Sally Anode said that humans are social animals. Looking at the empty blue-green surface from my perch, two hundred miles above Pilgrim's Promise, I would tend to disagree with his analysis. In fact, I would say that we humans are more like islands. The more space between us, the better in this rebellious society we have created. In less than two minutes the word “community” will cease to exist. My wife, two daughters and I will be let loose in the Big E and all we can do is pray for a soft landing. As I reflect on our shared situation, I can only hope that the painful memories of this experiment will be washed away along the way. On the contrary, my first memories were pleasant. They came to me when I was just six years old. I remember the delicate hands washing away the special gelatin mixture that kept us alive for more than a thousand years. My mother was very proud of her little astronaut. We were part of a million-person mission to save a small part of humanity. A slice of paradise has been discovered on the fourth planet of the solar system called P423. Our ship, the Pilgrim's Promise, would take us to this destination, and the journey would take nearly a thousand years. American engineering would get us there, and our biotech know-how would keep us alive. There were, however, some unfortunate side effects to this process. While our bodies were perfectly preserved for a millennium, our minds underwent unexpected degradation. All of us, young and old, have emerged from our slumber with a kind of cultural amnesia. There was no loss of intelligence. We have retained all our previous scientific or technical skills, but all knowledge of history, philosophy, politics and art has been lost. He was skewered in… middle of the paper… three unrelated proposals regarding campaign attire and was sentenced to exile with my family. So here you go. Orange Tonney will bring his wooden gavel down on contact in ten seconds. After that, the millions of former inhabitants of Pilgrim's Promise who now orbit Homestead's delivery vehicles will be shot at unknown points throughout the Galaxy. He will live out his days alone being careful to follow all his proposals and the Pilgrim's Promise will no longer exist. The rest of us boiling in Orange Tonney pancake batter will be smoothed out and spread into the Big E as entropy overtakes the human race. But my family and I will go for broke this time. Forget the edges of this space cake mix. We will go to the Bloody Center of the Milky Way. There are sure to be some friendly neighbors floating in that sea of ​​light.