4

The new G81 unified space division wanted to boldly seize the future of the stars, playing a few moves beyond the current spread out into the solar system. While true generation ships are still in the drawing-board phase, you were integral in the design of a number of seed ships. These unmanned vessels contain human biological material and enough of the equipment that could create the laboratory conditions for the artificial manufacture of human beings. The idea is, the ships would be launched at speed out of the solar system towards dozens of likely candidate star systems. Designed to land on possible inhabitable planets and then artificially create new humans to live there. All G81 citizens who pass the fitness test can have their DNA placed in one of these seed ships. Only a small fraction take up the offer, but it's still millions of potential parents for a distant generation.

Of course, the technology to create living humans in a laboratory is not currently possible. But the hope is that in the century or so it will take the first of the seed ships to arrive, they'll be able to remotely program the seed ship's robotic suite with the processes necessary. While your past projects are all locked up in non-disclosure agreements, you were chosen to lead the expedition due to your superior experience in space-ready tools designed for facilitating human life. Your life is directed towards the unfathomably vast expanse of the universe and how we may take small steps out beyond our tiny planet. You have very fine attention to detail, rugged health, and a decent range of academic skills. However, all those years spent in front of telescopes and screens have left you better at navigating the stars than social situations.

You're not just an aerospace engineer…

…I also learned to sculpt and model.

…I enjoy piloting small crafts.

…I became adept at moving in low gravity by playing domeball on Luna.

…I studied techniques for lucid dreaming.

…I've an interest in poetry.

…I'm also a good cook.

Next

Sports with balls are hard to play on the surface of Luna, where a firm kick or throw will readily send a ball into escape velocity. It is in the domes that cover the many craters that organized sport gets played, and the most popular of these is domeball. Given the low population of Luna, there is no professional sporting class. Entrance to play is open to anyone who can move and catch. The greatest of the players will run along the dome walls and dive across the entire arena to intercept a ball. In playing, even casually, you've become adept at moving without the normal terrestrial clumsiness in low gravity.

Next

"It's a sight to behold isn't it?" says Kosmo, catching you gazing out at the Asterion. The pair of you are in a meeting room built into the high walls of the Moltke crater. One wall is glass and looks out across the preposterously tall moonbrick buildings and long agri-parks that cover the crater's floor. Through the dome that covers the whole crater you can see the blue of Earth twinkling, and of course, the almost-finished ship.

Habitus, the corporation that has controlling interest on Luna, favors a sparse style. Moonbrick, highly compacted regolith or moon dust, is everywhere unpainted. A great rough slab of it makes up the table in the meeting room. Kosmo leans back in a gray plastic chair, his feet on the slab. He scrolls idly through a tablet. Half of his face is clearly synthetic skin, slightly chrome tinted. Silvery cords spiral out from his head, occasionally moving of their own accord. When he turns his head you can see his mechanical throat beneath his unbuttoned collar. He could have afforded a natural-looking fake eye, but he has chosen to wear a metal one with a camera lens that moves independently. You don't know much about him except that he's the wealthiest private backer of the expedition. His only condition was that he got to join the colony and sit in on the decision-making. To make himself useful, he's offered his time as a secretary of sorts during the planning phase.

He flips his tablet casually and it spins in a lazy circle in the low gravity. "I bet you think I'm a useless addition to the team. I'm no scientist or engineer right?"

"I'm sure you'll be useful."

[lie] "I'm sure you'll be useful."

"We need more than just scientists and engineers."

"You'll probably be a waste of air, but your money has been helpful."

Next

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