Welcome to Gaia! ::

Above the skies of Mars orbited several ships of majestic, and intimidating stature. Each as big as a city. The first four of eight were ready for their send-off, set for planets so distant the passengers of the ships would be several thousand years old upon arrival.

It was a day to celebrate.

On the surface of Mars, the send-offs met their farewells with parties and celebrations, the jubilee continued to the atmos-hoppers, and further into the lobbies of the ships they would spend their eternities on. Everyone was talking, music was playing, it was deafening, and it was good.

This was the hope for humanity, its continuance and evolution in Parts Unknown.

And the best part is, it would be spent in Paradise.

Each ship was designed as veritable pleasure palaces, housing everything and anything the residents would want, with self-sufficient maintenance systems to make sure they could all last the entire trip in perfect luxury. It was to be the ultimate cruise.

On one such ship, dubbed Mock Roses, the party was just beginning in the docking lobby; people of all colours, politics, and creeds were partying too much for the ship to receive more recipients, so security cleverly lead the writhing mass away into a large nearby biodome and the party continued in the artificial forest. All the while a pleasant female voice spoke over the ship's intercoms.

"Welcome, all, to Mock Roses, your floating Paradise to lands beyond."

"Welcome, all, to life and leisure aboard Mock Roses."

"Welcome to Paradise."

She was not alone. That is, she was not the only one overwhelmed in this mass celebration. With a little take around her, she would likely see that she was one of many that simply stood apart and marveled, or wondered, at what was around them.

Some stood mouth agape, some sat upon the soil, sifted it through their hands, and smelled it. They were reveling in the ironic scent of earth. Something, that for many, might be the first time they smelled such fresh soil. Mars was not fully terraformed and many of the cities, while possessing biodomes, did not allow civilians entry for fear of pollution. To these people, those who ran their hands in the soil, this was quite a new experience.

Of course, the majority were simply partying.

As Alli took it all in, a worker, a woman in a jumpsuit with a patch that identified her as a gardener, decided to mingle with her. The woman herself was somewhat shy, and not all that happy that a party was commencing in her sector.

"Quite a sight, isn't it?" she addressed Alli from behind, "I raised these babies with Treyarch's Magic Growth. You can hardly believe these trees are only seven years old."

The woman stepped forward and extended her left hand to the dumbfounded guest, "Name's Frankie. I see you're not a party-goer."

"Oh no, not at all," Frankie smiled and her short brown hair bounced as she looked around. "There's another guy, old, doesn't say much, doesn't do much, he goes between here and an agriculture block."

Frankie looked up at the trees. "You know, they're only meant for resources, we'll cut 'em down as we need 'em, and replant them as we do."

She looked back into the eyes of Alli, where the other could see a smile hidden away in them. "I don't know what they'll think will happen if we use this growth stuff on 'em and then sleep for a thousand years, my guess is they might take over the whole floor. I can tell you like plants, let me show you somethin'."

She beckoned the girl to follow her away from the crowds and party.

Frankie lead Alli quite a distance, through trees and over roots and even over a bridge of a flowing creek until they came to a wall. Frankie turned to smile at the unsuspecting Alli, she looked very excited.

"I've been up here since they got this section of the ship done years ago, and I was able to make a request." She looked side to side, there was no one around, and then she spoke with a bit of a trill of excitement in her voice, "actually, I just took over a staff storage room." she pointed to the wall, where there was no mark or indication anything was there, much less beyond it.

But as Frankie pointed her sleeve pulled up a bit from her wrist, revealing a glint of metal. It was with that arm that Frankie set it in front of her, pulled the sleeve back to reveal a screened device. She smiled as she pressed the screen a few times to bring up a keypad, and then pressed in the pass-code and the wall hummed. Her smile grew wider. The woman bounced with anticipation as the wall slid back and to the side revealing...vines.

"Come, come!" she skipped into the foliage and disappeared behind the hanging leaves.

Frankie bounded into the bright room, but for the change in plants it was though they never left the artificial forest, and came to a stop somewhere out of Alli's sight.

"Just stay right there!" her voice almost squeaked in delight, "this is always awesome."

There was silence for a moment, then, Frankie's voice, "Computer, run program 'Dusk'," in the distance.

It took only a moment for the lights to dim and change colour. To anyone of space colonies this was a rather natural sight, to someone from planetside, this was strange.

To the plants, however, it made no difference, the vines revealed bulbs that seemed to burst into flowers. Off in the distance, Frankie laughed.

"Computer! Run 'Night'!"

And the lights dimmed still further, until all was darkness.

A moment past and a dull blue glow began from somewhere, and it got brighter, and brighter...until it was obvious that the glow was coming from the flowers and it lit up the entire storage room in a spectacular blue glow.

"Like it?" Frankie asked Alli from nearby, "I made them myself."