KSGU:Volume 1 Prologue
Prologue
0001
(It’s past 20:00 GMT. How is everyone going to spend this memorable New Year’s night? For tonight marks the end of an old age, and the beginning of another. The era named after the most famous person in history, the Age of Christ, shall end in four hours.
Ever since humans stumbled from out of the dark ages and stood on their own two feet, they have learned how to cross vast oceans, fly in in the limitless sky, and have obtained the technology to explore the final frontier: outer space. Now, humans shall enter an age where we leave mother Earth, as the door to the new world is opened in front of us all!
Just as our ancestors ventured to new continents in search of opportunity and freedom and lit the fire of civilization across the Earth, we too bear the responsibility of kindling the flame of civilization in our new continents: space. From now on, those flying into space are not just astronauts and technicians, they are trailblazers who will remain in space, settle in space, and light the fire of civilization in space. They are called Spacenoids, chosen residents of outer space.
This new age needs a new calendar. Four hours from now, at 00:00 GMT, the Earth Federation government will start the ceremony of an age change. The stage of the momentous ceremony that will be forever marked in history is at the Prime Minister’s residence, ‘Laplace.’ A place that shall act as the bridge to outer space that is set on an orbiting plane around the Earth, no location is more appropriate for the declaration of the space age.
Under the eager and watchful eyes of the media, the United Nations representatives have gathered at ‘Laplace.’ Everyone in the world is waiting for midnight to arrive, on New Year’s Eve, the eve to a new age. Everyone has different thoughts, from those anxious and full of expectations, to those still clinging to the old age that has lasted more than two thousand years.Regardless, everyone is a witness of this historic moment. In the long and tumultuous history of humanity, only we, who are alive right now, shall be privileged with witnessing the beginning of the new age. So why don’t we enjoy this moment, and be thankful as we say goodbye to the old age? Let us smile and accept the arrival of the new age!
Goodbye, Anno Domini.
Hello, Universal Century--!)
The Earth was right below them. The reddish-brown surface accompanied the sea surface that looked like blue skies covered with clouds.
Looking down 200km from above, it was more like a landscape than a planet. It didn’t feel like there was an atmosphere, but more like a plane in the high skies looking down on the earth. As one would continue to look, there may be the false impression that they may land.
Even so, the look of the ever-changing landscape caused me to understand that I’m moving about in the atmosphere at an unimaginable speed—1 rotation every 90 minutes. Once I look forward, I can see the profile of the planet covering the atmosphere, forming a gradual gradient. Looking over, I saw that there’s only a strong and overpowering light of the Earth taking away the shine of the stars around, and everything around was a vacuum. It’s not enough to call it pitch-darkness, but rather, an endless darkness that sucked away all the light.
It seemed that I’m in outer space. Suddenly realizing this, Syam felt a chill riding on his back. Even though he was already tired of looking through the little window in the worker ship, it was a little completely different to be wearing only a spacesuit, working outside the ship and looking through the helmet visor. As there wasn’t anything to block his sight, he could comprehend all the more that his body was floating outside the earth.
Being separated from the gravity of the earth and the sensation of floating continuously outside the earth…it was extremely terrifying. He could feel the blood, bones, cells becoming hot because of this abnormal change that had never happened before. The sweat that formed became icy-cold chills, and the throat that was exposed in zero gravity state let out a terrified sound.
Syam looked at the emptiness in front of him, and amidst the darkness that erased all the stars, there was a lump of star letting out a sharp glow. It was the sun letting out white light like it was about to explode—no, its core was actually exploding continuously, and the radiation heat in the air reaches 120 degrees Celsius that was scorching the surface of his spacesuit. It was completely different from looking at the sun from under the atmosphere. Over here, the sun would only be an energy source that gives off white light, an object that will send fears into humans. Even when the visor and the light filter reduced the luminosity, that sharp and powerful light didn’t look like it would be reduced.
