In the year 2436, humanity had long abandoned the dream of crewed interstellar travel. The vast distances between stars made it all but impossible. Even at near-light speeds, journeys would take centuries—and cryogenic sleep, warp drives, and wormholes had all failed to deliver practical solutions.
But then came Project Genesis Pulse.
Dr. Nima Sorensen, a bioelectronic physicist, made the discovery that changed everything: the genetic blueprint of a human—or any living organism—could be encoded into a high-frequency electromagnetic wave. This wave could be transmitted across space, traveling at the speed of light. The signal contained not only the DNA of sperm and egg cells, but also the exact biochemical instructions to reconstruct them atom-by-atom on arrival.
With advances in matter synthesis and quantum entanglement-based checksum verification, machines at the receiving end—called Life Reconstructors—could recreate viable gametes. Once paired, these synthetic sperm and egg cells could be brought together in automated gestation chambers, mimicking the environment of a womb with extreme precision.
All it required was sending a "Seed Signal" and pre-deploying the machinery via robotic probes.
The first successful test came on Proxima b. A century earlier, autonomous ships had landed there, building underground facilities protected from radiation. When the signal finally arrived, the Life Reconstructors came to life. Within weeks, the first human child was gestating—crafted not from transported flesh, but from information encoded in photons.
These children, known as the Lightborn, were raised by artificial intelligences trained on centuries of human culture. They were genetically adapted for their environment—stronger bones for higher gravity, enhanced lungs for thinner air. Each colony was designed to be self-sustaining, built around a single principle: life, born from light.
In time, the project expanded. Not just humans, but ecosystems were transmitted—flora, fauna, microbial life. Earth's biodiversity was compressed into streams of quantum-coded pulses, shot across the stars.
No longer were starships needed. No longer did humanity have to ride the fire of rockets into the void. Instead, Earth became a great sower of life, casting its seeds of DNA on beams of light, trusting that wherever those seeds landed, machines would decode the signal—and begin anew.
But as the centuries passed, some Seed Signals began to mutate. Electromagnetic interference, cosmic rays, or something more mysterious altered the codes mid-flight.
On some planets, the life that emerged was almost human.
And on others, something else entirely.