[WP] Humanity has colonized other worlds, and have long forgot their origin. While exploring the galaxy thousands of years later, they discover a potentially habitable planet. H-1056, or "Earth"

Losing communication with an entire planet was a common occurrence during the years of the great expansion, even loosing track of a planet for a decade or two wouldn’t have shocked people but since the establishment of the Verse-hub and the dawn of the old Star-King dynasty it has become unheard of and almost unthinkable.

Over the last three hundred years, Cosmocartographers have been exploring and recording a virtually uninhabited arm of the Milky way in the search for new farming, mining or holiday planets. Their mission was going as close to plan as they could have hoped until they made an interesting discovery nearly three decades ago. A Cosmocartographer by the name of Andric Bellamy was the first to notice the low levels of unnatural radiation and primitive radio signals coming from a small planet orbiting a G2V star. They gave it the code H-1056.

Upon initial inspection, it was discovered that this planet is inhabited by intelligent life at an early Nuclear age. Naturally the Cosmocartographers were astounded. Reports were made and sent to the Verse-Hub who responded with the request of more information. The discovery was kept quiet from the public due to possible security risks. Those creatures could be very hostile or carry any number of deadly diseases. The last thing the Verse-Hub wanted was a few hundred young explorers from noble families descending on the planet as tourists without any form of control. An observation team was sent and the watch began.

For fifty years the observers watched this planet. Their first, and possibly most controversial discovery, was that the creatures were in fact human in more than just appearance. After some long distance biological and environmental scans it was proven that they and their planet’s atmosphere are virtually indistinguishable from us and our worlds.

It has been theorised that these people did not evolve naturally and independently. Instead they have grown from a small settlement set up during the beginning of the Expansion. A sect of a technology resisting pseudo-religion who would settle a planet with the intention of living a primitive and simpler lifestyle. Either this settlement did not intend to be found, or communication was lost long ago.

Other theories suggest that this is in fact the birthplace of humanity. The long lost home world where human kind grew from primitive beasts beating drums and fighting with rocks into the galaxy spanning race we have become. At first the Birthplace theories were seen as Ludacris but after a map was published into the scientific community showing H-1056’s location and the position and shape of the empire. There is a somewhat disputable cone shape coming from H-1056, which has since been dubbed Earth. This cone is said to signify humanities expansion from Earth to the rest of the galaxy.

How does a planet regress so much from galaxy populating to early nuclear? It appears from their texts that their recorded history starts around four thousand years ago, which was during the great expansion. It is believed that a natural disaster or plague crippled the planet, returning it to a very early stage of civilisational evolution. This may be the cause of why the Empire lost contact with Earth.

It yet remains undecided as to whether we will make contact with Earth or not. Trying to introduce an entire planets worth of people into a society far superior to their own would create many difficulties and issues as well as their lack of useable skills making them a drain on the Empires resources. There have been talks about recruiting them into the Empire’s Expeditionary Force to help police and defend against the Outer Arm Planets. Others have talked about keeping Earth preserved as a historical and anthropological site of interest. A human zoo where one can watch the primitive past from orbit or, for a small extra fee, visit the surface for a day.

Extra Soldiers or extra revenue. No one is quite sure which plan Empress Andromedous Star-King XXVII will decide to carry forward but the people of the empire are unlikely to trust these primitive savages to protect their homes and businesses from the Outer Arm Planet Bandits and Crime Empires.

/r/WritingPrompts Thread