Random stories

I’m an old man now, but I was young when they left. You have to understand how bad it was in those days- the air wanted to choke us, the earth wanted to drown us and anyone upset enough with things to want to change them was too tired to do anything about it. Early 30’s news started telling us there was a plan to get us off of earth and we were all so happy. I grew up hearing every day that it was the end of the world and now there was a shining hope. There was a slew of movies and shows about exploring the universe and sexy aliens and they started calling my generation the “spacers”. Born just in time to explore the stars.

Well that’s how it started anyway. The first year the president and nasa promised, tears in their eyes, “a seat for every human”. News crews started filming the building of “The Adam” and to most of us the scale seemed wild. They had to build the thing in orbit and press people said it was “the size of Texas”. The sensible people came out of the woodwork on the internet and started talking about how that couldn’t be possible, we didn’t have the science to build something on that scale. Some of em were even experts in their field. They were dismissed as “doomers” and most people ignored them. Eventually their point that even if the Adam was as big as reported it wouldn’t be enough space for every person started to stick though.

The next year the story was that many ships like the Adam would be built. Then they started talking about the “advance party”. A group of experts and the best humanity had to offer to prepare a planet for the rest of us. There were leaks at that point of the Adam’s actual scale and that other ships weren’t getting built. We didn’t mind though- this was a good plan, send our best first and then we can come next- of course it would take a while and the Adam was coming together very quickly now.

You’ve read about what happens next year of course. The worst part for me was how it seemed like nobody did anything when the truth about the real passengers of the Adam came out. The manifest was full of old rich white men, a couple stars, a slew of cronies, toadies, mistresses and servants. 100,000 people all told, and precious few actual explorers or experts. The angel girl who leaked the info on the internet was arrested for treason and strangled in jail. Some believed her but most were busy with life and wrote it off. It wasn’t until the shuttles carrying our old oligarchs left that we realized we had been abandoned.

But here’s the thing- not much really changed at first. For all the wealth they had, these rulers contributed very little. For a while the people the oligarchs had chosen to fill the vaccum tried to maintain the status quo. But something had changed. The soul of the people of earth had been hurt and for a moment in time we all understood that the rich weren’t good or special or deserved to be followed- they had betrayed us at every turn and proved at the last that they were unworthy of us. The next 5 years- the years of the guillotine- were spent in a frenzy of destruction the world over. In the end we realized that poor people have no reason to hurt each other- that we aren’t so different.

That’s when we felt the truth- we hadn’t been abandoned- our yoke had been lifted. We could feed everyone, house everyone- give everyone the chance to breathe and think. The money we had been slaves to was all pretend anyway and we were free to put value where it belonged. In the 50’s a couple kids who would have starved in India invented telomerex- and all of a sudden people could live a lot lot longer. I didn’t get it soon enough to save me from the grey hair but that’s alright by me.

We all started taking the long view. We didn’t waste effort making fake value. We didn’t rob tomorrow for today. We didn’t value one person, no matter how smart or strong or likable above another. You were born in a world like this but I can’t express enough how much better it is. We were cattle once. Cattle to feed the ego of the spoiled.

So you tell me the oligarchs are coming back. They’ll be here in a few years, and they’re sending messages of peace and reconciliation. I have lived a millennia and I’m telling you now- it’s not long enough to forgive them. Even if it was, a hundred millennia wouldn’t be long enough for me to trust them. Happiness was a zero sum game to them and there’s nothing they wouldn’t do to get what they wanted. None of them were moral- you can’t have as much as them when your neighbor has so little and be moral. They tricked us, threatened us, killed us as they liked. The world was theirs and it suffered in their hands.

I don’t like violence- I see my progeny and I smile in this land of peace, a land without desperation. I laid down my weapons a long long time ago. I tell you this so you understand- treat them like a boat full of plague. Stop up your ears to their message. Trust nothing they say. You have become so much better than I ever was- make your best decision. I believe in you. You did ask for my recommendation though, and I’m telling it to you now-

Nuke them from orbit.

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Submitted by VorpalLongsword on Tue, Jan 10, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

A millennium ago, only the wealthiest were allowed to board the ship, allowed to escape this dying planet into space. In their absence the world healed and humanity built a new utopia. Now, the ulta-rich have returned and want to reap the benefits of the new world.