#Cold Blue Planet of Solar System

[9th-empress-suravi]

Ice Cold Blue Planet NEPTUNE 🌐 || Big Blue with Darkness

#neptune #bigblueplanet #trending #neptune #solarsystem #ColdBluePlanetNeptune

To Watch The Video go to my Youtube Channel @InfinityASTRONOMERICA

About the Video :

Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant major planet orbiting our Sun. More than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth, Neptune is not visible to the naked eye. In 2011, Neptune completed its first 165-year orbit since its discovery. The planet’s rich blue color comes from methane in its atmosphere, which absorbs red wavelengths of light but allows blue ones to be reflected back into space. Neptune was the first planet located through mathematical calculations. Using predictions sent him by French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier, based on disturbances in the orbit of Uranus, German asstronomer Johann Galle was first to observe the planet in 1846. The planet is named after the Roman god of the sea, as suggested by Le Verrier.

[nasa]

A Tour of Cosmic Temperatures

We often think of space as “cold,” but its temperature can vary enormously depending on where you visit. If the difference between summer and winter on Earth feels extreme, imagine the range of temperatures between the coldest and hottest places in the universe — it’s trillions of degrees! So let’s take a tour of cosmic temperatures … from the coldest spots to the hottest temperatures yet achieved.

First, a little vocabulary: Astronomers use the Kelvin temperature scale, which is represented by the symbol K. Going up by 1 K is the same as going up 1°C, but the scale begins at 0 K, or -273°C, which is also called absolute zero. This is the temperature where the atoms in stuff stop moving. We’ll measure our temperatures in this tour in kelvins, but also convert them to make them more familiar!

We’ll start on the chilly end of the scale with our CAL (Cold Atom Lab) on the International Space Station, which can chill atoms to within one ten billionth of a degree above 0 K, just a fraction above absolute zero.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Just slightly warmer is the Resolve sensor inside XRISM, pronounced “crism,” short for the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission. This is an international collaboration led by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) with NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). Resolve operates at one twentieth of a degree above 0 K. Why? To measure the heat from individual X-rays striking its 36 pixels!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Resolve and CAL are both colder than the Boomerang Nebula, the coldest known region in the cosmos at just 1 K! This cloud of dust and gas left over from a Sun-like star is about 5,000 light-years from Earth. Scientists are studying why it’s colder than the natural background temperature of deep space.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Let’s talk about some temperatures closer to home. Icy gas giant Neptune is the coldest major planet. It has an average temperature of 72 K at the height in its atmosphere where the pressure is equivalent to sea level on Earth. Explore how that compares to other objects in our solar system!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

How about Earth? According to NOAA, Death Valley set the world’s surface air temperature record on July 10, 1913. This record of 330 K has yet to be broken — but recent heat waves have come close. (If you’re curious about the coldest temperature measured on Earth, that’d be 183.95 K (-128.6°F or -89.2°C) at Vostok Station, Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.)

We monitor Earth's global average temperature to understand how our planet is changing due to human activities. Last year, 2023, was the warmest year on our record, which stretches back to 1880.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

The inside of our planet is even hotter. Earth’s inner core is a solid sphere made of iron and nickel that’s about 759 miles (1,221 kilometers) in radius. It reaches temperatures up to 5,600 K.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We might assume stars would be much hotter than our planet, but the surface of Rigel is only about twice the temperature of Earth’s core at 11,000 K. Rigel is a young, blue star in the constellation Orion, and one of the brightest stars in our night sky.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger 

We study temperatures on large and small scales. The electrons in hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, can be stripped away from their atoms in a process called ionization at a temperature around 158,000 K. When these electrons join back up with ionized atoms, light is produced. Ionization is what makes some clouds of gas and dust, like the Orion Nebula, glow.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We already talked about the temperature on a star’s surface, but the material surrounding a star gets much, much hotter! Our Sun’s surface is about 5,800 K (10,000°F or 5,500°C), but the outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, called the corona, can reach millions of kelvins.

Our Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona in 2021, helping us answer questions like why it is so much hotter than the Sun's surface. This is one of the mysteries of the Sun that solar scientists have been trying to figure out for years.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Looking for a hotter spot? Located about 240 million light-years away, the Perseus galaxy cluster contains thousands of galaxies. It’s surrounded by a vast cloud of gas heated up to tens of millions of kelvins that glows in X-ray light. Our telescopes found a giant wave rolling through this cluster’s hot gas, likely due to a smaller cluster grazing it billions of years ago.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Now things are really starting to heat up! When massive stars — ones with eight times the mass of our Sun or more — run out of fuel, they put on a show. On their way to becoming black holes or neutron stars, these stars will shed their outer layers in a supernova explosion. These layers can reach temperatures of 300 million K!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman

We couldn’t explore cosmic temperatures without talking about black holes. When stuff gets too close to a black hole, it can become part of a hot, orbiting debris disk with a conical corona swirling above it. As the material churns, it heats up and emits light, making it glow. This hot environment, which can reach temperatures of a billion kelvins, helps us find and study black holes even though they don’t emit light themselves.

JAXA’s XRISM telescope, which we mentioned at the start of our tour, uses its supercool Resolve detector to explore the scorching conditions around these intriguing, extreme objects.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

Our universe’s origins are even hotter. Just one second after the big bang, our tiny, baby universe consisted of an extremely hot — around 10 billion K — “soup” of light and particles. It had to cool for a few minutes before the first elements could form. The oldest light we can see, the cosmic microwave background, is from about 380,000 years after the big bang, and shows us the heat left over from these earlier moments.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

We’ve ventured far in distance and time … but the final spot on our temperature adventure is back on Earth! Scientists use the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to smash teensy particles together at superspeeds to simulate the conditions of the early universe. In 2012, they generated a plasma that was over 5 trillion K, setting a world record for the highest human-made temperature.

Want this tour as a poster? You can download it here in a vertical or horizontal version!

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger

Explore the wonderful and weird cosmos with NASA Universe on X, Facebook, and Instagram. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[raedas]

where in the locked tomb universe are we?

or: a tentative guide to the solar system in the locked tomb and which houses go where :)

[id: a diagram of the solar system, including pluto, with additional white text overlaid over each body. the sun is labeled dominicus, mercury is labeled the sixth, venus is the seventh, earth is the first, mars is the second, jupiter is the third, saturn is the fifth, uranus is the fourth, neptune is the eight, and pluto is the ninth. /end id]

note: i'm pretty sure people have put together similar analyses before, but i wanted to try my own hand at it! and please feel free to share if you disagree with me on anything & your own evidence and thoughts <3

evidence & analysis under the cut!

THE NINTH HOUSE:

okay, this one is pretty much just a freebie. if you didn't know that the ninth house was on pluto, then, uh... sorry! i'm not going to exhaustively go through all the evidence for this one, but some things that stick out are the cold, gideon's awe at how close the first house is to the sun, and the fact that it's the "ninth" to begin with—the house that wasn't really meant to exist, perfectly in line with the planet that isn't really a planet THE FIRST HOUSE:

this one is given to us just as much, if not moreso, than the ninth. with that in mind, i'm just going to do a quick run through of the evidence that the first house is earth: it's very blue and covered in water, there are ruins of civilization, it's "the first", so on and so forth. home, sweet home :)

THE SIXTH HOUSE:

Then he said, "The sun has stabilized. Hope the Sixth House didn't get cooked in the flare." (Harrow the Ninth, 490)

this line is pretty much the entire selling point for the sixth being on mercury, the closest planet to the sun! (until they run away to the other side of the universe, that is)

THE SEVENTH HOUSE:

There were other planets that made their homelands closer to the burning star of Dominicus--the Seventh and Sixth, for instance--but to Gideon they could not imaginably be anything else than 100 percent on fire. (Gideon the Ninth, 67)

the implication here is fairly obvious: the seventh and sixth are on venus and mercury, or vice versa. thankfully, since we have the sixth squared away as mercury, it's pretty obvious that the seventh is located on venus

BONUS MYTHOLOGY FACT: venus is the roman goddess of beauty! (also known by her greek name, aphrodite). "seven for beauty that blossoms and dies", huh?

