Godular
04-12-2006, 00:15
"When I was informed that the system was uninhabited, I assumed you meant it had no habitable planets to settle on."
General Arcturus, or at least an Avatar-based Facsimile thereof, turned a circle to explore his heavily wooded surroundings. A thin layer of snow dusted the ground, and the occasional chitter of indigenous life spoke out against the light, crisp breeze. Neither of the two Avatars wore any protection from the cold save their typically favored uniforms, but truth be told they did not require such protection. They could survive in the most blazing deserts and the most frigid wastes with equal ease, and even the hardship of interstellar vacuum gave them no pause. A chilly wind was of no consequence to a Godulan Avatar.
"Well," Prefect Corbox began in reply, "by all rights this planet should not BE here. When it comes to flukes of universal probability, this planet not only dodged a bullet but also several dozen more that came after."
"Ah yes, the riddle of Alaundril. Would you care to explain it to me? I got the general idea that a lot of explosions were involved, but that is about it. The rest of your exploration party was rather tight-lipped about it, which is doubly strange considering the nature of our network now."
Corbox nodded, then looked up to the clear sky. "First off, tell me what you see when you look up into the sky, general."
Arcturus did indeed turn his attention to the sky, but gave no sign of actually doing so. The Generals felt it was important to conserve their movement, as remaining eminently unreadable was typically as useful as utilizing actual tactical skill. And just because the Avatars had eyes did not mean they could see only through them.
A basic glance and corroboration with the several vessels that arrived in the system showed a most curious picture.
A supernova remnant a couple hundred or so astronomical units distant, a kaleidoscopic panorama of greens and reds and a few blotches of yellow still glowed with menace under the watchful eye of the rotating neutron star at its center. The beams of radiation at each pole, zooming around in their own little circles at a rate of very nearly exactly once every five seconds, interacted with the inner portions of the free floating gases nearby and further away to make them glow and shift as the various molecules would excite and zip about before combining with other molecules and returning to stability.
This gave the remant and the surrounding remnants a somewhat wispy and tentacular appearance, apparently serving as the inspiration for the sector's name.
The pulsar still retained several planetary bodies, a couple gas giants of relatively massive size and an terran-size icy world showing signs of a recent flash-melt/flash-refreeze that had apparently changed it from a slushy world of frozen methane to a solid lump of ice of more complex organic materials.
Of course, even so, the pulsar was hardly the most interesting object of the sector.
An M-class solar standard star, named Punch, danced with its red-dwarf partner, named Drunk, one astronomical unit distant from each other, forming a combined entity that broke from logic with the name of 'Lucullus'. These two stars sported a surprisingly intricate ring system that seemed to follow an egg-shaped orbit around the two bodies as a whole, several larger chunks of debris kept the rings stable even on the path between orbiting the two stars.
Beyond this ring system there existed a truly prodigious debris field, dwarfing the two asteroid fields of the Thorn system put together.
Beyond that, this planet. Beyond that, still more debris, punctuated by a pair of forming gas giants that seemed to keep the debris at bay for the simple reason that they were hogging everything for themselves.
"I see one seriously messed up place for a planet like this to be."
"And you would be right. Normal rules of nature would say that this planet being here, while still retaining some semblance of indigenous life, is fundamentally impossible. However, as you can see, this system is FAR from normal."
"Indeed. So what exactly are you getting at?"
"This planet, Arcturus, used to belong to THAT star back when it was a red supergiant," Corbox replied, pointing to the supernova remnant. "Or more precisely, it was a moon of a former gas giant that orbited it. Now, the star blew the hell up, which is where the first of this planet's lucky breaks comes into play. We figure that at the time of the supernova, this planet was then behind its primary, which took the brunt of the radiation and heat and sheer kinetic force, what have you.
"That, combined with its nature as a gas giant at the time, caused the sucker to ignite with its own power for a while, as the force knocked it out of orbit with its parent and sent it careening towards THESE two, which were little more than a protoplanetary binary system at first. The shockwaves of the supernova accelerated their development and now we have one newborn star."
"I count two."
"And you would be correct, a Brown Dwarf sits in the middle ground between planet and star, so it doesn't really count as either."
"But it isn't a brown dwarf."
"And you would be correct. But it WAS a brown dwarf right up until this planet's primary smacked into it. You see, apparently the Gas Giant's ignition proved significant to heat this world long enough to survive the trip between the two stars, but the strain of being thrown out of alignment like that weakened its own orbit, so as the big primary came closer, it got caught in the gravitational field of the bigger star and began to drift inward, but THIS planet got slingshotted out and suddenly found itself in a relatively stable orbit right smack dab in the middle of the lane in the debris cleared out by the gas giant.
