Niki

Fontis, Fontis star system.

I’m Nicole Angevin or Niki for short. I’m a scout and I was part of Exodus Initiative and now I’m part of the Aurora Project. But let's start at the beginning.

I was born in a little beach town on Fontis' major continent. While I grew up I regularly went to the beach where I played in the sand with my parents watching me and enjoying the seaside. We even went sailing from time to time, at first on a big yacht with the family. But later as I grew up, I also sailed alone in a smaller boat with a crabclaw sail called a proa. I had an innate curiosity, almost an itch to figure things out and tell people what I learned. So I figured I would become a teacher.

I was barely out of college and had my first assignment as a teacher lined up. Only for THE ANNOUNCEMENT to come, destroying all my plans for the future in a moment. The announcement was a worldwide broadcast from the Fontian leaders announcing the Exodus Initiative.

Apparently for centuries scientists had been observing Fontis Prime, the Fontis system star [our sun], and noticed a shift in the star luminescence and a change in the type of light it was emitting. Because for some time now analysis of the light of the star showed no trace of hydrogen and on the contrary, it showed an abundance of helium. All this made the scientist conclude that the star was in its final stretch. On a cosmic scale that is. It will take several centuries to reach the final phase but Fontis would become unlivable long before that. Thus over the coming decades Fontis would be evacuated to other star systems aboard giant space arks.

Once I had somewhat gotten over the shock of the announcement, an old memory from my childhood resurfaced. A story about a census that was held all those years ago. One of the questions was what would need to be done if someday we would have to leave Fontis behind.
Everyone found it a strange question for a census but on the other hand not that strange because the Fontians were a spacefaring people. So people speculated about upcoming colonization missions for some time. But since nothing more was heard about it it got gradually drowned in the day-to-day life until ultimately it became just another footnote in history. Until now...

Another thing that popped into my head was a so-called pilot project to provide better living quality for the asteroid miners by building large spacecrafts with a micro-environment. Thus allowing the miners and support staff to have R&R in a natural environment with grass and trees and later on even birds and bees. A now that she thinks about it some families already lived as expats aboard such ships.

Ever since I was a kid I remembered there was also the increased interest in the use of hibernation as a medical tool.

And suddenly all the pieces started to fit together.