I’ll go crazy if I stay in such a place. This isn’t a place humans should come to. Syam thought. In the distant past, those eager astronauts, who can be said to be reckless now in hindsight, flew out of the atmosphere and were each moved by the blue color of the Earth, and a precious experience that override their values. However, they were the elites, specially chosen, given the highest level of education and the forwards in human society, different from those who had problems reading and writing. Even if someone like him entered outer space, there wouldn’t be any benefits for him. Basically, for a 17 year old person who didn’t know the names of the continents and the locations, and where his hometown was, the Earth below his feet was merely a large slab that was ridiculously big.
Frontiers? What kind of joke is that? This is a garbage field. A place to dump humans who are multiplying rapidly, a rubbish dump without borders—
(What kind of world will this outer space that’s going to be a place where humans live be like? As the Universal Century is about to being, let’s review this through for everyone again. Today, our special guest is the top scholar in astronomy, Alexis Gretsky…)
The voice of the audio broadcaster continued to echo emptily as they mixed with his breathing, moving through this thick spacesuit with no way out. Syam used the soles of his feet to touch the materials of the structure.
As he checked the safety tension of the chain, he moved the soles of his feet to flip the material to the other side. Though he spun 180 degrees around upside down, it was nothing under this outer space that didn’t have any concept of up and down. Syam used the hand that’s wearing the thick glove and grab the material of the lattice-shaped structure and saw its front side. There was a mirror right in front of him, about 3m wide in a rectangular concave shape, forming a dazzling mirror surface.
The thousands of concave mirror formed a flat circular disk that’s 500m in diameter that had orbited in a low position around the Earth for quite a few years. The round core had a hole that’s about 100m wide, and what’s behind the hole was an empty darkness, making the disk look like those optical recording discs used in the past. Syam used the magnetism of his soles and let his feet land on the edge of the disk as he looked up. The donut-shaped structure that appeared in his eyes was about the size of this mirror field, and through the center of the hole, he could see a round-shaped body with the same shape as this mirror, with the Earth floating in the background.
The two large disks used the concave surface to reflect the sunlight and were shining brightly had a donut ring in the middle, 300m away from them. That’s the Low Earth Orbital Station ‘Laplace’. The two layers, one on top and one below, reflected the sunlight, providing light and energy from what’s accurately called a Stanford. The residential area continued to rotate once every 75 seconds, creating gravity inside the centrifugal force. Though this would only create gravity that’s 1/6 of Earth, about the equivalent to that of the moon, it would be much better than zero gravity. It’s said that for a 500m in diameter ring, a rotation in less than 30 seconds would be required to create the same amount of gravity as the Earth, and it would cause the people inside to feel nauseous.
Those high-ranking government officials were either too curious or idiots to use such a place as the Prime Minister’s Residence, and I’m even more of an idiot to sneak around beside the station and climb around and getting sick. Syam tightened his face and grimaced. At this moment, his partner’s voice came from the wireless communicator (Oi, ‘Shepherd’, don’t move away from your position too much!)
“My job’s done.”
“Then get back onto the ship. Your lifesigns are messed up!”
His partner, a man who was viewed as the captain because of his seniority in age and whose authority was just second to the ‘worker head’, said. There wouldn’t be any sense of distance caused by air in vacuum, so he could see the shape of the object. The double layered ring structure that was divided into the outside and inside structure, the central spoke elevator that extend out from the central rotary axis, the joints of the structure and the texture; everything was so detailed that it was like a miniature model right in front of him.
Syam watched the outside ring that had glass stuck all over its interior to absorb light. As of the Greenwich Meridian Time, it should be night time, thus the light that’s reflected off the mirror wasn’t shone into the residential area. However, the interior lights came out from the glass panels, letting any observers know that someone’s resting inside.
Over there, the final preparations for the changing of calendars ceremony 4 hours later were under way. From 23:45 on, the Prime Minister would begin his speech, all the national representatives of the countries in the United Nations who were attending would be received, and adjustments for midnight for the ceremony will be done…facing what would be the biggest activity in human history, perhaps the officials should be extremely busy. Syam and the rest were called here to prepare this. The contents of the work was to make a small correction to the mirror control program that’s to be used for the ceremony.
