Chapter 7: The Present Day

The State of Humanity

Seventy-five years after fusion transformed human civilization, humanity stands at a threshold.

The population of human space approaches seven billion. Earth is home to roughly six and a half billion, its population reduced from pre-Fusion projections through the Great Migration and stabilized through choice rather than scarcity. Luna hosts over four hundred million, a true second world. Mars is home to more than eighty million, committed to the generational project of terraforming. The belt and outer system together account for another half million, with the number growing steadily.

The economy has grown by orders of magnitude since the Fusion Age began. Asteroid mining produces more metal in a year than Earth produced in its entire industrial history. Fusion plants generate more energy than humanity consumed in the entire 20th century. AI systems perform more calculations in a day than all human brains combined.

And yet, humanity remains recognizably human. People still fall in love, raise children, argue with neighbors, and dream of better futures. They still create art, pursue knowledge, and seek meaning. Technology has changed what is possible; it has not changed what is important.

The Frontier Today

The frontier continues to advance.

New mining claims are filed daily. Survey probes map unexplored asteroids. Trading ships carry goods along established routes and pioneer new ones. Stations rise in the darkness, some destined to become great hubs, others to be abandoned when their purpose is fulfilled.

The Horizon Order maintains order as best it can, but the frontier remains a place of freedom and danger. Pirates prey on the unwary. Equipment failures strand ships in the void. Bad decisions lead to bankruptcy or death. The safety net of the Guarantee exists, but reaching it requires surviving long enough to return to civilization.

Those who work the frontier know the risks. They accept them, even embrace them, because the rewards—wealth, independence, adventure, purpose—justify the cost. They are humanity’s forward edge, the first to face the unknown, the first to claim what lies beyond.

The Signal

The Asterion Signal continues its patient pulse, every 73.4 hours, unchanged since its discovery twenty-eight years ago.

Humanity has thrown its greatest minds at deciphering the Signal. They have found patterns within patterns, structures that might be language or might be mathematics or might be something else entirely. They have developed theories—dozens of them—about what the Signal means, who sent it, and why.

None of the theories have been confirmed. The Signal remains mysterious, tantalizing, just out of reach. It is close enough to give hope and far enough to prevent certainty.

The source lies approximately 170 light-years away. With current technology, a ship traveling at the maximum speed achievable by experimental fusion drives—one-tenth the speed of light—would require 1,700 years to reach it. Even communication is challenging; a message sent today would not arrive for 170 years, and any response would take another 170 years to return.

Some argue that humanity should wait. Develop better technology. Build generation ships capable of true interstellar flight. Prepare properly before attempting the journey.

Others argue that waiting is precisely what humanity should not do. The Signal may not wait forever. The senders may have moved on, or died, or changed. Every day spent preparing is a day not spent traveling.

The debate continues. Meanwhile, humanity expands through the solar system, building the industrial base and technological capacity that might someday make the journey possible. Whether that day comes in a decade or a century, humanity will be ready.

The Call to Adventure

Somewhere in the vastness of space, a miner surveys a new asteroid claim. A trader plots a course through the belt. A scientist analyzes the latest Signal data. A pioneer prepares to venture further than any human has gone before.

They are connected by a thread of ambition that stretches back to the first human who looked at the stars and wondered what lay beyond. They carry the weight of history and the hope of the future. They are humanity’s answer to the Signal: we are here, we are curious, and we are coming.

The Asterion Signal called. Humanity answered.

This is their story.