Huntian: StarTrace · published
“Those who gaze into the stars will one day become part of them.
—And at the end of the stars, another journey begins.”
Before writing a fictional epic among the stars, we first turn our eyes toward humanity’s real journey.
Here, we do not trace history through the rise and fall of dynasties, nor measure civilization simply by dates and eras. Instead, we follow each transformation in humanity’s understanding of the sky, retracing the path civilization has taken.
From instinctively looking upward into the unknown, to measuring the stars with our own hands, listening to spacetime, and finally stepping into the cosmos itself, humanity has spent thousands of years turning the universe from a mystery above our heads into a journey beneath our feet.
We have tried to divide the development of human civilization, from its earliest beginnings to the present day, into ten stages: Chaos, Knotted Records, Gods Among the Stars, Geometric Cosmos, Laws of the World, Analytical Universe, New Senses, Space Age, Age of Discovery, and Messenger Age.
In our later designs, we hope to represent these different periods through suitable Fragments of Civilization and architectural forms.
From this perspective, we then created the New Science Fiction of Huntian: StarTrace.
Earth Era · 21st–22nd Century
Earth’s technology develops at an exponential pace, ushering in an age of abundant productivity. Once material abundance is no longer in question, humanity finally turns its attention beyond the atmosphere and toward the universe beyond Earth.
This is no expedition carried out only by unmanned probes. Encouraged by governments around the world, explorers from Earth step aboard vessels bound for the stars. This is exploration undertaken by humanity itself, rather than delegated to distant, silent machines.
Generation ships carry complete ecological cycles. Cryogenic hibernation makes journeys spanning vast stretches of time survivable. Light sails ride the energy of the stars across the void. One technology after another is tested. The universe is boundless, and the journey is long.
The pioneers leave the surface of Earth and set out on a new expedition.
Interplanetary Era · A Home on Mars
When transparent domes rise across the red planet, the first child cries out upon the soil of Mars...
Humanity becomes an interplanetary species.
Following in the footsteps of the pioneers, people from Earth begin to make Mars their home. Supported by the technologies of Earth, Mars develops rapidly. Cities rise from the surface, and civilization gradually grows its own bones and blood.
Between Earth and Mars, a unique two-planet civilization begins to take shape. Human existence is no longer dependent on a single world. It is the first step toward a mature civilization—and the first time humanity truly releases its grip on the cradle.
Wandering Era · A Millennium of Migration
Planetary engines ignite in the darkness. Carrying their homeland and their hopes with them, humanity begins a thousand-year journey.
When the crisis of the helium flash arrives, humanity makes its most difficult—and most decisive choice: to move Mars toward Proxima Centauri. Earth, the birthplace of civilization, becomes an eternal memory of home, shrinking behind them into an ever smaller point of light.
It is a migration on an epic scale. Dozens of generations pass their lives forward like a relay of torches. Each generation is born aboard the vessels, grows old, and eventually returns to dust, all for the sake of carrying the flame of civilization to the other side. Looking back toward the Sun, it has become little more than just one star among countless others.
Civilization endures through the wandering, grows through solitude, and continues onward through hope.
Galactic Era · Reaching into Dimensions
Another thousand years pass.
Civilization expands across the Milky Way. Across the vastness of space, “the Galactic People” becomes a name for humanity. We reach into higher dimensions and fold spacetime itself. The spiral arms of the Milky Way become markers left behind on our journey, while the light of civilization reaches into the darkness beyond the Local Group.
The apes who once looked up at the stars have now become masters of the stellar sea.
Source: Jack Versloot
Final Era · The Huntian: StarTrace Project
And yet, every civilization eventually reaches its end.
Even when everyone makes the right choices, even when every person gives everything they can to the continuation and development of civilization—everything willeventually come to an end. There is no villain, no betrayal, No one made the wrong decision. This is simply a challenge on the scale of the universe: silent, impartial, and impossible to resist.
Faced with the end game, humanity launches the “Huntian: StarTrace” Project. The memories and genetic legacy of an entire civilization are preserved in the form of cryogenic protein chips, sealed aboard the Arkship, and sent deep into the stars.
The Arkship falls silent. Civilization waits for the day it can be awakened once more.
Ark Era · The Edge of the Universe
At the edge of the universe, perhaps the last remaining Arkship enters a binary star system.
The Arkship’s vast ring-shaped “Huntian” Space Station unexpectedly breaks apart, and the “Energy Ring” falls toward the surface of Lexing...
Fragments burn through the atmosphere. Civilization awakens in the midst of the fall. After sleeping for countless ages, the memories of humanity take their first breath upon this unfamiliar world.
And now, another journey begins.