I still remember the nomads. Every year, a clan would arrive in their slender ships, pitch their embroidered tents, and teach for eight days. About medicine, smelting metal, practical things, but also music, poetry, their gods, their laws. They never accepted our gifts. As years passed, the visits grew rarer, and the ships fewer. The nomads taught less and reminisced more: about their parents, or the games they played as children. Had we been poor pupils? No, they said, they were glad we still listened. But they were short on time. We waited almost ten years for the last visit. A single ship, crewed only by a quiet old man who used to be a potter. He told us about a time before the ships, the cliff city where he was raised, digging clay by a wide river under a deep red sun. He asked us, please, not to forget. The starships don't come here any more.
I needed to get away from the hustle and bustle streets of the internet. Instead I found a nice little refuge from all that with some great company and phenomenal stories.
stories past down generation after generation. Some new, others old, and yet some from before time was ever kept. These are the histories of the Planes that once were, yet have never been.
I once knew a space pirate who crash landed here. Rather harsh fellow. He spend months repairing his ship, maybe even year or so, I cant remember. The pirate wanted to return to the stars, he wanted to plunder among the nebulas, once again see the black holes devour suns. But eventually he realised that this lonely planet, with its humming winds and this magnificent islands, was more precious than every other solar system he visited. Why? Not because of some magical ore, divine alien dragons or any stuff like that. The pirate found here what he cannot get high up where ships like whales swim on the pitch black fabric of cosmos. That thing was peace.
My grandfather told me a long time ago that we were not made for this world. He told stories about the starships that brought him and my grandmother here, how it was only meant to be for a few years to support his planet's war, and that they were supposed to go back. "We're not supposed to be here!" is something he would say with sharp resentment in his last days. He wouldn't say much of anything else. All he remembered was that the starships were late. It made me sad to see his final days spent in bitterness, but I suppose I can't blame him. His old stories about the Earth's oceans, rivers, and endless forest sounded like paradise. Soil so pure you could toss a seed wherever you wish and it would sprout into a tree that would feed you forever... sounds all too good to be true. Who wouldn't want to go back to that? Who would want to leave... Growing enough food here for us and our cattle is backbreaking work, but it's all we got. I don't want to burden my children with heartbreaking stories about a world where it doesn't have to be like this. I've hidden this note along with the last books we have left. Because hope is a cruel burden when we know the starships never pass by here anymore. I won't let the next generation feel like outsiders in the only world they'll ever know.
WOW....fantastic story. If you ever produce a book with that theme and story or other writings, KNOW that I will buy it from you. What a fantastic short paragraphed story. YOU HAVE TALENT, "drscience-l3m"!
There are two breeds of solitude: that which comes from places that have never seen another living soul, and that which comes from places that once housed many souls but have since lost them all. It is difficult to say which is more haunting.
Kind of fits in with the city of Cahokia, a London sized pre-columbian city of North America that was one of the populous epicenters of the Mississippian civilization. Its unknown how many people lived in Cahokia, but its estimated to be below 20,000 people. Currently its unknown why the civilization fell and the city left to ruin. Its crazy that a hundred years before Columbus arrived to the Americas, the Mississippi river was a thriving base for a civilization before it unknowingly whimpered to obscurity.
bro eventually ur biological think-meat just shrivels up and smoothens out as u get older bro and we all do and we all have those still frames of light-catching-dust through the window of our childhood house's anyway G
Something about this image and music does evoke those feelings. A flashback struck me to my childhood days in late 80s and reading science fiction magazines with American SF authors like Brin, Benford, Philip K. Dick and all these fascinating images of alien vistas and life, far future promises of progress and adventure...What became of my awe, fascination and hope ? This track and music makes me want to break free again...To look at the stars and wonder like I did before...
I am living proof that sometimes, your childhood dreams can become real long after you thought it was possible. If there is ANY way you can pursue them without abandoning what truly matters, please do.
they were not here for the ore, the real reason why they were here was lost generations ago, but i heard something about trees that used to grow here, theses plants hold the secret of life itself ...
The elders speak of the trees in the time of old when our ancestors first made landing on this world, the forests would speak to them and guide them beneath the alien sun, now they are dormant and we do not venture out far from our villages anymore..
And why should we? Everything we need is right here. Last guy I heard try to make the crossing, you know, by the old grove? Got taken in by the Tribes there.
The sky looks a lot different now, compared to how it was when I was just a kid. Just above the stratosphere, there were shipyards and trade ports so large you could hardly believe they were possible. Ships came and went constantly. I would always joke with my friends about leaving this sand-covered hellhole, making a name for myself. It was possible back then. There were so many ferries coming to and from other systems, and countless freighters doing their trade routes. It would've been hard to not find a way to leave. However, I was young, and my friends were too. We knew next to nothing about the wide expanse of our world. It was when I was only 17 that the war began. It was corporate. Massive titans of the war industry, vying for trade rights and land for their own economic gain. During the war, the Union had initiated martial law here. Those freighters and ferries were replaced by giant cruisers, destroyers, and battleships. One night, I volunteered. I was sent up to the shipyards to guard them. It was in the military that I discovered the truth. My home, this hellhole, had become a frontline planet. Two corporate conglomerates vying for it, desiring its profits in trade. The Union had occupied it in a desperate attempt to keep the conflict from escalating, but it only made things worse. About a year into the occupation, six months after I had volunteered, the invasion happened. Battlecarriers and Cruisers came out of the wormholes they created, and unleashed the purest of chaos onto the planet. Orbital bombardment and the scuttling of stations became commonplace for two months as hard battle raged in orbit. I did my part, having held the 3rd Shipyard wing for about two months during a corporate onslaught. By the end, I had ran out of supplies, and I was forced to retreat. I remember seeing the bombs going off as I evacuated. I abandoned orbit, fleeing for the relative safety of the surface. In the end, the brutal fighting had destroyed everything of value. The trade ports had either been scuttled or refitted to battlestations, and all the shipyards were either damaged beyond repair, or scuttled by Union or corporate forces. After it all, I went into hiding on the surface, scavenging the wrecks of old stations for parts to sell off. Now, when I look up at the sky, just above the stratosphere, I see the destroyed remnants of an era long past. Wrecked stations and shipyards, devoid of movement or life. The fire is gone. The stations are ruins. The starships never pass by here anymore.
The wrecks are spread across miles-long debris fields pocked with impact craters. It can take me months to scavenge a single field. It’s done in several passes. The first one, on a single-passenger speeder, covers the whole field as quickly as possible, gathering up the most lucrative and portable loot. Weapons, sensors, communicators, etc. The second pass, informed by the first, visits particular craters with a converted trash scow, carrying mobile tools and loaders and ladders and hoists, with a cavernous space for the larger finds-habitation pods, signage, magnets, timetilters, etc. The last pass is done with a trailer; its the low-end recyclable run, stripping out wires, magnets, batteries, coolant, etc. Imagine my surprise when, two weeks into the first pass of an eight-mile debris field, on my screaming speeder, I discover a last-generation hibernation casket, intact, its monitors still active and displaying various statuses for the apparently living being inside it.
There's something eeriely beautiful about an abandoned place. Makes you think about the stories, the tales...the efforts put in there. I feel that when I pass by where my school once was...now an empty lot. Grass grew, the tree that was there was cut, the buildings demolished...but the entrance, and the small road towards where the main building was, remain...
I feel this way on the way to work I pass a dead old yellow house with an old dead white car in the front. I just imagine that it was someone’s little castle once, and their life just happened there…and then it didn’t. It’s not too far from an old school that became a cancer hospital and is now a graffiti exposition. So crazy to see actual “ruins” like these.
I had a dream once, where I was an ancient being, walking the long abandoned streets of Earth. everywhere was empty of moving life, no humans, no animals, not even insects as far as I could tell, just plants. yet, I wasn't truly alone, I had with me the memories of the people long past. everywhere I went, I could feel their feelings, and hear their words and their thoughts. some places were just wonderful to be around, competitions, shopping districts, fairs, these places always had "life" in them. They were places of stories and soul. some were, more sorrowful, though I don't remember these parts very much, I do remember the feelings of stress, pain, heartache, and anger. I remember I had an obvious preference of where I wanted to be, and it was the places people loved and needed. your comment reminded me of that dream. it was a good dream.
The other day, coming back from the scavenging, I overheard a group of foreigners talk in the local tavern. I had never seen foreigners before, so I stayed later than usual, until everyone from the search party was gone except me. I could only understand them when they spoke directly to old Remé, in a very thick accent, asking for "the coding". They described it as an opaque green rod, not longer than a grown up's forearm. They where very insistent in that it doesn't look like much, but it's worth more than it seems. Remé just listened, nodding and bringing more drinks as they requested. In time, they became friendlier and closer. At one point, they begun describing the engravings, in amazing detail. That tempted me to speak up about my mother's gift, which I immediately recognized in their words, but I kept it to myself. "You are too young, others can out-power you" I thought. So I kept listening. "It's the key that will open the moon's gate", one of them said, before being yelled at and shushed by the rest. Remé didn't know what to make of it, so he laughed and offered more drinks and meals. They seemed friendly, yet scared. I know fear when I see it. I also know where they landed. I'm going with them back to the skies, with or without you.
I'm a big science enthusiast and used to not be a big fan of sci-fi but things like this have slowly changed my mind over the last year... The melding of my love of science and fantasy realms... So much emotion and thought provoking feeling from the first few seconds... Why's the planet look like that? Why don't they come here anymore? Beautiful blue sky, so must have an atmosphere... so many unanswerable questions just makes the mind buzz
"I know your uncle says that like it's a bad thing. He likes to say the Federation abandoned us, leaving us to die on this craggy rock when the tar ran out... I see the brighter side. They're not sending us to war anymore. ...Right, you don't know that word. You know how sometimes we hunt a Terodan for dinner? Imagine people like you and me doing that to each other. In groups so large you can't see the end of them. Doing it because someone beyond our skies, forever away from here, wants to take the tar in the ground from the guy who got here first. Life here isn't great... But it's peaceful. If the starships ever pass by here again, be wary. They may bring prosperity... Or they may bring war."
Did...did I pass by this way before? Last year? Yesterday? It's so hard to tell. The breeze shuffles the dust and dried leaves of past seasons from the few trees. I know for sure that it's been too long since I last saw another traveler, and the final operating trade outpost shut down months after the last starship visited. I liked the pilot of that last ship. A few years shy of middle age, slim and fit, touch of gray in her short-cropped hair, hint of a cleft in her chin. Smart. Not quite ambitious, but worldly-wise. She actually listened to me when we chatted while her androids loaded her ship. I remember the look on her face. Close to pity. I knew I didn't have a chance with her, not coming from this world...not with me wanting to stay. I don't remember her for her face, or her words. It was that expression. Like the whole rest of the galaxy...measuring me...judging me. Why? Why are you staying? There's nothing left here but a slowly dying world. What keeps you here? I never answered her. Shit, she never even asked the question. But I do, every day. The ghosts of my family, all 37 generations, back to the first pioneers, who thought they were breaking ground on the first successful colony world away from the homeland. Decades, then centuries, of toil, labor, farms, construction, technology, squabbles, struggles to bring disparate visions of the future of our world together. We wanted a new world; what we ended up with was a mirror image of the old. The planet was different, but the people were the same. 1,500 year later, what they got was me. And only me. I look up at the sky. It's beautiful. The empty landscape is, too. I'd feel like a 19th Century mountain man, wandering across a newly-discovered continent. I would feel like that...if I didn't know I wasn't the first to step on every bit of dirt...but the last. I'm the last page, the postscript...the period to end not only the sentence, or chapter, but the whole damned book. No one erases the last period in a book. Especially when no one's left to pick up the eraser. Maybe that's why I've stayed; I'll have my own fame. A reason to stand out among all the long-gone people of my world. Or more like notoriety--the last man on the planet. If anyone would ever know...the starships never pass by here anymore.
The last men left through aqueous sky and left me and all the others behind. There are no more crews returning: every mineral pockmark plucked and sent away, away, away. Day’s light sinks low behind the space ports, Canteens and observation decks, and the dark reveals the satellites, darting in and out - the little specks, remnants of those who built us: watching, watching, watching the automatons toil till their parts wear out below. Working though the jobs are done, each a withered edifice on this lonely outcrop, teeming with a life of another kind. the starships never pass by here anymore: they left us all behind.
