In the days following the Riette convention, Astriam spends his time repairing his city-ship and upgrading the A-Net, turning it from a simple bulletin board system into something far more complex. He upgrades it, allowing it to store art, music and the written word, allowing people to load media on it for the viewing of the entire universe. In the coming months he expands it, spreading it across several dimensions, while building a trade empire spanning the multi verse. Astriam doesn’t finish here though, and instead begins his grandest design: a giant spherical vessel the size of a large city, to explore and colonise other dimensions. After years of designing and building, the inter dimensional sphere is completed, and Astriam sails away on it to spread his inventions and have further adventures.
Nowadays, seems all hope is lost. Used to believe in that sort of thing, hope, fate, luck divine intervention, whatever you want to call it. That was before the war. The war that ravaged this world, the war that burned almost everything. Doesn’t matter what we were fighting for, or who was right, the end is here for us all now. Just not enough food on the planet any more, that’s how it ends, not a noble death, fighting for what you believe in, just a slow, miserable starvation. All hope is lost, but some, some idiots still cling on. We are not alone in the multiverse, someone will help us, someone will save us. Morons, can't see the truth, there are just too many of us, we can't be saved.
And then suddenly that device starts buzzing, that strange communicator that man left. “Astriam here, heard this world got into a spot of bother, don't worry, I'm here with supplies and to pick up anyone who wants to come with me.”. What? “Mr Astriam, I don't think you understand the scale of the situation…”. And then I stop. Because I see it. In the sky above us, where nothing was moments before, great airships start to blink into existence. Dozens, no hundreds, thousands. And above them all, a great spherical ship, capable of carrying millions. “The trading fleet is always happy to help people in need.”. And then, that’s when I found my hope again.