The Beginning of the End

De: Fredrick Hudgin

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Some graduate students discover how to open a wormhole after one of them has a dream about it. A wormhole is a hole in our universe that goes from one place to another, bypassing everything, including the distance. When the students open their first wormhole, an alert is sounded by the wormhole detectors that were planted on the moon fifty thousand years ago. The wormhole detectors were placed by the species that raised up humanity from apes to people. The alert causes humanity to be evaluated by the Galactic Species Control Board, the New Species Enforcement arm of the Ur. The Ur is the Confederation of Sentient Species in our galaxy. Wormholes would allow humanity to begin spreading and exploring the rest of the galaxy. We are evaluated to see if we have progressed enough to begin trading and interacting with the other peaceful species who already inhabit much of the galaxy. The evaluation examines us to see if we have accomplished the five basic milestones of acceptance into the UR: ending war, controlling capitalism, ending pollution, ending resource depletion, and ending overpopulation. We fail to pass their evaluation. Because there is no way to stop us from developing starships using the wormhole technology and spreading our warlike attitudes and greed throughout the galaxy, humanity is selected for elimination. This is done by simply turning off our ability to have children. The dream was planted by someone who wanted humanity evaluated before we were ready, which would cause us to be selected for elimination. But no one knows who or why. Suddenly humanity is part of a who-done-it to find out who planted the dream, why they did it, and how the elimination decree can be reversed before the last of us dies out. Without the need to preserve our world for our children, civilization begins to unravel. We plead with the Ur to give us a second chance, but no one answers our calls. This is the story of how it all unfolds. Book 1 – The Beginning of the End Book 2 – The Three-Hour War Book 3 – The Emissary