Prologue Part 3- The Final Frontier
August 19th, 2037
The shipyard's construction cradle began to open. Inside the hangar at Moon Base 1, light shone from hundreds of windows, outlining the silhouettes of the thousands of humans gathered to watch history being made. The doors had finally finished opening, with the cradle itself beginning to move up. As it moved up, higher and higher above the surface of Earth's only natural satellite, United Earth President Andrei Rosenkov finally laid eyes on humanity's first starship. It was 300 meters in length, painted grey, and was mostly made up of square blocks. All in all, it was beautiful. The lights from the surrounding facility glinted off the polished hull plating as the ship was hoisted higher and higher. Finally, the cradle stopped moving up. It began to slowly tilt over, bringing the ship over until it was horizontal, parallel with the ground. As the cradle stopped, he moved forward, ready to address the inhabitants of the planet below. He lifted the transmitter to his mouth, and began to speak.
"Citizens of Earth, what happens today will mark the start of a new era in human history." pausing for effect, he continued.
"Today, we are all about to witness the launch of the first human starship. It will usher in an age of unparalleled exploration, an age of new discoveries, and, god willing, an age of new friends and prosperity."
"With the help of our salarian guests, we have constructed the vessel which lies in front of me. It is a sign of what we can do if we all work together, what we can do as a unified humanity! Today is a day that we will all remember! Today is the day that we start to show the galaxy what humanity is capable of!" He cut the transmitter, before turning to one of the men next to him. "How did I do?" he asked.
"Pretty good sir." the agent said.
Several ports opened on the side of the starship, slowly beginning to glow a bright orange. The ship began to rise, the cradle's arms opening to allow it to exit. Applause and cheering erupted from the watching crowd. The ship slowly angled up, before igniting its four rear mounted engines, causing them to glow a brilliant blue-white, and soaring up into orbit. A picture of the ship rising from the cradle would be plastered all over the news for the next few days. The launch of the UES Marco Polo was a spectacular success.
Captain Samuel Kerrington looked over his bridge crew, a massive smile plastered over his face. The remaining human crew bore similar expressions as they worked their stations, the one exception being Raelon Kirian, the salarian overseeing the ship. The Marco Polo was supposed to do a simple shakedown run, one orbit around the moon, 1 orbit around earth, before docking with the newly renovated ISS. The ISS had undergone a massive overhaul, incorporating significant amounts of salarian technology, as well as a docking cradle capable of fitting the Marco Polo. The ship itself carried a crew of 35, and was a significant investment for the newly created United Earth Alliance. It used up a third of the element zero that the Salarians had brought with them as part of their uplift plans. The salarians themselves worked closely with alliance engineers and scientists to create the ship, correcting errors that the humans did not even know existed. If it weren't for the salarians, the ship would have fell apart as soon as it gunned the main engines. The ship was unarmed, merely a testbed for future human technology. It was, however, equipped with several lateral mounted hardpoints capable of mounting either additional living and storage compartments to facilitate the UEA's colonization plans, or experimental asteroid mining equipment, as the Marco Polo would be rented out to various corporations as a mining vessel. The primary goal was to find more element zero, and the ship was capable of going almost anywhere within a light year of the sun. The corporates were already drawing out plans for the Marco Polo, as well as its two sister ships still under construction. They were aiming to mine as far as the Oort cloud, searching for a vein of element zero. The rare substance was more valuable than gold, and everyone wanted as much of it as possible. However, before the corporations could get their hands on it, the Marco polo was scheduled to be equipped with living and storage quarters, as it was chartered to establish a small colony on Mars. A colony site was already picked out, near the south pole. The poles would provide water for the colony as it was set up, allowing for rapid creation of hydroponic farms. Mars would be the next site of human expansion, and all that was needed was the go-ahead from the people up the command chain.
The shakedown run lasted for about four hours, then the ISS came into view. Its docking cradle opened up, ready to receive the starship it was built for. The docking went flawlessly, and the crew exploded into cheers. Humanity's first starship had been launched, and its first cruise went perfectly. It was a good day to be human.
November 2nd, 2037
Ryan Moreau drove the M-22 Thresher rover extremely carefully over the martian surface. The scientists had found something about 53 miles to the south of the base. The vehicle's VI chimed in "We are currently 2.4 miles away from the destination. Deceleration is suggested in 2.2 minutes." It shut off. Its voice drove Ryan nuts. Flat, emotionless, inhuman. It was like car cancer, cutting into the experience of driving what would otherwise have been an amazing vehicle. "Immediate deceleration is suggested in 30 secconds." The VI cut into his thoughts. Slowly braking the vehicle, he came to a stop mere meters from the destination. A short jingle played. "Congratulations! You have arrived at your destination! You may now dance happily because you are a GENIUS!" The VI chimed in an absurdly cheerful tone. One of the scientists laughed, showing that he was the one who re-programmed the VI to say that. Ryan got up and glared at him. The scientist quickly sobered up, before shouting to the rest of his team. They put on vac-suits, signalling that they were ready. The inner airlock door opened, and the scientist piled in. That was the best part of the job, watching 8 scientists in bulky vac-suits pile into a tiny room. The door closed, and several seconds later, the outer door opened. Ryan watched the rear-view camera expectantly. Sure enough, 8 scientists tumbled out of the airlock, falling head over heels and landing in an almost comical fashion at the bottom of the rear ramp. They stood up, one by one, clearly composing themselves, before they ran towards the strange structure.
BREAKING NEWS! Alien Ruins Located on Mars! The news was all over the world in minutes. Ancient alien ruins, which the salarians confirmed as prothean, had been found on mars. The Marco Polo had been diverted from its next corporate mining assignment in order to bring a group of scientists to the surface to study the ruins in detail. The technology was evidently far ahead of anything the humans, or salarians, for that matter, had to offer. An intact computer archive had already been located, and a human science team was hard at work decrypting the information inside. Over the next few days, however, nothing but disappointment was revealed, as most of the data inside was what humanity already knew from the salarians. There was only one truly useful tidbit of information recovered, and that was a map of all element zero deposits in the solar system. Interestingly, the kuiper belt and the Oort cloud were not covered by the database, implying that the protheans had simply ignored those regions of space. The discovery of these element zero nodes was enough to catapult humanity into the interstellar age, fueling the development of next generation starships and technology.
Morvan watched the human news broadcast with disinterest. It was about yet another Eezo vein being located in the asteroid belt, with one of the new corporate mining vessels quickly cleaning it out. He had accomplished the first part of his mission, but he had failed the second. His team had uplifted the humans, giving them technology beyond their wildest dreams, but he had failed to bring them under salarian control. Humanity had found a prothean ruin, and it broke the young race off of their dependence on salarian tech. He had failed the counselor. Humanity would emerge into the stars, not as vassals of the salarians, but as their own power, and as a force to be reckoned with.
And there it is! The prologue arc is complete! Tomorrow will be timelines showing human advancement until their next contact, and descriptions of human technology!