The Galirandi
01-03-2007, 04:45
[T minus fifteen point two billion years (Terran) or three point eight billion years (Gali), depending which way you look at it]
There aren't many of them.
Sometimes, when she looks closely enough, she can see the tiny strands tightening and collapsing. They've grown huge now, or she's grown smaller; more concentrated, more dense. It is, in fact, decidedly uncomfortable. Black holes tend to be. She's mostly been looking outwards. She knows there are others; more energy is getting packed in every day. At least by her internal clock. Time doesn't pass in a black hole.
You might ask how exactly someone is surviving life inside a black hole. Black holes, after all, consume all matter, all energy, drawing it into their gravitational pull and then giving it off into the surrounding space. In this case, the being we are now discussing is a being of pure energy, who's been mastering her abilities to literally keep herself together for the past... oh. billion years or so?
Of course, there's always the delicate problem that the amount of space there is for the black hole to give off its radiation into is about a picometre in diametre, and being drawn in rapidly.
For a moment the universe is reduced to a single point, no dimensions, merely mass, an amount of it so imaginably huge, and packed into such a small space, that numbers cannot do it justice. Specifically, that moment is the Planck time, although I don't suppose anyone really cares. The temperature is in the quadrillions Kelvin, and pressure is something ridiculous Pascal.
The black hole then begins to expand at a reverse exponential rate -- it starts out fast, then gets slower and slower, at least in terms of time. This translates into a burst of heat and light and sound and energy in general so powerful that it sets in motion three point eight, or fifteen point two, billion years of expansion (depending on which schedule you use). She loses consciousness now, as her photons intermingle freely with the ridiculously massive quantity let loose by the explosion, then regains it as the other photons begin to separate out, leaving hers and those of her fellow organisms active and very dazed. This takes about three hundred thousand years.
We'll fast-forward a bit now. You don't need to read through the entire history of the universe to understand my point. She and her fellow organisms, now known only as "the Forerunners", established life on the first habitable planet they came to. Then they disappeared, probably until they might be discovered in another massive black hole at the collapse of this universe too. This life evolved, after three hundred million years, to become sentient, curious, ambitious even. Many different species emerged; the only ones that remain alive to this day are the An'dari, Ves'dari, and Kun'dari: the Linked.
At one point, the equivalent of ten billion Earth years ago, these Linked ruled a Star Empire encompassing every galaxy in the Universe. Hence its title, the First Star Empire, signifying its seniority. But a series of wars and extinctions left them wiser and more isolationist, only sending out probes and fleets to examine the state of the universe every one to two hundred million Gali' years (500 million to a billion Earth years).
Now that time has come again. Exploration fleets are deploying across many galaxies now to determine what has changed in the past hundred million years. Initial reports, while inconclusive, have shown that newly evolved races -- as usual -- are gaining power and appearing to think of themselves as particularly great because of it. This time's newcomer is the human, a small fleshy pink (or less commonly brown or yellow) creature that walks on two limbs and has only the most basic and limited of sensory perception, yet a crude knowledge of technology and how to work it that puts it at an advantage over many of its galaxy's other intelligent species. Almost like the early An'dari, in fact, but far more warlike, and too emotional to survive, is the general appraisement.
In search of other species, the Gali'randi are expanding elsewhere, seeking out galaxies and systems they have not visited in aeons, and even new galaxies that never before were seen by Gali'randi eyes. Or sensors for that matter.
It is with that intent in mind that a pair of Kovolk'i set out on a never-before-traversed iS-qV pathway. iS-qV is a slightly dangerous way of travelling; transferrence into and out of realspace [tXYZ-space] can cause energy or molecular disruptions that can tear apart a vessel, and staying for too long in a dimension in which time does not exist [too long being more than about six seconds] can cause severe neurological damage. Where exactly this pathway will lead them, and why, is of course half the fun.
[ooc: More coming. I'm tired and have exams tomorrow, but I'll continue it later.]
There aren't many of them.
Sometimes, when she looks closely enough, she can see the tiny strands tightening and collapsing. They've grown huge now, or she's grown smaller; more concentrated, more dense. It is, in fact, decidedly uncomfortable. Black holes tend to be. She's mostly been looking outwards. She knows there are others; more energy is getting packed in every day. At least by her internal clock. Time doesn't pass in a black hole.
You might ask how exactly someone is surviving life inside a black hole. Black holes, after all, consume all matter, all energy, drawing it into their gravitational pull and then giving it off into the surrounding space. In this case, the being we are now discussing is a being of pure energy, who's been mastering her abilities to literally keep herself together for the past... oh. billion years or so?
Of course, there's always the delicate problem that the amount of space there is for the black hole to give off its radiation into is about a picometre in diametre, and being drawn in rapidly.
For a moment the universe is reduced to a single point, no dimensions, merely mass, an amount of it so imaginably huge, and packed into such a small space, that numbers cannot do it justice. Specifically, that moment is the Planck time, although I don't suppose anyone really cares. The temperature is in the quadrillions Kelvin, and pressure is something ridiculous Pascal.
The black hole then begins to expand at a reverse exponential rate -- it starts out fast, then gets slower and slower, at least in terms of time. This translates into a burst of heat and light and sound and energy in general so powerful that it sets in motion three point eight, or fifteen point two, billion years of expansion (depending on which schedule you use). She loses consciousness now, as her photons intermingle freely with the ridiculously massive quantity let loose by the explosion, then regains it as the other photons begin to separate out, leaving hers and those of her fellow organisms active and very dazed. This takes about three hundred thousand years.
We'll fast-forward a bit now. You don't need to read through the entire history of the universe to understand my point. She and her fellow organisms, now known only as "the Forerunners", established life on the first habitable planet they came to. Then they disappeared, probably until they might be discovered in another massive black hole at the collapse of this universe too. This life evolved, after three hundred million years, to become sentient, curious, ambitious even. Many different species emerged; the only ones that remain alive to this day are the An'dari, Ves'dari, and Kun'dari: the Linked.
At one point, the equivalent of ten billion Earth years ago, these Linked ruled a Star Empire encompassing every galaxy in the Universe. Hence its title, the First Star Empire, signifying its seniority. But a series of wars and extinctions left them wiser and more isolationist, only sending out probes and fleets to examine the state of the universe every one to two hundred million Gali' years (500 million to a billion Earth years).
Now that time has come again. Exploration fleets are deploying across many galaxies now to determine what has changed in the past hundred million years. Initial reports, while inconclusive, have shown that newly evolved races -- as usual -- are gaining power and appearing to think of themselves as particularly great because of it. This time's newcomer is the human, a small fleshy pink (or less commonly brown or yellow) creature that walks on two limbs and has only the most basic and limited of sensory perception, yet a crude knowledge of technology and how to work it that puts it at an advantage over many of its galaxy's other intelligent species. Almost like the early An'dari, in fact, but far more warlike, and too emotional to survive, is the general appraisement.
In search of other species, the Gali'randi are expanding elsewhere, seeking out galaxies and systems they have not visited in aeons, and even new galaxies that never before were seen by Gali'randi eyes. Or sensors for that matter.
It is with that intent in mind that a pair of Kovolk'i set out on a never-before-traversed iS-qV pathway. iS-qV is a slightly dangerous way of travelling; transferrence into and out of realspace [tXYZ-space] can cause energy or molecular disruptions that can tear apart a vessel, and staying for too long in a dimension in which time does not exist [too long being more than about six seconds] can cause severe neurological damage. Where exactly this pathway will lead them, and why, is of course half the fun.
[ooc: More coming. I'm tired and have exams tomorrow, but I'll continue it later.]