Vanguard of Man

Prologue EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE, you make a thousand choices. You may go right, you may go left. Eat the salad, eat the burger. Each choice you make is only one of a number of possible choices. You know that the choice that you make is an integral part of your universe. What you may not know is that you make all possible choices. If you choose the Burger, there is a universe in which you pick the salad. Each choice that could be made is made in some universe. We are each of us a maker of universes. Each of these universes exists parallel to each other, every outcome of every event splitting the worldline to create another set of universes. Every event, from the first second of time until the last. Everything exists somewhere in the foam of universes. This story takes place in one such universe. It starts on an Earth which is not so different from our own, but where the Laws of Physics are very slightly different from ours, and less forgiving to the dreams of Man. CONTENTSPrologue Introduction 1 Vanguard 46 2 The Beginning of the End 3 Aftermath 4 Starting Over 5 Ark City 6 Coming Storms 7 Birth and Death 8 Goodbye to the Solar System 9 Dreams in Transit 10 The Importance of Clipboards 11 Visit the Neighbors 12 Experiencing Hardship 13 Dreams of Otherwhens 14 Derelict drifting between Stars 15 A Planet Called Desolation 16 A Dream of Futures 17 The Generator 18 Contented Desolation 19 The Extermination of the Enloi 20 The Colony Called Gibraltar 21 A Planet called Prairie 22 Memories of Other Lives 23 Destruction at Lacaille 9352 24 Ambush in the Shadow of Stars 25 Layover at Trafalgar Station 26 Infinity in an Instant of Darkness 27 Leaving Trafalgar Station 28 Conversations with Unseen Hosts 29 Meet the Caretakers of Ross 780 30 Welcome to Wonderland 31 Battle of Wonderland 32 The Empty Ship Syndrome 33 Flight in Solitude 34 A Dark Dreaming