The Portgate

by Archival

Prologue: Eden

"The worlds we touch, whether they be dead rock or living globe, will never recover from our footsteps. Every breath we exhale, every pebble we kick, and every sample we collect determines the fate of something in the future. Whether we like it or not, we are the writers of our own books - and somebody else's."

-Elias Hulley, 2024

---

How strange it was that over two thousand years, a bunch of apes on a rock spinning around the cosmos went from being young children, marveling at the wonders of their small world, to middle-aged men, sick of the limits of their planet and painfully aware of their species's mortality as it smoked and poisoned itself to a gradual death. Stranger still was the faint but visible ember of wonder that still resided within them, barely smoldering even after the most remote corners of their globe were touched by their hands. This was part of their souls, the ever-present instinct that drove them to explore and invent, to conquer and build.

And that ember, believe it or not, eventually ignited. It had to, especially during what they called "the twenty-first century" - because if it didn't there would be no oxygen to breathe in, only a dirty industrial smog that would smother the ember in a dirty sludge of trash and chemicals.

Enter the Eden Project. A project that, led by the United States, sought to find new worlds for Man to discover and explore. For 20 years, the project slowly and meticulously built itself from the ground up from the first theoretical equation. When the last calculation was performed and the last fastener welded, the Portgate stood ten meters in diameter, a massive ring worth billions of dollars and millions of hours of painstaking labor. The scientists that built the portal then found its first destination, and the machine was set to open a door to the most optimal location they could find. From behind their shields of concrete and metal, mankind watched as the portal ripped open, swirling and glistening in a brilliant shade of turquoise. Without a minute's delay, probes and instruments were sent through the Portgate, their measurements breathlessly recorded and analyzed...

Atmosphere Composition: 79% Nitrogen, 20% Oxygen, 0.2% Helium...

Gravitational Pull: 0.98 G

But perhaps most shockingly of all:

Surface sample: {Notice: 68.8% match, temperate forest surface soil (North America)}

For life to even exist at all was a shock, an impossibly unlikely occurrence that was unbelievably lucky. Nothing could prepare them for the fact that they were exploring a world unbelievably similar to their own. This was not a world of dangerous atmospheres or deadly temperatures; it was one that was just like their home, untainted by pollution or human interference.

Long story short, a larger portion of government spending worldwide went into the "Research and Science" slice of the pie chart..

More and more was being spent on the Portgate with each discovery. Every new revelation or conclusion was another step closer and closer towards the end goal of colonization. Care was taken and would be taken to protect the world on the other side, but the thirst for knowledge and need for living space was too great. Soon, humanity would explore the other side with their flesh and blood, not machines of steel and plastic. And maybe, just maybe, they could find a new home for themselves and finally leave Earth's cradle.

But nobody knew that they would not be alone.

Author's Note:

Right, so here's the start of my fun writing adventure. Comments, feedback, etc.; all are appreciated. It's in my hopes that this story never gets abandoned, and I promise that I will do my best to keep you updated.

Comments

[Seirs]

Just a quick question after reading this prologue. Is the date right on the quote at the start? I ask since that puts the quote 2 years after the date mentioned in the description. Otherwise an interesting start so far.

[yrfoxtaur]

Egad. The technobabble is really dense.

Maximize a ratio to the fifteenth decimal place?
Really?

[Earthpatriot117]

So far so good!

[Pensive]

"The worlds we touch, whether they be dead rock or living globe, will never recover from our footsteps. Every breath we exhale, every pebble we kick, and every sample we collect determines the fate of something in the future. Whether we like it or not, we are the writers of our own books - and somebody else's."

You know, that sounds a lot like the butterfly effect...

[Pensive]

For life to even exist at all was a shock, an impossibly unlikely occurrence that was unbelievably lucky. Nothing could prepare them for the fact that they were exploring a world unbelievably similar to their own. This was not a world of dangerous atmospheres or deadly temperatures; it was one that was just like their home, untainted by pollution or human interference.

Actually, I'd think there to be a good chance a planet has, or had life on them before as long as the planet has all the necessities to create life. The problem is you can't talk to microorganisms... And then chances become even harder at finding sentient life. And then even more hard to find sapient life.

Actually, I always get sentient and sapient mixed, I might be wrong there. Of course, I could also have misunderstood the text, or be wrong in my theory with the chances of life.