In the far future, a Welsh woman temporarily moves to a space colony on a distant planet with her husband, Owen. The woman regals her space-born daughter with tales of the wonders of Earth, and her daughter develops a great longing for Earth that eventually puts her life at risk.

On a far-future Earth, a young man accidentally commits adultery and is exiled to a distant planet that has undergone catastrophe—only to realize that this planet is an experiment to create a second Earth, and he has an opportunity to lead the inhabitants in building an interstellar empire.

As life on Earth crumbles around her, one woman attempts to save the last survivors of a failed Mars colony.

In contemporary New York, an unlikely friendship develops between the starship that hovers above the city and the Earth’s human representative. The ship faces a difficult dilemma—it must decide whether to leave to help its creators or to stay with its new human friend.

A crew of global explorers realize they may not be alone in the universe when they encounter a traveler from another world who wants to use his space technology for evil.

Aliens land peacefully on Earth and promise to fix humans’ societal problems, but humans soon get so frustrated with them that they flee to other planets. The smaller Earth population ends up bringing positive change, but this emigration to other planets reveals that many other populations have fled these aliens for the same reason.

Prison inmates are told that they're being sent to scope out a new Earth for mankind to move to, but when they "come back" they find out they have just been play-testing a new virtual reality video game. Prison inmates are used to test a new video game which would have them inhabit a virtually real new planet, but they believe they are truly being sent to another solar system. When they realize that they've just been playing a game, there are long-term psychological impacts.

The asteroid work crews don't have much to do but tell tall tales to each other. One man tells a particularly riveting account of an expedition where he met a strange parasitic species that inhabits human bodies and barely escaped unscathed—or did he?

Is it better to have a human civilization devoid of art and culture than to have none at all? Three Earth ambassadors must whether to annihilate a space colony that has traded away human consciousness for a hive mind that feels nothing but the need for survival. In the distant future, three humans in possession of nuclear warheads must decide whether to allow a remarkable human variant species without consciousness to dominate the galaxy or destroy them forever.

An individual from a dystopian space colony travels back to Earth on a special mission, assuming it has been ravaged by climate change since his leaders abandoned it. When he discovers Earth's humanity actually benefitted from their departure, he must decide where his allegiances lie.