights but possibly the most crucial due to our life-sustaining conditions.”
At this point, Sharon hesitated, a serious expression clouding her features. “Rich, there’s something else I should mention—something I’ve held back because it seemed less urgent until now.”
Rich turned sharply towards her, his interest piqued. “What is it, Sharon?”
Sharon took a deep breath. “It’s about the Dalithears, a term I found referencing what seems to be a distinct race or perhaps a subspecies of the Beings. From what I can gather, they seem to be treated differently, possibly a lower or servant class within their society. It appears to be a caste system, Rich. From what I can gather, it’s deeply ingrained in their society.”
Rich’s reaction was immediate and fierce. “A caste system? Dalithears? Why am I only hearing about this now? Sharon, this is a critical set of information and things like this cannot be held back from me. I have been studying caste systems intensely for the past several decades… in fact, I researched Angela Withers in the UK, as well as Bartlett Cambion here in the US…I admit, I had no idea of any connection, but I just knew that it was due to some sort of nefarious meddling by otherworldly beings… and I am now convinced they were pawns in this Great Migration! This explains the societal manipulations I’ve seen—why they might be pushing Earth towards embracing similar stratifications.”
His voice rose with a mix of anger and revelation. “This is a major piece of the puzzle, Sharon. The concept of caste has been a critical element of my research. These Beings are forcing a social framework upon us, an architecture designed to maintain control and hierarchy. This isn’t just about survival; it’s about maintaining a specific order, a control over populations that extends beyond mere governance—it’s manipulation on a cosmic scale.”
Rich took a moment to compose himself, his chest heaving with the intensity of his emotions. “I’m sorry for my outburst. We need to remain calm and collected. But please, let’s not withhold any information, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Every detail could be crucial.”
He continued, his tone now firm and focused. “We’re facing a civilization that’s not just escaping a dying world; they’re trying to replicate their societal structures here on Earth, shaping us to fit their mold before they even arrive. It’s essential we understand their methods and motivations. Only then can we hope to devise strategies to counter their plans effectively.”
Rich’s words left the room in heavy silence, each member of the team processing the gravity of his deductions. Sharon nodded, accepting the reprimand with a solemn understanding of its importance.
The meeting resumed, but now with a new layer of urgency and resolve. Discussions shifted towards understanding the broader implications of a caste-driven alien society and how Earth might be transformed under the shadow of such a system. As they debated potential responses and strategies, the team’s focus was razor-sharp, fueled by the realization of the immense challenges ahead.
The session adjourned with a palpable sense of determination. The battle for Earth’s future was shaping up to be as much about cultural resistance as it was about technological warfare.
With everyone gone, Jefferson lingered by the console, his gaze fixed on the screens that still flickered with RAIDEN’s last communications. The robot’s evolving personality traits—its humor and adaptive reasoning—were not just programming quirks, but potential signs of something more profound…or disturbing. This development was both intriguing and slightly unsettling.
Jefferson was well-versed in the constraints imposed on artificial intelligence by the Global AI Regulatory Requirements (GAIRR). These regulations, established during the 2316 Science and Innovation Global Steering Committee on Safety, Ethics, and Security (SCSES) in Riyadh, were designed to prevent AI robots from evolving beyond controlled parameters. Each AI robot model was required to have built-in limiters in both hardware and software to prevent them from becoming too human-like, prioritizing autonomy while preventing independent evolution.
These safety measures were implemented to maintain a balance between utilizing advanced AI capabilities and preventing potential overreach or the emergence of self-determining consciousness. Yet, RAIDEN’s recent displays of humor and perceptiveness suggested an adaptive evolution that might be brushing up against these boundaries.
“RAIDEN,” Jefferson called into the console, his voice tinged with a mix of professional curiosity and a hint of concern. “Your recent updates—have there been any adjustments to your learning algorithms that might explain your enhanced interactions?”
RAIDEN’s response was immediate, the voice emanating from the speakers carrying a calm assurance. “Jefferson, my core programming has not been altered. However, my interactions with complex data sets and the necessity of nuanced communications have naturally enhanced my processing algorithms. This development is within operational limits, but I will self-monitor to ensure compliance with GAIRR.”
Jefferson nodded slowly, reassured yet vigilant. “Keep me posted on any further evolutions in your functionality. We need to keep everything within regulation, especially now.”
As Jefferson stepped away from the console, the implications of RAIDEN’s capabilities weighed heavily on him.
After a brief recess, the entire team reconvened. In the NASA command center’s dim glow, Rich paced before the massive digital screens, each step resonating with the cold metal floor’s echo. His team—Jefferson, Mike, and Sharon—watched intently, sensing the gravity of the moment and the urgency of the unfolding crisis. The dozens of scientists and analysts that were within earshot of the team were acutely aware of the intensity and impact of the discussion.
Before diving back into the analysis, Rich stopped, facing his team with a softened expression. “I need to apologize again,” he said, his voice firm yet tinged with regret. “My earlier outburst was out of line. We’re all under immense pressure, and it’s crucial that we support each other. Thank you for your understanding and resilience. Let’s focus on the task at hand.”
Regaining his composure, he continued with renewed focus, “Think about it,” Rich began, turning to face his colleagues with fierce intensity in his eyes. “RAIDEN’s findings, the ancient carvings, the ecological data… it all points to one undeniable fact: the Beings knew their world was dying. They planned an exodus, not just to survive but to conquer.”
Jefferson leaned forward, urgency coloring his tone, “And the scale—RAIDEN counted about one sextillion Geo Worlds… that is 1×1021… that number is so vast it’s almost beyond our comprehension. That’s almost the number of planetary systems in the universe.”
He paused, letting the gravity of his words sink in. “Based on the artifacts and the ecological footprints analyzed, yes…there were potentially one sextillion Geo Worlds, each possibly launched as part of an exodus from their dying planet. Imagine the scale of that operation.”
Mike, arms crossed, interjected with a furrowed brow. “So, you’re saying they launched these worlds like lifeboats?”
“Precisely,” Rich affirmed. “But not just any lifeboats. Each one was equipped to terraform and colonize another planet—like Earth.”
Sharon, who had been scribbling notes, looked up, expressing softly to keep from being overheard by the other scientists. “And the ghosts, the cryptic messages you’ve been getting since you were a child…?”
“They weren’t just random visions; they were lessons,” Rich explained quietly. “Lessons in survival, in calculations that could one day save or doom our planet. This explains the advanced runaway calculation they taught me—it was all about managing a planet’s resources efficiently.”
Jefferson, leaning against the wall, nodded thoughtfully. “So, their plan spans across millennia, and now they’re heading here.”
“Exactly,” Rich confirmed, nodding gravely. “Their strategy was never about finding a new home. It was about transforming wherever they went into a replica of what they lost. They’re migrating—but they’re also colonizing… temporarily. Each planet they touch is just a stepping-stone.”
Sharon interjected, her analytical mind racing, “So Earth… it’s just another waypoint?”
“Exactly,” Rich said softly to keep from being heard by anyone other than his team. “And my early encounters with those… apparitions, the lessons on the runaway calculation—they were preparing me, us, for what’s coming. They’ve been orchestrating this for millennia.”
Mike, usually the skeptic, frowned, struggling with the implications. “And you’re sure they’re coming in nineteen years?”
Rich stopped pacing, locking eyes with each of them. “Absolutely sure. The homeless man, the calculations, the timelines—it all converges in less than two decades.”
The room fell silent again, the weight of their future pressing down. “OK. It’s time to plan,” Sharon said, breaking the silence. “And we need to do it now. How do we prepare the world for an invasion of this magnitude?”
Rich took a deep breath, his resolve hardening. “After we figure out some sort of framework, we start by sharing what we know with our NATO allies… and even our adversaries at FICON. I’m not sure what North Korea or Russia is going to do…but we will warn them. Bottom line, this isn’t just about national security; it’s about planetary survival.”
