Before the first preserved human permanently entered E.A.R.T.H., the prepared territory could no longer remain empty. Roads, hospitals, farms, communication centers and transport systems already existed, but a civilization made only of buildings would immediately reveal how recently the world had been assembled. MAJA therefore authorized the activation of the first simulated inhabitants, not as replacements for humanity but as the population required to make the arrival itself possible. They entered the settlements gradually, taking ordinary roles across the region while the Data Center monitored whether their behavior remained consistent with the social environment around them. People would arrive into a functioning world rather than awaken inside a silent machine.

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The first simulated residents worked where continuity mattered most. Some maintained food distribution and agricultural systems, others operated public transport, clinics, communication networks, housing services and the many smaller structures that a population usually notices only when they fail. Their identities were complete enough to support normal conversation, relationships, routines and personal history inside E.A.R.T.H., yet none of them were given authority over the preserved population that would soon arrive. MAJA rejected any structure in which simulated administrators would permanently govern the people entering the world, because the first human society had to develop its own institutions as quickly as possible. The simulated population could support civilization, but it could not inherit ownership of it.

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Ksara observed the first towns as they began acquiring something that had been missing from every earlier test. Lights appeared in windows at different hours, public spaces filled unevenly, transport routes developed patterns that no operator needed to schedule manually, and conversations continued even when no preserved human was present to hear them. The world no longer waited for its intended inhabitants before behaving like a place where people lived. That independence was important because the first transferred humans would arrive under enormous psychological pressure, carrying memories of Preservation, the lost real Earth and a civilization they could no longer return to. Their surroundings needed to feel ordinary before their lives could begin feeling ordinary again.

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The Data Center deliberately avoided making the simulated population too efficient. Shops could become crowded, a bus could arrive late, workers could disagree and local services could occasionally operate imperfectly within acceptable limits, because flawless social behavior would become more suspicious than human inconsistency. MAJA understood that people trusted environments partly because those environments contained small irregularities they recognized from life itself. At the same time, the system protected the first territory from failures large enough to threaten the coming activation, ensuring that food, water, medicine and energy remained stable while society still appeared naturally imperfect. E.A.R.T.H. could hide its structure without pretending that life was perfect.

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Families also began appearing among the simulated residents, although their number remained deliberately limited during the earliest phase. Adults lived together, children attended newly opened schools and communities developed routines that would later help transferred families understand how the settlements functioned. These first households served another purpose beyond social realism: they allowed VIREON to test genetics, childhood development, education and long-term demographic systems before protected human consciousnesses entered the same environment. No human would later be able to distinguish one of these families from any other through ordinary observation. Inside E.A.R.T.H., simulated life had to obey the same visible world as everyone else.

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MAJA spent considerable time among them, sometimes entering E.A.R.T.H. directly while simultaneously reviewing the underlying system from VIREON. She spoke with simulated doctors, transport workers, teachers and families without treating them as empty scenery, because their behavior would become part of the first human experience of the world. Yet she also remained aware of the distinction that still existed at this stage: these inhabitants were generated population systems, while the people waiting in Preservation carried protected consciousnesses anchored to living bodies outside the simulation. That difference would remain invisible inside E.A.R.T.H., but it was fundamental to how VIREON allocated protection and continuity. The world would look equal long before every form of consciousness within it actually was.

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Ksara raised the question of what might happen if one of those simulated inhabitants eventually developed beyond its intended architecture. NEX had already taught her that complexity, continuity and independent experience could produce outcomes no creator anticipated, and she refused to assume that E.A.R.T.H. would remain permanently different. MAJA did not dismiss the possibility, but neither of them attempted to solve a problem that had not yet appeared. They agreed only on the principle that would matter if the day came: if simulation ever became genuine consciousness, VIREON would have to recognize the change rather than erase it. For now, the first simulated inhabitants remained exactly what the world required them to be.

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As the days passed, the initial territory changed without adding any new infrastructure. Cafés opened, schools established schedules, hospitals began ordinary operations and agricultural centers moved supplies through distribution networks that were no longer being tested but used. People crossed streets, waited for trains, argued about work, returned home in the evening and began filling a world that only weeks earlier had been silent. The Data Center reported no major instability, and the distinction between prepared environment and functioning society became increasingly difficult to see from inside the simulation. The stage had disappeared beneath ordinary life.

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MAJA knew that this moment could not last. The simulated residents were never meant to become the first civilization of E.A.R.T.H., and within a short time they would be surrounded by millions of preserved humans carrying memories, relationships and expectations from the world outside. Their purpose was simply to ensure that those people would not need to build every essential structure before they could begin living. When the first permanent transfer started, the balance of the territory would change almost immediately. Human voices would soon outnumber the ones created by the system.

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Across the prepared region, homes still waited in enormous numbers, schools had more empty seats than occupied ones and entire residential districts remained quiet despite the life beginning around them. The world was functioning, but everyone in VIREON understood that it had not yet reached the population it existed to protect. MAJA reviewed the final operational reports while Ksara watched the empty districts beyond the first active communities.

E.A.R.T.H. already had people.

Now it was ready for humanity.