However, this wasn’t an easy procedure that could be done from the controls at the control room. It’s necessary to link directly to the hundreds of independent control panels inside the mirrors and install the correction angle program. This could be said to manual labor. It’s said that nobody considered about using a single large mirror instead of using an array of mirrors and change the angle of the mirror at will. I don’t know about the angle of the mirror, and I don’t have to know. We’re just the limbs, and other people are in charge of being the brain. Syam thought. The certain person who gave Syam and the rest membership cards of the Motor company and sent them to ‘Laplace’; the certain person who said that a reward would be provided to them once the job was done; the certain person who was pretending that nothing happened as he wait for ‘that’ moment, and that it’s unlikely for them to meet him.
Lifesigns are messed up? What nonsense. Syam cursed in his heart. In this moment, nobody could remain calm. That’s because his gang’s actions would bring about a decisive change to hundreds of people’s fates as they eye the ring…
(The concept of space migration existed in the 20th Century. It was raised by the physicist G.K O’Neill. His point was revised was because he wanted to let outer space be a place suitable for humans to live in. Earlier, the thoughts of migration to outer space was to either modify Venus or Mars into environments similar to Earth, ideas that could only happen in the Sci-Fi world. Because of this, O’Neill’s idea of using ‘islands’ in the migration of humans, and there would be a chance of happening by using the technology that time, including building on the moon or in the asteroid belt, and the basis of the space migration plan today can be said to be completed by O’Neill.)
It’s unknown which scholar started talking again as Syam pulled his safety cable and let his body fly to the back of the mirror area.
(The construct itself was rather simple. Let a ball or round shaped construct rotate regularly inside, causing the internal structure to create G, the same amount of gravity as Earth. If you hold a bucket full of water and swing it about hard, the water inside wouldn’t fall out due to centrifugal force, correct? It’s the same principal as that. The first ball-shaped object is commonly called ‘Island 1’, and it could just barely manage to create 1 G, but the latest ‘Island 3’ is a giant one, 32km long, 6.4km in diameter. This large cylinder had forests, rivers and streets, habitats similar to Earth inside the walls, and the space residents are now living here.”
Like many mirrors, the back of the mirrors were just simple boards. The numerous supporting structures were intertwined with each other in a lattice structure. As Syam returned to the back, there were several colleagues of his using the handheld terminals and inputting the program into the control panel.
In the darkness that’s completely different from the mirror surface, flashing warning red lights were the only things that came from all over, dimly lighting the area and showing the spacesuits of about 5 of his colleagues. The cable of their spacesuits were all linked to a worker ships that was silently above them. At the back of the long and narrow jar-shaped worker ship that’s 20m long and 30m in diameter, with the thrusters and solar battery on the back of it, numerous green and white spaceship lights were roaming.
That’s the Federation Spaceship, the Salamis class security vessel. 70m in length and had an uneven surface. The command area was protruding out from the frame in front, and there were 4 jet thrusters on the back of the ship. The ship itself had a solar panel that’s as large as the ship itself. For a security ship, it really reminds someone of a fishbone, and looked really unreliable. But as Syam knew beforehand, the ship had high-energy laser cannons, and it had unmatched combat ability
The Salamis’ class had lots of modes. There were all sorts of things, from the gatling guns that were built into the center of the ship to the railgun that’s on it and was as long as the ship itself. However, the common point between all of them was that they could be controlled by satellite radar. The small unmanned cannons had battery, solar panels and laser firing guns, and each vessel had 24 of them. When necessary, these cannons can be scattered around the ship to get an iron wall like zone defensive ability. Right now, it’s under special security mode, and any suspicious craft that approaches ‘Laplace’ even if it’s cosmic dust that got into orbit will be destroyed once the radar detect it.
