The so-called Global Financial Crisis of 2008 was society’s first wake-up call to itself that it needed to change. With corporations and nations plunged into financial trouble, even ruin, it was clear that things could not continue into the twenty-first century as they had been at the end of the twentieth.
It was a call that society inevitably failed to heed.
For many years, even decades, after the time now referred to as “GFC Time” society continued as it had done. The Global Debt Crisis of 2031, which only the biggest and richest nations and companies survived intact, was the second such call, and this time society listened to itself. Governments were held accountable for their revenue and spending as corporations were, rogue nations were put in their place as rogue companies had been for ages, and the globe was finally, in 2038, considered to be at peace.
For once, the United Nations forum actually meant something.
With world peace and a steady financial direction, industries and countries could actually focus on things that made a difference to lives. Inroads into poverty and food shortages were made; the cost of living became more affordable; and technological improvements started to come at a rate not seen since the late twentieth century. Mankind began to explore the universe, from the confines of his planet.
In the latter half of the 2060s, two discoveries were made that would forever change the course of human history.
In 2066, almost exactly 1,000 years after another major event that was to have far-reaching ramifications for the development of mankind, the Le Verrier probe (named for the man credited with “discovering” Neptune) discovered, while taking scans of Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, firm evidence that humans were not the only intelligent life in the cosmos. A ground probe had, while taking samples of the moon’s surface and crust, uncovered evidence of manufactured metals buried under inches of rock and ice. Tests and analysis suggested that these metals had been there for thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of years. As the exact composition of these metals eludes us even today, the discovery led to the only possible conclusion: man is, or at least was, not alone in the universe.
In 2069 another profound discovery was made: the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The initial discovery was almost accidental, but there was no escaping the results – for a few seconds, an object had, as a result of direct input from man, travelled faster than the speed of light.
The combination of these two discoveries set mankind on a new course: we had to know what was out there; we had to find it for ourselves, not wait for it to come to us.
Almost immediately, funding was delivered to the almost-starved astronomical institutions and agencies. NASA, long begging for handouts so it could continue to explore our insignificant piece of interstellar real estate, suddenly found itself drowning in money. The ESA found itself in a similar situation. Space technologies began thriving once more.
But nothing was rushed into. Rushing into things usually cost lives, and NASA had learned well the lessons of Apollo 1 and Apollo 13, and it took, in any case, several years to verify both of these two earth-shaking discoveries. For years they designed and developed, tested and retested, analysed and redesigned, until they revealed, in 2080, what they announced to be their first prototype: a small, two-person space ship that was capable of small bursts of faster-than-light travel. The vessel itself was cramped, only having enough room for the two occupants to sit, but it was still the size of an old Boeing-747 airplane – most of the rest of the ship was fuel and engines.
When it was launched in 2081, to great fanfare, the Enterprise (as it had come to be named, in honour of a very old television show), was eventually called a failure. It left Earth without mishap, and made a couple of orbits of the planet before heading out to the Moon. Then it engaged its FTL drive…and disappeared. Neither the ship nor its crew was ever seen or heard from again. Analysis of the Enterprise’s telemetry showed what appeared to be a critical failure in a part of the FTL drive (as the faster than light engines had come to be known) when engaged, and for many years following the disaster of the Enterprise, NASA was bent over its drawing board.
It was not until 2096 that a new ship was announced, and it was significantly different to its predecessor. It was not as large, not as cramped, and its engine was smaller than and just as powerful as that of the Enterprise. The Einstein (named in honour of the man famed for his General Theory of Relativity) had taken full advantage of the many advances in many different types of technological advantages along the way. In 2098 the Einstein was launched, and its simple mission was to go to the Moon and back; it did so comfortably, several times. Its next mission was to go to Neptune, using its FTL drive, and the world held its collective breath as the drive was engaged and the ship disappeared. That collective breath became a shout of amazement when the Einstein returned a scant seven hours later, having been to Neptune, orbited the blue planet twice, taken a few brief scans and taken pictures, then returned to Earth; and unlike the Enterprise before it, the Einstein’s journey started and ended on a ground-based landing pad…the Einstein was fully capable of atmospheric flight as well as take-off and landing. Subsequent time trials led to the realisation that FTL travel was quicker than anyone had imagined possible: a ship using an FTL drive was capable of travelling approximately 1,000 times faster than the speed of light.
