TRAPPIST’S FOLLY

“I have to stop him. I must, for the good of all that is holy and for the good of all Man”.

Those were the words that were racing through my agitated mind at incomprehensible speeds faster than I was currently traveling in my Seraphim-class starship, minutes after I had left the cyan blue skies of Trappist 1e (Gethsemane), and pierced, without fear, the black, unknown depths of space. As I approached the fiery splendor of Trappist 1a-- or, Jove, as my disciples and I liked to call it, and thus the formidable Dyson ring that enveloped the sphere in a warm embrace, I could not help but accept, amidst held back tears of anger and sadness, that depending on how things went in the mighty superweapon jutting out of Jove’s ring in the form of a great spire, I would either succeed in defeating the one who I had thought a dear companion of mine and save the last vestiges of Mankind from them, or fail horrendously and watch millions upon millions die under forces of light and darkness as a result of my pacifism, and the soul of my friend be consumed by the maws of sin.

Time could never be more of the essence than it was in the moments that passed by in the half-hour I had already known it would take me to reach Jove from Trappist-1e. Knowing this fact, I stared at the looming shadowy forms of Trappist 1d (Canaan), 1c (Solomon), and 1b (Ezekiel) in the distance-- all three worlds frightened beyond belief at what was happening to their brothers and sisters and creatures of all kinds only a few planets behind them. I sighed and thought to myself that I might as well recall what had led up to the current situation-- the history of how we arrived in the Trappist star system, amidst my mental preparations as to how I would confront the traitor I once knew. I did this under the reasoning that if no one could will themselves to remember a life before they came and had begun to destroy our edenic, carefully cultivated homeworlds, then I 

could--assuming, of course, Mankind survived the terrors taking place in poor Trappist 1f (Gaea), 1g (Abzu), and 1h (Umbra). Memories flooded my head as I inched closer and closer to Jove, its flames beckoning me as the recent as well as the distant past came in a stunning, formless light.

* * *

The year had been 2077 when I, Prior David Abraham, and my disciples, along with millions of the most virtuous and wisest elect-- scientists, philosophers, artists, peacemakers, and the like, had left the ruined wasteland that was Earth for our new homes in the Trappist-1 star system that had been discovered sixty years prior by the telescopic eyes of the excited scientists of ages past. Forty years would be how long the journey would take for the 39 or 40 light years’ distance between the dead Earth and the “Promised Lands”, since humans had already developed the technology that allowed us to travel at the speed of light. Until then, we would be, as my scientist companion, Dr. Goliath, liked to joke “like the Israelites who were forced to wander the endless desert for forty years for their transgressions and offenses against the Lord until they had found the Promised Land”. He was right, if you could think of the Universe as an endless desert, the Trappist planets being a coveted oasis just within the grasp of the average human lifespan of 144 years.

We had left the Earth not merely because it had become a wasteland, but because it had fallen into the depths of sin and despair and chaos-- tyranny, war, poverty, famine, and suffering were everywhere alongside perversions innumerable that reminded me a little too much of what it was like in the days of Noah and Lot. Things had gotten worse when humans had begun colonizing Venus and a terraformed Mars-- a phenomenon that had at first captured the desperate hopes of oppressed millions who thought the Dark Ages were over and Earth could finally move on in progress from its barbaric past. All of us elect thought, I included, in those days before leaving, that maybe things would improve. But we were all wrong, as war inevitably broke out between the three planet-nations over who could claim the most resources and territory following the depletion of Mother Earth of its resources and the warming of its atmosphere. Mars would not give in to Earth’s demands, and neither would Venus’s zeppelin cities. Post-nuclear warfare, then, was the most natural and logical solution to solve the deficiencies of all three struggling homeworlds. Boom. Boom. Boom.

In those harsh days, before we had known the full extent of the damage the war would cause, we were already transporting live DNA samples of every animal and every living thing we could find into the DNA banks of our interstellar arks and hydroponic agriculture toroidal ships, selectively inviting the disenfranchised and the impoverished to join us in a “mass exodus” from the dying planet, and doing all we could to grow and raise fields upon fields of fresh, organic fruit, vegetation, grain, and occasionally, cattle (for the more secular of us). It had become clear to everyone that Earth, in its pollution and filth would not and could not survive, and that the unworthy and the corrupt, those who had made the Earth the way it was now, deserved only death upon its lifeless soil. We had all left for our pilgrimage mere weeks before Venus, Earth, and Mars met their fates at the hands of their own terrible creations, and wandered the stars for decades upon decades until arriving at our destination.

“We shall start anew” Dr. Goliath had said in the coming weeks following our departure “and not make the same mistakes like we did with Earth”.

