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.

The ring that had delicate artistry collapsed terribly as it exploded from inside, and the large number of building materials, walls and glass fragments were scattered all over the place. The 2 disks that were spinning on both sides of the donut ring had their concave mirrors on the surface broken one by one, losing its silver shine. The two mirror surfaces that linked the living quarters to the rotary axis was distorted as the crumpled donut and the two dirty broken mirrors showed a look that was worse that trash as they floated around in vacuum. The scattered debris hit the surrounding patrol ships, and those Salamis ships that were unluckily hit directly showed a light ring of explosion. As the large space station laid in the background, these were all little light spots decorating the area as they covered the collapsed ‘Laplace’ like flowers—

It was a majestic, short and disappointing scene. The spaceships and space stations that had large air pressure inside were like metallic balloons. By increasing the air pressure inside so much until it becomes explosive, it would be easily burst it because of internal pressure. Syam heard of such a phenomenon built, but as he thought about the destruction of the Prime Minister’s office that signaled the might of the federation and the space migration plan of humanity; as he thought about how hundreds or even thousands of people were immediately thrown into vacuum, ripped the shreds, becoming frozen corpses before they even felt death; as he thought about how the first step of the Universal Century, the first time in human history, and also the ugliest space terrorist attack that was so bloody, it was really hard for him to be satisfied with it…

(We’re bringing the news to you. Just a while back, the Prime Minister’s residence ‘Laplace’ seemed to have a certain accident. Details aren’t complete, but it’s said to be major incident…)

The image was switched to the television studio, and the broadcaster who couldn’t hide the tension and excitement was reporting inside. Everyone remained silent and watched the screen. Finally, the ‘worker head’ spoke, “We succeeded. Now we can have even more comfortable lives!” as his words had a rare joking tone. However, there wasn’t a hint of laughter in his eyes, and beside him, the captain who would normally follow up remained silent.

(Right now, the fates of Prime Minister Marcenas and the country representatives in this crisis are still unknown…) The voice of the broadcaster rang as the news continued to be reported. For some reason, Syam started to recall the contents of the speech the Prime Minister just made. Not needing to bring the past life into the new world. Not being troubled by other people writing their own lives. These words that were like foreign objects exploded and surged in his mind.

Our destinies are in our hands, the Prime Minister said. Isn’t the ‘our’ he said referring to us? Not because we were the ‘eliminated ones, so the Prime Minister wanted to convey some important message to us?—Syam thought, but immediately, he remembered that the Prime Minister became a frozen block too. The next second, Syam forgot about it, and his mind was wondering whether he could return back to Earth, whether he could claim his reward, all sorts of realistic uncertainties. This was the reason why the worker ship got ready to accelerate a second time, and that the inside of the ship got busy.

To enter the Earth through low orbit, they had to maintain of 8km per second. If it’s too slow, they would fall due to gravity, and they’ll rise if it’s too fast. The worker ship accelerated once already, and the height was still higher than ‘Laplace’, however, they need to accelerate to 10km per second to completely break free from orbit.

Once they break free from low orbit, they will move until a still satellite orbit that’s 35,000km away from the Earth, meet the satellite that’s orbiting there, get away from the worker boat, sneak into the facility, act as a worker there and take the shuttle ship back to Earth. That was the escape plan the ‘organization’ prepared.

As the scattered debris of ‘Laplace’ were gradually accelerating and starting to orbit higher than the original position, if this kept up, there would be a risk that the debris would hit the worker ship. The Federation patrol ships weren’t completely destroyed, and they should be hurriedly securing a space territory. After some pushing as they weren’t used to zero gravity, Syam and the rest finally managed to stabilize themselves on the crude chairs on the cabin. On the 3rd day after they got to outer space, the men’s faces became moon faces (as the fluids change in nature under zero gravity, causing the faces to swell). They lined up against the walls, and soon after, the rocket fuel ignition caused the ship to jerk, and everyone was pressed under the chairs by pressure.

The high power laser that replaced the spark plug in the laser rocket fuel engine had 3 times the thrust of previous rockets. Though it’s a ‘safety driving’ of an acceleration of 1km every 2 minutes, to the body that’s about to get used to zero gravity, the weight of 1G is still tough to handle. Syam closed his eyes and grabbed the handle of the chair.

The acceleration soon stopped. 5 hours later, they would enter the satellite orbit and be in contact with the industrial satellite. With that, I will soon return back to Earth. How’s my mom and sister? Do I have enough money to see a doctor? Once I get back to the country, let’s move away from that cramped apartment that’s like a rabbit’s cage and move to a more appropriate place! Let’s go buy a small land and restart my shepherd life, that’s good. I don’t want to stay in outer space. I don’t want to get involved with the ‘organization’. I want to use this money to buy my life that won’t be eliminated—

At this moment, a terrifying shock shook the body of the ship.

