SLIDE 4.
Three thousand years
pass.
Earth lies dark and
unpopulated once more, for humanity—as always—has gone extinct. Of
the great works in Jupiter orbit few traces remain. The great ships
have gone, the shipyards have long since been deorbited into the
swirling chaos of the gas giant’s atmosphere, and the malformed,
warped transfer bodies have been cannibalized and restored to their
original purpose.
Five small moons have
disappeared, and slowly healing gouges show the sites of huge
mining works on Io and Europa, but by the time the Stasis reseed
Earth (two-thirds of a million years hence) even the slow
resurfacing of Europa’s icy caul will have obscured the signs of
industry. It may be thousands of years after that before anybody
notices.