One Small Step for Man
You are one among a quarter million. Literally. Humanity's first generation ship is almost at its first destination, and everyone is abuzz with activity. For the past two generations, people have been shifting from learning to maintain the ship on it’s four hundred year voyage, and instead starting to learn how to begin running the space habitats that were going to fuel the terraforming efforts.
You’re part in all this? You’re the captain. Which might sound exciting, but it was very managerial. Earth didn’t just send you here with a rocket and good luck, they sent you with a gameplan. Build a few mining colonies on the moons and asteroids of the outer solar system for water, nitrogen, and assorted metals. Then start the century long process of terraforming the planet while building various space habitats about the solar system.
Your generation wasn’t even going to be the ones to first set foot on the planet. Unless something unpredictable happens, your job was basically akin to herding cats who had watched to many SciFi videos. And you wouldn’t mind something interesting happening. So many captains before you were just milestone markers on the long journey here. Here you are at the big day, it was looking to be just more unremarkable mundane spacefaring. If only something happened that the egg heads on earth didn’t predict happen.
Careful what you wish for.
A few months away from your new home, your ship is picking up radio broadcasts from their destination. There’s life out there. Intelligent life. And at least one of their cultures is starting to get a handle on industrial era technology. Oh, and it appears to be coming from your primary terraforming target.
Earth had first contact scenarios, but they assumed either space faring or preindustrial. It is going to be forty years before earth received the same radio signals you did, and eighty years before you got a response from them. Rockets aren’t subtle, and if they have radio now they’ll be looking to the skies with tech able to detect you before you’ll hear back from Earth.
Congratulations captain. Whether if you want it or not, you are handling humanity's first contact. Remember your flea collar.
Ancient Furrians
You’re just a simple craftsman in a simple human village. You rise to the sun, you work your trade, and you fall with the moon. Simple, serene, and idyllic. Rural life at it’s finest.
So why are sentient bipedal furry creatures observing you and your kin in secret? Well, you yourself don’t know; they are doing it in secret. They could be time travelers, searching for the secrets to why humanity went extinct back during the bronze age, aka your present. Or they could be furry aliens doing some anthropology with some still living primitive civilizations. Or maybe they are angels, or demons, or genies, or fursuiters. That’s up for the authors to decide.
What we can tell you, dear protagonist, is that your life is about to get a whole lot more interesting. So strap on that linen loincloth, and watch out for any spontaneous growths of fur, scales, or feathers. The last days of humanity might be upon you, but life will go on.
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