I distinctly recall that it was a beautiful clear night when we approached the port of Old Orleans.
(In case you missed the missive where I explained that destination for this part of my journey -- Old Orleans was allegedly a wild bit of a town located on the Bay of Mississippi, which had separated East and West America since the New Madrid Quake of 2023 that had been brought on by unregulated excessive fracking in the heartland which had opened a larger fissure filled quickly by the rising waters of the world. Earlier in my preparation, I had overlaid a map from my time onto a map from this new time, and it had appeared to be in the area where Tuscaloosa, Alabama once stood.)
Captain Sandy had wrapped up everything that she had needed to tell me earlier that evening and she was busy coordinating the details of our arrival, and so I was alone at that moment, just staring up at the stars. Admittedly, science hadn't been my strong suit in high school, but in that moment, I was pretty sure that I remembered something about how, based on the extreme distances on which the galaxy was based, it could take up to thousands of years for some of the starlight to reach earth.
I concluded that, since my time travel had only sent me just some sixty-plus short years in the future, there was a good chance that the stars upon which I was gazing made up the *same* sky that I would have seen had I been doing the same thing back in 2017.
So as this particular monthly update of the VitalNet comes to a close -- as another reminder ... taking advantage of that loophole is *exactly* how I'm able to slip messages back to you in 2017 via the Facebook on the last day of every month -- I encourage you to do the same thing.
Go outside. Look at the stars. Know that they are the same stars that have been in your sky for years before you and for years after you. Your problems ... your issues ... your troubles ... your concerns ... in the grand scheme of things, recognize that, despite how overwhelmed you may feel in your moment, they too shall pass.
And through it all, those stars will still be shining. Those stars are the promise that, just like them, humanity will survive. Sure, there will be uprisings -- and of course, things will change -- but those same stars will be blazing brightly as we arrive at our future.
I can't wait to tell you more about that future on the last day of the month next ... but until then, I remain Ilion in 2084 as brought to the future by t1a7n72.lif., communicating with you through the use of Troy in 2017's social media account. As I've said before: stay safe and take care of each other and when you get overwhelmed, take a deep breath and look up at those stars to re-orient yourselves. We'll get through this ... and we WILL arrive at our future ... together.