...but we haven't needed them for years. Replicator tech was brought to us when I was young. Whatever we wanted, whatever we could imagine, we created for ourselves, never knowing hunger, or cold, or damp. These have been happy years to live. But I wonder. We have complete self-sufficiency in these miraculous machines, these replicators. We have no need to reach out, to cry out for the star-engines to bring their life-giving cargoes to our planet's surface. Knowing we had no need of them, they left. We depend on no one, and no one depends on us. Are we now alone in our infinite plenty?
that makes me feel a bit dark -.- the concept i had was: ancient planet forgotten by time, its people trading and traveling with legends of the ships that once were and worlds now unreachable but not forgotten, a rich culture and little violence. maybe that's exactly what happens when the ships don't come anymore, as you said : P
Matte paintings always hit me with a wave of very unfamiliar nostalgia. I always get lost in them, just pondering every bit of land portrayed. I wish i could just dive into them, ya know?
I remember as an early teen playing Halo CE, I found a strange emptiness in it's sci-fi worlds that this video has stirred from memory. Those moments all the enemies were cleared, or a multiplayer map was empty. That first game had such an ambience about it in it's dim thoughtful lighting and background sounds which still resonates in me. An empty world forgotten along the passage of incomprehensible time. An addictive loneliness.
"We considered ourselves a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing of value is here. This place is best shunned and uninhabited."
Clearly this inscription exists to frighten away grave robbers! There must be something extremely valuable here! Like these barrels with glowing green glass and metal in them! Hey... Wait, why is my skin falling off and-
I'd love to play a game that feels like this. A post apocalyptic world where the invading Aliens have already scavenged the whole planet, and only the ruins of their abandoned facilities are left.
@@jamesdupuis3249 It is a good start for such a scenario but the amount of alien ruins in that game are shallow and far in between, not too much to be found. Maybe Starsector would be a better fit
i would play that! imagine the stories, the theories, trying to figure out what one thing or another was for, and why it was made. there aren't enough stories that tell themselves.
The title is so deep ... So deep that it literally making me explore theories ... Thank you whoever came with this title : The starships never pass by here anymore ... wow
The title immediately made me think about how me and my family used to see UFOs when I was young. So many different types too: A giant black triangle with blue lights An orb that could zip across the entire visible sky as fast as you could turn your eyes to follow it, stop on a dime, change directions, etc Several other types too. It seemed like the nearby town was a hotspot for them. I haven’t seen them for about a decade or so now. I hope they come back soon.
@@adm69420 years later I found a book from the contactee community called The Ra Contact. It blew my mind and changed my life. So much of the stories and theories about aliens were put into perspective for me by that book. That was the first time I ever heard an ET explain their concept of God; they called it “Intelligent Infinity”. They had the most benevolent and beautiful philosophy on life I’ve read.
There is beauty in a lot of things, and here you can discover the beauty of the forgotten, the stories and legends of old, these stories capture the true diversity and creativity of humanity, I myself find an abundance of beauty here even in this forgotten planet, how wonderous would have it been to live among these people, alas it's too late, it is always too late.
I can’t say it didn’t have an otherworldly beauty… when I was younger, they were still stripping the ore from this planet, and ships lined the sky from horizon to horizon. Their strange rows jostling next to each other, the humming, and the fluorescent glow of their brake lights. There was beauty in nature’s destruction, freighters pulling away, full to the brim with ore, some abandoning crew members to fit more; but now there is beauty in its return. I did not know we had a moon until the ore ran out; and the miners moved on, hungry for more profit, for more work, for more glory. Now I stare at it, our natural satellite, and it beams back at me. The trees reach for the blue again, their hunger once again supped by the star’s rays. Despite the economic value having dried up long ago, our planet is healing… it won’t be long before nobody remembers how it used to be. And that’s a loss, but it’s also undeniable proof that nature is healing. Forgive my rambling, grandson; just an old man’s reminiscence.
It has been year since I last saw them... cutting the skies like angels, making noises that scared the children, but gave hope to adults. They used to stop at our rusty base, a decaying platform that used to receive lots of ships everyday... not it sits there, rusting with time. We don't know why they don't com here anymore, we used to trade a lot, I even gave one of them some fine drink I made from last harvest. My family, of farmers, used to make some good money with them... the starships never pass by here anymore
"Ever seen something like this before?" I ask, knowing the answer. Neither of us have seen a blue sky in person in our lifetimes. The ceiling of Europa and the vacuum of space is all the sky we've ever known. It's freeing, but also a bit scary to have the ability to truly explore. Back home the closest we got was swimming around the abnormal low-pressure areas, but those were expensive to get in to. I saved money for almost 60 years to afford the small spacecraft we're in, around 900 thousand for the ship, and an additional 120 thousand for everything else needed for this trip. I could've done this a hell of a lot sooner, renting instead of purchasing, and only touring for a few days, but I planned on staying here for a long time. We've grown old, I'm almost 84, but I've got another few decades in me. A few decades spent here. This place is even more beautiful than in the old books and pictures. The islands, suspended in mid-air, taking on a myriad of intricate shapes rest in their place like a sleeping beast. This planet used to be a huge tourist attraction back in the mid 2600s, but it's been abandoned for the better part of two centuries, the company that facilitated travel here went bankrupt, if I recall correctly, and nobody's started it back up since. Only the rare few, like ourselves, venture here to see the beauty. Off in the distance, an old tourist hub sits on one of the hills down on the surface. I never understood the fascination people had with spherical architecture back then. The orbital station up above looks like it's seen better days, all the water's dried up and all the plant-life is gone. I'm surprised that it's still holding itself together after all these years. I never really paid any attention to the surface of the planet before. None of the pictures ever focused on it. Miles and miles of what I believe is some kind of ice compound in circular structures, kind of looking like ancient analog film tech is all that's down there. No life or anything has ever been recorded down on the surface. The clouds here are also made of some kind of ice, but it's spread out so thin the air carries it. Thankfully it doesn't serve any danger to the ship if we happen to fly through one, it'll just leave a ship-shaped hole in the cloud until it eventually falls down to the surface and falls apart. It's real serene here. All the old hotels and infrastructure are nearly perfectly preserved, with no real bad weather here. These old cities were made purely for the purpose of getting the company that ran this place more money. All the products, all the buildings, everything here was owned and operated by them. I'm just glad the power's all gone out. Drones flying through the air forming into different images of products and constant lights in the cities wouldn't be the best for our future peaceful lives here. Eventually, we find a spot and land. Our new life here starts now. Maybe we'll find some other folks here eventually, but I'm not too hopeful.
This gives me an idea for an RPG campaign. Corporations having left behind many colonies and the people who worked on them. They mined, drilled, and gathered all the resources they reasonably could. The planet, drained of its resources, was no longer useful to the space corps, so they left... but they also left the colonists behind. The everyday hard-working people of the colonies were left to fend for themselves. Abandoned by the companies they were so loyal to, to leave their home planet behind for a chance to further humanity only to be forgotten. There are some people with hope that they'll return, but many have begun a new project to build a starship of their own... Even if it was only based on what few schematics they could find and being slapped together to make a bigger and better ship. They have to try, and finding the resources necessary to keep the project and hope alive will be difficult. Scavenger crews are selected and sent out... Many don't return. The planet's wilds are dangerous and even more so, colonists from other places have simply become barbaric and destructive. Taking what they want by force instead of working together for their own sakes. This is the colony's toughest mission, it's final mission. Escape or wither away, lost to time.
Salvas, I'm still only on Salvas. I shut my eyes and the thousand mechanical cries of orbital railcannon fire still scream into my ears, searing those terrible images of blue and orange light into my retinas. The islands in the sky, the ones you look at now fondly, were born out of the single largest terrestrial bombing campaign in history. The bolts which flew down from overhead were ones laced with tungsten-laminate linings and they numbered in the hundreds that day. I still remember the look on my commander's face. He was a stoud one, the kind of asshole you couldn't wait to get away from. But when he went from shouting orders at me and my fellow men to staring in abject terror at the streaks in the sky, I died right then and there. The starships were flying down in the hundreds following the bombardment, when resistance was all but futile and the fighting died down in the face of such overwhelming firepower. I had survived the single deadliest fleet action and I didn't even know it yet, but when i saw those amalgamated concentrations of strata floating eerily in the blue sky, I knew something was wrong. They established a quarantine zone some time after, citing a "gravitational misbehavior". But, as you can see, I ignored it. The starships never pass by here anymore.
The starships never pass by here anymore. Ever since the last scrap of precious ore was mined from the planet, the Outsiders slowly lost their interest in this otherwise barren land. One by one they left. First the miners, then the sentinels, then the traders and even the raiders, until all that was left were wandering nomads and those who had been there long before the Outsiders came. The mining colonies became ghost towns. Refineries and space ports lay abandoned. Old vehicles and equipment dotted the landscape, rotting in the sand. The desert creatures whose numbers had greatly diminished since the arrival of the Outsiders long ago slowly crept back in to fill the structures left by the planet's previous tenants, and what was once a noisy, bustling expanse was now a desolate wasteland of dry ruins. "One used to be able to look up at the sky at any time and see at least four or five starships going to and fro," said one of the last inhabitants left. "But everything's changed. The starships never pass by here anymore."
The Traverse is not how it used to be... I myself ended up here just because the pulsar-compass got wonky, after I got into sleep. Took a while to find that out. Systems were good before, but when emergency wake kicked in, Maps said that we may have passed through a Nova shower or something, and got no StarWarning of that and also no luck. If you, sir, allows for the ship, we'll be around for the time until we can get a merchant or something passing by the star... I can pay for the staying. We'll be no trouble, I'll be mostly on sleep meanwhile. Maps and Jenkins are very kind, knowledgeable. I wouldn't have it otherwise. I believe that it will not take much more than a few decades or so. Even less, if I get lucky this time.
who knows how many things we won't see, our life is too short, how much I would like to see this kind of landscapes live, maybe who knows if it will happen in another life.
This is what sparked my fascination with astral travel, remote viewing, things of that nature. Well I'm moreso thinking of alien worlds but it would also be convenient to visit anywhere on earth with just a thought
Out here, we don’t see many wanderers. Scavengers, hunters, or old, forgotten visitors are all we get. The forests are gone, all packed into ships and brought to the Inner Rings. The mines are dried, their fruits harvested and fractured over the hundreds of generations. I make a habit to come out here. To gaze upon the stars we will never see for ourselves. The sky so pure, the whole of space opens up to me. I’m the only one left, lost in some page of an almanac, waiting for someone, anyone, to find me. As this world’s days in the light of stars and men come to a close, I ask the echoes if it was worth it. The starships never pass by anymore, and I don’t blame them. There’s nothing left to see.
*Something has gone wrong within the wider galaxy. We only know some of the details. Avaros IV had never been a particularly vibrant part of the Interstellar Federation. We were as far from Terra as our generation ship could reach. Avaros IV was chosen for being out of the way of trade routes. We valued our independence and isolation. On occasion, we would trade what resources we could with various vessels and learned of the wider galaxy. When the machine uprising began, we destroyed our STC systems and other automated devices. The last contact we had with the wider galaxy was a captain who was reporting that faster than light travel was becoming more and more difficult. "Storms in the Warp" was what he had said. It has been 500 years. The starships never pass by here anymore and I suspect they never will again~ Avaros IV colonial archivist Miranda Isoue, dated M25, recovered in 999 M30 by the 50th expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade*
If only the eternal moon above, with it's copper glow, or the trees, with their harmonic flutters in the wind, or the structures left behind, could break their unsettling silence. One can't help but wonder: if they could speak, what would they say? Could you stomach to hear it? Would you really want to? ✨
I love this soundtrack and background pics so much. It evokes my nostalgia, not only to my childhood but something more ancient. It calls out my buried personality. Can someone recommend some books or movies similar to this soundtrack?
