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« For each of you We have made laws, and a structure; and had God willed, He would have made you all one nation, but He tests you with what He has given you; so strive to do good. » - Quran 5:48, VII century

« ... I think the end result is that the closer you come to true freedom of association, the closer you get to a world where everyone is a member of more or less the community they deserve. That would be a pretty unprecedented bit of progress. » - Scott Alexander, Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism , 2014

It's been 315 years since we've last had news of Earth.
We don't know where to look or listen in the night sky, and all our radiotelescopes haven't caught so much as a whisper from any direction. As far as we can tell, every single living human was born here on Ea, where the starship brought us so many generations ago. And when one considers the global situation at the time of our departure, such a statement is likely to be true in the most literal sense.
We don't even know how far it traveled, or in what direction. How many centuries did it spend cruising through the void with its irreplaceable cargo, before its thousand sensors told it of the presence of an Earth-like planet in this corner of the galaxy? Yes, the navigation centers, victim of some unkown malfuction, were of little use; and once the pods descended on the parched surface, quickly sacrificed by the travellers to survive those first terrible years, the starship was out of reach. For centuries that hulking wreck hovered silently over Ea, burning red in the sunset, dimly glowing in the night-time with reflected light.
We know much about Earth, of course - we saved the records, the documents, the encyclopedias, the art catalogues. We know about the Sun, the Moon, and Mars. We know about the Sahara, the Amazon, and the Great Barrier Reef. We know about elephants, whale sharks, and hummingbirds. We know about the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the Roman Empire. We know about Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad. We know about Hitler, Napoleon, and Genghis Khan. But we don't know Earth, the world that was. We used to have people who did - those ten thousand who first stumbled out on the yellow sands of Ea, still dazed from cryopreservation - but they're all long gone, or are silent.
We had hoped that none of the tragedies of Earth would repeat - oh, what a dream. We almost immediately began to argue about the best way to live, and words quickly gave way to weapons. The most honorable solution we found was to part ways with each other: there was a whole planet to fill, beautiful and untouched, and we were few, then. People were allowed to pick what sort of society they would rather join, and eventually great nations formed; many others filled the space in between, gathering according to language, religion, or blood.
Even that didn't spare us the horrors of the Planetary War. But out of the ashes a new order was built; seven powers sharing this world, each managing its domain after its own conscience, each agreeing to let the others do the same. Some built themselves a paradise of earthly pleasures, others find fulfillment in chosen work and creation; some placed their trust in the Creator of all worlds, others sharpen their minds to carve truth from belief; some find comfort in the protection of a benevolent leader or of bountiful nature, others take pride in tracing their own path in the world.
If we don't know Earth anymore, at least we've begun knowing Ea, or at least what's left of it, for we replaced much of it with what we remember of Earth. This was a cold and arid place, we were told; so we set off nuclear explosions under the polar caps, drilled boreholes through the crust, and scattered to the wind all sorts of seeds, spores, and eggs, and made it more like the world that was. Only recently we've started truly to appreciate the world that is.
Here is Ea, second planet from Utu, our second chance, perhaps not yet definitively wasted. We took a leap of faith through the unknown; we set to discover astonishing realities; we left a decaying order in search of freedom; we declared our capacity to live and create; we returned to the purity of our beginnings; we sought for a responsible way of life; we pursued happiness without compromise; any of these things, and all together, depending on who you speak to.
Let us toast these three centuries of life, then, and let the next ones be better.

