May 2092: Fifty years after the pandemic changed the world.

       I must apologize for not checking in earlier. I have been very busy in retirement and everything that I experience is now automatically picked up and placed in a cloud memory bank so that anyone with any interest in what Drake Hutchins did, is doing or will be doing in the future is easy to access by merely asking for my experience or opinion available instantly through your memory sources and connection to the World Wide Web of information. Soon to extend solar system wide, with some delays in response based on the limits of electromagnetic physics.

       But I must complete this early, sometimes on paper, but mostly just a summary of events that have happened or may happen for the reader to close the book on this book of a style from an earlier time when books were made by only the strong and powerful, making sure that their story was the only story that counted, while millions of humans were used as cannon fodder for war, wealth and power; kept under the spell of the cults of control like religion and political dogma.

       Somewhere along the line, we have learned to defeat the fear of death. The primary driver of all of the cults that ever existed. The promise of something better after human death and after a life of struggle and misery. At 68, Derek and I still feel no older than 20. In fact, in some ways, even better. We are not experiencing the loss of function as we age because any time any part of our bodies start to deteriorate from age, they are replaced either by medication or surgery in painless ways that rejuvenate us and allow all of us in retirement to continue to do what we love to do without bad health restraint.

       Bots maintain our bodily systems better than our immune systems ever did. Gene therapy heads off potential disease, cures diseases, and regenerates whole bodily systems. Implants provide us super memory power and access to the cloud Internet by mere thought without having to use any devices anymore, like the obsolete cell phones, smart pads, and other electronic devices that required the use of rare minerals and created a lot of junk that needed to be recycled. Those of our generation are now generally what would be called in early science fiction, cyborgs. Our bodies so enhanced by AI technology, that we can live our complete lifespan without pain, insecurity or other concerns that have always held humans back from their full potential.

       Hutchins Space Industries is in the process of building Earth 2 with many other firms, after completing Earth 1 just two years ago and learning so much from the process and the many failures. But, with AI help, all were overcome and the population there is growing. Those are mostly young people who are willing to take the risk of living off planet in an artificial planet colony and make it their home. They are the pioneers of 22nd century, just 8 years off. The ones that will lead us off Earth in the future.

       While we still have active research and mining projects on the moon, Mars, and several moons of Jupiter and Saturn, including an outpost on the narrow temperate side of Mercury, where brave human solornauts are making breakthroughs in understanding on very dangerous locations, we have given up any idea of colonizing any of these places. Largely, because of radiation and long-term gravity problems making these places, while suitable for AI androids to operate in, very unhealthy for humans. Researchers are regularly rotated in and out of these places.

       The village of Los Angeles has returned to a megalopolis of earthquake proof, sustainable buildings for work, home and leisure for 835,000 full-time residents. Most of the food is still locally grown from what remains of the city sprawl no longer there, returning to a more pastoral or even wild environment for both pleasure and use as a source of recreation and food. The sky is more filled than ever with personal aircraft and birds. There hasn't been an accident in the last decade because of collision avoidance technology that is so good allowing toddlers to fly for fun. They grow up so fast now.

       I instantly know I have 65 grandchildren and some 23 great-grandchildren. I could, from my cloud memory, reiterate them all but it would bore you. I treat them all with the same love when they come to me for various reasons. Some, just to see who their grandfather really is. And women still come to me and to Derek for children because of our success in life and they want our genes to continue in their line of children. Our generation of males who survived the pandemic have been both the first to enjoy and to be cursed with this urge to repopulate the planet. It is the women that are doing all the work and we greatly appreciate it with their powers of motherhood and caring.

       But Washington DC, in alliance with most of the world leaders, has decided that it is time that our growing population leave the planet for the colonies we are building, so the planet can heal and continue to evolve naturally. And, continue to surprise us with new life without our intervention. The plan is to allow the population of the earth to only reach 1 billion. We have an accurate count of the world population at 800.2 million and rapidly growing.

       The colonies are being built in Earth orbit around the sun with stimulated or gravity to take care of the rest of our population. Each new Earth replica will be able to maintain comfortably, a billion people. Each of us will be able to return to Earth occasionally to view our small planet and how it is changing. Those that stay on the planet will largely be researchers and scientists taking advantage of what evolution and geological/astronomical change is creating.

       In the early 21st century we easily eliminated one of the major causes of Earth extinctions like the demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago by a huge meteor, creating the rise of mammals like us. All we had to do was simply nudge them slightly from their orbits around the sun or planets that they are on. 

       Many of those asteroids and comets have also been corralled for use in our construction of model Earth replacement colonies. Making our near solar system safer all the time from unidentified flying objects traveling at high speeds. The rogue ones coming from deep space outside our solar system–the most dangerous ones.

       All the nuclear waste from all of the bombs and closed nuclear power plants that have not been recycled have been sent to the sun for disposal along with other scourges like non-biodegradable chemicals and plastics. Cleaning the oceans and all of the land-based pollutants that have leached into the soil is an ongoing task that will continue well into the 22nd century. Nature has conquered some, but invasive species, both animal and vegetative kind, continue to plague ecosystems until proper predators can be found to control them naturally.

       Freshwater ice is growing on Antarctica again and sea levels are showing some recession after reaching the predicted high of 69 feet above pre-pandemic levels in the 20th century. The same is true of Greenland where the ice sheet there is growing as well as glaciers and all of the mountains with high enough elevation for glaciers to form. It is not known whether we would be going into another Ice Age or not, but that is one of the things that we will be studying carefully.

       So far, while geological events like volcanoes erupting, earthquakes and tsunamis continue, we haven't had a super volcano, like Yellowstone, yet. But that is one good reason for moving our population to the where the environment can be controlled.

       Of the several super volcanoes on Earth, any one of them can cause a major extinction event. To hedge against that, we will be moving earth fauna and flora to our experimental Earth planet colonies. Also, as a hedge against any major extinction event whether it be another Ice Ball Earth or Fiery Hell Earth like the planet Venus.

       The Earth has a potential of 3 billion years of stable Sun energy before the Sun grows larger and consumes the Earth as it dies. None of us will live that long, but Arthur C. Clarke was right again when he predicted that the human race could expand exponentially into outer space without ever being able to consume all of the energy and matter that is available. Especially our growing knowledge of dark matter we can use.

        While we have been somewhat of a parasite on our planet, that would not be so with an endless universe for us to migrate into without any resistance at all, just mighty cataclysm that we are just beginning to understand that makes our universe the way it is–very dangerous.

       Welcoming us to explore and grow as long as we begin to understand all we have could be gone in an instant. All the more reason for us to leave the planet and find other places to live when our solar system is sucked into a black hole or simply struck by a pulsar.

       Our compound in the Hollywood Hills is being abandoned by our offspring and their offspring for the glamour and excitement of downtown LA where all the action is. Making our village turned into a city one of the top attractions for those coming from all over the world to see.

       It is time for me to turn the page on this report and hopefully, give you another account before Derek and I reach our extended lifespan and leave forever.

Copyright 2024 © Ronald W. Hull

5/25/24