From the information that came before, there were 36 Salamis vessel, which in other words would mean that there were 864 satellite lasers. However, it’s to be expected that there would be such a number given that the space station need to defend from all 3 dimensions. ‘Laplace’, which had the Prime Minister and the representatives of the United Nations here would be the one place that required the most security in the earth’s atmosphere. This time, the security involved a threat letter the space federation army got. In fact, Syam felt that no matter how devious the terrorists were, they couldn’t possibly attack from outside.
That’s right, if it was outside—
(Of course, the migrants in outer space would have night. The residential area of ‘Island 3’ has a mirror that’s as long as the colony itself to absorb sunlight. Like what this diagram insides, the inside of the cylinder is divided into 6 areas. Three areas are lighting windows called ‘windows’, and the light that’s shone in here will enter the other 3 areas. The ‘rivers’ are made from extremely thick glass that can block any harmful ultraviolet rays or galactic radiation. Right now, there are 3 residential satellites of ‘Island 3’ built, and there are technicians and frontiers bringing their families to live here. But right now, there’s still no report of any residential satellite causing an epidemic. Once we adjust the light, we can recreate the 4 seasons, and we can make artificial clouds to make rainy days. In terms of complete management, this would be even more suited to live in than Earth.)
(Go live there yourself then!)
Once the scholar said that, a colleague’s voice came through the wireless communicator. Everyone was using the cable to keep in touch as they listen to the special program before the change of the calendar. Another colleague said, (He’ll go! He’ll keep his own on Earth and use it as a villa.)
(Outer space is truly big, but to keep a certain distance between the space colonies and the Earth and the moon, we have to know that not every place is suited to build a migrant colony. The space migrant colony requires a construction on a gravity safe zone called the Lagrange Point. These are points that were formed from the gravity pull between the Earth and the moon, and there are 5 on the moon orbit. We shall designate these points as L1 to L5, and the ‘Island 3’ space colony that was mentioned just now is located at the most stable L5, forming a settlement called Side 1. Right now, there are 10 million people living these, but once migration starts next year, the human population should vastly increase. The residential colonies should be constructed, and it’s expected that there would be 70, 80 space colonies forming a side that operates as its own government.)
(Assuming that a space colony can take 10 million people, once 1 side’s population reaches 700, 800 million, how many sides would the space migration plan expect to build?)
(Right now, the plan is to continue to side 6, but just these alone would require up to 50 years to finish building. The expected capacity of all the migration is about 5 billion, and adding on to the population increase during the next 50 years, the estimated total population is that half of them will become space migrants.)
Someone whistled and said (Hey, there’s one for every two!), and then someone else said (then you’re the one being eliminated!)
(Basically put, once the Earth’s population is full and that they don’t dare to reduce the human population, they will just dump the excess people into outer space, those people like us who got the ‘eliminated life’ stick.”
Then, they were interrupted by the worker head (Stop yapping!), and there’s only the voices of the audio broadcaster and the scholar. As he looked at the Salamis class that looked really overwhelming, Syam muttered, “Being eliminated…”
Under the calls of ‘Save the Earth, Save the Rest’, the human migration to outer space plan that took 50 years started, and most of these separatists, anti-government organizations or underground people had the belief that this was a grand scheme to abandon people. But no matter whether it was real or not, it’s a fact that people like Syam were ‘eliminated’ and dumped into outer space first. In fact, though there were lots of enterprises that wanted to head into outer space, but they were all only attracted by the premium offers, and most of the first residents in outer space were all wanderers—low income people as what the association mentioned.
However, these weren’t the problems. Most of the administration of the ‘organisation’ were brazenly calling for people to separate from the federation government as they hailed national spirit and social rights, but those were just useless talk to Syam and the rest. If the federation government could assure that they could work like this, they would definitely choose to support the federation, even if they had to head to the space colony ‘Island 3’ that looked like a huge hi-pressure metal bottle. The problem was that they never had a choice in the beginning. The federation’s administration caused countries to be divided as they lost their jobs and hopes. The only option they could choose was to join the ‘organization’, which was the greatest problem.
