If you are reading this, then our [archive] has found success where all other efforts have met with failure. We are a most stupid and primitive race, perhaps the most primitive that ever lived. Oh we lived many centuries with the hubris that we alone were the most intelligent life in the known universe. HA. Those few of us who survive now laugh bitterly at such ideas. If we were so brilliant then how is it that we've come to exterminate all life on [untranslatable]. If you are reading this, then you've no doubt seen the remains of our once great cities. The performance halls, the museums, even the vast caverns where the [fuel rock] was mined. It was this last which caused our great fall from grace. It was called [Ostilinum] after the great ancient God who built the sun from dust. For centuries it powered our heat systems, our machines, our [computers] and everything which we came to rely on. How could we have ignored the scientists who theorized, then pleaded, and finally begged us to stop for fear of what it was doing to the world. They warned us and we ignored the warnings. We ignored the higher temperatures, the radiation levels. Soon the ground became so hot that nobody could walk outside without protection. Plants were dying so quickly that we created a [seed bank] out on [Churon] in desperate hopes that we could regrow our crops once we discovered a way to cool the crust.
For a century our declining population [subsisted] on a nutrient slurry which is a most foul
[smelling] and tasteless experience. We ate it because it was the only way to avoid starving. But even so, many chose death and the population continued to plummet until only a few thousand of us were left. Seeing little choice, we constructed the great engine. It was the most powerful machine ever conceived. It took the entire population, dedicating more then half of every day to mining the rock and smelting it into it's final form. The moment it was finally complete, our last [president or leader] pulled the switch and our world began nudging itself out of orbit. Slowly at first, we drifted farther from the sun and towards the huge gas giants. For awhile the plan appeared to succeed. The increasing heat and radiation from the ground was offset by the decreased heat coming from a more distant sun. But sadly the celebration was [untranslatable]. We found that we couldn't slow our outward progress. The temperatures which were at first too hot for life to be comfortable, quickly grew cold. We began reversing our conservation efforts and using more of the Ostilinum in a futile attempt to keep warm. But there simply wasn't enough of it. People began building shelters like the one I write this in with the hope of keeping a habitable temperature. One group even claimed to have used some of our last Ostilinum to create a primitive ship and launch it towards [the third planet] which is believed to be capable of supporting life. We have no idea if they succeeded, for there was an angry mob bent on killing them for wasting our dwindling Ostilinum supply.
Thus I've devoted my short and pathetic life to cataloging the greatest works of [art] and culture here along with this history in the hopes that others may learn of our race, our culture, and most importantly, our mistakes.
Be wary, you who read this now. No world contains an infinite supply of energy. Take care lest you ruin the future of your own people as my ancestors have ruined mine.
And now, I will open the hatch one last time and submit to the numbing cold rather then etch out a depressing and solitary existence as the last of my kind.