05/2743 A.D.
9281 BBT (?)
▆▆▆ Galaxy, ▆▆▆ Arm
Pacifica System, Xion
Xion in a stormy phase. The Pohjoinen Orbital Ring can be seen in the picture as well.
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16th of May, 2743
The Mass Migration has finally come. Since the situation in the rest of the Solar System has been spiralling down for a while now, two decades ago the Empire has decided to leave the solar system in a titanic mass migration that will involve billions upon billions of souls.
Starting from the inner system and moving outwards all dominions of the Empire have been mostly depopulated, and every person who was willing to move (which was, quite luckily, most of the population) was transferred to orbital habitats, chandelier cities and aerostatic habitats here on Xion, which has been the Empire’s true heart ever since the mass migration from Old Kustannuksa on Pacifica in the 2200s.
Last week, the mass population transfers from the Xion habitats to the antimatter arkships that were built and are now docked at the Pohjoinen Orbital Ring. In a couple of hours, the transfer shuttles will start descending and gradually picking up the population here at Obhavni. Seeing how I’ve lived in this orbital city for my whole life, it will be hard to say goodbye to everything here, but I don’t regret my decision. Luckily for me, none of my family members or close friends have decided to stay in the system, so there was little hindrance and grief to my choice, especially compared to those who have seen their own parents and friends decide to stay.
So yeah, this is my goodbye to the Solar System, Xion and Obhavni. I’ve already packed all my stuff, and I’ll go meet my family at Princess Plaza in half an hour. The entire city is pretty much going to be on the same arkship (the Charathna, if I’m not mistaken), so my life probably won’t be changing THAT much, seeing how I’ll still be doing the same job and staying in touch with the same people. Still, it’s going to be hard for sure to adjust.
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23th of May, 2743
The migration is going to start very soon! Everybody has been transferred to the arkships, who have just been detached from the Orbital Ring and moved into low-middle orbit. Tomorrow morning the entire fleet will be moving to high orbit, and starting the acceleration burn to exit the solar system. The burn will last for little less than 3 months, which will give us enough acceleration to reach a good fraction of the speed of light. Me and my family went to see the closest observatory with a couple of other friends to give a final good look to the solar system, and send the last few messages before departing.
My friend Kinolye sent a final goodbye message to her uncle who decided to stay in system on the Kavrasi habitat in orbit of Porea. She was crying while doing so, and her partner, Orlyon, was there to comfort her. I’m actually quite happy that they met when she was visiting his home orbital. They’re a crow provolve and she’s a tweak adapted for multi-gas respiration: in many places they would be quite an unusual match, but inter-species relationships have been common in the Empire and in many other polities for quite a while. Anyways, I’m very happy for both of them. They’re quite the match.
After that, we all went back to my parents’ new house to have dinner and watch some transmissions to pass the time. With the burn so close to happening, there’s a special countdown bar on every channel and transmission, even on public entertainment virches! We’ll all be here when the counter reaches zero, sitting down and holding hands (we were warned that the additional fractions of g given by the acceleration burn would prove to be a bit disorienting at first, so it was advised for everyone to sit down anywhere safe during the initial burn). Let’s hope that everything goes well.
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26th of May, 2743
Well, everything sure went well! I gotta say, the last 30 minutes of the countdown were… intense, and the first minutes of the burn were a bit weird for my body to experience, but apart from that, everything went as smoothly as one could hope. We’ve been burning for more than two days now, and we’re already deep inside Hachiman’s Keep. Of course, I’m only talking orbit-wise, since being inside the belt with such an acceleration would be far too risky.
The view of the neon blue lines given off by the antimatter propulsion rockets is both majestic and haunting to look at, and from the few pictures we have received from those who remained on Xion, they definitely seemed to be a sight to behold even from below the atmosphere. Of course, while we can still technically communicate with Xion and the rest of the Solar System, the growing distance and relativistic time shenanigans will make it more and more difficult by the day. At least time won’t seem subjectively weird to us.
Earlier today I went into one of the public entertainment virches that the ships had, and looked at an interactive 3d model of the fleet, that showed the voyage’s trajectory and current ship data. Our interstellar trip to Lux Vicina, 4.2 light years from the solar system, will take approximately 18 years, which will however seem shorter to us as we travel at ever higher portions of the speed of light. Reason for which basically everyone, me included, is going to either go in complete nanostasis, or just put their physical bodies in nanostasis and upload themselves in the fleet’s computronium processing substrate. I think I’ll probably start with the upload option, but if I get bored I can just shut off for a while, or for the whole trip. Anyways, I think I’ll wait another week before doing that.