Something about a sci-fi backdrop set to ethereal ambient music fills me with a sense of wonder and puts me at peace. There is no voice over, no text to read, just your imagination running wild. Reminds me of childhood honestly. Imagining worlds beyond our own. Thank you for this.
"Earth, nothing remained of it anymore. I grew up there, lived in the dense jungle islands, and moved to the frosted peaks. All I knew-the soil, air, water-is all but a memory. Perhaps I'll go back, when the sun rises from east to west, when the oceans turn to dust, and the mountains blow like leaves in the wind."
"Dad, when are we going home?" The question falls heavy upon my ears. I wrap an arm around the boy's shoulder, which trembles somewhat with the effort not to cry. He is too young to understand. "This is our home now," I tell him, struggling to grasp the truth of it myself. "But why?" he asks. His innocent gaze breaks my heart. The landing pad stands not far away, a silent sentinel where once the transport ships came to collect their harvest. They were supposed to return, one last time, to carry us home. That would have been two years ago. Before the cosmos shook, and distant stars exploded in the night sky, consuming whole systems and all the planets surrounding them. The starships would not pass by here anymore. Kneeling down, I look my son in the eye. "It doesn't matter. We're here, now. You're here, and I'm here with you." I watch the hope vanish from his eyes as the tears begin to flow. "We have what we need," I tell him, and hold him close. "We'll be okay, you and I. We'll make it work here. I promise."
The planet of Hydrax IV, previously known as Eden was a agriworld, home to a population of 1 billion. Along with its orbiting moon Hydrax V, a vast red forge world that acted as Eden's shield against the dark unknowns of space, it also acted as the seat of power in the system. Now Eden's moon serves as a grim reminder of its folly in choosing the wrong side in a war that would consume the not just the system but the sector and beyond. Pock marked and scarred is the surface of Hydrax V, evidence of orbital lance and antimatter bombardment is visible even to the naked eye standing on the dusty plains of Eden. What used to be a lush planet of agri domes, wind and solar farms, along with wonderous floating landmasses on which the settlers built their glass cities on is now a dried up windswept husk of a world. The starships never pass by here anymore and what was once green Eden, jewel of the sector, is now simply Hydrax IV a tombworld waiting to fade into the mists of time and space.
@@stephenartigues6027 the text from @revantii is a direct on the fly story set in the 40k universe he or she wrote while hearing this piece of glorious art.
Her name was Eliza. They say there's only one girl like her in each generation, where the toxins and the bloodworms in her mother's womb were so few and gentle that her skin is almost perfectly clear of the deep gauges and pockmarks that the reat of us have. I still can't believe she chose to be with me. I had nothing to offer her but the sweat of my brow in the mines, and the small patch of land from my parents to grow tubers on. And a face as pocky as they come. But she said I had a glimmer in my eyes that reminded her of something outside of her memory. Something she could never find in this world. We could still trade minerals for fertilizers back then, and fuel for the humidity strippers that tore water from the air for irrigation and drink. I wish we had known back then. Maybe there would be a way to get her and the baby onto some freighter-ship with enough minerals or some kind of bribe. In my darkest moments I even fantasize about giving her away to some crewmate. Just knowing that she would be alive somewhere would be enough. She didn't have to be mine. And the baby as well. We didn't even get to name him. We never got to know why they stopped coming. And we didn't have much energy to speculate back then either. All we knew was that suddenly everything stopped. No fertilizer or fuel would ever come from the skies again. The worst part is the cruelty of it all. That our only source of found water would be so contaminated with the filth of this planet, that only those of us whose bodies were the most damaged by this planet already would survive it. She died first. In my arms. It took the baby another two days to die. His screams for his mother still haunts me to this day. They echo my own silent ones. And still, we live on. Those of us who are left. Waiting for someday, when ships would arrive from the skies again. So that our lives will once more have some direction or hope for a future beyond this living hell.
The village of Glaran was once a place where starships filled the skies. Their shimmering trails lit up the night like falling stars, and the people would gather on the hill to watch them soar, leaving behind whispers of far-off worlds. To them, the ships were a beacon of life, a beacon that something greater than their whole lay out there, waiting. But the starships never pass by here anymore. It started slowly, like the fading of a familiar melody. The first ship missed its scheduled pass, but no one worried. Star routes changed, after all. Then another ship failed to appear, and then another, and then another... The villagers waited, craning their necks at the empty sky. A month passed, and a quiet melancholy settled over the people. The hilltop gatherings grew smaller until only a few die-hards remained, stubbornly holding onto the hope that a ship would once again grace the clouds. 50 Years Later "You know, I loved you, Naia. Why didn't you bring me along, bring us all along?" Elder Maren, the village historian, spent his days in the old observatory, surrounded by star charts and yellowing books. His once-bright eyes had dulled with age, but he still remembered the days when the ships were so frequent that he could identify each by the color of its trail. His grandcousin, Elara, often found him there, gazing out of the large, dusty window at the starless void. "Tell me again," Elara would ask, "what it was like when the starships flew overhead?" Maren would smile, his face a map of wrinkles and memories. "It was like the universe itself was paying us a visit. Each ship carried stories from distant worlds, and with them came dreams of what could be." Elara had never seen a starship. She was born after they had stopped passing by. The stories were all she had, but she cherished them. She would sit on the hill for hours, imagining the hum of engines, the glint of metal against the stars, and the faces of travelers peering down at her from above. One night, as the village slept, a strange sound rumbled through the sky. Elara, half-dreaming, bolted upright. The sound was faint, but it was there-a low, humming resonance. She ran to the hill, her heart pounding in her chest. There, she saw it: a glimmer of light moving slowly across the sky. It wasn’t as bright as the starships Maren described, but it was moving, undeniably, across the dark canvas of the night. Elara's breath caught in her throat. Was it a starship? A different kind, perhaps? Or was it something else entirely? She sprinted to the observatory, bursting in with the urgency of someone who had just witnessed a miracle. "Grandfather, come quickly!" Maren, moving slower than his mind would like, followed her to the hill. The light was still there, inching across the sky. For a long time, they stood in silence, watching. "It’s different," Maren finally whispered, "but it’s something." "Where do you think it’s going?" Elara asked, her eyes fixed on the moving light. "Perhaps to the edge of the universe," Maren replied, his voice tinged with awe. "Or perhaps it's coming home." For the first time in years, the villagers began to gather on the hill again, drawn by the mysterious light that moved steadily across the heavens each night. Speculation ran wild. Some believed it was a lost ship finding its way back, while others thought it was a message from the old travelers, a sign that they had not forgotten this little village at the edge of their now-ancient star routes. Weeks passed, and the light grew brighter, more defined. It was no longer just a distant glimmer but a ship, small and weathered, with a hull that gleamed faintly under the starlight. The ship was unlike any the villagers had ever seen, and when it finally touched down on the outskirts of Glaran, the air was electric with anticipation. The doors hissed open, and from the ship emerged a single figure-a woman, her face lined with the years of travel. She looked around at the gathering crowd, her eyes filled with recognition and relief. "I’ve come back," she said, her voice steady. "I was one of the last to leave before the routes were closed. It took me years to find my way back, but I couldn’t let Glaran be forgotten." Maren stepped forward, tears in his eyes. "You haven’t aged a day since I last saw you, Naia." "Time moves differently out there," Naia replied with a sad smile. "But I knew I had to return, to bring something back, even if it was just myself." "I'm sorry I couldn't have brought you along... but, you know, the UEF disallows any relocations of pre-spaceflight species. Just know, I love you." "Heh... get out of my face." "One last hug before I leave the planet?" "Fine." As they hugged, the warmth of their embrace enveloped them, and Maren felt a sense of relief. Elara, standing by her side, was unsure how to react, but a glint of determination sparkled in her eyes. She was determined to find a way to leave this world. To show them her worth, her species' worth, her planet's worth. And maybe, just maybe, those starships would one day find their way back here.
@@AlarmedKathow do you clock this stuff? Visuals are easier but writing i struggle with because most people arent that good at writing. It always seems bad faith to assume its ai.
@@ItsAllNunya I understand your sentiment, but as someone who has dabbled with ai generated text and images from the beginning of its inception, I can tell right away if a certain style of writing is made by ai or not. this one for example is made from a generic prompt without any care put into at least making it look written by a human.
@AlarmedKat I guess I'm more asking how to even tell, because I don't want to have to mess with ai myself just to get a feel for what's fake or not. I have ethical concerns about the technology as it presently exists and stand by my lack of use, and don't want to be fooled just because I don't use a thing with so much baggage and many issues attached to it. 🤷♀️
I came from a long line of soldiers. A strange thing to think about... after all, the chance of rearing a family while fighting on a distant star seems rare. But I suppose they always found a way. I never met my father, who never met his father. But we had our mothers to tell us about them. Strong men, tall, with a bit of red in their beards. With the sheer distance between us, it wasn't very practical for them to come home for holidays. I guess everyone expected me to follow in their footsteps. And in all truth, I fully planned to. When I became a man, I would board a landing craft headed towards the place of no return, to join the war with no end. Until then, I would provide for my family with odd jobs and scavenging. But I guess that would be all I would ever know. Before I was old enough, the war just... stopped. We were never told what happened, if we accomplished our war goals, if we would be immigrated to this new world, or if any of our fathers were still alive. They just... stopped sending us messages. We were in despair, but our bodily needs took priority. We scraped by while waiting for the announcement, and camped our young men in the spaceport waiting to serve their term. Now I'm a man. I have never known war, only wandering and farming. I don't know my father, nor does anyone else. I never got to meet him, since the starships never pass by here anymore.
Soreily B264, I remember the exact model that departed from the terminal before the rinderpest. Remnants from my former days as an excavator for Strix Mining Cooperation. Like disposable trash each member of our division were picked and plucked like weeds. The people jeered and cast their scorn upon us like wild livestock, the waking day reeked of wretchedness as we supplied the metropolis built on our broken bones. I had to witness the fall of my brothers as they succumb to the elements, their extremities withered, eyes dimmed and heart cold. We looked at those bastards above us, and grounded our resolve. I was in the cadre against the institution, we raged against the almighty. Sitting here I lay carrying the burden of the deceased, a forlorn attempt of liberty denied by our controllers. There was a mole in our refuge, the reaper knocked on the doors of our unheeding attention. A fleeting thought crossed my mind as blood weeps out my departing body. I wish that starship never passed by here.
The day doesn't fade, and our cratered Irgas shows face constantly now that the starships are gone. My memory haunts me of the blackened sky and ash when the distant clans first started harvesting. They'd come to Stratos for trade, sometimes bringing their colossal mining rigs for repairs... even paint jobs, before sending them back to Irgas. My parents were artists. Father was among those sculpting the pillars, and mother painted at home in solace. But when the starships came, mother began painting the rigs when father lost his job. Nasty, disturbing paintings, like the appearance of a strange, ancient language written across the entire machine. "No more pillars", they told us. "Only machine". So father started crafting small sculptures at home, alone. Decades passed. Then one day, they vanished. We moved to a quiet corner of Stratos, where father could sculpt again, but I don't really like it. I can't escape the face of Irgas.
Once, we’d lie in fields of green, Counting stars we’d never seen, Dreaming of places wild and far, Hoping that we would become stars. Each path we took led somewhere vast, With Father Time going past, Back then, the world felt kind, Our lives we left behind. But now, the skies are still, The paths are beyond the hill, With nothing more to explore, The starships never pass by here anymore.
If we ever have faster than light travel, and we colonize space like in Dune, over millions and millions of years, then we're bound to have this happened...As the universe expands, everything recedes away from any given point, and someday people from forgotten colonies would look up at the night sky, and not see a single star...They'd think that the legends of other colonies existing and themselves coming from another planet would just be fantaisies dreamed up by the ancients. They'd make their own theories about how they came to be on this planet of theirs, and would never question if there was anything out there.
Actually, despite what everyone thinks, this fate of the universe is just an unproven theory. No one knows for certain that the universe will end like that or even end at all. In fact there are theories that say brand-new universes are springing into existence all the time. And that part about knowledge becoming legend isn't inevitable either, it only makes sense if that knowledge was lost and that's not inevitable either. The future is an unknowable variable and these forecasts of the universe expanding into oblivion are only current projections, based on current data obtained with current technology. And yet it seems everyone thinks these are proven facts.
