Data Sparrow

I was reading one story where the apocalypse was impossibly-rising oceans. Like, water is appearing from *waves hand* the Earth's crust or something, and literally all dry surface land on Earth is going to become underwater in X years. Part of the story was about a giant research project to invent FTL to send a few hundred humans to a nearby star which might have a habitable planet. You know what they were hoping to find? A planet with liquid water. Their plan was to descend from their starship and restart civilization using just the tools they brought with them, on a world with no life and no breathable air and the wrong gravity and the wrong temperate and the wrong sunlight and the wrong day-night cycle, just because it had liquid water. You know where else has liquid water? The flooded Earth you just abandoned. Instead of researching starship technology, you could have spent that time loading up all the same civilization-restarter tools into boats.

1. Grappling with responsibility

2. (and this one is more crucial to me) what to do with all the people who will be killed by the solution.

What I mean by that is if scientists showed up at another star system and found "Not-Earth choked by climate change" they'd be ecstatic because it is, (usually in these stories) uninhabited. And they can crash an ice-asteroid into the planet or change the atmosphere and it doesn't matter if it becomes horribly uninhabitable for a bit because they are in a epaceship/dome/whatever that can support a small team.

But if you do that on EARTH you have to grapple with all the people who are going to DIE because of the solution or while waiting for it. Or you have the separate problem of creating life support systems not for a small team of scientists but for a global population. So the problem isn't just "fix earth" but "fix Earth while keeping it habitable enough to not commit mass murder" and that's trickier and could be seen as less "fun" (Idk I think that would be a cool story but I've been told my tastes are unusual and unpopular so?)

I will say I'm all for "Fix Earth" as a real life position because...we aren't living in a scifi novel and we DO need to care about this planet and it WILL be easier to fix Earth than to terraform Mars. (And let's be real, Musk only cares about what looks cool and expensive, not what's a functional solution).

Inner: I just, uhhhhh...

Clanner: You find me sexually attractive, but you are concerned that I will treat you contemptuously for it.

Inner: ... yeah.

Clanner: [placing hand on the inner's shoulder] There is no need to worry. If anything, I find your attraction flattering. You have good taste. You are also reasonably attractive.

Inner: [perking up] Oh! Well, thanks, I guess.

Clanner: Homophobia is one of the primitive bigotries we returned to the Inner Sphere to eradicate. As for me, however, I am afraid I must decline. You see, I do not fuck freebirths.

Clanner: [walks away]

Well would you look at that, our first release since we opened up this account! This is ALLSEA: A Panthalassa Zinelet, a 28-page companion zine for Meia Calca's debut point-and-click adventure: PANTHALASSA.