Humanity's Last Hope: Fin (The Continued Post of Last Week's Blog Post "Humanity's Last Hope.")

Humanity's Last Hope

11/06/2015 4:58PM

The year is 2471, at this point in time, Earth is suffering from overpopulation and has been depleted of many of its resources; Climate change has caused animal populations to die and rising sea levels have completely destroyed some cities. These monstrous problems motivated the major countries of the world to set aside their political differences and allocate all their remaining resources and talent to help solve Earth's disastrous problems. These countries founded a new government so that the entire world is under one government to be better organized with dealing with Earth's major issues.  This new government has been working with a private space company, Graham's Aerospace Research Company, to help combat these issues on Earth. This private space company was founded by Trillionaire, Matthew Graham, originally as an asteroid mining company (which is how he acquired his insane wealth) but has since been putting his wealth into colonization of the Moon and various satellite bodies in the Kuiper belt, terraforming Mars and Europa for future colonization, as well as stabilizing Earth's runaway atmosphere to help restore balance to the environment to help animal populations (1, stock setting). 

This leads to the current situation (2). A team of researchers are investigating a dwarf planetary body, named KBB196, deep in the Kuiper belt that could potentially be habitable. The crew is on their ship, "Sagittarius 12" approaching KBB196, they are currently 7.11 hours from arrival.

"Hey Captain Janson, can you go over landing protocol for KBB196? I know it is a dwarf planet with some rather unusual atmospheric composition and I want to make sure I program the landing system right for when the descent rockets have to turn on."

"No problem Marcus, the, albeit very thin, atmosphere of KBB196 is mainly composed of Methane, CO2,  Nitrogen and Oxygen, with trace amounts of Carbon tetrafluoride gases and Sulphur compounds. This is unusual because normally, this far out, especially being in the Kuiper Belt, a dwarf planet shouldn't have this much methane or carbon dioxide in its atmosphere. What you'll have to do is program the computer so that it turns on the afterburners once we get through the methane part of the atmosphere so that way the rocket doesn't ignite any of the methane and destroy the ship. The methane is in the upper part of the atmosphere so we won't have to experience as much deceleration once we clear it. So program the landing pod to safely get us down there, once you do that, we will enter our life-support chambers and be put under for the landing. After we land, we will be woken up and do some data checking and surveying to then begin our mission. "

"Thanks for letting me know, I'll get on that."

"No problem, remember crew, we are here because we have to see if this planet has any signs of life. We have to collect samples for the lab,  Commander Harper, that is your job, you're the crew botanist, elaborate on that."

"Right, so, as Captain said, I am the crew botanist, and it is my job to make sure that all samples collected remain safe and preserved and also that we are completely sterile so we do not introduce any earth bacteria or microbes to the environment of KBB196. We are going to be landing near a large basin that is said to have large amounts of salt water and methane in it as well as be near a river that has flowing liquid methane and trace mounts of sulphur dioxide. Chances are, there is some microbial life. This is not some mission that some people made a movie about centuries ago called The Martian (3, allusion), this isn't science-fiction (genre 4), remember, this is real, so we have to take extreme caution in our actions and treat it as a serious manner. We are determining whether this place could be a place humans could live."

The crew mechanical engineer, Yinsen, spoke up, "So what if there is no evidence (5) of life? How will we convey this data to the public? I'm not trying to have an argument or anything, but we don't know if there is life on this planet."

"You're right," Commander Harper said, "but, remember, we have to do all we can to support our statement that this could be a worthy place to live. Human lives are at stake. If we find no data (6) that says this place is habitable, we have to find data that supports it would be feasible to terraform it. It's about the delivery (7) and the editing (8) of said delivery; no matter what we find, we just have to make sure that the public buys into it. As centuries ago, a famous man once said, 'ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country (9, antimetabole).' In this case, our country is Earth, and what we are doing for it involves trying to save the people on it."

The crew biologist, John, spoke up, "What Commander Harper said. But as a generalization (10), by simply reading (11) or using efferent reading (12) the mission outline of KBB196, since we are the audience (13) for whom it was meant, you could see that we are here on scientific inquiry that has big implications."

Commander Harper replied, "yeah, what John said. That's (contraction, 14) a confirmation (15)of our mission: we are here on scientific inquiry with big implications. It is not an understatement (16) that what we are doing is important, but, no need to make it some hyperbole (17) of purpose. The planet is like the moon of Saturn, Titan: It is an isolated wasteland (metaphor, 18)and our mission is as serious as a cat finding food in some desperate time (simile, 19).  It's about survival--life or death of the human race. Our mission can be thought of as a symbol (20) for how courageous and inventive humans are. We are on the edge of the solar system seeking to save the human race after all."

Captain Johnson alerted the crew: "Alright everybody, enough discussion about our mission. Marcus is done with coding the computer for the landing system, Get in your chambers and rest up, we have a long day ahead of us approaching."

--TO BE CONTINUED--




































However, these were the last words recorded on the ship's voice monitoring system (the engineers and scientists back on Earth thought it would be a good idea to record and listen in on the conversations that the astronauts were having for psychological reasons as well as logistical/emergency reasons). As the astronauts went to deep sleep in their pods, they were to never awake again. The atmosphere of KBB196 was unexpectedly turbulent and caused an electrical misfiring in the fusion reaction chamber of the ship's engine, causing an explosion that rocked the spacecraft, destroying a significant mass of the hull and 17 out of the 30 descent rockets, leading it to spiral downwards and crash on the surface of KBB196. Due to safety protocol, once the astronauts are in deep slumber, the programming of their life-support chambers is instructed to not wake the astronauts but make sure they stay under so they have an increased chance of surviving any emergency situation. Once the ship hit the surface of KBB196, it was smashed into two main parts and was utterly obliterated. The northern part of the spacecraft (where the astronauts were) remained recognizable (if one compared it to its condition just after the descent rockets exploded) but the back half of the ship was completely destroyed--it exploded and was just a flaming heap of metal. This is where the story begins. 

