Post Anw47I1ocPf8VKTIW0 by WGAvanDijk@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by WGAvanDijk@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #Anvr0TsqqLG7qGhZ6O by futurebird@sauropods.win
       2024-11-11T11:48:08Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       Since the first days of the pandemic I have a had a reoccurring nightmare/dream:I am a citizen of The Martian Empire (successor to now barren Earth) or perhaps I am on Krypton— in any case we are truly doomed as a civilization (again) and on the dry fallow fields smoke from the rocket factories drifts in toxic shoals. Because, you see, we are all working together (like the godblessed ants themselves!) we are all working to save a little scrap of the human race. 1/
       
 (DIR) Post #AnvtO4J7mp2rNRMkOO by futurebird@sauropods.win
       2024-11-11T12:14:49Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       The historians and social scientists prepare the archives, the engineers perfect the technology of the rockets, the teachers train the young astronauts. Most of them will not make it, but unlike those of us too old to train for such a mission they have a sliver of a chance. And they are constantly reminded of this fact: but they are just children and they can sense the quiet panic that permeates this world. They are terrified. 2/
       
 (DIR) Post #AnvtomCJE7Yl1quggC by futurebird@sauropods.win
       2024-11-11T12:19:38Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       I hope you didn’t expect this to be a subtle nightmare. In the dream I’m fastening them into the big machines drilling them on the emergency procedures and all the while hoping they will have the good sense, someday when they are deep and alone in the emptiness of space, to realize how badly all of the adults have failed them. How very justified they should feel in being very angry.  But they have to be alive to be angry. So I drill them again.3/3
       
 (DIR) Post #Anvu7ZbQHKs3T6ch4C by rayhindle@mastodon.social
       2024-11-11T12:22:54Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @futurebird Sounds like the type of thing Galaxy used to publish!
       
 (DIR) Post #Anw0eXH0YjH7WeAv6u by llewelly@sauropods.win
       2024-11-11T13:36:14Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @futurebird if memory serves, something like a third of early colonial white immigrants died during their first 5 years in the Americas. As a former space exploration enthusiast, it seemed to me there were always some particularly vocal space settlement advocates who were sure a "willingness" to take those kinds of risks was the most important thing for space settlers. They thought children ought to be raised to think those risks were a privilege and a duty.
       
 (DIR) Post #Anw47I1ocPf8VKTIW0 by WGAvanDijk@mastodon.social
       2024-11-11T14:15:01Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @futurebird It resembles the story of the movie "2012":https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190080/(not my favourite movie, not very good, a bit silly even).There are several books with such a storyline, and the first that comes to mind is the horribly bad "Earth 2.0 Exodus" by Paul Henry Wand.Also sounds like it coud be an episode of Stargate SG-1, or Star Trek.
       
 (DIR) Post #AnwS93HMpAlkEv7QjQ by WGAvanDijk@mastodon.social
       2024-11-11T18:44:16Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @futurebird In 2012, National Geographic made a documentary on how humanity would react if a neutron star, twice the mass of our Sun, would come to our solar system, and would utterly destroy all of it.  Humanity has 75 years (or less) to evacuate.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD7x4zWGYxIReview that is spot on when it comes to the many flaws of the documentary:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543838/reviews/?item=rw2845431&ref_=ext_shr_lnk