It was a good idea and it went off without a hitch. The scientist and engineering types got together and made it seem like the sun was going to go supernova in a few years, a reaction to using it for a nuclear waste dump all these years. The politicians and other high muckity-mucks were on the generation ships lickity-split, and most everyone else wasn't far behind. The only people left were those in on the game - a rarely seen cross-section of the population across any demographic you care to name - and a few old codgers and such who refused to leave, never got the joke, and were suffered to remain due to their entertainment value. The criminal element was fooled along with everyone else, thank goodness, so they were gone too. (Terrorizing the slimy politicians, everybody hoped.)
It was to be utopia: a world rich in resources of every kind, inhabited only by people who wanted to live off it in a sustainable fashion. It would be bliss, or so everyone thought. Unfortunately, this was not destined to be the first utopia that would actually work.
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