The Great Dimming | Archive | The Starset Bulletin
The Starset Bulletin has been proud to serve the solar system for the last fifty years. As an independent free press, we welcome voices from all walks of life and all beliefs to share their opinions with the world through the news they report. In our time keeping everyone as informed as we can, we have reported on thousands, even hundreds of thousands of stories. Some of these stories hold a special place in our hearts, and in light of our anniversary this year, we would like to share some of our most memorable stories with all of you. Longtime readers may remember many of these monumental pieces, but none are as influential or important as the first three we’ll be posting this week. Twenty years ago earlier this year the Great Dimming was officially confirmed, and the solar system reacted in hundreds of different ways, some better than others. During that tumultuous time, I asked each of my writers to share their own reaction to the news. Three of those writers are still employed full-time here at the Bulletin: Kayden Corvin, Emelix Nay’deth, and Rosalae Rovath. Our first three archive posts will be those reactions to the Great Dimming.
Thank you all for your continued support of the Starset Bulletin and everything that we represent. We hope that you enjoy this blast from the past as we celebrate our semi-centennial anniversary.
-Winson Hedcliffe, Editor-in-Chief
The Great Dimming
For thousands of years, humanity has lived; people are born, grow and strive, and die every day. Doomsdays are predicted every decade or so, and yet humanity has soldiered on, clawing their way through seasons of extreme heat and cold, through flooding and drought, through crossing oceans to crossing the solar system itself. Through all of these years, people have always known that what is must one day end, but never has that ‘one day’ been as undeniable as it was three days ago on February 14th, in the year 381 A.C.E. Official reports were leaked from Cornelius Bay, a solar monitoring station located on Saturn and operated by the Supreme Republic of Man. It speaks volumes that these reports were leaked, rather than reported directly by the SRM as soon as the findings were made, and I hope, for their own sake, the brave man or woman who shared them with the world still has both their job and their life. This critical information will inform decisions across the solar system, both personal and political for many years to come.
The leaked reports show that the Oort Cloud is, as had been previously speculated, collapsing. Generously, humanity has less than three hundred years of life remaining. The Oort Cloud is the name for the barrier between our Milky Way and the rest of the galaxy. Our lone shield of defense, preventing extra-galatic material from the far reaches of space from continually pelting our planet, has at long-last failed us. Stars are going out, astrological charts are inaccurate, and humanity is alone, lost, and scared. Like a little boy standing in the fairgrounds, surrounded by people but with no one to help him, humanity is faced with one more pressing question. Will we sit down, hug our knees to our chest, and cry? Will we wait for our apparently inevitable fate to swoop in and take us out? Or will we cry out into the passing crowd, making our voices heard and facing the approaching darkness with the courage of reckless explorers who will not be beaten by a strong storm and a damaged compass. It took Thomas Edison less than fifty years to invent the lightbulb. It took Braden E. Jones less than sixty to invent the Jones Turbine. Why should humanity surrender now? Give accomplished scientists the will and the drive to succeed, and we can create miracles.
The Oort Cloud is collapsing, and humanity is living on a timer. The stars are dimming, and the galaxy is coming for us, but now is the time when humanity will shine the greatest–we need only pursue excellence and invention, not despair. Do not surrender. Do not give up hope. Humanity has overcome before, and it will overcome again.
-Kayden Corvin, journalist of the Starset Bulletin
Comments