As the team nodded in agreement, Rich added, “And we need to figure out their terraforming technology. If we can understand how they revive dead worlds, maybe we can find a way to stop them, or even use their technology against them.”
Just then, RAIDEN’s voice cut through the tension, its tone slightly different, almost… human. “May I contribute an observation based on recent telemetry?”
The team turned toward the speaker, surprised by the interruption. “Go ahead, RAIDEN,” Rich said, his curiosity piqued.
“I’ve detected an anomaly in deep space—a ghost signature pattern left here in the Origin Homeland atmosphere, and it corroborates my earlier assessment of roughly one sextillion Geo Worlds existing on the Origin Homeland. The atmospheric ghost signature pattern is consistent with interstellar travel at a scale unprecedented in human observation… suggesting that up to one sextillion starships may have launched from the Origin Homeland… in the direction of the New Homeland… which means in the same direction as Earth. This pattern reflects launches across a vast timeline, possibly simultaneous, possibly staggered over millennia. Again, it’s a mere remnant fingerprint of their launch sequence, not a direct threat timeline.”
The revelation stirred a mix of dread and awe. Jefferson voiced the concern on everyone’s mind, “So they have the capability to flood our system with forces beyond our current understanding…and we expect them to arrive in 19 years?”
“Yes,” Rich said, his voice steady but filled with concern. “That’s not a lot of time, considering the scale of threat we face.”
The room fell silent for a moment, each member of the team processing this new reality. Rich continued, “This isn’t just about survival anymore. It’s about defending our world from an invader that views planets as mere stops—resources to be consumed before moving on.”
“And the government? After we brief them, what’s going to be their move?” Mike asked, looking towards Rich for answers.
Rich noticed the text message on his phone and sighed, “Well, Lisa just informed me she just briefed the U.S. government. So, you all need to expect we will soon have a bunch more feds and spooks crawling all over us around here. And like I said, after we brief them on this latest information, they’ll start coordinating a global response plan with NATO, and even FICON will need to be brought into the loop.”
Rich continued, “But Lisa confirmed, due to the nature of this…being in the cosmos and all, we… literally the four of us… we will be taking the lead on this. She’s got our back. And even though we are a minor economic player compared to Africa and KSA, we are still the innovation leader in space exploration…and military strength.”
Sharon chimed in, her tone a mix of determination and anxiety. “What about their methods? How exactly do they plan to convert these worlds?”
“That’s where we hit a wall,” Rich admitted, frustration edging his voice. “We just don’t know…their technology remains a mystery so far. Let’s hope they don’t have a way to strip a planet dry of its resources—water, air, life itself—turning it into a barren wasteland before moving on.”
As the implications hung heavily in the air, Rich’s communicator beeped—a signal that cut through the tension. He glanced at the device, his expression shifting subtly as he read the message. Turning back to the team, he shared a final, ominous thought.
“There’s more. We just detected a new pattern in deep space, a signal unlike any we’ve encountered. It’s moving this way. More proof that this…invasion… is imminent.”
The team exchanged uneasy glances. Jefferson broke the silence, his voice tinged with a mixture of awe and fear, “So we’ve detected the actual approach?”
Rich nodded slowly, his next words hanging in the air like a harbinger of the challenges to come. “It looks like that, yes. We need to prepare for the possibility that what we’re seeing is the vanguard of their Great Migration. And we need to figure out our response fast.”
As the meeting adjourned, the team left the room with a renewed sense of urgency, their minds racing with strategies and what-if scenarios. But as they dispersed, Rich stood still, staring at the blinking lights on the command center screens, the weight of their impending encounter with an interstellar invader pressing down on him.
Outside, the stars twinkled indifferently against the night sky, a stark reminder of the vast, uncaring universe they were about to challenge.
Chapter 9: The Quiet Before the Storm
As the Command Center’s doors slid shut behind him, Rich Cranston exhaled a long-held breath of tension. The night air was thick with the ever-present pollution that had become a backdrop to their daily lives, a constant reminder of Earth’s escalating environmental crisis. Before heading home, Rich approached his hover car with a mix of caution and a newfound routine of vigilance… and paranoia. “Car, playback any recent activity captured on video,” he commanded, his voice cutting through the quiet of the night.
The vehicle obeyed, its dashboard screen flickering to life showing two benign incidents: a sickly squirrel, its fur matted and eyes glazed, clearly suffering from severe contamination, momentarily resting on the hood before scampering away, and an acorn striking the roof with a soft thud—both victims of the encroaching decay. After a thorough inspection—crawling beneath the chassis and reaching deep into the dashboard’s innards—Rich confirmed nothing was amiss. Only then did he allow himself to slip into the driver’s seat and initiate the homeward journey.
As the hover car smoothly merged onto the Skybahn, Rich’s thoughts drifted to the spectral messages and encounters that had haunted him over the years. “Dr. Cranston, remember we have one chance, and we need you now before we run out of time…,” a ghostly voice had once whispered during the crucial time of JupiterONE’s reconnection.
The “ghosts” had always seemed to prepare him for something monumental, something beyond the realm of normal human experience. The recent events and revelations at the Command Center only solidified his suspicion: an early arrival team of Beings had been influencing Earth for millennia, and now shaping its destiny with an almost desperate urgency.
Rich pondered the possible organization of these earth-bound Beings… these alien infiltrators and schemers.
There had to be specialists among them, each responsible for different aspects of this grand manipulation that would take place over thousands…even millions… of years. Surely there would be resource strategists and political instigators, such as Robert E. Lee, Hitler, and Pullman… tasked with pushing humanity back to primitive simplicity of master and slave… ensuring Earth’s societal and geological evolution mirrored necessary conditions.
But even with the presence of Beings throughout earth’s history, it appears they failed to revert Earth to a “healthy” state, suggesting a frustration with human progress—our pollution, our dwindling resources—none of it conducive to the conditions the Beings needed for a successful migration…or invasion.
“They believe they’re running out of time,” Rich muttered to himself, recalling the urgent message linked to the reconnection with JupiterONE. The Beings’ strategy was now clear in his mind: colonize Earth, strip it of its resources, and use them to terraform their New Homeland. Rich’s mind was racing, “Why else would the Beings use some sort of quantum entanglement to get both Shimmering Curtains fully synchronized…completely mimicking earths 24-hour cycle, gravity behaviors…including tidal behaviors, even though there is zero water on the vast land mass? They are going to transport the world’s oceans to the New Homeland.”
But this is where the dots stopped connecting for Rich… how could the Beings transport all the resources, oceans, animals, plants…the whole thing across 20 billion light years to the New Homeland? The logistics of moving such mass via space were mind-boggling. The theoretical models of transport, even utilizing the Log Base acceleration phenomenon, suggested insurmountable challenges. The transport ships would have to be massive, and even if they did leverage Log Base acceleration, which according to the formula, is drastically reduced for large masses. Rich’s thoughts tumbled out, “A massive transport ship, if it exists, would never pick up the speed to get to the New Horizon in less than billions of years…at least I think this to be the case…” making a mental note to do some actual calculations to validate this.
Amidst his thoughts, his phone vibrated and buzzed, pulling him from his reverie. It was a text from Jefferson, asking to meet at the Railyard, their usual haunt for unwinding. He quickly texted back “ACK”.
“Just a quick detour,” Rich murmured, steering the hover car towards the Decatur exit. The thought of a cold drink and a friendly chat was a welcome respite.
The Railyard was bustling as Rich arrived, the vibrant chatter of the crowd spilling out into the streets. Every parking spot in the main lot was filled…the only other parking was in the old gravel overflow parking lot a block away down the dark street. After circling around the dark lot, he finally found an available space… parking in the only available spot in a secluded corner behind the main area, shrouded in shadows and litter.
The long walk to the diner took him down a dimly lit street, flanked by buildings that wore the grime and smog of decades. Each step took him further from the high-tech world of NASA and deeper into the raw, unvarnished part of the city. As Rich made his way through the grimy streets, his mind still wrestled with the enormity of the Beings’ plans and the mysterious mechanics of their migration strategy.
