The Common Wealth
The common wealth started waking up. They were coming close to something, something big, something real, something the mid range probes have verified, absolutely massive. Something bigger than they were, far bigger. It’s been so long, so very long.
Some of them have woken up several times before, coming across gas or rock or some other form of matter floating in the void. Something big enough to wake some up for, absorbing the mass and moving on, leaving nothing behind. They have even woken up to things that were not there. Data had indicated there was something big, bigger than they were, then hands on indicating nothing was there, Sensors were always adjusted.
This time the Automation determined that everyone should wake up, It started preparations. Probes were coming back with resources. They had come across a mass so large that it extended in both directions beyond the probes sensors. Automation started the colony turning, the colony was flying fast and they did not want to enter this mass immediately. Turning and slowing the colony would take several months before they would be flying along the edge of the mass.
There was a thick heliopause between this mass and the void. The probes which had been out for a couple thousand years were coming back with data about massive structures of matter. Galaxies, Nebula Clouds, There was positive signs of life in some of the galaxies. There was also no clear end to the new mass. The probes had also filled up on the resources they could collect.
All the harvest ships were woken up and headed out into the new mass to gather new resources for use. More probes were woken up and sent out into the mass to also gather information and resources. They had come to mostly a stop on the edge of the heliopause and started traveling laterally with the edge of the mass heading in a random straight direction. They did not want to enter this new mass yet. While they traveled they sent out more probes and more harvest ships into the mass. They only traveled fast enough to not out run their ships.
Most of the probes would continuously launch smaller probes, usually four, up, and down, and left and right, around them after they have traveled so far to get a larger view. All of the ships acted as a relay station to any ships near it. This allowed them quicker communication over larger distances. Even tho their communication method was instant between the locations that were able to communicate with each other, their entanglement communication method had limitations to the distance it was able to penetrate. After such a distance had been passed, without relays, communication became spotty and unreliable and then if became impossible. Using their relay stations provided near instant communication over vast distances.
This was an exciting time. Everyone was going to wake up and those already awake were already making plans. A new life was ahead of them. A sustainable life. They would not have to sleep again. They had come so close. They had ran out of even backup emergency supplies and the automation that was still working had started disassembling the colony for life sustaining resources. This included whole homes that a lot of individuals had within the generation ship and material wealth. It had been grim times indeed. The next step after what could be used of the ship itself and the homes inside would have been the life vessels and their contents. Their civilization was big and required a large amount of resources to sustain even while in stasis in the databanks.
There was normally a large number of individuals printed that slept in lavish homes and took care of daily operations of the ship. They didn’t leave everything solely to the automation normally. Due to the lack of resources, It had been decided to store the awake individuals and leave all operations to a bare minimum of automation systems. There had been an accident on the journey that had destroyed part of the generation ship. Due to the accident, they projected they would run out of resources within a few generations and having everyone stored would save on the resources required to keep them awake and in a biological body.
The individuals that slept within the data banks, only the mind stored as an imprint. Once an individual was ready to be awakened their imprint was queried by automation. Automation took this print and grew a new body for the individual. Once the body was ready the individual would be printed onto the body. The individual would then be given their imprint and they would then be able to carry out whatever their life function
Not everyone was a full biological entity. Some were a mix of biological and mechanical. Being purely mechanical was a rare thing, except for when it came to being a pilot, as it was considered to the masses as a way to easily loose your mind and connection with your self being. As such, most of the individuals were fully biological creatures and choose to be awake only when they were in their bodies. This is one of the reasons that they did not purely exist in a virtual form inside of the data banks. Physical touch had meaning to their culture and it was a way to stay connected with who you were.
A large majority of the population that were purely biological still had the nanobots in them. Only a very few choose to have not even the nanites in them. The nanobots helped provide the great health and long life that everyone enjoyed along with a stronger connection to the shared thought.
