121: The Future Keepers

ENTRY 121: The Future Keepers

The Fall was not the first near-extinction event for the human species, nor might it be its last. Without a habitable homeworld, transhumanity is spread thin in habitats and space vessels across the solar system and the even more hostile universe beyond, and the prospects for the long-term survival of humans remain incredibly tenuous. Faced with the very real possibility of extinction, forward-thinking individuals in the Future Keepers network have begun to make plans for the continued existence of humanity and human civilization.

The core of the Future Keepers are prognosticators and futurists, who chart the future in mathematical models, postulating transhuman expansion and survival against solar cycles, projected development of various technologies, terraforming progress, and known existential threat scenarios. While most predictions center on limited timeframes, the Future Keepers are attempting to draw up models for decades or centuries into the future, and to develop plans for the survival of transhumanity—not by attempting to steer or manipulate events, but by seeding planets and habitats with Sleepers.

Sleepers are self-contained bunkers designed to survive chemical-biological-radiological warfare and most commonly manned with one to four cloned agents in suspended animation—the footsoldiers of the Future Keepers. Installed in dead spaces and out-of-the-way locations, these troops are held in wait until after the projected collapse of transhumanity, when they will re-emerge and engage in their planned missions to reconnect, rebuild, and repopulate the fragments of human civilization. Single Sleepers are usually given strict missions, enforced by psychosurgically modified behaviors and edited memories, and stationed in habitats, satellites, and scumbarges; planets and exoplanets that may sustain human life are usually seeded with mixed-gender groups of 2-4 Sleepers and are intended for repopulation on these new worlds.

The Future Keepers are neither exclusive nor overly secretive with its plans; groups work for a common goal and use shared technologies, methodology, and future projections, but there is no central authority to its actions. Bioconservative elements of the Future Keepers prefer plans that focus on the survival of flats, preferably to preserve and maximize the genetic diversity of the human species; synthmorphs advocate the survival of human-style consciousness, and their Sleepers are AGIs in long-term storage. Group action is guided by the core prognosticators, who sometimes fracture or disagree over key predictions; these splinter groups generally still remain under the Future Keepers umbrella network, even if they pursue their own vision of the future, and continue to share information and resources with the Future Keepers network.

Seed

• Unknown to most, the Future Keepers has roots that stretch back before the Fall—and the first generation of Sleepers have begun to emerge. Most of these are dead, due to flawed suspended animation technologies, and others suffer from radiation sickness due to improperly shielded radiothermal batteries. These Sleepers, awoken into a future they did not expect and entities they might not even recognize as human, are still driven to complete their missions. The PCs encounter a Sleeper as she emerges on their habitat, whose mission is to reconfigure the communication array and connect it with other human habitats—some of which no longer exist. Confused and potentially dangerous, will the PCs help or hinder?