The Future for Earth?

[cee-dee]

The Salisbury affair and all the idiotic terrorism and fighting gave me cause to think of the future. Will humankind survive? Is the following too far fetched to ever come true? If you like a read, carry on, if you don't, look away NOW?

The Fleet Commander adressed the crews and populations of the one hundred Starships which had been wandering Space for a hundred years:-

"Good Star-rise everyone. I've called you all to now hear this. As you know, we have investigated many, many stars and their Planetary systems and I'm overjoyed to be able to tell you that we have located a small Star towards the edge of the Galaxy with a system of Planets which contain a beautiful Planet comprised of both solid and liquid. Our distant probes initially identified it's possible suitability for us and our more powerful probes have entered the planetary system and returned wonderful data which has confirmed our initial findings.

We now have ten probes in orbit around this Planet and have for landers on the surface. We have confirmed that the liquid is plentiful and the solid masses are extensive. We have video to show you soon and you we see that there is extensive vegetation. Our detectors have found that life exists there but as for intelligent life, we have not detected any yet.

However, we have detected the extensive remains of extensive constructions, buildings and trackways which all seem completely abandoned. These trackways are huge in some areas and from that we assume that some form of intelligent life existed there at one time and they must have used some form of transport as they're far too big for simple foot traffic as we know it. Our probes are continually identifying more constructions, all covered by extensive vegetation.

We have chosen landing sites on four of the largest land masses and I'm pleased to tell you that we have successfully landed there. Our landers are currently clearing vegetation from the area after completing analysis of the land and it's close atmosphere which we have found suitable for us to sustain life.

We will be landing occupied vehicles there before long and in the meantime, all our craft have set course for what we're sure will be our new home.

We have determined that the Planet is rotating and takes an odd number of our time segments to rotate and an odd number of complete rotations to complete one orbit around the star. Accordingly, we are re-setting all our time recorders to the time period of what will be our new Planet. We will now have a new setting for light and dark which will have to accord with the orbit of the Planet around the Star which it seems will cause different seasons as we move towards it's Poles.

As yet, we don't have a name for the new Planet so for now we will just refer to it as Home. Suggestions for a name are welcome.

If you look to your new screens now, you will see some video taken from orbit and that is followed by that of our landing. Initial video of the situation there shows the vegetation at the landing site and the taller vegetation further away. Now we have zoomed in on some huge constructions which can clearly be seen as having been constructed by intelligent life of some sort.

Now, the Planet has one Moon which is devoid of any life or vegetation and that has a very thin atmosphere and low gravity. The other Planets in that Star system are not suitable for our life but Home is most welcoming. When we first observed it, we were overwhelmed by its beauty, the first observers called it the Blue Planet.

We have decided to call one orbit a year and one revolution a day. The light time we will call day and the dark time we will call night. The length of day and night will depend on seasons. As we have been trying to find a new home for so long, no-one will have memory of seasons or light and dark times so for the rest of our journey we will have an equal light and dark time to get used to it. We will take what is a year on our new home to get there and it will be some time before we start the process of slowing to enter the orbit of Home.

Once we are in a stable and slow, low orbit we will begin the process of transporting everyone to land. We have decided that our Starships will remain in orbit for some time. As the Starships are far too large to land, eventually, once we are settled at Home, the Starships will be stripped of all useful materials before we set them on course for destruction in the Star.

The Star appears to have a useful life of at least 4 billion years, that is, using the time calculations based on that of Home. That being so, we don't have to concern ourselves with another move for a considerable time.

One main thing we will have to determine is what happened to the intelligent form of life which must have existed there at one time and how long ago it was that they disappeared. Initial observations based on vegetation growth seem to put that at around a hundred Home years.

You may all now resume your duties and look forward to preparing for our arrival at Home. May the Luck of the Stars be with you."

[cee-dee]

Go on, stretch the meaning......

I wonder if you've been to parts of India where there is "human waste" in the "streets"? In a paddy field there was a bloke cleaning his teeth (!!!), a woman doing the washing and another bloke having a "wash". Nice mixture?

[upthecreekyetagain]

All true and that is where a country with a high population density has totally different problems. 

Progress over the last 70 years has been remarkable and will surely only continue.  They have already taken millions of jobs from the First World countries and will no doubt continue to do so as more and more of their youngsters gain a higher and higher level of education. .

Can you imagine what countries the size of India and China will look like when they do have the same level of infrastructure, health care and education as seen in Europe and North America?

We need to ensure that the UK continues to innovate when it comes to services, technology and industry or we could well find that in another 70 years China and India will be offering us assistance. 

[cee-dee]

We might well beg for assistance but we won't get any. They'll be reminding us what happened when we first went in to there and from many countries we'd get "You thrashed my granddad"......