Chapter 1

Home, in the year 2187 One could see that things were at an end for our world regardless of what those in-charge were spouting. Food was already starting to be in short supply and those things that had been manufactured commodities had long since been rationed. It did not take a genius to only imagine what the future would bring. At this early date before our demise; radiation, heat and the solar flares combined to make what was once normal; commerce to be much more difficult to perform. The future, what a misnomer; there did not appear to be any future.

We all thought mankind had finally conquered all things holding us back. Disease was no more. Space travel was on the verge of becoming a commercial service. Finance and an economic well-being was touted like there had never been so grand a thing before and most people were looking forward to prosperous times at last. Then it happened for all to see or hear about.

Like thiefs in the night two giant black holes seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Science was baffled to explain, observatories focused on both portions of space they occupied until what were planets, stars and other things quietly, to us, just disappeared. By all observations both giants were moving towards each other with Sol System sitting right between them. (Just a FYI folks, in 2020 it was announced two Black Holes were headed to collide and taking everything in between into ... somewhere. Soon after another blurb went out that two galaxies were ‘eating up’ planets around them and headed to merge.)

Can anyone imagine what could be worse than seeing this, and knowing the ultimate destruction of all you have known lay ahead but unable to do a damn thing about it? Sol’s own Black Hole had not come into play, yet; and no one had even seen it and only recently had the three more outer planets been discovered. They were so distant that light had just reached us, presumably billions of years after they were birthed. People wondered how much time was really left.

The Future, Maybe! Black Holes move slowly, very slowly. Death and destruction were still years away; perhaps 70 -100, perhaps 200 years or more; if one could believe what came out of the soothsayers’ mouths plenty of time to move everyone ... where? That might be a good question to ask! This from a world that had not yet traveled beyond our nearest planets. Who knew that we would even have that 70 years to get ready. Just like we all die eventually, it was thought the Earth had a billion years of ‘the good life’ before it too ended.

Time There was one capability possible to quickly use; since there did not appear to be a lot of time to sit and talk about things; time travel. It had almost been done hundreds of years ago in Germany, now nearly forgotten. If there was no future then perhaps the past or the far past held some interim promise for us to escape this time. There were at least a million years known of mankind’s reign, perhaps millions more now forgotten. (Sorry Bible Thumpers, the Earth is not 5,000 years old and made in 7 days; believe it or not) That the past might provide some platform and enough time for us to eventually reach beyond the stars was only a hope, perhaps, then even parallel worlds in other dimensions; at least some kind of life in an advanced civilization. Even if it took several steps; hope was that we might create a way to get to re-start civilization somewhere, sometime.

Like Minds I was not unique in my thinking. Several, very similar views were held by powerful people. There were some deviations in the approach yet there was the common element that something had to be done and started quickly. None of us would live long enough to see the end happen and none of us would be the ones to go back in time let alone reach beyond this system. A dozen brave souls or so solidified our diverse thinking into a base plan we could all agree on.

Assumptions, since no one really knew anything for a fact.

The tenants of it were:

That whatever the end game turned out to be, none of us, our children or their children would be alive to participate in it if we remained in the here and now.

That the final solution would need to be developed over a longer time that we did not have here. Meaning wherever we went in the interim would have to be capable enough that the next step or two or three could be created with only what we had brought along.

That whatever technology would be needed to grow and develop a solution required everything we would use be taken to the new site, we meant everything, since there were not a lot of advanced things in the far past. We even had a fall back plan for things like air, water and food once clones were made. It was assumed the androids equipped with manufactured Intelligence would survive and eventually start making the clones then people when the final destination had been reached. MIs could learn, grow and develop; Steps to save mankind were needed.