The murals hidden in the village corners revealed fragments of the planet's history.

In 1980s Earth, cowboys representing the American West began competing in the parks. The contest, starting with horse racing, was named "Journey Eastward" — meaning to pioneer toward the east. It was an era of explosive technological growth, and mere horse racing could not contain their ambitions. Their motto: "Let the horses race into the sky." The government poured massive funds into spacecraft and base construction, parading its power and technology before the world.

In the year 2000, a project called Planetary Migration emerged into public view. The government selected twenty of its most accomplished horse racing champions, trained them, and set them on course to "migrate" to a red planet 200 light-years away — a world of red continents, strikingly familiar. The project drew fierce controversy; horse racers had no business flying to space and colonizing worlds. Yet somehow, under tremendous pressure, it moved forward. On the morning of November 12, 2010, at eight o'clock, twenty spacecraft launched into the sky. That same day, the government was exposed for financial collapse, declared bankrupt, and a great depression followed. Over the next decade, it dissolved into small federal bodies. The spacecraft were eventually declared a failure — their signals vanishing without warning, no survivors.