Science fiction. Star colonists

 

Science fiction. Star colonists

Our species has been on this planet for more than 20 million years now. A very long span of time. But our time on this planet is running out, because it has entered its dark and cold stage. 

The star it depended on for its light and heat is dying, and tomorrow it will fade away forever. Leaving behind just a huge ball of black dust, that will spread across the space in a few months. And then there will be no trace of it left anywhere. It will be reduced to just a memory that will illuminate often whenever we think of the bright and sunny days. A memory of 20 million years of progress and scientific excellence. It is a lot to deal with.

However, our species has acquired many skills, and our knowledge of the universe is sufficient to help us survive without any planet to embark on- For nearly a million years.

We are beginning to evacuate the now sterile planet, and tomorrow before the sun emits its last flash of light, we will have left this planet behind by nearly a million miles.  And we better hurry, because the non-existence of the sun will cause the planets, including our planet, to enter new orbits and many of them may even crash into one another. Our planet is destined to collide with a neighbouring giant planet, and three moons. When that happens only chance and factors of probability shall define whether they will combine to form a mega planet or they will disintegrate and drift endlessly in space. 

It is an unavoidable fate of our planet and that of other planets and moons as well.

Our spaceships are ready, and we have designed them particularly for this event. But, we will have to leave behind many members of our species, and right now our computers are randomly picking the citizens who will join us on the new planet. As for those left behind we know their fate and they know it too. Which is not going to be any different from either the dying star or the cold and dead planet.

But there is a community of planet guardians who do not undergo this moment of extreme anxiety by letting chance define their fate and their every moment there onwards. They have already traveled to the predefined location where we will join them tomorrow. Leaving behind a dying planet and our friends and relatives too. It is a tough choice to make, but sometimes, before fate chooses for us, we have to make a choice and seek new hopes and new dreams. Only if they are worth the risk. And in our case it is worth the risk.

So, I am here to meet my friend who will not be joining me because chance proposed otherwise for him. We sat on the bench, we stood there silent, looking at the dying sun, while the birds flew in all directions. As if they knew DoomsDay was approaching, and for them there was no sky left to fly anymore.

Many of them have been falling from the sky, like a sudden shower of hailstorm on a sunny day. Our experts say it was due to their loss of sense of orientation and their confused body clocks, which largely depend on the Sun to determine direction and a sense of time. And I am sure my friend felt just like these falling birds- Directionless and more than anything else, purposeless and meaningless.

In his case fate has been too cruel and deeply insensitive, right from his birth. But he has always shown extreme courage and resistance in times of adversity. And right now too he was silent, falling like a bird, but he was thinking something crazy, something daring, something unexpectedly wild, because that is who he is at the core of his personality!

But right now, beside me, on the bench, he is just my friend, who will be left on this dying planet forever.

We did not say anything, I got up, looked at him, he looked at me, we shook hands, then with Japanese like humbleness I bowed my head, and I left him on the bench, with the dying birds, and obviously, the dying planet. 

Before I entered the spaceship, I took a last look at him and then the door of the spaceship closed. He and the bench faded away and the planet too disappeared from my sight, because the authorities had decided to evacuate the planet right now. They had received information that few people who had been left out were planning to revolt. A reaction that they had anticipated. 

Coming to the reaction part. It also proves my claim about the bravery and arduous nature of my friend. He somehow can deal with such situations, where he withdraws into himself and does not prefer to bother the world with whatever his emotional state might be. Because he knows half of the world does not care what becomes of you, and the remaining half wants you to undergo what you are experiencing. And he does not belong to either block of thought. 

Even in this state of complete dejection and I think rejection as well, while people were crying, moaning, and grieving, he had collected 1000 birds and buried them. And those that were struggling in pain, he had stunned them by hitting them on their heads, just to ease their prolonged pain. Yet when it came to fate and chance, or should I blame providence, he was left out.

So you see, the universe has a mind that is based on a philosophy which at times defines nothing, because the person trying to comprehend the philosophy of the universe, views it as an individual. Whereas the universe never existed for an individual or one being, it exists for an infinite array of sensations. For the universe, my friend sitting on the bench is a sensation, my thoughts about him in the safety of the spaceship is a sensation too. So it is an endless gamut of sensations that is somehow trying to breed some extremely hybrid form of sensation. A compound extract of all sensations. 

