u/Just_A_Cat_Creature

Future:

Captain's log, cycle 34, final entry.

I'm so fucked. We're all fucked. Humanity, maybe the entire galaxy, could die because of me. But can you blame me? What would you have done in my place? When asked to look for an artifact that may or may not exist on a planet that may or may not exist with no description of either, what are you supposed to do? It was just a fungal world. Same as any other, except this one was uninhabited. Most are scooped up by one species or another as soon as they're discovered simply because mushrooms tend to be useful for just about everything. If this was a known fungal world, why was it uninhabited? Maybe that should've been my first clue.

We scanned the surface for structures and anomalies. We only found one thing of interest. A blank dot. Not an area where nothing grew. Though, that would also be very interesting since fungi historically don't give a shit about environmental conditions. Not as much as plants or animals, at least. No, I mean a spot of nothingness. No shrooms, no water, no ground. Nothing. Not even air. Odd, right?

So, we went down to investigate. Must be the artifact we were sent to retrieve, or so I thought. It was a cocoon of some kind. That's curious, there's no animal life here. Certainly nothing capable of spinning the 3 meter wide cocoon before us. We didn't actually see it. We sort of just saw a pitch black area in front of us. Like a textureless lump made from the abyss itself. So, we touched it. It didn't give. It felt as hard as diamond and as cold as dry ice. Must be the artifact.

We tried to load it onto the ship, but it didn't budge. We had four loader mechs yanking on that thing and it didn't move a nanometer. Obviously, when the first loader mech failed, we tried excavation. We were thoroughly baffled when we completely dug out around and underneath it and it didn't fall. Like a static object from a videogame, but in real life. So, if we couldn't bring it onto the ship, we'd put the ship around it. Days of excavation later and hours of very slow, very careful flying, we wrapped the cargo hold around the cocoon. The plan was to reinforce the bulkheads as much as possible and use the total thrust of the entire ship to move it. But, once the decontamination cycle ran, that's when everything went to shit. As soon as the last spore was purged from the cargo hold, there was a massive snapping sound, like a thousand gunshots all at once. That's when we found out it was a cocoon.

Present:

August 19th, 2104

I didn't know it could get worse than it already was. But, just when you think that, the universe itself slaps you in the face and pisses on the first meal you've had in days. Humanity was finally at peace. Not a single war if 50 years. Poverty was on a steep decline. For once, the average person was actually safe and happy and fed. Then, the great starvation struck. The top five food exporters were all hit with massive droughts and blight affected almost 40% of all crops that still had water. Suddenly, my family went from three meals a day and donating both food and money to charity to only eating one meal every other day. People were starving to death. People were selling their homes because they couldn't afford to both eat and pay their mortgage. Then, war. The worst war humanity has ever seen. You see, Russia was left largely unaffected by the great starvation. So, every country wants a piece of their land. Or all of it. Many smaller countries formed alliances, but it's mostly every nation for itself. Now, my family eats only once a week. What little food we have is needed for the war effort. Whoever takes Russia could feasibly take the world. Even starving as we all are, Russia can't hold back the entire world forever. Especially since we're desperate.

Where do you buy steel?

Where do you buy steel?