I remember the old man in Outpost Zeltra. He worked at the repairs shop mainly as a cashier, but sometimes you'd see him in the back room wielding away at a pirate's blaster or fixing up the farmer's equipment. He called himself Ishmael, based off "some old Prime-Earth book" or whatever. Ishmael was a kind fella, always had a story to tell. One day at the local cafeteria however, he was asked if he remembered the day the starships stopped dropping people off here. His expression hardened, and his voice lowered, and he said to us: "Yeah. I remember. It was probably the day we realized that this was the end of the road for the once-great Cooperative. This planet had been almost used up, there was no point in bringing in anymore of those smart people, or even settlers. No, instead, they dropped off the vagrants, the undesirables, then, told us right then and there that this was the last starship visit...no more, they said, no more. Our ships need to be more fit for war, not for populating. What a joke. What a sick joke. You know there's only fifteen-thousand starships left now? Before the War, there was Three Million. Three, Million. Can you imagine what we could've accomplished with such things? We might've reached the center of the universe. It's all now....too late. We're in the aftermath. The best is over, time to go." He finished his drink, thanked the chef-bot once again, then went home. A week later, he fell asleep at work, and never woke up. I only hope that he was dreaming of a Starship, taking him to the edges of this universe....
I am tired... There are some days where I feel it more now than others, and it does weigh on me. I miss being able to do so much. Honestly, those times when I had my meth addiction and relapse were amazing to me, because I was able to stay up for so long without rest and just... do. Playing guitar. Repairing things. Reading. Gaming. That level of constant going, going, going is now behind me, a distant echo of a person I once was. A shimmer in the fabric of time of when so much felt novel; when time in this mortality felt boundless and endless. Now the many sleepless days and nights are gaining upon me, as though the encroaching dawn; as though the hound after the fox... Truly, the phrase, “so much to do, so little time” has now found its’ way to me and I am saddened a bit that I am able to only do so much. It takes more energy these days where once upon a time, the energy felt as though it had no end; felt like it could not be depleted... The addictions are behind me... but still the echoes and memories persist, albeit now more shallow than ever before...
The Shapeless arrived with vast knowledge that some used to ascend to a higher existence. They introduced tools that surpassed our wildest imaginations and seemed to perfect nature itself. They shared our space, with such care and tenderness that when they left, the dying self mummified, the transhuman digitized, and those very few untouched by favor or grace emerged from hiding. Here those remaining match echoes of divine vibrations, and intone their cosmic prayers for all lost or lonely.
I woke to the familiar sound of rain dripping from the mouth of our cave dwelling into the irrigation canal. A lot has changed since my grandfather helped build that irrigation system. Back then people had hope, a vision for a brighter future. An entire generation of planetsiders unified by a common purpose. Now, it's almost painful to remember what that purpose even was. The Great Awakening changed everything. And now... the starships never pass by here anymore.
I remember that place. It used to be crawling with activity-a bonanza if you will. But ever since the war, things just died down. Most of the starships were commandeered for the war effort, new ports were created, and commerce moved elsewhere. I don't know if I would want to go back there. It just seems like a very lonely and still place. A place time had forgotten.
One time, when I was small, I got lost on Coney Island, on the beach, but they found me. We used to sleep on the beach. Sleep overnight. They don't do it anymore.
Honestly this is the vibe that Starfield gave me as I played. It may be repetitive or lacking in content, but it let my imagination roam as I felt like every location I went to was lived-in. Every dingy, dirty mining colony or dark bathroom was honestly a treat to me, and one of my favorite things was enjoying the atmosphere whenever possible.
Im an old soul now, looking back at only the memories of Earth. Of Orion. My little home in New England. I remember when they announced Yorckita, when they started the Orion program. It wasnt a long trip for us selected folks, we were gone in a decade. We spent all those years together just to learn about living. The ships have stopped coming from Earth, the colonies are now on their own. We are alone. We carry the torch of Earth. The databases hold our histories, scattered and reinterpretable. Our gene vats hold every species of tree, frog, and jungle cat you could think of. Weve been given the chance of building a better humanity. Pray our children remember it.
I look upon the barren earth; Its people empty of all mirth; The sky is full, the land is dry; The only rain, from people's eyes; The starships never pass by here, anymore; The heart of the world was struck by bore; Its vibrant life was torn fully out; I was hopeful, but now I doubt.
I remember being a child that would wake up early to watch the sky being painted anew. Afore the rising of the sun, the drones would draw their lines of atmosphere and I'd take a deep breath as to keep within me the fading memory of the last day. Grown now, I look back on those days and wish only to have such depth of breath as I await their late arrival. Coms chatter assures a resupply every morning shortly after the sunrise; twenty odd years now that promise echoes across emptier planes. My rockets are paltry in comparison to what once arced away from the skies. Suborbital, vain attempts at what was once an unquestionable certainty. The ignorance of youth once asked if we could ever find life beyond our gravitational hold. Now, the ignorance of youth asks if we can find such within it.
... and we're okay with that... sure we went adventuring for a few hundred years and it would have mattered... but now, we tend the garden, orchard and flock, we sit on the porch, hold hands and watch the moons rise... we smile and laugh and take comfort in each others company... and wish all the ships (where ever they may be) safe travels...
Symbols of hope, symbols of peace No longer a part of this society Why aren't they talking? What does this mean? Questions upon questions I must keep inside of me. Is the war really over, did they just flee? Am I the only one who cannot see?...The starships never pass by here anymore..
I found bone under a rock last week. It was pitted and hallow but felt more solid than anything I’ve felt. I took it home to show my pa but he said it was trash. Everything’s “trash” to him since ma’s been gone. I put it on my desk, I thought it was neat. It was sharp and angular but every edge was smooth to the touch. Yesterday my pa saw that I had kept it and he got upset, “you’re always filling my place with trash! I need this place to be clean, don’t you get it?!” I took the bone and ran out to the edge of our plot. I looked over the edge and threw the thing as hard as I could. It spun end over end out over the big drop. What happened next I can’t stop thinking about. It slowed and then halted, right there in the air. The bone just hung there in space, like it was lighter than air. It’s still there now. I thought it would be gone this morning after I finally left it but it isn’t. It’s just floating there, not moving an inch. I can’t stop thinking about it, “what was made of those bones?”
yes, this is a great work of art, in the music, the painting and the provovation or inspiration of us to dream, think and feel a mood. It all starts with a beautiful painting, followed by well produced , haunting music.
@@oistinmanning7530 aww, my late grandfather had alot of 70s Sci fi stuff that had art exactly like this. it was so cool to see what that generation thought space exploration would look like. oh well.
They say there used to be fields, rows upon rows of lofty grass catching the golden hour. There were rivers that were clearer than the sky, so deep you could look into them and find the night. I dont really believe those stories anymore, part of me really wanted too. Great grandpas eyes always sparkled when he spoke of those times. Now i see it was probably a trap of nostalgia, maybe he couldnt bare with the idea of this being all there was. Blabbering on about starships that hailed from far and wide to come and see our great empire, but who would come see someplace like this? I ask grandma about it sometimes, but she just shakes her head whenever i try to spark a conversation of the past. She seems to miss something, but i dont think she can quite remember anymore. A starship, moving through the sky like silk, what a sight it would be to behold. I can only dream of such majesty to come upon this sorry place, id rather not delude myself though. There is work to be done. Though, sometimes, when the lady of the night drops her veil, and her eyes shine upon this sorry land...I can't help but look up for just a moment. Maybe, just maybe I'll catch a starship and for a moment there would be hope.
All the systems on the third Radcliffe bend say the same. The old routes of the last century don’t make sense anymore, now that the new engines can cross the void in the same time it used to take to system-hop just halfway round the bend. And frankly there’s simply nothing there that makes a detour worth the time and expense. So the third-bend Radcliffe worlds are basically on their own, and are perfect magnets for a certain class of fugitives and discontents. Someday, perhaps, their great-great grandchildren will develop something that lures the starships back once more.
"The starships never pass by here anymore," Ralthama said. Her age was up for debate, but she was suspected of being the oldest among the colonists, and her dangerous teachings were often conducted in secret. "We stopped wondering why." She shrugged as she moved from the steps of the catafalque and towards the cave, with the children surrounding her, each one eagerly searching the skies for any trace of anomaly. "It's true," she continued, ushering the last of the group into the makeshift classroom. "That is why we no longer get any pizza deliveries. Papa Gino's. Domino's. Pizza Hut. Gone. I remember a time when such things fell into this world like raindrops from the sky. Like manna from Heaven. Now, children, it's your generation's turn to wonder."
i always feel sad that i was born in a time before we've discovered the galaxy, before a time where we know of hundreds of worlds and planets and galaxies all with infinite numbers of stories of their own...i feel lonely thinking that we only know earth right now, and ill die long before we discover any sort of sentient species inhabiting this universe with us.
i wish i could be an explorer, discovering strange and alien ecosystems, and touch them for myself...i try to stay away from those sorts of fantastical landscape paintings simply because they remind me of what i won't be able to reach.
Once were the Great War. Billions of starships raging like thunderous suns, blasting the immortal void with weapons of mass destruction. That’s what the poet wrote about it, leting me wonder : how could a war be that beautiful ? But here, only a quiet campagne hospital was built. I used to fix droids, ships, even, some times, people of my kind, mentally broke by the war which was continuously runing in their head. This planet worth none they said on Earth. Nothing run under the ground, no oil, no gaz, no gold. So when the war was over everybody leave. Except me. And I’m so glad. So glad to see this piece of rocks, longing in the immortal void, never touched again by the war, never touched again by the men. At the end I hope it will remain this way. But for now I’m still in peace : The starships never pass by here anymore.
The elders called them Pilgrims. Earthy toned skin, green curly hair. The last documented starship crossed our path some 80 years ago. But yet some still claim to see their faint plasma trails streak across the sky. We remain optimistic one will come back like an old friend to share news of their new home. I often look to the night sky and think of them. Do they think of us too? Or were we just a curious thing to look at along their stellar route?
Alone. Completely alone. Not another soul for eons in any direction. The ships that once zipped through this empty landscape are long gone, as are the familiar faces that accompanied them. Decades in complete solitude destroys the delicate human mind, leaving a husk of the wonder and beauty that once filled the chasm in my empty skull. They never told me why they stopped coming. For years I anxiously awaited the arrival of another shipment, another soul to talk to. I lost track of the years long ago. Nobody is coming. I am here, alone, forever. The sun peeks through the clouds, beckoning me back to the debilitating solitude that fills every moment of every day. To think that one time, long ago, I could have awoken instead to the thunderous roar of a starship skittering through the azure sky above me is but a mere fantasy to my broken mind. I have no choice but to live on, scavenging my existence on this elegant hellscape. I repair what I can, and the rest slowly rots into the innocent soils below. Nothing here can repair the emptiness I feel in my chest. I've given up on trying to fill that with the monotony that surrounds me. As my tools rust and my brain decays, I wait patiently for the day that I will meet my pathetic end. That day is not today. Wait... Is that...? It can't be, can it? as I squint into the distance, a dark form slowly comes into focus. As it approaches, a familiar sound fills my ears, sweet as honey. Could it finally be over?
This artwork is like a combination of Outlaw Star, Cowboy Beebop, and Star Wars all put together. Someone put a lot of work in on this and it's amazing.
They shut down the last starports decades ago. Trade had ground to a halt, and tourists didn’t want to step foot on some rock on the outer rim, so there wasn’t much point in wasting power on them. We tore them apart for scrap and made farming tools out of it. I have a tractor with the words “Grasp the Universe!” embossed on the back. Part of an old advertisement I think, back when the corps cared about what we settlers thought. We used to be a mine-world, but… well you know how that goes. It’s all infinite gains and unlimited wealth until the rocks dry up. Then all the investors pull out and run the second it looks like maybe, maybe the planet might be running low. Then we, the people they brought in to tear up the ground and pull metal from earth get left in their dust. Not a penny richer to show for it. It was hard to adjust to a farmer’s life at first, but I didn’t have much choice. If you don’t grow your own food around here, you starve. Even in the glory days we relied on trade with the other colonies for food, the soil here is about as fertile as a desert. Hard to grow anything decent. But you gotta do it if you wanna eat nowadays. And it’s honest work, keeps the mind busy. Sometimes, out on the fields, I look up at the sky and remember all the bolts of light that used to fly past the clouds. All those ships going to and from, doing god knows what in times better than these. But now it’s just the clouds and the endless blue. The starships never pass by here anymore.
