For millions of years, they slept. Then, suddenly, their eyes began to open.
Surrounding each of them was a small, opaque chamber filled with clear,
yellowish liquid. A tube was connected to each of their stomachs. They could only see a soft,
glimmering light through the chamber’s casing.
Deep disorientation set in. Crying echoed out of every chamber. They soon began to thrash inside,
pushing and breaking their way out. Outside was a vast structure that
was somehow both familiar and foreign to them. Long halls led to open foyers and sectioned-off
rooms. There was no one else anywhere. Exterior windows revealed darkness in all directions.
Clusters of stars and planets appeared to be moving slowly past them in the distance.
Where were they? They wondered. Where did they come from? Where were they going?
The group was small. There were one hundred of them. It was a diverse group of fifty males
and fifty females covering a wide spectrum of physical qualities and character traits. They
all seemed to awake with the same relative ability of language and comprehension;
and they all seemed to possess the same innate knowledge. They knew what certain things were, and
they knew the words for those things. They knew they were people with bodies and minds, and they
knew how to use those bodies and minds, though it required lots of improvising and innovation.
Right away, they began to explore the structure. It was massive,
primarily made of metal; but the metal was mostly covered with other kinds of materials
and casings. There were multiple levels, each containing long open hallways separating large,
sealed-off sections. Each section contained different environmental conditions with
different self-sustaining ecosystems. There was water, plants, and animals in each.
The group soon began to call the structure the Space Station.
But with millions of years of unending sleep and millions of memories formed in dreams,
no one knew what the reality was of their past. Reality and dreams blurred together. Consequently,
no one knew their origins or purpose. It was as if they were expected to remember.
Soon, various myths and stories began to form around vague memories. Many opinions
and theories developed—about their origins, their purpose, and their future. The group
consensus became that they and the Space Station were created by Gods. They were selected by the
Gods and put on the Space Station with their purpose being to obey them; and in doing so,
the Space Station would continue moving. As time passed, this belief went through
many changes and broke off into many different versions. Some individuals began to believe
that there was only one God. They simply needed to trust in and follow his guidance,
following the program and autopilot system set by him. If they did, they would be rewarded and
arrive at their final destination where everything would finally make sense.
Years and years would go by. Social structure would develop and advance on the Space Station.
Children were born. Generations of families passed. And yet, still there was no arrival
in sight. More questions began to stack on top of the prior, still-unanswered ones.
During a group-wide meeting regularly held in the Space Station’s central
room to discuss updates, concerns, plans, hopes, and anything else,
one younger member came forward, and brought fully into question the group’s beliefs.
“Why did we awake when we did if there is nowhere to go and nothing to do?” she said.
“Why did God put us here and program our guidance system in this way? Why would we
be awoken to suffer and die for nothing? Years and years of nothing but sickness,
in-fighting, death and loss, the terrible oscillation between boredom and anxiety, the
deep sense of cosmic isolation in a vast darkness inhabited by no one else, trapped in here alone?”
There was a long silence with no direct response to follow.
Soon, the group became consumed by this line of questioning and doubting. They
began to thrash at their surroundings, pushing things open and breaking things
down. They took everything a part and dug into every layer, every component,
every mechanism of the Space Station looking for answers.
After years and years of doing this, they understood how the Space Station worked,
why it worked the way it worked. But beyond that, still nothing. An understanding of how
did not bring them any closer to a why. It all appeared mechanical. Impersonal.
“There is no God. We have killed him,” a twenty-year-old individual named Nihil said
during a meeting. “If we don’t know where we are going, if we are going nowhere, or even if
we are going somewhere but for a reason that has nothing to do with us, why are we continuing at
all? Why keep bringing more people into this? Why keep striving and trying and suffering?
Why not just stop? We can end it now.” There was a long silence. Then,
another individual came forward. It was an older man in his fifties, named Lux, who had
been crucially important in the Space Station’s recent coordination and sustainment of social and
political structures. He had one of the largest families on the Space Station and was highly
respected, though often very quiet. When he came forward, everyone was silent with anticipation.
“Perhaps we were merely put on this Space Station by someone or something to continue
life in the cosmos, to survive.” “But for what?!” Nihil interjected.
“Surely, there was some reason. But a reason in terms of a cause is different than the kind of
reason you’re looking for, that we’ve all been looking for. But maybe that’s just not the kind
of reason we’ll ever find; and the wrong reason to continue looking for. Perhaps the question isn’t
for what reason, or where are we going, but how do we meaningfully keep going without any reason?
In all likelihood, we are aimless out here. Autopilot is no pilot. We have no idea where
we are going or why. We appear to have been put here by someone or something that we have
no memory of or access to. Perhaps it cared about us once; perhaps it didn’t. Perhaps
it did but didn’t know any better. Regardless, it doesn’t seem to know us now. And it doesn’t
seem like we’ll ever know it or them. Maybe we simply woke up too soon. Or
too late. Maybe it thought we would remember or know. Maybe they didn’t know, themselves.
But look around. The grand design of this ship, of us. Maybe it wasn’t God,
but God was it something impressive. We have formed social unions and order, families,
friendships. We have been able to create, to love, to laugh, to experience, and hope. All on our own.
And every day, the stars outside our windows twinkle with a beauty and mystery that transport
us back to the state of awe we experienced in those early days when we first awoke.
Maybe we need to hope for something else to keep going,
but we don’t need anything else to keep going.”