'KLANG! With the sound of something seemingly heavy dropping, the tail of the ship gave an uncomfortable jerk. One could hear that it wasn't from the engine itself. They were already used to weird noises of unidentified objects or hard things rubbing against each other in outer space, but that sharp sound that hit the ship didn't sound normal. Everyone look at the ceiling of the ship, shouting “Did the debris of 'Laplace' hit us!?” At this moment, the 'Worker head' immediately took the phone inside the cockpit. Syam stared at his unhappy fact.

“They're coming, the dead of 'Laplace' are chasing us...!”

The guy viewed as the captain clutched his head and screamed with an abnormal tone, and Syam inadvertently started to shudder too. However, the 'Worker Head' quickly shouted back, “Shut up!”

“It seemed that something hit near the engine. The thrust's descending. 'Shepherd', go outside to take a look.”

The 'Worker Head' put down the phone and watched Syam in the eyes as he said that. The reason why he was called was definitely because their eyes just met, but like usual, the 'Worker Head's tone wouldn't allow for any refusal. Syam wordlessly undid the buckle on the chair and head towards the gas chamber.

As there was no acceleration, the cabin regained zero gravity, but the man viewed as the captain continued to lower his head like there was zero gravity, and didn't even look up even when Syam entered the gas chamber.

It's said that before they exit the ship to work outside to reduce the air pressure inside the body, but right now, the improvements in the spacesuits removed this hassle. Syam put on the helmet, carried the life support on the wall, and a minute later, was ready to open the hatch and let go of the handle.

As the air in the gas chamber vanished, all the sounds vanished as he could only hear his own breathing. After checking that the hook beside the gas chamber and the cable was tightly secured, Syam floated out of the worker ship and let his body move to the end of the ship.

It wasn't accelerating, but the worker ship wasn't still. Right now, it should be at a speed where the ship could break free from low orbit, 9km per second as it orbit around the Earth. While undergoing training half a year ago, Syam was still wondering whether he would be abandoned outside the ship like this. However, as the humans that's being transported are moving as well, they won't stop until the meet any other obstacles or resistance force. For example, someone jumping outside a plane will fall down due to gravity acting on the body, and would bounce back because air resistance. And without these forces in outer space, as a human leaves a spaceship that's moving at 9km per second, he will follow it at that same speed. Which means that Syam would feel that he and the ship were still.

Thus, Syam used the handheld booster to move in the opposite direction of where the worker ship was moving. More accurately, he wasn't 'moving forward' to the end of the ship, but slowing the inertia on his body and letting the ship 'move more'. Syam pulled the safety cable to make sure that his relatively velocity to the ship was zero, and started to investigate the exhaust pipe that's on the back of the cylindrical ship.

He immediately found where the problem was. The fuel pipe that was attached outside the ship was broken as chemicals fuel was being spilled. It's unknown whether they were hit by the small asteroids that size of rocks or the debris of 'Laplace'. Seeing the fuel that was leaking and being frozen outside, Syam remembered the words of the guy they viewed as the captain , saying 'they're after us', and started to feel some goosebumps.

It's stupid. It's common to collide with space dust. Syam used the little knowledge he had from his training to calm the anxiety in him and notified the ship what happened. (Close the control valve. We can accelerate with the remainder. Hurry up and get back). The worker head answered back. Syam severed the frozen fuel pillar on the pipe and threw it far away. If he left it alone, there would be an ice pillar floating and probably landing in the exhaust. When it happens just when the exhaust is firing, a large explosion will occur.

Syam pulled the safety cable and went to the gas chamber. With his back facing the Earth and the sun, he found that he was witnessing. He looked at the stars that weren’t shining through the atmosphere that were like carpets giving off silver lights. He could see no moons, no artificial satellites, just a large array of dazzling bright stars. He could barely use his naked eyes to look behind the stars, and it was an abyss where even lightspeed couldn’t reach.

It’s so memorable. Syam had this thought flash through his mind. Just at the moment when he was troubled by this thought that didn’t have any link, the wireless communicator was suddenly cut up, and with a sharp flash of light that appeared, Syam witnessed the gas chamber shooting out flames.

The flames immediately expanded for a moment, swallowing the entire worker ship. Before he was caught in the shockwave, Syam saw the spacesuit of the pilot flung out from the cockpit, such the burning debris scattered and the hull of the worker ship explode from inside, and then he was blown away by the shockwave of the explosion. The uneven inertia caused his body to spin vertically, and through the visor, he could see the Earth and the stars quickly flowing.

The stars, the sun and the Earth that drew a long arc were dazzling as they moved up, and Syam was moving further and further away from the scrap metal worker ship. First, I should stop spinning, find something and see if my spacesuit is alright. His mind flashed through the response scenario he learnt, but the shockwave numbed his senses and he couldn’t operate well. Syam could only flail his limbs weakly. What happened? Why did the worker ship just explode? Didn’t I just throw the leaking fuel pillar out? There’s nothing else wrong!

