In a future where Earth has become nearly uninhabitable due to pollution, increasingly extreme weather, and rising seas, a luxurious starship named the Aniara carries passengers on a three‑week voyage to Mars. On board, a woman serves as the Mimarobe Emelie Jonsson within the Mima, a sophisticated artificial intelligence that recreates Earth’s verdant past as a fully immersive memory-and-emotion experience for the passengers.
During the first week, a reckless maneuver to avoid space debris launches a crisis: debris damages the hull and breaches the ship’s nuclear reactor, triggering a meltdown and forcing the crew to jettison all fuel. The ship loses propulsion and cannot correct course. Captain Chefone Arvin Kananian reassures everyone that they will resume their journey once they pass a distant celestial body, a horizon he claims will appear in about two years. The onboard astronomer, known as The Astronomer Anneli Martini, later confides that this is a lie—there is no reasonable chance of returning to Mars.
As days turn into years, the Mima becomes an essential refuge for the growing number of people seeking escape from their traumatized memories of Earth. The Mimarobe’s work shifts from novelty to necessity, and after three years the Mima is overwhelmed by the weight of despair and ultimately collapses, its self‑destruction embodying the ship’s slipping grip on reality. The Mimarobe asks for even a brief rest for the Mima, but is blamed for the malfunction and imprisoned. Isagel, a pilot who is the Mimarobe’s lover, is also imprisoned after clashing with Captain Chefone over the punishment.
By the fourth year, despair gives rise to mass suicides and the rise of strange, self‑styled cults. The Mimarobe and Isagel are released and reassigned to work, joining a fertility cult devoted to the Mima. Isagel becomes pregnant after an orgy, and her pregnancy brings its own depression and fears. The Mimarobe hopes to build a “beam-screen,” a new projection device that would mimic the Mima to ease suffering—yet Captain Chefone forbids this and instead orders her to educate the ship’s children, clinging to a glimmer of hope that one of them might somehow rediscover a route back to Mars.
In the fifth year, a probe large enough to hold fuel approaches the Aniara, suggesting a possible rescue. It takes more than a year to reach the ship, and when it is brought aboard, the crew cannot determine its origin or contents. The captain commands continued work, but hope fades. The Astronomer laments that their ship has become a sarcophagus, while Chefone demands unity to keep morale high. In a moment of rage, he shoots the Astronomer with a taser, killing her.
Amid the turmoil, the Mimarobe begins building her projection project and eventually succeeds in projecting a waterfall onto the ship’s darkened windows. She learns that Isagel has killed herself along with their child. Four years later, the crew marks the tenth anniversary of their voyage with a ceremonial medal for the Mimarobe, though the captain’s wrists hint at a suicide attempt. The ship’s algae tanks—the lifeblood of food and oxygen—grow contaminated, and morale continues to erode.
By year 24, a small circle of survivors sits in a dim room, and a woman in the group speaks of the miraculous power of sunlight on Earth as the Aniara slides toward its final darkness.
Ultimately, in the unimaginably distant year 5,981,407 of its voyage, the Aniara—now derelict, frozen, and empty of human life—drifts past the Lyra constellation and glides by a planet that is as lush and welcoming as Earth once was, offering a haunting contrast between what was lost and what remains just out of reach.
