Chapter 22

Translated by SkyTL Edited by SkyTL

Chapter 22: Record of Destruction

We do not know when the idea of anti-Earthism or Astrocentrism arose in Astoria.

However , it is assumed that the germ of this idea was already present on the day and at the moment when the Astoria left the Earth .

However , if one asks when it became politically and economically influential, it was undoubtedly at the time of the rocket engine explosion .

After it was admitted that the cause of the accident was not an operating error of the Astoria, but a design error of the Earth, the movement intensified with rage .

It was during this time that the man who would go down in history as the last leader of the Astorian emerged: William Hawkins .

The son of four generations of council members, he had been devoted to Astrocentrism from a young age, and by the time he graduated from the university, he had developed it to the level of a kind of dogma .

His somewhat radical conspiracy theories and his supernatural or supra-cosmological ideas would have been dismissed in normal times as the ramblings of a madman . But he had an advantage. He had the means to make his ideas known throughout Astoria.

And he had the reason, and more than a little luck, or perhaps bad luck, that so many people were willing to dump their fears and anger elsewhere .

By the time he was fifty, his supporters made up almost half the council.

His faction advocated the radical idea of severing relations with Earth and outlawing the pro-Earth faction, but as might be expected , such an idea never prevailed in the Council . While a number of so-called anti-Earth laws were enacted , they did not change Astoria’s fundamental laws, which required the approval of 70% of the inhabitants .

Although Astoria was more than a dozen light years away from Earth, it still required new technological information from Earth on a regular basis, and not many people really believed that a break with Earth would solve anything, cosmic will or otherwise .

Nevertheless , the Anti-Earth Law succeeded in severely limiting the availability of new information from Earth .

Most importantly , it restricted the function of Ira, Astoria’s chief protector, as she was a symbol of Earth’s dominion . As a result, the already tense situation on the ship was further exacerbated by the engine accident .

The environment aboard the ship was deteriorating by the day, and the Hawkins faction claimed that this deterioration was caused by the incomplete eradication of the Earth faction, and continued to demand more poverty and patience to complete the anti-Earth principle .

The first to vent their frustration were the poor.

They were particularly affected by the deteriorating food situation, but surprisingly , their biggest complaints were not about food . The biggest complaint of the poor was the so-called cultural cleansing policy enacted as part of the Anti-Earth Act, which restricted access to Earth’s visual images, literature, and music .

In any case, their grievances were the first to be aired .

In response, the Hawkins faction labeled the demonstrations illegal pro-Earth riots and attempted to suppress them not only through the use of law enforcement, but also through the use of a group of supporters known as vigilantes, as a private army .

Most Astorians who lost Ira’s protection at this time , whether they were pro-Earth or anti-Earth, did not know how strong the Astoria ship was . Not only the occult-obsessed and scientifically illiterate anti-Earthians, but also the relatively scientifically gifted pro-Earthians would not have known much about their ship without the Ira .

When their dispute escalated to the point of damaging the critical but less redundant resource recycling system, a serious incident occurred .

William Hawkins was murdered .

According to Earth proponents’ records, Hawkins had secretly negotiated with the pro-Earth faction to avert the Astoria disaster . He was probably murdered as a result of internal strife within the anti-Earth faction. However , the anti-earth faction claimed – rightly – that it was the work of the pro-earth faction.

Well, the truth is now in the dark, but it doesn’t matter now.

The problem is that with the loss of Hawkins, the anti-earth faction lost control and some particularly fanatical groups got completely out of control .

They truly believed that cosmic will or whatever would take care of everything if they held to their beliefs, which meant that they did not accept being lenient with any person or thing, and were indeed relentless .

In retrospect, this was probably when Astoria’s fate was sealed .

The first half of Doctor Walker’s will to us was an account of the events leading to Astoria’s destruction. He was a proponent of Earth, and his statement was based on that position, but it is consistent with the report we received from Ira .

Ira also took a kind of pro-Earth position, but anyway, I’m not interested in the details of her arguments now.

I’m not going to pretend to be an unsolicited judge.

The Astorians foolishly self-destructed, and Doctor Walker died in the room he took refuge in when he ran out of water and food .

What means more to me is that I found the trail of Miss Whitford that the Doctor was responsible for.

At least as far as the Doctor knew, she was still asleep in a cryosleep pod attached to his lab. However , since the security of the lab could not be guaranteed , the Doctor had apparently instructed his assistant to begin thawing Miss Whitford .

What really happened to her after that is for us to find out in the Doctor’s lab, which is quite a distance from here.

The first half is really just a commentary and a report, and even if everything had gone according to plan, we wouldn’t have reached Astoria until decades after the Doctor’s death .

So while the information was useful to me, maybe the Doctor just wanted to complain to us, the crew of Eos, as a third party.

The second part of the will was about something completely different.

The Doctor Walkers had first considered the possibility of using cloning technology to restore human society in Astoria, which had greatly diminished .

Although the technology of cloning was legally extremely restrictive and virtually illegal, there was no particular reason why he should abide by Earth-era laws in Astoria, which was already semi-lawless . If he had been able to operate the equipment and create the clones himself, he would have done so.

But he couldn’t.

Such an important facility was under the jurisdiction of Ira, and without Ira’s help, the creation of the clone was impossible, and Ira was restricted by the anti-Earth law and refused any illegal orders such as the creation of a human clone in the first place .

So the doctor decided to have Ira develop [A human-like robot] instead.

This was not a robot, but a bioengineered robot with a neurochip implanted in its brain to enforce the three principles of robotics .

The robot he designed was called Simulants.

The Doctor ordered Ira to produce Simulants if the population of Astoria fell below a certain threshold . Ira promised to obey this order, although of course the restrictions of the Anti-Earth Law had to be lifted first .

In his last will and testament, the doctor wanted to know what had happened to them.

The plan was that Astoria had narrowly escaped destruction and that repairs on Astoria were going reasonably well .

The population was slowly recovering and working with the Simulants to rebuild, and then our Eos would reach Astoria… It was supposed to.

His wish was not granted. Not long after his death in this room, the population of Astoria was wiped out.

However , his plan was not the only one that did not come to fruition. There was something else he planned without the knowledge of everyone in Astoria, including Ira .

He was using us, the crew of the Aeos, as a kind of time capsule, because it could not be revealed until several decades after the project began .

He had deceived Ira.

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