“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.” - Stephen Hawking
Princess Twilight stood on the balcony of her castle and looked through her telescope, feeling like something was amiss. “Spike? Spike?” she called out. “Could you bring me star chart 3A-17?”
“Sure thing, Twilight.” was his response followed by the familiar sounds of shuffling paper. A minute later, a young dragon appeared at the door with a roll of parchment in his claws. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, Spike. Now, let’s see….” Twilight stared at the paper for a few seconds then looked back through her telescope. “No, no, no. This can’t be right… Spike, take a letter to Princess Luna!”
“To Princess Luna? Not Princess Celestia?”
“Yes, Spike.” Twilight said, nodding.
After clearing her throat, she began.
“Dear Princess Luna,
I fear I might be mistaken, but I thought that you had placed the fifth star in the Alpha Quadrant in the upper left corner of the sector, and not in the middle. Have you changed your mind? Shall I remap the star charts for you?
Your Faithful Stargazer,
Twilight”
The little purple and green dragon sealed the letter with wax and sent it in a bright burst of green flame. Not a moment later, Spike’s cheeks puffed up and he let out another burst of flames in a large burp. “Already? Must be a slow night.” he mumbled, as Twilight grasped the parchment in her aura. She broke the wax seal and read the letter. It said one thing very plainly:
“Dear Twilight,
I only place four stars in the alpha quadrant.
Diarch of the Night,
Princess Luna”
-----------------------------------------------Aboard the I.C.S. Maria-----------------------------------------
“Admiral Malcolm!” The Captain stood at attention as he began his report, “We will be within a stable solar orbit in the next 24 hours! Sir!”
“At ease captain. It is good to see our ancestors’ journey finally coming to fruition. This is a cause for rejoicing, not rigid ceremony.” The voice that replied was worn and tired; but it held a trembling anticipation. The three-hundred million humans aboard the Interstellar Colony Ship, “Maria”, as well as the rest of the fleet, had entrusted this momentous task to his bloodline eons ago. 20 megaannus* prior they had set out, the first of the human colony ship, destined for a planet that was then dubbed Kepler-452b. Their mission: to secure a future for the human race among the stars at all costs. Their journey spanned well over three-million generations. But none had forgotten. No, they never forgot. As they remembered the last transmission from Earth, still played every year in solemn remembrance, they pressed on.
The final goodbyes of their home world had been a sad message, as it reported that less than 100,000 members of humanity that remained alive wouldn't make it. The Earth was dead, but they were not. Those of the first colonization fleet would never forget, and so they strove onwards into the stars to make a new life for their race. They had built colonial ships while on the move as the population grew; what was once 3 million people had bloomed to over 100 times that. They had built a military as the threats from space, being the cold, cruel mistress that she is, presented them with too many obstacles.
What was once a single massive ship had become a fleet of 60 ships each the size of a continent or bigger. Each one was armed with mass driver bombardment systems meant to take out entire asteroid fields and chunks of long since desolate planetary debris. Each ship housed no less that 5 million men and women ready and willing to lay down their own lives for the sake of those that their home ship housed.
Inter-ship travel had become common. Now that all ships had united under one banner after a brutal war between three factions that had reduced the population to a mere 50 million. Now, as a united people once more, the journey was coming to a close. But the struggle was just beginning. Admiral Jace Harvey Malcolm knew all too well that things would not be easy for his people after making planetfall. He knew that setting up a new civilization would be tough.
If only he had known the half of it…
*million years
hmmm. interesting, but not something that hasn't been done before. hopefully this will be good. watching for now.
Not bd story, though some of the numbers are bit way high, like 3 million year journey not impossible, but few factors there
-evolution
-resources
-they could increase ship speeds over time so the travel is not that long
-the sheer population which requires resources, at the start of the mission Earth was sure in a bad shape already, meaning in fights and lack of materials to send out a ship with a carrying capacity of 3 million, for such move would need multiplay colonies in space already as likely mars and europa to supply the raw materials alone
Faved and tracking ;)
In 20 million years we probably wouldn't even be humans anymore. I don't think any human civilizations have lasted more than a few thousand years.
The time period may make sense in terms of getting to Equestria at sub-light speeds, but from a "recognizable humans" perspective it's almost nonsensical. That's not the period of time you have one or two famous conflicts before a recent unification, that's a period of time to generate a history so massive that Earth history and culture is meaningless. In even a few hundred years no one would care about anything but their spaceships as home. In a few thousand Earth would probably just be a vague historical detail. I can't even guess what Earth or having a planet home would mean to them in a few million.
What would 20 million years of scientific progress even look like? If a destination could have been determined prior to the start of the voyage, then surely in the millions of years they would find countless other planets to check out, and the technology to analyze their destinations long before they got there. If understanding and using the "nanobots" found in Equestria was doable then surely in millions of years they would have invented such things on their own. I like to look at Asimov's The Last Question for an idea of what humanity might look at in millions of years; at each stage of the story they are less and less recognizable, and the problems (except the "last question") are very different, clearly having made the previous era's problems meaningless at some point.
Three million generations (of humans) would be about 75 million years, actually. They've been generation-shipping all this time?
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Well it's all about the average age they start generation replacing. We have noticed that in most countries, couples are having children later on, if at all. This is caused by different factors eg, education, contraceptives, fears of overpopulation.
Though these are space humans 20 million years on in a fanfiction based on cute talking pastle ponies so throw all logic, sanity and spare undies out the airlock!
Though let's see here...
3,000,000 divided by 20,000,000 equals 0.15
Well that can't be right
20,000,000 divided by 3,000,000 equals 6.66
Well that is just plain spooky
Though still there is not enough time to replace generations with humans past the puberty stage, so what the hell is this!? Some sorta dystopian future where humans are facing off against hyper genetically modified humans and we need to replenish the human numbers by any means necessary in a battle of genetic superiority?
Still, this looks awesome. I'm gonna hold out for (In a nice way though) transforming space jet mechs
Hmm, I don't think humans would look like humans at that rate. Biolog would of changed us for a better adaptation of the environment so yeah there's that, I like it.
Have you taken into account the time dilation that happens to people aboard fast moving space vehicles?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Space_flight
Space flight
“Time dilation would make it possible for passengers in a fast-moving vehicle to travel further into the future while aging very little, in that their great speed slows down the passage of on-board time relative to that of an observer. That is, the ship's clock (and according to relativity, any human traveling with it) shows less elapsed time than the clocks of observers on earth. For sufficiently high speeds the effect is dramatic. [2] For example, one year of travel might correspond to ten years at home. Indeed, a constant 1 g acceleration would permit humans to travel through the entire known Universe in one human lifetime. [29] The space travelers could return to Earth billions of years in the future. A scenario based on this idea was presented in the novel Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle.”
Is that 20 million year journey from the prospective of someone in the fleet or someone watching them on a planet? I assume that was 20 million years from the prospective of the fleet inhabitants. So, from the point of view of an observer who was on a world their journey took much longer than 20 million years.
I've played enough ksp to know that if you're close enough to a planet to be seen in the night sky and for some reason NOT in a stable orbit, Explosions may accor
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I think that was already clear, it's 20 million from his point of view.
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Well, if we consider that there was no need to adapt to a controlled environment, surely for our comfort, I think we would not have changed almost anything