I remember this place was once my home, now its what people call ruins, i grew up here and lived here through tough times and fun times, yet when the miners came they left nothing but ruin in their wake, if only i knew i would of played in the fields of grass and climb the trees more. I wish i had lived more and cherished my life more, this place was once a beautiful planet one that prospered with life, these remenets dont do it justice for this place was once a planet full of laughter, if only i knew it all would of ended. I would of lived more... i would of appreciated life more for what it is and what it could of been. Live your life kid not anyone elses live your own life and take your own path, carve you name into history and be remember forever. My time was short but well lived, love ya kid. And goodbye ima take a quick nap.
This makes me wanna film a movie about a deep space traveller making a lengthy voyage through the systems of darkness and space that exist light years away, floating along through the emptiness with many years to go until the ship reaches its mysterious destination.
The starships never pass by here anymore. I used to wait for them. Every night. I’d stand out here, staring at the sky until my eyes ached, just to catch a glimpse of those glowing trails-proof that there was still something out there. Still life. Still hope. Now, the skies are empty. Silent. No hum of engines, no flicker of distant lights. Just darkness. I still remember the last time one passed over. It was just before the fall. Before the war. Before everything changed. They said the ships would return once the chaos settled, once the dust cleared. But it never did. Not for us. Not for this place. I wonder if anyone out there even remembers. Or if we’re just... forgotten. Lost in the void like so many other places, so many other lives. It’s funny, how you can feel the absence of something so strongly, even when you were never part of it. I was never on one of those ships. Never touched the stars. But they gave me hope, they made me believe in something bigger. Now all that’s left is silence. No rescue, no return. Just me and this endless, hollow sky, waiting for something that will never come back. I don’t even know why I keep looking up.
This is the most NMS-feeling playlist I've ever felt. Seriously, boot up the game without multiplayer and have this play in the background... you feel like you're watching bits of plastic move whenever you see another living "entity". It's very uncomfortably safe feeling.
It can be extremely stimulative to a being, a material world from times long past and gone and devoid of the creativity of movement and life slowly degenerating down to nothingness.
no, its awful. Trust me I know. except for going to work and occasionally having time with rare friends, I am alone. my relatives don't know me. I have no children or wife. Trust me, being alone bleeps bleep pretty bad.
@@lukeyznaga7627 Fotchenetly we all have the ability to chang whatever we choose, it's not always easy and it may be slow and not all at once but it takes just one little thing you find that one can be cause over and START. !
_“A few times a year, I can see lights passing from one side of the horizon to the other in a second, perhaps the space ships do pass by every now and then”_
"The Starships never pass by here anymore..." "How come, Grandpa? Are they ignoring us cause they're mad? Like how I ignore brother when I'm mad at him?" "Oh, hoho, no! No, my dear," He said with a chuckle, "... they're not mad at us. They..." he took a long pause, and then, with the release of a breath that seemed to pull his already hunched shoulders a little closer to the ground he said, "They can't face their shame." "Shame?" "Yes. Shame, Eisley." His face tuned to stone as he turned to the horizon. "I still remember when they told everyone about the New World. I was just a boy, could barely read. My papa sold everything that he could live without, and one month later, I was on the first dreadnought colony carrier to leave for the New World." "Dread... nought? What's that?" "It means fears nothing, to dread not. For a dreadnought class starship is too big to know what fear is." "Wow!!" "Yes," he said, now turning to face Eisley, "and how dreadful and mighty it was. On the day I was boarding, I felt as though I would be swallowed up by it's colossal shadow forever if I let go of my mama's hand for even a second. She told me, "Son, I know you're scared, but, listen to me, because once you board this ship, you will become one of the very first boy astronauts in all of history! You may not understand it now, but you have the entire human race cheering you on. You carry their hopes and futures with you to the stars!" He paused again. "...No child should have to bare the weight of that burden." "I don't understand, Grandpa." "And I hope you don't ever have to. You see, our world, the old one where I was born, was sick. Rotten. Dying. And it was our fault. Well... our ancestors' fault. By the time my parents sent me away on that terrible ship, the sun hadn't been seen in the sky for three years." "You mean your mama and papa didn't come with you?!" "No. No, they did not... My papa bought as many entries into the lottery as he could afford, because you see, the lottery could win you and your family a lifelong subscription to MegaHabitat 1, a man-made oasis and last bastion of life on the old world. Normaly, it was only accessible to the ultrarich who could afford the exorbitant monthly premium to live there. It was easy enough for them, too, since they owned and controlled the markets that operated there within... rat bastards in a closed loop system... And the lottery, there was a catch; only parents of healthy children could enter, and the children of the winners would be elected into a new and experimental space program, The New Eden Endeavor." "That - that's horrible!! How could they be so selfish?! How could your mama and papa give you away like that?!" "They didn't. They didn't know that I would never come home." Silence. Long and mournful silence that was only relieved by the sound of sand being gently swept in the breeze across the canvas of their lean-to. "The Starships never pass by here anymore..."
The war has ended and the planet has lost its relevance as a stopping point. The once loud and busy moon station is gone, fhe bazars are empty and the last few inhabitants are left. They have no place else to go or to call home. Legend has it that a boy will be born who would inspire a galactic war to unify the federation with its capital on this planet. We wait for that day, in silence and meditation
![Songs For Lonely Rainy Nights [Mount Shrine Archives]](/img/n.gif)
people really need to write books instead of making the most beautiful comments ever
WORKING ON ITTTTT
i'm stealing some of these ideas for my book, they're just too good to let die in a comment section.
@ all power to you
To write a book you need inspiration otherwise you get crap like 90% of works on fanfiction
books are hard and long
I still remember the nomads. Every year, a clan would arrive in their slender ships, pitch their embroidered tents, and teach for eight days. About medicine, smelting metal, practical things, but also music, poetry, their gods, their laws. They never accepted our gifts.
As years passed, the visits grew rarer, and the ships fewer. The nomads taught less and reminisced more: about their parents, or the games they played as children. Had we been poor pupils? No, they said, they were glad we still listened. But they were short on time.
We waited almost ten years for the last visit. A single ship, crewed only by a quiet old man who used to be a potter. He told us about a time before the ships, the cliff city where he was raised, digging clay by a wide river under a deep red sun. He asked us, please, not to forget.
The starships don't come here any more.
This is my favourite one here! Good job :)
Damn...
I love the last line. It’s almost resentful.
This was so good. It jumped out at me.
This is beautiful
I have so much gratitude for these hidden places on the internet where people share inspired stories before a backdrop of etherial drones.
I love to experience "rest now, traveler" on those random corners of the Internet
@sharpclaw24 The journey is long, you must be weary. Sit, the fire is warm, and the night is calm.
I needed to get away from the hustle and bustle streets of the internet.
Instead I found a nice little refuge from all that with some great company and phenomenal stories.
I love reading the comments. It’s like a collection of ruminations and short stories.
stories past down generation after generation. Some new, others old, and yet some from before time was ever kept. These are the histories of the Planes that once were, yet have never been.
Holy crap, yea. I love this!
Hell yea, feels like we're all at a camp, sitting around a fire sharing stories, love the vibes 🙌❤️
Ruminations... new word added to my dictionary, i like that
When you go into a truly old place of the internet, it's like walking through a graveyard. Kinda interesting.
I once knew a space pirate who crash landed here. Rather harsh fellow. He spend months repairing his ship, maybe even year or so, I cant remember. The pirate wanted to return to the stars, he wanted to plunder among the nebulas, once again see the black holes devour suns.
But eventually he realised that this lonely planet, with its humming winds and this magnificent islands, was more precious than every other solar system he visited. Why? Not because of some magical ore, divine alien dragons or any stuff like that. The pirate found here what he cannot get high up where ships like whales swim on the pitch black fabric of cosmos.
That thing was peace.
My grandfather told me a long time ago that we were not made for this world.
He told stories about the starships that brought him and my grandmother here, how it was only meant to be for a few years to support his planet's war, and that they were supposed to go back. "We're not supposed to be here!" is something he would say with sharp resentment in his last days. He wouldn't say much of anything else. All he remembered was that the starships were late.
It made me sad to see his final days spent in bitterness, but I suppose I can't blame him.
His old stories about the Earth's oceans, rivers, and endless forest sounded like paradise. Soil so pure you could toss a seed wherever you wish and it would sprout into a tree that would feed you forever... sounds all too good to be true. Who wouldn't want to go back to that? Who would want to leave...
Growing enough food here for us and our cattle is backbreaking work, but it's all we got. I don't want to burden my children with heartbreaking stories about a world where it doesn't have to be like this. I've hidden this note along with the last books we have left. Because hope is a cruel burden when we know the starships never pass by here anymore.
I won't let the next generation feel like outsiders in the only world they'll ever know.
OK.
WOW....fantastic story. If you ever produce a book with that theme and story or other writings, KNOW that I will buy it from you. What a fantastic short paragraphed story. YOU HAVE TALENT, "drscience-l3m"!
@@traversal6881 thats all you can say, "OK"?? man, start appreciating his writing.
If I was in a similar situation, I, too, would never tell the next generation. it would be cruel.
@@lukeyznaga7627 Thanks man! I appreciate it
There are two breeds of solitude: that which comes from places that have never seen another living soul, and that which comes from places that once housed many souls but have since lost them all. It is difficult to say which is more haunting.
Kenopsia: The Eeriness of Places Left Behind.
@@BRamz_121 That's a beautiful word. Thanks for adding to my vocabulary :)
I'm in love with that
@@BRamz_121 Been trying to find that word for ages now, lol.
Kind of fits in with the city of Cahokia, a London sized pre-columbian city of North America that was one of the populous epicenters of the Mississippian civilization. Its unknown how many people lived in Cahokia, but its estimated to be below 20,000 people. Currently its unknown why the civilization fell and the city left to ruin. Its crazy that a hundred years before Columbus arrived to the Americas, the Mississippi river was a thriving base for a civilization before it unknowingly whimpered to obscurity.
This makes me feel like I abandoned my dreams as a kid.
bro eventually ur biological think-meat just shrivels up and smoothens out as u get older bro and we all do and we all have those still frames of light-catching-dust through the window of our childhood house's
anyway G
The burden of self realization is heavy, but if it hurts enough, you will never let it happen again!
@@justsaiyan8678or you’ll welcome it everyday
Something about this image and music does evoke those feelings. A flashback struck me to my childhood days in late 80s and reading science fiction magazines with American SF authors like Brin, Benford, Philip K. Dick and all these fascinating images of alien vistas and life, far future promises of progress and adventure...What became of my awe, fascination and hope ? This track and music makes me want to break free again...To look at the stars and wonder like I did before...
I am living proof that sometimes, your childhood dreams can become real long after you thought it was possible. If there is ANY way you can pursue them without abandoning what truly matters, please do.
I dont blame them, they've mined all the ore from the planet, all thats left is a few scavengers and farmers
they were not here for the ore, the real reason why they were here was lost generations ago, but i heard something about trees that used to grow here, theses plants hold the secret of life itself ...
The elders speak of the trees in the time of old when our ancestors first made landing on this world, the forests would speak to them and guide them beneath the alien sun, now they are dormant and we do not venture out far from our villages anymore..
i heard john down in shit valley fornicates with his chickens
And why should we? Everything we need is right here. Last guy I heard try to make the crossing, you know, by the old grove? Got taken in by the Tribes there.
Scavengers, farmers, and whatever the hell ate my dog last week >_>
The sky looks a lot different now, compared to how it was when I was just a kid.
Just above the stratosphere, there were shipyards and trade ports so large you could hardly believe they were possible. Ships came and went constantly. I would always joke with my friends about leaving this sand-covered hellhole, making a name for myself. It was possible back then. There were so many ferries coming to and from other systems, and countless freighters doing their trade routes. It would've been hard to not find a way to leave. However, I was young, and my friends were too. We knew next to nothing about the wide expanse of our world. It was when I was only 17 that the war began.
