Prologue: The Escape Plan

B.S.E., year 0014, November 24, 10:00 AM, Nova Paris, Republic of Pacifica:

"...and with the soul-mapping of this first woman, Lilith, humanity opens the gate to a brighter future, where necessity is no more!"

The crowd erupts in cheers as professor Mars Garland kindly presents his young granddaughter to the public. His wrinkled exterior contrasts her youth. A successful research would finally redeem his stagnant career, and forever ceasing the material needs of every person in the world also had its altruistic value.

As the researcher walked off the stage, a solemn figure approached him, surrounded by soulless looking men:

"Professor, your speech was brilliant, our sponsors would like to talk to you" he said, while flashing a badge.

Garland kissed Lilith's forehead, leaving her to his daughter Nyx, as he felt he had no choice but to be escorted by the Pacifica Intelligence Bureau officer.

B.S.E., 0010, Siberia:

"It was a mistake!"

"Stop stalling, tell me how to reverse it"

"A mistake, a mistake..."

Reddish gold, a glowing hue emanated from the desperate soldier, his authoritative facade meting away as he shook the senile scientist:

"By God, you will tell me how to stop this! ANSWER ME OR I'LL SHOOT!"

"Humans should never have tried materializing soul, it was a mistake..." the scientist moaned, not acknowledging the gun pressed to his ribs.

"Tell me, TELL ME, AAAAARGHHH..." a gun fell to the ground, its metallic echo lost in the howling blizzard outside, as the soldier disintegrated into red light.

B.S.E., 0006, Earth's orbit:

"Breaking news. Rogue researcher Mars Garland resurfaced in the abandoned Tunguska Space Center. Local authorities reveal the abandoned colonizer-class spacecraft Gaia has launched. Garland, popularly known as the 'Demon Scientist', had been missing for the last 5 years, after the fruits of his research destroyed the entire city of Nairobi, culminating on the current conflicts all over the wor..."

"Turn that off" growled Garland at Lilith, as he checked her station.

"We're about to lose signal anyway" he continued, as she diligently started the travel protocols.

Half of a decade, a small estimate for a trip to Jupiter, made possible by the newly-developed Arc-Drive, but still one fifth of her entire life, dedicated to a survival plan based entirely on the experimental musings of her grandfather. The ship Gaia, a behemoth of steel and hubris, violating space with its population of 2500 colonizers.

A journey only feasible by compressing and expanding spacetime, to a gelid destination only inhabitable by heating its core via microwaves. The last of humankind escaped to the moon Europa.

B.S.E., 0001, outskirts of Jupiter:

Gaia arrives at its destination, a day filled with gloom, in spite of the triumphant feat.

During the voyage, as Gaia had distanced itself from the Earth, signals grew faint, communication was slowly lost, and with it any sense of hope. The Earth had gone silent as Gaia breached the asteroid belt, as expected, but dire news were on their way. A glowing pulse, one that echoed inside every person escaping Earth, signaled what Garland described as the end of life, his findings brought earthlings to their demise, no survivors were expected.

Knowing themselves to be the last 2.843 people alive, the crew couldn't see Gaia's arrival as festive, celebrations were a thing of the past, and only maybe the future. During the 5 years of the trip a leviathan of metal was born along the 343 children currently inhabiting Gaia, the Anima Accelerator, an impossibly imposing ionized particle accelerator, the only promise of a new home for the Gaians.

Jupiter's moon, the foster motherland for ex-earthlings, Europa, faced it's terraformers. Gaia's bridge led the preparations, as Garland's feeble voice echoed through the hangar:

"Anima Accelerator, charging, start"

"Charging start" repeated the chief engineer.

Electricity filled the void as the cyclopic cylinder lights up.

"Particle ionization, on"

A deafening hum echoes through the nothingness of Europa's orbit.

"Particle wave dephazer, full power"

Golden, the glow emanating from the leviathan, pulses red as the machine heats the cold cosmic nether around it. Engineers and mechanics fall back into the ship, leaving the deathly hangar.

"You will be our new home" smiled Garland, as he gave the last order.

"Anima Accelerator, launch!"

S.E., 0010, Europa's first city, Capital Gaia:

"Impossible, they should not be alive, humans are not equipped to survive those levels of soul materialization for that long"

"Yes mothe... madam Chancellor, but the signals are clear, it's morse code, and it's directed towards us, from Earth. S.O.S." reported a young girl, while handing Lilith the transcripts of an eerie frequency, detected a month prior.

No signals should be able to surpass the asteroid belt after a solar storm had magnetically charged it 50 years before.

"No signals except that one" whispered Lilith, as she remembered her last trip.

"Gather all chancellors, and bring me the supervisor of the Museum, as well as any engineer who worked on firing the Anima Accelerator 11 years ago"

The girl looked confused at her mother: "What should I tell them?"

"That we're sending a message".

Annex:

-B.S.E. and S.E., Before Soul Era and Soul Era: The inhabitants of Europa sought to mark the date Gaia was finally able to land on Europa. That day was the first day of the first year of a new calendar, the Soul Era, that marked the new lives of people outside their motherland Earth. The years preceding that are notated in descending order, until the year 0, that ends with Gaia's landing. Due to how Europa was colonized, with its human population staying on the side farthest from Jupiter, and using reflectors to create artificial day and night cycles; the orbit times of Europa and Jupiter, around the latter and the sun respectively, meant little as time measures, so a 12-month calendar with 28 days per month was adopted.

-Soul Mapping and Materialization: Garland's technology was able to read the human soul through clever use of waves. By isolating photons and vibrating them at specific frequencies, Garland was able to map what he determined to constitute the human soul, being able to affect it, and later materialize it over a human body. Since the soul stores information in an ideal way, not made of objective data but of the conceptual perfect states of each body, soul materialization could be used to stop hunger, regenerate wounds, stave off illness, and even for human enhancement. Some individuals were found to be able to shape-shift and mold their materialized souls.

-The Republic of Pacifica: Located in the territory that once represented Argentina and Chile, the Republic of Pacifica boasted, until the dawn of the Soul Era, the most advanced technology in the world. It would eventually use Garland's findings to expand itself, conquering nearly every territory in the world not located on the Eurasian landmass.

-The Glow: A side effect of excessive soul materialization use, it was first observed in the soldiers of the Republic of Pacifica. Kept a secret by the Republic, the afflicted would begin glowing white after reaching a threshold for soul materialization use. After the glow started, the afflicted couldn't control his soul anymore, and it would eventually involuntarily materialize over his body, until the glow grew golden and red, and the afflicted slowly became light and vanished. When they vanish, the afflicted emit a final pulse of light, exposure to that may lead to soul materialization.

-Gaia: An enormous spaceship, equipped to house over 8000 people, originally built to colonize Mars, but abandoned when the Republic of Pacifica started its military expansion. It would later become the ark that led humans into Europa, and their first city.

-Arc-Drive: Originally Alcubierre Drive, renamed due to a scientific nomenclature scandal where a scientist was barred from naming a star after his daughter, leading to policy removing personal names from academia. It's an engineering marvel that manages to compress spacetime in front of a spacecraft, while expanding spacetime behind it, which enables relative FTL travel.

-Glowing Pulse: A pulse felt by the crew of Gaia during its voyage. It felt like the same kind of faint pulse those afflicted by the glow emit before disintegrating, only magnified enough to signify that every soul on earth had materialized beyond recovery.

-Anima Accelerator: A huge ionized particle accelerator, with a particle wave dephazer attached. The particles reach near light speed velocities, being dephazed into waves when they leave the accelerator. The momentum as they become waves makes them suitable to breach into the core of a planet or moon.