THE EIGHTH HOUSE:

"I squeal so long and so loud that they hear me from the Eighth." (Gideon the Ninth, 26)

while this line is obvious hyperbole, to me it implies one of two things: either the eighth is the farthest planet from the ninth, or it's right next to them. and since we know that mercury already has its hands full with sixth house, i think it's safe to assume that the eighth is on neptune, the ninth's next door neighbor :)

THE SECOND HOUSE:

"We went through the same shitty questions of what to do. What about the Mars installation, what about the fusion batteries?" (Nona the Ninth, 74)

john helpfully offers this tidbit to us when he's recounting everything that happened leading up to the apocalypse to harrow. i think it says a lot that there was a mars installation even before the apocalypse properly hit, and it makes sense that said installation would eventually become a proper House, with a capital H

BONUS MYTHOLOGY FACT: mars is the roman god of warfare (known in greek as ares)! looks at the second house and how closely they're associated the cohort... yeah, i think that speaks for itself

THE THIRD & FIFTH HOUSES:

"I thought we'd end up on the Third or the Fifth, or a sweet space station, or something." (Gideon the Ninth, 56)

"We are not becoming an appendix of the Third or Fifth Houses," continued the necromancer opposite." (Gideon the Ninth, 58)

okay, here's this bit where things begin to get a bit hairy. repeatedly throughout the books, we're told about how the third and fifth are the two "big" houses. harrow's scared of them and worried they'll make the ninth one of their appendixes, gideon originally thinks the entire lyctoral meeting will be on one of their planets, so on and so forth. with that in mind, it really isn't that much of a stretch to think they'd be situated on the two giants in our solar system: jupiter and saturn. we'll come back in a moment to sort out which is which!

THE FOURTH HOUSE:

aaaand uranus is the only planet left! congrats, fourth!

THE THIRD & FIFTH HOUSES (again):

"Naturally [Isaac] is Pent's protégé. I hear the Fifth takes special pains with the Fourth... hegemonic pains, some may say." (Gideon the Ninth, 170)

from this quote, as well as the whole of jeannemary & isaac's relationship with magnus & abigail, we can surmise that the fourth house is very close to the fifth house (hegemonic though it may be). it's reasonable that that metaphorical proximity is reflecting (or caused by) something else: physical proximity. with that, i think it's fairly safe to assume that the fifth is on saturn, putting the third on jupiter

DOMINICUS:

aaand finally, the center of the solar system itself! i really, really don't think it needs sharing that dominicus is the sun, as long as you accept that the locked tomb takes place in our own solar system. however, i do think the meaning of dominicus is worth sharing. coming from latin, it translates roughly to "lordly", "belonging to god", or "of the master." very subtle, john, very subtle.

[timberwind]

Yarragardee Basin, Mangala, 7995 A.D.

------------------------

Accompanying music: You’re On Fire by They Might Be Giants. Summer road trip music of all time, in my opinion.

Here’s a little expository write-up on the history and geography of the worlds shown here. Someday I’ll have more to show of the personal story of these two critters and their travels; until then, a more macro-level description.

------------------------

(most of this info has become outdated as modeling invalidated some original assumptions and I changed my mind on what I wanted here; future art of Mangala will reflect this)

Mangala and its sister world Kahira (visible in the background) are binary planets, orbiting one another in a manner not entirely unlike that of Pluto and Charon in the Solar System. Mangala is a relatively small world - just about twenty percent the mass of the Earth, something like if you took two copies of Mars and smushed them together; without the internal heat to drive a carbonate cycle long term, it had long been a frozen, dusty, and arid place when transhumanity first established a permanent presence in the Tahoka system almost a thousand years ago. Since those early days, terraforming using a Birchian soletta system (a huge but foil-thin Fresnel lens of mirrors, with a secondary focal lens for burning atmospheric gasses out of the regolith) has rendered it shirtsleeve habitable to baseline humans across much of the surface, although the global water inventory remains low* and the air in the “continental” uplands is stratospheric, with only the hardiest lichens establishing a foothold. Most of Mangala’s major metropolitan areas are located in the deep rift valleys and basins, where air pressure is highest.

Kahira on the other hand, a rock almost a fifth the mass of its sister world (a little under the mass of old Mercury), remains only slightly terraformed - surface conditions are persistently cold, with a thin barely-Martian atmosphere. Some of its larger rift valleys and craters have been tented over, aerated, and planted with tall low-gravity forest and grassland, a style of habitat construction dating back to the first Mars colonists almost six thousand years ago. Industrial complexes and buried cities sprawl out across the bare surface of the moon, with huge low-gravity lava tubes seeing extensive urban development.

The Yarragardee Basin, pictured above, is a graben basin in Mangala’s northern hemisphere, notable for the historic industrial city of Tirupati - here we see two road-trippers between cities on the basin’s great plain, taking a break in the long late afternoon of a sunset-day***. Having stopped for a night at a motel near Tirupati’s aerospace complex, they’re now continuing their journey to the city of Redmond-Tonasket, located in the Woronora Valles trench system about two thousand kilometers to the southwest.

* While plenty of water could have been imported from Tahoka’s cometary halo, it was decided not to do so in order to avoid inundating pre-existing cities in the valleys and deep basins. The extremely humid hothouse conditions that come after slamming dismantled ice moons through the stratosphere at over six kilometers a second were also broadly considered unacceptable.

** Smaller worlds have been terraformed in transhuman space, both by worldhouse and more open-air methods, but it’s largely the kind of thing that much more energy-rich systems do as a vanity project. Kahira may someday see blue skies, but likely not for a thousand years at least. (edit, one year later: I actually changed up some of this while simulating this system for stability. I’ll be posting more about this soon.)

*** Mangala and Kahira, being tidally locked to each other such that they always show one another the same face as they orbit their common center of mass, both have days exactly as long as their orbital periods - 403 kiloseconds, or roughly 112 hours. This is for convenience divided into month-weeks comprising four “circadian days” of 100 kiloseconds (~26 hours), with the remaining three kiloseconds added on to the last day of a month-week to keep synchronization.

[astxrope]

Here's a basic rundown of the species found within the Yggdrasil System. Unfortunately due to the rule of the Aesir under the Allmother, much of the information has been destroyed, censored, or erased, making researching these species particularly difficult. However, I have managed to collect a general consensus on what each of the species look like.

Helheim is impossible to know, any first inhabitants of the planet are long dead or in hiding. No one on Helheim are born there, and few leave alive.

Here's what I gathered:

Jotun: Tall, Digitigrade legs, Pointed ears, Tail, Some have horns

- Examples: Loki, Logi, Fenrir (Heimdall: Hybrid; Jotun/Asgardian)

Vanir: Pointed ears, often blond or ginger, Ungulated legs (hooves)

- Examples: Frey, Freya, (Kvasir, Hybrid; Vanir/Asgardian)

Midgardian: Plantigrade legs (human legs), tails with fur on the end, rarely (but not unheard of) winged. Winged Midgardians often have feathers at the end of their tails and feathered ears.

- Examples: Ottar, Vidfinn, (Lyfrassir Edda (Winged)

Helheim: There are no known natives of the planet. Prison Colony.

- Examples: CLASSIFIED

Asgardian: Plantigrade legs, pointed ears, often with blond or silver hair, occasionally other colours, hair is often braided, and braid patterns are passed down through families. a tradition shared with Midgardians. often blue, grey or dark skinned. They also appear to have extended lifespans, living upwards of 200 years.

- Examples: Odin, Thor, (Heimdall: Hybrid; Asgardian/Jotun), Sigyn

Muspelheim: Able to withstand extreme heat, often lizard-like, digitigrade scaled legs, draconic tail, horns, slitted pupils

- Examples: !!ERROR!! RELOADING

Niflheim: Able to withstand extreme cold, short, covered in fuzzy fur, digitigrade pawed legs, short furred, long furry ears,

- Examples: !!ERROR!! RELOADING

Alfheim: Similar to Vanir, plantigrade legs. golden hair, pointed ears, often have blue or silver eyes, many have symbolic tattoos. rich golden skin, clawed nails.

- Examples: !!ERROR!! RELOADING

Svartalfheim: Similar to Vanir, digitigrade legs, black hair, long pointed ears, often have blue or purple eyes, many have symbolic tattoos. dark skin, often purple-ish, dark clawed nails. pointed tail.

- Examples: !!ERROR!! RELOADING

The train has yet to arrive. It would be a shame if the cultures were to dissapear.

And yet…

————

Other bits of lore here:

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

————

Celest - A star borne researcher and investigator.

Born from the collision of two stars, Celest has dedicated his life to learning all they can about different life forms across the universe, one solar system at a time.

They have a lot of time on their hands, as stars can live for millions of years, and Celest is only a mere 200 years old.