It was corporate. Massive titans of the war industry, vying for trade rights and land for their own economic gain. During the war, the Union had initiated martial law here. Those freighters and ferries were replaced by giant cruisers, destroyers, and battleships. One night, I volunteered.
I was sent up to the shipyards to guard them. It was in the military that I discovered the truth. My home, this hellhole, had become a frontline planet. Two corporate conglomerates vying for it, desiring its profits in trade. The Union had occupied it in a desperate attempt to keep the conflict from escalating, but it only made things worse. About a year into the occupation, six months after I had volunteered, the invasion happened. Battlecarriers and Cruisers came out of the wormholes they created, and unleashed the purest of chaos onto the planet. Orbital bombardment and the scuttling of stations became commonplace for two months as hard battle raged in orbit. I did my part, having held the 3rd Shipyard wing for about two months during a corporate onslaught. By the end, I had ran out of supplies, and I was forced to retreat. I remember seeing the bombs going off as I evacuated. I abandoned orbit, fleeing for the relative safety of the surface.
In the end, the brutal fighting had destroyed everything of value. The trade ports had either been scuttled or refitted to battlestations, and all the shipyards were either damaged beyond repair, or scuttled by Union or corporate forces. After it all, I went into hiding on the surface, scavenging the wrecks of old stations for parts to sell off. Now, when I look up at the sky, just above the stratosphere, I see the destroyed remnants of an era long past. Wrecked stations and shipyards, devoid of movement or life.
The fire is gone. The stations are ruins. The starships never pass by here anymore.
Bravo, I really enjoyed that 🛰.
The wrecks are spread across miles-long debris fields pocked with impact craters. It can take me months to scavenge a single field. It’s done in several passes. The first one, on a single-passenger speeder, covers the whole field as quickly as possible, gathering up the most lucrative and portable loot. Weapons, sensors, communicators, etc. The second pass, informed by the first, visits particular craters with a converted trash scow, carrying mobile tools and loaders and ladders and hoists, with a cavernous space for the larger finds-habitation pods, signage, magnets, timetilters, etc. The last pass is done with a trailer; its the low-end recyclable run, stripping out wires, magnets, batteries, coolant, etc.
Imagine my surprise when, two weeks into the first pass of an eight-mile debris field, on my screaming speeder, I discover a last-generation hibernation casket, intact, its monitors still active and displaying various statuses for the apparently living being inside it.
This one was the most beautiful. Thank you.
There's something eeriely beautiful about an abandoned place. Makes you think about the stories, the tales...the efforts put in there.
I feel that when I pass by where my school once was...now an empty lot. Grass grew, the tree that was there was cut, the buildings demolished...but the entrance, and the small road towards where the main building was, remain...
But always remember it will return back to nature if left alone in its cycle unless of course we decide to build a strip mall there...
I feel this way on the way to work I pass a dead old yellow house with an old dead white car in the front. I just imagine that it was someone’s little castle once, and their life just happened there…and then it didn’t. It’s not too far from an old school that became a cancer hospital and is now a graffiti exposition. So crazy to see actual “ruins” like these.
I had a dream once, where I was an ancient being, walking the long abandoned streets of Earth. everywhere was empty of moving life, no humans, no animals, not even insects as far as I could tell, just plants. yet, I wasn't truly alone, I had with me the memories of the people long past. everywhere I went, I could feel their feelings, and hear their words and their thoughts. some places were just wonderful to be around, competitions, shopping districts, fairs, these places always had "life" in them. They were places of stories and soul. some were, more sorrowful, though I don't remember these parts very much, I do remember the feelings of stress, pain, heartache, and anger. I remember I had an obvious preference of where I wanted to be, and it was the places people loved and needed.
your comment reminded me of that dream. it was a good dream.
@@Nu_WenDude my dreams consist of getting into a swordfight with a bear in a public park
@@Nu_Wenvery eloquently and evocatively said.
Its interesting how deep your thoughts can go if you look at this image long enough and imagine a story unfolding there... Beautiful work, gratitude.
The other day, coming back from the scavenging, I overheard a group of foreigners talk in the local tavern. I had never seen foreigners before, so I stayed later than usual, until everyone from the search party was gone except me. I could only understand them when they spoke directly to old Remé, in a very thick accent, asking for "the coding". They described it as an opaque green rod, not longer than a grown up's forearm. They where very insistent in that it doesn't look like much, but it's worth more than it seems. Remé just listened, nodding and bringing more drinks as they requested. In time, they became friendlier and closer. At one point, they begun describing the engravings, in amazing detail. That tempted me to speak up about my mother's gift, which I immediately recognized in their words, but I kept it to myself. "You are too young, others can out-power you" I thought. So I kept listening. "It's the key that will open the moon's gate", one of them said, before being yelled at and shushed by the rest. Remé didn't know what to make of it, so he laughed and offered more drinks and meals. They seemed friendly, yet scared. I know fear when I see it. I also know where they landed. I'm going with them back to the skies, with or without you.
I'm a big science enthusiast and used to not be a big fan of sci-fi but things like this have slowly changed my mind over the last year...
The melding of my love of science and fantasy realms... So much emotion and thought provoking feeling from the first few seconds...
Why's the planet look like that? Why don't they come here anymore? Beautiful blue sky, so must have an atmosphere... so many unanswerable questions just makes the mind buzz
Considering reading the Hyperion cantos
One of us! One of us!
"I know your uncle says that like it's a bad thing. He likes to say the Federation abandoned us, leaving us to die on this craggy rock when the tar ran out...
I see the brighter side. They're not sending us to war anymore. ...Right, you don't know that word. You know how sometimes we hunt a Terodan for dinner? Imagine people like you and me doing that to each other. In groups so large you can't see the end of them. Doing it because someone beyond our skies, forever away from here, wants to take the tar in the ground from the guy who got here first.
Life here isn't great... But it's peaceful. If the starships ever pass by here again, be wary. They may bring prosperity... Or they may bring war."
Beautiful 😊
Did...did I pass by this way before? Last year? Yesterday?
It's so hard to tell. The breeze shuffles the dust and dried leaves of past seasons from the few trees. I know for sure that it's been too long since I last saw another traveler, and the final operating trade outpost shut down months after the last starship visited.
I liked the pilot of that last ship. A few years shy of middle age, slim and fit, touch of gray in her short-cropped hair, hint of a cleft in her chin. Smart. Not quite ambitious, but worldly-wise. She actually listened to me when we chatted while her androids loaded her ship. I remember the look on her face. Close to pity. I knew I didn't have a chance with her, not coming from this world...not with me wanting to stay.
I don't remember her for her face, or her words. It was that expression. Like the whole rest of the galaxy...measuring me...judging me.
Why? Why are you staying? There's nothing left here but a slowly dying world. What keeps you here?
I never answered her. Shit, she never even asked the question. But I do, every day. The ghosts of my family, all 37 generations, back to the first pioneers, who thought they were breaking ground on the first successful colony world away from the homeland. Decades, then centuries, of toil, labor, farms, construction, technology, squabbles, struggles to bring disparate visions of the future of our world together. We wanted a new world; what we ended up with was a mirror image of the old. The planet was different, but the people were the same. 1,500 year later, what they got was me.
And only me.
I look up at the sky. It's beautiful. The empty landscape is, too. I'd feel like a 19th Century mountain man, wandering across a newly-discovered continent. I would feel like that...if I didn't know I wasn't the first to step on every bit of dirt...but the last.
I'm the last page, the postscript...the period to end not only the sentence, or chapter, but the whole damned book. No one erases the last period in a book. Especially when no one's left to pick up the eraser. Maybe that's why I've stayed; I'll have my own fame. A reason to stand out among all the long-gone people of my world. Or more like notoriety--the last man on the planet.
If anyone would ever know...the starships never pass by here anymore.
The last men left through aqueous sky
and left me and all the others behind.
There are no more crews returning:
every mineral pockmark plucked and sent
away, away, away.
Day’s light sinks low behind the space ports,
Canteens and observation decks, and the dark
reveals the satellites, darting in and out - the little specks,
remnants of those who built us:
watching, watching, watching
the automatons toil till their parts wear out below.
Working though the jobs are done, each a withered edifice on
this lonely outcrop, teeming with a life of another kind.
the starships never pass by here anymore:
they left us all behind.
beautiful.
Love this poem
This is quite skillful prose! Very nice.
fantastic poem. YOU WRITE way better than the awful, sloppy , modern writers that do the modern STar Wars movies and STreaming shows. WAY!
Genuinely awesome poem.
wow, that is such a sick title for a soundtrack. You killed it with this one.
The silence is deafening. I can’t even hear myself crying.
...but we haven't needed them for years. Replicator tech was brought to us when I was young. Whatever we wanted, whatever we could imagine, we created for ourselves, never knowing hunger, or cold, or damp. These have been happy years to live.
But I wonder. We have complete self-sufficiency in these miraculous machines, these replicators. We have no need to reach out, to cry out for the star-engines to bring their life-giving cargoes to our planet's surface. Knowing we had no need of them, they left. We depend on no one, and no one depends on us.
Are we now alone in our infinite plenty?
bravo!
But what do we do when the reploids revolt?
The title can be interpreted in an other way: they don't come by any more...we're safe here...
Oh I like that 👍❤
that makes me feel a bit dark -.- the concept i had was: ancient planet forgotten by time, its people trading and traveling with legends of the ships that once were and worlds now unreachable but not forgotten, a rich culture and little violence. maybe that's exactly what happens when the ships don't come anymore, as you said : P
@@Takuteira Now, that take I do love, thanks for sharing...
@@melissarainchild
@@Takuteira there are loads of planets and star systems like that in Warhammer 40K lore
Matte paintings always hit me with a wave of very unfamiliar nostalgia. I always get lost in them, just pondering every bit of land portrayed. I wish i could just dive into them, ya know?
The artwork is really amazing!
This is ai, though.
Still pretty, but not a painting.
This is AI "art". I find it very annoying that people can't spot the difference.
@@libertas5005 still it looks good. Or Not?
@@libertas5005 I mean, it looks exactly like the stuff Roger Dean produces, so...
I remember as an early teen playing Halo CE, I found a strange emptiness in it's sci-fi worlds that this video has stirred from memory. Those moments all the enemies were cleared, or a multiplayer map was empty. That first game had such an ambience about it in it's dim thoughtful lighting and background sounds which still resonates in me. An empty world forgotten along the passage of incomprehensible time. An addictive loneliness.
good memories for sure, looking up at the sky and seeing how big the ring you're on is
was sort of cozy until middle school me encountered the Flood
Hearing the wind whistle in the eerie cold during a “Lull” on Assault on The Control Room….
"We considered ourselves a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor.
No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.
Nothing of value is here. This place is best shunned and uninhabited."
Clearly this inscription exists to frighten away grave robbers! There must be something extremely valuable here! Like these barrels with glowing green glass and metal in them!
Hey... Wait, why is my skin falling off and-
the fact that your skin starts falling off afterwards does make the rest of the exercise in nuclear semiotics a bit redundant
I'd love to play a game that feels like this. A post apocalyptic world where the invading Aliens have already scavenged the whole planet, and only the ruins of their abandoned facilities are left.
you are living that IRL
NMS
@@jamesdupuis3249nah
@@jamesdupuis3249 It is a good start for such a scenario but the amount of alien ruins in that game are shallow and far in between, not too much to be found. Maybe Starsector would be a better fit
i would play that! imagine the stories, the theories, trying to figure out what one thing or another was for, and why it was made. there aren't enough stories that tell themselves.
The title is so deep ...
So deep that it literally making me explore theories ...
Thank you whoever came with this title : The starships never pass by here anymore ... wow
The title immediately made me think about how me and my family used to see UFOs when I was young. So many different types too:
A giant black triangle with blue lights
An orb that could zip across the entire visible sky as fast as you could turn your eyes to follow it, stop on a dime, change directions, etc
Several other types too. It seemed like the nearby town was a hotspot for them.