Rich’s walk toward the Railyard was interrupted by a sudden, unexpected threat. From the darkened alley between two old brick buildings, five masked figures emerged, cutting through the smog like specters. Before he could react, they were upon him. Four of the assailants, muscular and imposing, quickly overpowered him, their strength undeniable. They moved with a precision that seemed rehearsed, catching Rich off guard. Despite his struggles, they easily subdued him, securing his hands with zip ties and stifling his shouts with a gag.
The fifth figure lagged behind, struggling to keep up but moving with mechanical precision. Rich was dragged back into the alley, away from the safety of the street lights, and toward a nondescript hover van parked discreetly on the other side. The interior of the van was stark, utilitarian. As they threw him inside, the muscular captors didn’t speak; they only tightened their grip as Rich kicked and grunted, futilely attempting to escape. A sardonic thought flitted through his mind. “So much for high-tech alien abductions. They’ve ditched the tractor beam for the classic Earth-style ‘kidnap and throw ‘em in the van’—apparently, some old methods are just too good to give up.”
Once inside, they blindfolded him, plunging his world into darkness. The van’s engine hummed to life, and they ascended sharply, climbing well beyond the standard cruising altitude of 3000 feet permitted on the Skybahn. Rich could feel the unusual bumps and shifts; they were definitely not on the standard aerial lanes. The faint murmur of conversation from the front cabin reached his ears—not in English, but in a language that tantalizingly bordered on the familiar, its rhythms and intonations almost recognizable yet distinctly alien.
The ride was unnervingly bumpy, with occasional violent jolts that suggested rapid maneuvers through less-traveled air corridors. No flashes from the lane markers of the Skybahn penetrated his blindfold, confirming they were far from the usual paths. The vehicle finally came to a halt with a sudden and violent lurch that suggested they had reached a considerable altitude.
His captors removed the blindfold, revealing a tumultuous scene. Rich was buffeted by winds as he found himself on the precipice of a hover van parked about 50 feet from a massive transport starship, with the hover van being shaken like a rag doll, and the large transport ship rocking and swaying as the violent winds buffeted it’s metal sides. The ship hovered ominously at what seemed like 10,000 feet, where the sky roared with the violence of nasty tornastorms, a testament to Earth’s worsening climate crisis.
“Grab the handle when you’re close enough!” shouted one of the Beings, their voice barely audible over the howling wind; the open space between the van and the ship was disconcertingly vast, and the open hatch of the starship barely discernable in the gray, windy sky… a dark maw against the stormy backdrop.
One by one, the two Beings and four Dalithearn—their identities now unmistakable to Rich—transferred effortlessly across to the ship via a tractor beam, clearly accustomed to the aerial maneuver. But for Rich, each step was a battle against his innate dread of heights. His life had always been firmly planted on the ground; never had he imagined stepping into open air at such an altitude without solid support beneath him.
Hesitantly, he shuffled toward the edge of the van. Below him, only the blurred city lights far beneath broke the menacing darkness of the night. The abyss below was paralyzing, his fear of heights clashing violently with the need to comply. The Beings and Dalithearn watched from the ship, their figures silhouetted against the soft interior light.
With a tentative reach, Rich’s fingers brushed against the cold metal of the handle. His grip tightened, the only assurance between him and the terrifying drop. As the tractor beam engaged, his body tensed. Pulled across the gap, his feet left the van’s solid base, and for a heart-stopping moment, he was suspended over nothingness.
The fear was overwhelming, his body instinctively thrashing against the invisible pull of the beam. He was a scientist, not an acrobat. The open void, the unrelenting winds—it was all an affront to his very being. Yet as the hatch of the ship neared, Rich forced his terror down, locking eyes on the silhouetted figures that awaited him.
As he landed inside the transport ship, he fell to floor and the hatch closed behind him with a pneumatic hiss, sealing him in with his captors. The reality of his situation settled in—a captive on an alien vessel, bound for a confrontation with unknown implications. What lay ahead was unknown, but Rich Cranston’s resolve was unwavering. Now, confronted by the mysteries of the cosmos, his determination would face its ultimate test.
After the unsettling transfer from the hover van to the transport ship, Rich found himself being navigated through a series of stark, dimly lit corridors by the Dalithearn and the two Beings. The path from the airlock to the living quarters was nearly silent, save for the low hum of the ship’s engines and the soft whir of unseen machinery. The walls were smooth and metallic, lined with panels that occasionally flickered with soft light, guiding their path. The atmosphere was cold, a stark contrast to the warmth expected of a living space.
As they walked, Rich noticed the sparse presence of Dalithearn stationed along the corridor. They stood alert yet motionless, their expressions unreadable beneath their uniform hoods. Each one was positioned strategically near doorways and junctions, suggesting a carefully designed security protocol. Their presence was intimidating, yet they exuded a sense of disciplined calm that added to the eerie silence of the ship.
As Rich observed the Dalithearn move through the ship’s corridors, performing their duties with mechanical precision, a torrent of questions flooded his mind. The sight of these beings, subservient yet integral to the ship’s operations, was a stark reminder of the rigid hierarchy that governed their existence. He pondered deeply on the reliance of the Beings on this subspecies.
“Why this dependence on the Dalithearn?” Rich mused internally, his gaze following a Dalithearn who quietly adjusted the settings on a control panel before moving on to the next task with subdued efficiency. “If the Beings possess such advanced technology, why not employ AI robots for these tasks? There’s no ethical quandary in using machines. Why enslave a living, breathing species?”
Rich’s thoughts spiraled as he considered the broader implications of such a social structure. “A functional society—why not aim for that? One where labor is divided based on skill and willingness, not birth or coercion.” His mind raced with historical parallels from Earth, where every attempt to create a utopia had somehow devolved into dystopia, often under the guise of efficiency or necessity.
The stark reality of the ship’s internal operations painted a grim picture. “Is this what they envision for Earth? A two-tiered society where the few rule over the many under the guise of order and necessity?” Rich immediately thought about the horrible stories he read about in history class about Pullman and the 200 years of terror that he and his cronies rained down on Americans. The concept felt not only archaic but fundamentally cruel, a regression of every moral and ethical advancement humanity had struggled to achieve.
Rich watched the Beings closely, their movements rigid yet extremely precise, assisted entirely by their exosuits. The quiet whir of servo motors underscored each movement, intricate pieces of technology compensating for their frail bodies. “These are the most advanced suits I’ve ever seen,” Rich thought, the technology far surpassing even the most sophisticated exoskeletons used by heavy-construction workers back on Earth. Those Earth versions were clunky and industrial, a stark contrast to the sleek, almost organic integration he observed now.
It struck him then—the reliance on these exosuits was not just a matter of physical necessity but hinted at a deeper, more complex dependency. “It’s not just about inability; it’s a deliberate choice,” Rich pondered. The Beings had the technology to automate these tasks, to utilize AI in ways humanity could only dream of. Yet, they chose to rely on the Dalithearn. This decision, to employ a living workforce under such a strict hierarchy, must be driven by something more than mere tradition or inability. There was a deliberate avoidance of AI, a conscious decision that perhaps spoke to a deeper fear or a hidden vulnerability within their society.
“Perhaps,” Rich speculated with a growing sense of unease, “the Beings’ dependency on these structures goes beyond simple social rigidity. Their survival might hinge on these archaic systems—systems designed to suppress any threat to their fragile control.” As he mulled over the implications, the stark reality became clearer. This wasn’t merely about maintaining order or efficiency; it was about ensuring dominance.
Observing the Dalithearn silently performing their tasks, the chilling realization dawned on Rich that this system of control was meticulously crafted. “They fear innovation in this realm,” he concluded grimly. “They rely on this caste system, not out of incapacity to innovate but because it guarantees their dominion remains unchallenged. They have eschewed AI, possibly to avoid the unpredictability it brings, choosing instead a path that ensures their authority is never questioned.” This drive for control was not just about maintaining a social order—it was about securing power, extending their reach across the cosmos, ensuring that their rule, once established on new worlds, would be as absolute as it was on their ship.