[describingcolours]

"well youve had it 6 years that's a good amount of time for that kind of thing to work"

"you should be grateful you got 3 years of use out of that thing, I'm lucky if mine last a year haha"

listen, in 1977 nasa launched the voyager spacecrafts to take advantage of a planetary alignment that takes place every 175 years. These 2 crafts were planned to flyby the outer planets of our solar system and gather data on them to send back to us. Voyager 2 launched first on the 20th of August despite its name because it was planned to reach our gas giants after its counterpart voyager 1, which launched a little later on the 5th of September.

The voyager mission was planned to end 12 years later in 1989. In that time, voyager 1 and 2 passed by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. They discovered new moons, confirmed theories about Saturn's rings, found the first active volcanoes found outside the earth, and they take close-up images of planets only seen at that point from telescopes.

On the 25th of August 1989, voyager 2 encounters Neptune, the last planet in our solar system the voyagers will meet. And that was that. End of mission. Now obsolete.

~

Less than 1 year later on valentine's day in 1990 voyager 1 looked back on the planet that had built it and sent with it a world's worth of hopes and dreams and took a picture. We called it the solar system family portrait and in it, we see ourselves. The pale blue dot nestled in the darkness of space

And then commands were sent to shut down their cameras. Preserve fuel.

35 years after launch, in 2012 voyager 1 sent back to us data about interstellar space. The very first manmade object to enter it.

41 years after launch voyager 2 did the same. Still operational, still going. Still sending back to us invaluable data, teaching us about our own solar system and the suns influence in our local bubble of space.

They are expected to continue to operate until the year 2025 - almost 50 whole years after they were launched and 36 years after their mission was supposed to have ended.

48 years of harsh space travel, battered by solar winds, pulled by gravity but fast enough just to escape, pelted by who knows how much space dust and radiation.

And even after that, they still have a purpose. Each craft was given a golden record. A disc filled with human knowledge and knowledge of humans and the planet they live on. Greetings and well-wishes to any prospective extraterrestrial life that could potentially pick it up. Co-ordinates, an invite. Samples of our music, the things we love, sounds of the earth, a story of our world. The surf, the wind, birds and whales, images of a mother, our moon, a sunset. Long after the voyager spacecrafts go dark, probably long after we are gone, they will still be doing their job; educating a species about our very tiny corner of the galaxy.

They are nasa's longest-running operation.

And it was all done using 70s technology.

So excuse me if I want a phone that lasts more than 2 years or a vacuum cleaner that doesn't break down after 6, or god fucking forbid, a refrigerator that will keep my food cold my entire fucking lifetime.

[luxudus]

    Took me long enough but heres the sequel to the september cutting room floor. Ending this series for good. Staring in order by their number Starting with the entries made for 2022

    1. A mammaloid alien native to a dangerously cold planet iconic for it’s red and blue plantlife. They are skittish herbivores. Grazing along its planet’s “grass” by grabbing handfuls of plants with its oral tentacles and brought it to a mouth located in a hollow space in between its oral tentacles and head. And would sport vibrant patterns to blend in with it’s equally colorful forests

    2. Originally a suggestion by my friend Lemuel. They were a descendent of pill bugs/roly polies that evolved powered flight. They soared through forest understories with three sets of flattened legs and held onto branches with their hind pairs of limbs. In spite of the radical change to their movement, they would still act and eat like any other Armadillidiid Isopod. Only now they could get to their food much faster

Now onto the entries made for 2023.

    3. An alien predator that has all of our senses, but none of the familiar organs. They see the world with an organic sonar dish so powerful it could see colors as good as any eye. They smell and feel heat through heat pits on the sides of their body. They hear sound through sensitive whiskers on the feet of their hydraulic legs. And they eat and taste with a liquivorous proboscis.     And on top of their unique sensory organs and a testament to their overwhelming success, they are also freakishly intelligent. Not fully sophont, but still able to run circles around earth’s smartest life aside from humans.

    4. An orbital view of a carbon planet. A hypothetical world where it and the rest of it’s star system formed with much more carbon in its composition than standard oxygen. In place of water would be oceans and clouds of hydrocarbons. And nestled right in between the crust and mantle would be a hundred-kilometer-thick layer of pure diamond.     Sadly how life would evolve and take advantage of such a world was never conceptualized before spectember ended. Maybe someday this idea can be covered again and be brought to justice.

    5. A descendant of azhdarchid pterosaurs from the same world (or at least set of timelines) as the aforementioned Dinosauroids. They live in hierarchical herds where the strongest males have ownership over the herd’s female members.     They are also extremely violent, capable of killing their own predators if a hunt goes slightly wrong, And changes in power often escalate into bloody fights that could end in death. Some members are even willing to kill their herd mates' children if it means they get a chance to continue their bloodline.

6. A descendant of the golden snub-nosed monkey that has evolved to mimic the violet deathhead from my last official september post. Their fur is a speckled brown to blend in with the trees it lives on. The structure mimicking the deathhead sail is derived from nasal flaps once used to attract mates. The primate’s blue skin paired with clusters of veins within the nasal flaps create the iconic purple hue.     High concentrations of melanin along the tip of the nasal flaps mimic the black stripes. And even the orange spots are recreated by rows of unusually thin skin refract sunlight the same way the webbing between our fingers turns orange as a close light source passes through it

    7. A dinosauroid microbiologist who lived in a time when their people colonized the solar system. A Chia’J-di ecologist who lived in a time when their species’ industrial revolution provoked an equally powerful environmentalist counterculture, the globe they are holding is earth 500 million years in the future and long after pangea ultima split, the version of earth their species hails from. And a masculine female human sophontologist who lived in the aztec empire during it’s height. All pose for a picture.     Despite their different walks of life and origins of separate timelines. They are all heads of research within the earth division of the Inter-Timeline Evolutionist Union, better known as the ITEU

The ITEU is a non-profit, nongovernmental secret organization spanning the entire multiverse. With the goal of documenting and archiving the evolution of every species and civilization that has ever lived and will ever live across every possible timeline.     Their employee count ranges in the quantifiable infinity, and the division of a single planet is still big enough to utterly dwarf the largest and most technologically advanced civilizations ever documented. And their membership program accepts anyone from individual sophonts like you and I, galaxy spanning gestalt super-intelligence, to even celestial deities that create their own worlds and galaxies and seed them with life.  

    The symbol above the heads of the earth division is the logo of the ITEU as a whole. Surprisingly very little is known about the meaning behind it. Theories range anywhere from it representing the multiverse as a stream of timelines. The evolutionary tree of life, the infinite fractal-like scale of life and the multiverse. To possibly even the form of the ITEU’s founding species.     There’s a very good reason why the logo is a mystery to all. The ITEU has some pretty big flaws in spite of their noble goal. The organization is very secretive, even to it’s own members. Nobody outside the ITEU knows it even exists. The organization’s founders and early history remain a complete mystery. And despite its multiversal span being common knowledge. no one truly knows the full scale of this organization or the multiverse. 

    They are also very non-interventionist, and will stop at nothing to not leave a mark on the natural world and make any irreversible changes to the course of time. Even if it means never sharing their knowledge with the multiverse’s most advanced civilizations. Allowing interdimensional atrocities to keep going despite having the power to stop it. Or even keeping their own members from ever returning home.     This whole entry was meant to be a bigger grand finale to 2023’s spectember instead of the Batesian mimicry ring or the neurodivergent posthumans. And was meant to be a meta look at 2023’s entries and the genre of speculative evolution as a whole before spiraling out into its own thing entirely.

(i apologize if the aztec woman appears culturally and/or racially insensitive, if anyone who's an expert on aztec culture wants to give feedback I'd appreciate it a lot i want to improve more on illustrating other cultures)

[loveneversleepss]

Play date

Inspired by training wheels by Melanie Martinez, reflections by the neighborhood,

pairing- Yang Jeongin x female reader (As children, teens, adults)

genre- slow burn, childhood friends, fluff(ish), feelings of betrayal, time changes, switch povs.

warnings: heavy kissing, mean nicknames, touching.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I don't wanna!" Your left foot stomps heavily to the floor. Your eyebrows furrow and your lower lip pouts out. Resisting heavily to having to go to your mom's friend's house. She sighs as she shakes her head walking away from you. You follow a few steps hesitantly after her, tiptoeing. She lifts you quickly as your legs dangle lazily. She sets you on the cold hard surface of the bathroom counter.

"You'll like it, trust me. She has a son a few months older than you. He's gone to some of our parties." Your nose fringes up as if you smelled something bad. Your arms cross angrily across your chest as you stare at the ground. You tend to always be dragged to places your mom wants to go. You're all the company she has, so you try your best to understand.