Two plans were formed in the latter months of 2096: one very public; one not known about until much, much later.
The first plan was this: to build a vessel capable of travelling to other stars and returning to Earth safely.
The second plan, pursued with as much vigour as the first, but done so with far greater subtlety and discretion than the first, was this: to build twelve vessels and crew each of them with 4 bright and highly-trained young men and women, and send them into the galaxy to explore the stars. Their mission: to see if they could find any clue as to those that had left remains on Triton. They would also serve to see if people could survive intact in confined spaces for extended periods, and to that end the mission planners came up with a subtle idea, one that would not be announced to the Crew members – that the crews would be placed with the idea of forming romantic pairings and relationships. Even as work began on building the next vessels, those responsible for training the crews started looking for their candidates.
The crews were chosen with both aptitude and gender in mind. Twelve ships meant forty-eight crew members; twenty-four each of males and females. Each had to be bright, sharp, strong of will and temperament, quick and eager to learn. The crew members had to be started young. Quietly, they chose their candidates, and, with the blessings of their families (in some cases, also after some compensation was paid) each of the chosen crew members was taken from their schools and lives.
Each candidate was, in truth, still a child. Not more than 12 years old when recruited, each had proven by aptitude that they were exactly what was required. They were taken - some with the full blessings of parents, others after parents received some convincing - and trained heavily. Their minds were more than capable of absorbing the knowledge being pushed at them. Some were gifted leaders, some were good with their hands, some enjoyed the theory behind everything. They were trained highly, they were worked hard…and they were well looked after.
In 2103 the Copernicus and the Galileo, having both been designed based mainly on the Einstein, as well as taking advantage of refitting notes and redesigns, were launched. The candidates were given front-row seats as the ships departed Earth, and each of them by now knew that, one day, this would be them departing, and not someone else. They’d been training for three years by this time, and their education and knowledge was already equivalent to that of the average university graduate.
In 2105 the Copernicus returned, having spent the past fifteen months travelling through space and visiting stars that had, until now, only been looked at through telescopes; the Galileo returned a couple of months after the Copernicus. The FTL drive had worked flawlessly, both crews reported; it had taken the Copernicus less than five days to reach Proxima Centauri, Earth’s nearest neighbour at four light-years away. With the return of the Copernicus, and later the Galileo, the training regimen was updated to include the experiences and knowledge of those crews. The candidates, by now holding the equivalent of two university degrees, listened eagerly.
In 2109 the candidates were separated into their individual crews. Their own ships were nearing completion of construction, and they regularly took flights on the Einstein, the Copernicus and the Galileo as training runs. On Earth, a competition was held to decide the names each of the twelve ships should be given – by now, the mission was well and truly public knowledge, and the world was caught up in it as the day of launch drew nearer. There were many suggestions, from scientists’ names, to explorers’ names, to names of countries. In the end, the competition winner was a young girl from New Zealand who suggested naming each ship after one of the signs of the Zodiac. The idea was a resounding success.
Also in 2109, steps were taken to ensure that the inevitable fraternisation of the crew members amongst themselves did not lead to…unplanned problems. Each male, and each female, was administered a long-term contraceptive which, combined, was proven to be one hundred percent successful in preventing pregnancy. This had the almost immediate side-effect of crew members waking up in some-one else’s room on a very regular basis; but this was not unexpected.
In early 2110 the crews were ready. Their ships were ready. The media was waiting for them to board their ships and launch. The world was watching and hoping for success. One by one, each crew made its way to its ship, in order of their place in the Zodiac. Perhaps understandably (and with a little annoyance to some) there was some tittering and sniggering when the crew of the Virgo was announced. Each crew stood in front of the elevator to their vessel, waiting for the instruction to board.
The command was given.
The crews entered their elevators and were lifted into their ships, airlock seals closing to keep their ships safe. Mission Control now waited for the return signals to indicate that each crew was ready to launch…
- extract from "A Brief History of the Zodiac Missions", by Ars Lentner
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