Everyone was in a state of mental calculus about the uncertainties of the future, as they moved unenthusiastically towards the mess hall. Everyone aside from the kids who were happy to be out of school and were running around playing, bumping into things and laughing, like kids do. This was the third ration this month, everyone was feeling it.
"As a result of the attacks on our farming unit, the council has decided to ration food for the next five months, while we get our farms back to full production. You're required to pick up your rations from the mess hall after every two days. Thank you for your cooperation, and may Centauri provide." The screen along the hallway kept playing a message from the council.
Zin was on his panel, rewatching videos of the moment the explosion went off. He had been flicking up his feed for hours while in line. He was watching all the comments and videos explaining what had transpired a few days ago. It was hard to make sense of everything. He remembered a video that popped up in his feed a couple of nights ago, a theory about their journey, titled the Centaurian lie. It had a few thousand views and looked interesting enough that he opened it.
"Hi, I'm Dan, and I wanna show you something interesting." began the host. He was staring right at the camera. He was seated, elbows on the table and hands clasped together while he moved them back and forth as he talked.
"What if I told you, everything you've been taught to believe was a lie. Everything about the journey", he claimed, air quoting while he said the word journey.
"The council is lying to you, and has been hiding the truth from everyone for centuries."
"What if we're currently stuck in a trajectory that doesn't line up with where Proxima B will be when we arrive."
"See, two hundred years ago a discovery was made by an astrophysicist from sector 4b, she discovered a displacement field that was causing light to bend. She hypothesised that this displacement field would have been in the direct path of anyone from earth viewing space when our ancestors first made their calculations. And for that the council assassinated her, and banned space observation."
Zin began to wonder whether that was what the explosion was about. It sounded dumb. Was he waiting in line because of this dumb conspiracy. Everyone knew that as Earth was dying, their ancestors pulled together resources to build the ship they all called home, and set course for Proxima B, surely they factored in light displacements in their calculations. They must have. But that had been thousands of years ago. The council had sealed off all views of space after a crisis some centuries ago. No one knew anything for sure anymore.