The Space Race

The smaller countries were purchased first. Economies were crashing and climate change had reached tipping point, there was no way that the smaller or less developed nations could play their part alone and so the Corporations stepped in.
They began benevolently enough, pouring money into their new divisions but it didn’t take long to see that their spending was prioritised towards profit. It wasn’t altruism, it was investment.
The population became the workforce, national pride was tethered to performance. Those who were willing and able to contribute, to be productive members of the company, flourished but for those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, the picture was less pleasant. When profit is the bottom line, compassion suffers and there is no space for rehabilitation.
The influx of the sick and the needy, the addicted and the unstable into neighbouring countries was a humanitarian crisis unlike any other. In their desperate attempts to either reinforce their borders or open compassionate arms, country by country fell to bankruptcy and were purchased outright by one or other of the large corporations whose daily turnover exceeded many national budgets. And so, the world was bought and sold.
The only voices that were heard were those that spoke to Corporate advantage, the only scientists who received funding were those who researched the Corporations’ aims. It was obvious, though, that to continue to monetise the world we lived on could only end in our destruction; and so the Corporations began to look into space, for new worlds to live on and exploit.
Scientists considered it a boom time, they had never been given budgets of this magnitude or such freedom to pursue their ideas. Headhunters were seen at Universities and Laboratories around the world, identifying talent and tying them into contracts that made a pact with the devil seem easy to escape.
From the moment faster-than-light travel was mastered, the race was on for each Corporation to send out vessels to explore and claim the many worlds of our system and beyond.
For the older generation, life suddenly came to resemble a Science Fiction show as they were asked to consider being put into stasis chambers and sleep away a journey that would last generations.
Perhaps the biggest sticking point for many were the contracts. The cost of sending a person across the galaxy was huge, more so if you sent their families too. If the Corporations were investing in you, then they wanted something in return. The cost of escaping the Earth as it entered its death throes was often the future of your children and Grandchildren, for only multiple generations could pay such a debt.
The cheapest option was to travel to a world that was being stripped of its resources, a mining world. Simple habitation was provided, the work was physically hard, psychologically demanding and dangerous. These Arid worlds had no source of food or water, all that had to be shipped in by the Corporation. Food was basic, long life and produced as cheaply as possible; and ever mouthful was added to the family debt.
For those able and with a reasonable credit record, there was the option of a middle management job. Logistics, management roles, flying or servicing the space craft, or farming on an arable world. These positions offered a quicker release from debt and the occasional opportunity for planet grown fresh food and water.
The wealthiest were able to secure themselves homes on earth like planets. Industry was minimal on these worlds, protecting their status as residences. Marketing departments named them things like Eden, Nirvana and Arcadia, images and video were shown wherever humans lived, to inspire ambition.
Humans spread out into the galaxy like a plague, plundering some worlds and forever altering others. The further afield they went, the more they wondered: Are we alone? Surely by now we should have seen some sign of intelligent alien life?
The arrogance of our species only grew as we explored further and further without an encounter. The assumption was that all that we could see belonged to us.
All that changed the day we arrived on Utopia. A world that we had seen as empty turned out to be anything but. There were few survivors, and I am one of them. All I remember is stepping off the ship to a world that seemed empty and then suddenly finding myself in agonising pain. There was no one to fight, no weapons to disable, whatever the beings on Utopia were they were like invisible, avenging angels.
Once the battle was done, the chosen few survivors were sent back with a message: This far, and no further. Like wrathful Gods, the beings of Utopia had made themselves the guardians of this reality and mankind was given its last warning. Change your ways, or be removed from existence.
That is our choice. I wish I could say that the Corporations chose with the well being of their workers at heart, but profit is always the first priority. Money is being thrown into R&D to enable us to return to Utopia for a hostile takeover. The Corporations of Earth are united.