Front Runner

Special Archive of the Human Diaspora

By Alexandra Durham

“Provenance”

My travels have led me to obsess over a number of different concepts over the years. One rabbit hole of thought leads to another; leaving me in a perpetual state of curiosity and to some degree, fatigue. One of such dangerously provocative ideas is that of the concept of a weapon.

As a child, I would look upon the side arms clenched tightly by the enforcers with trepidation, thinking of them as dreadful and lethal weapons. Not that this wasn’t the case to some degree, but my understanding was simple and my world was small. Though I was just a child and not doing anything in violation of principles, I still attempted to make myself small or hide myself when an enforcer would walk past. I have to admit I feel a bit foolish reflecting back on these moments. Nonetheless, this reaction I had was a very natural one in the presence of a “weapon”.

As humans, we innately understand what it is that a weapon represents on a level that transcends words; it is a deep feeling, an almost primal understanding of power and how we are required to behave in response to it. Humans exist as individuals and their thoughts and actions cannot be manipulated purely through dialogue. However, a weapon is a powerful tool for coercing unity. In the face of a truly terrifying weapon, the wielder can be certain that the thoughts of all of those who look on are unified. They’re unified in their terror and uncertainty. They’re unified in their desperate desire to placate the wielder. They’re unified in their desire to survive. It is for these reasons that weapons are very much desirable for one who seeks control.

In the minds of such pleonectic men however, almost inevitably a second thought follows from this corridor of logic: “Surely there will be others who wish to point a weapon at me”. This is the poisonous thought that has driven the development of increasingly harrowing weapons over the centuries. Bows and arrows gave way to firearms, firearms gave way to artillery, artillery gave way to bombs, bombs gave way to the splitting of the atom, the splitting of the atom gave way to acoustic weapons, photon weapons, and gravity weapons.

I ruminated on these concepts deeper than ever before in my life when I, at long last, was able to locate the human home world, “Earth” and uncover its tragic fate. The exact location of Sol 1 was quite ambiguous; most scholars agreed that it was probably around 20,000 to 30,000 light years away from the galactic center, but that still left a lot of star systems to peruse.

For a time, I tried anonymously pinging relativistic vessels and asking them if they knew the location of Sol 1. My thinking here was that many relativistic vessels departed from their planets many millennia ago from the outside time reference and thus, I figured, might have access or knowledge of older star maps. My attempts were not successful and I was often met with hostility. It was after this that I was forced to come up with a new plan.

When we were in primary education, we were shown images of the visible universe. We were taught that the expansion of space, dispersion of heat, and movement/composition of planetary bodies can tell us about the age and size of the universe. In doing so, you can track the universe all the way back to its genesis with limited difficulty. It was reflecting on this that inspired me to build a similar mathematical model for tracking the expansion of the human diaspora into the galaxy.

I knew that if I had ample data on the current locations of human inhabited worlds, how long they had occupied those worlds, and the speed/time it took them to get there, I could slowly reverse engineer a panorama that would lead back to Earth. The construction of this model took me three years. The calculations themselves weren’t too difficult, but the acquisition of the data caused me a great deal of trouble. Many of the worlds I visited didn’t wish to receive me, some had lost the information I required, and others were already dead. Each world presented a new challenge.

I was ultimately successful however, in the creation of this “human genesis algorithm”. As it turned out, the scholarly consensus was mostly accurate, Earth was indeed between 20,000 and 30,000 years from the center of the galaxy, but it was in more of a back water area than I expected. There were almost no habitable planets in nearby systems and if I didn’t know any better, I would think that it sat in virgin space.

When I first laid eyes on Earth, which I knew was the third planet from the star, I was more than a bit confused. The planet was in an eccentric orbit, meaning that half of its cycle would be spent in blistering heat and the other half in unimaginable cold. There was no life on the planet. It was a sad, gray husk drifting in solitude around its indifferent sun. There were a couple of other planets in the habitable zone too, but they were equally lifeless. I decided to investigate further and landed on the planet.

The Earth was in a cold season and the surface temperature was -148 degrees celsius. Luckily, I had anticipated such conditions and brought a vacuum suit. When I first stepped foot on the world, I was hit with a strange feeling of nostalgia. “Is this genetic memory?” I thought to myself. There were no human settlements to be seen nor were there fauna or flora of any type, and yet there was something very comfortable about this world. The temperature was unbearable and at the same time its gravity was quite calming. The atmosphere also wasn’t too dense.

After taking this all in, I began my investigation. I started by deploying my drone fleet.

“Search for signs of life and intelligently produced communications.”

“CONFIRMED” They quickly pinged as they flew off.

I looked around the barren landscape and almost drifted off for a few minutes as I awaited the results of my search. The drones returned.

“NO PRESENCE OF INTELLIGENT LIFE. NO INTELLIGENTLY PRODUCED COMMUNICATIONS.”

I was at a bit of a loss and wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. Maybe there was just nothing left to find on this planet.

“Please scan the planet for electromagnetic discharges.”

In the same way the drones departed and eventually returned.

“NO ELECTROMAGNETIC DISCHARGES DETECTED.”

I had one final idea, but it was a bit of a stretch.

“Please check for regions of unnatural radiation discharge.”

“CONFIRMED.”

I looked at the distant sun one last time as I readied myself to leave the planet. I didn’t have much in the way of expectations at this point. I would be mistaken, however.

“WEAK RADIATION DISCHARGE DETECTED. DISTANCE: TWO THOUSAND KILOMETERS NORTH.”

“Are you sure it's not a natural discharge?”

“NATURAL DISCHARGE HIGHLY UNLIKELY.”

“Take me there.”

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