Why did we leave earth again?

[Fresiki]

At the end of Extinction, we saved the earth, didn't we? And then we woke up inside the simulation, before finally waking up on the ship. 

I haven't gathered any new explorer notes yet, and I can't remember that it was ever explained during Genesis 1, but if we killed the king titan, cleansed the planet of element and signaled for the Arks to return, which in turn re-populated the earth... Why did we up and leave with an Ark ship, and why did Rockwell abandon the earth and come with us?

Or did he? If his plan was to spread his reach across the cosmos, maybe he left a poece of himself back on earth? Is that why we escaped? 

[Stiffeno]

Probably had a coronavirus pandemic and fled to space…personally Australia would have been closer🤔

 

But seriously though, maybe something went wrong and we had to leave, or maybe the ship is simply finding a backup home so we aren’t reliant on earth.

 

Actually maybe the repopulation of earth is a slow process and needs to be waited out elsewhere? 
 

Ive also not read explorer notes yet so no idea but hopefully it’s something cool!

[BVKnight]

SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING BEFORE GEN 2 BELOW

Spoiler

 

The story we learn about from Ark's explorer notes happened hundreds or thousands of years before we, as survivors, play through the game's story.

There were multiple plans to save humanity from extinction: the homo deus ascension, Arks scattered into space, and launching colony ships.

In Extinction, Diana and Mei-Yin survive the titans and go to a location called Arat Prime, which is implied to have some type of ship that failed to launch during the original evacuation of Earth.

The colony ship we awake on in Genesis 2 may be the Arat Prime ship launched by Diana and Mei-Yin, or it may be a different ship launched launched earlier by other humans.

Helena Walker, who has ascended to become homo deus, uses her powers to change Ark technology and create resurrection for survivors. This is what allows them to experience the Arks, fight, die, learn from their mistakes, and be reborn to try again. She does this with the goal that it will allow humanity to finally overcome the Arks and return to Earth.

All of this has already occurred before Day 1 on the Island.

After you finally fight your way through the Arks and beat Extinction, you trigger the protocol for the Arks to return to Earth and reseed the planet. You see homo deus Helena thanking you in the final cutscene.

 

However, this doesn't mean that there aren't other remnants of humanity still out there, asleep on a colony ship heading toward a new world. And that's where we wake up on Gen 2.