The Boson Experiment and Earths End

Chapter 1 Day 175,000 It was the last days of Earth as a planet. It came all too soon. It was the year 4500 A.G. (After Goran) which was many thousands of years A.D. in the old time scale. The sun had begun to expand millions of years before it was due to. Earth was about to become uninhabitable. The living population on the planet had to get out. But Science was awake to the phenomenon. In fact Science was now an accepted religion. In the distant past, humans had followed a myriad of different religions, Hindu, Muslim, and Judaism for example. But over the centuries many religions died, others grew and died. Humans liked to think themselves as enlightened and not governed by some deity. However, three religions survived. Christianity, Islam and Science. Science had long ago predicted the Sun's expansion and thus the end of the Earth. The followers of this religion had made preparations for this day of Armageddon. The other two religions looked to their books of religion to explain this destruction of Earth. Despite the differences in their interpretation of the end of days, they were all agreed that it was coming. So preparations were made. In these last centuries before the end of days, humans had learnt to manage their population. They had expanded to Mars and the moons of the outer planets but kept Earth's population strictly at six billion. Exploration of nearby stars was restricted to unmanned craft only. Humans were controlled by need. They did not need to go to the stars themselves. They had everything they needed at home. But now this home was about to be no more. Science had decided that the only way humans were going to survive was by going to the stars. The colonies of the solar system were just as doomed as the Earth. Science had predicted that the expansion was not going to make just the Earth unliveable but the Mars and the outer moons were similarly doomed. They relied on Earth for their very survival. Christianity and Islam were content that their relative deity would take them into their version of heaven once they were dead. They argued that the end of days was foretold by them and that all followers should accept that their life was at an end. Science was different. They spent decades building and creating large spaceships to carry off as many of their followers to the stars. Science's underlying philosophy was logic. Using typical scientific logic, they preached that the planet designated Kepler-452b orbiting the star Kepler-452 in the constellation of Lyra was to be their new home. They had already sent unmanned craft to this new planet and they confirmed its suitability. The religious zealots of Science named the planet New Earth as they always named things in honour of what was before or who discovered it. Christianity and Islam both ridiculed this venture as Science had not yet figured out how to overcome the problem of time. It was going to take 470 years to get there at least. Longer than any human could live. Longer than any civilisation could last. But God had the answer. Accept your fate and enter the Kingdom of heaven according to the Christians or embrace the Quran and take your heart to Jannah and all will be well. These two religions had the big advantage of doing nothing and all will be well. Poor old Science. It spent so many decades building and refining a fleet of spacecraft that the other religions knew were doomed to fail. They only had to say that a human lives for but a hundred and fifty years. No human would be alive by the time the ships reached New Earth. Science had been fighting a losing battle. Vast numbers of its followers were crossing over to one of the other two religions. Even those who chose not to follow any religion were shifting to Christianity or Islam. They felt betrayed by not following a religion, especially one whose predictions were about to come true. Science had no answer to the problem of time. This continued until one day, they announced a breakthrough. A section of their Pharisees announced that they had solved the problem of the time taken to New Earth. These Pharisees had been working on a sect of the Science religion called Cryogenics. These followers were studying the effects of placing living things into deep cold storage and then reviving them at a later date. The announcement was to say that they had managed to build devices that could sustain life indefinitely. Computers could be manipulated to store and revive people at set times. Christians had their Bible to help guide their religion. Islam had the Quran. Science had Technology. If there was a part of Science that followers believed in, then there was a piece of technology that operated it. So, for the followers of Science, a practical solution had now been found. It was just a matter of building the devices into the large ships they had already constructed. Science had constructed over a hundred large spaceships in orbit around Earth. They were now able to offer an alternative to Christianity and Islam. For the Pharisees of Science, their task had been made even easier as so many had left their religion, there was now more room on the ships than there were followers.