So, quick story here, nothing special, just an idea. Afterall, predicting the future is hard.

- Yared Scott

Year 2200

January 1st

I wanted to live forever as a child, death seemed pointless to me, scary and a waste of resources.

As teenager I wanted to die, perhaps it was lack of friends, perhaps it was a lack of proper sleep, either way, it really gnawed at me, the world around me, corporations, politics.

So I decided to change, first it was small steps, exercise, creative writing, filming.

Then using online fundraising, I started a company, I started about 7, it was crazy, I had to search for people with my vision and make sure I had enough investors and personnel.

Nothing compared to Elon Musk though.

First Tesla became a global luxury brand, I still have a model 3, they weren't the cheapest, but their cars were the fastest and the most luxurious. They succeeded at mass production but ended up focusing on batteries, after all electric cars last a century, but the batteries won't. The Gigafactory made more profit than the 2nd roadster off selling batteries. That was a beautiful car BTW, really made the company do so much better when they released it. Their main issue was always balancing revenue with R&D.

Then SpaceX took Yusaku Maezawa to the moon. It was history, they teach it in school books you know, 2024. Only a year after they claimed it would happen.

Then they went to Mars. The first intelligent life from earth to explore another planet in 3.9 billion years. We had a proper city by 2040, and China didn't hold back on their space development either. The first colony on the moon was Chinese.

There were wars, and technology advanced as always, each decade had new surprises, new innovations. Fusion came early, thanks to quantum computers, year 2028, the first commercial fusion reactors.

Then came asteroid mining. At first it was for science, to study and experiment. Then it was for profit, massive ships firing lasers to cut up the rock. We had more materials than ever before, rare earth metals like lithium and platinum to experiment with and study. Technology made a great leap that day.

Meta materials and nanotechnology were some of most important parts of our everyday life. They allowed the creation of BMI, brain machine interfaces, using Nanomachines in the bloodstream and Silicon or carbon based implants, you could connect your mind directly to your computer. There were many privacy issues at first, but it was expected. We still don't know what nightmares China pulled off with that. You could experience true virtual reality, it required really powerful computers and life support to protect you body but you could create entire worlds, however it was expensive, it was only the rich who could experience it at first, until they created planet wide servers, but you never could connect different Planets back then.

But even before true virtual reality, we created AI, at first we used the brains of dead humans, while algorithms and adaptive coding was capable, it had limited applications, their were hundreds of different ideas, and several accidents. Nothing apocalyptic, but a military complex did suffer casualties at least once. It got to the point, that we decided that every year and after death a virtual backup of your brain would be stored. Even deteriorated nervous systems could be scanned, believe it or not, your arms store memories.

By then we had almost entirely cured ageing, while not everyone had immediate access to it, with enough work anyone could earn it. Cancer was cured in the 2020s, and heart disease was cheaply dealt with by then as well, we used gene therapy and nanotechnology to solve it.

Then came the exploration of Jupiter, we found life on Europa, it wasn't anything like earth, it was alien. There was a project to use the ice as natural cooling for Supercomputers, but apart from that, we didn't really mess with it, Titan was much more attractive. By this point, Mars had been mostly terraformed, so we did the same on Titan, we gave it life. After this point, things took longer, we colonised and explored the entire solar system, and then the Oort cloud, but we weren't ready for interstellar space. There was a project to build a massive solar array, Planets were mined, we collected dust, built space elevators on the moon, and particle accelerators far larger than before. An entire particle accelerator went round the moon. We discovered unimaginable things. We built the first anti-matter drive and sent a massive ship to Alpha Centauri. Again, while no signs of intelligent life were there, on one planet we found multi-cellular life.

After that it was a blur, technology based on principles beyond the 3rd dimension, we created an actual wormhole to Alpha Centauri, we found ways of creating pocket dimensions. By this point only our most advanced human and non-human artificial super intelligence could understand how it worked, a 3D brain can't comprehend the 8th dimension. Debate was far more common than anytime in human history, while pirates weren't common, companies would happily pay you to attack competitors, and you didn't a physical brain to pilot a ship, just enough evidence for the perfect crime.

We made pocket dimensions, you could store personal AI inside your body, control Nanomachines with your mind, you could summon wormholes to travel through. We developed a sort of 4th dimension portal to jump between stars, nuclear fusion powered most vehicles, and you could store your ship in a personal pocket dimension.

I always wondered back in the early millennium, if I would be alive 200 years later, and here I was, drifting through SOL space, looking at earth.

I got up and left my ship from the emergency hatch and stored my ship, before relaxing at the view. I was quite literally in heaven. A mere 200 years, simply creating AI safely had allowed us to go from fearing extinction and nuclear fear, to becoming literally gods of alchemy, of space and of time. I distorted the space around me, slowly coming towards the earth.

Yes you heard me right, time travel. It turns out the multiverse theory was pretty accurate. If you went back in time, you would create a parallel universe if you made even a single change, to avoid leaving this world you had to be a ghost, only observing, nothing else, untouched by even light.

We brought back the Dinosaurs you know, we improved their genetic code, added letters, made true dragons that spat fire, created all manner of mythical beasts, most people have a companion of some sort, for company or for a ride. I have a pretty sweet collection, mostly in cryostorage.

So, we came this far, despite all the odds we still made it, and left none behind, we haven't even explored 10% of the galaxy yet, and most intend to do so, while the economy means the young will have to wait to gain their wings, most colonies are pretty self sufficient, and there are trillions of humans today. We haven't yet met intelligent life, so how long will it take, I'll wait.