My friend calls it, “super sensation” and according to him, this sensation existed in Paradise. And when Man and Woman were created, they had to be ousted because they challenged this refined and purged form of sensation. Not because of the fruit they ate, but via the genetic modification they developed, which did not fit well with the beings of the Paradise, who have attained this final state of sensation after spending billions of years in understanding the end purpose of the universe. Which is the sum total of all sensations that the universe experiences; and it is the ultimate collection of all these sensations that gives rise to Paradise and the ones worthy to live there. The beings who have complete understanding of this ultimate sensation and its purpose. It is this understanding that makes them achieve advancements in all sciences that govern the main forces of the universe.”

We often used to talk about these topics, and maybe that is why he was burying the birds. According to him they too carry sensations and feelings. A frog that gets devoured by a crocodile, is also a part of the universe's stage to generate and store these sensations. Now was the frog unlucky or the crocodile was too lucky? That is a debate where a different branch of philosophy should be invented in order to address this question. Because topics of this complexity demand philosophy that does not get too carried away, whenever it does, it is checkmated by scientific reasoning. Which is not the case with conventional philosophy.

But for now, I am leaving behind every sensation associated with the dying planet, because I am moving to a planet with a living sensation and not a dying one. After all the universe does not want us dead, it wants us to live. Had it not been the case, when we were cast out from the Paradise, the Gods would not have granted us the gift of intellect. And they would not have left us on a beautiful planet where we lived happily for millions of years. And let me confess, our species carries the genes of those self aware supreme beings who live in the Paradise. It is just for us to believe in it or believe in a dying sensation and not a living sensation. I prefer to side with the universe that believes in happy and lively sensations, not the universe that is a compilation of always deplorable and mournful sensations.

And trust me, my friend thinks so too. Only that he believes in being livelier than me. And do not be mistaken by his reverie-like presence on the bench. Because when the sea is silent and calm, it is then the monstrous tempest rises and even the underworld trembles and shakes. And since I left the bench, I have been trying to understand what is he thinking? 

Anyway, our spaceships have borne flights and we will be joining the planet guardians in sometime. ( They also call themselves space guardians ) The spaceship is abuzz with murmurs, gossips, cryings, laughters, it is almost like a garden, where a housefly is so confused that it has finally decided to rest on a flower and not garbage. It is so, because one spaceship has turned into a movie, that is a representation of every genre: tragedy, humour, suspense, thriller, romance….. And what not.

Romance, tragedy and humour playing out at the same time, I wonder what universe will make of such a cocktail of sensations, where you cannot tell one apart from another. So I am to believe, and pardon me for this belief, the universe sometimes gets over drunk with these sensations and begins to act less sober and more tipsy. And right now, the universe within the spaceship is acting tipsy. At least to me this is how it appears to be right now!

Therefore, I occupy a remote corner and exclude myself for sometime. Because I really want to take every guess, and somehow understand what my friend was thinking on the bench? He is someone with great ideas, that sometimes even surprised the chief guardians of the universe. 

While I was caught in this imagination with no perceivable end, I heard a strong thud and then the spaceship began to lose control and got tossed in all directions. Maybe the universe wanted us to experience the sensation of birds that had fallen from the sky and struggled for long, until the bolt of death ended all their struggles. Once and for all!

The warning systems in the spaceship began buzzing in every corner, the houseflies suddenly realised they are poised on flowers and it is against their nature. And the actors in the movie; the movie about all sensations; realised, romance, humour, tragedy ….. cannot play out at the same time. 

There has to be some sort of separation. Otherwise they may misrepresent life as an allegory whereas in real life nothing is allegorical, it is a terse manifestation of actualities. Where only cause and effect are the true realities. The actors in this homogenised movie of all feelings and genres, realised it along with the houseflies, and suddenly our ship began smashing other spaceships.

And this was the last announcement I heard, “ We have entered into an intense gravitational zone with an invisible matter that has jammed our engines and we are levitating in space using our thruster engines. We are trying to resolve the problem but it may take very long. So, please be patient and we are in touch with our chief guardians, who are working on a solution.”

It has been 1 year and we are still locked in this zone. We have an endless supply of food resources but there is  bad news. This strange matter that our chief guardians are trying to understand, is corroding the blades of the engines and in next 16 months the blades will disintegrate. Then we will be caught in the darkness and most likely hit by a drifting meteor or something. Finally we too will become a part of the universe’s ultimate sensation.

