Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 9 - Migration from Terra

"This is the end, we have no choice but to leave." Professor Alan Burnsworth, circa 5057AD

Humanity has always had ideals higher than their reach, and an apex in civilization quickly becomes a decline, but what to do when the decline hits a dead end and everything begins to come apart?

Earth was a place where humans lived, breathed, dreamed, and killed. Improvement after improvement was made and where susperstition lingered in the shadows, new technology drove it away like sun through mist. 

Each planet in the solar system, from fiery Venus frigid Neptune had been terraformed, gravity overcome with the immense intelligence and dearth of knowledge mankind had accumulated. And when that was done, as always, man wanted more.

Faster ships, ships that could warp space through sheer power, ships that could not only zip through the solar system but through Milky Way. 

And even that was not enough! Why travel through one galaxy when you could travel to many, and again mankind put itself to work - creating and reaching...and killing. There were wars between the terraformed planets and something that was once beautiful turned into death incarnate.

The Starslinger Machine was designed to hook a gravitational well around a star so that it could be towed towards any planet that was too cold for inhabitation. But in times of war, people do unspeakable things.

The wars were petty things; about terretorial boundaries, mining rights to asteroid field and planets, and just about every little greedy thing that people have always fought over. Things like pride, love, and anger.

The Starslinger Machines were adapted to not just tow stars, but to throw them; to send them burning through an enemies planetoid or moonbase, or even into the stars they used themselves. Strange gravity fluctuations began to happen, one second a ship would be warping through a ravaged system and hit a pocket of extreme gravity that came from no matter and would smash the entire machine to an atom.

But the wars raged on, stars flying from thousands of galaxies towards one another; Kings, Emperors, Queens, Presidents, Leaders, Chieftains, all trying to climb to the top of the hill.

Suns began to go nova for no reasons at all, and with no warning, which was of course a scientific impossibility - but it happened. Planets began to crumble and implode upon themselves for no apparent reason.

Space was unravelling in this part of the universe, and it was going to take everything along with it.

With their entire universe collapsing around them, mankind finally woke up and billions of ships set out with no plan in mind other than to outrun and outwarp the unravelling universe, to travel through the blackest space where no stars existed, to find somewhere else where they could live again.

And they and their descendants traversed the universe for three million years, reaching into the unknown.