Prologue

Immerse yourself into the world of our future.

It is 2222 A.D. The Earth is still bustling with many life forms, but a rapid growth in human population has made us to find for other habitable places. Even, Oceans have been conquered.

Some heavenly body in space would be a permanent solution to this problem.

Fortunately, for us, scientists have found out an earth-like planet, Icarus, in our own Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 13-light years from us. 13-light years, sounds small, but it is actually 76 trillion miles away from us. Human beings have made spacecrafts capable of achieving speeds up to 25% of the speed of light. That means it would take around 52 years to reach Icarus. You would think, it is a very long duration, considering the Human life expectancy in the past, but thanks to Genetic engineering, death is now a topic in our history books.

This planet is Earth-like because of the similarity of its size, and distance from its host star, to that of Earth. Its host star is a red dwarf, about a quarter the mass of our sun, and about 0.2% as bright. Because red dwarfs are small and dim, the habitable zones around them form a tight circle, and any Earth-like planet will orbit very close to it. That implies that such a planet is subjected to intense radiation, and "tidally locked" to its star, with one side always in the dark and the other always in the light. Icarus is a small rocky planet, warm enough to have liquid water on its surface and is a host to alien life. Our powerful space telescopes orbiting around earth have confirmed this. However, to find out about the nature of aliens, is beyond the scope of our telescopes.

Scientists have decided against launching a probe to the planet, given the lack of time and livable place on Earth. Therefore, a manned spacecraft will be launched, without further delay. This spacecraft would reach Icarus in 52 years. This attempt to colonize Icarus, would consist of a team of 10 scientists, who have been trained mentally and physically, according to the conditions that would be found there.

What are the options with us, considering it would take another century to terraform Icarus?   

Meanwhile, colonization of moon or of Mars is the only option left for us.

Colonization of moon would be tougher than that of Mars, due to the scarcity of resources in the former. Mars has more than one-third of the gravity on Earth, while moon has only one-sixth of that on Earth. Considering the fact that gravity plays an important role in our lives, it would be difficult to adapt to the conditions on the moon.

Now, Mars remains the only hope for us, for at least another century.

Author's Note

How is the beginning or would it be best to begin from the middle of the story?
Please review.

Reviews

[CaptainBill]

Dev, good job. You've presented the facts well enough. Sometimes I'm not sure if they are really facts, but you have presented them well enough that I think they are. The reader can believe them, which is the point with SF. I want to read the rest now.

[Elizabeth Porterfield]

I think this is a great begining, and as Marie said it gives the neccissary background info, but the facts are a little heavy. Maybe space it out a little more, soften it up a bit with something... like, oh I don't know, a witty comment or a little joke about the facts, something still related but not quite as weighty:) Anyway, great work:) I would be interested though in looking at your other possible beginning as well:) I can't wait to read on:)

[Marie]

This is a good prologue, in that it sets the background and gives needed information. But once you start your chapters,you're really going to have to make the length and facts in the prologue pay off by putting well defined characters, good dialogue and description. And it's got to be humanized, not just a buch of facts.

[Addi]

I love the idea and I love science fiction, so I think this will be good. I agree with other reviewers in that maybe the beginning is a little too full of facts and didn't really hook me to start with. The first couple of sentences got me interested, but then there was all this information and I would suggest maybe finding a way to break it up a bit so it wasn't so intense. But I like the idea and I like the way you write and I look forward to reading more.

[Elizabeth Marie O'neil-..]

It felt like reading a text book in the beginning even if the facts were crucial for your story, but I applaud you for concept of the story. I love science fiction novels so I look forward to reading this one. (:

[Anya Myth]

It's a great idea, now all that's left is to write it out. I really liked it it's a great intro into a great space adventure, hopefully I will like it.
Here's a tip: you can never satisfy everyone so just write what you want to read and you will find your audience.
I will do my best to read this novel as you write it, so keep writing.

[the crying cup]

Wow, you've got a real page-turner here :) Keep writing and I'll keep reading!

[Keerthana]

Very nice.It won't fit in the middle of the novel.Definitely,an Intro.

[char]

I think you should have started this as a story right off, instead of telling of your intentions.

[Melissa Rose]

All this information, could be shown in the story. It's really common in science fiction for authors to begin with a lengthy prolog of, here's what's going on, type things. But you don't really need it. In fact sometimes it proves better to just toss your reader right in the middle and let them fend for themselves.

For instance, a lot of this information is very factual. It takes this long to get here, gravity is this and that. Is it really important to the story? If yes, than find a creative way to get it across in your scenes through conversations, TV commercials, news articles in the streets. As it is now, it reads very text book and doesn't give a good picture of what direction you're going to take with the story. Show vs. tell plays a good part in it as well, which I talk about in detail on my blog,

http://melissaboisclair.blogspot.com/2013/02/show-vs-tell.html

Hope this was some help. :)