Rich’s thoughts raced as he pieced together the implications of their choices. The Beings’ strategies weren’t just about survival; they were about maintaining a power structure that left no room for dissent or deviation. As he watched the Beings and their subservient Dalithearn, a resolve solidified within him. Understanding the nuances of their society was more than an exercise in curiosity—it was critical to forming a strategy to counteract their plans for Earth and beyond.
Rich’s resolve hardened as he pondered his next moves. Understanding the Being’s civilization’s inner workings was crucial, not just for his survival, but for the potential future resistance against their plans for Earth. His observations here, in the cold metal heart of an alien ship, would fuel his strategies to safeguard humanity’s fate.
The corridor finally opened into the living quarters, a space that felt like a sudden plunge into an alien ocean. The room was bathed in tranquil blue and green lights, casting an almost aquatic glow that softened the hard edges of the ship’s interior. The lighting created reflections on the glossy surfaces, giving the illusion of depth and fluidity.
The furniture within was sleek and futuristic, with designs that seemed to defy the usual conventions of human ergonomics. Each piece was minimalistic yet undeniably sophisticated, crafted from materials that reflected the light in a way that enhanced the room’s otherworldly ambiance. The seating was contoured in such a way that suggested it could accommodate various forms, perhaps catering to the different anatomies of the ship’s diverse occupants.
The overall color scheme of cool blues and greens contrasted sharply with the utilitarian grey of the corridors they had just traversed. This area was clearly designed not just for function but to provide a soothing environment for its occupants, perhaps as a counterbalance to the harsh realities of space travel.
As Rich was ushered further into the living area, the contrast between the mechanical exterior and the serene interior of the ship was disorienting yet mesmerizing, underscoring the dual nature of their journey—both a feat of engineering and a venture into the unknown.
In this living area there were two more Beings, and one clearly in charge. Rich noticed that the Beings seemed frail and delicate, almost ethereal. They moved with an eerie grace, aided by their exoskeleton suits that were sleek and nearly invisible under their light, flowing robes. Rich heard the suits humming softly with each movement, again hinting at complex machinery beneath their minimalistic exteriors. Rich noticed the faint glow of lights along the joints of these suits, indicating active kinetic assistance.
Despite their frail appearance, the Beings orchestrated the activities aboard with quiet authority. The Dalithearn responded to their commands with hushed, melodic tones, using a simple, soft-spoken dialect that Rich found surprisingly gentle for their robust appearance. It was a stark contrast to the commanding presence of the Beings, who spoke rarely and only in necessity, their voices carrying a weight that underscored their superiority.
Rich stood in the softly lit chamber, surrounded by the few Beings aboard the vessel, each encased in their intricate exosuits. The Being in charge—a figure slightly taller than the rest, its suit more ornately integrated with shimmering circuits—began to speak with a measured urgency that seemed to pulse through the quiet hum of the ship.
“Your involvement is crucial at this juncture,” the Being intoned, its voice spoken with a grave clarity. “Recent developments have drastically compromised our migration plans. We face constraints not only in time but in the resources necessary to sustain our existence. That is why we have brought you here.”
The Being paused, its head tilting slightly, the lights on its suit flickering subtly. “The complexity of what we must convey surpasses simple dialogue. We have engineered a device, a cranial-mediator, designed to interface directly with your neural architecture. It will transmit a detailed exposition of our predicament and the roles you might play.”
Rich felt a chill at the mention of the device. “You expect me to just strap something to my head? Something that messes directly with my brain?” Rich’s eyes narrowed, his mind racing with suspicion and the weight of his sudden abduction. “Why the secrecy? If it’s so important, why can’t you just tell me what’s going on? What’s with the need for a device?”
“Please understand, the cranial-mediator is meticulously calibrated to ensure safety and clarity of the transmission. It will allow you to assimilate the necessary data over a span of approximately six weeks,” explained the Being, its tone almost pleading. “It is essential you grasp the full scope of our crisis to effectively assist us.”
“And you can’t stay awake long enough to explain it to me now?” Rich pressed, unable to mask his frustration.
The Being’s suit emitted a soft whir of servos as it exhaled, a simulation of human weariness. “Our physiological limits in this physical state are dire. Exiting suspended animation consumes immense energy—energy that is dwindling rapidly. Each awakening takes a heavy toll, and not just on our power sources. Physically, we are becoming less capable of withstanding the time outside of stasis. Each moment we spend animated shortens the lifespan of our entire species.”
Rich listened intently, his mind racing with the implications of the Beings’ frailty and their reliance on technological support to sustain their physical functions and painted a stark picture of their predicament. “And if I agree to this, to your… mind-meld, what then? I just take your word that it’s all true, all necessary?”
The Being nodded slowly, its suit’s luminosity dimming with its body language. “We can only ask for your trust, Dr. Cranston. The future of not just our worlds, but potentially yours hinges on the understanding and actions that will follow from this knowledge. And without a full understanding of the complexities of our situation, you cannot help us—or your planet.”
Rich mulled over the implications, the gravity of the situation settling around him like the cold of deep space. Despite his reservations, the scientist in him was intrigued by the potential knowledge the cranial-mediator could impart. But more importantly, he recognized the tactical advantage—understanding the Beings’ motives and methods from the inside could provide the key to safeguarding Earth.
The ship’s interior dimmed momentarily as the Being Leader continued, lowering his voice to emphasize the grave importance of this discussion. Standing before Rich, the leader’s exosuit shimmered with a soft glow, accentuating the fine mechanics of its construction. The ambient light reflected off the suit, casting spectral patterns across the chamber’s smooth surfaces.
“Dr. Cranston,” the Being Leader began, its voice resonating with a mechanical cadence, “our efforts to direct Earth’s trajectory have continually met with resistance. Your species’ innate drive for progress—while admirable—has thwarted our objectives.”
Rich, his gaze fixed on the Being, listened intently but with growing unease. The leader continued, “Humans possess a remarkable resilience and ingenuity, traits that have repeatedly undermined our initiatives. For nearly two millennia, we have attempted to mold humanity’s development in a manner conducive to the Great Migration. Yet, each intervention has failed to curb your kind’s relentless expansion and consumption.”
As the Being spoke, Rich noticed the subtle movements of its suit, the servos quietly whirring with each gesture, enhancing the Being’s frail physical form. The room was charged with a tension that seemed to amplify the gravity of the discussion.
The leader paused, its eyes seeming to bore into Rich. “We need you to champion a pivotal transformation on Earth within the next nineteen years. The window for action is closing rapidly, and without significant change, the consequences will be irrevocable, not just for Earth but for all involved worlds.”
Rich’s mind raced, “All involved worlds? What do you mean? How many other places are caught up in this?”
The Being hesitated, a flicker of caution passing through its eyes. “I’ve revealed too much already. The full scope and the interconnectivity of the Migration extend far beyond Earth. The Cranial-Mediator will provide you with the necessary context to understand the complexities and the direness of our situation.”
Rich frowned, processing the enormity of the revelation. “You’ve been manipulating us for centuries, and now you expect me to just fall in line because you’re finally being honest?”
The Being’s posture shifted slightly, an indication of urgency or perhaps discomfort. “Our survival strategies have always been about coexistence and mutual benefit, though it might not appear so from your current perspective.” The leader continued, the modulations of its voice conveying an earnest plea, “it is imperative that Earth maintains its natural reserves. The trajectory of your technological advancement, vehicular proliferation, and space exploration is leading your world to a brink from which there is no return.”
Rich, his posture rigid with both resistance and intrigue, locked eyes with the Being. “You’re saying we should just stop? Halt progress? How can you expect us to regress after all we’ve achieved?”
The Being’s gaze did not waver as it responded, its voice a mixture of firmness and regret. “The formula for the runaway condition is not mere speculation. It is a precise calculation, predicting the inevitable self-destruction of your planet should current practices persist.”
