The year is 2035 and humanity is taking large steps towards unifying as a whole. New inventions in quantum physics is improving the daily lives of citizens in all well developed areas of earth.
But that same year disaster strikes: A huge gamma ray originating from the andromeda galaxy strikes the sun, critically damaging several layers. The sun starts to burn a gigantic amount of its resources in a short span of time and will eat itself up and explode in aproximately 30 years.
This discovery shakes humanity to its core, resulting in mass panics and suicides. The worlds space programs unity under one common goal: Get humanity of earth.
In 2037 the first breakthrough in propulsion is discovered. Using the now thanks to quantum physics available antimatter and making it collide with normal matter creates massive thrust which allows a ship to reach mars in 15-20 days. These engines constantly need to rotate to prevent to much antimatter from escaping.
In 2040 it is becoming abundantly clear that the sun won't survive forever, as the first major temperature dips are noticed.
2042 is a great year in terms of technology. Along with much more powerful generators a way to breach the light barrier is found: By creating a quantum field exactly 3 nanometers above the ships hull, one can bend the laws of physics to allow for travel at ANY speed. It can also dissolve objects up to 20m in diameter by changing the way atoms behave, though this is very energy consuming.
In 2043 development and construction of a huge spaceship is started, initial plans stating that it must be at least 3500m long to accommodate all the generators. There were to problems however: One, where to fit 7.6 billion humans into the ship and Two, where to get the massive amount of resources needed to keep the engines and the FTL-field generator online. Construction is temporarily stopped.
2046, another breakthrough, this time solving the matter of space in the ship. The first human is successfully uploaded into a computer. This still requires a lot of room, extending the size to a minimum of 5000m, but it is now possible to store every human on earth.
It was just in time too, as temperatures had already fallen by 20 degrees celsius, making some parts of the world uninhabitable. Construction is started again starting with the rear of the ship until the resource problem is solved. The first few men and women are transfered to computers, where they wait in suspension until the ship is finished.
2050, 15 years until the sun would have eaten all its matter and as a result would explode in a supernova, destroying earth with it. 2050 is also the year in which the resource problem was solved. Using a highly focused beam of, again, antimatter combined with magnetically charged matter, a "weapon " was created, that was capable of dissolving anything it hit into its base components/elements and with the magnets sending the newly mined matter back into the ship. This raised new problems however, as One, the gun with generators and other essential components was 1km long, requiriering more space in the ship, Two, it needed storage containers storing the atoms, which needed to be suspended in a quantum field to prevent the condensed matter within from turning into a black hole and Three, it would be a massive weakspot as when firing, the quantum field would have to be removed to prevent the newly gathered atoms from instantly dissolving. The last part was solved by enclosing the cannon in the huge plates that could be opened at will, also giving the ship a more streamlined appearance.
In 2055, with 10 years left, the ship was moved to south america, as anywhere further north was uninhabitable. Everybody bot the workers were by now uploaded to the ship. The ship was officially called "The Beacon".
In 2061, finally, the ship took of with all the 7.6 billion humans, or more their minds, on board, thus starting humanities long journey through space.