Prequel Part 5: the origin story

To catch everyone up, I decided to include a brief synopsis of what we know so far. Humans on earth have poisoned the air. Radiation is an issue, water is expensive and given a chance to leave the planet and start over, volunteers were lining up all over the planet.

EarthCorp has a bad reputation when it comes to environmental destruction and exploitation. Their entire motivation for the “Greeny” colonies was to salvage some good will, repair some of their reputation. By establishing a low to no-tech colony of settlers from all corners of the planet with a common goal of preserving the new environment while eeking out a living, they hope to make an even greater profit from their next projects.

Regulations for the settlers and pioneers included they had to be couples made up of one domestic partner and one with other skills. Many of the couples hooked up on line and met for the first time in person while they loaded supplies. As they were loading, the world organizations tried to place an injunction to delay departure siting human rights violations because EarthCorp had production minimums for each couple that would then apply not just to each couple, but all their future generations.

Reporters were escorted out of the loading areas and the passengers were warned not to communicate with anyone not associated with the expedition or they jeopardized their place and that of their partner. The settlers and pioneers knew about the human rights violations, but they had invested everything they had and a delay in departure would leave them moneyless, homeless, and without resources.

When they began early boarding, sending drones to load supplies and passengers, Everyone was eager to get on the ship. It was in dock outside of Earth’s atmosphere and the containers could be transported and docked with the ship. Passengers could then board with what supplies they were carrying on. The journey was 21 days. Food tickets were extra and many passengers brought some and used their last money to purchase what they could afford. Other entertainments on board also cost money, but there were three free common areas where passengers could gather.

It took 7 hours for passengers and supplies to be flown and docked into place. According to the literature, they had anticipated that it would take a minimum of 12 hours to complete that process. All PCD’s (personal communication devices) alerted 1 hour before departure, 13 hours ahead of schedule. The passengers cheered when they realized they were going to escape before the injunction could be served.