(cloud cover from Celestia via Wikimedia Commons , released as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported; globe created from map with GPlates, a program released with license GNU GPLv2)

Other works in the sequence:

- Tectonic plates

- Continents, oceans, and mountain ranges

- Prevalent winds and patterns of rain

- Climate zones and ocean currents

- Major toponyms

- Vegetation, coral reefs, and selected ecosystems

- Human presence

- UNSS Utnapishtim

- Earth in 2070
- Ea's solar system

Description

« For each of you We have made laws, and a structure; and had God willed, He would have made you all one nation, but He tests you with what He has given you; so strive to do good. » - Quran 5:48, VII century

« ... I think the end result is that the closer you come to true freedom of association, the closer you get to a world where everyone is a member of more or less the community they deserve. That would be a pretty unprecedented bit of progress. » - Scott Alexander, Archipelago and Atomic Communitarianism , 2014

It's been 315 years since we've last had news of Earth.
We don't know where to look or listen in the night sky, and all our radiotelescopes haven't caught so much as a whisper from any direction. As far as we can tell, every single living human was born here on Ea, where the starship brought us so many generations ago. And when one considers the global situation at the time of our departure, such a statement is likely to be true in the most literal sense.
We don't even know how far it traveled, or in what direction. How many centuries did it spend cruising through the void with its irreplaceable cargo, before its thousand sensors told it of the presence of an Earth-like planet in this corner of the galaxy? Yes, the navigation centers, victim of some unkown malfuction, were of little use; and once the pods descended on the parched surface, quickly sacrificed by the travellers to survive those first terrible years, the starship was out of reach. For centuries that hulking wreck hovered silently over Ea, burning red in the sunset, dimly glowing in the night-time with reflected light.
We know much about Earth, of course - we saved the records, the documents, the encyclopedias, the art catalogues. We know about the Sun, the Moon, and Mars. We know about the Sahara, the Amazon, and the Great Barrier Reef. We know about elephants, whale sharks, and hummingbirds. We know about the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the Roman Empire. We know about Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad. We know about Hitler, Napoleon, and Genghis Khan. But we don't know Earth, the world that was. We used to have people who did - those ten thousand who first stumbled out on the yellow sands of Ea, still dazed from cryopreservation - but they're all long gone, or are silent.
We had hoped that none of the tragedies of Earth would repeat - oh, what a dream. We almost immediately began to argue about the best way to live, and words quickly gave way to weapons. The most honorable solution we found was to part ways with each other: there was a whole planet to fill, beautiful and untouched, and we were few, then. People were allowed to pick what sort of society they would rather join, and eventually great nations formed; many others filled the space in between, gathering according to language, religion, or blood.
Even that didn't spare us the horrors of the Planetary War. But out of the ashes a new order was built; seven powers sharing this world, each managing its domain after its own conscience, each agreeing to let the others do the same. Some built themselves a paradise of earthly pleasures, others find fulfillment in chosen work and creation; some placed their trust in the Creator of all worlds, others sharpen their minds to carve truth from belief; some find comfort in the protection of a benevolent leader or of bountiful nature, others take pride in tracing their own path in the world.
If we don't know Earth anymore, at least we've begun knowing Ea, or at least what's left of it, for we replaced much of it with what we remember of Earth. This was a cold and arid place, we were told; so we set off nuclear explosions under the polar caps, drilled boreholes through the crust, and scattered to the wind all sorts of seeds, spores, and eggs, and made it more like the world that was. Only recently we've started truly to appreciate the world that is.
Here is Ea, second planet from Utu, our second chance, perhaps not yet definitively wasted. We took a leap of faith through the unknown; we set to discover astonishing realities; we left a decaying order in search of freedom; we declared our capacity to live and create; we returned to the purity of our beginnings; we sought for a responsible way of life; we pursued happiness without compromise; any of these things, and all together, depending on who you speak to.
Let us toast these three centuries of life, then, and let the next ones be better.

(cloud cover from Celestia via Wikimedia Commons , released as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported; globe created from map with GPlates, a program released with license GNU GPLv2)

Other works in the sequence:

- Tectonic plates

- Continents, oceans, and mountain ranges

- Prevalent winds and patterns of rain

- Climate zones and ocean currents

- Major toponyms

- Vegetation, coral reefs, and selected ecosystems

- Human presence

- UNSS Utnapishtim

- Earth in 2070
- Ea's solar system