No, that’s not it. That’s an explosion from within. Something happened inside the ship. Something exploded…what? Either than fuel, we weren’t carrying anything dangerous! Those allies of us who’re in charge of managing stocks checked them. There can’t be any explosions unless something deliberately brought one up—

His gut suddenly shrank; Syam widened his eyes in fear. Betrayal, explosion, silence. Many words came in his mind as he witnessed the scene in front of him, and he tried to come up with a conclusion. However, he was ultimately swallowed by fear and chaos, and finally, the words he could only remember were the words of that guy, the captain, that were spoken in an abnormal tone ‘they’re here’.

They’re the dead of ‘Laplace’. The thousands of dead bodies who were alive several minutes ago and became countless corpses that caught up to the worker ship, bared their fangs and attacked, taking suitable revenge on the people who killed them. Killing the ‘Worker head’ and everyone else inside the cabin, letting Syam, who was outside the ship coincidentally, sink into a gradual death.

The cut safety cable crossed him, and the debris of the worker ship were floating forward. The life support could only work for 8 hours maximum, and even if a nearby ship got a distress signal, Syam’s chances of being saved under such a short time was gradually becoming zero as he himself was moving at the speed of sound, would he float to the Earth or into the abyss of Outer Space?

No, before that, he may float into the debris field of ‘Laplace’, diced up by the metal shrapnel that were moving at 8km per second. A part of his mind calmly predicted. And at the same time, fear went through all the hairs on his body, filling the entire spacesuit. Syam cried out: I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die like this, I don’t want this life where I’m still eliminated in the end!

I have to get back home. My mom and my sister Sarah are still waiting for me. I don’t want to die I don’t want to die I don’t want to die—Syam closed his eyes as he prayed silently on hearing the siren that rang because of the erratic breathing. And as he opened his eyes again, he saw something strange.

AS he saw the other side of the worker ship that was burning on its tail, a profile of a person appeared, and another appeared, both wearing spacesuits he had never seen before and using the thrusters on the back to move forward. That profile looked bigger and bigger, and the head that looked like a safety helmet gave a red light and pointed what looked suspiciously like a gun at Syam.

Syam subconsciously used both hands to protect his body, but that ancient golem-like spacesuit ignored Syam and continued to move forward. The shield that was installed on the shoulders, the deep green body and the head was giving of the shine of a single eye. This wasn’t a spacesuit, but should be a large object that’s not human—what was unbelievable was that their lengths were near 20m—and grazed past Syam like protestors, once after another. In front of them was a blue shining figure of the Earth and the large golems that accompanied the countless explosions.

He saw this cylindrical thing that looked like a steel bottle and had three wings on the mirrored block on TV before. These were the supports of the Space Migration plan, the ‘Island 3’ type Space Colonies. But right now, those three rectangular wings were tattered, and the steel surface had some ugly burn marks on it as it looked just like waste hardware. This structure was humanity’s greatest construct, and even through TV, he could feel the majestic feeling of a brand new space colony, bringing lots of impact as it started to touch the Earth’s profile.

The one-eyed giants continued to fire as they escort the residential areas, shooting down the resisting ships and the fighter jets. As the giants continue to wreck havoc by moving through the colony. The colony that was 30km long, more than 6km in diameter reached the atmosphere and started burning as it sank into the atmosphere. Syam realized that the golems were trying to force the colony to land on Earth and inadvertently shouted: ‘STOP IT!’

If that kind of thing dropped, the world would be in a mess. Mom’s on Earth, Sarah’s on earth, stop it!!

The golems never responded, and the burning colonies burned their bodies into fiery red. The peeled mirrored blocks and the colony cylinder that became a fireball turned the clouds into steam as they continued to fall onto the blue Earth. This was the final Judgment, Syam thought. To end these world that’s filled with guilt and sin, and leading the people who did good deeds to Heaven for God to judge...is it unavoidable? His mind remembered the words of a certain someone who said that ‘our destinies are in our hands’. These words blew aside any realistic view, and Syam widened the eyes that were never closed.

The grey and brown exhaust smoke stained the atmosphere that was like a thin veil, and the colony became a large meteor that landed on the surface of the Earth. A corner of the Earth’s profile shone, and the shine that was like dawn appeared expanded. Syam cried. He was angry at his uselessness, remorseful, depressed about it. He felt lots of emotions he couldn’t sort out explode in him and rise out as steaming liquid from his eyes. Finally, the light became bigger, and a light that was stronger than the sun appeared—suddenly, everything went back to being calm again.