I haven’t seen them for about a decade or so now. I hope they come back soon.
They're off to destroy another planet, eradicate more civilizations, bury more cultures
@@AegisAuras i wanna know more, please :)
@@adm69420 years later I found a book from the contactee community called The Ra Contact. It blew my mind and changed my life. So much of the stories and theories about aliens were put into perspective for me by that book. That was the first time I ever heard an ET explain their concept of God; they called it “Intelligent Infinity”. They had the most benevolent and beautiful philosophy on life I’ve read.
@@adm69420 I tried but UA-cam deleted my comment. That happened a lot with ET discussions.
There is beauty in a lot of things, and here you can discover the beauty of the forgotten, the stories and legends of old, these stories capture the true diversity and creativity of humanity, I myself find an abundance of beauty here even in this forgotten planet, how wonderous would have it been to live among these people, alas it's too late, it is always too late.
I can’t say it didn’t have an otherworldly beauty… when I was younger, they were still stripping the ore from this planet, and ships lined the sky from horizon to horizon. Their strange rows jostling next to each other, the humming, and the fluorescent glow of their brake lights. There was beauty in nature’s destruction, freighters pulling away, full to the brim with ore, some abandoning crew members to fit more; but now there is beauty in its return. I did not know we had a moon until the ore ran out; and the miners moved on, hungry for more profit, for more work, for more glory. Now I stare at it, our natural satellite, and it beams back at me. The trees reach for the blue again, their hunger once again supped by the star’s rays. Despite the economic value having dried up long ago, our planet is healing… it won’t be long before nobody remembers how it used to be. And that’s a loss, but it’s also undeniable proof that nature is healing. Forgive my rambling, grandson; just an old man’s reminiscence.
It has been year since I last saw them... cutting the skies like angels, making noises that scared the children, but gave hope to adults.
They used to stop at our rusty base, a decaying platform that used to receive lots of ships everyday... not it sits there, rusting with time. We don't know why they don't com here anymore, we used to trade a lot, I even gave one of them some fine drink I made from last harvest.
My family, of farmers, used to make some good money with them... the starships never pass by here anymore
"Ever seen something like this before?" I ask, knowing the answer. Neither of us have seen a blue sky in person in our lifetimes. The ceiling of Europa and the vacuum of space is all the sky we've ever known. It's freeing, but also a bit scary to have the ability to truly explore. Back home the closest we got was swimming around the abnormal low-pressure areas, but those were expensive to get in to. I saved money for almost 60 years to afford the small spacecraft we're in, around 900 thousand for the ship, and an additional 120 thousand for everything else needed for this trip. I could've done this a hell of a lot sooner, renting instead of purchasing, and only touring for a few days, but I planned on staying here for a long time. We've grown old, I'm almost 84, but I've got another few decades in me. A few decades spent here.
This place is even more beautiful than in the old books and pictures. The islands, suspended in mid-air, taking on a myriad of intricate shapes rest in their place like a sleeping beast. This planet used to be a huge tourist attraction back in the mid 2600s, but it's been abandoned for the better part of two centuries, the company that facilitated travel here went bankrupt, if I recall correctly, and nobody's started it back up since. Only the rare few, like ourselves, venture here to see the beauty. Off in the distance, an old tourist hub sits on one of the hills down on the surface. I never understood the fascination people had with spherical architecture back then. The orbital station up above looks like it's seen better days, all the water's dried up and all the plant-life is gone. I'm surprised that it's still holding itself together after all these years.
I never really paid any attention to the surface of the planet before. None of the pictures ever focused on it. Miles and miles of what I believe is some kind of ice compound in circular structures, kind of looking like ancient analog film tech is all that's down there. No life or anything has ever been recorded down on the surface. The clouds here are also made of some kind of ice, but it's spread out so thin the air carries it. Thankfully it doesn't serve any danger to the ship if we happen to fly through one, it'll just leave a ship-shaped hole in the cloud until it eventually falls down to the surface and falls apart.
It's real serene here. All the old hotels and infrastructure are nearly perfectly preserved, with no real bad weather here. These old cities were made purely for the purpose of getting the company that ran this place more money. All the products, all the buildings, everything here was owned and operated by them. I'm just glad the power's all gone out. Drones flying through the air forming into different images of products and constant lights in the cities wouldn't be the best for our future peaceful lives here.
Eventually, we find a spot and land. Our new life here starts now. Maybe we'll find some other folks here eventually, but I'm not too hopeful.
Amazing
@@888CDS Thank you :)
@@the_mangerine you’re welcome lol
This gives me an idea for an RPG campaign. Corporations having left behind many colonies and the people who worked on them. They mined, drilled, and gathered all the resources they reasonably could. The planet, drained of its resources, was no longer useful to the space corps, so they left... but they also left the colonists behind. The everyday hard-working people of the colonies were left to fend for themselves.
Abandoned by the companies they were so loyal to, to leave their home planet behind for a chance to further humanity only to be forgotten. There are some people with hope that they'll return, but many have begun a new project to build a starship of their own... Even if it was only based on what few schematics they could find and being slapped together to make a bigger and better ship.
They have to try, and finding the resources necessary to keep the project and hope alive will be difficult. Scavenger crews are selected and sent out... Many don't return. The planet's wilds are dangerous and even more so, colonists from other places have simply become barbaric and destructive. Taking what they want by force instead of working together for their own sakes. This is the colony's toughest mission, it's final mission. Escape or wither away, lost to time.
Damnnnnn this sounds so cool 😭
Salvas, I'm still only on Salvas. I shut my eyes and the thousand mechanical cries of orbital railcannon fire still scream into my ears, searing those terrible images of blue and orange light into my retinas.
The islands in the sky, the ones you look at now fondly, were born out of the single largest terrestrial bombing campaign in history. The bolts which flew down from overhead were ones laced with tungsten-laminate linings and they numbered in the hundreds that day. I still remember the look on my commander's face. He was a stoud one, the kind of asshole you couldn't wait to get away from. But when he went from shouting orders at me and my fellow men to staring in abject terror at the streaks in the sky, I died right then and there.
The starships were flying down in the hundreds following the bombardment, when resistance was all but futile and the fighting died down in the face of such overwhelming firepower. I had survived the single deadliest fleet action and I didn't even know it yet, but when i saw those amalgamated concentrations of strata floating eerily in the blue sky, I knew something was wrong.
They established a quarantine zone some time after, citing a "gravitational misbehavior". But, as you can see, I ignored it.
The starships never pass by here anymore.
The starships never pass by here anymore.
Ever since the last scrap of precious ore was mined from the planet, the Outsiders slowly lost their interest in this otherwise barren land.
One by one they left. First the miners, then the sentinels, then the traders and even the raiders, until all that was left were wandering nomads and those who had been there long before the Outsiders came.
The mining colonies became ghost towns. Refineries and space ports lay abandoned. Old vehicles and equipment dotted the landscape, rotting in the sand.
The desert creatures whose numbers had greatly diminished since the arrival of the Outsiders long ago slowly crept back in to fill the structures left by the planet's previous tenants, and what was once a noisy, bustling expanse was now a desolate wasteland of dry ruins.
"One used to be able to look up at the sky at any time and see at least four or five starships going to and fro," said one of the last inhabitants left.
"But everything's changed. The starships never pass by here anymore."
The Traverse is not how it used to be... I myself ended up here just because the pulsar-compass got wonky, after I got into sleep. Took a while to find that out. Systems were good before, but when emergency wake kicked in, Maps said that we may have passed through a Nova shower or something, and got no StarWarning of that and also no luck. If you, sir, allows for the ship, we'll be around for the time until we can get a merchant or something passing by the star... I can pay for the staying. We'll be no trouble, I'll be mostly on sleep meanwhile. Maps and Jenkins are very kind, knowledgeable. I wouldn't have it otherwise. I believe that it will not take much more than a few decades or so. Even less, if I get lucky this time.
Great beginning to a new sci-fi adventure... please, go on! 😎👍👍
who knows how many things we won't see, our life is too short, how much I would like to see this kind of landscapes live, maybe who knows if it will happen in another life.
Go outside and visit national parks like Zion also national parks have beautiful nature.
This is what sparked my fascination with astral travel, remote viewing, things of that nature. Well I'm moreso thinking of alien worlds but it would also be convenient to visit anywhere on earth with just a thought
Out here, we don’t see many wanderers. Scavengers, hunters, or old, forgotten visitors are all we get. The forests are gone, all packed into ships and brought to the Inner Rings. The mines are dried, their fruits harvested and fractured over the hundreds of generations.
I make a habit to come out here. To gaze upon the stars we will never see for ourselves. The sky so pure, the whole of space opens up to me. I’m the only one left, lost in some page of an almanac, waiting for someone, anyone, to find me. As this world’s days in the light of stars and men come to a close, I ask the echoes if it was worth it. The starships never pass by anymore, and I don’t blame them. There’s nothing left to see.
*Something has gone wrong within the wider galaxy. We only know some of the details. Avaros IV had never been a particularly vibrant part of the Interstellar Federation. We were as far from Terra as our generation ship could reach. Avaros IV was chosen for being out of the way of trade routes. We valued our independence and isolation. On occasion, we would trade what resources we could with various vessels and learned of the wider galaxy. When the machine uprising began, we destroyed our STC systems and other automated devices. The last contact we had with the wider galaxy was a captain who was reporting that faster than light travel was becoming more and more difficult. "Storms in the Warp" was what he had said. It has been 500 years. The starships never pass by here anymore and I suspect they never will again~ Avaros IV colonial archivist Miranda Isoue, dated M25, recovered in 999 M30 by the 50th expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade*
Planet Jijo for short. Fouth Galaxy, 8 races sanctuary...(Uplift trilogy - David Brin)
If only the eternal moon above, with it's copper glow, or the trees, with their harmonic flutters in the wind, or the structures left behind, could break their unsettling silence.
One can't help but wonder: if they could speak, what would they say? Could you stomach to hear it?
Would you really want to?
✨
The mechanicum magos thinking they found a trace of an STC but ending up depressed after finding out they were destroyed.
*sad mechanicus noises*
I love that last line, how it makes you wonder what happened between now and the time the message was written.
I love this soundtrack and background pics so much. It evokes my nostalgia, not only to my childhood but something more ancient. It calls out my buried personality. Can someone recommend some books or movies similar to this soundtrack?
Ringworld - Larry Niven
Something about a sci-fi backdrop set to ethereal ambient music fills me with a sense of wonder and puts me at peace.
There is no voice over, no text to read, just your imagination running wild. Reminds me of childhood honestly. Imagining worlds beyond our own. Thank you for this.
"Earth, nothing remained of it anymore. I grew up there, lived in the dense jungle islands, and moved to the frosted peaks. All I knew-the soil, air, water-is all but a memory. Perhaps I'll go back, when the sun rises from east to west, when the oceans turn to dust, and the mountains blow like leaves in the wind."
"Dad, when are we going home?"
The question falls heavy upon my ears. I wrap an arm around the boy's shoulder, which trembles somewhat with the effort not to cry. He is too young to understand. "This is our home now," I tell him, struggling to grasp the truth of it myself.
"But why?" he asks. His innocent gaze breaks my heart. The landing pad stands not far away, a silent sentinel where once the transport ships came to collect their harvest. They were supposed to return, one last time, to carry us home. That would have been two years ago. Before the cosmos shook, and distant stars exploded in the night sky, consuming whole systems and all the planets surrounding them. The starships would not pass by here anymore.
Kneeling down, I look my son in the eye. "It doesn't matter. We're here, now. You're here, and I'm here with you." I watch the hope vanish from his eyes as the tears begin to flow. "We have what we need," I tell him, and hold him close. "We'll be okay, you and I. We'll make it work here. I promise."
Beautiful!