The generation ship did not have a captain that existed purely in the virtual environment other than the specific automation that was capable of piloting the ship when all the crew were asleep.
A large number of probes were individual Captains who had eventually chosen to become pilots, merging with the ships data banks and becoming the ship. Probes were most often to come into First Contact situations and to have no one awake for long periods of time. Due to being most often in a First Contact situation, Being a probe was considered an honor and was reserved for the smartest and oldest of the individuals. Probes got to see for the first time things no one else had ever seen more often than any other ship.
Being chosen to be a ship mate on a probe was also a great honor. Most probes carried a crew of a few million individuals and the quarters were lavish and comfortable. There was also large wide forested and park type open areas that a lot of the ships did not have. The process to be chosen was a lottery of individuals who tested high. Anyone could take the tests if they wanted to. Every individual that passed the tests were assigned to long range harvest ships until they were chosen through the lottery to join a long range probe.
Life on a harvest ship could sometimes be grueling as they often did not have the most lavish quarters that the bigger ships had. Harvest ships were all cargo space.
After this awakening, Individuals would be born in the standard usual manner between a mating of two or more other individuals and then raised by the adult individuals. Many looked forward to rebuilding their homes and continuing on with their lives as they saw fit. Many individuals lived to be thousands of years old. Through their advanced medicine and magical technology they were able to slow down and nearly stop the overall aging process of biology. Individual cells would die off, The organism as a whole would continue to live on almost indefinitely as long as it received sustenance. Couples and groups could sometimes have hundreds of direct offspring over the course of their lives. Deaths beyond accidents were chosen by the individuals themselves. Most choose to live between seventy years and six thousand years of life. There was on occasion an individual that choose to end their life under the seventy mark, although it was much rarer.
This new universe was rapidly expanding and constantly generating vast amounts of resources. It was far larger than anything they could have ever hoped and dreamed for. An near infinite size of matter and resources to lay claim to. None of the ships were reporting any multi-celled sentient lifeforms anywhere so far.
Many of the awakening decided to go ahead and head out on their own with their families and friends and partners and enter the universe to find new homes. This new universe was so vast they could travel for a very long time before deciding on a place to settle. It was a new frontier, The first they had ever encountered that was so impossibly vast. It was even larger than memory of the max sized that their universe had been when it existed. Their sensors could measure all life in their home universe from one side to the other, long before it had started to collapse on itself. Their sensors apparently could only barely penetrate the depth of this new universe. The width of the edge in every direction was far beyond anything they could see. They were detecting vast bumps in the edge, It was not a smooth edge.
Where they had come from they had used up all the resources there and had in an attempt to continue life built a massive generation ship to go out in the void beyond their universe. Their universe was collapsing from a lack of mass and they were sure that it would collapse into and past a singularity. They did not want their species to die off in such a way. The space outside their universe was so excessively empty and devoid of all matter and anything deemed existence. Creating engines that would work in such non existence was challenging and seemingly impossible at first. After many generations they achieved triumph. Their entire species was working to build the ship they would exist on in the great space. All available resources were being used and all available ingenuity was being applied to achieve the lowest power consumption while being able to generate power for the longest time possible. They had no idea how long they would be floating through the empty space. Nothing had ever entered their universe from it and most things that attempted to enter the void from inside their universe and exist in it for anytime became lost. There was no bearing in the void. They had to define a way to travel in a straight line over possibly millions of years so they did not turn back in this direction.
Choosing a direction had been a point of contention for a few generations while the finishing touches were being applied to the new generation ship titled the common wealth. It was sitting in the space outside their small universe for a many many generations now without issue and already had the majority of their population living on it. A few had decided to stay, Knowing there were only a few generations of life left, if that in the universe, before it became a singularity. They had decided that they were created and existed in this universe, they would die with it. Condemning their children and children's children if they had any to certain death as the universe collapsed into as far as they knew, nothing.
It was indeed a time to celebrate.
They Have Arrived.