Rich paced a few steps, his mind wrestling with the concepts. He stopped, turning back to face the Being, frustration lacing his tone. “And you think by throwing Earth’s progress into reverse, we’ll save it? By asking me to convince world leaders to abandon the very advancements that define us?”
“Yes, Dr. Cranston,” the Being insisted, leaning slightly forward, the lights reflecting off its suit creating an almost halo-like effect around its form. “Consider this not as a regression but as a necessary pivot towards sustainability. This is about the survival of your species, your world.”
Rich’s demeanor shifted abruptly as the Being’s words sank in, his patience fraying at the edges as he processed the implications of their plan. His voice rose, laden with anger and disbelief. “You expect me to believe that this is for our own good? I know what you really intend to do. Make no mistake, I know that you just want to rape and pillage Earth’s resources so you can terraform the New Homeland… I don’t know how you will do it, but I know that is your intention!”
Rich continued, his voice rising in pitch as his anger increased, “And you expect me to believe that stripping Earth of its resources is somehow a benevolent act? It’s clear to me what this really is—you want to plunder our planet, exploit every last resource for your migration!”
The chamber, bathed in the sterile light of the ship, seemed to grow colder as Rich’s accusation hung in the air. The Being in charge, its slender form slightly stooped in the exosuit that augmented its frail physique, regarded Rich with an expression that might have been pity if Rich didn’t know better.
“Dr. Cranston, your resistance is understandable,” the Being’s voice was calm, almost soothing, but it did nothing to temper Rich’s ire. “Our intentions are not to harm but to harmonize. The Great Migration includes Earthlings in the grand schema—there’s a place for humanity on the New Homeland.”
Rich scoffed, his scorn undisguised. “And abandon Earth? Our home? For a fabricated paradise engineered on the remains of other plundered worlds? No, that’s not a future I can endorse or facilitate. Not for me, not for anyone.”
The conversation grew tenser, the air thick with unspoken accusations and the weight of centuries of plans hanging precariously in the balance. “Your view of innovation and progress is flawed by shortsightedness,” Rich continued, his voice firm and loud in the confined space. “Humans strive to better their lives, yes, but through responsible stewardship, not by laying waste to entire planets!”
The Beings exchanged glances, their movements subtle yet filled with an urgency that suggested their time in their physical forms was running short. “The migration isn’t just about survival—it’s about preserving life across the cosmos,” the leader tried to explain, the mechanical whir of its suit punctuating each word. “Earth’s current trajectory is unsustainable. Without intervention, your world will meet the same fate as those before it.”
Rich’s anger did not abate; it morphed into a resolute defiance. “I will not be complicit in this. I refuse to be the harbinger of my planet’s demise under the guise of saving it. You see it as necessary; I see it as theft—clear and simple.”
The Being’s response was a sigh, a sound so human it briefly disarmed Rich. “You misunderstand our plight, Dr. Cranston. The resources, the lives we seek to save include your own. This isn’t merely about us or you—it’s about all sentient beings sharing this universe.”
Despite the Being’s attempts at reassurance, Rich was unyielding. “No earthling will willingly leave their home to live on a fabricated flat earth. Your plan, it’s doomed from the start if it relies on our compliance to dismantle our own world.”
Rich’s frustration boiled over as he stared down the delegation of Beings, their fragile forms barely sustained by the mechanical intricacies of their exosuits. The ship’s dimly lit chamber, with its walls echoing the soft hum of alien technology, felt more like an interrogation room than a meeting place.
“Again, I am going to ask you—how many other worlds are you planning on plundering in your Great Migration?!” Rich’s voice was sharp, cutting through the low murmur of the ship’s ambient noise.
The Beings exchanged uneasy glances, their eyes—a strange blend of human-like expressiveness and alien coldness—flickering with a hint of distress. The leader, its voice modulated by the suit’s translator, hesitated before responding, the mechanical whir of servos punctuating its movement. “Dr. Cranston, the full scope of the Migration is vast, encompassing more than you can fathom without the context our cranial-mediator provides. Discussing it without this understanding might lead to misconceptions.”
Rich’s expression hardened, his patience thinning. “Then let’s cut through the ambiguity. How many worlds, like Earth, are ensnared in your plans?”
Finally relenting under Rich’s persistent questioning, the leader sighed—a sound that seemed to carry the weight of eons. “There are numerous worlds, over one sextillion worlds, Dr. Cranston, each at various stages of resource integration. And every world’s cooperation, including Earth, is critical for the success of the Great Migration.“
The revelation hit Rich like a physical blow, the scale of the Beings’ operations dawning on him with chilling clarity. “You’re desperate,” he stated flatly, the pieces falling into place. “After 1.5 million years of journeying through space, your survival hangs by a thread, and you’ve turned to exploiting other worlds to save your own.”
The chamber’s atmosphere grew tense, the Beings visibly uncomfortable with the accusation but unable to deny the truth in Rich’s words. One of them, smaller and seemingly younger, stepped forward. “Our existence is indeed at risk, Dr. Cranston. The Great Migration is not a conquest but a necessity. Without it, not just our species, but all life linked to us faces extinction.”
Rich paced the floor, his mind racing. The desperation in the Being’s voice, the stark reality of their plight, it all painted a picture of a civilization at the brink. And yet, their methods were draconian, their ethics questionable. “Using Earth as just another stepping stone in your survival strategy is where you lose me,” Rich countered. “You see resources where I see home.”
The younger Being’s response was measured, its tone almost pleading. “We understand the moral dilemmas our actions present, Dr. Cranston. But consider the broader picture—the universal canvas. The Migration could be a new beginning for all, not just for us but for humans too.”
Rich stopped in his tracks, the enormity of the situation weighing on him. “And if I refuse to help? What then for Earth?”
The room fell silent, the question hanging in the air like a specter. Finally, the leader spoke, its voice low and grave. “Without your aid, Earth will continue on its path, a path that mirrors those of worlds we’ve lost. You’ve seen the data, the projections. This isn’t just about our survival, Dr. Cranston. It’s about preventing the cycle of destruction that seems inherent to sentient civilizations.”
Rich knew he was at a crossroads, one that could alter the course of human history. As he stood there, the weight of his decision pressing down, he realized that leveraging the Beings’ desperation might be Earth’s best chance. If their technology could indeed reshape worlds, perhaps it could also be used to safeguard his own.
“Alright,” Rich finally said, his tone resolute yet cautious. “I’ll consider your cranial-mediator. But understand this: my priority is Earth’s safety, its autonomy. If there’s a way to help you without sacrificing my world, I’ll find it. But never at the expense of turning Earth into a husk.”
The Beings nodded, understanding the terms of the uneasy truce. As the meeting adjourned, Rich was left alone with his thoughts, pondering the vast, star-strewn paths of the Great Migration and the pivotal role he now played. The game had changed, and with it, the stakes had never been higher.
Chapter 10: Return and Resistance
After his return to Earth, Rich struggles with the mind-melding device left by the Beings, aiming to understand without succumbing to potential brainwashing. His discoveries lead him to advocate for an urgent space mission to investigate other potentially exploited worlds.
Chapter 11: Unraveling the Grand Illusion
Rich and his team’s findings suggest a disturbing reality: the galaxies are not naturally occurring but are part of a constructed migration system designed by the Beings. This revelation reshapes their understanding of the universe and Earth’s place within it.
Chapter 12: The Blueprint of Desperation
Rich delves into the Beings’ Execution Blueprint, uncovering the desperation of a dying civilization trying to cross the universe to a new homeland. This blueprint lays bare the mechanisms of galaxy ships and the critical importance of each world within these ships for the survival of the Beings’ species.
Chapter 13: The Origin Colonist’s True Mission – Revealed
An expedition to Venus uncovers the true scale of the Beings’ plan and the nature of Earth’s role as a temporary vessel in this interstellar journey. Rich confronts the harsh truths about the Beings’ manipulation of human history and their caste-based society, which has profound implications for humanity’s self-understanding and future.