"The gas giant fell in, but whiffed the bigger star and smacked into the brown dwarf, providing just enough mass, exacerbated somewhat by the fact that the former gas giant was still a bit of a smoking ember, for the brown dwarf to absorb the planet into itself and go red dwarf."
"I see now why you labeled the two stars punch-drunk."
"Yes, though we did give them the respect of a proper combined name. Now, this world is safely nestled amidst a very large number of asteroids and whatnot, and the inner system will likely develop over the next several million-ish years, but a great many have expressed an interest in sticking around here if only to get a very decent look at a relatively recent natural supernova."
"Interesting, so we ARE going to settle. Bastards... thanks for making my job harder."
"Oh don't worry about it. This system is way the hell and gone from anybody who might have an interest in it. If the supernova remnant wasn't in the way, I conjure you could actually see that imperial-clogged cesspit of a galaxy without much effort. We would have more to fear from Vong attacks than imperials, and any one of us could wipe those twits out."
"Indeed. Are we going to place anything of interest out here?"
"Nah, not really. Mostly just research facilities and whatnot, likely another replication fabricator matrix and the standard defensive cordons."
"Which of course brings me to another question, Arkades. Why are you here?"
"Skye appointed me as the Sector Administrator. I didn't get any planets when we shuffled our way into that Cluster a while back, so I got the next one. This one."
"Ah. Anything interesting about this planet?"
"Mostly mountains and evergreen-forests. Glaciers out the wazoo, about 50% of the planet is covered by oceans. Animal life is abundant but mostly diminutive in stature. The most dangerous creature we've come across is a rabbit with the temperament of a wolverine but the general size of a hamster. Surprisingly enough, it has taken something of a shine to us and seems to make a decidedly effective watch-creature. It has a shriek that can shatter glass and bounces around faster than human eyes can follow."
"miniature sonic death bunnies... coooooooool." Arcturus broke into a mischievous grin.
"Yes, very much so."
"Well, I shall go put up the claim beacon, I would like to see one of these creatures when I return."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TENDRIL SECTOR
Now Under New Management
Next Stop: The Sagittarius Galaxy - 6,420,936 lightyears
Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute.
General Arcturus, or at least an Avatar-based Facsimile thereof, turned a circle to explore his heavily wooded surroundings. A thin layer of snow dusted the ground, and the occasional chitter of indigenous life spoke out against the light, crisp breeze. Neither of the two Avatars wore any protection from the cold save their typically favored uniforms, but truth be told they did not require such protection. They could survive in the most blazing deserts and the most frigid wastes with equal ease, and even the hardship of interstellar vacuum gave them no pause. A chilly wind was of no consequence to a Godulan Avatar.
"Well," Prefect Corbox began in reply, "by all rights this planet should not BE here. When it comes to flukes of universal probability, this planet not only dodged a bullet but also several dozen more that came after."
"Ah yes, the riddle of Alaundril. Would you care to explain it to me? I got the general idea that a lot of explosions were involved, but that is about it. The rest of your exploration party was rather tight-lipped about it, which is doubly strange considering the nature of our network now."
Corbox nodded, then looked up to the clear sky. "First off, tell me what you see when you look up into the sky, general."
Arcturus did indeed turn his attention to the sky, but gave no sign of actually doing so. The Generals felt it was important to conserve their movement, as remaining eminently unreadable was typically as useful as utilizing actual tactical skill. And just because the Avatars had eyes did not mean they could see only through them.
A basic glance and corroboration with the several vessels that arrived in the system showed a most curious picture.
A supernova remnant a couple hundred or so astronomical units distant, a kaleidoscopic panorama of greens and reds and a few blotches of yellow still glowed with menace under the watchful eye of the rotating neutron star at its center. The beams of radiation at each pole, zooming around in their own little circles at a rate of very nearly exactly once every five seconds, interacted with the inner portions of the free floating gases nearby and further away to make them glow and shift as the various molecules would excite and zip about before combining with other molecules and returning to stability.
This gave the remant and the surrounding remnants a somewhat wispy and tentacular appearance, apparently serving as the inspiration for the sector's name.
The pulsar still retained several planetary bodies, a couple gas giants of relatively massive size and an terran-size icy world showing signs of a recent flash-melt/flash-refreeze that had apparently changed it from a slushy world of frozen methane to a solid lump of ice of more complex organic materials.