"okay.. but can we take my bike? I've been wanting to ride it!" You chirp brightly at her and shoot her your best smile. She can't say no to that smile. She laughs as she brushes your hair aside, you turn to face the mirror. "Alright, but you have to play with the boy. His name is Jeongin." Great.

~~

The car slowly pulls up the street to your next 5 hours of torture. You sigh as you look back at your sparkly blue bike in the back, perfect for a 7 year old. Although you're a bit nervous. Your mom took off your training wheels, you haven't properly ridden your bike without them. "Excited?" Your mom brings you out of your nervous bubble. You nod your head and put on a smile. The car parks on the curb and your heart flings down to your stomach. You unleash your seat belt and get off the car slowly.

She opens the trunk and takes your bike out of it. It lands on the floor with a bounce as you stare at it. She tilts her head in confusion as to why you are not immediately grabbing it. "Y/n?" You snap your head up to her, she rolls it over to you. You grab the rubber of your bike and roll it as you follow your mom. She straightens her shirt out as she prepares to knock at the door.

Knock, knock. Her hand calmly hits the door. You hear a dog bark as a woman shushes it. Cool, a doggy to play with. The door swings open as a woman in blue, the same color as your bike, chirps a happy greeting to your mom. Her eyes travel down to you, she analyzes you and giggles.

"Well aren't you a beauty, you must be y/n." You lightly nibble at your lower lip as your hands tighten around the bike handle. "Hi.." She giggles at your shyness, her door widens more. "Come in please, the bike can too." Your mother walks in as you struggle a bit getting the bike through the door. You successfully get it inside as you admire the entrance. You always loved to explore houses, and wonder how different their lives are.

You decide to abandon your bike for a bit, it wouldn't hurt anyone. You run quickly to explore and discover a room. The door is open and you decide to stumble inside. It must be the room of the son that lives here. It's filled with action figures and drawings. The sunlight beams in and lights up the stars hanging from the ceiling. The decoration makes it a solar system theme. You touch a toy that's shaped like a planet, a dwarf planet, Pluto. "Who are you?" You stand shook as you've been caught.

You place the toy back and turn to the speaker. A boy around your age stands before you, his arms crossed and an angry expression. You recognize him, like your mom said, he's been to your house for parties. "Exactly what gives you the right to touch MY things?" You bow to him and ask for forgiveness, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snoop." You hear a scoff from him as you look up to a smirk planted on his lips. "I suppose I forgive you.." He tilts his head as he takes a step closer to you. "What's your name, Snoopy?"

Standing closer you notice you're about 2 inches taller than him, you hold back a snort. You sigh and muster up a smile, "Y/n. What's yours, Pluto?" He frowns as he knows you're referring to his height. He sighs as he lets his arm fall lazily, "Jeongin." You nod and look to the hallway then bring your attention back to him. "I brought a bike so.. imma go ride it now." You run away quickly, not bothering to invite him. You couldn't care less about making a friendship with him. You wheeled your bike out the front door and shut the door behind you.

You get a few steps down the driveway when you hear the door open and shut. A pair of footsteps running, then a wild Jeongin appears. He stops before you, panting heavily, staring into your eyes. You frown, "What are you doing?" You blurt out angrily. He smiles and pats down on your bike seat. "I thought you'd like some company." You roll your eyes at him and scoff dramatically. "Do you even know how to ride a bike? One without training wheels?"

He tilts his head curiously, "Do you?" You bite your bottom lip, you haven't tried. You push him aside in anger and bring your right leg up and over the bike. You place your feet on the pedals and get comfortable in your seat. The angled driveway gives you a boost as you roll down the small hill, quickly getting the hang of it. You don't know why you were so scared, it's so easy. You turn around to see Jeongin smiling brightly as the distance between you gets longer and longer. You decide to turn around and make your way back to him.

You stop right in front of him and set your feet on the ground to hold your balance. "See that? Easy." He laughs softly, amused at your remark. "Wanna try?" His expression changes as he takes a sharp breath. His feet kick softly at a pebble as he avoids eye contact. "Do you not know how to ride a bike?" He shakes his head, "Not one without training wheels.." You stay silent for a moment, thinking of what to say. "Well only one way to learn," you hop off your bike and pat on the seat.

His eyes widen as he understands what you mean. He fidgets his fingers together and looks around. “It’s not like I’m asking to be your wife,” you roll your eyes. He’s Hesitating but willing. “Okay,” his voice sounds soft, uneasy. His right leg plops over and he steadies himself into the seat. “I’ll keep my hand on the seat the whole way around, okay?” He look scared and grabs onto your arm, “promise you won’t push me straight to the dirt?” You sigh and roll your eyes, “if you promise me you won’t break away first.”

He successfully pedals about 10 feet when he starts to get anxious. The handles start to move out of control. And the bike goes falling, you and Jeongin with it..

~

“That really hurt,” Jeongin pouts as you put a gauze on his wound. “You just have to be more still,” You pout your bottom lip too as he squirms from the pain. “Hold still, almost done.” You place down the applicator and grab a bandaid. It’s a Spider-Man themed one and you gently smooth it out over his knee. “All better,” Without thinking, you place a kiss. You’ve realized what you have done too late.

You look up to a red-tomato Jeongin, he looks the opposite direction and tries to conceal his cheeks with his hand. Well, no point in trying to explain. You grab the first aid kit you acquired from Jeongin’s kitchen and grab a few of bandaids, “Keep bandaids on you, for when you hit the jagged ground.” He takes it reluctantly and shoved them into his shorts pocket. “Now let’s try again.” His eyebrow raises in shock and his mouth slightly opens, “what do you mean again?!”

You walk to the bike and bring it upright, “when you fail, you have to try again.” He sighs deeply and looks to the sky, “what have I gotten myself into?” He walks over and plops on the seat again. He travels farther and farther each time. Resulting in a fall each time but it’s getting better. Just when you thought it was time to stop, he does it. You let go of the seat slowly and he keeps going. He screams happily as the speed picks up, he turns around to see you standing from afar.

You smile at him as he turns to make his way back to you. He stops a foot away from you, panting heavily. “I.. did it.” You smile brightly at him and jump on him. “I knew you could do it, Innie!” You hear him giggle as he gives you hugs back. “Y/n!.. Jeongin!” You hear your mom call you two. You both make way back to the house.

"Time to go honey, say goodbye." You turn to Jeongin and he smiles, "We'll see each other soon." You jump into his arms and hold him tight. "Bye snoopy," You hear him softly laugh into your ear and you smile as you pull away. You turn to his mom and say goodbye to her. Your mother drags your bike into the trunk and you head inside. You're about to pull out of the driveway when Jeongin catches your eye. An almost invisible tear sheds down his cheek. He runs after the car and yells something you couldn't make out.

You didn't know that would be the last time you would see him. At least for a while..

~~

9 years later.

In just a blink, everything has changed. Today is your birthday, you turn 16. "Are you excited?" Your makeup artist snaps you out of your dazed state. You plaster a smile across your face, "Why wouldn't I be? I'm.. of age now." It's custom in your family line that once you turn 14, you are considered a woman. "And.. all done! Take a look," you glanced at your reflection in the mirror in front of you. "It looks great, thank you. You may leave." Her hand fists up slightly and she turns to leave.

You sit up from the chair and make way to the long mirror. There you stand in a blue gown. Fluffy sleeves hanging off your shoulders and jewels all about it. A corset top that sucked you in to show curves. 'Smile, y/n, be happy.' You manage to squeeze out a smile, but a tear that glides down your cheek gives you away. You hear a rumbling and turn to the commotion. A man falls into the room and the door shuts. You stand there shocked and step back. He groans in pain and rolls on his back to reveal a bloody nose.

You step closer to him, standing above him, "How did you get in here?" His eyes widen and he quickly scrambles to his feet. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to pry. Iwasjustlostandopenedthedoorandthereyouwereand.. Inoticedyouwerecryinganddidn'twannabargein!" You shut your eyes to try to understand what just uttered out of his mouth. "It's fine, I don't mind. I snoop around sometimes too." You walk over to your vanity and grab a tissue, you hold it out to him. "You have a little something.." You point to his nose and he takes it.

He begins to clean his nose when you notice something familiar about him. "Have we met before?" He tilts his head and analyzes you. "We have.. I swear it," you mumble loudly. You step closer to him, only a foot away from him now. He steps back to gain more space but discovers the wall behind him. "You're a little close," his face begins to redden. This snaps your memory. Your mind flashes back to several years ago,

“All better,” Without thinking, I placed a kiss. I’ve realized what I have done too late. I look up to a red-tomato Jeongin, he looks in the opposite direction and tries to conceal his cheeks with his hand.