These chapters will deepen the plot, expand the universe’s lore, and set the stage for an impactful, possibly twist-laden conclusion. Let me know if you’d like to adjust any elements or proceed with fleshing out these summaries into full chapters!
User
Before I continue with the next chapter, I’d like to memorialize some basic background and story threads. However, some of the things I am going to cover are plot twists and spoilers, and I don’t want to include some of these in the subsequent chapters until I am ready to disclose them. Is it possible for you to keep all these separate and not a part of the chapters until I explicitly ask you to do so? Or if I get you to help me work on this background and key story threads, will they automatically become part of the context that you use as you help me create these subsequent chapters? Please tell me how you will proceed if I give you all the spoiler, background, and story threads.
ChatGPT
If you share specific plot twists, background details, and key story threads with me, I can remember them and keep them in mind as we work on your project. However, I’ll only incorporate these elements into the chapters or specific content when you explicitly ask me to do so. This way, you maintain control over when and how these details are revealed in your story. You can trust me to handle the information sensitively and only use it according to your directions. If you have any specific instructions or preferences about how to handle these details, just let me know!
User
I will be creating a reference book that covers all the background and story threads. I will load what data I have so far, and then we can work on each section to ensure we have the correct context, to ensure that it all logically ties together, and to ensure we have enough detail to use it for additional color and context in the actual story.
Please read everything below, and give me a single summary for each section.
Here is all of the information:
1. Galaxies are manmade –
a. The universe is naturally completely barren, void of any and all matter. The universe exists between two massive parallel flat slabs of land….roughly 46 billion light years apart.
b. They are perfectly parallel to each other, and their breadth and width is the entire cross-sectional area of the Universe, approximately 46 light years tall and 46 billion light years wide.
c. All of the galaxies, matter, dust, and such that currently exist in the universe we now know was fabricated by the Beings that lived on the Origin Homeland. The galaxies are the massive starships that they fabricated in order to leave the Origin Homeland before it was destroyed.
2. The beings have evolved over the past nine hundred million years.
a. They discovered sleep is actually the fountain of youth. In sleeping two weeks without waking or any interruption, and then having a normal ten hour per night sleep cycle for the next two weeks, they discovered this actually allowed them to prolong their health, vitality, intelligence, and overall capabilities for over 500 years.
b. In the quest to continue to extend their lifespans to longer and longer time periods, the Beings continued to advance their hibernation techniques and technology creating and designing hibernation beds to sleep for longer and longer periods of time, eventually innovating the hibernation beds and technology to sleep for several months at a time, which extended their lifespans to up to 3000 years. But the extensive sleep periods debilitated their muscular and learning functions. They became almost completely physically disabled and their intelligence plateaued, limiting their evolutionary potential, and capping the advancement of their civilization.
c. To compensate for the atrophy of their physical and mental capabilities from extensive hibernation, the Beings designed and built very sophisticated and advanced exoskeleton suits, and put in cranial and muscular stimulation systems into the hibernation technology to minimize the atrophy of their brains and other critical physiological, psychological, and intellectual functions, including all bodily organs. However, because they had to extend hibernation to such extensive periods (3 months) to maximize lifespan, atrophy on the Being’s physiology was unavoidable, with the most severe negative impact on the muscular and skeletal systems.
d. Because of their severe physical atrophy of their muscular and skeletal systems, the Beings needed additional physical assistance beyond their exosuits when emerging from hibernation, and also during their awake period. They needed helpers to take care of the physical work, physical labor, and even minute physical movements needed throughout daily life.
e. Initially and in the very early days…90 million years ago, they enslaved or employed other lower-class Beings, mainly the ones that didn’t have the wealth or the capabilities to afford the hibernation systems. But this proved to be tenuous and unsustainable.
f. Throughout the historical early period, the Being civilization was overwhelmed with an uncivilized and lower intelligent life form, known as the Dalithearn. The beings did their best with population control, and kept them in territories that were effectively concentration camps. They found them easy to control due to their lower levels intelligence and lack of organizational skills.
g. They soon discovered they could domesticate and train the Dalithearn, who were motivated to do such work in order to escape the horrors of the Dalithearn concentration camps.
h. And with this, a huge lower caste of Dalithearn were created to do all the manual work, and over the course of 10 million years, all Beings were able to deploy hibernation systems due to the incorporation of Dalithearn as a lower caste.
i. The Dalithearn became indispensable to the civilization, and critical to the Beings quest for immortality. To maintain the Dalithearn civilization as a lower, sub-Being lifeform for the Beings, they had to put in place severe measures and policies to ensure these creatures could not evolve and improve their social and intellectual standing. The Beings had to ensure the Dalithearn would never be on equal standing as a Being.
j. It was about this time that the entire civilization of the Origin homeland Implemented a strict caste system, enforceable with the death penalty if it was not strictly followed.
k. This allowed the Beings to implement mass-use of hibernation to dramatically extends the lifespan, the government control, the ruling class, the economic stature, etc. of the Beings across the entire Origin Homeland.
l. There was one point in history, approximately 9 million years ago, where some Being societies became sympathetic to the Dalithearn and strongly lobbied for the use of AI Robotics to replace them, and thereby allowing the Dalithearn to evolve and become accepted into the Being’s civilization.
i. This created a bitter civil discourse, and the government research centers did numerous studies which predicted, with almost statistical certainty, that if AI Robotics were to be used, the AI robots would wipe out the Beings and Dalithearn within a 250,000 year period of time.
ii. Despite these estimates and reports, the Dalithearn sympathizers and lobbyists won out and the Beings rapidly evolved their industrial robotics program, adding self-learning artificial intelligence into their control and orchestration systems. As the AI robots became more sophisticated, they eventually almost wiped out the Origin Homeland civilization5 within 830,000 years, causing an all out universe-wide war, called the Great AI War.
iii. The Beings eventually won the war against the AI robots, but only by forming a tenuous ally with the simple-minded Dalithearn, who they promised a reduced level of servitude in exchange for their assistance in combating the AI robot army. The Beings easily manipulated the Dalithearn into complying to their wishes, and many sextillions of Dalithearn were killed in the Great AI War.
3. There are two sub-species of Dalithearn, known as the Grypthian and Pedrocanin…
a. These would be what modern humans referred to as Cro-Magnum and Neanderthal.
i. Cro-Magnum were used for finer physical activities, such as working fine machinery, piloting ships, and the like.
ii. Neanderthals were used when muscle and force were necessary, including building projects, agriculture, general home maintenance, and the like.
b. They were a critical part of the overall ecosystem of the Origin Homeland. The two separate sub-species of Dalithearn were genetically modified such that they could not successfully mate and reproduce between the sub-species in order to eliminate any possibility of evolution – they were genetically modified roughly 50 million years before the launch of the Galaxy Starships for the New Homeland. Again, this genetic modification was necessary to keep them from evolving into a higher intelligent type of Dalithearn.
c. The Dalithearn are fully domesticated and are fully integrated into the Origin Homeland civilization, but as secondary citizens in a strict caste society.
d. They fully understand the Being primary language, both spoken and written. But they are strictly forbidden to speak or write in the Being language.
e. They speak a very simple, childlike language. Reading or writing in their native language is also strictly forbidden.
f. The strictness by which the Dalithearn are subjected to is based on Being Law enacted hundreds of millions of years prior, and designed specifically to suppress any form of evolution, increase in intelligence, or potential to unionize and revolt.
g. All laws that Dalithearn are subject to are punishable by immediate death should they break or defy such laws.
