There was predictable opposition to my admittedly radical proposal. Revulsion at the idea of exploiting our precious Codex was only to be expected in a community of such devout humanists.
Why could they not see the choice before us: adaptation, or death? Why should everything that we are, all that we have come to know and learn and love -- why should that vanish into oblivion when we possess the power to live forever?
Many objected to the heretical mutations I believe necessary to the continued survival of our colony. Regrettably, their resistance will have to be put down for the greater good.
It's not as if I am demanding the sacrifice of ensouled cognizant people to feed our colony. These liminal meat puppets will exist only to serve as buffer hosts, that can transubstantiate an environmental toxin into a life-giving miracle substance.
The Red will deliver us from starvation and open up a new age of post-humanity on our otherwise extinct homeworld. Those who can see that this is the only path will be part of our new colony. Those who cannot... can provide sustenance.
The rubicon has been crossed, and so we are lost... We are the Lost... There is no other way forward.