Syam slowly opened his eyes. The spinning on his body stopped. The siren on his life support function was stopped, indicating that his breathing and pulse went back from being in danger to normal. Through the visor, the profile of the Earth looked still. There wasn’t any colony that fell, and of course he didn’t see the one-eyed golems.

A tear that came from his eye floated in the helmet before being sucked away by the waste removal mechanism. Was that…a dream? Syam was puzzled for a while. That was really realistic, a nightmare that had intense realism. He didn’t think that his brain had the ability to create such an illusion. Syam used his eyes that still had remnants of the dream as he looked around, and found that there were many shrapnel floating around him.

The exterior, materials, broken glass that were ruptured included an array of debris that was more than 10m long, and one can tell that these were the debris of ‘Laplace’. The scattered orbit and the fragments that were at a higher height were flying at the same relative speed as Syam.

The surrounding debris floated around, seemingly stopping. The debris in the vacuum that he created would always orbit around a space suit—thinking blankly, Syam had new doubts in his lonely heart, and found that there was something shining in between.

The object reflected the light of the Earth, giving off a bright glow, which made him thought that it was a fragment of the concave mirror block. Syam used the portable thruster that could be used for another 10 seconds and moved towards the shining object.

Unbelievably, he didn’t have any fears of death. Inside him, the were an emotion of a certain premonition pulsating inside him in an even greater manner. In the boundless universe, the two objects that were as small as mustard would move at each other at the same speed and touch each other. As he faced this once in a few billion moment of coincidence, he started to doubt whether his nerves were all numb.

That object continued to spin slowly, and the shiny surface reflected the light on the world. Syam used the portable thruster bit by bit and let his body stop in front of the object.

It was a little cracked, but the object was still a hexagonal shape that was 3m in diameter and 30cm in thickness. Syam closed in on the shiny surface to reflect the distance of the spacesuit as he slowly stretched that hand that had the glove on it.

And the spacesuit that was shown on the object itself reached its hand out, as both fingers that were moving in opposite directions touched silently—

0096

As he reached out and grabbed the emptiness, Syam Vist woke up.

There was nothing, and there wasn’t no sign of himself that was wearing that spacesuit that had the object depicted. As he looked from the bed to the ceiling, he could see the starry sky that wouldn’t flicker. Of course, these weren’t really but a space hologram that’s displayed on the dome shaped roof. It was a screen of a starry sky that was completely detailed, no different from what his naked eye saw.

And then, he reached out his five fingers at this fake space as his wrinkled arm grabbed a miss—his youthful days were gone. Seeing the back of his arm that had wrinkled due to age, Syam realized that he was merely dreaming and heaved a sigh of relief. He didn’t wake up from cryo-sleep; If he did, he would feel pain because his body became active, and his body could take the pain of fluids being injected into the frozen cells…

Suddenly, he sensed the presence of a person. In this space, other than the bed, the ceiling and the floor were full of stars and couldn’t be identified from each other. A man was standing there silently. “Is it Cardeas?” Syam asked. The air that shook slightly answered him. He flew the tall and lankly figure of Cardeas Vist walk out from the darkness of the universe and arrive near the bed.

He was wearing a collared suit, and his coat was a similar Nehru jacket. Cardeas, who was wearing the perfect traditional attire of the Vist Foundation and gave a sharp expression under his silver eyebrows, was more than 60 years old, but it’s hard to tell that his body was aging. He wasn’t hiding nor flaunting his sense of authority; and the straight and primp posture that could defeat all envy and slander with that existence made Syam feel that Cardeas was indeed worthy of being the leader of the Vist Foundation.

Besides finance, steel-making, construction and all sorts of basic enterprises, the Vist Foundation itself showed its own power through logistics, entertainment and even department store enterprises. One single expression from him would move complicated yet diverse crowds and investments, but he was definitely not the king of hidden plants. Having taken over the mantle for many years, he was used to people referring the ‘fortune’ to the stench of the underground links the Vist Foundation had, and he was also used to the corrupted coexistence with the Federation government. Right in front of Syam was the face of the relative who looked stronger and stronger.

Syam had many children, and most of them became a part of the underground kingdom of the vast Vist Foundation. However, other than his second son’s son Cardeas, nobody else was capable enough to inherit his throne. In this world, there were often cases of the first generation starting a enterprise, the second generation building on the enterprise, and the last generation ruining it. However, Cardeas’ rebellious nature when he was young caused his heart to be open-minded and not be poisoned by the Vist Foundation. As a student, he left home, hid his real name, and had the experience of joining the Federation’s space army as a fighter jet pilot. Such an experience caused him to be a rare breed amongst a family that was already poisoned by authority. Unlike his father, who was a heir before, the open-minded Cardeas was envied upon by his own family as he leaped-frogged the heir hierarchy, and could continue to maintain strong without being bothered.

