~ where cinders lie ~

Exclave

The five big superpowers, in a bid for total supremacy, aimed for the stars. Taking a page from the history of those who still clung to the levers of power, they made slaves of their own less lucky citizens, and sent them on experimental colony ships. The destination: The Moon, asteroid clusters, and the big prize, Mars.

The race was fierce. In the frigid, uncaring void, loyalties melt and, kickstarted by the few space stations sitting in Lagrange points, most ships disappear to become their own tribes in the new, endless expanse, untouchable by the strained resources of the nations of Earth.

The hunger of civilization extended its tendrils, and low-to-medium-orbit infrastructure was built at a break-neck pace. New tensions and new vectors of friction and violence are born, as humankind reaches for heaven while trampling over Eden. As civil unrest mounts, states take harder authoritarian stances, feeling their power in peril, while being so close to the top.

In such a scenario, you only need a single match lit in an unfortunate place.

The ships HERMES 1 through 9 lift off, yet something is off.

HERMES 7 tries to radio in to base many times, to no avail. As the rocket splits many times, leaving its propulsion behind like a Mamushka doll, it looks back to see that, of the nine siblings, only it survived. The steel and carbon fiber netting of bases and outposts and satellites surrounding Earth see small flashes, explosions in the dreadful silence, as they meld into an ocean of debris, useless and deadly shrapnel, as Dr. Kessler had predicted a century and a half ago. HERMES 7 is pelted, but save for a few degrees of rotation added to its spin -swiftly corrected- it survives.

HERMES 7 reaches Surah Al-Isra' by the martian coast of Cydonia with immense effort. Of the 12.576 sent from Earth, 9.837 survived. Most lost in the voyage were due to electric failures in the cryogenic chambers 7 through 18. Those remaining, plucked from their homes, are now gifted with a second chance, to build a new home far from their oppressors.

This monument now stands on the landing pad where the HERMES 7 lays to rest its eternal slumber. The HERMES 7 is, and will with most certainty be, the last colony ship we will ever receive at the city of our Furthest Mosque.

May the Earth teach us to remember kindness, as dry fields weep with rain.

[below this line are the names of all lost in the voyage, in golden letters over black polished granite.]