They warned us, well, warned the generations before us anyway. Ones who made the laws and ignored the signs, knowing they’d never live long enough to see the fallout of the decisions they did and did not make. By the time someone decided to listen, it was far too late. Too late for humanity and definitely too late for Earth. Our planet was dead, a husk of flooded, crisp land, storms that would decimate settlements and wipe out family lines. Now? We’re scattered among the stars, beggars to planets that will have us, and parasites to planets that won’t. Safe to say humans are at an all-time low. We found Terra2, sure, but where we were once eight billion two hundred fifty million four hundred twenty-three thousand six hundred thirteen strong… now? Humanity is in the millions, low millions and dwindling rapidly. Poverty, disease and hunger, and desperation keep the slightly heavier air of Terra2 tainted with the type of smell that makes you wrinkle your nose and breathe through your mouth. Our only real entertainment comes in the form of hazy old Earth media or when one of us is lucky enough to get off-world.
We’re desperate, outnumbered, objectively kind of dumb, and valuable.
The trillions of highly advanced alien races know this.
We know this.
Moms, dads, sons, but especially…daughters know this.
You see, for all our rapid fall from grace, humans are still good for a few things, things that keep us dangling just off the edge of extinction. Easy labor, entertainment, occasionally, horrifically food, but most of all breeding.
Aliens of various kinds have long established breeding agencies, some accredited by the Intergalactic Alliance, others not so much. But humans, we turned the industry on its head. Overpopulation was just one of the many nails in our planet’s proverbial coffin, but now? Now it’s that very ability to populate that just might save us.
