Did you know?
Planet Osiris exists, it is a "hot Jupiter", a gaseous giant orbiting its star up close, some 160 light-years away from us. It is about .7 Jupiter masses, for 2.5 times Jupiter volume. Its atmosphere notably contains oxygen and carbon.
From nasa.gov: The oxygen and carbon found in its atmosphere are evaporating at such an immense rate that the existence of a new class of extrasolar planets - 'the chthonian planets' or 'dead' cores of completely evaporated gas giants - has been proposed. This extraordinary extrasolar planet has been dubbed "Osiris", [since] Osiris is the Egyptian god who lost part of his body - like HD 209458b [(the original name of the planet)] - after his brother killed and cut him into pieces to prevent his return to life.
A time of war
If you remember correctly, or in case you don't remember at all, the story of Heal occurs after a universe-wide war. Recently, I've been pondering about the timeframe of that story. If it happens in a universe that is 13.8 billion years old like ours, then how do I explain the fact that so late into the history of sentient life within the universe, they're still waging war? Because I'm actually an optimist, and believe that civilization leans towards peace with time, hence why this bugs me. In any case, the question is valid.
I feel that it's a great freedom that comes with writing aliens exclusively, that I'm not limited in choosing a timeframe for stories. Alien stories can take place as early as the beginning of the universe, just as well as far into the future, when the universe turns cold or is ripped apart in the Big Rip or what have you. They can even easily happen in a different, fictional universe.
At first I figured I was going to use a universe similar to ours that would be 7Byo (billion years old). Why? Well, let me tell you about some interesting facts I came across in my research.
First off the stars generations. Stars, like for example our sun, weren't created all at the same time. There has been in our universe a first batch of stars starting at around t = 50My to 100My. By then there was mostly only hydrogen and helium around, so these stars created the first metals in the universe. Only afterwards can we imagine planets bearing some kind of material from which life could be birthed for the first time. It was liquid ammonia, methanol, hydrogen sulfide, ethane and propane. It is still unsure whether life can arise in the conditions existing back then, with these massive and short-lived stars around. Afterwards came to exist stars formed with growing quantities of metals, going up until what is called Population I stars, stars like our sun. This kind of star is relatively recent (t = 8By). Red dwarves, around which methane worlds where life could exist might orbit, are even more recent.
All this means that life as we know it, around a yellow dwarf star, is relatively recent. It does not mean that life didn't exist in the universe before that, but it must have been a different life, more rare, happening around more massive, short-lived and metal-poor stars. Just as well as the peak probability for life to exist on a methane world orbiting a red dwarf happens in the future. Hence I believe we can tell apart several generations of alien life, just like there are several generations of stars.
So I thought, why not use an earlier universe as a setting? Less aliens, less research, right. Or maybe not. Another possibility, the one I'm most likely going for, is to disregard early universe life, and focus on our "generation of alien life", the one that is presently happening around sun-like stars. This would also solve my dilemma regarding the continuing warfare in the universe: life would have begun just a few billion years ago, hence there can still be some unsolved conflict around.
Thank you for reading!
Still a bit of a short newsletter, I haven't been really better since last week, and this whole dilemma of the timeframe of the story has kept me brainstorming.
However, thank you so much for following these posts. I am very grateful for the attention you spend on my work.
Stay tuned next Saturday for more sci-fi oddities! Until then, take good care.