However, the never-seen-before rare breed was merely his exterior. Cardeas himself had a complicated side of delicateness and straightforwardness that could read the hearts of men. Even Syam, who had lived for a long time, couldn’t tell what this person, the 2nd head who knew everything, including the truth behind his father’s mysterious death, was thinking. However, he would regularly come over to visit Syam, show a cryptic expression and make the old man who had been sleeping continuously and meaninglessly remember all his past lies; that’s the sort of person Cardeas was. Syam was the leader of the Vist family that had more than 200 members, including affiliations, but it was an undeniable fact that there was no one other than this grandson of his who he could share his lies with.

Looking down at Syam as he laid on the bed, Cardeas asked “how are you?” as his eyes hid a suppressed emotion that couldn’t be explained by being second fiddle and being the second head of the family. Syam touched the bracelet shaped remote control that had the Vist family’s crest engraved on it and took the bottle as he silently got up from the table beside him.

“The assumption that cryogenics can regain my youth was thoroughly denied by my body. There’s no difference at all. I’m so tired.”

Syam felt the cold water enter his wilted body as he sighed. Freezing bodies and having cryosleep to slow the metabolism wasn’t a complete technology. In fact, only a few research facilities and hospitals were undergoing it, and those that volunteered to take it could be said to be lab rats. However, on hearing that cryogenics were finally practical, he bought everything, including the research facility.

Syam would use holidaying or recuperation as an excuse to gain time when managing the finances of the operations, and the long sleep after retirement allowed him to gain nearly 20 years. But the main doctor’s diagnosis was that Syam’s body was equivalent to that of a 93-year-old. His wife was already dead, half of his children were already dead, and he alone supported his own body and defied the natural aging of time. This was even more awkward than being interrogated, and anyone would find it unbearable to see an old man so insistent on being alive. But even if he was mocked for this, for the sake of the Vist Foundation, for the curse that laid sealed behind the prosperity, he had to continue living even if he had to lie.

As the keeper of ‘Laplace Box’, the curse that was granted to this world and sealed almost a 100 years ago—

“How is it?”

And the moment where it had to end arrived. Syam used a business-like tone to ask Cardeas, and Cardeas used a similar to answer, “As we planned, it will be executed 3 days later.”

“I will head to ‘Industrial 7’ directly to meet the collector.”

“You’ll head over yourself?”

“I can’t request this job to anyone.”

Cardeas smiled as he said that. As he smiled, he showed the daring nature that exemplified him when he was a pilot. Even when he’s in his late ages, his age still allowed him to believe in his own body. To Syam, who was unable to get up, he could not even remember the feeling back then.

“We can finally use it on the ‘UC plan’. Before I hand it over, I would like to operate it.”

“The curiosity of an ex-pilot…”

“You can call it desire, but in fact, that’s a really good machine.”

The leader of Vist Foundation sounded like he wanted to be a test pilot. But that’s good, Syam thought wryly.

Cardeas was the one who single-handedly decided on the successor and planned the way to pass the ‘Box’ to the third party. He was also the one who used a completely different plan to solve the difficult issue Syam raised, to hand over. Even though his own interest was somewhat involved as well, but since everything was ready, Syam could only allow him to do it.

“The ‘Unicorn’ was created by the ‘UC plan’. We must make the beast of possibilities lead the way to ‘Laplace Box’…”

Syam muttered as he again felt the moral implication behind this. However, he also felt that this always happens when there’s some important. Everything wasn’t planned at the beginning, but that coincidences caused things to move about. That’s right. Life was just about being manipulated by fate.

At that time, the 17-year-old Syam would run out of the worker ship, float into the endless vacuum, meet the debris field of ‘Laplace’, obtain the ‘Box’ over there, all because…

Cardeas gave a mystified expression as he saw Syam in deep thought from the side. Syam lifted his eyes and looked at the starry skies that filled the ceiling, and the asked, “How’s the investigation on the recipient’s trust?”

“The fact is that this is a deal with Anaheim Electronics. It’s disguised as an underground dealing, but that’s the first step to opening the window. In the current situation now, this is the nly option.”

Cardeas said the name of what was undoubtedly the largest enterprise of all the businesses in the Vist Foundation. Like its name, Anaheim was an electronics company that was started in North America, and was now the largest weapons supplier for the Earth Federation army and became the largest corporation in the world. This electronics company went on track to become a leading military enterprise, and also became a consortium of the Vist Foundation.

Since Anaheim Electronics was involved in the dealing, it could be seen as Vist Foundation being involved. Though the recipient’s guarantee to send over to collect would be the best guarantee, Cardeas’ tone indicated that he wasn’t sure. On one hand, he had to bring blood relatives of his into the business to stabilize the underground empire even more; on the other hand, he had to keep the ropes tight to prevent them from going out of control. As he reminisced the loneliness of someone sitting on a throne, Syam asked, “Is it Alberto?” Cardeas looked away and answered simply, “Yes. That man who could really earn small change.”

