A great sun called Salacia sat as the magnaminous center of its system, a yellow so bright it was nearly a piercing white. It shone over a small system, one comprised of only five circling planets, their moons, a handful of stray comets, and a few clouds of gas. At the origin of the Salacia system each of the planets had produced a great deal of frictional energy with all of the meteorites they consumed while clearing their orbital tracks and all had been considerably heated from the effect. Each planet had glowed brightly then, like a system of miniature stars. Over time they began to cool, and as their effusions diminished their facial features became apparent. The two gas bodies, Icarus and Lachesis, were composed of swirling orange and purple clouds respectively. Benu was the deep red and tan of dry rock, while Concordia was the lush green and blue of vegetation and life. Cronus, last of all, was the strange semi-transparent teal of all the various elements intermingled and frozen into a single, massive lake with with a dark heart of obsidian at its core, the relics of a volcanic past. Each of these planets had the unique trait of having settled into an orbit along the same level plane as one another, one that ran through the equator of the bright star’s mass. None of the orbits crossed one another’s path, and each was sole monarch over its own track. Over their formative ages these orbits had become synchronized so as not to distress one another, each pull and shift between them being counteracted by an eventual opposite one. And so all remained stable and constant.
That flat and level layout was due to any bodies not included in this arrangement being destroyed by the cataclysms of the neighboring Anubis system’s dissolution. Recent eons ago that system’s ruling bodies had collided and broken apart, resulting in swarms of meteorites that shattered apart every other body in a great cascading torrent. Wilds of untethered rock, ice, and gas now fomented about, still too erratic to form into any large regulatory body, hurtling and propelling one another in random, chaotic fashion. The occasional errant masses that were slung towards the Salacia system had doomed any of the planets or comets that followed orbits beneath Salacia’s equator, decimating them easily. Of course some of these asteroids had been on courses towards the central subjects as well, but each of these were quelled by the immense stellar winds that Salacia emitted into the quadrants directly above and beneath it, creating a shield of high-powered electrons that quickly dissolved all foreign materials in a shower of spectacular fire.
And so things continued calmly and well-regulated for a time, as each of Salacia’s planets became more and more self-defined and autonomous. As they completed their cooling processes, the electromagnetic polarities of the gas giants Lachesis and Icarus shifted, and the slight pull of the charged electrons in the stellar winds below began to slow their orbits, each revolution around Salacia taking a solar day longer than the last. As they slowed in their momentum they also began to sink lower and lower towards that electron field, their entire bodies trembling from the strain of alternating gravitational and magnetic forces. As the two shifted downwards, their absence began to affect all of the other planetary cycles as well. The three denser siblings, Concordia, Benu, and Cronus all raised higher above the original orbital plane as a counter-reaction to the lowering of the two others. Thus each planet began spiralling along an eccentric loop, ones that no longer intersected Salacia’s center. It was a tenuous balance, one that depended entirely on the upward and downward pulls of all other planets, and it only continued by greater and greater separation of themto opposite extremes.
At long last Lachesis and Icarus found their destination, razing their lower sectors along the stream of crackling electron-charged power. They only sunk to about one-tenth submersion before the downwards pull on them was counteracted by an electrical repulsion which scorched and burned their entire southern hemispheres deeply, eternal fires and fusions following after each other in never-ending rounds. Their northern hemispheres expanded, though, becoming infused by siphoned energy . Their red and purple clouds flashed with magnificent lightning storms and as a whole they swelled to several times their original size and mass, gluttons of power. As they grew to their saturation points their increased gravity lifted still more of the electron currents into crackling, luminous sheets around them, literally enclothing themselves in excess.
So much of the stellar winds had been repurposed in the areas where they now rested that there the cloud thinned to a mere fraction of their original strength, and it was at this time that one of the larger asteroids from the Anubis cloud, the dead hulking mass of a what had once been a third of a planet, came hurtling up towards the Salacia system at light-breaking speeds. Visual ripples appeared in the void around it, so quickly did it bend through space. It was driving towards the very heart of the stellar winds, but the proximity and gravity of bloated Lachesis shifted its course slightly so that it instead pierced through the weakened portions of the electron cloud, surviving with barely a few scorches burning across its rugged face. It nearly collided with Lachesis, but the planet rolled backwards, which in turn flung the rock was far up and above, none of its momentum lost in the encounter.
