Unknown space
T=0
Space twisted in on itself, pushing outward through itself like someone was trying to poke a hole through plastic. The center of the anomaly began to glow, the shadow of immense heat from somewhere else bleeding through. Space-time could only take so much torment, it reached that point and burst open in an enormous explosion of plasma and radiation. It should have collapsed into a blackhole, the laws of physics prohibited such events of spontaneous creation, only the sheer force of the flow of energy from the other side, where ever that was, kept the object from collapsing on itself.
The flow increased, pushing the hole between universes wider and wider, entire stars worth of energy being expended for every meter. It looked like someone was forcing an entire supernova through a wormhole, which was not entirely inaccurate. In fact, three supernovae were being used to create the universe bridge, all so a single ship could pass through. The flow of energy cut out suddenly, causing the tear in space to snap shut, physics trying to force things into making sense. In the tiny fraction of a second the anomaly remained open without the pressure of a supernova to keep it from closing a single object shot through as though fired from a gun. With it through super-heated plasma once again passed through the wormhole, like those on the other side were trying to keep the rip in space open, but it was too late. All they managed to do was avert the creation of a blackhole on the other side.
The single ship now rested at the center of growing sphere of plasma that rocketed outwards at a sizeable fraction of the speed of light, like a nova without a star. It would never be called pretty, a smooth cylinder of scorched metal and the remains of ablative armor which had keep the ship intact during transit. The front end slowly opened, dozens of different pieces moving in a complicated dance of mechanical precision until it finally came to rest in some complicated looking final arrangement. Long arching tubes connected various half spheres of metal and glass, box like structures hundreds of meters to a side strung cables out in thick bundles to the other modules contained within a dense mechanical framework. Slowly the newly unfolded front section began to come alive, still somehow relatively cool despite the violent transit the ship slowly warmed up.
“Looks like we made it,” someone said in the pure nitrogen atmosphere of the front most half-sphere.
“Good to know that stunt worked,” another voice responded, “sitting in here like this is making my joints seize up.”
A section of wall slid open, pushing a mechanical box the size of a horse into the room, it began to unfold in a way not dissimilar to the ship it was within. Four bulky mechanical legs lifted the main body up, allowing a very human like torso to unfold from beneath the creature, a flattened head with three lenses of differing sizes rolled about in a very organic way, as though stretching its neck. As a pair of arms extracted themselves from the complicated folding, they had gone through to rest along the side of the creature a second box slid through the wall next to the mechanical centaur like creature and started to unfold as well.
“The question is, have we really reached a new universe,” the second creature said as its tested its various joints, like someone waking from a long nap with stiff limbs.
“Not seeing any indication of proton-decay on the detector,” the first centaur said, tapping away at a console in the room, “all instruments are running their tests, not seeing any difference in universal constants yet.”
“You know as well as I do Eric, it takes months before the PD detector can form a true result,” the second centaur said dismissively, walking over to its own console as a third of the packed-up creatures began to assemble itself.
“Shove it Alyssa, I’m trying to be optimistic.”
“You guys are missing the obvious,” the third creature said in a deeper voice from the side of the room, next to a window, “look outside.”
The other two made their way to a window and looked out at the world they now found themselves, all three stared in amazement at the plethora of stars. Millions, no billions of points of light filled the blackness of space, for a long minute none of them said anything, simply staring outside.
“We were told there’d be more stars, but I was expecting maybe a hundred, not…” Alyssa said slowly.
“Some of those aren’t stars,” Eric added in awe, “they’re entire galaxies, with billions of stars. There has to be a habitable planet out there with this many stars. Maybe we’ll be able to retake organic forms.”
“The chances of a planet having the exact right conditions to support organics is so… low.”
“But with this many chances?”
“Enough gawking,” the third of them to be decanted said in gruffly, “we have a job to do. If we can’t survive in this universe than our friends blew up three of the last stars for nothing.”
“Right,” Alyssa agreed, both her and Eric returning to their consoles, “looks like we’re not too far from a star, small red one.”
“Wonder if it has any planets,” Eric said wistfully.
“We only need the star,” she replied, “shall I plot a course captain?”
“Yes,” the third one nodded, “how far out are we?”
“Not far, maybe a week if we pulse the drive, stay sub-light. Looks like the plasma shell from our arrival will arrive ahead of us at that rate.”
“Alright, single drive pulse, don’t overtake the shell,” the captain agreed, “We’ll wait to wake the others till we have something for them to do.”
“Think there are aliens out there?” Eric asked, looking at his console.
“Chances of that are even lower than there being habitable worlds,” retorted Alyssa, “especially in a universe this young.”
“Some records said there were thousands of species once.”
“You mean the several million year old records that may have well been legends and stories back then? The ones heavily damaged by proton decay? Those records?”
“We came from somewhere,” Eric shot back.
“One organic species from one habitable world, yes, that’s unlikely but possible. But thousands of different races? We’re probably the only ones out here.”
Unknown rocky planet around unknown red dwarf star
Arrival T + 2 weeks
Two weeks later the ship resembled more of a needlessly complicated station, hanging over a hot metal planet in close orbit of a red dwarf star. The planet’s surface still glowed from where the plasma shockwave of their arrival had washed over it, even the star spat out flares in protest of the intrusion to the small system. Shuttles filled space, transporting raw materials from the surface of the small planet needed for the creation of new bodies for the rest of those aboard. Refineries used to dealing with handfuls of mass at once were now flooded with tons of material, space based factories glowed with heat as they struggled to keep up.
“I think this universe is only in the second or third generation of stars,” Alyssa said on the bridge, “judging by the spectrographs of various stars here.”
“And not so much as a twitch on the proton decay detector,” Eric added, “all the other tests are showing no change in universal constants, so we’re either in a different universe, or far enough back in time that it doesn’t matter.”
“Could the wormhole really have sent us back in time?” Alyssa asked.
“Who knows?” Eric shrugged, an odd gesture for what looked like a mechanical centaur, “in theory it’s impossible to go back in time, but with how much energy pumped into the wormhole… more likely we’re where the models said we’d be, a new universe. A younger one perhaps.”
“Will you two stop messing around,” the captain growled, “we’ve decanted everyone who came with a body, but that still leaves thousands of us formless, if we want to get a new start here we’ll need materials enough to make them.”
“Lay off captain,” Eric said, rolling his head as though in some mimicry of rolling his eyes, “the furnaces are going full blast, storage is full to bursting and the shuttles are backing up transporting more materials than we have room for. Frankly we should setup some fabrication centers on the surface of the planet.”
“First planet side building in millions of years,” Alyssa said slowly, “first planet we’ve had to build anything on for millions of years. I wonder how many more are out there?”
“If you want to know then get to work,” the captain responded, “we’re not here on a sight seeing trip, our plan is to rebuild the human race.”
