Gargatias
Understanding that the planets in the universe are simply eggs, waiting to be torn apart by the creatures inside, gave birth to more questions than answers.
The name is actually comes from misspelling the word 'Gargantua' but don't let it fool you, we are talking about creatures of cosmic scale. All the planets, stars, and other cosmic objects in the universe are either eggs or what's been left of eggs. The theory is that there are seeds roaming the universe and those seeds pull the mass around them to form shells and become eggs for those seeds. In fact, the research shows that there would be nothing bigger than atoms in the universe without those seeds since they are the source of gravitational pull. So the seed eats up the eggs, might consist of gas, plasma or rock it doesn't matter, from inside out to grow, similar to an animal that grows inside an egg. When it is grown enough, it just cracks open what remains of the shell and push itself out of the universe, creating a black-hole. If the creature is one of the big ones and had taken residence in a gigantic star then the black-hole becomes stable and stays there. If it is a planet-Gargatia then the black-hole just closes on itself before being able to pull anything, leaving almost no trace except the asteroids or nebulae left of the shell. An that is how the asteroid belts around star systems form.
There are types of Gargatias as many as astronomical bodies in the universe. Gas-Gargatias reside in gas giants like Jupiter, star-Gargatias - obviously - in stars and so on. Even those types can be sub-typed but since nobody observed any actual creature for more than a couple picoseconds (10^-12 , trillionth of a second), even that happened only twice, it is impossible to predict if those are different creatures of just different in size. However more information is expected to be gathered since they discovered the first creature after building a cosmic camera of ability to capture more than 10^20 frames per second and they already started to build an even more advanced one.
Scientists explained the public how they would be safe after the shock of the discovery. The predictions show that the creature in earth would be thrown out before fully grew. Simple reasoning is that when our sun becomes a red dwarf by expanding significantly, it would eat up the earth and when the creature be born, it would also pull out the Gargatia of The Earth. It will happen in about 5.4 to 6 billion years so humans are fairly safe. As for premature birth, the researchers insist they would see the signs before it would happen, even if it is possible. After all, no one has observed a premature event in any star system that we gazed upon. It helped the public to keep calm but beside that, is it an impossible event or just not observed yet, that is another question.
There is furthermore, the case of seed being dead or dying. There is no real proof of possibility or of an example as the creature's effects on magnetism, life, and other attributes of a planet not yet known. Nevertheless, the voices to say Mars might be an example are getting stronger and stronger. Why Mars lost its water, and maybe even life along with inconsistencies of its magnetic properties, never explained completely and properly. So it might have something to do with a dead seed inside, according to the theory. There might be other examples of planets or even stars but it cannot be proved without understanding the creature's effects on the surrounding 'shell' and its habitants.
Another property is that according to the calculations, the seed should in perfect spherical shape. The size is not understood as there may be different types with different sizes. No seed has been observed and it would be almost impossible to see one without the shell since they have an immense gravitational pull, so they just pull everything around them as they roam through galaxies and quickly form shells.
Now the debate is about whether the universe is a womb of another creature and if so, what lies beyond this universe? Can humankind get out of this universe through a black-hole or follow a creature? Maybe these creatures even have something to do with life on earth? Maybe humans can tear apart a small planet and examine one of these before it goes out?
EDIT: Added the changes pointed out in first comment.
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? Responses (8)
This an interesting idea, one I have seen done before but not with this far reaching implementation and not with some of the nice touches you have added. But like you said it raises more questions than it answers.
First question that came up for me when reading this is who wrote this, what do they know and what is the authors intention. This is written in an 'in world' perspective. And the first two paragraphs are discuss the information regarding these creature with fairly circumspect view. It is when third paragraph comes around that I began to question the author's motives.
' there was no panic among humanity' I find this hard to believe. This sounds more like a newsman or spin doctor telling people what they should think. He sites no sources and does not allow the audience to decide for themselves whether to panic or not. He simply tells them there has been no panic. How does he know premature births don't happen? How do they know who old the baby in the earth is? What about the baby is the sun? Sounds like hand waiving to me. I do suppose that by looking at events at different points I the galaxy you could get a good deal of information about the life cycle of these eggs.
Another question, could you consider the entire a solar system part of a star egg shell?
As sci-fi geek my only complaint is that they form shells there mass will increase, and thus their gravity. The immense gravity argument masking the seeds doesn't stand up. Perhaps once they form a shell the egg goes through 'cooling period' in which it vents a great deal of gas and matter then condenses to the rock planet size.
Anyway nice abstract, like to see as part of a larger piece.
Thanks for the input, really nice points there. Being from a science background and trying to keep it short sometimes urges me to do the process in my head and write just the result.