It has been 2 years since the incident. When Graham's Aerospace Research Company had to inform the world of the news, it would go down as one of the most tragic events in history. In such a desperate time and after a few major successes, one of the company's biggest endeavors resulted in an enormous failure. Lives were lost, and a sense of hopelessness enraptured the world as people began to wonder if their species was doomed for extinction and that there was nothing that humans, in all of their ingenuity, could do to save themselves. To investigate the crash of Sagittarius 12 and seek closure, Graham's Aerospace Research Company's CEO, Matt Graham, decided to send his personal quantum computer-controlled AI bot, Vincent, hoping to gain insight as to what happened that fatal day (though this ached Matt very much, for he loved and admired Vincent, he needed to see what exactly happened to the crew and determine whether the planet would still be worth the effort of terraforming). 

Vincent (who Matt refers to as "he" when speaking about his beloved bot) stands at seven feet tall, and is composed of four columns that are all linked together (so if Vincent was to stand straight, he would look like four, seven foot tall columns squeezed together). Being a self-aware quantum computing based robot, he is extremely gifted. He can compute large orders of numbers and extreme data in seconds and provide a rather humorous, sometimes mildly sarcastic response. Vincent is also a very personable and non-violent being (Vincent views violence as inefficiency and a waste of one's energy), while he does not yet fully understand human emotion (he understands elements of it, thus, he can provide mildly sarcastic/humorous witty answers at times), he is there for Matt and is one of the only beings in which Matt confides and equally, Vincent loves talking to Matt and appreciates his master's company. Vincent's pastimes (he will tell you he does love having time to himself and doing things he enjoys) include running astrophysical and geophysical experiments as well as gathering data on human actions, counting the digits of Pi, reading about human psychology and anatomy as well as history, play chess, and his favorite: dreaming. Yes, Vincent can dream. He was programmed to be a self-aware machine that stores his daily data in a log and everyday, rests so that he can repair and improve any damaged lines of computer code. This is arguably the most interesting aspect about Vincent, simply because it is the most human aspect about Vincent. Like a human interacts with its world and makes and stores memories in its brain, Vincent does the equivalent, and like humans, as a result and stated in existing dream theory, dreams. Another very personified aspect about Vincent is Vincent experiences wants. For example, Vincent would love to be a human being, not a robot that does not have a pair of  arms and legs, eyes, ears, nostrils, and a mouth. Instead, Vincent is a uniquely designed robot that can traverse any terrain at a speed between 0mph and 30 mph (however, in drastic, emergency situations, Vincent can travel at a top speed of 120 mph, but will then need a lot of time to recover, as this is heavily damaging to Vincent's body) and remain functional with a temperature range of -370 degrees Fahrenheit all the way to a searing 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Vincent does not "walk" like the traditional human does, instead, given his design, he uses a combination of his columns to move much like how an ape would use their hands and feet in unison to move: like a mild gallop. One aspect Vincent loves about himself is his ability to die. Vincent likes this because, since he wants to be a human, not a highly intelligent, self learning machine, he, like a human, can die and, potentially, be the cause of his death. Vincent feels a certain sense of pride with this, being a self-aware robot, he can deem when his purpose for existence (whatever he determines this to be) is gone and therefore, either choose whether to keep living, or, die. However, like a human, Vincent is currently struggling to determine what his reason to exist is. He has come up with three plausible hypotheses for his existence. His first hypothesis is that he exists in order to serve his creator and master, Matthew Graham, until Matthew Graham dies. His second hypothesis is that he exists in order to help the human race survive, therefore, engraining in history, the importance of his master, Matthew Graham, for the eons. His third, and final hypothesis for existence, is that he exists to establish a new race of self-actualizing robots that can carry on the existence and reasons of existence that humans had if the human race does not survive their perils. This last one causes Vincent much trouble because it takes into account why humans live, something that Vincent is still trying to figure out. 

It was on Vincent's personal spaceship (while on the way to KBB196) when he heard the news. His master and loving creator, Matthew Graham, died from the bullet of a radical assassin who believed that the Lord Jesus Christ had already determined how the human race will end and that Matt was interfering with the Lord's plans. At that moment in time, Vincent understood what emotion was and what love was. He felt sad and grieved for the loss of his creator. He loved his creator. Matt was the one person who gave him life, the one person who helped Vincent become what he is today. Vincent was furious at the religious extremist who killed the one person Vincent ever loved and cared for. He began to question the importance and existence of the human race. He questioned if they were all radical beings that deserved the potential outcome of their irresponsible actions and if he should help the human race. He questioned if Matt would approve of this line of thought because Matt was a caring soul who was not extremist and always told Vincent that in order to leave a positive mark on the world and ensure one's memory is preserved, one has to do good for the world on such a level that people will appreciate one's actions and make sure the entity who did the good actions will be remembered and honored. Basically, what Vincent began to question was "should I help the human race and ensure their survival? Or should I let the natural effect of their actions take over and be passive as I watch the demise of the human race. Would my master, Matthew Graham, a human, approve of this?" Vincent realized, "I now control the destiny and future of mankind. I, am humanity's last hope."