Room for History

Project Exodus was a United Nations run project in 2022 after NESA ( Nation Environmental Studies Association), led by scientist Dr. Richard Roth, concluded in 2019 that humanity would no longer be able to sustain itself on earth by the year 2062 due to the growing affects of climate change. The UN came together in its New York headquarters on September 16, 2019 to create an exit strategy. Led by President of the UN,  Albert Horváth from Hungary, the UN came up with Project Exodus, which would instate a scientific planet simulation that would test human’s ability to sustain life on foreign planets in hopes to leave earth. This simulation would be built and take place on Australian soil off the coast of the Great Australian Bight. The simulation would concur inside an invisible dome paneled and filled with advanced technology allowing it to mimic a true atmosphere. This dome, named EXO Dome, would be split into four sections, with each section mimicking a specific foreign planet’s environment. These four sections, named after their paired planet, are Kavarth, Retune, Anzorous, and Yuli.

Kavarth - a cold winter terrain

Retune - forrest terrain

Anzorous - desert terrain

Yulia - jungle/island terrain

In the early stages of Project Exodus, it was instated that volunteers from the NESA program would be the first test subjects to inhabit the EXO Dome, but was changed when United States UN member, Linda Rodriguez, brought up the idea of inhabiting the simulation with prisoners. This idea first had push back, especially with northern European countries questioning the humanity of it, but after heated debates, the members voted 152 - 41 for using prisoners as the test subjects. Thus creating the Exodus Documents that were signed by all members acknowledging the Exodus Project. These documents also include agreed upon rules that stated that the countries with the largest prison population would be the pool for choosing subjects. These countries were USA, China, Russia, Brazil, and India.

In May of 2020, candidates from these five countries were chosen at random and began the process of Project Exodus. There was One hundred prisoners from each country with the ratio of men to women 52- 48. These test subjects were collectively called exos. The exos initiative for being in this project was that if they could survive these planets and create civilizations, that their sentences would be shortened or dropped completely.

The government allowed families and friends to see the exos for one day before moving into the dome. When word spread about the experiment environmentalist and humanity groups rioted the prisons and governments claiming that this wasn’t just. Families rioted and even inmates rioted. These riots were known as the Hellbreak Riots. They lasted very short and did not push back the experiment at all.

Once in the dome, a number of prisoners naturally broke off and created their own clans. Some devised escape plans and some their own governments and civilizations.NESA kept a close eye on the dome and began naming groups based off their actions. Groups that wanted to create peace and colonize were called pilgrims. Groups that wants to escape were called exo escapees. And Groups that wanted blood and violence were called brickums.

Martin Pierce led the first group of prisoners in Kavarth who created the split between pilgrims and brickums. Martin led the pilgrims who wanted to be peaceful and André Tally leads the brickums who wanted to do things their own way.

On an island in Yulia, Quinn Jackson creates a democracy in a pilgrim group. When a random prisoner arrives at their camp, they learn of the existence of another group in their neighboring island. This neighboring island of brickums have created a dictatoship. This dictator is Kaleb Jones, an American prisoner who has made himself leader over the other foreign prisoners. More Americans reside on that island giving them the upper hand to control the foreign prisoners. When Quinn hears about this he takes his group to go overthrow Kalebs dictatorship. His conquest is successful.

A couple years go by of getting settled in, when Scientist at NESA decide to break down the barriers inside the dome to see if it’s possible to move to other planets after inhabiting one of the planets prior. Prisoners were unaware that there were other planet environments and other prisoners in them. Prisoners quickly tried to explore which environments were easiest to live on. Except The Forrest prisoners (Forrest people - group) did not go out, for their environment was easiest to sustain life on. When the other groups found the Forrest land, it quickly became the dome hotspot. But with every group trying to inhabit it a war broke out between the four sectioned planet groups. This was later deemed “The Great Dome War”. The desert people lost the war to the jungle/Forrest groups, leaving little desert groups left. After this war the groups held peace in the dome for 20 years.

Prior to the Great Dome War, NESA was able to prove that life was able to sustain itself in these environments. So they decided to create a phase 2. They planned to test new time technology to try to test how long these new planets could be sustainable. Once the Great dome wars were over, this technology was secretly installed. This technology would change the contents of the atmosphere in the dome and would  therefore change the lapse of time. So where inside the dome 5 years would be equivalent to 1 year on earth. NESA did not feel it was necessary to tell anyone outside of NESA for it had no effect on the time period set for the simulation.This technology was installed in 2023 and would constantly be upgraded every 4 months to ensure safety measures.

In 2027, during a routine upgrade to the system, parts of the communication system and environmental control system in NESA shutdown, leaving the planets without a direct communication to the outside world and a controlled environment. This meant that the environments would start changing off the course of their set standards. Meaning a tree that once produced fruit might now start producing weeds. Or animals that were once friendly and harmless could become ravenous and dangerous. Due to the change in habitats, clans of people started migrating again and trying to find the safest habitat.

Meanwhile, some groups called the Madge’s, before the Great Dome War never left their environments, scared that it would be worse than their own and  fearing for their safety. One of these groups was a winter clan in Kavarth. This group, like some others, decided to keep the simulation dome a secret from their children in order to let them experience a normal life without having any remorse or anger. One of these in the dark children, Gita, travels across the environments to find her missing parents. She encounters different clans but sticks with a group of exo escape believers. These were a group of people with original prisoners and their families who believe that there was an exit door somewhere hidden in the dome and they constantly were searching for it. This group doesn’t find a door but a tear in the dome, created from the upgrade shutdown that allowed access to what the people thought was the outside world. When this group exited the dome they came across another alien planet like environment. This was confusing for the original prisoners who knew the world before the dome. Another group from the anzorous planet finds their  way outside the dome as well. These two groups cross paths in what was later called the Evitica. NESA created another foreign planet environment around exo dome as phrase 3 of the simulation test. This was kept from the prisoners to test real life emotion and reactions to a foreign planet environment after knowing previous habitats because it was possible that humans might have to go leave planets spontaneously.

When found in the Evitica, these two new groups formed together to become the Last Ones of the First. This group had to now sustain itself in the Evitica also trying to find the ultimate exit. During this time NESA has fixed their system and regained knowledge of the new groups in Evitica. Because of this NESA allowed these groups to leave the dome. In the outside world,  NESA along with the government had already been sending up people to these planets that they knew were habitable due to the results of the simulation. NESA gave these now free prisoners and their families the option to be among the next group of pioneers to inhabit these planets with far more resources or stay on earth till before everyone had to leave. The results were split, were some stayed on earth and others joined the other pioneers on the planets.

Once this news of the Last Ones of the First return hit the media, the UN believed it was necessary to release the rest of te prisoners and their families in the dome with the same option. Pilgrims were given the option, while brickums were sent back to prison. By the year 2060, the last rocket took the last group of people to planet Retune, where most of the earths population went.