"We stand here as the last living memory of the great Human civilisation. Never again, shall there be a civilisation with such pride in their achievements."
- Captain Dyson Ferran, at the very end of the mission.
The Mission
The Typhonia is a historic mission that was launched by humans on the 18th June 2194 CE from Delkash. The mission was the most daring of the time, and even though similar missions have been attempted, none have reached as far as this ship could. The ship was built twenty years prior to its launch, but underwent testing in facilities for many of those years. On the day in 2194 CE, a crew of four people boarded the ship, which included Captain Dyson Ferran, Engineers Lyra Song and Michael Ronan and Astronaut Kaden Sel.
Launched into interstellar space from Delkash, they quickly gained speed, reaching 99% of the speed of light. As the crew's time and universal time changed due to time dilation, they lost contact with civilization. All they could rely on was the ship's life support.
The crew arrived back in the Via Sagittaria Galaxy, over 10 billion years later. Instead of the majestic shape the galaxy used to be, it appeared as an orange, elliptical galaxy. There were new stars, nebulae and clusters, but the galaxy they once knew was gone. About 5 billion years prior to their arrival, the Aylothn Galaxy collided and merged with the Via Sagittaria, ejecting stars and nebulae into intergalactic space. They tried to locate Sol, but to no avail.
Instead of staying in the oddly-shaped Via Sagittaria galaxy, they continued to strive on for trillions of years. They stopped again in 500 trillion CE, finding the Universe to be a very dark place. Supernova remnants, brown dwarfs and rogue planets are the only objects in the entire Universe. Most galaxies have faded away, and even before then, the ever-increasing expansion of the Universe stretched them so far apart from each other that they remain secluded in their own pocket of space and time. The crew stared out into the vast emptiness, feeling depressed and homesick. Their home simply didn't exist any more.
The crew continued on, curious to know what's at the end of the Universe. Sixty years have passed for them, but the Universe has aged trillions and trillions of years. As the tiniest particles themselves were ripped apart due to entropy, nothing existed, except for the crew and their starship. No galaxies, no stars, no planets, no atoms. Black holes reigned supreme across the entirety of space and time. The Universe is plunged into eternal darkness.
Finding themselves locked into orbit around a gigantic supermassive black hole, the trip of a lifetime was coming to an end. Atom by atom, the ship and the crew were stretched and pulled into a stream of particles falling into the black hole's dark abyss. The crew were lost to an ancient Universe, never to be heard from again.