Oh, the irony of it all, I now think as I approach Trappist 1d, or Canaan, its beauteous landscapes brimming with a joy, happiness, and plenty that might not last. Jove beckons me forth once again to recall more of my memories.

* * *

For forty years, we had toiled and worked towards developing self-sufficiency, as per the rule of St. Benedict-- the monks and monastic ascetics that were my followers and those of other religious groups praying daily in their private rooms, reading and singing aloud in choruses in praise of the infinite Cosmos, and studying the holo-relics of ancient edifying books, usually Biblical and moralistic in nature. We were, for once, truly at peace. The scientists, philosophers, and artists among us continued their works and cultivated their talents, though overall, what was left of humanity became accustomed to the simple life in our agricultural ships. In a sense, life was not that different from the old days of Earth, the ancient days of Man, before technology rose to power and human virtue fell into destruction. Conflict was largely averted through the common bonds that people of all ethnicities, origins, and belief systems possessed in the form of their collective desire to arrive at their new homes-- and conflicts that did emerge were resolved peacefully under a set of just, neutral, laws and principles that abolished commerce and revived equal distribution of grown resources, unlike the laws of Earth.

“It is interesting that you enacted laws that banned the worship of idols in public and permitted the worship of God only in the form of abstract icons. The geometry of the Cosmos is truly...beautiful, wouldn’t you say?” Dr. Goliath once told me when me and him were spending a nice afternoon inside my monastery-flagship Messiah.

I had to agree, given the merging of science and art that my legislature implied.

And now, as I sped past a paranoid Solomon, I prayed to the Cosmos that Jove’s superweapon would not be seen as an icon of war, as an icon of a past we had thought we had left behind.

* * *

It didn’t seem like the Messiah and our agriculture-ships would ever reach the Trappist homeworlds, but we did within our lifetimes, much to the joy and grace of all humans. Everyone cheered the day we reached Umbra, and while civilians from vessel to vessel had feasts and celebrations, us monks held special prayer services and reveled in the sonorous harmony of the mechanical AI church organ known as Apollo, who managed to compose an original hymn called Blessed are the Wanderers, for they Shall Find Worlds Innumerable. My dear friend and his community of scientists drank only the best wine created from the freshest grapes and yeast samples available from the agriculture ships’ vegetation, and congratulated each other for their hard work in having contributed to the construction of this last bastion of humanity that had not fallen into decadence. I gave thanks to the Cosmos numerous times for bestowing upon us all these gracious gifts of the planets we began to name, and not long after the ships had landed, Dr. Goliath had smiled at me as we walked on the pristine paradise that was Gaea (numerous colonies being constructed not too far behind us) and said something that to this day I’d never forget:

“Perhaps there is a God out there somewhere in the Universe, and if he does exist, he has benevolently given us three habitable planets to nurture. Today, we begin a new life, no longer as Earthlings, but as Trappists from the Trappist star system.”

I cried and hugged him on that day, proud that the Cosmos had changed his heart so as to shatter his agnostic skepticism. And he did not hesitate to embrace me either.

“Our war with them has led you astray back into the serpentine jaws of sin” I muttered to the nonexistent form of my friend, as my starship rumbled past Ezekiel and its baking hot surface, bright and shining like the prophet’s chariot that carried him up to the Cosmos.

* * *

Love and peace had reigned on the newfound worlds of Ezekiel, Solomon, Canaan, Gethsemane, Gaea, Abzu, and Umbra for many, many years-- all things seeming to have been right and well with the Universe under this utopia that we had all been gifted out of the divine mercy of the Cosmos. Being self-sufficient, my disciples began building monasteries all over in the style of the Cistercians, and great buildings and towers in isolated forests and countrysides, while civilians and scientists began living out their dreams and creating futuristic cities that they had once thought, long ago, would not ever come into fruition under the skies of the doomed, war-torn worlds of Venus, Earth, and Mars. War was the furthest thing from our minds as we had all finally learned to live in harmony, and, not wishing to disrupt the ethereal euphoria we all felt in those colonization days, thought nothing of the past as we looked on towards a prosperous, bountiful future. That was, until Dr. Goliath knocked on the door of my newly built abbey, of which I was its Prior, and said to me the terrifying words:

“They, the Earthlings, are coming.”

* * *

Over the coming days, I had found out, to my horror, that Dr. Goliath and his crew spotted from their satellites and telescopes on Umbra the presence of hundreds of warships all bearing the triangular insignia of what appeared to be a Great Empire that was formed between Venus, Earth, and Mars-- the Unholy Trinity, as my disciples began to call them. I had no reason to believe the warring planets would unite, but fear gnawed my soul as I realized that they were after the Trappist homeworlds and were seeking to drain them of their resources. As for what was to be done, Dr. Goliath and I had begun to argue over the threat of the Earthlings. And he opted for super-weapons of war.