Generation Ships

Generation ships are colossal structures built to support hundreds of people, a self-contained ecosystem and artificial gravity, allowing them to go on journeys for hundreds and thousands of years. These skyscraper-sized megaships spend eons traversing the blackened void of space, travelling to locations too distant to reach through traditional travel, only occasionally stopping by a star to recharge their warp drives. There are currently 4 generation ships en route to their destinations - Gaia, Saturn, Sagittarius and Andromeda.

Gaia

Being constructed from 2298 and launched in 2355, Gaia was constructed before the invention of the warp drive and relied on scooping interstellar dust using a giant magnetic funnel to fuel its massive engines. Gaia is 383 meters long and 80 meters wide, weighs 200,000 tons and nearly crashed the economy with the cost to construct. Its population was 70 and its destination was the Pleiades. In 2451, after the warp drive was invented, Gaia was caught up to and retrofitted with a warp drive. It has reached its destination in 2658, 700 years ahead of schedule.

Sagittarius

Constructed and launched between 2626, Sagittarius is 800m long and 180m wide, and can support 523 people. Following advances in warp technology allowing for higher speed multipliers, Sagittarius' destination is Sagittarius A*, located 26,000ly away. It is currently en route, 24,551ly away from Earth.

Andromeda

Construction starting in 2975, with a planned size of 5kmx800m, capable of holding a population of 5,153 and having a weight of an asteroid, Andromedas' destination is the Andromeda Galaxy, 2 million light years away. Thanks to increased efficiency of alcubierre drives, such a journey could be completed in a few tens of thousands of years assuming the starting velocity is close to the speed of light. Construction might not be finished until the start of the next century.