Millenia ago, humanity expelled its final Ark to the stars. A fraction of a percentage of Gaia’s remaining populace (and infinite more in their investment) were distributed amongst thousands of vessels, departing limb by limb decades apart. To live and die several generations in their inching crawl towards the edge of the solar system.

Upon the remaining vessels of the Fleet’s arrivals at the precipice beyond the tiny frozen planetoid prophesizing their infinite future, the citizens of the Fleet would have long forgotten their ancestral home, now spoken of as mere fables, creating their own long spanning history in the centuries since departure. But with all aboard a pride and unwavering duty to the Fleet, must complete their final and most daunting task; or dissolve into nothing, wasting the precious souls carefully cultivated, and those yet to be. A promise made to the forgotten planet. Though they can never forget her name.

At the Head, behind a great armored shield, a bettering ram for deadly radiation, made of hardened algae layered thousands of sheets thick; the Captain coordinates their great feat, or possibly their final fleeting catastrophic moments.

They unfurl the massive solar sails the First and Second Arms of the Fleet have been tasked with creating. Strands of algae engineered to filter as many particles as they can through the tightly bound microscopic netting, encompassing the Body of the Fleet with great, spanning wings.

Then, amidst her two dancing Legs, on the outer edges of trailing debris and castoff radiation, the diligently trained populous of the Fourth and Fifth unload the precious cargo stored and catalogued tirelessly century after century for this very moment.

Chromatic cylinders, about an arms length, unloaded carefully in zero gravity outside and far away from any of the Fleet's great, though not indestructible, vessels. Thankfully only a few deadly blasts occur, as each cylinder is painstakingly shuttled individually, thousands of kilometers to the center.

At the center, a conspicuous empty expanse leaving the Limbs errant and dismembered so long– soon to be filled with a great, beating Heart. Bonding their vessels together for all eternity.

It’s a success.

The united visage in the likes of a Great Squid can be perceived from afar, with one warped, dark singular eye ever glaring over its denizens.

And so Gaia Fleet is truly born, torn from the shackles of their past to propel into the great unknown— unlike the thousands of more arks derived from Gaia, the Fleet does not seek out a new home. They have already created one that will exist as long as their Heart permits. It’s an accepted fate, that one day their Heart will cease its steady rhythm, and all citizens shall go the rest with it.

The love of the Fleet will swallow them whole.

Some, though few, oppose such doctrine. None are so stupid as to leave willingly, a lonely exile reserved for only the most reprehensible crimes against Fleet kind.

None but one are stupid enough to do it for a simple thrill.