Kozak played a man’s voice:
As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organization of the 147 member states who represent almost all the human inhabitants of the planet Earth. I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.
“United Nations? Member states? What are those?” Ivan was confused.
“United Nations was an organization made up of the old human nations. Nations are independent sovereign states in the old human era. Its basis had often been comprised of ethnicity, and later developed into system involving citizenship.”
“Independent sovereign states? Enthnicity? Citizenship? Aren’t human just human?” Ivan was intrigued. “Kozak, tell me more.”
“Details related to old human are locked in the central system and restricted to Tier-0’s access,” Kozak answered.
“Wait what?” Ivan was shocked.
“Told you!” Lotti worried more. “We shouldn’t have know!”
Ivan gritted his teeth and shook his head. He noticed the paper aside.
“Kozak, what is on this paper?” Ivan asked.
“Analyzing, recomposing, completed,” Kozak answered and projected a text.
“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.
We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some--perhaps many--may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:
This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe”
― Jimmy Carter
“1… 1977!? Kozak, more detail!” Ivan was shocked.
“Details related to old human are locked in the central system and restricted to Tier-0’s access.” Kozak answered. “However, through chemical analysis, this paper is dated at approximately 130 years from now.”
“1… 130 years!?” Ivan and Lotti almost screamed.
“Detecting images inside the record. Analysis complete, replay initiated,” Kozak continued.
Before they could react, Kozak had projected the images.
“Solar system: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter.”
“Earth.”
“This blue sphere is… Earth!? This is where the old humans… no, the birthplace of humans!?” Ivan could hardly believe it.
“Beautiful…” Lotti was fascinated.
“Human life cycle. Human birth, breastfeeding,” Kozak projected the images like a biology class.
“W-what!?” Ivan was surprised. “This is how old humans were made!?”
“Affirmative. Although the crew of the Ark and produced by artificial womb, but old humans were birthed from biological mothers,” Kozak responded.
“No, this is logical,” Ivan realized the blind spots in his knowledge. “Human reproductive system did not need any outside help at all, the Ark’s reproductive facilities and genome automata, are just there to guarantee production rate.”
“Old human family,” Kozak projected an image of men and women in different age sitting together.
“Family, what is that?” Lotti didn’t understand.
“The crew of the Ark are produced by the Ark’s reproductive facility and raised by the community system,” Kozak explained. “In comparison to the old humans, after the biological mother was pregnant for nine months, the baby will be birthed and raised by its ‘father’ and ‘mother’, the two would often form a special relationship called ‘marriage’. The social unit formed from it is the ‘family’ of the old human.”
“’Father’ and ‘Mother’?” Lotti asked. “What is ‘Marriage’ and ‘Family’?”
“’Father’ and ‘Mother’ are the man and woman providing the gene for the baby. In old human’s society, the relationship ‘Marriage’ will exclude the participation of others, forming an independent unit called ‘Family’,” Kozak explained.
“Excluding others? Independent unit? I don’t get it,” Lotti was more confused with Ivan listening closely.
After all, they were born on the Ark and being educated in a designed program. Right before this moment, they were all the same as the others, never asking much about the old humans. Because that wouldn’t change anything in their lives, focusing on work, and entertainment had always been more reasonable.
“So…” Lotti petted her belly with slight confusion and gave Ivan a weird look. “So… I am a female. According to old humans, hmm… I could get… pregnant?”
“Affirmative. Lotti is healthy and can get pregnant,” Kozak explained while Ivan had yet to notice what Lotti was thinking.
“The Ark doesn’t need artificial wombs, we can just produce human by ourselves?” Lotti noticed.
“The fertility system on the Ark can eliminated the risk in pregnancy, conserve human resources and productivity during pregnancy, collect gametes with utmost efficiency, realizing the possibility to produce human en masse,” Kozak responded.
“That’s true…” Lotti thought. “If it was the old human, with ‘Marriage’ and ‘Family’, then it would be impossible to produce human in large quantity…”
“That’s the point!” Ivan noticed the contradiction. “I never know! Controlling human reproduction would change our interaction, and even how the whole community exists and operates… if we can adopt the old human system, then Yui…”
“Ivan!” Lotti knew Ivan was thinking dangerously.
“We have always been controlled by the Ark, right?”
ns 15.158.61.51da2
