Back In My Day

Dear Neil,

I never thought I would be writing a letter quite like this for a number of reasons. Like my father before me, I am a strong headed man but my wife is quick to remind me that “stubborn” is a more accurate description. My son is similarly afflicted with such a trait as well you know as he is your father. That is my roundabout way of saying that it is difficult for me to admit that I am old enough to have a grandson but if grandchildren is the mark of old age, I am proud to call you one of mine. Everyone here remembers when you received the news that you were going to be among the first colonists to settle outside of our solar system (I know they are referred to as exoplanets but I’ve always hated that term). And I hope you’re enjoying the trip thus far.

I remember when I was your age we had just developed c-velocity technology which was great for  traveling around the solar system but not very practical for anything beyond the Kuiper Belt. It’s difficult to imagine that before I was born there was no way to approach the speed of light in a vessel so I’m sure my age is showing when I talk about how baffled I am by ships with warp capability. Sure, light speed was great fun if you wanted to meander about for a few AU’s but it would have still taken us fifty years to reach the closest star outside of our system. It was dangerous when the technology first came out and wasn’t even perfected until your father was in high school. But here you are: the first in our family who can travel from star system to star system in a blink.

I hope you can forgive your grandfather for prattling on about the technologies of your generation. I’m sure most of these are old hat to you having learned to concepts of terraforming innovations when you were in grade school. But keep in mind I was already an old man when I learned about satellites being designed to veer trajectories of ice laden comets to impact on potential planets. I mean, how can my generation not have thought to bring water to Goldilocks planets in such a way? It’s so simple that it’s ingenious to allow the primordial soup generate in such a fashion.

Of course the missing stepping stone from primordial soup to living organisms was missing from our own fossil records. Many theorized that a meteoroid containing ancient bacterium is what filled that gap and ostensibly allowed microorganisms to thrive on primitive earth. Their subsequent generations and ultimate deaths would pave the way for our atmosphere to develop and give rise, eventually, to all life on earth. I’m gushing and rambling and for that I’m sorry but to create our own meteoroid in the form of missiles carrying carefully chosen microbes to achieve the same end is just utterly fantastic. To think that my grandchild would live in a world completely created by man, and in my lifetime, is totally mind-boggling.

Perhaps when you start your new life on Terra Nova you can throw around the family name to sway the land developers to give you a fair price on property you might buy. After all (and I don’t mean to brag) it was my research that made earth human inhabitation possible. I don’t know if I ever told you this but I was the scientist, the only true scientist, of the family. I went to college and got my degree in microbiology where I met your grandmother who was getting a degree as a computer engineer. I fell in love not too soon after our first date began as I took her to what I thought was a romantic evening picnic just outside the observatory. It turns out I was just lucky that she had as much love for space exploration as I did. To see her eyes sparkle when she realized we were going to be dining under the moon, the stars, and while viewing the Lyrids is to know that we were meant to be.

While we were both working on our respective masters degrees, multiple space programs started using c-capable engines to send probes out beyond our solar system. We figured that it would be just a matter of time before we found a planet that was not too warm and not too cold, but just right (Now that I think of it the term “Goldilocks planet” is a lot less of a mouthful). We had no clue how to get there as we weren’t those kinds of engineers but we felt it was only a matter of time before we were capable of reaching the stars and colonizing them. But I would catch a cold whenever I would go out of town so imagine the germs one might contract when going to another planet!

It wasn’t until the prototypes for terraforming weaponry were released that your grandmother had the idea to develop a program to predict the life forms that may develop. Using what we knew of the planet from rovers and probes and such in conjunction with what we knew was going to be on the terraform missiles she was able to develop a computer program that could extrapolate all the different genetic combinations and mutations. Basically, your grandmother predicted what kind of life would evolve on any planet that could potentially be colonized. It was my job to tell her the parameters of the algorithms she wrote up and from there we felt were able to predict what kind of life would arise. But it worked a little too well as it predicted ALL possible variations of life and couldn’t predict which would be naturally selected for.

When NASA sent people up there it was such a proud time. I know your father was just out of high school, just a few years before he met your mother when the first astronauts landed on this newly formed earth. The atmosphere was breathable but those first few seconds before she took off her helmet were unbearable and all of us were glued to the screen in anticipation. To you, Susan Brooke is probably just another name in a textbook but back then it was imprinted in our memories as the first human to breathe air outside of the planet Earth. Excuse the pun but it was breathtaking. But it’s cruel how fate can end things so tragically on a moment so historically awe inspiring.

It was protocol for astronauts to be quarantined when they returned to earth but a colleague of mine who got a job with NASA suggested that Captain Brooke’s crew be quarantined on the moon for eight weeks. It seemed cruel to someone who didn’t understand the potential biological hazards a single handful of alien bacteria could have upon all of Earth. Even then, we didn’t expect any of them to have contracted anything so sinister. The newspapers called it “xenogerms” when really it wasn’t germs that killed them at all but viruses. The autopsy was performed on the moon and tissue samples were sent to me where I developed vaccinations for the viruses over the course of the next ten years. Appropriately, each astronaut was given a burial in space where their coffins were to be hurled into our sun. The UN even paid to have as much of their families sent on the lunar surface for that touching ceremony.

Most people don’t realize how much we learned from their sacrifice. While they died of what was later termed “xenodnaviridae” there were many strands of harmless bacteria found in their tissue and on their suits that put good use to your grandmother’s computer program. Now that we knew what the primordial soup of this terra nova spawned we could more accurately predict what kind of sicknesses our bodies were susceptible to on that planet. Your father was never a scientist but he was a brilliant business man. And if it weren’t for him, colonization might not have been possible, but you knew that already. The pharmaceutical company he founded based on your grandmother’s and my research paved the way for medication for the treatment and prevention of alien sickness.

Speaking of your father, your mother tells me that you’ve decided to follow on her side of the family and become an artist of some sort, is that right? Your grandmother and I have never been the type of parent to force our children into a specific field. As long as you’re happy what you’re doing, and I know you are, we couldn’t be more proud. However, I don’t think we understand some of your poetry as it seems to have incorporated slang that we’re not familiar with. But I fear that has less to do with you living on an alien world and more that I am an old man. Your music is the same way though that instrument that your friend invented to be played on that planet does look and sound a lot like a cat in the box. I would say that it was one of Schrödinger’s as it really does sound to be both dead and alive simultaneously.

We received that picture of your girlfriend and while we’re sure she’s a lovely creature we still find it a bit of an adjustment. It only makes me sound older but I’m not sure I am able to find the beauty in turquoise skin and vestigial gills. But she does have a lovely voice and beautiful eyes, and such a lovely soul as well. If I’m blessed to have great grandchildren in my lifetime I would be honored for her to be their mother. In fact, I don’t know if your grandmother told you this, but when we receive our Nobel Prizes for our works next month, we’re going to mention her in our thank you speeches.

I’m afraid I’ve gone on much too long and in the form of a written letter, a medium that I’m sure has long been obsolete in the eyes of your generation. Back in my day, this was how we used to talk to each other. It was nearly obsolete then and I’m surprised I could find paper to write this letter on. But should you get any strange looks on the way to your new home just tell them that you’re reading the words of a daft old man who dared to dream of a life beyond the stars. And tell them that a while his feet have never left the persistent pull of earth’s gravity, it is your footfall that will ensure that dream become a reality. Though my mind helped create this world beyond the warm kiss of our sun, it is my family who is my legacy; a success that I could not even have thought up in my wildest, most fantastical ambitions.

Always,

Grandpa