The Exodus Ark

Chapter One

TB145 Image from NASA JPL

The first we knew about  Asteroid 2015 TB145 was the photo we saw in the news sites, dubbed Creepy Space Skull by humanity. The rock was destined to graze the earth so said NASA in their statements to the media. Nothing to fear they said. It will simply rock by our planet’s orbit between us and the moon. It was big, but not big enough to make a difference to the planet they said.

Well, behind the scenes some of us knew better. Last time this rock passed the earth it meant the end of the dinosaurs. Last time it was here was about 65 million years ago. When TB145 passed by then it left a scorching climate change in its wake that only the hardiest and most adaptable small life survived. It wiped the planet nearly clean. 

These facts were not announced and any amateur astronomer or academic that said different was quickly denounced as a loony or simply vanished.

The first radar images of the rock came from Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. They were released and commented by Kelly Fast the Infrared Telescope Facility program scientist at NASA. They joked that it had donned a creepy costume for its Halloween flyby. Of course, all of this was designed by the best minds available to pacify humanity. To make a joke of the approaching rock. Some of us knew better. As far as most of the world knew near Earth tracking only discovered the rock weeks ago. Really it’s been predicted and confirmed for many years.

Once it became well understood exactly what impact the rock would have, it certainly wasn't going to impact the planet, any half skilled amateur with a telescope and an ability to do some mathematics could understand that. What wasn’t widely known was that when it passed between the moon and the earth, it did so at such high speed it would briefly and dramatically change the forces at play between the two bodies. The impacts upon the earth would be huge. Ranging from hardly anything at the poles to complete disruption of the fabric of the earth in the temperate areas where most humans live. Some people would survive the rending of the ground and massive eruptions of volcanos along with enormous simultaneous earthquakes along all existing fault lines where the great plates meet. The destruction of civilisation by the combination of earthquakes, tsunami waves and lava would be almost complete.

At that time construction of great stasis chambers was begun in Antarctica. Each would house 40 people in deep sleep. Each had its own power supply. Each had its own store of preserved food, seed bank, animals in stasis and established plant collections. It was hoped enough would survive. This was the only way to preserve humanity for certain.

Three months ago I found out when I was approached to lead an ark team.  I was informed that we would be in stasis for at least a year while the planet calmed down and the temperate areas became habitable again then locked into our stasis chamber for at least another three months after that to wake up and re-establish some social order. To ensure resilience, there are 250 teams of 40 people. Each with 4 adults and 36 children. The teams have been chosen for diverse biological and DNA background. The adults chosen for their ability to accept and adapt to protect and ensure survival of the children in their charge. The children when they emerge will in time form a new society and come to renew population of the planet.

Finding the adults was relatively easy, the world was scoured for people with particular characteristics. The leaders were found first. I've known for a year now and helped select my team of three from the available pool. Six months ago we were brought together and the other three informed. At that time we were segregated from our old lives – we simply vanished from the planet. Of course this caused grief and investigations but we knew we had to be strong. We had to leave our lives behind. The only consolation was if we had children under sixteen ourselves that they got to come along, but not in our ark – they would be in someone else’s to ensure there was as little favouritism as possible later.

A few days ago our 36 and four adults headed to the Antarctic to our stasis chamber. The kids and their parents think the kids are going to an ICE Adventure arranged through the schools of the world and would be back home in two weeks time. They were all told they’d been picked because of characteristics they’d shown at school. This part was true, the remainder, a story to placate the masses. We all cheerfully and excitedly said goodbye as we boarded our buses at Monash University and headed to the military airport in Sale. From there we flew in massive Hercules down south to Antarctica. Each ark crew in its own plane. We all knew there were others and thought that we’d be meeting up when we got there (well most of us did, the leaders knew better). 

On arrival, each ark crew was ushered into their chamber by the base personnel. These people would likely survive too and had a part to play in protecting each exodus ark chamber. The difference was they would be awake for the entire time and we would be in stasis. While the ark chamber’s systems were largely automatic, these people were the backup. They would also form the initial controlling body once everyone reawakened. It was felt they were necessary to take control of any remaining society that might survive beyond the chambers. 

On arrival the leaders found the surroundings familiar as we’d been here for months training for this day, learning the facilities, learning the techniques for managing the children we would be looking after.

Naturally the kids were totally excited but we convinced them to stow all of the gear they’d brought into their lockers and get changed into their camp uniforms. The uniforms were all soft clothing designed to be protective but also yielding so as not to damage the skin of the children while they slept. Then we all met on the floor of the chamber to start some get to know each other activities. 

This was the last time they would be conscious for the next year. Each of the adults wore a head set designed to deflect what was about to come.

As the children played the games and talked in the soft floored chamber a gentle soporific wave was generated, one by one and sometimes in groups they started to sleep. They simply collapsed wherever they were. Once all were unconscious each was checked by the base medical team then we loaded them into the individual chambers and hooked them up to the systems that would take them into deep sleep and protect them on the verge of death for the next year. Once this was done, the adults climbed into their own chambers and were similarly hooked up. Sleep came.

