Melancholia's Elegy

Part I

Prologue

   In the year 2410, the echoes of Earth's once-vibrant life faded into distant memory. Humanity had turned its gaze toward the crimson horizon of Mars, transforming the barren wasteland into a sprawling ecumenopolis—a testament to their indomitable spirit and relentless ambition. Towering spires of glass and steel piercing the thin martian atmosphere, their surfaces shimmering under the artificial suns that bathed the city in a perpetual glow. Yet beneath this veneer of progress lay a world teetering on the brink of chaos.

   For decades, the Sol Restoration Council had been the architects of this new beginning, a governing body tasked with guiding humanity's colonization of the solar system while allowing Earth the time it needed to heal itself from man's "progress". Citizens of Mars thrived amid bioluminescent parks and hydroponic farms, lulled by the promise of a bright future. They were pioneers, the fortunate few who had escaped the dying planet to carve out a new existence among the stars.

   But as fate would have it, the delicate balance they had strived to maintain shattered in an instant. An antimatter sleeper ship, desperate and reckless, had attempted to slip beyond the solar system's grasp, its systems failing under the weight of negligence and desperation. The resulting explosion reverberated through the Martian city, plunging vast sectors into darkness. Power grids flickered, life-support systems faltered, and panic spread like wildfire among the population.

   Now, as shadows loom over the flickering neon lights of the ecumenopolis, the Council gatherers in the heart of their once-impenetrable bastion. Their deliberations echoing in the hallowed halls, laden with the weight of life hanging in the balance.

   In the quiet moments before dawn, as the first hints of light breached the horizon, the members of the Sol Restoration Council would make choices that could seal humanity's fate, driving them deeper into the void or back into the heart of a decaying home. And as the planet beneath them trembled with unspoken fears, the question lingered: Could humanity endure the consequences of their ambition, or would they forever be haunted by the ghosts of their choices?