Cosmology

The following is a description of the galaxy and planet in which The Big Crunch is set, as well as the black hole sun around which it revolves.

The Obalt Galaxy and the Void

Obalt is a spiral galaxy located in our universe, but at a vast distance from the Milky Way. Over a million of its planets harbor life, and hundreds of thousands of them are home to beings with advanced sentience.

At the center of the Obalt galaxy is the Void, a supermassive black hole with nearly five million times the mass of the Sun. It is surrounded by a twisted ring of stars and luminescent debris, granting a bright morning to the planets in its immediate orbit. Among them is the life-bearing planet Obescuron.

Obescuron

Obescuron is a habitable, Earth-sized planet that was created by the Üb-Antal, a race of celestial beings that were born shortly after the Big Bang. The planet orbits around the Void in a rosetta pattern once every 87 Earth years. It rotates on its north-to-south axis, so that its poles experience full night and day thanks to the light of the Void’s rings. Obescuron appears in space as a hazy violet orb with a ring of bright orange around its equator.

Obescuron is divided into six lateral regions that mirror each other across the southern and northern hemispheres. The first of these is the Ankalla Belt, a ring of molten lava hundreds of miles wide that circles the equator of the planet. As it rises and falls with the tidal forces of the Void, its undulating heat regulates the flow of seasons.

Bordering the Ankalla Belt are the T’ashtagi Mountains. Tortured by ages of lava flow, these spires are scorching hot and largely inhospitable to life. The largest of them are dormant volcanoes that served as the propulsion system that put Obescuron in orbit around the Void.

Past the mountains are the Cratered Plains, which bore the brunt of Obaltian asteroids as the planet migrated from its formative nebula to the Void. The plains are mostly desert but habitable to species that can bear the heat. It is also littered with cryptic monoliths crafted by the Üb-Antal.

The plains dip into the Echoing Oceans, known for their moments of impossible stillness and clarity. In those times, the reflection of the ocean becomes indistinguishable from the starry skies become indist. Sparse islands populate their surfaces, and their waters temper the equatorial to

Rising from the oceans are the Violet Lifelands. This diverse mixture of terrain and water bodies harbors much of the flora and fauna designed by the Üb-Antal.

These culminate in the northern and southern Polar Crowns, networks of peninsulas that experience the most weather diversity on the planet. They are home to the interplanetary city-states of Lumaenos and Thanova.