“No matter what, this is a plan that relies on uncertainty. No matter how much we investigate, we can’t possibly lose anything.”

Cardeas hid the little shakiness inside him as he used a dry and stiff voice to continue. But the way he was hiding his wavering so much showed that he still had a bit of youth in him. Syam didn’t answer as if he was impatient with his old and feeble body.

“It’s because of the hidden ‘Laplace Box’ that Vist Foundation had its foundation. This is basically amounting to breaking an alliance with the Federation that lasted for a 100 years. I admit that I made it a thorough secret, but someone should have realized it already. It’s not just the Foundation itself. Even Anaheim Electronics may take action.”

“Ever since Melanie left active duty, that company became more and more useless. It’s about time to show them how not to rely on the Foundation and continue operations.”

“That’s basically a matter of life and death to them. Martha herself won’t sit back and watch, right? We’re basically abusing our authority here!”

This is the expression and voice of a man who knew about developing so much authority that it was enough to kill. Syam looked back at Cardeas’ eyes, and overlapped Cardeas’ face with his second son’s face. “There’s no need to worry.” He said that to Cardeas, and also to himself.

“Until death, powerless people can’t imagine how much duty and responsibility those with power had to bear.”

Syam spoke as he looked up at the starry sky on the ceiling. After a while, Cardeas responded ‘you really haven’t changed at all, leader’, and his gentle voice had some grimace behind it. The warm voice of the relative made Syam lose his breath. He asked himself: Haven’t I changed?

Haven’t changed? No, I changed a long. That 17 year old young man in my dreams, that young man who thought that he tasted all of the world’s bitterness probably wouldn’t recognize that this old man that’s lying on the bed is me. Living for almost 100 years is enough to change a person. It’s unknown when I lost my initial goal as I set up this system for it, and continued to expand endlessly just to survive. 100 years is long enough to let a person or organization’s lies grow on. The Earth Federation government was like this. The Vist Foundation was like this. Anaheim Electronics was like this. And, I also was like this—

After that, Syam was miraculously saved by a civilian ship that was moving nearby and went back to Earth with the ‘Box’. He didn’t head back to his hometown, and he never saw his mother and sister again. The young terrorist who was foolish and poor was scattered into space dust with his separatist comrades. If news that he survived leaked out and messed up a certain person’s script, the life he finally managed to get back, and even his mother and sister would be in danger. At that time, Syam’s experience with society allowed him to make this prediction.

And it was unknown whether it was out of that person’s script as all people who were related to terrorists involved in the destruction of the Prime Minister Residence were quickly inspected. The ‘organization’ and the separatist countries who supported them were all thoroughly annihilated by the Federation Army. The Federation government then immediately rebuilt a new government, and under the slogan of ‘Remembering Laplace’ and started its eradication on anti-government movements. The ‘organization’ that planned and executed the terrorist plot was instigated by the liberals who wanted to overtake the Marcenas administration —and many books and movies questioned about the truth, but the majority’s feelings were that it was just an uncreative conspiracy theory, and praised the Federation’s enthusiasm in wiping out terrorism.

It’s not that the people were stupid. The stupid ones were the separatists who were facing the start of the Universal Century and still arrogantly calling for people to give up on the administration and civil wars for at least 10 years. People gave up on ideals that didn’t have any real shape and chose reality. It was just a first proof in reality that ‘the majority’s the smart one’. In Universal Century, the Federation government declared that they ‘erased all conflicts on Earth’ in the world, and clearly established the states in the Earth Federation, causing society to move into Universal Century. What Prime Minister Ricardo Marcenas wanted about ‘saying goodbye to the age of gods’ was ironically completed because of his own death.

At this moment, Syam, who became someone ‘who no longer existed’, used this unique trait to start a business. Even when the Universal Century began, the underground society of triads and gangsters still existed, and the social, political and economic stages that appeared on the forefront wasn’t that much different from the Anno Domini Era. Syam managed to edge out here. As he got involved with a war of monopolies, he started getting involved with a certain enterprise whose headquarters was located in the North American region.

That enterprise called Anaheim Electronics was merely a normal-sized electronic company, but once it got the benefit of having Syam’s assistance, it started to grow rapidly. That’s Syam using the power of the ‘Box’ to move the government to defeat opposing companies who were fighting for supremacy. And Syam continued to maintain relations with the underground society as he became an ally of Anaheim Electronics and married the daughter of the Managing Director. The famous nobility that originated from old France was a successful installation for ‘a person who does not exist anymore’ to appear again. And that famous Vist family had the tradition of having no problems accepting anyone who had ability even if the son-in-law that entered was of unknown origins. Syam used the name of the Vist Foundation to create a public corporation, and on the surface, it was a legal financial corporation that moved world heritage pieces like art pieces or antiques to space colonies that were more stable than earth. In fact, it launders the money earned from the enterprise or investments and provides high ranking officials of the Federation government an opportunity to work after retirement. The co-existence with the Federation until today and the Vist Foundation itself was born at that moment.