You step back as he recreates the same motion, concealing his face with his hand. "Jeongin?" He responds to the name as his eyebrow raises. "It's you!" You jump and wrap your arms around him. His hands pause but you hear a small exhale and he finally holds you close. He swings you in his arms. "Y/n," he says as he places you back on the floor. "It's you!" His hands cup your cheeks as he wipes the stray tear off your cheek. "You're so old now," you giggle and pretend to frown.

"Old? Says the one who is older than me." You scoff and pretend to walk away. "Where you going?" He grabs you by your waist and drags you back into him. This makes you feel squirmy in your tummy, it feels like butterflies. You turn to him, his face inches from yours. "Where have you been, hmm?" You feel it again, stronger this time. "Oh, Pluto. I've missed you." He laughs softly at the nickname you've made for him. "I've missed you too, Snoopy."

His scent lures you in, this feeling is so unfamiliar to you. It's like, you want something. "Why were you crying?" He whispers as his forehead leans against yours. You pull away from him, "I guess.. ever since we've seen each other." You sat down on the chair from earlier, "I haven't been happy.." He looks at you with such ache in his eyes, he steps towards you. "Y/n-" He's interrupted by a knock on the door. You both turn to see your mother.

"Oh my, Jeongin! You've grown up!" You smile as she runs over to him. "My, My. Let me look at you." She walks in a circle around him, "Why you've gotten so tall." You giggle a bit and lay your chin against the chair. "Guess I'd have to stop calling you pluto now." He smiles and shakes his head, "I actually quite like it." Oh, how you could get lost in his eyes. You could spend all day looking at him. "Why don't we all go downstairs now. The party's starting!"

~~

Seems like hundreds of people arrived, a never ending of 'hello's spill out your mouth. You lose sight of Jeongin easy and keep cursing about the people who stop you from looking for him. You had slowly made your way to the dance floor when you got bombarded with people asking you to dance. You couldn't say no as they were already dragging you to dance. You couldn't help but keep an eye out for him. Just when you lost all hope, someone taps on your shoulder.

"Such a chore, isn't it?" You jump from him whispering in your ear. "Jeongin!" You push him away softly. He reaches out his arm, "Care for a dance?" You sigh and take his arm, "Couldn't hurt." Oh, but how it affected you. You make your way to the center as the music starts. His hand curls around your waist and his other hand in yours. His hand around your waist ignites your body. His smile is driving you crazy as he leads your body along with his, perfectly matching the rhythm.

This heat ignites hotter and hotter, his lips inches away from you. You want to feel them so bad, pressed against yours. For his hands to slip elsewhere. Thankfully, the song ends and you bow to each other. "I'm feeling a bit tired. I think I'm going to go up to my vanity room." He catches your arm softly, "can if I go with?"

~~

God, you wished you had the guts to say no. But, the words slipped out of your mouth before you could've stopped it. 'yes.'

You had plopped down on the cushioned couch you have as soon as you entered the room. "I got you something," he says as he reaches into his pocket. You reluctantly sat up and he handed you a tiny gift box. "What is it?" He sits down next to you, "open it and find out." You untie the bow and slip it off. You lift the top off and you freeze at the item.

I grab the first aid kit I acquired from Jeongin’s kitchen and grab a few of bandaids, “Keep bandaids on you, for when you hit the jagged ground.” He takes it reluctantly and shoved them into his shorts pocket.

"You kept this?" He nods his head. You inhale sharply and stand up. "This dress is too tight, I need to change." You walk into the closet and grab the spare dress in there. "Untie me," you walk to him and turn your back to him. He unties it slowly, his fingers brushing softly on the skin there. You want to lean into his touch but resist doing so. "Turn around and lock the door." He obeys and faces the door, you wait till you hear the click of the lock and slip off the dress.

You pull up the short dress and pull the spaghetti straps on. You walk to your vanity and take off your necklace. "Little help please," he walks slowly and you turn so your back is to him again. He zips up the back of your dress dangerously slow. Once it reaches the top, his hands rest on your waist again. It catches you by surprise and you gasp softly as your hands land on the vanity. "What's wrong?" He comes closer to your body, his hand slides your hair off your shoulder to one side. He leans into your ear, "cat got your tongue?"

You lean your head to the side, just begging for his lips to land there. You're rewarded as his lips attach to your neck, your body jolts at the sudden feeling. His soft lips create a chain leading up your neck. You can't help but let a noise of relief leave you. His hand slightly tightens around your waist and you begin to be impatient. You turn to face him and jump on the counter. You wrap your legs around his back and pull him into you. Holding onto his face, you attach his lips into yours.

The feeling of his body and lips finally so close to you is so gratifying. Your body is hungry, and you want more. He groans into the kiss and tangles his hand into your hair. He leans his body forward onto you, his hands placed on the desk behind you. You feel his belt pressed up against you and feel the great pleasure it brings. Your hips begin to move as the friction ignites a glow. "Mm, baby?" You nod your head, half-listening, "That's not my belt."

Your eyes open and look down to see his hard-on poking a tent in his pants. "Oh.." His eyes look at you with such hunger, it's so captivating. "Well, do you wanna stop?" He shakes his head, "No." He continues the kiss and you begin to move your hips again. He starts to groan into the kiss more and more. It sends a tingle through your body each time. "Y/n." He breaks away again. "Am I allowed to do something to you?" You tilt your head curiously, "What do you mean?"

He picks you up, he sets you down on the couch. Your legs are spread as he lays in between them. His hand lays on your shoulder, "Can I touch you?" You nod your head and smile, you find it sweet he's asking for permission. His hand drags down your collarbones, in between your breasts, your stomach and stops right before he hits it. "Even here? Can I?" You think about it for a second then nod.

His hand disappears under your skirt and drags down your panties.

~~

TO BE CONTINUED

heh

[lemon-natalia]

Gideon the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 7

of course Gideon managed to find a pair of sunglasses and wear them with her skull makeup 😭 absolute icon 😎

ngl i thought this 'teacher' dude was the emperor himself at first and felt it was very anticlimactic. maybe this is me reading too much into it, but the description of the golden circlet, robe, and half cloak seems very ... ancient roman/greek to me?

oof poor Gideon - i can imagine it stings to be referred to as Gideon the Ninth when she spent her whole life trying to get away from the place & absolutely hating it

i find it interesting that, unlike what you might expect from the place where the literal emperor lives, the First House seems to have a far smaller population, very few people there at all even

the paler 'bloodless' twin is giving bad vibes all round

Gideon just immediately runs to help someone collapsing ... have i mentioned how much i love her character yet?

hell of a first impression to make Dulcinea. also i am dumb and thought she was from the fifth house for some reason 😭 her surname is literally septimus, head empty no thoughts rn

this book really likes to talk about how buff Protesilaus is huh

if i'm right or wrong about this i'd rather not be told though, i'd like to keep figuring stuff out myself, but ✨~theorising time~✨ ok so there's a really big emphasis on how the First House is covered in ruins of cities with plant growth all around them, its white and blue atmosphere, being covered in 'blue-and-turquoise' water. Despite being the First House it's not the planet closest to the star, rather being the third, with two planets, the Seventh and Sixth being closer

so with all that in mind, i'm thinking rn that the series does take place in our solar system (nine houses = nine planets, including Pluto) just a ridiculous number of years in the future, the First being Earth, the Sixth and Seventh being Mercury and Venus, and the Ninth (a rocky cold planet) being Pluto. or maybe i'm just delusional, also possible

[whirligig-girl]

Some of the history of Zwo-nmu System Exploration by Mellanoid Slime Worm Space Programs.

A reminder of the Zwo-nmu Planetary System. The Sun, also called The Zwo-nmu (literally The Day Light) is a G8V main sequence star with many giant planets. Mellanus, called Gymnome by some of its inhabitants, is the homeworld of the Mellanoid Slime Worms--Eaurp Guz's people. Mellanus is a coorbital of Omen in a horseshoe orbit. Every 15 or so earth years, Mellanus approaches Omen, which moves it into a higher or lower orbit around the Sun.

