[A/N: This novel is incomplete because I messed up the story pacing. It was my first project, so lessons were learnt. You can read if you want, at the last chapter I have given a long summary of what ending I had planned in my mind. Just couldn't execute it properly.]
"..." used for normal dialogs.
(...) used for explanations.
[...] used for Background sounds.
~...~ used for inner thoughts/self-talking.
*Sigh* used for Sighing
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By the year 3500 A.D humanity had come a long, long way, from being Hunters and gatherers to becoming a space civilization. Humans had colonized the whole solar system, from the moon to the Heliopause.
With the help of advanced technology, humans were able to make inhabitable places habitable, using the Terraformer machine, Mars was terraformed into a planet similar to earth and also, Moon was heavily mined for Helium 3.
Artificial colonies were created on it as well. Similarly, Venus, Europa, and Titan were also colonized for their semi habitable atmosphere and physical resources. But the most exploited planet in the solar system was non-other than Mercury.
Its core takes up nearly 3/4 of the planet's diameter. Mercury's iron core was about the size of the moon. Iron made up about 70% of Mercury's total weight making Mercury the most iron-rich planet in the Solar System, hence it was heavily mined for the creation of the Dyson sphere(A Dyson sphere is a megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output.)
After the creation of the Dyson swarm(A type of Dyson sphere), due to abundant energy, the journey to evolution became much easier for humans. With so much extra time, they were now focused on expanding human civilization, hence the population grew to 157 Billion.
Due to better living conditions nature of humans also changed, everyone had a job, food to eat and a place to live, all this affected human psychology and made them more tolerant, ambient and kind. There still were petty crimes but no big wars and conflicts anymore, however, it was not always like that and history told them that the path to present was dark and bloody.
There had been 3rd World war( aka energy war in which countries fought for resources such as oil, gases, coal, etc. this kept on going till nuclear fusion reactors became feasible. That war nearly destroyed earth.).
4th World war(The Unification war for the creation of world government, some countries monopolized the nuclear fusion technology which resulted in extreme hunger and death in some countries and after a long revolution the world government was established) and the most recent Sentient war(A.I. vs Humans which resulted in a peace treaty. A.Is although Did not have feelings, we're sentient none the less, they demanded equal rights but humans refused to accept. This war brought humanity to its knees because all the technology was administered by A.Is. which gave them an advantage, later both humans and machines realized that coexistence was much better than a crazy war.)
Now, although humans had made much more destructive weapons, they were kept only for possible unknown dangers in space.
After conquering the solar system humans decided to focus on the dark unknown interstellar space and for that, they developed EM Drives
Older rocket engines used nuclear fusion for propulsion and that was enough to explore nearby places but not for far away star systems.
Nuclear Fusion had become a day to day usage thing for current civilization, everything from a small communication device to transport robots used Nuclear Fusion cores for energy.
Due to the clean energy, the earth's atmosphere was also purified and cleansed. Designated areas were assigned for cities and forests, the current earth had become a utopia.
But even after so many advancements, the colonies could not hold more population so new Space rings were constructed, they were like supergiant rotation rings, these Space rings were placed near every planet and were named after those planets for example Ring of Mars, Ring of Saturn and so on. Each of these Rings Could Hold Up to 20 Billion People. These rings had lakes, jungles, cities, etc. It was truly a self-sufficient habitat.
But now Humanity needed more resources for further development because they had already consumed 70% of it in the solar system. A new Galactic class Spaceship was built for the exploration mission of new habitable and valuable planets and all this was backed up by newly made EM Drives.
The Mission and the Ship was named "NEW DAWN". It could hold up to 90,000 people, this mission was planned to be a long-term mission and all of humanity was looking forward to 25 June 3500 A.D because that day would mark the beginning of a new era, a transition from Level 2 civilization to level 3 civilization.
...
Present Day: 20 June 3500AD
Loud trumpets buzzing [sound of trumpets]
5000 Cadets standing in neat matrix formation in front of a huge stage, singing the world peace song (national anthem of the world) with proud faces and their chests puffed out.
After the world anthem, an old man walked to the front of the stage and started giving his speech.
"Hello everyone, I am Lieutenant General Alex Marshal the Commander of the New Dawn Spaceship. Today we have all gathered here for this happy occasion, all of you are graduating from the Academy of Space Corps and are also handpicked for the mission NEW DAWN.
You all have decided to sacrifice your warm, cozy and safe life here on earth and for this, the whole of humanity will remember all of you, nobody knows how long this mission will take to complete, maybe 10...50....or 100 years.
So after the end of the ceremony I want all of you to go to your loved ones and spend some quality time with them because no one knows when you will get to see them again." By now, most of the cadets had started feeling homesick.
"But you must remember one thing, What we are doing is for the sake of all of humanity including your friends and family, you all are heroes, you all are meant for something great and this mission is the greatest chance life can offer us to prove ourselves, and fulfill our destiny..."
"FOR THE FUTURE" Alex shouted
"FOR THE FUTURE... FOR THE FUTURE... FOR THE FUTURE... FOR THE FUTURE "all of the 5000 cadets started screaming and shouting in unison. After the ceremony, everyone dispersed and headed toward their home.
It was a warm, sunny day, yet very few people could be seen on the road because it was office hours, on the road you could see a man walking calmly while looking at his surroundings, he was 6.4 feet tall with short length black hair and black eyes, his face looked average but his body compensated for his face, his name was Aariv Hector.
He went to a 3 story house at the end of the street and rang the bell, he could have entered without ringing but he wanted to surprise his family.
After waiting for a minute someone opened the door.
"Brother?... MOM! BROTHER IS BACK" it was his younger brother Sam who opened the door.
Before he could even enter the door he saw his mother rushing towards him from the kitchen, she had happy tears on her face. Aariv also opened his arms to hug his mother, He really missed his family, in the 3-year training he could not go to his home due to heavy training and he also had to work extra hard to get selected for NEW DAWN mission.
"Aariv, welcome back, I missed you so much," she said warmly, with watery eyes.
His mother got very emotional because she knew that he wasn't gonna stay with them for much longer and he would be going far away, and probably will not return in their remaining life span.
"you go to your room and take a bath, your dad will be coming soon," she said after calming down a bit.
"Okay mom"
Aariv released his mother from his embrace and put his hand around his brother's shoulders and took him with himself to his room.
"How is everyone, Sam?" he asked.
""Well, when mom found out that you were going on that mission she got really depressed, but father talked to her and now she also decided to support you" Sam said.
"Thanks, Lil brother, for taking care of mom and dad and I guess now you'll have to continue on doing so because I have no idea when I'll be back," Aariv said, with a little sadness in his voice.
"Cheer up brother, you are a hero in the eyes of the public now and am sure that mom and dad are very proud of you" Sam said, encouraging him.
"I hope so, alright I'll go take a bath, you go see if mom needs anything"
...
"In today's news, A suspicious gravitational interference was recorded near the Heliopause, scientists stationed in a nearby space station have already sent a probe towards it. In the past 10 days, these kinds of strange phenomena have been recorded in many sectors but we are yet to identify its cause...and on the next news..." holographic T.V was showing the news while everyone was at the dinner table.
"So Aariv when is the mission launch ?" his father calmly asked.
"It's set to 5 in the evening, tomorrow and I'll be leaving an hour earlier to report to the ship, I wish for you all to come to the spaceport with me tomorrow" Aariv answered his father while looking at him, waiting for his response.
"Yes, we will all come to see you off son" his father replied with a small smile.
Getting confirmation from his father he happily ate his food and went to his room to prepare for the next day.