Life was nothing more than a roll of the dice. After it transformed into a game of positioning—a game of chess with no clear rules. But that was the thing, no one was actually enforcing the rules. Anyone could do anything, if they had the might and courage to see it through. That was how progress and the exodus that took place over eons, humanity had managed to leave their familiar world and forge ahead in another star system, with Reola as its capital planet at the epicentre and twenty-one other planets across from it with varied distances, some close and some far. Most of the twenty-one planets bore resemblance to the Old Earth as their radius ranged between 6378 km and 8000km.
Anton Clarke was good at everything he did. The Sun Emperor of Reola sat behind his furnished counsel room of navy-blue metallic decor to look at his white coloured smartphone, he was reminiscing about how it all started. He had piercing blue eyes. And everyone who saw Anton found him handsome. He was dressed in a black suit and oxfords, his black hair slicked back. He was in deep thought. He found himself like this most days. His name had been forgotten and the last person to ever speak it had died of old age, centuries ago. With information heavily guarded and controlled, the process of making and maintaining different simple devices were forgotten, at least to those that weren't interested in learning given the utopia they were born into. The populace had access to a wealth of knowledge, but the bulk of information was too great and often discouraging. There were many willing to learn and preserve their civilisation; independent Reolan citizenry and a few high houses who were given a mandate to maintain the utopia he had built. Some worshiped him, Anton had known their parents all the way back to the very men and women that had joined the Sunrise voyage. Every citizen of the Reolan Empire knew him as the undying, the Sun Emperor because he was as old as the stars.
***
When Sunrise pioneered the voyage under the guidance of Anton Clarke, space travel was barely out of its long overdue testing phase. The company had devised a way to improve space navigation and sailing by powering the shuttles using collapsed dwarf stars which exhibited high radiation and power—all the products of nuclear research and innovation. Back then Anton Clarke was just another a tall middle aged Caucasian man. Yet he had amassed a fortune in the ever-developing modern world and had decided to invest in space travel, there was a calling that the cosmos had on him. An ancient call. Given his circumstances of being the wealthiest man on the planet, he moved to make his ideals a reality. There were other billionaires like him. Each engaging in vices and hedonistic pursuits. Valid, life was better if one was well off. He had pooled his vast resources and best minds from the globe. Brain power was extracted from every nation from the United States to Canada, from Mexico, Russia to France, then Nigeria to South Africa and finally from Japan to China as well as Antarctica to integrate with him on the project that spanned eons of history. Their place of operation was an artificial city that was named Sunrise city next to continent of Africa. Anton knew he couldn't do it all alone. That was foolishness. Society is like a flame, and sometimes that flame is snuffed out. When it dies. The paradigm that kept society in the unnatural order of being civilised—collapses. Everyone is greeted with the reality of survival, unburdened from the collective hive that made everything—convenient. People die and those that remain are free of the ropes and restraints that kept them tethered to what the precursors of the Reolan Imperium would term as illegal under their democracies. Little by little the worse of humanity would ally together to raid and rob, pillage and subjugate for land and resources. The best of humanity would also form alliances to people that shared their values or at least base appreciation for civility and will coalesce to protect their own. Clans and factions begin to emerge under tribal cohesion. Some tribes meet in the middle and shake hands, a few resign themselves to perpetual war. Powerful gens consume other consenting tribes and sometimes unconsenting clans against their will. After which the flame ignites once again and society is reborn.
Anton was looking for qualities that were no longer valued by the modern world—Guile. He was prepared for the expected rivalry from the United States space research agencies that had been mired in bureaucracy. The three letter agencies in intelligence and domestic security were constantly investigating him. He was careful and avoided the media and scandals. Capitalism and hope won in the end, he had found a way to prolong his life via memory transmission, Anton had a dedicated team of six for this delicate procedure. He had stock clones of himself grown and nurtured in facilities along with other important figures whether low or high on the hierarchy. He avoided speeding up biological processes and allowed the clones to grow naturally as the probability of mutation was quantifiable. The neural copying of his brain unto a central processing unit to act as a container which was then applied on a clone after every thirty years once the body had reached its expected use. The central processing unit was then grafted in the prefrontal cortex of the brain of the next clone in the assembly. Anton called it the kosokon second brain. Only a few trusted friends in his city had this technology and the right to pass it on to their progeny. After centuries of perfecting Reolan Destroyers. They finally left their artificial city with its gamma ray borders that discouraged entry. Finally they left the warring countries of the Old Earth for the stars.
Anton resigned to switching clones every thirty years in order to ensure the clone didn't atrophy in its suspended animation within the cryonic vaults. He saw each decade onboard their fleet as the same, a faded copy of the other before. onboard the spaceships that housed close to two million individuals; they would be the first to see the Reolan star system. Anton had kept the existence of his functional immortality a secret from the populace except to his trusted colleagues. The spaceships had taken centuries to build and assemble but it had taken more to perfect—it was a serious project, this would be their new homes till they found any planets outside their solar system. While the world powers of the Earth fought for who had more dirt, power and money. Sunrise has projected the existence of a new star system. This was good news, Anton wasn't interested in sharing with other countries and their need to impose on others. He couldn't understand how such systems fell into self-defeating traps but he knew that it wasn't sustainable, the final frontier beckoned humanity, at least those that were ready to be a part of something greater than themselves.