Under the rigid control of the Federation government, the space migration plan was carried out successfully. Before Side 1 of L5 was complete, construction of Side 2 in L4 started, and the building of space colonies continued to develop. The number of ‘Island 3’ colonies soon broke 100, and no matter whether people were willing, they were dumped into outer space by the millions. Inadvertently, the number of space migrants moved in stark contrast to the number of residents on Earth. As livestock and agriculture were able to operate in outer space, the age where economy and production couldn’t begin without outer space arrived. Strict restrictions soon occurred on people moving in and out of the Earth, and space residents almost had no chance of stepping onto Eath again. They found what’s called an ideology that Earth was a sacred ground. They viewed Earth as a sanctuary, a thought that it should be preserved as the birthplace of Humanity, a lamentation of how space residents tried to sever their yearning for the Earth, and their revenge on those who still stayed on Earth.

In fact, the space resident plan the Federation government pushed forward started to hit a break at year 0050, after the first phase was completely. Earth originally should have the minimum population for the environment to recover, but back then, there were still lots of people staying on Earth and even developing in new grounds. The Federation government itself was based on Earth, and only those involved remained on Earth. The space colonies that were bounded by the one-sided laws of the central government could not express their views as they could only watch the Earth rotate silently. The Federation raised the ‘Laplace Tragedy’ to emphasize the danger of moving the government to outer space, but also froze the migration plans to the space colonies. This hypocritical act was almost admitting silently that they ‘dumped enough people’, causing great dissatisfaction amongst the space residents. A certain thought appeared in a corner of outer space as if it gathered all the unhappiness.

The politician who raised this thought was Zeon Zum Deikun, and his beliefs were later hailed as the Principality of Zeon. Zeon carefully included the Nationalism of Sides that demanded for self-government to go with the sanctification of the Earth, becoming an ideal that included space biochemistry of mankind, and these space residents that were disillusioned by the space migration plan were awakened by Zeon’s Principles. The Federation government ignored this moment, but the Zeon movement spread from Side 3 that was behind the moon, and finally, Side 3 declared its independence.

Half a century since the space migration plan began, it was a proud moment of revolution to the residents who declared their own independence, but to the Federation government, it was the first time they met a real threat ever since they eliminated the separatists. The Federation government started to increase its suppression on Side 3 and add on to their space army. It started to build the latest model of the space navigation ships ‘Salamis’ that was far larger than the size of the fleet that guarded ‘Laplace’, and in response, Side 3 built on its national defense in case of any aggression. Both sides remained at tense relations until the year 0079 in Universal Century. Not caring about the implications on economics and internal affairs, the self-proclaimed Principality of Zeon Side 3 declared war on the Earth Federation, and the grand war between both parties began.

As it continued for one year, this war later became known as the One Year War. The Federation and Zeon continued to invest in Universal Century technology without restraint as things escalated into a war of destruction, becoming the most devastating war in human history. After a year of disaster where half the population was wiped off, the Principality of Zeon finally lost the war, and an armistice to end the war was signed. The Earth Federation at least managed to keep its governmental structure. However, the escalating war between Earth and Space under the Principality of Zeon never ended, as there were many wars for another 10 years and more, scattering salt to the wounds of Earth before it could recover from the One Year War.

Such large expenditure and wastage caused Anaheim Electronics to gain a stable income through war, and becoming the largest enterprise on Earth. They absorbed and took the old military industry of the old Principality of Zeon and almost single handedly managed all the development of the Earth Federation’s armaments and used the excuse of charging each customer independently to work dealings with Anti-Earth Union Group and dealing business with both Earth and Space fairly. As Anaheim Electronics resources mostly went to the Moon, people often dubbed them ‘the rulers of the Moon’, and others would even directly call them ‘Merchants of Death’. However, behind Anaheim, there was the shadow of Vist Foundation and the ‘Box’ that allowed for the monopoly and eliminate any other competitors.

Vist Foundation hid the ‘Box’ for nearly 100 years and could manipulate the Federation government whenever they wanted to. At the start of the Universal Century, the ‘Box’ landed into Syam’s hands at a chance of 1 in a billion…humans broke free from the chains of gravity, religions and race, and should have gotten a Box that represented the New Covenant of the Universal Century, ‘Laplace Box’. It sealed a seal that was 100 years long, and still remained with him. The dry and feeble body laid on the bed as Syam sighed.

