Stars as Old Friends
This amuses and astonishes me, even though it should not. Because so many science fiction writers take pains to use the names of real stars in their fictions, and to describe some of their real characteristics and dimensions, many of these names are old and familiar to me, but only as scenery. I really had no idea how awesome are the sizes of these stars.
As for the planets, we all know all about them:
Mercury is the home of mountainous Demonland, ruled by Lord Juss, and watery Witchland, ruled by the deathless King Gorice, who are locked in eternal and never-ending war due to the benevolence of the gods, and as a reward to Lord Juss and his brethren, who, because they are macho jerks, prefer eternal war to peace. Whatever. But they sure talk pretty.
Pluto (not shown here) is both the advanced base of the attacking peoples known as the Wormfaces, and also the throneworld of the ancient Mi-Go, or fungi from Yuggoth. This planet is destined to be burned out of existence when a fusion-driven spacecraft operated by Kzanol the Slaver accidentally ignites the frozen layers of methane and oxygen.
Venus, or Perelendra, is eternally hidden by clouds, so what little we know of surface conditions, we know about only through the mystical telepathic transmissions from Carson Napier. Evidence suggests that Zsa Zsa Gabor lives there, along with a matriarchal male-free culture of really hawt Amazonian showgirls with rayguns and great gams.
We all know that Barsoom, or Mars, as you call it, is the home of the Hrossa, Sorn and Pfifltriggi, whose first interstellar invasion landed in Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, where they were wiped out by improper decontamination procedures. Or something like that.
Earth is a mythical planet inhabited by a race that is centaur from the waist up and Minotaur from the waist down, if such an odd chimera can be imagined. Freaks.
More importantly, the Moon we know is where the secret base of Kurt Newton is hidden, perhaps in that mysterious ‘Blue Area’ where the Watcher resides, or perhaps not for from the Monolith at Tycho crater, and artifact left over by the Forerunners, who peopled this arm of the galaxy, by an astonishing coincidence, with people who look just like us, except some of them have brow ridges.
Neptune we know to be the final home of the highly-evolved Eighteenth Men, who have sent psychotelepathic messages back to time to Olaf Stapledon, and revealed in their mysterious and benevolent way that life sucks and we are all going to die, but we should be glad about it.
Uranus is not shown here, because the scientific community, gone made with power after their successful attempt to reclassify Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet, have reclassified Uranus as a type of roast duck, rather than a gas giant. They also changed the name of Peking to Beijing. It is reported that Thorin Oakensheild, Albrecht, and ‘Doc’ all are willing to accept Pluto as a ‘Dwarf Planet’, provided they can mine mithril there.
Saturn‘s moon Titan is the home of Saturn Girl, famous telepath of the Legion of Superheroes.
The moons of Jupiter is where Grey Roger, that mysterious super-pirate, has his base.
The stars are less familiar than the planets. Let us fill in the personality of some of these stars.
Sirius I will always think of as the home star of the villains from Isaac Asimov’s LUCKY STARR series, basically space-Nazi robot-makers. Curse that evil robotic space-Nazi dog!
Strangely enough, the evil space-Nazis from Sirius do not bother to make their robots free from the absolute prohibition that they cannot harm human beings, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Laboring under that restriction, I think one of the Bolo supertanks from Keith Laumer would like ’em in a fair fight, not to mention Imperial Combat Droids from Star Wars.
Pollux is where the Captain Kirk encountered the space-God Apollo, who seduced Leslie Parrish, who wore one the most alluring and daring space-dresses of the Orion Arm.
Arcturus is the star of the evil planet Tormance, to which the doomed hero Maskull flies naked in a crystal vessel propelled by Arcturian back-rays, in the strange gnostic fantasy A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS.
Rigel is where Captain Pike fought a one-horned monster in an abandoned fortress, with the battle theme of Alexander Courage roaring away in the background.
More importantly, it is the home of the Rigellian Concourse appearing in the Demon Princes novels by Jack Vance, as vast system of twenty-six habitable worlds, from Alphanor to Zymurgy; and Rigel IV is the home of the Rigellians, first of the Lens-bearing species visited by Lensman Samms, and the first race to have produced a Second Stage Lensmen, Trigonsee. Also, Simpsons fans will recognize Rigel as the home system of Kang and Kodos. By “an astonishing coincidence”, the spoken Rigellian language is identical to English.
Betelgeuse is the home star of the Planet of the Apes (in the Pierre Boulle novel, not in the movie. Which planet is the Planet of the Apes in the movie is a bit of a surprise.)
But, luckily, the women of the planet of the apes are quite attractive.
Some of them are pretty enough to kiss! Though I have heard the men are ‘so damn ugly.’
Antares, of course, is the primary of planet Kregen, where Prescot of Scorpio was teleported at the behest of the mysterious Star Lords.
If anyone has used the titanic stars MY Cephei or V V Cephei A in a Science Fiction story, it is one I have not read.
(Wikipedia describes it as: “V V Cephei is an eclipsing binary star system located in the constellation Cepheus, approximately 3,000 light years from Earth. A red supergiant fills the system’s Roche lobe when closest to its companion blue star, the latter appearing to be on the main sequence. Matter flows from the red supergiant onto the blue companion… VV Cephei is an eclipsing binary star system located in the constellation Cepheus, approximately 3,000 light years from Earth. A red supergiant fills the system’s Roche lobe when closest to its companion blue star, the latter appearing to be on the main sequence. Matter flows from the red supergiant onto the blue companion….the third largest star in this galaxy (after the hypergiant VY Canis Majoris).”)
This would be a great place to set a science fiction wonder tale. Aspiring writers take note: V V Cephai A might not be a star at all, but a Dyson Sphere shedding waste heat.
A darn big Dyson Sphere at that: the radius is nigh that of the orbit of Saturn.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
