HRVST, Ch.7: The Humility of The Sun
The Sun is an overnight success, earned after a night which lasted billions of years
4.6 BILLION YEARS AGO, STAR "SOL", MILKY WAY GALAXY
The sun is massive.
It has the blinding light of nuclear fusion, screaming electromagnetic fury 24/7, exhaling massive energy. If it were hollow, its volume could fit a million Earths.
It powers life on Earth. The sun's mass flexes muscles of gravity and bends the fabric of space-time. A second of its raw power could fuel us for an eon.
Despite its might, it's an object of humility in the cosmos.
It is not alone, it has a hundred billion cousins in our galaxy, which joins thousands of galaxies in thousands of clusters, like a scattered celestial nested doll.
The Sun is an overnight success, earned after a night which lasted billions of years.
It began as a few atoms of the smallest element in the universe, hydrogen, in the cold dark. A long lonely blossoming.
For a long time, it was a very thin cloud of almost nothing, made of the meekest element in the universe. Hydrogen.
Hydrogen shares none of the virtues of other elements. It has none of the glitter of gold, the sexy utility of silver, the grit of iron. It's not a noble gas, and yet only hydrogen can make the sun burn bright and bend space.
A working class hero makes good and delivers light and life for billions of years - and there are billions of success stories.
Millions of years of putting in the reps, packing on the mass, building muscles of gravity. One day, there was just enough. It could lift and flex like never before. Nuclear fusion achieved.
All those atoms accumulated, during a long night of nothing, and then the first dawn was born.
When we breathe and create we carry inside the humility of the Sun. Inside our aspirations, our future, and us. Tucked within all our labors are the luxuries of light and life. We can burn bright, build reality, if we last through the night.
One atom at a time our success grows overnight - after an evening that is the length of a lifetime.
And then one day, Fiat Lux.
Luna, Aitken Basin, Shackleton Crater, Hyperion Project, Space Cooperative
Shackleton Crater, nestled in the Aitken Basin (which is the great ancient impact site which encircles the Moon’s south pole) was a microcosm of endless day and night.
The moon’s slight 1.5 percent tilt meant that sunlight was almost all year along the tips of its rim, while the bowl of the crater was in constant frozen darkness, a state of solar reality for at least 2 billion years. 21st century probes found hints of ice, true to its namesake, the famed explorer of the Earth’s south pole, Ernest Shackleton.
Albert L’Orleans Necker took a filtered sunbath in the solarium and drank ice water.
Despite of the glory of Shackleton Crater’s peaks of eternal light, he thought about his old rooms with views of Champ de Mars in le Septième, 7th Arrondissement, Paris.
The Field of Mars, inspired by a public space in ancient Rome named after the Roman god of war, was a field of revolution, creation, and re-creation.
Over its history, a field of humble citizen gardens were supplanted by a military school, which planned drills on the grounds. Later, the first hydrogen filled balloon was tested on its grounds, before it became the stage for each transformations of the French State. The field hosted the first Bastille Day, Napoleon’s return from Elba, and a Louis’ brief return to the throne.
Anchored to the industrial age by the Eiffel Tower, the tide of the future flooded over the field, between its trees, and through its streets.
Before he decamped the Field of Mars in Paris for the Aitken Basin of Luna, Albert made a simalcrum of his apartment on the Verse as a home for the son he created.
Albert closed his eyes and recalled his last memories of the library.
He wanted to touch the hand-painted ceilings, lit by crystal chandeliers, and run his hands on Versailles-inspired parquet floors.
Countless objects scattered throughout the apartment. Antiques gathered from a lifetime of global, then interplanetary, travel, on behalf of ambition. Mementos of postings in Houston, Nairobi, Wellington, Luna, and Mars.
Handcrafted pieces, centuries ancient, were mixed with holos and late 20th - early 21st century curiosities made by Polaroid and Apple, picked up in Parisian flea markets, floating like lily-pads over a long Art-Deco wooden table.
Basquiat and Beeple , Rothko and Rembrandt, mixed with Manet and Monet.
History on the walls.
The library was a vault of the written world. Real books. A desk that was owned by the House of Bourbon with a holo interface floating over a green felt blotter. A sunset cast rays in an environment so fine in its render that there was dust floating in the air.
The library was a portal to an infinity pool of data filled with deep waters.
Rivers of data floated in parallel streams above and across the shelves.
Blockchains and banks, hybrid exchanges and data entries, tranches of syndicated liquidity pools, tickertapes of rates of yield and burn, Atlanticcoin, Sterilecoin, and every other media of exchange. Flightpaths of every deployment, timetables for everything under construction, updates from every oracle on every chain of the Verse.
Maps of an entity that saw the future like a state.
The library was the heart of a gallery, whose art was commerce everywhere.
The name of the great collection was: SPACE COOPERATIVE
It was Albert’s last home office before left the Cooperative and up the well to Luna.
A chime filled the solarium. Albert sat up from his lounger.
“Sir, we have updates from the “Harvest” tight-beam. Nothing out of the ordinary, it is returning on its flight path. The main landing deck is being prepared. It will be ready.
Our assets in Armstrong and throughout the Basin are on station. By all appearances, the new administrator and others are working. After the last administrator’s remains were found, that seemed to have pacified resistance. They shouldn’t be a problem.”
“And what about the upload from the diplomatic packet?”
“We’ve rewarded the relevant consular officials for their cooperation in securing the packet. A courier delivered it and migration begun to our servers. We’re spinning up the Pygmalion chamber. You should know something about what we received, sir.”
“Oh, what?”
“We have two profiles. Two uploads, one match as expected and someone else. What do you want us to do with the other profile? Archive or deletion?”
“I want them both. Give them both life. I want my son by my side before we get back to work. I’m sure it won’t be problem if my boy had a travelling companion with him.
Our team is taking the field, and we need all of our players ready to do their part.”
“Yes, sir.”
Albert was alone again, bathed in golden light.
NOTES:
AI Lexica prompt:
1
symmetry!! portrait of apollo, greek mythology, ancient greece, intricate, elegant, highly detailed, dynamic lighting, digital art, digital painting, artstation, concept art, sharp focus, illustration, art by artgerm and greg rutkowski and alphonse mucha, 8 k
2
closeup black and white photo from the surface of the moon, cinematic film still, glowing landing lights on spaceship landing on, stars and space in the background, fog and dust
3
extremely detailed awe stunning beautiful futuristic smooth curvilinear museum exterior, translucent gills, stunning volumetric light, stainless steel, concrete, translucent material, beautiful sunset, hyper real, 8k, colorful, 3D cinematic volumetric light, atmospheric light
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Paris, Champ de Mars
