Second Diaspora

Population Migration / Travel

Ten ark ships are launched to ten different systems, but would not arrive at their destinations for centuries in the future, if ever.

The solar system had been at peace for a long time, but people were beginning to worry about how long it would last. The system was a powder keg, and it was only a matter of time before things went from bad to worse.   So a group of the most powerful, influential, and richest people in the system gathered together and began to plan. They would take their wealth, leverage their resources, and build great arks for humanity to leave all of this behind and forge grand new futures for themselves and millions of the best and brightest they could gather.   Ten ships. Ten systems. Ten chances at continuity, and fresh starts out in the unknown.   But as they planned, they began to argue. In the many decades since the first exoplanet had been discovered, scores more had been catalogued and studied. But even with the most cutting edge tech examining every gravitational wobble of a star, searching for a new Earth, there were no certainties. Only best chances. And once the ark left port, there was really no turning back if the world you thought would be a new Eden turned out to be nothing more than a computational glitch.   So the meeting that began with hope and a plan for a greater tomorrow, ended with paranoia and threats. This wouldn't be a cooperative venture, but a race. Whoever could get their ark launched first would get the first pick.   So ten arks were built, each of a different design and with a different purpose. Some were sleeper ships, their cargo a few million souls sleeping in deep freeze, hoping to wake at the end of a journey centuries long. Others were generation ships, where those who boarded knew they would not live to see the end of the journey, but their grandchildren, or great grandchildren, would be the ones to take that first step onto an alien world. Last were the AI controlled hive ships. Not trusting to the hibernation tech, and believing the cost of supporting millions of people living in a single ship would be far too great to actually be sustainable over the course of centuries, they came upon another solution. Genestock was purchased or donated, tens of millions of human embryos frozen and stored within the ship, along with embryos for an enormous variety of animal stock and crop seeds, everything they would need to create a new world, frozen and waiting. Upon arrival, the ship's caretaker AI would begin the birthing process of a select few, who would build the colony, then more would be birthed and added as needed until the colony could sustain itself.   At least, these were the theories. One by one, the great ark ships left their ports, and headed to one star after another, as humanity looked on and hoped that they would arrive safely, but that their exodus would not be necessary for the survival of the species.