Aqueas

In the late 21st century, humanity found itself on a dying Earth. Despite the best efforts of powerful governments and charitable foundations, the resources needed to sustain eleven billion people and their rapidly advancing technology were nearing depletion. Fortunately, a contingency plan was already underway.   Over a hundred years before, humanity first pointed their powerful telescopes towards their closest neighboring solar system and observed a moonless, Earth-sized planet in the orbital Goldilocks Zone of its star. Using novel spacefaring technology, unmanned spacecrafts and rovers were dispatched to explore the surface. Though it lacked a breathable atmosphere or any observable native life, there was familiarity and untapped potential in its vast salt water oceans, handful of small continents, and countless menagerie of islands. Terraforming such a planet would be a long, pricey process, but there was hope nonetheless. This world, named Achaea by its Grecian discoverer, could ease the strain on the overpopulated human race as Earth's first colony planet.   So began the arduous Project Helen, bringing scientists and bureaucrats alike into unusual territory. After twenty years of steady on-site and remote development, the largest landmass on Achaea was littered with habitable biodomes and research facilities, as diverse in national origin as they were in focus. Despite the progress, however, the hopes of the Earth-bound populace were already souring. The trillions of dollars sunk into Project Helen, from a citizen's view, seemed to have been squandered on building a home that would never be complete before the next century. Protests escalated to riots, then to war, only to fall eerily silent just as tensions climaxed. Those who had been on Achaea at the time received no further communication from Earth. They were stranded, and their only option was to start anew without aid from mission control on Earth.   Over the course of thousands of years, the occupied landmass became more hospitable to human life. The meager population of a few hundred grew to millions, with groups splitting off and giving rise to unique cultures. Language drifted, Achaea became Aqueas, and Earth was a forgotten memory. The transition from biodomes to open fields was gradual, but easily attributed to the handiwork of a select few. Namely, in the time since the severance from Earth, four notable individuals acclimated the planet to human life and oversaw the development of human society on this alien world. These men and women, inexplicably powerful and immortal, became known as the Architects. Once experts in various fields of science and politics, they now seemed as gods to the descendants of Project Helen, the Aqueans, who worshipped them as such.   As the last of the true Earth humans, the Architects will live to see whether civilization repeats its past mistakes or writes its own history entirely.