When, in the summer of 2020, NASA's Pathfinder mission set off for Jupiter, it was the buzz of every radio station, TV media outlet, and screamsheet. Stills of the crew were plastered on every type of commemorative merchandise imaginable: mugs, shirts, plates, bobbleheads, bumper stickers, the list goes on.
But, just a week later, the steady stream of information dried to a trickle. A month later, the world had all but forgotten about them. Three years later, and two years before their planned entry into Jupiter's orbit, a conflict now known as the Fourth Corporate War broke out.
Cape Canaveral was one of the first strategic sites razed to the ground – NASA's mission control center along with it. Pathfinder, in the vast reaches of space, had been cut off. When the opposing sides finally signed a truce three years later, Militech set its sights on reestablishing contact with the Pathfinder crew, but to no avail. Pathfinder's signal, it seemed, had been swallowed by the void of the Big Black.
To this day, it remains unknown whether the Pathfinder mission was a success. If the crew ever did reach Jupiter and its moons, we have received no word, no data, not a single lead to follow. Maybe they never stood a chance. Maybe, after a half-century of silence, they simply have nothing to say to us.
