Exodus From Earth

"Journeymen" is the name given by the Americans to what the European Union dubbed the "Voyageurs d'etoile" - the star travelers. They were the first alien race to make contact with Earth. In 2015, their ships arrived, spending two days studying terrestrial radio broadcasts and analyzing our languages. They began transmitting mathematical information via radio, and after an understandable period of international uncertainty, European, Japanese, and American scientists coordinated efforts to respond and open a dialogue.

The creatures inspired no great kinship in humanity. They were almost fifty feet tall, and resembled nothing more than shapeless blobs of woven wax that moved in unnerving fashions. Nevertheless they possessed keen minds and a high science.

It took several days to establish and verify a translation system, but the Journeymen managed it. In their crisply artificial English they told the world that they had come to bring mankind away from its cradle. Humanity was to visit the stars. Indeed, it had no choice but to do so.

Something was destroying the universe. Moving almost exactly at lightspeed, a phenomenon was spreading outward. Its origin was roughly known; the position of the wave-front that marked the boundary between spacetime and the unknown was well-charted. Earth had roughly a century left to it. The Journeymen offered proof of it, with enough scientific data to satisfy Terra's skeptics. They offered assistance, too - limited technology, and resources enough to bootstrap an evacuation effort. They had other planets to visit as well, worlds they suspected life would be found on, and they wished to continue their mission of warning.

Aided by robots, the nations of Earth began to mine the asteroid belt in earnest. They assembled vast propulsion systems, drawing on their patrons' advanced nuclear engines and drives to form the backbone of a fleet of "Arks". Each Ark would hold ten million people at peak capacity. Each was to be a city, and political and military wars were fought over the matter in some cases. Sometimes, diversity won out; other times, an Ark would be occupied by people of nearly identical religious or ethnic persuasion. The Journeymen had made only one requirement of mankind - nobody could be left behind.

Each Ark carried with it an Eidolon: a mind of surpassing power, the "strong artificial intelligence" that was the holy grail of Terran computing and the backbone of Journeyman technology. Each Eidolon would be responsible for teaching the science of the Journeymen to the people aboard; none would take any part in the administrative or social issues of life aboard an Ark, even if asked to do so.

One by one the Arks were readied, and launched. Humanity survived the social upheaval of contact with aliens. It survived the religious wars that rocked the globe. It survived the efforts of terrorists and madmen to destroy everything that had shattered their beliefs or offended their sensibilities. It even survived the final panic-laden days of the countdown. The Arks carried with them every bit of human culture their weight limits allowed. Even so, much of the world was left behind. Whatever did not exist in tangible form came with the human race as a memory, a fire burning in the spirits of those who intended to survive the hostile universe awaiting them.