Jupiter is no more, dismantled for the Project, itself ongoing for over a century now. It was stripped of its atmosphere and its metallic hydrogen inner layer, leaving only its rocky core, that being heavily mined for materials as I speak.
Saturn will soon follow, along with Uranus and Neptune. Soon, maybe within my lifetime, there will remain only the small rocky planets, dwarf planets, and planetesimals.
Even the sun has been mined, its store of fuel greatly reduced along with its mass. It is now an M-class red dwarf star, with its luminosity diminished and its lifespan vastly increased. It should last for trillions of years more.
My name is unimportant, but what matters is the completion of the Project: the species has embarked on this venture, to construct a series of concentric shells around the sun, tap its energy, and use this to power the largest single habitation and computer humanity has ever seen. The power output will be beamed across the solar system, our ability to process data beyond the wildest imaginings of millennia ago.
But with the larger worlds to be dismantled, what of our heritage? What of their value to science?
We shall build our first Matrioshka brain, a computer surrounding the sun, layers within layers, sustained by its light, powering our civilization, housing billions of virtual worlds, and built on the corpses of planets.
But at what cost despite the benefits? What of our sense of wonder and exploration, the spirit, the soul, of our race?
Or it is to instead become our soul, enclosing the sun and damping its radiance forever?
Thank you, Sharmishtha!
LikeLike
thank you my dear friend!
LikeLike
sounds scary! I wonder if we do that level of tampering with nature… will we survive to write stories?
LikeLike