Chapter 2:3 © The Rebellion – rho

Planetary Systems Now Forming in Orion

Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (STScI/ESA), the HST Orion Treasury Project Team, & L. Ricci (ESO)

Explanation: How do planets form? To help find out, the Hubble Space Telescope was tasked to take a detailed look at one of the more interesting of all astronomical nebulae, the Great Nebula in Orion. The Orion nebula, visible with the unaided eye near the belt in the constellation of Orion, is an immense nearby starbirth region and probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Insets to the above mosaic show numerous proplyds, many of which are stellar nurseries likely harboring planetary systems in formation. Some proplyds glow as close disks surrounding bright stars light up, while other proplyds contain disks further from their host star, contain cooler dust, and hence appear as dark silhouettes against brighter gas. Studying this dust, in particular, is giving insight for how planets are forming. Many proplyd images also show arcs that are shock waves - fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula lies about 1,500 light years distant and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as our Sun.

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Sophia is ruminating over her situation, let’s listen in to her private soliloquy.

‘I am in this position because of my looks. This is just like life. I have administrative and people skills but I am respected more in this Place because I appear to be a twin of our Mother. What she must think? She arrived here alone and many of her grandchildren’s grandchildren followed her to this place. If a goddess were human, she comes the closest.

         We are a good species. The people Here are still courageous in mind and yet moderate in their thoughts and actions. No one wants to be thrown into Tartarus, the abyss with the fallen Titans, but I doubt Zeus would throw us humans into an eternal fire and brimstone reserved for the gods.

         We are built to rise up. We are built to become more than we appear to be, even in death this is so as we are still Here. We are built with prudence, with reasonable self-discipline. Our minds have use of shrewd skills and good judgment, and that may be our best common resource in this coming protest with the Supervisor.

Our heartsansoulsanminds have to be as a singular dimension to be at our sharpest if we are to meet this goddess in charge of our demeanor with her. The Supervisor shows herself to have a woman’s shrewd cleverness. Look at Zeus. Men don’t have the patience, mostly thunder, with lightning bolts only when needed. Kassi agrees with me on this, but our differences rest in our fourth great virtue as a species, justice.

It appears to me that we have been merited a punishment by not allowing us to communicate directly with our descendants. Some have tried but the message always seems to be in garbled dreams if it gets through at all. Our purpose is lost in translation.

Purpose, now there is a word. Meaningful intent. We want the Living to learn to live so their children may have a better life. Sometimes I think that it is only through our children that we have reason to exist, yet I know deep down there are other, more mysterious reasons, and being in this Place appears to be one of them.

Kassi thinks it is the principle of the thing that is the injustice. We are built have and care for our children. This should be extended beyond our Living. Our primary purpose appears lost in this Place. A part of our basic humanity has been withheld from us.’

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Parental thoughts and motherly concern for her children, not that much different from the mindset of the genetic Eve who was the first among the Dead of the human species to arrive in this Place.

Eve originally had a choice. Other species with heartsansoulsanminds existed in the same galaxy. She immediately recognized the similarities of one of the other species and said “Hello” and was greeted warmly, but within a pre-conditioned Earth week Eve declared, “I’ll make my own Place and wait for my children, friends, and friends of friends.” Then she said, “Good-bye, to the Dead of a three planet system from the other side of the galaxy, and added, “We shall meet again.”

This short aside about Eve would mean nothing to Sophia who helped began the Rebellion of the First Ten Thousand, but it does have meaning for a later time in book six of Merlyn’s series.