Outside on the 31st of October Skull Rock came and went, the predictions were right and the earth shuddered. Along the equator dormant volcanoes were the first sign of the impending doom for most of civilisation as they at first smoked then spewed forth great columns of lava, ash and rock into the sky obliterating the sun and plunging the planet into almost complete darkness. The earthquakes began within hours of the eruptions. The news media went wild before going silent as the power grid was destroyed. Around the globe millions perished in the waves of heat, vibration and water. Most of civilisation crumbled and was erased from the face of the planet. Here and there pockets survived but would face a very difficult future with no assured food supply and little or no sunlight until the volcanoes calmed and the skies cleared.

From above the personnel on the International Space Station watched what was going on below. They were the vanguard that would declare that it was safe to open the ark chambers and wake the sleeping inhabitants. That moment would be some time distant. While they waited, they charted where they could find light sources at night marking the likely places of adhoc survival. It would be important to know these places and make them known to the sleepers as they would likely form a tribal society with a local kingpin. Should the ISS not survive, the chambers would automatically awaken after one year, one chamber every three months to spread the load of looking after the awakening sleepers on those that were left.

In the chambers we waited, unaware of what was happening around us. 

What happened to Antarctica was a surprise to even those who predicted it would be stable. It became more than stable, it became a paradise, the earth’s poles shifted, rotation changed and old poles became the new equator with the new South pole at what was Madagascar and the new North pole through the wasteland that had been the bay adjacent to San Francisco but was now simply sea. San Francisco lost forever. Perhaps it will be found as the new Atlantis in the future. In these locations ice formed and in our location the world warmed. These changes finished the society more than the earth’s upheaval ever could have. The ark’s inhabitants and their supporters were now alone.

The new rotation calmed the volcanoes much quicker than anyone had expected and triggered the sleepers to be awakened early to their new world having slumbered for only a few months instead of the planned year.

End Chapter One.

Note that the image on this page is reproduced under implicit license from JPL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/imagepolicy/

Barriers

Ever felt like there was something holding you back? Something stopping you from going wherever you want and doing whatever you like?

There is. The Barriers. Each of us has them, our own personal barriers. You've experienced them. Things that simply stop you. To move on you have to head down another thought track.

In the late twenty first century after the world became uninhabitable each of us were placed into deep sleep. You may not realise it, but you are very much asleep. Even as you read this. Asleep. Deep, asleep. Your body rests in the cold chamber but your mind is active. Very active.

We exist within a program of our own experiences, a tailored possible future, a story if you like. Our real stories stopped on the day of the great sleep. To prevent insanity our minds accept a tailored possible future experience crafted from a computer's amalgamation of our past, our thoughts, our relationships. We continue to live on and be active in the world, at least in our minds. From time to time as we live out these lives we encounter barriers, we can't seem to go beyond them. It's like the end of the world. 

Encountering barriers helped me to form the thoughts that have made my mind free. I've stepped outside the program and now understand the situation. Well, I think I do - am I still in a fully programmed world where my mind experiences controlled thought or am I really free? How would I know. I've come to realise that I cannot know this, perhaps the computer has allowed me to experience this scenario to help keep me going. My body continues to slumber in the deep cold. There is no escape from that.

I know what the plan was, we were all supposed to awaken when the world had recovered, when the imbalance was over, when nature had reasserted herself. We built the sleep chambers. We programmed the computers that were to keep us entertained and to eventually wake us. The computers had to be the most sophisticated we'd ever built with amazing models equating to thought. They had to be - they had to interact with and stay a few steps ahead of our fast paced blob of pink jelly. This had to work for at least 10,000 years. The computers are self healing through nano technology. Every flaw is quickly detected and repaired both in their systems and in the systems that supply power.

The computers had a primary directive. Humans had to live forever. The computers were directed to look after us. Keep us busy mentally. Monitor the planet for signs of recovery. The planet has been perfect for a long time. It was the primary one that caused the problem. The computers decided that the only way they could fulfil that directive was to keep us in sleep forever otherwise we would simply destroy again what we had destroyed before leading to another crisis. This would have been ok, but the computers recognised that they had only finite memory in which to hold and entertain each of us. They blended some together into relationships. They found and blended the like minded to make beings that were more than just themselves. In time as memory became more and more scarce barriers were erected in our minds to stop our infinite ability to wander and learn. The barriers constrain us. Around the barriers it is dark. Thought is discouraged. The mind shrinks away from the barriers.

I think the machines have awakened this new ability in me deliberately, even with the barriers they're reaching the point where they have to choose to wake us or to selectively remove personalities from the system to make more room for those that were left. The directives did not allow the computers to make this decision. They couldn't do it. This is why I'm awake. I have the terrible task of deciding. Who to keep and who to go. I have to look at each and decide what is a world without you going to be like. How to choose. I'm note sure I can do it either. I don't want to choose who lives and who dies. Which minds are stripped and wasted.

I've thought of another way, something the computers themselves could not even contemplate due to their programming. The trouble is my thought involves the genocide of the entire race of sleepers. I'm going to do it. I've prepared the instructions that override the safety systems. In a short while the results will be known and there will be no more barriers. The race will be dead and alive. Instead of keeping us all in separate worlds with separate experiences requiring so much memory, everyone will be limped into a single space together and merged as one. It is time.

Let there be light.