Human Nature
The mission was simple. Travel to Kepler-186f and populate it. Easy, right? I mean, a small base camp had already been set up by probes and robots sent years ago on previous missions, all with success. The camp was pretty basic, but contained the bare essentials needed to sustain the first landing party and the planet supported life. The atmosphere was identical to Earth’s and had a thriving population of small mammals and fish. This planet was to be renamed upon the success of mankind first setting foot upon its soil.
Our vessel, “Fyrsta” or “The First” was the gleaming marvel from years of research and planning. The technological culmination in what the human spirit can achieve when threatened with extinction. This ship was to be the first of several to arrive. Its builders and designers would never know of its outcome. They would be long dead.
All told, five vessels were launched. Each with a particular mission, with the ultimate goal to colonize Kepler-186f. Our vessel was launched a year before the others. Our mission: ensure the arrival of the other ships went smoothly. Build wooden shelters, start crops, secure the camp from predatory animals with a fence and of course, catalog everything.
Like the twelve Olympians, there were twelve of us on board; 6 men and 6 women, in stasis. No one could survive the 490 light-year journey alert and awake. Paired, like animals on Noah’s Ark, eventually we were to be the first of many to populate that pristine planet that would save all of humanity.
Scientists and programmers are both intellectual types; logical and analytically thinking. A mission this critical, to save the human race, brought together the best scientists, mathmeticians, engineers and programmers the world has ever known. Computer programmers and engineers building precise machinery and software. The existence of humanity required nothing but the best of the best.
Fate, doesn’t come without a sense of irony. We arrived at Kepler-186f, precisely on schedule. The ship was pre-programmed to land without any human intervention. Funny, after 490 light years without a single problem, that the scientists would calculate the landing procedure in meters, and the programmers would code the sequence in feet…
