[ WP ] `` Humanity spent its childhood reaching for the sky . When they held it in their hands , they found naught but empty space . ''

Perhaps, if we had our time again, we could go about our endeavours differently. I suppose, ironically, that's the beauty of humanity. Hindsight. 
 
 We destroyed our planet. And to what end? We devoured its resources to propel ourselves away from the tender embrace with which she nurtured us through our species' infancy. Our cities crumbled into mines. Our mountains became our makeshift workshops. 
 
 We poured our existence into leaving behind our home. 
 
 We created our Transitships. Cramming every morsel of metal, fuel, and life into these hollow husks of homes with the hope of fleeing to another that we could desecrate. But we were blind to our own downfall. 
 
 Never had we attempted to build anything of this scale. Self-contained cities that would lead us to new frontiers in the wake of the breakdown of our borders. A species united finally in one last endeavour to better themselves and colonise further and wider than anything we'd ever known. But of course, humanity could never succeed. We fled from a planet built on failures and shortcomings. We regaled in the ancient tale of Icarus, though our ambitions remained uncurbed. 
 
 We lost half, perhaps more, on our launch. Half a species and the work of an entire existence destroyed. Through poor workmanship, perhaps. Over-fuelling maybe. We do n't know. And we ca n't. We can not return back to salvage. We made our decision to leave and that can not be reversed. 
 
 The others? Who knows. Some lost contact as we passed through the Kuiper belt. Others suffered failures as we passed the edge of our Solar System. I write this message in the immediate aftermath of the loss of the Transitship Canis Major. We are the last refuge of humanity that exists. 
 
 Our journey, too, is ill-fated. We have suffered a number of hull failures and are rapidly losing oxygen. Our on-board life support systems suggest a remaining population of around four percent of those who boarded. We can only isolate oxygen supply to enough vitachambers for an estimated 0.3 % of our remaining passengers. An insufficient number to successfully carry out our mission to reach and colonise distant worlds. 
 
 And so we, the crew of the Transitship Andromeda of Earth, have taken upon ourselves, with heavy hearts, the decision to power down. To preserve our systems' energy with the aim of sustaining the life of this message in the faint glimmer of cold and distant hope that another spacefaring civilisation may encounter it many millennia from now. To serve as a warning against the allure of the abyss. 
 
 Humanity spent its childhood reaching for the sky. When we held it in our hands, we found naught but empty space. 
 
 Signing out, 
 
 Admiral Laurence Beckett