This graphic is in a rotating reference frame following Omen. green circle is Omen's orbit in a non-rotating reference frame. Yellow circle is Mellanus' inner/short/summer/hot orbit. Purple circle is Mellanus' outer/long/winter/cold orbit. Blue and gray circles are the orbits of Cold Ember and Rabbit. Times are given in Earth days and distances in Earth-Sun-distances (astronomical units)

Omen is named, of course, as it represents drastic climate change--orbital seasons affecting both hemispheres for many years at a time.

With that reminder out of the way...

Zwo-nmu (the star)

extensive telescopic study from low mellanus orbit. The first solar telescope to enter orbit discovered the corona but was not set up to observe it properly, so follow-up missions had to be undertaken.

studied by the Cold Ember probes and by at least one dedicated "sun-scraper"

Cold Ember (the hot super-earth/sub-neptunian)

Of the five probes sent to Cold Ember at various times, only two have made it.

The second one to make it is an orbiter. It relies on stationkeeping propellant so its elliptical orbit always keeps its apoapsis on the night side of the planet, such that it can spend time in the shadow to keep cool. Within a few days of it running out of stationkeeping fuel it will begin to overheat. There are proposals to send a Rescue Shuttle up to resupply and repair the probe, but the strict rules about use of alien spacecrafts in the mellanoid space program make that difficult.

Rabbit

Visited by 2 robotic probes--a flyby and a short-lived orbiter. A lander/rover is planned, but doesn't have the same priority as the Omen Development Program and the Ice Giants Exploration Program.

Mellanus Orbit

At its peak, Mellanus had thousands of satellites and dozens of space stations, but a near-miss with ablation cascade (see: the movie Gravity (2013)) that was only averted thanks to the recently installed phaser network has lead to many restrictions being put in place on the number and function of satellites. Early in the history of mellanoid space exploration, there was not much automation available. Satellites had to be crewed, and so there were many space stations, and when automation happened, those space stations grew into constellations of satellites. Telecommunications constellations were the real culprit, with several competing agencies, companies, and nations setting up their own independent constellations ranging from 10s to 1000s of satellites each. But now, subspace technology has rendered low-orbit communications satellites obsolete, and there are just a few dozen geosynchronous communications satellites, a GPS network, and the number of Mellanus observation satellites has been coralled.

One of the United Mellanus Space Program's current duties is the cleanup of low orbit, which is operated both by phaser blasts in an emergency and by crewed spacecrafts. Most of the space stations in mellanus orbit are specifically infrastructure intended to refuel these spacecrafts, since they need to be able to access a wide range of inclinations, and inclination changes are difficult to accomplish.

Other space stations include the constellation of orbital drydocks, which are all orbiting about a hundred kilometers apart from one another, and the Starbase, a very large rotating artificial gravity space station which was built between the 2340s and the 2360s, and serves as the space end of the interstellar spaceport.

Mellanus natural satellites

Mellanus has one permanent satellite, Ubbi, a 340 meter wide rubble pile which is thought to have once been another asteroid's moon, millions of years ago. It is just barely bright enough to be seen by a mellanoid who has expanded their eye to the greatest practical width, but it wasn't noticed to be a moving star until after the invention of the astronomical telescope and the popularization of sun-centrism. It was thought at first to be an asteroid, since it was discovered while Mellanus was passing through Omen's trojan cloud, but careful observations determined that it was a satellite in a stable circular orbit, and a careful observation of photographic plates and star charts indicate it's been orbiting Mellanus for at least hundreds of years. It's named after its discoverer.

Many early mellanoid space activities have used Ubbi as a target. There are dozens of probes. Sadly Ubbi is very resource poor, being poor in both volatiles that could be used for propellant and metals that could make it valuable. It's not even a useful science target, since one of the earliest missions to visit it was an impactor which essentially exploded Ubbi. It reformed again, but completely resurfaced, burying clues to its origin as a satellite. Ubbi is currently orbited by one derelict spacecraft and

There have been three temporary natural satellites of Mellanus to be visited by spacecrafts. All but one have entered Mellanus orbit only for a few months and were only visited by robotic probes. The largest one, Temma was three kilometers across and in an eccentric orbit that remained stable all the way up until two Omen conjunctions later, so it lasted for about 30-35 years. However, as a carbonaceous asteroid, it was rich in volatiles, and it was explored and settled extensively by all major space programs. The first crewed international interplanetary trips to Omen used fuel refined from Temma and brought down to low orbit.

The Omen Coorbitals (Trojans, Greeks, and Other Horseshoes)

Outside of Ubbi and Temma, the Coorbitals are the next step out into space. Mellanus occasionally has close encounters with coorbitals. Over time Mellanus and Omen together have corralled the coorbitals into very specific lanes. There are far fewer coorbitals around Omen than Glerbuh, or, say, Jupiter, because coorbital or not, Mellanus is still a planet. Most of the coorbitals are trojans, with the apsides neatly tucked in between the outer edge of Mellanus' sphere of influence in the low orbit, and the inner edge of Mellanus' sphere of influence in the high orbit. The Greeks--the trojans on the leading edge of Omen's orbit--are especially depleted. It's thought that Mellanus was once the only large object in the greek camp, but was perturbed onto its current horseshoe orbit billions of years ago. As a result, the greek camp is a hodge-podge of scattered objects from elsewhere in the system, whereas the trojan camp is comprised of more objects original to this part of the circumstellar disk. Each camp can answer different questions about the evolution of the Zwo-nmu system, and Mellanus' relation to it in particular. Ironically, even though the greek camp is Mellanus' original home, it's the trojan camp that is more relevant to studying Mellanus itself.

It is possible on any given year to send a spacecraft to visit Omen, Trojans, Greeks, or any other coorbital. However, the trajectories which take a minimum of fuel are only accessible 1-6 months or so before the closest approach with either object, and for crewed missions, less efficient but faster trajectories lasting only a month right around the close approach are preferred.

Outside of the Omen apparitions, the most active times for interplanetary spaceflight have historically been around the passing through the trojan clouds, which happens about 6 years before and after each Omen apparition. Starting from the low summer orbit, Mellanus passes the Trojan Camp. 6 years later, it reaches Omen and moves to the high winter orbit. 6 years after that, it passes the Trojan camp again. Then 15 years later, it passes the Greek Camp. 6 more years later, Omen appears large and Mellanus shifts to the summer orbit. 6 years later, it passes the Greek camp again. 15 years pass, and then we restart the cycle.

other horseshoe-coorbitals can be encountered at any time of year, but there's only a few of these known to exist.

Crewed missions to the other coorbitals have served as test flights for Omen missions, while also contributing meaningfully to planetary science as a whole. While asteroid exploration may not be exciting or glamorous, the use of trojan missions as testbeds has allowed a lot of groundbreaking work that otherwise might not have had any support to be performed.

Humans currently, in the real world 2020s, posses the propulsion technology and even, in principle, the industrial capacity to send humans to Mars. What we lack is a good idea of how to support humans on interplanetary spaceflight for many months or years at a time. A typical stay on the International Space Station is not even comparable to a Mars mission. That research is still underway. But we can go to the Moon. What's crucial is the relatively short turnaround time. A Moon mission may take only a week or two. The Artemis lunar missions will last longer, but not as long as a Mars mission would have to.

Absent a permanent moon of any substance, the Mellanoids are able to get their relatively short turnaround missions done thanks to the coorbitals. If Mellanus were still a trojan, it'd have emptied out the Greek Camp. Omen would never get particularly close, and it'd take over a year to make a round trip to it. It'd be just as hard to reach as Mars or the Main Asteroid Belt. But since Mellanus is in a horseshoe orbit, for about a year at a time every 6-15 years it is within spitting distance of some celestial body or another. Every 18-19 years that celestial body is the magnificent planet Omen with its own system of moons. When it's not Omen, it's the coorbital asteroids.

Propulsion wise it is not that much easier to reach the Omen coorbitals than it is for humans to go to Mars. You still have to escape Mellanus and keep accelerating on top of that.

But instead of bringing all of the comforts and necessities involved in the long-term habitation of space with you to a distant planet, you can get away with using capsules that are not much more advanced than what we were using in the Apollo era. The long term habitation problem is solved, leaving the only major problem left that of propulsion, of vehicle design. And since Mellanus is relatively small and they aren't shy about using nuclear rockets, the propulsion problem isn't that big of a deal. in a way, Omen and the coorbitals are a crutch. By the 2340s Mellanoid space programs still had not undertaken crewed interplanetary missions beyond the coorbitals. But, at least in Star Trek, human spaceflights to Europa & Jupiter were being undertaken in the 2020s. These missions would have had to take years! that said, there is a reason Omen has been such a focus--and it's not just because it is so culturally important.