Syam was born in a poor small country in the Middle East. In his memories, the Earth Federation government was already established, and the surface of the moon was already known as a mining extraction site called Von Braun, but that had nothing to do with Syam’s family as they were always in the highlands, being shepherds. No matter whether they could finish the projection device on the moon surface mining site or that the resource investigation group went to a planet far away to bring some test results back, it was just another world’s news to Syam and the rest. The most he would hear was that the adults would complain that the taxes were heavy and that the government would only remember when it was time to do so.
And to these voices of discontent, the federation government merely said that ‘the Earth is already so tired’. They declared that as what people called the ‘green revolution’ in the past developed, the population capacity of the Earth increased, but the increase in population caused damage to the environment, and the pollution became another problem. Finally, if something happened like a limited nuclear war, it’ll be obvious that it’ll be a matter of time before Earth reached its limit, and the Earth Federation created lots of enterprises to save the world from this extreme situation. Then, the federation government started to push for a space migration plan, and declared that this was the one and only plan. But on the other hand, the federation government used overwhelming military power to suppress any opposition and scattered seeds of discord on the tired earth.
Though the federation divided great countries in the past and tried to make sure that there wasn’t much difference in the military and economic affairs of each country, the ones in charge were still the politicians of the old powerhouses. This point made many countries try to leave the federation, and Syam’s own country was one. The country allied with the other Middle Eastern countries as crude oil was depleted, and what they got was divided in half. The land was divided in half under the punishment of rebellion, and the law was rewritten. The old customs of the ancestors were broken, and many English linguists entered, and school curriculum changed too.
Amidst this, Syam’s father joined the guerilla forces and was soon arrested and sent to prison. Syam really couldn’t imagine how that silent man whose only good point was his righteousness would be so passionate, but his father died in prison before he could even answer his doubts. Syam was left with his mother and his younger sister, and had to give up on his education to continue his family tradition of shepherding. That’s how he got the nickname ‘Shepherd’.
However, this job didn’t last for long as well. As the migration to the space colonies entered its final stages, the federation required a large number of firing installations, and the highlands where Syam and the rest were staying at became the launch site. Once the negotiations with the landowners and the resettlement of the people was complete, Syam’s family was given little compensation as he was chased away. Syam could only let his mother and little sister stay in the apartment in the city where the air quality was bad and went to work in the launch site. That was Syam’s new life. And 3 years later, once the 6th launch site was completed, the person in charge of manpower told him that he didn’t have any work left, and the reason was that they found that his father was a guerilla and they were ordered to fire him.
This reasoning was too far-fetched. After that, he heard that the federation government’s industrial strategy was to let lots of foreigners enter and send off those who had relations to guerillas. This could be said to be eliminating the guerillas and warning the rest of the people, a rather effective strategy. Syam was too lazy to even waste energy getting angry, and he needed money. His mother wasn’t used to living in the city, and was often sick; and money’s needed to see a doctor. His sister was reaching puberty, and he needed money to buy unpatched clothing; he had to work for breaqd tomorrow, for soup today.
He started going to an employment agency, going in and out of odd jobs. And this sort of place had brokers from violent organizations and suspicious underground recruiters, and Syam was quickly found out by them. Syam didn’t have any meaningless thought of avenging his father at all, and wasn’t interested in their intents to fan feelings in him. What interested him was the monetary reward they provided. Syam merely considered for 3 days before agreeing to a recruiter who was pretending to be a religious person. After a simple oath, he undertook the training required in old Moscow, and got in with everyone before entering outer space with his colleagues whose names he wasn’t even familiar with.
That’s right, this is a job. Syam muttered. As it’s a job, no matter whether it’s the disgusting feeling of icy cold underwear or the claustrophobic nature of the spacesuit that’s made of aluminum and fiberglass, he could still take it. This wasn’t because of some train of thoughts or a revolution. He’s different from the religious fanatics who swore to carry out suicide attacks. Surviving, finishing the job and getting his reward was everything. He had no choice in order to let his mother and little sister live an ordinary live.
