the Howling Void

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Ancerious-Galactic's avatar
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Space, contrary to popular belief, is not black.


Oh, true, at first glance, as those newcomers to interstellar travel may look up from the protective daylight of their worlds and see nothing but a seemingly infinite wall of solid night, it may appear so, but those who are seasoned to the gentle allure of the sea of stars would know….Space is not black.

The swirling anomalous gasses of ancient Nebulae, the fairy-like twinkling of distant stars, the harsh, burning pulse of smoldering suns….space is a cacophony of natural color and light.

And, sometimes, other lights and colors come. Colors not so natural to the cosmos.

The actinic color of superheated plasma, of harsh energy bolts and the flaring pulse cones of missiles. The harsh electric blue of engine drives, spewing enough radiation to melt flesh with but a glancing burst.

Sometimes the sudden crimson of beads of flash-frozen blood. And the ice-encrusted skin of flash-frozen bodies, their faces contorted beyond all recognition with decompression, their souls doomed to wail for all time in the howling void.

Space more than compensates its eternal silence with the noise of color that is a Space Battle, as sentient beings wage war across its eternal and infinite expanses.

Vessels deceptively fragile in appearance that spew murder from every orifice, long tendrils of metal that reveal themselves as cannon, missile tubes, and launch gates for fighterships that dart among the massive battleships like flies among corpses. Ships that look like little more than flying crystal growths that have enough power to lay waste to entire worlds.

Vessels that are little more than flying blocks of armor and engine that maneuver as nimbly as a hummingbird among flowers deliver eternity unto their foes. The lack of air, of gravity, of the limits of the 2-dimensional battlefield afford war a new level of deadly certainty.  Ships of long, sharp angles and polished prows that can destroy entire Systems.

             Across everything, those beings caught in the horde of chaos can only hope their respective deities watch over them, to deliver them safely back to the comforting shores of home and hearth, of the bosom of family and friends. The brotherhood of war, so prevalent among soldiers of dirt and water, does not exist in space.  There are no heroes to bring home on parade. Only smoldering wrecks to drag home, patch up, and re-crew with more souls to press forward an invisible line on an infinite map. There are no rivers to cross, no mountains to occupy, no cities which to lay siege. Borders exist only on a star chart in some admiral’s office.
Fleets more often than not blunder into one another, and few survive to limp away, leaving behind only more floating debris. Times present themselves where fleets discover each other, only for them to pass each other by, the distances as great as to make simple engagement an overextended affair.

Planets discovered in the void, whether dead rocks or populated worlds still blessed with the inability to expand their horizons, will become battlegrounds for a goal they do not understand, pawns in an intergalactic game of chess that they have no say in. those with the means to cross the stars will find themselves overwhelmed by the mass of superpowers, those with ships larger than continents, than moons, than worlds, those with weapons able to lay low planets, systems, entire galaxies.

The only ones spared the horror of the eternal war are those who have the means to hold off all who approach them, or those who can hide behind walls of stealth. These beings can only stand and observe, finding a means to secure their own sovereignty.

Space is not black.


Sentient life makes sure of that.
© 2013 - 2024 Ancerious-Galactic
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rainboom44's avatar
Deep man. I wanna make an album out of it. It can tag along with my universe theory because of the thought of power that you use. I love it.