Mission Orion: The Travel through Time

Chapter 1 | Earth 2249

It was 2249. The destruction, it came in waves. The soil was no longer fertile and crops could no longer be grown. The air turned toxic and the human skin bore the brunt of this. The ocean was strewn with plastic. The poles had completely melted, submerging the coastal cities and displacing millions of coastal citizens.

Just then, the second wave of terror hit Earth. It was the World War Four. The nuclear powers unleashed their might on the poor countries, the first time nuclear weapons were used after World War Two. Entire countries were wiped off the maps and millions of innocent souls paid the price for this. Weaker governments collapsed and it was a time of great unrest, politically, economically and socially. The countries, which were already reeling under severe scarcity of resources were swarmed with the refugees of war. At first, these countries rejected them, but soon their arms were twisted. They had no choice but to take these refugees in. Things were bleak for the survival of human race. The human race had lost the will to survive. Slowly, animal and bird species began disappearing from the face of the planet and plants were actually withering away due to the pollution and the violent atmospheric conditions. Wars for food and water were fought by countries further dividing the society into fragments. Desperation had overridden the sense of humanity in us.

But as time went on, things started limping back to normalcy. The refugees slowly settled into their new countries. Borders were redrawn. People were no longer segregated by their culture and their place of origin. Most of the third world countries were now barren pieces of land where nothing would grow for a million years to come, all thanks to the nuclear fallout. But the powers had now shifted entirely. Some of the superpowers had entirely crumbled paving way for new countries to take charge. It was the new world order. It became a norm for the people to wear protective masks to protect their bodies against the harsh climatic conditions. The planet which gave the human race shelter for a million years could not do it anymore. People slowly believed that the worst was over and that things would be back to normal in no time.

But they were wrong. Entirely wrong. The worse was yet to come. It was the last wave, which would hammer the last nail into the coffin, dissipating any hope of Earth recovering from what can only be called the apocalypse. A group of scientists made a shocking discovery, the effects of which were already visible. It was discovered that the core of the sun was becoming unstable, spewing solar flares towards its planets. Solar flares indeed were common in the course of history which meant that most of our electric grids and satellites and other machines were resistant to these flares, but the magnitude of the flares we were witnessing was unlike anything we had ever witnessed before. People started dying. Not because of war. Not because of starvation. People were burnt by the sheer magnitude of the flares. 

A committee called the Committee for the Prevention of Human Extinction was formed. Rich countries started building underground bunkers which would protect its citizens from these flares. These bunkers soon expanded into entire self-sustaining underground cities. But, like everything else, there was a catch- only the rich could afford to live in these cities. The poor were left on the surface to bear the brunt of the flares. In simpler words, humanity split itself into two. The Rich and the Poor. And it was as if the poor just didn't deserve a chance to live. Just then the committee had made another shocking discovery. This disastrous turn of events now had a timeline. We just had a hundred years before our sun would become completely unstable, spewing neutrinos and other deadly particles towards us and ultimately result in the sun expanding and engulfing all its planets until Mars. As terrifying as it sounded, we had no option other than abandon our home planet and search for a new one. Finding a new house in a city isn't very easy, let alone finding a new planet in the vast tracts of the universe. The space programs all around the world were suspended due to the financial crunch, diverting all possible funds to the building of the underground cities, the Indian Space Research Organization being the last space agency to shut its' operations. Databases which consisted information about possible habitable planets in the Goldilocks' Zones in other planetary systems were destroyed in the destruction caused by the solar flares. All the satellites belonging to the era before the solar flares had fallen out of the sky and it was the same story with the other space research vehicles within the orbit of Mars. That meant, we had to start searching for a new home from scratch. We had to start analyzing planets and observe them just in case they were suitable for human occupation. Several satellites were launched down the lane for both communication and observation purposes. The scientists belonging to the erstwhile European Space Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Indian Space Research Organization came together to form the United Space Research Agency (USRA) and began searching for a planet which could sustain human life. Satellites and telescopes were launched and ground-based telescopes were built on a war footing. Finally, after a painstaking effort by scientists all over the globe, for twenty-five years, an ideal planet was found. We called this the Planet G. This planet was about two million lightyears away, but time was not to be a problem for us. Just before things went south, a group of top scientists made the discovery of a technology which would enable us to travel great distances in a short period of time. Enough information was salvaged with regard to this technology and efforts were made to make this operable again.

This technology, although groundbreaking, was still in its' prototype stages and was never really tested out in the real world. We needed to make sure that the technology wouldn't further degrade the already fragile condition of Earth. A decision was taken by the USRA with regard to Time Warping and the use of this technology was prohibited until the orbit of Uranus.

And thus, it was decided that a small group of astronauts would be sent to this planet to confirm the discovery and cross-check the findings, to eliminate any sort of doubts on the atmospheric conditions of the planet.

And with this started the most important space mission of all time- Mission Orion.

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Authors' Note: None of the chapters would henceforth have any sort of Authors' Note except for important notes following the editing process.