Of course, even so, the pulsar was hardly the most interesting object of the sector.
An M-class solar standard star, named Punch, danced with its red-dwarf partner, named Drunk, one astronomical unit distant from each other, forming a combined entity that broke from logic with the name of 'Lucullus'. These two stars sported a surprisingly intricate ring system that seemed to follow an egg-shaped orbit around the two bodies as a whole, several larger chunks of debris kept the rings stable even on the path between orbiting the two stars.
Beyond this ring system there existed a truly prodigious debris field, dwarfing the two asteroid fields of the Thorn system put together.
Beyond that, this planet. Beyond that, still more debris, punctuated by a pair of forming gas giants that seemed to keep the debris at bay for the simple reason that they were hogging everything for themselves.
"I see one seriously messed up place for a planet like this to be."
"And you would be right. Normal rules of nature would say that this planet being here, while still retaining some semblance of indigenous life, is fundamentally impossible. However, as you can see, this system is FAR from normal."
"Indeed. So what exactly are you getting at?"
"This planet, Arcturus, used to belong to THAT star back when it was a red supergiant," Corbox replied, pointing to the supernova remnant. "Or more precisely, it was a moon of a former gas giant that orbited it. Now, the star blew the hell up, which is where the first of this planet's lucky breaks comes into play. We figure that at the time of the supernova, this planet was then behind its primary, which took the brunt of the radiation and heat and sheer kinetic force, what have you.
"That, combined with its nature as a gas giant at the time, caused the sucker to ignite with its own power for a while, as the force knocked it out of orbit with its parent and sent it careening towards THESE two, which were little more than a protoplanetary binary system at first. The shockwaves of the supernova accelerated their development and now we have one newborn star."
"I count two."
"And you would be correct, a Brown Dwarf sits in the middle ground between planet and star, so it doesn't really count as either."
"But it isn't a brown dwarf."
"And you would be correct. But it WAS a brown dwarf right up until this planet's primary smacked into it. You see, apparently the Gas Giant's ignition proved significant to heat this world long enough to survive the trip between the two stars, but the strain of being thrown out of alignment like that weakened its own orbit, so as the big primary came closer, it got caught in the gravitational field of the bigger star and began to drift inward, but THIS planet got slingshotted out and suddenly found itself in a relatively stable orbit right smack dab in the middle of the lane in the debris cleared out by the gas giant.
"The gas giant fell in, but whiffed the bigger star and smacked into the brown dwarf, providing just enough mass, exacerbated somewhat by the fact that the former gas giant was still a bit of a smoking ember, for the brown dwarf to absorb the planet into itself and go red dwarf."
"I see now why you labeled the two stars punch-drunk."
"Yes, though we did give them the respect of a proper combined name. Now, this world is safely nestled amidst a very large number of asteroids and whatnot, and the inner system will likely develop over the next several million-ish years, but a great many have expressed an interest in sticking around here if only to get a very decent look at a relatively recent natural supernova."
"Interesting, so we ARE going to settle. Bastards... thanks for making my job harder."
"Oh don't worry about it. This system is way the hell and gone from anybody who might have an interest in it. If the supernova remnant wasn't in the way, I conjure you could actually see that imperial-clogged cesspit of a galaxy without much effort. We would have more to fear from Vong attacks than imperials, and any one of us could wipe those twits out."
"Indeed. Are we going to place anything of interest out here?"
"Nah, not really. Mostly just research facilities and whatnot, likely another replication fabricator matrix and the standard defensive cordons."
"Which of course brings me to another question, Arkades. Why are you here?"
"Skye appointed me as the Sector Administrator. I didn't get any planets when we shuffled our way into that Cluster a while back, so I got the next one. This one."
"Ah. Anything interesting about this planet?"
"Mostly mountains and evergreen-forests. Glaciers out the wazoo, about 50% of the planet is covered by oceans. Animal life is abundant but mostly diminutive in stature. The most dangerous creature we've come across is a rabbit with the temperament of a wolverine but the general size of a hamster. Surprisingly enough, it has taken something of a shine to us and seems to make a decidedly effective watch-creature. It has a shriek that can shatter glass and bounces around faster than human eyes can follow."
"miniature sonic death bunnies... coooooooool." Arcturus broke into a mischievous grin.
"Yes, very much so."
"Well, I shall go put up the claim beacon, I would like to see one of these creatures when I return."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TENDRIL SECTOR
Now Under New Management
Next Stop: The Sagittarius Galaxy - 6,420,936 lightyears
Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute.