Secrets of the Stars – 4: Sky Islands
“One of the most mysterious discoveries in my career was without a doubt B-2274-2. Not the discovery itself, I’ve seen stranger things, but the scale. It’s a distant star system and the planet is an ocean world, completely covered by water. There were some distance surveys gathering basic stuff like composition, atmosphere and the like. But without actual land the planet was just not interesting enough for a more detailed survey.
I just installed an improved sensor array and wanted to test the depth radar. The planet was one of several candidates and I had hoped to find at least some underwater volcano or crashed ships. Instead I almost died. During the atmospheric entry I nearly crashed into one of the floating islands, the proximity alert went off just in time.
My plans were busted, of course, and I took a look at what I almost crashed into. The island, and all other islands on the planet, are held some kilometers in the sky by anti-grav engines. Looking from above they are almost round and measure up to ten kilometers in diameter. All are of roughly the same shape and plants are growing on top. Nobody ever even saw an animal on that planet.
Why this green flying islands were not spotted from space? After a thorough scientific study it was discovered that the upper atmosphere is filled with tiny nano machines, blocking every wavelength other than blue light. Don’t ask me how that’s possible, I don’t even understand it myself. Anyways, that’s why you only can see the ocean. Well, if you know what you are looking for you can find the outlines of the islands, but blue on top of blue leads to visitors almost colliding with the landscape.
The plants are really incredible. Their variety is beyond expectation, simply botanical madness. So, every non-terraformed planet with a biosphere has its own plant species that can be found nowhere else in the universe. Here every island has its own species. The islands are too far apart for the wind to carry the heavy seeds, so the species each only grow on one island. What’s their origin and use? Ornamental plants, weed, crop, nobody knows.
And now the best part. Only last year they discovered there is a planet wide network of emitters within the oceanic crust. And these emitters power the engine with some sort of directed magnetic fields. No one knows who went through all this effort or why. I would put my money on an ancient experiment on evolution. We did that in the past, too, with bacteria. Not in this scale of course. Maybe the scientists return one day and explain it to us.”
Another part of the “Secrets of the Stars” series. The scene is rather empty, mainly due to the theme and size. I imagined it to be way more interesting than it actually was in the end. The next part will have more to show fore. At least this time I was able to clearly condense my work cycle compared to the previous scenes. I hope to keep it that way, which would allow me to work more consistently.
Created with Blender 4.2.