He once had a chance of opening the ‘Box’. He had a chance to immediately let the world collapse from the base on and bring ‘the supposed future’ the Universal Century should have. Thus, he created the Vist Foundation, and even if he had to rely on cryogenics, he had to survive, to bear what’s an overly heavy responsibility and duty for a human…no, I shouldn’t be thinking about excuses. I just don’t have the courage and strength to open the box. I’m scared of the illusion I saw—the hellish scenes of large space colonies falling on Earth, and yet watched this cruel imagery become reality and only focused his heart and soul on improving the Foundation’s prosperity. I’m just a coward who lost my initial goal after 100 years, a coward who became disbelieving of humans and still couldn’t give up on my life and end it.

The night side of the Earth was moving over, and there was the thin veil of the atmosphere floating on it. Earth looked like how it was 100 years ago…but in fact, countless ‘collapses of space colonies’ caused a large amount of dust to scatter, and the Earth’s atmosphere had signs of being stained. Syam watched the thin veil on the atmosphere and wanted to look at this imprint of this guilt that wouldn’t disappear for another 1000 years. At this moment, he saw the human-shaped object that passed in front of the Earth.

It looked as large as a little thumb, behind the human-shaped object that was moving through the stars at a really fast speed wasn’t a human in a spacesuit, but a mobile suit. As Minovsky particles that could allow for radar and electronic devices to work was discovered, it became a mobile human-shaped weapon that became mainstream in a space battlefield in close range. The one-eyed giants he saw in the illusions now became a common weapon that was under the Anaheim Electonics’ production line, replacing tanks, fighter jets and becoming the main weapon of the Earth Federation.

The first side that managed to develop it successfully was the Principality of Zeon. It brought about an advantage to the Zeon forces just when it was severely in a disadvantage. However, as the memories of the One Year War faded, such a story was merely a memoir in a corner of a history book. After several years, once this Side 3 that’s called the Republic of Zeon give up its self-independence and return back to the Federation government, people will forget about this time. It’s to be expected that the space residents’ passion in its demands for self-government and upsurge of classes would be unable to get anywhere with the decline of the Principality of Zeon and finally disappear in this dark and cold outer space.

The time was Universal Century 0096—the fervor for revolution had gone, and in the universe of concepts, even the stars were so cold.

“…It’s time to activate ‘Laplace Box’.”

Feeling that chill all over him, Syam spoke. “If the space residents lose this chance of independence, the Earth spheres shall remain shut.”

“But this may bring even more chaos to the world.”

Cardeas said calmly as he stood beside that empty bed. That lanky body looked like a pastor who witnessed a death on a patient’s bed, and also the figure of a death god. Syam smiled,

“It’s better than being in stasis forever and slowly dying. If I can hand ‘Laplace Box’ over to anyone else, my role as guardian will be over…I don’t want to defy nature and watch my grandson die like that.”

That’s enough to the person that’s to be entrusted. After saying that, Syam again confirmed that that person wasn’t himself. No matter whether it was him or the Vist Foundation, they could only wait. Though that benefitted from the magic of the ‘Box’ and had the power to move the world, they were contented to be mere middlemen watching everything. Like the meaning of the word itself, they were just watching.

A century passed since then, and there were signs that such people were being born. Having entered the new environment called Outer Space, Humanity gradually gained power that exceeded now. 100 years ago, the people gathered at ‘Laplace’ expected it earlier than anyone else. The god that reside in us…god’s blessing called possibility is moving through the countless space colonies.

The new humans—Newtypes that Zeon’s Mechanisms described about; they will definitely be able to open the ‘Box’, ride on the beast of possibilities ‘Unicorn’, and see the inside of the ‘Box’, bringing the prayer of redemption from ‘Laplace’ to now and setting the Universal Century on the right path.

Of course, there’s no evidence to prove these theories, and Syam knew that this was a reckless thing he was doing. However, there wasn’t much time left. He had to take action before it was too late to salvage it. Before the world completely collapsed, before the god known as possibilities extinguished itself, before this rotting thing that couldn’t endure another frozen sleep…

“Can you forgive me?”

This was just him being opinionated, as Syam finally said after he crumbled under the heavy ies he knew about.

“Maybe a world will end like this. Is there anyone else who can forgive you other than me?”

Cardeas’ answer to this was extremely clear. The lies and the pains were all gone in this instant. Syam was unable to respond to this kinship and looked at Earth on the wall.

You’re willing to forgive me? You’re forgiving this devil who took action on his own children to protect the 100 years of silence the Vist Foundation must protect? You’re forgiving this inhuman grandfather who took your father away You’re forgiving this man whose thoughts may be opinionated and send the world to destruction—

Earth was about to face dawn from the front. The sun’s glow appeared on the long arc profile, and the white light shone through the atmosphere and caused the blue that was locked under the color of night to recover.

The light shone on Syam’s bed and Cardeas’ body as both shadows became one. Basked in this intense glow that could burn all the remaining lies in this room and blurred the scene in front of him, Syam again went into a deep sleep.