23rd century is nearing to an end. Throughout the humanity's history, such moments were treated like big, important events, but in the last three hundred years, end of century was always accompanied by speculations concerning the end of the world. So far, nothing of the sort happened, however, the current problems we face on Earth may lead to the planet being rendered inhabitable in the matter of years.
If the person living three hundred years ago was to live today, they would not believe their eyes seeing what happened to our planet and humanity. Since early 21st century, the population grew fivefold - 32 billions of people currently inhabit the planet, majorly living in gigantic agglomerations, of which many encompass the whole countries, as it is the case for Japan, where all islands are currently connected into a single, humongous construction, and many new are being erected on the ocean's surface.
Renewable energy is a common thing nowadays, coming from ocean, sun and wind. However, not every country is capable of producing enough energy to be independendent, therefore nuclear power plants are still being used as alternatives, especially in the most remote regions.
Fossil fuels are no longer most popular, not only due to affecting the environment, but also because of high prices caused by lower availability. There were even situations where fossil fuels have beaten the prices of gold – though temporarily, many hobbyist who are still keeping classic combustion engine cars had either to pay more or spent less time enjoying a traditional ride. But there were also those who decided to make some modifications, creating cars with classic line, and modern engine, e.g. using electromagnetic force.
Airplanes lost their spot of fastest transportation in face of maglevs reaching high level of advancement. Early prototypes have already been considered fast and environment-friendly, but maglev versions from 23rd century were better in every aspect, with most important factor - the speed - allowing them to run at a velocity close to 4000 km/h, though reachable only in vacuum tunnels. Moreover, maglevs were considered nearly failure-free with only two recorded incidents in the last hundred years. Airplanes are still in use, though relying on gravitional force for flying and being used only for private transport or in areas where there were no active maglev tracks.
Computerization is seen everywhere in everyone's daily life. Currently, most of population has integrated implanted circuit, allowing users to access internet in any place or time, and store large amounts of data. Those popular PEC (personal evolved computers), simply referred to as implants took over the market by a storm, making popular smartphones into relics of the past. Implants allowed standard spoken communication the same way as mobile phones, but also had an option for direct information transfer not requiring speaking, and sending messages in the forms of electric signals brain could interpret, basically enabling people to use telepathy, though usage was tricky, putting a bit of strain on one's brain, and meant risking unwanted message to be transmitted. Aside from verbal and direct transfer of information based on words, PEC also let humans watching data displayed directly on the lens placed on user's eye. This was a kind of multipurpose device taking in what was the best from various inventions used by people since 20th century.
Incorporation of various energy sources, fast transport and free access to nearly all information – nowadays world seemed like a real utopia. It seemed that way only when looking at technological achievements though. Society with so many possibilities was not idyllic at all.
Despite all these technologies being in the reach, problems were as various as differences within the population. Humanity's numbers are way too great for a single planet to handle. Over thirty billion lives is simply too much, even if all renewable energy sources are taken into consideration. People need food to live and place to sleep. Producing enough food required more farms to be created and new systems to be implemented, but such places required space, and space for cultivation or breeding meant less room for people, hence the creation of layered megacities. To be blunt, humanity on Earth started suffocating.
Those humans who were not lucky enough to be born in well-off had a much lower chances in life since the birth. Moreover, the poorer family was the lower the chance to produce a stronger and more intelligent child as genetic improvement clinics were expensive, and going with fully natural birth was considered to be on similar level to wanting a winning ticket in lottery. Differences in earnings and thus access to many services resulted in society getting divided on more levels humanity did not see before. This kind of disparity continued to spread, causing conflict and high crime rates.
It was hard for governments to have control over everything, but in many areas they in fact allowed criminal behavior, using gang fights as means of cleansing and limiting the population. Supporters of "selection and regulation of human population" favored such approach, often considering poorer people equal to animals. Some of them even spoke openly about this kind of approach being considered as salvation, while in reality their views were in complete opposition to any moral standards, encouraging not only birth limits, but also killing those who "are not productive enough" or "their existence has no merit to humanity". Though officially labeled as extremists, information concerning groups carrying out such cleansing used to appear in the news from time to time. Leaving the tensions between social groups as they were could lead to potential escalation, even if current situation was considered "stable".
The main hope for curing the world were colonization efforts, supported by both governments and corporations. In order to reach that goal, many space programs emerged to find habitable planets and organize new homes for the growing population. However, the number one candidate planet, Mars, though considered the closest planet suitable for human race, also having a high density of key resources, required 300 years to be fully terraformed as the process required vast amount of resources.
For now, only chosen ones could live in the cities built under domes on Mars' surface, working in mines and taking care of megafarms. Production on this planet exceeds the expactations by far - still, colonists are not sharing resources easily, to the point of several open conflicts starting in past decades, not only because of money, but resources simply being required to expand the cities. Population of Mars claimed that helping Earth that way would bring its dowfall.
As discontent concerning resources kept growing, years of researchers' continuous work finally brought results with three potentially habitable planets discovered, of which one was "around he corner", in one of neighboring systems.
Following analysis of data from several probes, that close-by planet proved to have a similar global climate and gravity to Earth, though with more vast continents and two times bigger size. It was considered amazing to miss this kind of planet located so close, but several photos showed something much more unexpected – a large, city-like construct covering a great part of northern hemisphere.
Unusual as it sounds, early scans completely missed this structure, but further data analysis uncovered that the megacity had an active force field, hence the trouble in capturing visuals. Information was not disclosed to the public until more information was gathered, but researchers followed the procedure established specifically for alien encounter, though none of contact attempts received a reply. All facts they gathered made scientists come to a single conclusion - despite city having operaional energy core and showing the activity, it was completely abandoned.
After final reports came in, Earth Council gathered to make a decision about the further course of actions. The Council was not a simple organization of governments as it also involved the biggest companies controlling key markets, therefore the gathering was something to be considered a big event.
During talks, many concerns were raised, mainly possibilities of hostile activity from aliens should human presence be not welcomed, but given this newly found world named as The New Gaia was labeled as ideal human colony, or even a place that could become their second home, majority agreed to take on this gamble.
However, though the plan was set in motion, they needed a way to get there and people willing to travel out of Solar system – something no one in human history ever did.