If not, who would come to this place? If he had a decent job, if he had money, if he didn’t draw the ‘eliminated in life’ tag…
(But, everyone, please think about even with this, there are 5 billion humans left on Earth. This is the same population as the 20th century when people started to take note of population explosion. This number is still too great to let the Earth recover naturally. The ideal situation is to reduce the population to 2 billion.
Even if a Lagrange Point can have 2 Sides built in it, the limit of Sides we have will be 10, and it’s possible to let tens of billions of people live in outer space. However, assuming that the entire completion of the construction requires hundreds of years, nobody would know when the population would be then. It would be overly optimistic to assume that the Earth’s environment recovered at that moment. Right now, we can only hope that the wisdom of humanity 100 years later will settle this.
I hope that everyone who opposes the space migration plan can understand this. We humanity established this overall authority in the Earth Federation government and had to fulfill this plan that looks impossible. Let us stop in front of self-destruction and look 100 years into the future. A bit of dissent was that the space migration plan is the federation’s plan to abandon…)
The scholar’s voice was suddenly interrupted, and an unnatural music filled the silence. (Eh—even though the topic isn’t over with, right now, there’s footage of the change in calendar happening in areas all over the world. First, it’s the image from New York City that’s recovering from war…) As he listened to the voice of the broadcaster, Syam tugged at the cable and moved forward.
Was it because the abandoning people topic was not supposed to be mentioned? Though the federation government would flaunt democracy, the censorship of information in the media by the government caused the actual report to be held for long. (Idiot). A colleague muttered as the voices of the interviews with the residents of New York overlapped.
(Why did he cut it off? Wasn’t he just hailing the federation?)
(That Queen’s Scholar really spoke too much truth!)
(Worrying about 100 years later? Worry about your tomorrow!)
Laughter of mockery rang throughout the wireless communicator, but it didn’t remain for long. Syam remained silent and head towards the gas chamber in the worker ship.
There’s no need to worry about weight in space, but the mass wouldn’t disappear. The moment he touched the gas chamber, Syam used both hands to support his mass and the spacesuit that had life support inside it. as he was about to pull the handle, the Earth that was giving off blue light shone into his eyes through the round plates of the mirror.
In the atmosphere that was divided into day and night, there’s a string of light that’s hard to tell whether it was red or green. It was an aurora. It seemed that ‘Laplace’ moved above the South Pole as he looked at this mystically beautiful line. Syam felt a little moved, but he immediately looked away and pulled the handle of the gas chamber.
There was no need to embrace and feel everything. He should be going back after finishing his work. On hearing the slightly hasty breathing, Syam started to think of his mother and sister and wonder how they were.
(Greetings, citizens of Earth and Space. I’m the Prime Minister of the Earth Federation, Ricardo Marcenas.)
At Greenwich Meridian Time, 23:45, the Prime Minister’s speech went as planned. Syam finished getting away, and was on the workboat cabin leaving the orbit of ‘Laplace’, watching the live telecast through a small screen.
(The end of C.E. is nigh, and we shall enter an unknown territory called Universal Century. During this time that’s worth remembering, I am glad to have the honor as the first Prime Minister of the Earth Federation government to talk to ‘all of humanity’, so allow me to express my gratitude here.
When I was young, the Prime Minister or the President would only talk to the citizens of their own countries. A state is a governing system of the land and the people on it, and ultimately exists to ensure that their own countries were safe. And right now, for us, who had achieved the longstanding desire to unify the world, we have defined the errors in Nationalism. Just like how humans can’t exist on their own, we know that countries can’t operate alone, especially when it comes to an important issue like the Earth in crisis, where no previous nation was able to come up with an effective counter. The population issue that was addressed at the end of the 20th century like drying up of resources, environmental destruction through pollutions…to address these problems that couldn’t be reverted back, we need every single knowledge all of us have.”
