light-years. This refers to the distance that light travels in one year. Light travels three hundred thousand thousand thousand strides in one heartbeat. We are at present traveling at the speed of light between two starswhen we arrive, very soon, the sun will be different from the one which shone above us when we left. There is no need to be alarmed by this.
We live in a very small region of the galaxy, which we call the Second Sphere. It is a spherical volume of space that contains several hundred stars. Many of them are the suns of worlds like the one on which you were born. The Second Sphere is about two hundred light-years across. We call it the Second Sphere because it is not the place where human beings first came from. Human beings came from a world which we call Earth, a hundred thousand light-years away, on the other side of the Foamy Wake. So do all the other people, animals, and plants that you will find on the worlds of the Second Sphere. (See Evolution, Theory of.) When you go from one world to another, you may find that the animals and plants are different from those on your own world. There is no need to be alarmed by this. In your pack you will find a separate leaflet that will tell you which animals and plants at your destination are dangerous.
As well as human beings and the kinds of people who resemble human beingsthe tall hairy people and the small hairy peoplethere are two other kinds of people in the Second Sphere. These are the small grey people, whom we call the saurs, and the very large people with tentacles, whom we call the krakens. You may know the saurs mainly as the pilots of the small round aircraft we see in our skies, and the krakens as the navigators of the great starships that you have seen in the sky or on the sea. The trade routes followed by their starships are what define the limits of the Second Sphere, at about one hundred light-years in all directions from Nova Babylonia, its oldest human civilization, though not its oldest settlement. The krakens and the saurs have lived in the Second Sphere for much longer than human beings.
You will have been told that there are much greater minds in the spaces between the worldsthe minds that some people call the gods, and others call the powers above. This is true. The gods live in very small worlds, like the ones which we sometimes see in the sky as comets. There are many, many such gods around all the suns that we know about, including the sun of Earth. The gods are minds whose bodies are made up from many very small animals that can endure severe cold and heat. They are similar in some ways to the many small animals which we cannot see but which exist all around us. There is no need to be alarmed by this. (See Disease, Germ Theory of elsewhere in this information pack. If you already understand this, see Extremophile Nanobacteria and Emergent Phenomena.)
There is much we do not understand about the gods. One thing we do know is that for a very long time they have arranged for saurs who live near Earth to transport people, animals, and plants to the worlds of the Second Sphere. These have always arrived in starships with saurs from the Solar System on board, and have been met by saurs from the Second Sphere, who in turn transported them to the nearest world. This is how the worlds of the Second Sphere came to be populated. The saurs, of course, came from Earth a very long time ago.
The planet we call Croatan was settled in this way more than seven hundred years ago, in the Seasonally Adjusted Year of Our Lord (SAYOL) 1600 (see Calendar, Croatan) by people from North America. Its daughter colony, Mingulay, was established two hundred and fifty years later by the followers of a heretical prophetess (see Taine, Joanna).
Almost three hundred years ago, in SAYOL 2051, a starship from Earth arrived near Mingulay. It was a starship built by human beings, and it was called the Bright Star. It was left to travel in the
We live in a very small region of the galaxy, which we call the Second Sphere. It is a spherical volume of space that contains several hundred stars. Many of them are the suns of worlds like the one on which you were born. The Second Sphere is about two hundred light-years across. We call it the Second Sphere because it is not the place where human beings first came from. Human beings came from a world which we call Earth, a hundred thousand light-years away, on the other side of the Foamy Wake. So do all the other people, animals, and plants that you will find on the worlds of the Second Sphere. (See Evolution, Theory of.) When you go from one world to another, you may find that the animals and plants are different from those on your own world. There is no need to be alarmed by this. In your pack you will find a separate leaflet that will tell you which animals and plants at your destination are dangerous.
As well as human beings and the kinds of people who resemble human beingsthe tall hairy people and the small hairy peoplethere are two other kinds of people in the Second Sphere. These are the small grey people, whom we call the saurs, and the very large people with tentacles, whom we call the krakens. You may know the saurs mainly as the pilots of the small round aircraft we see in our skies, and the krakens as the navigators of the great starships that you have seen in the sky or on the sea. The trade routes followed by their starships are what define the limits of the Second Sphere, at about one hundred light-years in all directions from Nova Babylonia, its oldest human civilization, though not its oldest settlement. The krakens and the saurs have lived in the Second Sphere for much longer than human beings.
You will have been told that there are much greater minds in the spaces between the worldsthe minds that some people call the gods, and others call the powers above. This is true. The gods live in very small worlds, like the ones which we sometimes see in the sky as comets. There are many, many such gods around all the suns that we know about, including the sun of Earth. The gods are minds whose bodies are made up from many very small animals that can endure severe cold and heat. They are similar in some ways to the many small animals which we cannot see but which exist all around us. There is no need to be alarmed by this. (See Disease, Germ Theory of elsewhere in this information pack. If you already understand this, see Extremophile Nanobacteria and Emergent Phenomena.)
There is much we do not understand about the gods. One thing we do know is that for a very long time they have arranged for saurs who live near Earth to transport people, animals, and plants to the worlds of the Second Sphere. These have always arrived in starships with saurs from the Solar System on board, and have been met by saurs from the Second Sphere, who in turn transported them to the nearest world. This is how the worlds of the Second Sphere came to be populated. The saurs, of course, came from Earth a very long time ago.
The planet we call Croatan was settled in this way more than seven hundred years ago, in the Seasonally Adjusted Year of Our Lord (SAYOL) 1600 (see Calendar, Croatan) by people from North America. Its daughter colony, Mingulay, was established two hundred and fifty years later by the followers of a heretical prophetess (see Taine, Joanna).
Almost three hundred years ago, in SAYOL 2051, a starship from Earth arrived near Mingulay. It was a starship built by human beings, and it was called the Bright Star. It was left to travel in the
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