Now the planet Cronus lay squarely in the rock’s path, and as the asteroid crossed the middle plane of the Salacia system the planet dipped slightly towards it in anticipation of impact. In a world-shattering instant the rock pummeled into the sphere, a bright scorching blast illuminating the sky for a few years and then the two tumbled rapidly up and away, Cronus’s orbit completely broken. As the two careened through naked space they left behind a trail of broken gases, the melted and evaporated residue of the great lake of chemicals which had been lost in the heat of impact. That was not all that they left behind, so rapid was Cronus’s retreat that its greatest moon, Herales, lagged farther and farther behind before being released and left stranded, suspended far from any other mass.
Not only was Cronus lost, but Lachesis’s backwards roll had brought it to bear ever deeper into the electron cloud and revolve its form through a bath of razing fire and gouging lightning storms. Its own rich clouds were strained away by the magnetic rhythms of the surrounding electrons and its core began to fracture, bright flares spurting out from its molten center. These massive streams of molten heat were more than sufficient catalyst to provoke the entire electron field’s naturally explosive nature… All of space seemed to crack at the resulting blast, one which entirely consumed both Lachesis and Icarus, their cloudy masses instantly burned into pure energy and dissipated into the infinite while the illumination of the singular event lit the undersides of the other three planets for years to come. Even the great star itself was wounded by the ripples, and it began to bleed out its hydrogen and heat.
As the two gas giants diffused apart, their gravitational pulls on Concordia and Benu were lost entirely, which had been essential to stabilize their revolutions above Salacia’s center of mass. Now, though, the two bodies were untethered and began to ascend higher and higher, even as Salacia pulled them inwards, spiraling them tighter and tighter above its crown. A most beautfiul destruction followed: their moons struck into one another, their atmospheres overlapped, their deep gravities hummed to one another in loud pulsations, their night skies became filled with the other’s vibrant details, their surfaces broke apart and flew towards one other before igniting on fire and raining on the other as ash, their skins peeled off in fervent heat, and finally their cores beat together for a single moment, and then erupted.
Even had they survived, they would not have long been able to dance around the foreign invasions that followed. With the ignition of the electron field and the weakening of Salacia, there no longer stood a sufficient enough barrier to prevent the continuing onslaught of debris from the Anubis cloud. Those that did not directly pummel the sun and expel its energy inch-by-inch settled into orbit around the great star, where they collected as an innumerable mass. Collisions were inevitable, and the asteroids soon self-thrashed themselves into a great cloud of dust that stood as a shell around the light, rendering the sun almost invisible. As Salacia was worn down by continued strikes it was unable to enact the grand explosive conclusion usually reserved for its race, instead merely fading, the shadows growing longer and longer until they consumed everything in perfect darkness. Eventually Salacia’s mass simply no longer had the strength to hold itself together and it fractured apart, simply becaming another portion of the debris. By this point the Anubis cloud had fully dissipated across both systems and finally all of the remaining glittering powder was evenly distributed and lay perfectly still. Eternities passed and all remained stagnant, sterile, and black.
Long after all relics of the Salacia system had been forgotten, a far off speck began drifting towards them from far apart. All the particles of dust had operated as one single mass, each contributing a small thread-like pull on some far-off distant body, drawing it in an inch at a time. Slowly the body drifted into the system proper, and it was small Herales returning. As it drew nearer the dust strained and began to pour to it in great streams. The lighter gases came first, the hydrogen and helium tumbling around it in swirling layers around its core. Next followed the particles of rock and water, which further encased the sphere until it could not hold any more mass and began to pack itself more tightly under the force of its own weight. All the other dust swirled in great rings around it, accumulating and clumping into new forms.
As the weight bore inwards on Herales, hydrogen fusion began at its core and suddenly its outer layers scorched with ignition. A new sunlight appeared, flickering and weak at first, then growing steady and bright in its rhythm. Herales was reborn into a small star and once again the faces of all the matter that surrounded it could be seen. All of the particles, the remnants of both the Salacia and Anubis system alike, slowly but surely formed into various new planets, moons, clouds, and comets, entirely new from all that had been before. They spiraled around, clearing their tracks and defining their orbits, through trial and error finding stability and balance in them. The new system was born and once again peace and order reigned.
***
In case you were wondering, no, this isn’t scientifically accurate in the slightest 🙂 Though our characters here are inanimate objects, there is obviously a classic sort of kingdom-downfall story here, one where our villains are not evil so much as drawn by their natures to overindulgence. In their pursuit of fattening power, Lachesis and Icarus fail to respect that all beings here are interconnected to one another and that what happens to one happens to all. And so, as I mentioned in my post on Monday, we end up with an ensemble piece, one where each member of the community contributes in their own way to the dissolution of balance, and also its eventual restoration.
This entry will serve as the conclusion for the dreamlike/imaginative/meditative series we have been running for the last month and we will shift gears to something new next Monday. Have a good weekend and I’ll see you then.
Give Me Pen and Paper 