As we understand the gravitation almost completely (latest research even show that the gravitational constant seems to be same everywhere in the universe), playing with such things is always tricky. So it wouldn't be a good fit for 'pure' sci-fi but something more like a 'Doctor Who' project with enough scientific details and credibility to push it further into sci-fi rather than space fantasy. With that in focus, trying to push the exploration time-table a little further so some things are explained and people asking 'what now?', they will try to understand these beings or they will simply try to push forward into the multi-verse.
With that explained, let me answer your questions. I wrote 'there was no panic' to explain that there might have been, and probably was, panic at first but to ask 'what now?', people had to calm down. So basically it tried to push forward without giving an exact time about how long to gather more information about beings, more theories about what may lie beyond and those tiny details to make it more imaginable in the player's eyes, and you are absolutely right. It simply not enough. I should make it more clear by adding 1 or 2 sentences and change that dictating language.
About premature births, I actually tried to leave an open door by saying but I was too focused on that 'what now?' question so just wrote it as 'almost zero possibility'. It is in fact close to that 'no panic' part because if there was an enough chance for it, then people would panic almost completely, plus, it would close possibilities to research further and instead everything would go around the survival aspect. However you are right about closing premature birth door would be a bad move and again I should be able to fix that with a small edit. The trick is to find a balance between complete survival focus and complete further events focus.
So how do we know about life cycles of these creatures? Answer is, we know about life cycles of stars and planets and other astronomical bodies. That doesn't change. Also this idea doesn't fit well with current scientific theories except maybe with the explanation of dark matter. But honestly, getting into dark matter is like putting a pile of cr.p into another pile of cr.p so I really don't want to get into it. Also it would make it more of a setting piece, not a life-form piece. Instead it is more about taking today's normal gravitation and pulling it down a bit so without seeds' high gravitation, there would be no moons, no planets, no stars, just small pieces. Actually, now that I think of it, there would be nothing more than atoms. So seeds are the source of astronomical bodies and gravitation to form cosmic structures. And the asteroid belt around our solar system and other systems is simply what is left of those old egg shells. Also to question of 'will all planets will give birth, do they all have seeds?', yes they all have seeds since there wouldn't be planets without it but some of those seeds can be dead. In this occasion, I can think of Mars, with an Earth-like past but when the seed dies or cannot grow, the planet becomes barren. I think this should be on the main submission too.
I know this is longer than the main sub and I apologise for that. I hope this brings more clarity to the nature of these beings.
An interesting idea, for sure.
I'd recommend running a thorough language correction (grammar, spelling) though to make it more palatable.
A little bonus for the just as interesting couple comments that accompany it. I am not a SF person so, aside from Godzilla, this is one of the first time the planet as an egg thing has crossed my eyes.
Which came first, the seed or the planet?
Nelson Bond's story 'And Lo, the Bird' circles around this core concept, planets being eggs, back in 1950. Aside from that, most of what is here is different enough to not be considered copying or derivative.
I think it's interesting, but the nature of the gargatias punching out of our universe in the matter of picoseconds rather limits them to speculation or conspiracy theory in a game.
Still an enjoyable read.
Finally have a chance to write down something. But first I have to ignore Strolen's question to silence the unbelievably strong urge of making fun of the King of The Citadel. :D
Actually I've never heard of something like this either except maybe planet-eater type creatures going around, which is the main inspiration behind my idea. So thanks Scrasamax for pointing that story. And when I think about how you can implement such a think in a game, I believe it would fit a Cthulhu-like game much better than a sci-fi game. For example, a game might start in a big space station hovering above a planet to crack the planet and reach the Gargatia, however things might get out of hand as they reach deeper and deeper. People might go crazy, or maybe one of the players can become a serial-killer in the station when he/she sleeps because of that mind effect of the Gargatia and the team might be trying to solve the mystery without knowing one of them is the killer. Or even it can become something like 'Dead Space' game, Gargatia effecting not only mind but flesh also.
It can also be some other type of a game. What if people observe a creature out of the egg but couldn't get out of the universe? Or what would happen if there are guardians like white blood cells in our body, trying to destroy anything that can interfere with a Gargatia. I tried to make it clear that these things are observed so we know they exist. But ofcourse you can always tweak some details to fit it in a setting or game type.
4/5 to make it perfect all we need is CTHUHLU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will echo Strolen in saying, I've never actually heard of planets as eggs, so was mind-blown for a few minutes there!
Thanks to Scras, I can't now but help go google Nelson Bond's story 'And Lo, the Bird'!
and as per Aramax, I was expecting Cthulhu!!
Anyways, pretty cool concept, nice job! And nice give and take on axle's and your first comment.