Anthropological Replenishment Kit

All migration, and space migration in particular, is difficult and costly. There is a certain romance to the concept, but when it comes to getting an expedition funded, it comes down to finding new resources, discovering new technologies, and avoiding a single-event extinction from the individual to the species. The ARK units—thirteen in all—were sent out at the peak of the Second Interstellar War as a recognition of humanity’s fragility. An ARK and accompanying Forge, having access to biological material, could ostensibly restart humanity from scratch, although humans much prefer active involvement in the matter.