Running to catch the Loop, Sofiya passed an adholo of the Interplanetary Space Day. As if we need a reminder - she smiled anyways in remembrance of her childhood.

Being the niece of the late President G. Tupointo, she was with him during the name changing ceremony that marked humanity as Interplanetary Space travelers. Her cousins, Cidnee and Blaine were there too, both of them Internet celebrities and followed by a crowd of Holofans. She didn’t envy or resent them for their social status though because they weren’t like most of the empty headed Streamers and life-casters on the Tube. They were actually involved in some of Uncle G’s projects and were creating massive impact with their streams. Ok, maybe there was just a tiny bit of envy there from all the fame, gifts and perks they got, but Sofiya had been working on her own way to leave a lasting impact. With more than enough accomplishments on her own, having several doctorates in Impact Economics, Computer Science, Astrology, Physics and Metallurgy, and being professor emerita at Singularity U, those didn’t compare to the Impact she was creating from being the Director of Progress and Lead Engineer of Project Ferrum Arafa. And the best news was that she was only in her 60’s, still a few decades from any sort of midlife crisis that might make her question her own sanity in undertaking a project so immense.

It’s been almost 30 years since the Muhsk Mars colony broadcast back home, back to Earth. Billions of people watched that stream, eagerly waiting for the feed to connect and to see the great space pioneer greet us from another planet. It wasn’t long after that, that the Leviathans left, bound for Mars and carrying thousands of people, eager and determined, to claim a new home. At first, Mars was a lot like a place the early Americans called the Wild West - a mad dash for resources and riches. The digger drones worked fast, burrowing all the way to the core, and the Builders right behind them processing and constructing support columns from crust to core. But it wasn’t until the Diamandi Tower was constructed that the potential for Ferrum Arafa, the Iron Giant, was realized.

It was the largest project ever conceived by mankind, to transform Mars into a spaceship capable of taking mankind to the stars. For some, the Iron Giant was a way to escape the past, to get away from the collective guilt of all the wars and atrocities committed by mankind over the past five or so millennia, but to Sofiya, it was something more. To Sofiya, Ferrum Arafa was a vessel of human greatness and untapped potential, a time machine to the future. Instead of learning about distant solar systems tens or hundreds of thousands of years after the fact, we could learn about them in real time, we could discover the riches and wonders that different star systems have hidden within their masses, and we can test what the effects of solar radiation from different suns would have on the human genome. There is always that rumor that we are trying to create super humans, and while the possibility is real, it was never our motive; we simply wanted to bathe in the light of another sun - and hopefully find other civilizations happy to meet us.