In the far-off future, a lone spaceship is moving through the boundless void of space at an incredible speed. This spacecraft is heading nowhere in particular. We have no idea how long it has been at sea, but the memories it carries are of a species that has been extinct for a very long time. It would appear that this race named themselves humans and had previously inhabited a planet called Earth.
It seems likely that they had reached a high level of civilization. Together, they invented the technology that enabled them to build this ship, and at one time, they even built an artificial intelligence that was more advanced than their own. However, regardless of what occurred, they are now nothing more than some dust in history and have vanished into the ether at the far reaches of time. Long before we were born, they had already perished, and no single survivor was left.
Why did they choose to construct this particular spaceship? Perhaps at one point in their history, they had the ambition to leave the galaxy in which they were born and spread out to a galaxy further away. Or, it’s possible that all they want to do is leave some trace behind as evidence that they were in the past so that future civilizations would have the opportunity to learn about how they loved, lived, and died.
Because so much time has elapsed, it is impossible for us to ascertain their motivations; all we can do is speculate, which is hardly a foolproof method. However, when we think back on these fading memories, we feel an overwhelming sense of melancholy, don’t we?