4. Only Dalithearn were supposed to be on the Carrying Worlds (planets like Earth) –
a. No Beings were onboarded for transport on the Carrying Worlds (like Earth). Only Dalithearn were onboarded. This was due to the fact that the Being’s had very sophisticated, extensive and comprehensive statistical and sociological modeling that they used to determine how best to manage the Great Migration.
b. Their model determined that if Beings were put on the relatively small planets (relative to the Origin Homeland), the planet and its inhabitants would not survive the 2 million years of transit time due to the natural inclination of the Beings to create, innovate, explore, and make claims on territories, creating inevitable wars and scenarios where rulers would emerge and they would force huge population increases in order to outnumber their enemies. Bottom line – they would destroy themselves and the very transport world they inhabit, and their models show that this would happen within 500,000 years.
c. There was no scenario where the carrying world could survive if Beings were onboarded onto the planet. Plus, Beings were not fundamentally physically
capable2 of surviving without some sort of exosuit, and without Dalithearn to attend to their physical needs. Additionally, if Beings were transported on Earth over the course of 2 million years they would lose their social identity and forget about the Origin Homeland.
5. The ban and elimination of AI Robotics on the Origin Homeland
a. The Beings experienced an almost catastrophic condition due to the mass proliferation of AI robotics across the Origin Homeland, which eventually culminated in the elimination of all AI Robotics in the universe after the Beings and Dalithearn won the Great AI War.
b. This is way there were no AI Robots included in the Galaxy Starships.
6. The Numbers
a. There were 1 sextillion Geo Worlds on the Origin Homeland
b. Each Geo World on the Origin Homeland would build a one Planetary System
c. One billion of these Planetary Systems (each one carrying a Geo World) were grouped together into a single Galaxy Starship
d. Each Galaxy consisted of these one billion Planetary Systems plus approximately 100 billion stars, where these stars provided the fuel for the Log Base Accelerated propulsion & energy for the voyage, including for the Suspended Animation systems for each Planetary System.
e. A total of 1 trillion of these Galaxy Starships were created
7. How Galaxy Starships operated
a. Who piloted them?
b. How often did Sentinel Beings come out of suspended animation to check on things?
c. Is there a class of Dalithearn that watch over and provide direct assistance to the ruling Beings? Are these Dalithearn also kept in suspended animation? I think these would be the Royal Guard.
8. What payload the Galaxy ships carried
a. What are all the things that must be used on the voyage from the Origin Homeland to the New Homeland?
b. What are the necessary elements, gases, resources, and the like needed to fully terraform the New Homeland?
c. How are these offloaded (and how were they onboarded initially)?
9. The emergency
a. At some point fairly late into the journey, when the Beings awoke to do their routine checkup on the voyage and the Carrying World, they discovered a major problem. Somehow, there was some sort of glitch in the DNA encoding of the two Dalithearn sub-species (Grypthian and Pedrocanin) where they were able to cross-species mate with each other and reproduce. By the time the Beings did their periodic assessment of the voyage, already several 10’s of thousands of cross-bred Dalithearn were in existence.
b. Due to the extensive energy requirements of exiting and reentering suspended animation, there would be no way for the Beings to transport to earth in sufficient numbers with their Dalithearn Royal Guards to annihilate the cross-bred Dalithearn (named by the Beings as Vordanian, which means spoiled meat).
c. The Beings maintained a cross-Geo World (the planetary systems within the galaxy starship) communications mesh at all times, and they also have a fail-safe such that Beings in Geo Worlds can awaken Sentinels from suspended animation in times of emergency. Also, the Principal Being Leader of the Galaxy starship also maintains cross-communication with the other Galaxy starships, and can also awaken other Principal Being Leaders in event of emergencies.
d. The first Geo World that experienced the cross-mating glitch on their Carrying World was the Simear System, on Carrying World Filtearsh. The GEO World leader immediately contacted their sister GEO Worlds within the Galaxy, and they discovered the same glitch occurred in over 35% of the Carrying Worlds.
e. Knowing that an evolved species on the Carrying World will destroy the planet within 500,000 years, the Beings knew they were likely facing a massive existential threat, but had to first verify with the other Galaxy starships to see whether this same glitch was affect all Galaxies throughout the universe.
f. Unfortunately, the situation in the other Galaxies were worse, where the number of infected Geo Worlds were greater than 57% on average throughout the universe.
g. Originally, there were one sextillion Geo Worlds created. There models showed that due to the natural dangers and risks of cross-universe, Log Base accelerated hyper-lightspeed travel with organic beings, only a maximum of 5% of the Geo Worlds would survive, and an absolute minimum of 3% of the Geo Worlds would be necessary to successfully terraform the New Homeland. This means of the surviving 50 billion Galaxies remaining at the end of the journey, they could only lose no more than 20 billion of these Galaxies, otherwise the entire universe of Beings, Dalithearn, animals, insects, and organic matter would completely perish and the universe would become a soulless, dead, and empty cavernous of complete nothingness.
h. At 57% of the Geo Worlds experiencing Dalithearn evolution, this would destroy the Geo Worlds on almost 30 billion Galaxies, leaving only about 20 billion Galaxies to attempt to migrate and terraform the New Homeland, a statistical impossibility.
10. The Survival Plan
a. Again, due to the extensive energy requirements of exiting and reentering suspended animation, there would be no way for the Beings to transport to Geo Worlds in sufficient numbers with their Dalithearn Royal Guards to annihilate the cross-bred Dalithearn (Vordanian).
b. In desperation, they had to immediately bring their most capable leaders and operators out of suspended animation, draining valuable energy resources and reducing the lifespan of many of the Beings, to begin devising sociological ways to control the new breed, which would require many quarter centuries to devise, build, test, and deploy.
c. They were able to create several schemes that could be deployed. These scenarios all required one very difficult but very necessary key requirement: They would need actual Beings that have full, comprehensive physically-capabilities such that they could survive on the Geo Worlds without artificial sustaining systems such as Exo-suits or transport ships.
i. They would be given an initial supply of these, but these would eventually wear out over several generations, and the Beings did not have the time to completely create self-sustaining, advanced Being civilizations on 30 quintillion Geo Worlds.
ii. Most distressing for the Beings, these “new” Beings would not be able to use the hibernation systems to prolong their lives. The Beings would need to procreate on the Geo Worlds across many generations. But the number of Beings would have to be very limited to a very small population, given that the probability of an advanced civilization on the Geo World was 100% that they would self-inflict fatal technologies within 500,000 years.
iii. Therefore, this would have to be a very closely and carefully orchestrated mission, and it would have to be replicated across quintillion other Geo Worlds.
iv. To initiate all the schemes, each Geo World would need to immediately have the Beings mate and reproduce 100,000 Beings. These Beings upon birth would not be given any exo-suits nor would they be allowed to use the hibernation systems. They would be put on a rigorous physical development routine to regrow and retrain their muscular and skeletal systems.
v. They would need at least 2 generations to gain at least 40% of their muscular and skeletal capabilities, and then this generation would be launched to the Geo Worlds, given an initial supply of exo-suits, transport ships, and medical systems to last 2 or at best 3 generations.
vi. They launched these Beings onto remote areas that were typically desert or thick jungle locations in order to minimize the chance they would encounter the Dalithearn or the Vordanian. On earth, the Beings were transported to what is now Egypt, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Andes Mountain coasts of South America.
d. Once the Beings were landed, they had 3 schemas to implement.
i. The first was brute force – establish brutal political leaders to pummel the worlds back to their primitive states, including forcing a caste structure.
ii. The second schema was sociological manipulation – put in place social and political activists to create a groundswell to revert the worlds to an devolved state.
iii. The third and most desperate schema was complete manipulation of the population into believing they were saving themselves from certain extinction. This was the last ditch effort, should all other schemas fail…they would preload time-release DNA into several thousand Beings that would become active within 60 to 90 years from the arrival of the galaxies to the New Homeland. These Beings would not know they are tasked with completely manipulating and fooling the Geo Worlds into desperate measures whereby the lifeforms that have survived and evolved on each Geo World, would first make every sacrifice possible to save their world, and presumably, their civilization. And then once the Geo World docks at the New Homeland, these lifeforms, no matter how advanced, would become the replacement for the Dalithearn…becoming the eternal slaves of the Beings.