The Omen System

Since the dawn of the Mellanoid space age, there have been six Omen apparitions.

Years given are Earth Years

1) 2300: Two nations launched robotic flyby attempts this year. One succeeded, but it was little more than a spinning photopolarimeter which could take a grainy image of Omen and a magnetometer which produced useful magnetic field readings. 2) 2315: Two failed atmosphere probes for Oldsky, one successful robotic lander on Rival, one successful robotic lander on Spark, and successful orbit insertion of a robotic Omen orbiter which continued to send back photos of Omen and its moons right through to the next conjunction. During the lifetime of this orbiter, Oldsky was conclusively shown to have complex life. 3) 2329: First crewed missions. There is a crewed landing on Rival, a crewed orbiter mission for Oldsky. It had originally intended to operate out of a small space station placed into Oldsky orbit a year in advance, but this station was covertly destroyed by Zaldans, and the orbiter mission was repurposed as a mere flyby, which fails, leading to first contact with Zaldans. 4) 2344: The most important year yet--the beginning of space archaeology. It's also the year asteroid Temma departs Mellanus and makes its own flyby of Omen. 5) 2358: International grand tour involving orbiters and landers on every planet including Oldsky. Leads to formation of United Mellanus Space Program. 6) 2373: Fission-impulse rockets have made regular interplanetary travel between Mellanus and Omen possible on any year. 7) 2387: Oldsky is now a colony of Mellanus.

Mellanus is on the border of the Zaldan sphere of influence, and with the increasing expansionism of the Cardassians and the tragedy of what they had begun to do to the Bajorans, the Zaldans desired military bases on the stars near their industrial colonies and their homeworld. These bases had to provide deuterium, so they needed to be located in a system with a gas giant, and also function as repair stations. The stars surrounding Mellanus were poor candidates--there are no M-class habitable planets around the nearby stars, and the only other gas giants were hot Jupiters or brown dwarfs which would make deuterium extraction difficult.

The Zaldans respected the non-interference directive, but not if it meant a gaping hole in their security. They would set up a military base on Omen's M-class moon Oldsky. There was an orbiting space station and a surface base, connected by cargo transporters and shuttlecrafts, staffed by military officers and a few civilian personnel, not unlike Deep Space Nine, but considerably more of a frontier for all involved. There was also a space station built in very low orbit of Omen, designed to scrape the atmosphere for deuterium to fuel freighters. These ships would be undetectable to the mellanoids as long as ships entering the system avoided activity during close encounters and all ships entering and leaving the system hid their photon wakes behind the Sun, resulting in fairly complex routing.

During the 2329 Omen apparition, a spacecraft that had been intended to fly by Omen had a severe failure, akin to Apollo 13. Still over a month from home, with no prospect but a horrible death, they were famously rescued by Commander Halen's ship, EZM-407, marking official first contact with the Zaldans. They were returned to Mellanus and the Zaldans finally landed, showing the world that not only were Mellanoids not alone in the universe, they weren't even alone in their own solar system.

Several ships visited Mellanus over the next few years on primarily diplomatic missions, but the Zaldans still kept hands-off, sharing only a minimum of information with the Mellanoids. Not many Zaldans had Halen's affinity for the slimes, and they saw mellanoids as lowly uncivilized savages--and their flowery polite diplomatic language only confirmed this to them. It wasn't before someone really stood up to them--a space program engineer who had gotten tired of standing in the sidelines while his people were being insulted--that the Zaldans finally found a glimmer of respect for the mellanoids.

There had been plans to fly a Mellanoid astronaut to Oldsky in exchange for allowing Zaldan researchers to visit Mellanus, and even early talks of embassies and sharing of the Omen infrastructure, when the Zaldans just… disappeared. Completely cut contact.

If sharing their solar system with rude bullies (who, yes, could have wiped them out a dozen times over yet decided not to so at least there's that) wasn't scary enough, those rude bullies disappearing without a trace was even scarier. On a scale greater than even the Apollo program, nations rushed to assemble their missions to visit Omen and Oldsky to figure out what happened to the Zaldan Military Base. Their robotic probes launched on off-years didn't return any answers--crewed exploration and actually landing mellanoids on Oldsky would be the only answer.

There was also the fact that recovering technology from Oldsky could potentially be transformative--the right technology in the wrong hands could destroy the world. This is spaceflight at its most competitive. This was no longer a game--recovering the alien technology was potentially life or death.

After the first contact with the Federation and the series of revolutions and reforms that lead to the current political situation, one of the main unifying rallying cries for mellanoids was the notion that they deserved the right to sovereign exploration of their own solar system. Outsiders--whether Zaldan, or Federation, or Dominion--would not develop any part of the system!

Ok, the Federation can provide some baseline infrastructure to protect Mellanus from invasion, but space exploration is OUR COMMON HERITAGE!

The current age of Mellanoid Space Exploration is characterized by extensive permanent infrastructure development. Since the 2360s, Mellanoids have been building research stations on Oldsky, Lake, and Rival. Setting up an industrial capability on another planet from scratch is hard to do, but Oldsky has a stable climate year-round and a breathable atmosphere. Much of Oldsky is a desert, and even the "humid" regions are quite dry, but it's still more habitable than literally any other planet in the solar system except for Mellanus, which makes it practical to build using traditional methods.

As of 2380, more people are living and working on Oldsky at any given moment than are doing so in Low Mellanus Orbit. Oldsky station visitors includes geologists, biologists, space archaeologists still studying what remains of Zaldan activity on Oldsky, civil engineers, aerospace engineers, construction workers, miners, marine biologists, submarine helmcrew, aircraft pilots, spacecraft pilots, rover drivers, doctors, astronomers, and even a few tourists selected by raffle.

Propellant infrastructure has been established to keep the fast interplanetary rockets zipping along. At this point, it is possible to stay on Oldsky permanently, but so far, all visitors to Oldsky are temporary, and on years when Omen is inaccessible even with nuclear-fission-impulse rockets (i.e, when the Sun is between it and Mellanus), only a skeleton crew remains to maintain the stations.

Oldsky will probably not have its own self sufficient industry and capacity for its own space program any time soon, but it does have a spaceport serviced by reusable launch vehicles.

Phaser-thermal rockets are used for heavy lift launches from Mellanus these days, but conventional chemical rockets are still used on Oldsky, fueled by hydrogen and oxygen split by electrolysis. There is an oil refinery on Oldsky, so kerosene/oxygen rockets are possible too. things remain somewhat low-tech on Oldsky. Imported vehicles can be powered by batteries, but there aren't let any lithium mines on Oldsky--good deposits have yet to be discovered--so internal combustion engines powered by oil are sadly being used. The Oldsky Planetary Protection Office on Mellanus intends to phase out fossil fuel engines as soon as the planet is capable of producing its own high-energy-density batteries… whenever that is… also, between you and me, they really ought to get more aquatics flying on these missions. what an aquatic astronaut could find on Oldsky might be quite shocking.

Anyway outside of the Omen system and Oldsky Glerbuh has had its fair share of robotic exploration and crewed expeditions. Two of the four ice giants have also been visited by robotic flyby probes, and Glarpi (the innermost ice giant) has had a robotic orbiter. The big crewed grand tour expedition to explore all four ice giants and there moons was one of the major science goals of the 2380s outside of exploring and developing Oldsky. However, it had to be modified to turn into a rescue mission for a mellanoid starfleet officer who was stranded on a planet orbiting a nearby star called TE-92. It's a whole thing. If they manage to rescue them maybe they'll write a novel about it.

[livingforstars]

Pluto Not Yet Explored - February 12th, 1996.

"Cold, distant, Pluto was the only planet in our Solar System that had not been visited by a spacecraft from Earth at the time. The story goes that the legend "Pluto Not Yet Explored" on a US postal stamp, depicting the tiny, mysterious world, inspired a JPL employee to develop plans for a Pluto flyby. These plans evolved into the "Pluto Express" mission that was intended for launch early in the following decade. The type of small, high-tech spacecraft that was proposed is depicted above in an artist's vision, approaching Pluto's mottled surface. A tenuous, transient atmosphere is visible as blue haze beyond the bright limb, while Pluto's companion Charon looms in the distance. Images and data from such a mission was said to be an incredible boon to those studying these bizarre, inaccessible worlds, as evidence mounts that Pluto itself is only the largest of many small ice dwarf mini-planets."

[ur-favorite-stalker]

I went to the ocean today for my birthday, and I saw the Stars at the same time.

Because of this, I have come to a conclusion.

