The Exodus - Exodus means departure, but for our ancestors in the 23rd century, it also meant survival

With Earth Day only weeks away, it seemed like the right time to share humanity’s story, a story that starts with fleeing a dying Earth. Our goal is not to embellish or diminish the challenges that humanity was facing but only to offer an inside look at the journey courtesy of the Human Exodus Museum and reveal the story of the Ark Ships – massive vessels that were built to transport humanity to our new home in space.

Over 40,000 years ago humanity was forced to flee a dying world; a world that had been used, abused, and taken for granted until the natural resources dried up, the grassy fields became mud flats and the farmlands were depleted and fallow. Nature replaced by massive cityscapes, over-run by masses of humanity leaving little space in which to carve out an existence.

The word Exodus means departure, but for our ancestors on Earth in the 23rd century, it also meant survival. Desperate to escape their dying planet, humanity constructed a fleet of ark ships. These massive, gleaming, technological marvels evoked both hope and fear. Many shuddered at the thought of boarding the arks to embark on a journey to an unknown future that could take decades or even centuries. But any who were given the chance seized on it despite their reservations – the ark ships offered a chance at some kind of future as Earth collapsed into an uninhabitable wasteland.

Competition to secure a spot on the arks was fierce, as was the competition between different builders and projects as they fought for dwindling resources while society collapsed around them. Those not fortunate enough to be chosen often resorted to violence in a desperate attempt to secure a place on the departing vessels… or sought to destroy them out of spite at being left behind.

But even those who successfully escaped Earth were faced with incredible challenges. Many of these ships were lost in the void forever. Only a fortunate few discovered habitable worlds in the CENTAURI cluster. Over the course of the next 25,000 years, ark ships filled with human settlers kept arriving. Many were drawn by the Green Signal sent by the first arrivals to guide ships to humanity’s new home in the stars. Others arrived by sheer accident… but most never arrived at all.

From the accounts we have we know that the journey to Centauri was both dangerous and difficult. Over-packed ark ships were forced to grapple with hordes of humanity packed into spaces built for half of what they carried. The stories that emerged of the trials and tribulations that occurred on the ships during that migration are stories told mostly through the scraps of clothing, broken bits of personal mementos, and journal entries hidden in the tubing of the cryopods – the remnants of the hopes and hardships of the ark ship communities. Love stories and nightmares pieced together through the curation of humanity’s relics in the hopes it would benefit those who came later are now stored as valuable jewels in the cases of the Human Exodus Museum. They serve as a testament to humanity’s endurance… and perhaps a warning to be wary of what lies ahead.

Welcome to Exodus.