Characters From the Great Beyond

When this project began, I had never heard of a supercluster. Nobody else had heard of them either, because astronomers hadn’t figured them out yet. I wouldn’t have given this much thought if it wasn’t for one thing.

As of today, we have identified ten million superclusters. Each supercluster is estimated to have fifty thousand galaxies. Each galaxy might have a hundred billion stars. Those are big numbers but that’s not what grabbed my attention.

Expanding space means that our supercluster will eventually be the only one visible. The great beyond will have one, not millions, of these gravity groups. How can that be?

Put differently, our home supercluster will become utterly isolated, rather than being a member of a vibrant cosmic neighborhood. Facts such as these are worth carefully considering. This is a real-world description of the actual place in the universe where we happen to live. Our future begins here. When “here” has faded away, “where” will our future take place?

At first it seemed that the meaning of this might be that our home supercluster was permanent. But it is no more permanent than our home planet. It will just last longer, that’s all.

In the grand scheme of things, there is a missing step and science has no data to fill that gap.

Trying to get my fiction writer’s mind wrapped around these inconvenient facts stumped my imagination for quite some time.

Strangely Fascinating

Authors get to choose which writing projects they want to work on. This supercluster thing was brand new, it was strangely fascinating, and it was based on calculable facts.

Every time I tried to walk away from this peculiar project, I ended up walking right back through that door. It’s sort of like having a girlfriend you argue with a lot but can’t leave because you love her too much. Romantic relationships sometimes find healing when the couple makes an effort to understand the other person’s needs, as well as questioning their own motives. That doesn’t cure every romantic tangle but it’s a sensible approach.

Stories have needs. Writers have their own needs. Readers want something new.

Bigger Stage

So, like Winnie the Pooh, I went to my Thoughtful Spot and sat down. Think, think, think. Then it came to me.

Millions and billions and trillions are just big numbers. What stories need are compelling characters. Aha! What types of characters would occupy this recently discovered vastness?

That’s when my story and I started talking to each other again.

We live on a planet which mean that humans have planet sized character. In the Star Wars movies is the Galactic Empire and those characters take on many forms. For supercluster sized stories I knew I needed to strive for something larger. On the other hand, these characters couldn’t be so large that the reader would lose interest.

Occam’s razor is one of the methods I was taught in school. What that means for writers is this. Do not burden your reader with overly complicated plots. Keep things as simple as the tale will allow. I reached an understanding that a bigger stage requires larger actors.

After wandering through a labyrinth, I stumbled upon a useful method. I nicknamed it the “cookie cutter universe.” It is a visualization method for creating a workable backstory.

Cookie Cutter Universe

Planets link to galaxies. Galaxies link to local clusters of galaxies. Galactic clusters link to superclusters. Superclusters link to an expanding universe.

The following analogy helped me get a grip on this. Suppose it’s winter holiday time at your house and you decide to bake cookies. You get out a large cutting board, a good rolling pin, and that bag of cookie cutters which sits in a kitchen drawer for most of the year. After making a batch of dough you roll it out to proper thickness, press it into many shapes with your cookie cutter collection, then put them in the oven to bake. Mmmmm, delicious cookies. Don’t burn your tongue – let them cool first.

Continuing with this analogy, let’s suppose there are many different shapes – star, moon, tree, and so forth. Some cookies will be kept at your house. Others will get put in cookie tins as gifts. No two tins are exactly alike.

Kicking this analogy up to the next level, each cookie represents a supercluster, and each tin represents an expansion region. You keep one special cookie tin at home for guests. Some tins get taken over to neighbors. Other tins get sent to people in other states. In other words, the region tins, containing supercluster cookies, are expanding away from your kitchen.

From that concept came the “cookie cutter universe.”

Life Zones

Galaxies get bundled into superclusters. Superclusters get bundled into expansion regions. Expansion regions get bundled into life zones.

Beyond that it’s just life-zone after life-zone after life-zone, all across the universe. No two are ever the same. All of them have identifiable similarities. The only thing a reader needs to understand is the place where they live. Nearby places are similar. Stretched out across eternity, nothing ever remainss the same, but it somehow feels familiar.

I’m going to make a list, which is boring, but it will be useful to those readers who want to understand the names.

Earth is our home planet. Ostramona is Earth’s galaxy. Tromolea is Ostramona’s local cluster of galaxies. Gomonish is Tromolea’s supercluster of galaxies. Nimulos and Jeshmol are two expansion regions which contain Gomonish and Kemong, along with countless other places. Lengtor is the life-zone which includes Nimulos, Jeshmol, and Ooloc – plus more. Ur & Um are the life sparks who transmitted to us the gift of life. Life is the cosmic blessing of the one-true-source-of-all. From Ur & Um, all beings within our particular life-zone are called urbies or umbies.

That’s the mix in our local cosmic cookie collection.

Other life-zones in our region include Trogeln with Ru & Mu as their life sparks. Bambloshia is led by Rum & Mum. Vorgnosh has Urg & Gurg at the helm.

The entire universe, throughout all eternity, is variations of these vast cookie tins, in dimensions we can experience, as well as dimensions beyond our current reach.

Occam’s razor has been very very good to me.

Character Development

We will now take a more informed look at character development.

From the long list above there is a shorter list chosen for this particular series of Supercluster Stories. Nimulos is our expansion region. Jeshmol is a neighboring co-expansion region. The Ooloc expansion region contains both Nimulos and Jeshmol. The story locations end there. The cookie cutter concept goes on and on.

Humans are evolutionary beings, or evos. There are countless forms of evos, facing unique struggles on their own life planets. Collectively, humans are part of a group called the evonim. Anca are administrative beings, or admins, who have a uniform presence throughout Nimulos. Nimulon flash beings are far fewer in number but much greater in power.

Evos in the Jeshmol expansion region are called evojesh. Soto are the admins who have a uniform presence throughout Jeshmol. Their jeshie flash beings are also fewer in number but much greater in power than evos or admins.

Ishmili are majestic beings from the Ooloc expansion region, which includes both Jeshmol and Nimulos, among others. They are important characters in these stories but are rarely mentioned. In contexts where they are portrayed it is about bringing selected components of Jeshmol and Nimulos together in order to build durable survival modules.

These new characters from the great beyond are configured to the size of their realm.

Survival Region

This presents the reader with many names, for both characters and places. The cookie cutter concept makes it easier to understand how each unit snaps into place beside all the other units.

Think about it this way. When you were a little kid, you knew mommy and daddy’s name plus a few close people. As soon as you started school you met lots of new friends. Sometimes you could remember their names, other times you could not. As you went through life you may have stayed close to home, or you could have traveled the world. Lots of names, lots of places. Each city is a cookie cutter concept of other cities. Each remote village is a cookie cutter concept of other villages.

The important thing for Supercluster Stories is that each class of characters has a role to play, and these roles match the cosmic geography which they call home.

Planetary characters. Galactic characters. Supercluster characters. All of them are members of one team, building a unique survival region.

Life happens. Things change. The never-ending story goes on and on.