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NHNN – NEO HELSINKI NEWS NETWORK
HUMAN INTEREST: “GENERATION APOPHIS” Date: 2028.267.1900 (Pre-Apophis Calendar)
Anchor: Jordan Telfast Classification: PUBLIC – HISTORICAL RECORD
H.E.L.E.N. Archive Index: APOPHIS-2028-089 ═══════════════════════════════════════════════
TRANSCRIPT BEGINS] TELFAST: Tonight, a different kind of story. We’re visiting Helsinki Primary School, where eight-year-olds are learning vocabulary that previous generations never needed.
LEHTONEN: Can anyone tell me what “trajectory” means?
(ELISA, age 8): It’s the path something travels through space. Like Apophis travels on its trajectory toward Earth.
TEACHER LEHTONEN: Excellent, Elisa. And what about “deflection”?
CHILD (MIKKO, age 8): That’s when we push Apophis off its trajectory so it misses Earth! My dad helps build the rockets that will save us! [Teacher smiles, but something haunted in her eyes]
Interview with child psychologist Dr. Henrik Rantala
TELFAST: These children have grown up with Apophis as a constant presence. They don’t remember a time before the comet. For them, extinction is a vocabulary word, survival is a engineering problem, and the end of the world is just… Tuesday.
DR. RANTALA: We’re seeing remarkable resilience but also profound anxiety. These children are simultaneously more mature and more frightened than any previous generation. They understand death on a global scale. They draw pictures of the comet. Some have nightmares. Others? They’ve made it into a game.
[Playground – children playing “Deflection Mission”]
CHILD 1: I’m the rocket! Pew pew! Die, Apophis!
CHILD 2: You missed! The comet’s still coming!
CHILD 1: No I didn’t! We saved everyone!
TELFAST: They play at salvation because the alternative is unthinkable. These are the children who will inherit whatever world remains after 2036. If there is a world to inherit.
H.E.L.E.N. NOTE
Of the forty-seven children featured in this broadcast, all survived the Impact. For example Elisa Lehtimäki became a structural engineer who worked on Dome Maintenance Division. Anna Sankara survived and taught in Neo Helsinki until 2058. The children who played “Deflection Mission” grew up to pilot Robot Cores. Some of their children became the soldiers who fought in the First Colony Wars. Trauma echoes across generations.]
— End Transcript Fragment —
