[Dick walks off, muttering something about "the galaxy being one giant mistake." The door to the radio compartment slides open and shuts behind him, leaving a faint echo of his footsteps behind.
And then, softly, Jackie's velvet voice settles into the broadcast]“…Well then, my dear gremlins.
Dick has gone off to complain to the cosmos—
which means the room is now mine.So get comfortable, because I’m about to tell you
exactly where our favorite psychopath Zeros went…
and why, after tonight, Blindy is going to hate gravity
even more than before.So settle in.
What we have today is a system so beautiful
even Star Wars, Star Trek, and every mediocre franchise
where physics was written by people who learned science from TikTalk™
would be jealous.So sit back.
This is going to be beautiful, scientific…
and very, very far from that trash heap called Dumsta.Alright.
Here’s something genuinely interesting.
The Vael system lies in the neck of the Ursa Major constellation.
Back on old Terra, humans looked at this region
and saw a romantic pair—Mizar and Alcor,
the ‘horse and rider.’But what only a handful of people ever knew:
Mizar is not a single star.It’s a binary pair—Mizar A and Mizar B.
And right next to them is another binary pair—
Alcor A and Alcor B.Yes. Four stars.
Like a family where everyone lives together,
but each one is yelling at their own partner.The Vael system is the local name for Alcor A and Alcor B,
loosely translated as ‘Balanced Lights.‘Orbiting them is a massive gas giant—Qereth,
which translates to ‘Shield‘ or “Bearer.’And orbiting Qereth is something remarkable—
the moon Elyndar.The name means: ‘Where the air carries you.’
Spoiler: it carries you very well.
Elyndar exists under a dual sanctuary of light:
Two primary stars—
bright, powerful, alive.And a second pair—distant, dimmer,
but always present in the sky.The system itself is stable, ancient, and unusually calm.
The stars are spaced far enough apart
that their orbital dance doesn’t tear life apart—
it creates harmony.Elyndar doesn’t orbit the stars directly.
It orbits Qereth—
a massive gas titan that serves three roles:One: gravitational anchor.
Two: magnetospheric shield.
Three: a cosmic debris vacuum—
catching meteors so local tourists can take selfies
without dying.This kind of configuration is rare.
Extremely rare.
Worlds like this are almost myth.
Qereth dominates the sky so completely
that the moon feels like an accessory to a giant.On the horizon:
- endless bands of cloud,
- eternal storms,
- shimmering auroras,
- and, from time to time, visible comet impacts.
Yes—you can literally watch comets slam into a gas giant
and call it a romantic evening.And here’s the most beautiful part:
Elyndar has no normal night.
Let’s break it down.
Full day—
both primary suns are visible.Soft day—
one slips behind the shadow of the gas giant.Bright twilight—
the main suns fade, and the secondary pair takes over.Deep twilight—
the secondary stars filter through the atmosphere
or are partially obscured by Qereth.Night—
rare.So rare it’s treated as a cosmic holiday,
not a natural cycle.Elyndar has no standard circadian rhythm.
Time is cultural, not biological.
Rituals are based on shadows,
not sunrises.And Elyndar itself—
it’s beauty written into low gravity.Mass roughly half of Terra’s—about 0.6 g.
A dense atmosphere: 1.3 to 1.6 Terran pressure.
Oxygen levels are high—so high
that the air feels softer than what you’re used to,
and the sky glows differently.It’s paradise.
The kind of place where any group of hippies
would settle down
and completely forget what work even is.On the surface—one vast ocean
and an unusually stable climate.A world that feels like it was designed
for a honeymoon…or for a very calm, very sensual civilization.
And now…
the biosphere.The forests of Elyndar—
they rise like cathedral columns, five to eight hundred feet tall.Thick, flexible trunks.
Canopies arranged in vertical layers,
like the stacked floors of a living city.Photosynthesis here uses an extended spectrum of light:
green pigments,
deep violet-black tones,
flashes of copper.Everything grows, stretches… and glides
along the currents of dense air.Animals?
Tall.
Spring-loaded.
Light on their feet.They don’t fly.
They glide.Wings are rare.
Bodies are elongated, flexible, vertical—
built not for jumping,
but for controlled drifting through thick, saturated air. …And now, my dear gremlins,
we arrive at the most beautiful thing Elyndar has to offer—
its people…”