Deneb - Station 517/D

  Date: 4.9.3204 (AC)

  Dear Logbook,

  I just read a post by some jackass whining about how hard life was for him in 2050. He was living on Earth—on Earth!—not starving, not freezing to death, and he had the gall to complain. Here’s my reply so far:

  Hey Asshole,

  Greetings from the future. Year 3204 AC here.

  Humanity finally cracked fusion energy, figured out warp travel, and even solved aging and illness. Sounds great, right? Well, only if you’ve got money. Because guess what? Capitalism survived. And not just survived—it’s thriving in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine.

  Oh, and we met aliens! That part’s true. Turns out they’ve been watching us for centuries, debating whether to wipe us out because of our tendency to blow each other up over trivial nonsense. Lucky for us, there’s a rule in the Galactic Council’s charter: any species that develops faster-than-light travel on their own gets a guaranteed seat at the table. And that’s us. Humanity.

  So, we got our seat. Not because we were special, not because we earned it, but because of some ancient bureaucratic technicality. Naturally, every other species is united under a single banner. Unified governments, shared goals, all that utopian crap. And humanity? We’re still splintered into nations, megacorporations, and socio-political factions. Instead of sending a single representative with humanity’s best interests at heart, we turned the whole thing into a power auction. Whoever can pay the most gets to sit in the big chair. Because why not? Capitalism, baby!

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  Meanwhile, the rest of us? Forget those fancy alien planets. Most of them are uninhabitable—wrong atmosphere, gravity, or temperature. And even the ones that are livable? Let’s just say we don’t exactly get invited to stay. Our reputation precedes us, and it’s not flattering. They think of us as the galactic version of a drunken uncle with a flamethrower.

  So where do we live? On mass-produced space stations spread across the galaxy. Working as miners, orbital assemblers, or hydroponics farmers growing food that’d be toxic to humans but perfect for alien livestock. The lucky ones live on garbage planets strip-mined millennia ago. And the unlucky? Well, they work for factions that take most of their pay in taxes.

  And why is it like this? Because we were late to the party. The real space race? That happened tens of thousands of years ago. By the time we showed up, the galaxy was carved up, exploited, and neatly divided. We’re stuck with the scraps.

  So, instead of hoping someone in the future would swoop in to fix all your problems, maybe you should’ve gotten off your ass and done something about them yourself. Fixing capitalism would’ve been a great start. Too bad it’s way too late now.

  Damn it. I shouldn’t have read that ancient forum. And I definitely shouldn’t have wasted time writing a reply no one will ever read.