The entry in the Multiverse TV Guide reads:

“Twenty First Century: for the majority of timelines, this was where a Galactic Civilisation was built from the ruins of the Twentieth Century (and the Industrial Civilisation that preceded it).”

Here in Cosmic Anthropologist HQ we spend a lot of time contemplating a more fleshed out Kardashev Scale. Something that has more dimensions than just energy usage. Cultural factors. Ethical metrics.

Here in Cosmic Anthropologist HQ we’re looking forward to being able to have a bath without using a bucket.

“The Future Composts the Past.” ~ Bruce Sterling

In most of those other timelines, Giant Mutant Rats haunt a ruined Earth.

And in just one, we got to Mars in the fifteenth century. Thanks to time travelling posthumans willing to save the world by any means necessary. Obviously.

Some speculate we got there decades ago. Or rather, They did. Those with their secret space program.

History is a lie. Progress is an illusion.

The Truth, as ever, lies somewhere between what we think we know and what we fear and what we can’t even imagine.

It wasn’t until the fifth viewing of Cloud Atlas that I saw the Wachowskis are showing us more than the trap of eternal recurrence. They’re giving us glimpses of the path we’re on too. Neo Seoul and the drowning earth.

And of course, a civilisation that just managed to reach the stars before the Collapse finally came. That managed to hurl bits of itself out into the void in one last push.

Which makes the plot of Jupiter Ascending all the more interesting.

I’m paying attention.

I’m standing here in the rubble of the World with a shovel, ready to build a Type 2 Civilisation.

Who knows, maybe the galaxy will meet us halfway?