Chapter 1

How it started:

Fortunately for the human race, the European research facility, CERN, had made some fantastic discoveries related to dark matter. Among other things, the exact nature of Dark Matter was discovered. This turned out to be the raw material from which all "normal" matter was made. Among the startling things that could be done with Dark Matter was to use it as the building block for items produced by a replicator. Furthermore, the replicator could be powered by Dark Energy.

The replicator started out as a set of mathematical formulas developed by a team of French scientists led by Dr. Roland Orland. It turned out that Dark Matter was available anywhere and everywhere in the universe, so it could be tapped in any quantity desired no matter where the replicator was located. The replicator itself was built as a working machine by a group of graduate students led by Prof. Kim Il Lee of Seoul Technical University. Since NASA had financed the research by Dr. Lee, the patents were available at no cost, at least in the USA.

Several companies, notably Samsung, jumped on the bandwagon and converted prototypes into kitchen appliances and had them on the market by 2147. Anything from food to diamonds to transistors could be produced by these replicators if they were driven by the proper software.

Of course, the economies of every nation in the world were upset by the sudden appearance of the replicator, and it took about five years for that to get straightened out. There was now a vast market for the replicator and for programmers to write the software for each item produced. An economic boom was on and there were no more hungry people on Earth. Even the poorest villages in remote Africa pooled their resources and bought one replicator to be shared by the whole village. If you were hungry, all you had to do was to tap your replicator for anything from a light snack to a major banquet. If you were thirsty, a drink of almost any beverage was immediately at hand.

NASA had been after the replicator as a source of rocket fuel. Now, reaction rockets were practical for any sort of space travel. The replicator could manufacture propellent as it was needed, so there was no longer the necessity for a rocket to take off with all of its required fuel already on board. The first generation of rockets were now moving about under constant thrust and making trips from Earth to Mars in a couple of days. It was practical to travel anywhere in the solar system, and excursions were already being made to view the rings of Saturn and other spectacular sights if you could scrape up the money for a ticket.

The beauty of using a replicator as a source of rocket fuel was that the Dark Matter and Dark Energy were always available anywhere in the universe. Rockets could be run continuously because they never ran out of fuel. At only 1.0 g acceleration, a rocket could reach light speed in less than a year, and it could cruise at any speed as long as it was needed.

Trips to other stars were still long affairs. For example, a trip to the Centauri system, the one that was four lightyears from Earth still took something on the order of six years at 1 g, but that was something that could be lived with. Travel to other star systems were still not completely practical without Faster Than Light (FTL) propulsion, but that was being worked on at a frantic pace.

Even that barrier was broken within 50 years, and it was now possible to travel anywhere in the universe in two years or less by means of the Lurie Effect. A physicist and mathematician, Dr. Milton Lurie, had found a discontinuity in the Relativity equations as an object approached the speed of light. A clever manipulation by means of Dark Energy made it possible to travel anywhere in the known universe if one only knew the coordinates of the place he was leaving and the place he was headed. Thus, the great Diaspora of Humanity was made possible.

The population of the Earth had reached 48 billion, and people were practically standing on each other's toes. Population control by limiting births had long been abandoned as an unworkable proposition, but something had to be done. Well, there was a solution at hand. By this time, thousands of unpopulated planets in the Goldilocks Zone had been found, and many of them had a suitable atmosphere. Furthermore, they were uninhabited by sentients, so they were declared to be open for colonization.

A multitude of organizations jumped on the bandwagon and wanted to send spaceships to colonize a planet. Well, even with the availability of the replicator, only a few spaceships could be built at one time, so the Diaspora was spread out over many years. Travel to a specific planet cost the same as travel to any other planet, so that was not a factor in the choice of destination. A spaceship had to spend a year accelerating to light speed if it did so at the recommended 1 g, no time to make the jump to the destination anywhere in the universe, and one year to decelerate in order to land on the planet of choice. Thus, only two years were spent in transit.

Home Away From Home:

A group of promoters in Jackson, MS, hatched a plan. They would contract for a spaceship to transport 1,000 settlers to an uninhabited planet not yet determined. Each settler had to be married to a person of the opposite sex with the purpose of having children. The catch was that no couple could yet have children. This was to make it possible to get as many adults aboard the smallest practical spaceship. It turned out that the promoters had very little trouble in putting together their load of settlers.

As usual with this sort of colony, no goods were to be brought with the settlers, and they would even travel naked to cut down on the surplus weight. The lack of tools and other equipment would be covered by the four very large replicators that would be stowed as cargo. The settlers would be traveling in suspended animation and not be awakened until the crew had unloaded and set up the replicators to make everything that was needed.

Besides the 1,000 settlers, there were a ship's captain, a navigator, a pilot, and a chief engineer. Under these officers were a total of 40 crew members. That made for a total ship's complement of 1,088 people, since each officer and crew member had a spouse of the opposite sex along.

This was scheduled as a one way trip, with no intention of returning to Earth. In fact, the ship was under strict orders not to return. It would be destroyed if it did show up back on Earth. The world government was still having trouble in cutting down on the population, and they had no provision for accepting would be returning settlers. Roughly 1,200 ships were leaving Earth each day, and that was hardly enough to keep up with the new babies being born.

It turned out that the planet they were headed to had no name, just a reference number, so it would be up to the settlers to name it once they had landed. The planet had been surveyed when it was discovered. At that time, it was comfortably within the Goldilocks Zone and the surface temperature averaged 74° F and a day lasting 27.4 hours. The year was estimated to be approximately 372 days long, but the survey ship did not have very long to stay around to verify that. The atmosphere was 22% oxygen, 74½% nitrogen, and the rest was made up of inert gasses that were harmless to humans. This seemed like a perfect planet for what they had in mind, and the promoters were delighted to win it in the lottery.

They took off on a rainy day, but that made no difference to anyone. They soon established an orbit around the Earth, and the navigator set the course. Naturally, all of the passengers were already in suspended animation, and the crew began their routine work to be sure that everything was operating according to specifications. It was, and the trip began just as all of the other such trips had begun.

The crew held a party to celebrate the launch, and the party lasted for almost two weeks. This was not a problem because the whole spaceship was assembled from replicator-produced parts, and the replicator never made a mistake. As a precaution, all of the females not in suspended animation had received anti-conception shots that would last for a nominal three years.

The trip ran normally through its two and a fraction years, and the navigator called the crew together to announce that their new home was in sight. He turned on a monster viewing screen and everybody could see a bright white dot ahead of them.