Anton being among the richest men on the planet found it to be dull and finite. It was a beautiful planet—the Earth but like all life, it was finite. Man, animals, the Earth and even him would pass away. The people on Earth were too easily distracted. Humanity wasn't ready to circumnavigate the cosmos. Humanity had grown complacent. All it took was a day without power, internet, running water, fluid bank transactions to appreciate the men who keep civilisation running by ensuring that the social contract that bound it all was fulfilled so they could continue to enjoy the fruits of modernity. Anton Clarke had to pick the chosen few with the values that could allow humanity bridge the gap and soar. He needed a place that valued merit, power, innovation and growth.
The spaceship that took humanity or the chosen few of two million had powered on for centuries as a few individuals cycled through cryonic vaults every three years to ensure they were still enroute to their new star system. Their population exploded and doubled as the onboard crew of men and women, lived and died each replaced with their children in the ever-passing years their fleet of spaceships powered on like a hail of comets leaving a superheated blue brushstroke across the black canvas that was space. There were some bad apples and oranges but Anton had utilised a private army, he called Kaatar-Imperators, each with DNA tampering and mutations that allowed them to supersede the average man. They were basically intelligent officers that were to preserve the status quo and remove those who wished to spit on the very lungs of the spaceship. It's people. Ideology was incredibly contagious and meritocracy and competency was the only ideology he permitted. Sometimes loyalty be damned.
***
Sitting now in his office, it felt unbelievable, after the Sunrise spaceships had reached the barely habitable planet that was Reola. The plutonic meteorograph commonly termed as Pluto was the experimental artificial intelligence machines laced with human brains that helped in terraforming. The robots had engineered authority over atmospheric elements and terraformed the lithosphere and hydrosphere. They were 3 meter ovoid technologies with metallic semi-circular disks orbiting round them in perpetuity like branches radiating outward from its centre and only three of them were unleashed on one planet at a time. Anton had tasked his scientists to start growing the numerous animals from the vats to be released after three of the pluto's progress had been observed. The atmosphere had been monitored for a few months to ensure compatibility with intelligent life forms and to scan for pathogens and radiation. If a strain was discovered, it was purged and if radioactivity was detected, it was neutralized and cleaned. There was no way of knowing what kinds of life had developed in such harsh and difficult conditions. And so teams of numerous armoured scouts all armed with rifles and swords were released in groups of ten to hunt down and navigate the terrain as well as draw maps. The sixty-three active plutos only created a more permanently rich and habitable world with the planetary variations it was given from each twenty-one planet. They aged out without continued maintenance after which they were deactivated after their purpose had been served—for they were tools in the Sun Emperor's vision and like most tools, they were discarded when no longer needed. Even then, they still remain suspended over the surface of each planet in the Reolan star system, hidden in the clouds. They were a brief utility in the Imperium's birth. They were all it took to turn a cold rock into a paradise. Anton had named the planets. And began to draw up its various cultures, he needed to make the dream a reality.
***
Anton stood from his desk as he was called from his thoughts by a knock at his door. He signaled the Sun-palatine inside and returned to sit. The dark skinned petite woman paced herself. She had a catlike face with stark white eyes and rectangular pupils. A short hair bob of black microlocs with a side part. Her skin was like chocolate, clad in a lavender skin hugging dress that went past her knees. Her curves oscillated as she found a seat after Anton gestured to her with a wave of his hand. The Sun Emperor could cold read people. It was easier to see the heart of men and women when they dined; how they interacted with their meals or how they took their wine. Did they reach for the chalice with grace or did they take it forcefully with no class or elegance like a child. Anton ordered a drink to be delivered to her to which the stewardess, a beautiful Malanni princess with youthful green skin and a face laced with neoteny stepped forth to obey. He watched the two before him. The woman looked down her nose at the alien with its green eyes closed and sultry green lips tensed in focus while she poured the wine. Anton's attention peaked as he watched the Sun-palatine reach out with manicured hands, trained with tender care, cupped the chalice and brought it to her wet brown lips.
Everything had meaning. Reason and truth might as well be notched into the cells of everything that drew breath. The cells kept perfect records of all laughter and pain. A library bending and expanding with no clear architecture or motive. The library was like a tree with cancerous roots that reached into the dirt and the dark. Flourishing with healthy leaves of green that reached for the sun and the light. Ever in perpetual bloom yet its fruits fell and fed no one. All good and evil was counted. Every curse and blessing recorded. All promises and oaths were scribed. The knowledge was buried, not gifted. The library wasn't questioned. No dew from its leaves offered whispers or sounds. Nothing was revealed.
The woman lifted her chalice to him and said. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Naomi Gelic-Zord."
The Sun Emperor had seen her kind before, people became nothing but things, a backdrop to emphasize her beauty by placing them in stark contrast with the background. Yet she had a proposal for him.