Humans

Hello and welcome to Shelder!

WHAT

Shelder is a terrestrial temperate planet located in the star system of Shel, in the Shan galaxy, 23 million light years away from Earth.

The system is about 4.3 billion years old.

WHO

Colonists from the Hastral mission have embarked on a long journey aboard the generation ship Hastral Weasel for thousands of years, clear destination in mind, and yet none of them able to ever see it. Their struggles and dreams forever lost but never forgotten, will form the basis for a completely novel generation on the destination world, Shelder.

The Hastral Weasel, during the last stint of her long travel, carried and launched the SS Venture, a much smaller, simpler, interplanetary ship, with the purpose of injecting orbit on Shelder and jump-starting the colonization, then the Hastral Weasel continued on to crash on the mother star, Shel. Farewell mothership.

WHEN

Whether if accidentally or on purpose, no actual record of the precise date, relative to Earth, is available. In fact, not a lot of information on the origin world is present. Earth is but an idea of the far past. A rough estimate would be around 20,000 AD, but such a number is meaningless to both the newborn colonists and the A.I. operating the Hastral mission.

Their date is zeroed on their arrival on Shelder, based on the current new Shelderian year. Therefore, we start at YEAR 0 HS (Hastral-Sabi).

HOW

The SS Venture holds a human embryo bank capable of storing, thawing, and developing newborns. A comprehensive Artificial Intelligence network coupled with a cybernetic organism will raise and nurture the children all the way to adulthood and then assist them on their colonization missions.

WHY

Why not?

Given the opportunity, there are / were people willing to sacrifice their lives, and the lives of their immediate descendants for a future of adventure and fame.

The H.I.M.S. library aboard the SS Venture is packed with documents, journals, encyclopedias, and a whole bunch of art, all compiled and locked down by the numberous inhabitants of the generation ship Hastral Weasel over the many generations. The A.I. on the Venture carefully selects material to make available to the newborn colonists based on algorythms and doctrine. It is a learning process for both machines and humans, with the purpose of building a new home on a wild world. It is a paramount condition of the Hastral mission to ensure harmonious integration of the colonists in the ecosystems of Shelder, to avoid eccessive disruption and pollution, and to understand, value, and help flourish what Shelder has to offer.

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On behalf of M.A.G.P.I.E. Artificial Intelligence system and the entirety of the Hastral Weasel crew, we would like to welcome you to Shelder Evolution and wish you a pleasent and exciting journey.

Be Safe!