Space Age of the Forsaken
In the twenty-third century, the footsteps of mankind have already set foot in every corner of the solar system. When I lightly touch the intelligent terminal in my hand, the screen immediately shows a spectacular picture: countless space ships are shuttling between the stars, and human settlements have been established even on the distant planet Pluto. Outsiders claim that the environmental crisis on Earth has been completely solved, the energy problem is no longer a nuisance, the power of science and technology has made natural disasters a thing of the past, and even diseases have become a thing of the past.
However, when the screen went out, the coldness of reality hit me instantly. I found myself lying in a small room, surrounded by a depressing atmosphere. The world outside may be glittering, but I was competing with more than 2,000 people for a minuscule job. My neighbor, an old man in his fifties, had waited since his youth for the opportunity to become a local doctor, and now, despite having waited for thirty years, he still had to face a competitive line of hundreds of people.
In these seemingly good times, half of the population is marginalized, unable to escape unemployment for the rest of their lives, barely surviving on the minimum subsistence provided by the government. These people, in the face of the grand human dream, seem to have become irrelevant, and I have become one of them.
As someone who has traveled from the past, I have witnessed all these changes. Was what I had gained the marvelous space stations, the ships traveling between the stars, and the colonies that had been established in outer space, or was it the perfect life that was flaunted in the media by the elite who had been genetically modified since birth?
However, when a sudden threat of extraterrestrial life came upon us, I was plunged into deep thought. In front of the vastness and mystery of this universe, the struggles and efforts of human beings seem so small. In the depths of such a universe, faced with the fear of the unknown, which way of life is more frightening? Is it to be forgotten by society and spend one's life in poverty, or to face the endless darkness and death of the universe on the journey of exploring the unknown? The answer to this question can perhaps only be found when truly standing at the crossroads of destiny.