It was our 14th month in this zone of the universe, when our spaceship received a short transmission: You are drifting towards a Black Hole. Chief guardians miscalculated the escape route and placed the spaceships in the influence zone of the largest blackhole in this galaxy. I am Hanfeil, I want you to let my friend Jacob take control of the spaceship, and I will help you. Let me know.”

In a second everyone began looking for me and all of a sudden, now I began feeling like a housefly destined to sit on a flower. Oh my God!

So he was definitely thinking something when he was silent on the bench. I knew it.

I was directed to the command ship where the chief guardians managed the entire fleet of spaceships. When they saw me they offered me a system where I was supposed to communicate with my friend and then direct the guardians.

And these are his relays of communication:

“You are in a zone where outer rings of the black hole generate plasma and very strong gravity. Plus the secret matter, has a unique property, the electrons in this matter are naughty ( that is all I will tell you ) and being naughty, you see them, yet you do not see them, so they boost propulsion engine and at the same time they seize it as well after 20 seconds. And in these constant cycles of ignition and instant lock, the blades/shafts of the engine are corroding and your main turbo booster is disintegrating.

Please try this first.

The plasma always sprays outwards as jets or streams, and it is around these streams of plasma that this matter forms a cloud of naughty electrons. Fortunately none of your ships is in the middle of these streams. You are on the outer boundary of these streams, where the concentration of these naughty electrons is low.

You need to tilt all spaceships by 60 degrees, and align the booster engines with spare engines ( all 4 of them ) and shut down engines after having travelled for 7 seconds. Repeat this 10 times and you shall be able to free yourself from the grip of this strange matter. Any ship that fails to shut down the engines in 7 seconds because the engines got locked by this matter before 7 seconds or later than 7 seconds. Will have to repeat this action as many times as they fail to manually shut down the engines without the interference from this strange matter.”

I look at the chief guardians, and they pass on the instructions to other spaceships. We all followed this instruction and in 1 minute and 30 seconds we had managed to travel outside this ring of mysterious forces.

But our engines had weakened and their durability was no more reliable to sustain our journey into the future. We communicated it to Hanfeil, and this was his reply,

“Sometimes you need to have faith and trust the sensation of the universe. Because replacing engines in mid space is almost impossible. But, I am surprised chief guardians have forgotten that the tail end of these spaceships comes with engines based on atom splitting technology and these engines should be enough to take you into the future. Please ask Mathew or Dhruv, to provide you the right sequence to activate these engines. 

Moreover, these engines should be operated with selective atom splitting, depending on the drag offered by the space that you are entering. Which keeps changing as you traverse through different zones of the universe.”

Dhruv activated the engines and we flew to our new planet. And when we landed there, Hanfeil was already there!

I did not ask him how. I just went and hugged my friend. The rest of them asked him how, but none of them understood his answer. Only I did, “The Ultimate sensation of the Universe rescued me. And I rescued the rest of us. All those who were left behind to die.”

“What!” was their reaction.

I smiled, and we went to his new place, his new home. Where we talk a lot about the sensation of the universe and his naughty electrons. Our species has now occupied this planet. Occupied is the right word, because our species only knows to occupy, we do not know how to settle and live with the surroundings. We are obsessed with making the surroundings live according to us. That is why, we have not been able to evolve like the species that rescued Hanfeil. And according to him, they can even terrafarm galaxies, leave alone planets. Because in the end the entire universe is all about few forces, but infinite mystery surrounds them, because these forces behave differently in different zones of the universe. Thus altering the nature of matter or particles that behave in a certain way in a particular zone of the universe, and behave very differently in another zone of the universe.

The supreme beings who rescued him have taught Hanfeil some facts about these forces and how they vary in different regions of the universe.

To know more about these facts and about the knowledge shared with him by this super intelligent species, please explore the science fiction novel, They Loved in 2075.

It has nothing to do with my story. They Loved in 2075, is an intense romance science fiction which deals more with Hanfeil and the one whom he loves a lot. But on this planet, our species is experiencing a new form of evolution. That of our emotions and feelings. Because the chief guardians decided to exploit this planet too and invested heavily in thoughtless development of self aware and intelligent machines without thinking how it will impact our psychology, emotions, feelings and the evolution of our societies. And in the midst of this, Hanfeil loves someone deeply, but the machines have risen against him, and once again he believes in the supreme sensation. But this time a different sensation. To find out more about Hanfeil and his romance, please read the scifi novel, They Loved in 2075.

Will the supreme sensation rescue him this time too, or he himself will become supreme? The mystery can only be revealed in the scifi novel, They Loved in 2075.