The world is ending with a whimper rather than a bang in Linda Nagata's short story (available to read at tor.com here https://www.tor.com/2017/07/19/the-martian-obelisk/)
Architect Susannah Li-Langford has a project to distract her attention. Not only from the slow decline of the Earth, but also as a bulwark against her own personal family tragedy. Those loved ones lost to the many and various catastrophes.
"Things had just gotten worse, and worse still, and people gave up. Not everyone, not all at once—there was no single event marking the beginning of the end—but there was a sense of inevitability about the direction history had taken. Sea levels rose along with average ocean temperatures. Hurricanes devoured coastal cities and consumed low-lying countries. Agriculture faced relentless drought, flood, and temperature extremes. A long run of natural disasters made it all worse—earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions. There had been no major meteor strike yet, but Susannah wouldn’t bet against it. Health care faltered as antibiotics became useless against resistant bacteria. Surgery became an art of the past"
So after the last colony on Mars settled, Suzannah was able to secure the support of wealthy financier Nathaniel Sanchez to buy the assets of Destiny, the last failed colony attempted on Mars at bargain basement prices. And to suport her in the design and remote construction from the colony materials of one last human folly, a grand and pointless gesture. The Martian Obelisk would stand proud above the sands of Mars, long after humanity was no more. Ozymandias would be so proud.
But with the seventeen year long project nearing completion, an anomaly. A vehicle, on Mars, travelling toward the construction site, from the site of the last of four Martian colonies, Red Oasis had whimpered out nine months earlier, victim of an unknown disease. Were these survivors? A rogue AI? Saboteurs from Earth, jealous of the money expended on this folly of art and memory?
With a 19 minute time lag between sending a command and its enaction, a decision must be made. But whilst humans have the capacity for despair, they likewise can change their minds. They can choose hope.
This is a well crafted and paced story, artfully describing the conditions leading to despair and the abandonment of hope, and the process by which the protagonists reach a decision on what is most important, hope or memorialization.
Architect Susannah Li-Langford has a project to distract her attention. Not only from the slow decline of the Earth, but also as a bulwark against her own personal family tragedy. Those loved ones lost to the many and various catastrophes.
"Things had just gotten worse, and worse still, and people gave up. Not everyone, not all at once—there was no single event marking the beginning of the end—but there was a sense of inevitability about the direction history had taken. Sea levels rose along with average ocean temperatures. Hurricanes devoured coastal cities and consumed low-lying countries. Agriculture faced relentless drought, flood, and temperature extremes. A long run of natural disasters made it all worse—earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions. There had been no major meteor strike yet, but Susannah wouldn’t bet against it. Health care faltered as antibiotics became useless against resistant bacteria. Surgery became an art of the past"
So after the last colony on Mars settled, Suzannah was able to secure the support of wealthy financier Nathaniel Sanchez to buy the assets of Destiny, the last failed colony attempted on Mars at bargain basement prices. And to suport her in the design and remote construction from the colony materials of one last human folly, a grand and pointless gesture. The Martian Obelisk would stand proud above the sands of Mars, long after humanity was no more. Ozymandias would be so proud.
But with the seventeen year long project nearing completion, an anomaly. A vehicle, on Mars, travelling toward the construction site, from the site of the last of four Martian colonies, Red Oasis had whimpered out nine months earlier, victim of an unknown disease. Were these survivors? A rogue AI? Saboteurs from Earth, jealous of the money expended on this folly of art and memory?
With a 19 minute time lag between sending a command and its enaction, a decision must be made. But whilst humans have the capacity for despair, they likewise can change their minds. They can choose hope.
This is a well crafted and paced story, artfully describing the conditions leading to despair and the abandonment of hope, and the process by which the protagonists reach a decision on what is most important, hope or memorialization.