33. Riker – March 2158 – Sol

Riker makes contact with Colonel Butterworth of the United States of Eurasia military, who commands a refugee camp of twenty thousand people in an underground installation. After three weeks of cautious negotiations, they discuss the devastation of Earth's global war, humanity's dire population collapse, and a plan to construct colony ships using the Heaven-2's autofactories to relocate survivors to a habitable world.

Riker and Homer receive a weak audio signal from Colonel George Butterworth of the USE Army Corps, who initially mistakes them for FAITH vessels but gradually accepts that they are independent. Over three weeks of video discussions, Butterworth briefs Riker on recent history: decades of escalating international tensions culminated in a system-wide war that began with conflict over Heaven-1's destruction. The conflict evolved from spaceside military operations to planetary nuclear strikes, culminating in genocide as the Brazilian Empire's replicant-crewed ships conducted a prolonged bombardment that killed approximately two billion people. The global human population has collapsed to less than twenty million. Butterworth reveals that before the war, the USE had designed a colony ship with complete construction plans, needing only a space-based shipyard and a destination. He proposes that Riker's Heaven-2, equipped with advanced autofactories capable of bootstrapping a full shipyard, help construct two colony ships to relocate survivors from Earth. Riker presents a star chart of nearby systems rated for habitability, noting that Epsilon Eridani proved uninhabitable and that Bill may have reports from other probes within years. Butterworth estimates a decade to construct the ships from their current starting point. Riker agrees to proceed with the plan.