In the small cabin, there were 14 people watching the screen on the wall. Other than the 2 pilots in the cockpit, everyone that took part in the work were here. Everyone present didn’t look like they were suited to be the Prime Minister of outer space, Syam thought.
The wrinkles on the ‘worker head’s face hid the hard work of manual labor he put in for many years. This man who’s viewed as the leader plucked his nostril hairs as he blew it away as it was stuck to his face due to zero gravity. If this scene was seen by the astronauts who paved the way for space exploration, they would be crying already. Or rather, even people like him could enter Outer Space in the Universal Century?
“Not a ‘Me’ that belongs to any country or tribe, but a ‘me’ that belongs to humanity. If we don’t have this objective view, we wouldn’t be able to have today. Throughout the 50 years we began this grand scheme, the Earth Federation government and the human migration to space plan was definitely not smooth sailing. In fact, to break countries, races, religions…all these obstacles to unite humans as a whole, we still had to experience lots of things.
But right now, we got this new living habitat, the space colonies. The migration shall begin officially, and many people living in space colonies would be the norm in future generations. This is to save the Earth that’s being crushed by humanity, a glorious result of humanity uniting together.)
In the residential area of ‘Laplace’, at the large ring that formed a circle, Prime Minister Marcenas was standing on the podium, using his own steady expression that’s normally depicted on television as he faced the camera. The ones sitting in front of the podium were the representatives of the federation countries. The screen showed them looking serious. Syam looked at the screen and wondered about the outcome his gang’s work would cause.
The concave lens that formed ‘Laplace’ would follow a non-designated action according to the produce Syam and the rest installed. What should be working at midnight was letting out sunlight onto the Earth’s surface, showing the words ‘Goodbye AD, Hello, UC’ in the atmosphere—
(If Anno Domini was really that stage where humans feel is of infancy, the Universal Century shall be the state leading into the next moment. We’re not lowering the population through birth control, but chose to open more space for the population to move. A baby that climbs out of the cradle must continue to grow. In the process of fulfilling the plan to migrate to space, we’re proving to the entire world that we can coexist for one aim. Then, what’s next?
Universal Century. If interpreted from it, the meaning would be ‘A normal Century’. The age of outer space should be written as ‘Universe Century’, but we deliberately used the word ‘Universal’, which means ordinary, as the name for the new century.)
In fact, the process as activated before midnight. Under the thousands of concave mirrors, the mirrors that had the program installed started to change directions and focus the light on a certain residential area of ‘Laplace.
(I was born in the old United States of America, spent my infant years in Germany, spent my youth in France, and my student life was spent in Asia. I married my wife, who’s of Arabic and European descent, and my parents were about the same. Looking back at my ancestors, I found that I have more than 30 nationality bloodlines running in me, all the skin color, all the bloodlines of all the races reside in me. It’s because of this ‘normalcy’ that I was able to attain the unique honor of being the first Prime Minister of the Earth Federation government. And I believe that there are many who have such backgrounds. As the technology advancement began officially in the 21st century, and as the uniformity of economies caused the world to unite, they resulted in the mixing of bloodlines and skin colors. The Federation government established a world without country borders, designated a standard language for the entire world, and there are mixing of bloodlines. All these aren’t anything special now.
And as humans need to reside in outer space, it’s important for all of humanity to unite together. We can’t let this miracle become a special occasion. We must normalize that fact that humanity had united, not rejecting each other, not hating each other, and become one race as we head to a wider universe. The term Universal Century includes our hopes.)
As the orbit and the equator were at right angles, the ‘Laplace’ wouldn’t orbit behind the Earth, but would be at a place where the sun shines on it. A part of the concave mirror that was adjusted continued to reflect the sunlight, gathering the light and focusing on a certain point.
