Science Fiction: It Was The Worst Of Times

Science Fiction Paper “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” - Charles Dickens. I guess if you think about it, this applies to me. How many people on Earth really are lucky enough to realize the moment they’ve always dreamed about? To look back at your boyhood self, starry-eyed and full of ambition, and think, Yeah, you did it. You made it. I sure as hell didn’t think that, much less so soon. I’m coming up to my mountaintop, my light at the end of the dark tunnel of hopelessness; everything I’ve ever dreamed about is suddenly right before me, waiting to be grasped. And still, I’ve never been so terrified. “It was the worst of times.” There’s a certain apprehension that follows breaking new ground. Chuck Yeager, the first …show more content…
All we have is an exit strategy, an exit strategy that begins with me, Matt Winfield, Captain of the Perseverance, the ship that will bring new life to the planet Mars. Almost half a year ago, a colossal coronal mass ejection devastated the Earth; electronics were all but wiped out, billions died from radiation poisoning, and some of our necessary resources were irreparably damaged. We tried to save ourselves. We were given warning of the incoming doomsday, but not all had the means of escape. Those who did not heed the orders to evacuate to their underground catacombs perished quickly, some couldn’t get deep enough to escape the radiation – they were less lucky. My family, initially reluctant to retreat and leave their home, followed me underground; all survived.
Our green and blue planet barely resembles itself now. Almost all of the vegetation is a sick, deathly brown, far past the point of use. The water and all of its life has been poisoned, and the land-dwelling animals are all dead. No one dares venture to the surface of Earth, for fear of toxic solar radiation. Not a soul has extensively seen the light of day in …show more content…
I spent my first twenty years out of college with SEA, ten in advanced aeronautical school, ten on a research team, training to be a pilot on the side. After the CME, I thought I’d be out of a job; with so much chaos happening on Earth, people didn’t have time to point their noses to the sky. However, SEA in secret began working on a new initiative upon its inauguration, an initiative to populate and start a colony on Mars, in case a situation like the one we’re in were ever to happen. It’s a good thing they did, too; had they started developing this plan only five years later, humanity would be spending over half that time