The Stars are not met for us. Neither was the Sea. It was never, EVER was meant for us. The ocean is vast, and it can make anyone feel small. I look down into a vast green-blue and I know that it could go on forever in my eyes. I know that unless I am made and trained to go all the way to the bottom, I would die before I even get near the bottom.

Before I would be able to tell down from up.

Sounds scary, doesn't it? Well as a person that has felt like they were about to drown, it is scary.

If you can handle stuff on our planet... What makes you think you can be in the Stars? Stars are just markings of universes, MULTIVERSES. It is a large vase place out there, and almost all of them are nothing like ours. They are worlds of fire, of death, of cold to the point where it hurts.

And I am going to say somethings.

So I will say this first.

If you have been through a lot of shit like I have, you are not weak. If you had been hurt by people you love, people you care about, and got back up, no matter if you stayed or left. You are strong. If you understand that you are not a good person, or if you understand the other people, even if you care about them, are not very good people. You are strong. If you have been assaulted, abused, bullied, or discriminated against, and you are still here? You are strong.

But that being said. You need to understand, you are only human. You are a persistent protector, smart and very audible. But you are Mortal, you human. You can only hold your breath for so long before you can't. You can only stand heat for so only before you can't.

Other places will not be as gentle or kind as our solar system has been to us.

Compared to other things on our planet if we didn't have Smarts? We are, honestly, pathetic. Weak. Useless. We would not have gotten this far without being smart.

Anyway.....

:3

[saltycharacters]

Solar System MLP Adopts!

[ID: Artwork featuring 9 different my little pony fan designs, each based on a planet from our solar system, as well as pluto. The 1st pony is a grey earth pony representing Mercury, with a short mane and possible names listed as Silver Crater, Crater Fields, and Mare Cure E. The Venus pony is a light brown pegasus with a curly mane, possible names listed as Sizzle Sands, Warm Winds, and Heartful Clouds. The pony representing Earth is a literal earth pony with a blue, green and white spotted coat, alongside a long straight mane and tail, names being listed as either Globe Trotter or World Trotter. The Mars pony is a light red earth pony with a shaved mane and short tail, name suggestions being Rover, Little Rover, or Rocky Roads. The Jupiter pony is a large pegasus, with a yellow and brown striped coat and long, straight hair, names being listed as Pressure Storm, Jupiter Wings, or Red Eye Storm. The Saturn pony is a unicorn with short, curly hair, and an orange coat, with hoops floating around their horn and tail and names being listed as Sunset Rings, Rocky Rings, or Golden Way. The Uranus pony is also a unicorn with a long, curly, braided mane and glasses, and a dark blue coat, with name suggestions including Sapphire Roads, Cold Crystals, and Icy Glow. The Neptune pony is a blue pegasus with a long, coiled mane and tail, and their names are listed as Cyan Winds, Winter Cosmos, or Windy Wings. The final pony is a small pegasus representing Pluto, with a short mane and bangs covering their eyes, a spotted coat including the colors light blue, white, grey, dark red, and brown, and with names being listed as Tiny Orbit, Glacier Heart, or Frigid Feather. End ID]

Each is priced at 20 usd. Dm me if interested, and check comments for already taken ponies, as I'll be posting those kinds of updates there!

[lovelyllamasblog]

Pluto 🎸

Character Description

“The farthest planet is the solar system, Pluto is dark, cold and hard! And that’s exactly what you could say about her music, too. Yes, when she’s flashing you dirty look or scaring off your little brother, Pluto is making your ears bleed with her hard-core death metal rock!!! But don’t let her stone cold attitude fool you. Beneath her rock hard exterior lies a heart of gold, and a true blue friend who’s always ready to stick up for her gal pals -- with brute force!!”

(taken from Galaxy Girls wikia)

[thunderroseses]

Neptune from the Royal Au (everything will be redone in digital art when I have more energy!)

HISTORY~

Neptune’s kingdom is known as the forever frozen kingdom, one forged from war and bloodshed from battles long gone, during the multiple wars they were under control of the Sun’s empire and any battle Sun got into so did they, meaning they very war torn for much of their history until the Great War that involved many of the Solar System kingdoms, Neptune was not welling to give up easily as they raised above all else to stay alive and keep their citizens safe.

Sun gave them their independence after this as they couldn’t keep their many colonies under control any long as Sun needed to focus on his own Kingdom.

Clothing~

Warmth is the upmost important as it is almost always snowing or cold out, so they wear multiple layers that keep them warm will also expressing their nation pride, on Neptune’s coat you can see their nation flower that is royal purple and fish, as they have a booming fishing industry (more on it later) underneath the coat is a pale white dress, to keep focus on the elaborate coat, it is light and flowing, as to make it easy to move and not weigh them down, the veil is to keep their head/ears warm and having a layer between her head and crown, as metal can get really cold.

For the braids it’s tradition from the start of their villages to have two braids with dark blue ribbons in their hair for the first daughter, while the other younger daughter wear light blue instead, it shows their maturity and wellness to serve their citizens and are passed down by their mother after they hit puberty, believing that is when they are mature enough to know the responsibility they are excepting by taking the ribbon, this is also a huge celebration that the girl are trained for since they were little.

Extra~

Neptunes kingdom has a lot of bright colours to keep their moods up in the cold weather, it also help other find their way between towns in case of storm comes in. Even if it’s cold out everyone is pretty happy and friendly for those brave enough to visit despite the cold.

They are mostly known as a ice fishing nation, which is how they get most of their fish since the ice makes it hard to fish normally, they sell the freshest and best tasting fish on the market right next to Earth (something she is not happy about lol) if anyone is brave enough to visit it’s for the sea food :)

Neptune has memory loss after part of a castle collapsed onto her during the war, she was only six at the time and has a long lasting consequences because of it, those being memory loss/trouble and phantom pain that strikes up sometime leaving her bedridden.

Uranus parents are the cause of the castle collapse and while they didn’t mean to hurt such a small child, it was collateral from the war effort, Neptune’s parents were wary of Neptune hanging with Uranus (this is long after the war) but lighted after they saw how much it helped with Neptune’s memory problems as well as making Neptune more social then she was before. Now the parents are more friendly with each other, often going over to Uranus nation a few times a year (Uranus would go over to Neptune’s but had health problems which are also consequence from the war more on it in Uranus section)

Neptune is very close with Uranus and they try to keep in touch via mail, she is not as close to the other gas giants but is friendly with them.

She doesn’t really know the rocky planets, maybe when she was younger but can no longer remember anything about them, same with Sun even if she was their ruler for years

I’m probably going to post Uranus’ next, I’ve been really enjoying making up stories for all the different kingdoms and what their kingdoms would be like, if anyone else want so join in I’ll be happy to share it and talk with them to bounce ideas off each other!

Here’s so extra drawing I’ve made, mostly for the villagers outfits



[firesofdainix]

If You Need To Be Mean

New fic alert!!! I wrote this in a moment of inspiration so apologies if it feels off.

-

Mercury could care less about the insults Earth had uttered toward him. He’s had a bombardment of vitriol spewed his way already by Venus, so anything else is not a surprise. “So you’re here to hang out with me?”

The red planet gives him a small smile. “We barely hang out anyways, being so damn far apart. Do you ever get lonely in this orbit?”

I think you’re the one going mad from loneliness, Mercury thinks, but he shakes his head. “You can stay, at least until the Sun realizes you’re here.”

Mars beams, and it was so different from the sneer he’d often made billions of years ago to make him feel bad about himself. Then, as he settles himself near Mercury’s orbit, he finally notices the cigarette hanging between his lips. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

There are so many things you don’t know about me, but you always follow the Earth around as if you were his moon.

“I only smoke when I…” He contemplates talking about what he’d been thinking, but he realizes Mars would understand. No matter his convoluted opinions on Mars, he could also remember what had happened in the solar system. They are both tortured by the cruelty of remembering. He exhales, meeting Mars’s eyes. They were the color of a corroded red, decaying like the bodies of humanity. But Mercury thinks his eyes are much friendlier and gentler than they’d been when they were a shade of cold blue.  I remember the past and began missing what we used to be back then.“

Mars gives him a look of pity, and Mercury averts his gaze. Was he really so pathetic that every time Mars looked at him, it was filled with sympathy? “I… don’t like thinking of the past. There were so many things that I’m ashamed of that I… want to leave it be. Earth has been reminding me of who I used to be, and I’m trying hard to clear him off that path. It will lead to more ruin and tears in the future, as we all know.”

-