“I don’t belong to any religion, but I’m not an atheist. I believe that to ascend to a higher plane, to give laws to ourselves, as we set higher bars for ourselves, that this would be a healthy representation of the human spirit. During the Anno Domini Era, these Holy Scriptures were thought from man to man. Even if I don’t mention the Ten Commandments of Moses, each religion teaches people doctrines on how to live, how to face the Earth. These weren’t viewed as human words, but as a contract with God.
And now, we’re about to say goodbye to the century of Gods and accept the time of a new contract. This time, it’s not to surpass God, but to communicate with the God inside us as we move up to a higher plane. The contract box of the Universal Century should be born of all of humanity’s consciousness.)
As it’s vacuum, the temperature of the concentrated heat the countless concave mirrors focused would be an absolute temperature of 5500, and the numerous light rays that would become heat rays will burn a block of the ‘Laplace’ residential area—the water supply circuit that controls the environment. Of course, these were invisible light rays. Unless they’re noticing the focal point where the intense irradiation points were at, even the surrounding Salamis’ class ships that were scattered wouldn’t discover it.
(I suppose quite a few people know about the origin of the name of the Prime Minister Residence ‘Laplace’. This is the name of a physicist in 18th century France. Laplace felt that no matter how big or small, if we analyze completely anything, including the movement of a particle, we can thoroughly predict the future. And this thought was later denied by Quantum Mechanics. Right now, we’ve proven that the future can’t be predicted. And we use this origin the other way and named this Prime Minister Residence as ‘Laplace’, which has the meaning of ‘many possibilities in the future’.
Everyone knows that there was quite the controversy about setting the Prime Minister’s residence at a space station orbiting around the Earth. In a transportation and security viewpoint, this wasn’t a really good choice. However, we’re about to advance into the Universal Century, and outer space shall become the land humans live in. As a human, I feel that there are some differences I have to personally experience between Earth and Outer Space, and thus I used the authority of the Prime Minister to make this decision. And there’s no better stage to change the calendar on the last day of Anno Domini and start the Universal Century.)
The place on ‘Laplace’ which was being shone brightly by the sun reached 120 degrees Celsius, and the back was a chilling cold of negative 120 degrees Celsius. Thus, the water supply circuit that moves through the residential area controlled the environment and the temperature. And right now, it was like putting a magnifying glass in the middle as the concentrated heat rays were moving through the mirrored areas on the top and the bottom as they continued to burn the water supply circuits.
(Today, there’re more than 100 country representatives from the Earth Federation. After some discretion, we shall sign the charter of the Universal Century, and this Charter that we shall announce shall become the Laplace Charter, one that shall act as a contract between Humanity and the World.
This is based on the agreement from everyone in the Earth Federation government, and God’s name is not mentioned inside. We shall not mention Humanity’s original sin. After this, we’re about to face our final judgment, and then we shall break the deadlock in our hearts. Our destiny will be in our hands.)
The irradiated rays burned the metal on the surface, causing the water in the supply circuit to boil and become a large amount of steam. Before the sensors even realized that something was wrong, the pipes were already burst from the internal pressure. The pressure inside the residential area immediately shot up, and as oxygen broke free from steam due to the high temperature—
(Right now, we have a vast and endless universe in front of us, one that is hidden with all sorts of possibilities, an ever-changing future. No matter how you’re standing on this entrance, you have no need to bring your past into the new world. We’re now starting at the start, and there’s no need to be troubled about other people writing the scripts in your life. Just use the God in you to look clearly at the future that’s about to begin.
Right now, the time is Greenwich Meridian 23:59. From this moment on, everyone who’s watching this telecast, if possible, please pray silently with me. Think about the Anno Domini that will soon pass, think about the history of Humanity that everyone made, and offer your blessings.
I hope that the journey of all the humans into outer space shall be stable, I hope that the Universal Century is the age where results beat, and I believe that, lying dormant in our hearts, the God called possibilities—)
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…00:00. The image of the screen was switched to ‘Laplace’.
Universal century 0001, January 1st.
Suddenly, static brushed past the screen as a white light was released. The next moment, ‘Laplace’s structure collapsed as it silently collapsed.
incomplete