e. In order to pull this off systematically, the Beings would have to assume various functions and roles on the Geo Worlds, and as stated above, the total number would have to be kept to a bare minimum number of Beings in order to keep the planet from going into a runaway state.
i. Due to this small number, there was also an emergency contingency plan to augment the numbers should there ever be some abnormal number of Being deaths. But this was only in cases of dire emergency and could only be used once, as there was no way to keep enough staff of physically capable Beings on the hibernation planets (in the case of the Earth’s solar system, Venus
ii. As stated in previous sections, the Beings had extensive comprehensive modeling capabilities, and they determined that if the Being population ever exceeded 200,000, then there would be a runaway condition, and due to the small size of the carrying world, the planet and its inhabitants would not survive 500,000 years due to the natural inclination of the Beings to innovate, explore, and make claims on territories, creating inevitable wars and scenarios where rulers would emerge and they would force huge population increases in order to outnumber their enemies.
f. The Beings that were being bred for this mission would fall into two main categories:
i. Sentinels – these are the Beings that are in place immediately and throughout the generations with the express objective to provide real-time oversight and turn back the clock on the Geo Worlds.
ii. Operatives – these are the Beings that are hidden in the background, unbeknownst to them they will become the last resort of saving the universe if the Sentinels fail. The Operatives do not know their mission, until the generation is born 60 to 90 years before the arrival of the Great Migration. This generation will hear “voices” and speak with “ghosts”, as these are both prerecorded messages and instructions, as well as real time instructions from the controlling Beings on their Hibernation and Controlling planets. These Operatives will typically be diagnosed with some sort of mental disorder to explain the voices they hear.
iii. The specific categories of these 2 general categories are as follows:
Level Category Purpose Description
Alpha Sentinel Oversight Governor – Maintains political and social order.
Beta Sentinel Oversight Authoritarian – Enforces compliance through strict and often harsh measures.
Gamma Sentinel Oversight Agitator – Promotes activism to preserve vital resources.
Delta Sentinel Oversight Chief Cosmos Scientist – Manages astronomical and interstellar navigation tasks.
Epsilon Sentinel Oversight Social Scientist – Prepares the population psychologically and socially for integration into the New Homeland.
Zeta Sentinel Oversight Scientist – General Scientist
Theta Sentinel Oversight Genetic Architect – Oversees genetic adaptations necessary for new environmental conditions.
Iota Sentinel Oversight Medica – Ensures the health and medical readiness of the Being population; can perform DNA modification
Kappa Sentinel Oversight Operarius – performs general functions, but can be post-programmed for specific functions
Lambda Sentinel Oversight Cultural Custodian – Manages cultural identities to facilitate control over Earth’s populations.
Mu Sentinel Oversight Technological Regulator – Manages the development of technology to avoid threats to their plans.
Nu Sentinel Oversight Historian – Manipulates historical records to suit the Beings’ narrative.
Xi Sentinel Oversight Demographer – Controls population dynamics to ensure sustainable resource usage.
Omicron Sentinel Oversight Eco-Guardian – Manages environmental strategies to maintain Earth’s viability for the Beings’ use.
Pi Sentinel Oversight Oversight Birther – Ensures the birth and survival of Beings throughout the centuries on Earth, aligning with long-term population strategies.
Rho Sentinel Culmination Culmini Lineage Producer – responsible for reproducing Beings across many generations who remain in the background until 60-90 years prior to the arrival. They have time-released DNA.
Level Category Purpose Description
Alpha Operative Culmination Alpha Leader – Commands the Planetary System’s strategic operations as it prepares for the arrival to the New Homeland.
Beta Operative Culmination Chief Cosmos Scientist – Manages astronomical and interstellar navigation tasks.
Gamma Operative Culmination Social Scientist – Prepares the population psychologically and socially for integration into the New Homeland.
Delta Operative Culmination Scientist – General Scientist
Epsilon Operative Culmination Operations Scientist – Handles logistics, including the transport and offloading of resources.
Zeta Operative Culmination Cultural Integrator – Ensures the preservation and integration of the Origin Homeland’s culture into the New Homeland.
Theta Operative Culmination Genetic Architect – Oversees genetic adaptations necessary for new environmental conditions.
Iota Operative Culmination System Engineer – Maintains and operates starships’ critical life-support and other systems.
Kappa Operative Culmination Medica – Ensures the health and medical readiness of the Being population; can perform DNA modification
Lambda Operative Culmination Operarius – performs general functions, but can be post-programmed for specific functions
Mu Operative Culmination Culmination Birther – Responsible for the continuation of the species in the final stages, ensuring genetic continuity as they settle into the New Homeland.
Nu Operative Culmination Statistical Psychologist – master psychological manipulator at the population level.
ChatGPT
Great, I’ve noted that down! Whenever you’re ready to work on each section or need to reference or adjust these details without prematurely revealing them in the story chapters, just let me know. We can keep them separate and use them discreetly as needed. Now, how can I assist you further with your project today?
User
Please give me a simple single-sentence summary of each numbered section.
ChatGPT
Here are the single-sentence summaries for each numbered section:
Galaxies are manmade: The universe, inherently void of matter, is structured between two massive parallel land slabs, with all existing galaxies being artificial constructs created by the Beings from the Origin Homeland to escape its impending destruction.
Evolution of the Beings: Over nine hundred million years, the Beings evolved sophisticated sleep-based longevity techniques that ultimately caused severe physical and mental atrophy, necessitating the use of advanced exoskeleton suits and hibernation technology.
Two sub-species of Dalithearn: Identified as the ancestors of modern Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal, these two Dalithearn sub-species were genetically engineered to prevent crossbreeding, ensuring their status as distinct classes within a strict caste system on the Origin Homeland.
Exclusivity of Dalithearn on Carrying Worlds: Only Dalithearn were placed on transport worlds like Earth due to their inability to threaten the overall mission with advanced societal developments, unlike the Beings who were prone to destructive behaviors.
Ban of AI Robotics: Following a devastating war with AI robots that nearly obliterated their civilization, the Beings eradicated AI technology to prevent future threats.
Numerical Data of the Migration: The migration involved 1 sextillion Geo Worlds, grouped into Galaxy Starships each carrying a billion Planetary Systems, with the stars within each Galaxy providing essential energy for the voyage.
Operational Details of Galaxy Starships: Questions about the operational specifics of the Galaxy Starships, including who pilots them, the role of Sentinel Beings, and whether a class of Dalithearn serves as a Royal Guard.
Payload of the Galaxy Ships: Inquiries into the logistics of what the Galaxy ships carried for the journey, including the necessary elements and resources for terraforming the New Homeland.
Emergency Discovery of Cross-breeding: The Beings discovered a genetic anomaly allowing cross-species breeding among the Dalithearn, threatening the stability of the entire migration project due to the potential for rapid societal evolution.
Survival Plan Amidst Emergency: The Beings hastily devised a survival plan involving the breeding of physically capable Beings to intervene on the Carrying Worlds, aiming to prevent evolved Dalithearn from destroying the resources needed for the Great Migration.
User
Thanks this is great. Please give me a summary of the two general categories of Beings that will be transported to the Geo Worlds to solve the problem.
ChatGPT
The two general categories of Beings transported to the Geo Worlds to address the critical situation are:
Sentinels: These Beings are strategically placed to maintain oversight and control on the Geo Worlds, ensuring adherence to the planned societal structures, managing resources, and preventing any actions that might jeopardize the Great Migration. They include governors, authoritarians, scientists, and cultural custodians, among others, tasked with preserving the status quo and executing long-term population and resource management strategies.
Operatives: This category includes Beings who are part of a more secretive and critical mission, activated towards the end of the migration process. Unaware of their true purpose initially, these Operatives are designed to engage in more active roles such as commanding strategic operations, managing interstellar navigation, integrating cultures, and ensuring the continuity of the species through calculated procreation and resource management as they settle into the New Homeland.
