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A global ecological catastrophe, possibly a meteor impact, wiped out 75% of the human population. Earth isn't immediately doomed, but it's circling the drain. The collapse is inevitable, and coming in just a few decades. The panic, fear, and desperation give birth to the Eden Project.
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Marshall is the architect of the Eden Project. Driven by a genuine desire to preserve humanity, he assembles the pieces:
Buys up existing companies building large-scale interstellar transport vessels (the proto–colony ships).
Acquires firms pioneering robotics, cryogenics, and AI development.
Designs a plan to launch multiple Eden-class colony ships, each equipped to carry thousands into deep space stasis toward a habitable planet.
He presents the Eden Project to what is left of the world’s governments and wins funding, legitimacy, and public trust. He becomes a reluctant symbol of hope.
He develops a plan of 14 colony ships, called Eden-1 through Eden-14. And with government funding, gains access to other companies developing space flight, other AI systems, and a revolutionary propulsion system to help them reach the stars.
Nearly all of the administration, piloting, navigation, and other critical systems are controlled by AI.
10% of the active crew for each ship is selected based on needs. Doctors, nurses, maintenance techs, chefs, machinists, construction, plumbing, electrical, security, etc.
For the other 90%, they establish a voluntary candidate lottery system to build the active crews of each ship in turn. Alternative selection between male and female candidates to help ensure sustainability and longevity.
The people in stasis are selected the same way and frozen to be awoken when the ship reaches the planet they are targeting.
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Someone inside Marshall’s trusted circle has other plans, likely someone who stood to profit from turning the Eden Project into a controlled or manipulated operation. Maybe they wanted power over the future, or perhaps they believed a chosen few should inherit humanity’s legacy.
When Marshall discovers the truth, corruption, hidden sabotage, something fundamentally wrong about the program, he tries to blow the whistle. But he doesn’t get the chance.
They silence him, and make him disappear.
He’s forcibly put into stasis and loaded onto EDEN-11, one of the colony ships. Cryogenics will cause memory loss, sometimes for many days, but sometimes everything doesn't return. For Marshall,what remains is fragmented recall: he remembers being a part of the Eden Project.
He knows he helped build it. But he doesn’t remember the betrayal... or the truth he tried to reveal.
Not yet.
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EDEN-11 was meant to fail. Sabotage code, corrupted navigation, maybe even preloaded with faulty systems. The plan was to erase Marshall quietly, no wreckage, no questions.
But something glitches. The sabotage mechanism fails. EDEN-11 survives, but it is now off-course, flying blind. The AI, intended to be more of a puppet, became functional. Maybe even self-aware. It doesn't know the full truth either, but it's running the mission as best it can.
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153 years into their journey, Marshall wakes up from stasis. Weeks before the scheduled time.
No one is sure why.
He begins to remember. Flashes. Names. Warnings. The fact that this mission wasn’t just a hopeful shot at survival, it was rigged.
And worse... EDEN-11 has been out of contact with the other ships for decades. They're either dead, missing, or on a different trajectory. He’s alone. Or maybe… not quite.
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Elsewhere on the ship, unbeknownst to most passengers, is a hidden control room. A small crew, awake this whole time, believes they’re running a standard mission. They trust the Eden Project was real. They don’t know Marshall is aboard. They don’t know about the sabotage. But soon they will.
As Marshall pieces things together, so do they. Tension builds. Who’s lying? Who’s been used? And what is EDEN-11 really headed toward?
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Truth vs Manufactured Reality: Everyone believes they’re on a noble mission. They aren’t, they are on Marshall’s coffin.
Paranoia & Isolation: No one is sure who to trust, and no one's even sure if they're still in contact with Earth.
Purpose Reclaimed: Marshall must decide if he's just a pawn who got lucky... or a man who can take back control.
The Fragility of Hope: Can a lie that was built to inspire ever become real?
Tags: colonization concept dystopian science fiction