The planet of Hydrax IV, previously known as Eden was a agriworld, home to a population of 1 billion. Along with its orbiting moon Hydrax V, a vast red forge world that acted as Eden's shield against the dark unknowns of space, it also acted as the seat of power in the system. Now Eden's moon serves as a grim reminder of its folly in choosing the wrong side in a war that would consume the not just the system but the sector and beyond. Pock marked and scarred is the surface of Hydrax V, evidence of orbital lance and antimatter bombardment is visible even to the naked eye standing on the dusty plains of Eden. What used to be a lush planet of agri domes, wind and solar farms, along with wonderous floating landmasses on which the settlers built their glass cities on is now a dried up windswept husk of a world. The starships never pass by here anymore and what was once green Eden, jewel of the sector, is now simply Hydrax IV a tombworld waiting to fade into the mists of time and space.
Any book recommendations like this?
Badass
Not sure about any specific books but this reminded me of the 40k universe
@@stephenartigues6027 the text from @revantii is a direct on the fly story set in the 40k universe he or she wrote while hearing this piece of glorious art.
Dope
Her name was Eliza. They say there's only one girl like her in each generation, where the toxins and the bloodworms in her mother's womb were so few and gentle that her skin is almost perfectly clear of the deep gauges and pockmarks that the reat of us have.
I still can't believe she chose to be with me. I had nothing to offer her but the sweat of my brow in the mines, and the small patch of land from my parents to grow tubers on. And a face as pocky as they come. But she said I had a glimmer in my eyes that reminded her of something outside of her memory. Something she could never find in this world.
We could still trade minerals for fertilizers back then, and fuel for the humidity strippers that tore water from the air for irrigation and drink.
I wish we had known back then. Maybe there would be a way to get her and the baby onto some freighter-ship with enough minerals or some kind of bribe.
In my darkest moments I even fantasize about giving her away to some crewmate. Just knowing that she would be alive somewhere would be enough. She didn't have to be mine.
And the baby as well. We didn't even get to name him.
We never got to know why they stopped coming. And we didn't have much energy to speculate back then either. All we knew was that suddenly everything stopped. No fertilizer or fuel would ever come from the skies again.
The worst part is the cruelty of it all. That our only source of found water would be so contaminated with the filth of this planet, that only those of us whose bodies were the most damaged by this planet already would survive it.
She died first. In my arms.
It took the baby another two days to die. His screams for his mother still haunts me to this day. They echo my own silent ones.
And still, we live on. Those of us who are left. Waiting for someday, when ships would arrive from the skies again. So that our lives will once more have some direction or hope for a future beyond this living hell.
Stuff like this makes me nostalgic for a loss I've never experienced.
I’m nostalgic for a time where people didn’t use the word nostalgic for everything they think they’ve felt in a past life. 😂
you did experience this in some lifetime ,You don't remember it.
I love this sort of melancholie in music. Really touches my soul
That nearby planet in the sky looks savaged. I love that picture so much.
The village of Glaran was once a place where starships filled the skies. Their shimmering trails lit up the night like falling stars, and the people would gather on the hill to watch them soar, leaving behind whispers of far-off worlds. To them, the ships were a beacon of life, a beacon that something greater than their whole lay out there, waiting.
But the starships never pass by here anymore.
It started slowly, like the fading of a familiar melody. The first ship missed its scheduled pass, but no one worried. Star routes changed, after all. Then another ship failed to appear, and then another, and then another...
The villagers waited, craning their necks at the empty sky.
A month passed, and a quiet melancholy settled over the people. The hilltop gatherings grew smaller until only a few die-hards remained, stubbornly holding onto the hope that a ship would once again grace the clouds.
50 Years Later
"You know, I loved you, Naia. Why didn't you bring me along, bring us all along?"
Elder Maren, the village historian, spent his days in the old observatory, surrounded by star charts and yellowing books. His once-bright eyes had dulled with age, but he still remembered the days when the ships were so frequent that he could identify each by the color of its trail. His grandcousin, Elara, often found him there, gazing out of the large, dusty window at the starless void.
"Tell me again," Elara would ask, "what it was like when the starships flew overhead?"
Maren would smile, his face a map of wrinkles and memories. "It was like the universe itself was paying us a visit. Each ship carried stories from distant worlds, and with them came dreams of what could be."
Elara had never seen a starship. She was born after they had stopped passing by. The stories were all she had, but she cherished them. She would sit on the hill for hours, imagining the hum of engines, the glint of metal against the stars, and the faces of travelers peering down at her from above.
One night, as the village slept, a strange sound rumbled through the sky. Elara, half-dreaming, bolted upright. The sound was faint, but it was there-a low, humming resonance. She ran to the hill, her heart pounding in her chest.
There, she saw it: a glimmer of light moving slowly across the sky. It wasn’t as bright as the starships Maren described, but it was moving, undeniably, across the dark canvas of the night. Elara's breath caught in her throat. Was it a starship? A different kind, perhaps? Or was it something else entirely?
She sprinted to the observatory, bursting in with the urgency of someone who had just witnessed a miracle. "Grandfather, come quickly!"
Maren, moving slower than his mind would like, followed her to the hill. The light was still there, inching across the sky. For a long time, they stood in silence, watching.
"It’s different," Maren finally whispered, "but it’s something."
"Where do you think it’s going?" Elara asked, her eyes fixed on the moving light.
"Perhaps to the edge of the universe," Maren replied, his voice tinged with awe. "Or perhaps it's coming home."
For the first time in years, the villagers began to gather on the hill again, drawn by the mysterious light that moved steadily across the heavens each night. Speculation ran wild. Some believed it was a lost ship finding its way back, while others thought it was a message from the old travelers, a sign that they had not forgotten this little village at the edge of their now-ancient star routes.
Weeks passed, and the light grew brighter, more defined. It was no longer just a distant glimmer but a ship, small and weathered, with a hull that gleamed faintly under the starlight. The ship was unlike any the villagers had ever seen, and when it finally touched down on the outskirts of Glaran, the air was electric with anticipation.
The doors hissed open, and from the ship emerged a single figure-a woman, her face lined with the years of travel. She looked around at the gathering crowd, her eyes filled with recognition and relief.
"I’ve come back," she said, her voice steady. "I was one of the last to leave before the routes were closed. It took me years to find my way back, but I couldn’t let Glaran be forgotten."
Maren stepped forward, tears in his eyes. "You haven’t aged a day since I last saw you, Naia."
"Time moves differently out there," Naia replied with a sad smile. "But I knew I had to return, to bring something back, even if it was just myself."
"I'm sorry I couldn't have brought you along... but, you know, the UEF disallows any relocations of pre-spaceflight species. Just know, I love you."
"Heh... get out of my face."
"One last hug before I leave the planet?"
"Fine."
As they hugged, the warmth of their embrace enveloped them, and Maren felt a sense of relief. Elara, standing by her side, was unsure how to react, but a glint of determination sparkled in her eyes.
She was determined to find a way to leave this world. To show them her worth, her species' worth, her planet's worth.
And maybe, just maybe, those starships would one day find their way back here.
nice AI story
@@AlarmedKathalf human
@@AlarmedKathow do you clock this stuff? Visuals are easier but writing i struggle with because most people arent that good at writing. It always seems bad faith to assume its ai.
@@ItsAllNunya I understand your sentiment, but as someone who has dabbled with ai generated text and images from the beginning of its inception, I can tell right away if a certain style of writing is made by ai or not. this one for example is made from a generic prompt without any care put into at least making it look written by a human.
@AlarmedKat I guess I'm more asking how to even tell, because I don't want to have to mess with ai myself just to get a feel for what's fake or not. I have ethical concerns about the technology as it presently exists and stand by my lack of use, and don't want to be fooled just because I don't use a thing with so much baggage and many issues attached to it. 🤷♀️
I came from a long line of soldiers. A strange thing to think about... after all, the chance of rearing a family while fighting on a distant star seems rare. But I suppose they always found a way. I never met my father, who never met his father. But we had our mothers to tell us about them. Strong men, tall, with a bit of red in their beards. With the sheer distance between us, it wasn't very practical for them to come home for holidays.
I guess everyone expected me to follow in their footsteps. And in all truth, I fully planned to. When I became a man, I would board a landing craft headed towards the place of no return, to join the war with no end. Until then, I would provide for my family with odd jobs and scavenging. But I guess that would be all I would ever know.
Before I was old enough, the war just... stopped. We were never told what happened, if we accomplished our war goals, if we would be immigrated to this new world, or if any of our fathers were still alive. They just... stopped sending us messages. We were in despair, but our bodily needs took priority. We scraped by while waiting for the announcement, and camped our young men in the spaceport waiting to serve their term.
Now I'm a man. I have never known war, only wandering and farming. I don't know my father, nor does anyone else. I never got to meet him, since the starships never pass by here anymore.
I don't know how I stumbled on this video but I'm glad I did
Soreily B264, I remember the exact model that departed from the terminal before the rinderpest.
Remnants from my former days as an excavator for Strix Mining Cooperation. Like disposable trash each member of our division were picked and plucked like weeds. The people jeered and cast their scorn upon us like wild livestock, the waking day reeked of wretchedness as we supplied the metropolis built on our broken bones.
I had to witness the fall of my brothers as they succumb to the elements, their extremities withered, eyes dimmed and heart cold. We looked at those bastards above us, and grounded our resolve.
I was in the cadre against the institution, we raged against the almighty.
Sitting here I lay carrying the burden of the deceased, a forlorn attempt of liberty denied by our controllers. There was a mole in our refuge, the reaper knocked on the doors of our unheeding attention.
A fleeting thought crossed my mind as blood weeps out my departing body.
I wish that starship never passed by here.
me got the chills reading this one!!
this gives me the courage to finally end it all ❤❤
glorp
this is peak fanfiction
got their masters in 4headtology with a concentration in yaplogical studies from the prestige university of ackshuallism
The day doesn't fade, and our cratered Irgas shows face constantly now that the starships are gone. My memory haunts me of the blackened sky and ash when the distant clans first started harvesting. They'd come to Stratos for trade, sometimes bringing their colossal mining rigs for repairs... even paint jobs, before sending them back to Irgas.
My parents were artists. Father was among those sculpting the pillars, and mother painted at home in solace. But when the starships came, mother began painting the rigs when father lost his job. Nasty, disturbing paintings, like the appearance of a strange, ancient language written across the entire machine.
"No more pillars", they told us. "Only machine". So father started crafting small sculptures at home, alone. Decades passed. Then one day, they vanished.
We moved to a quiet corner of Stratos, where father could sculpt again, but I don't really like it. I can't escape the face of Irgas.
Once, we’d lie in fields of green,
Counting stars we’d never seen,
Dreaming of places wild and far,
Hoping that we would become stars.
Each path we took led somewhere vast,
With Father Time going past,
Back then, the world felt kind,
Our lives we left behind.
But now, the skies are still,
The paths are beyond the hill,
With nothing more to explore,
The starships never pass by here anymore.
If we ever have faster than light travel, and we colonize space like in Dune, over millions and millions of years, then we're bound to have this happened...As the universe expands, everything recedes away from any given point, and someday people from forgotten colonies would look up at the night sky, and not see a single star...They'd think that the legends of other colonies existing and themselves coming from another planet would just be fantaisies dreamed up by the ancients. They'd make their own theories about how they came to be on this planet of theirs, and would never question if there was anything out there.
Actually, despite what everyone thinks, this fate of the universe is just an unproven theory. No one knows for certain that the universe will end like that or even end at all. In fact there are theories that say brand-new universes are springing into existence all the time.
And that part about knowledge becoming legend isn't inevitable either, it only makes sense if that knowledge was lost and that's not inevitable either.
The future is an unknowable variable and these forecasts of the universe expanding into oblivion are only current projections, based on current data obtained with current technology. And yet it seems everyone thinks these are proven facts.
I remember the old man in Outpost Zeltra. He worked at the repairs shop mainly as a cashier, but sometimes you'd see him in the back room wielding away at a pirate's blaster or fixing up the farmer's equipment. He called himself Ishmael, based off "some old Prime-Earth book" or whatever. Ishmael was a kind fella, always had a story to tell. One day at the local cafeteria however, he was asked if he remembered the day the starships stopped dropping people off here. His expression hardened, and his voice lowered, and he said to us:
"Yeah. I remember. It was probably the day we realized that this was the end of the road for the once-great Cooperative. This planet had been almost used up, there was no point in bringing in anymore of those smart people, or even settlers. No, instead, they dropped off the vagrants, the undesirables, then, told us right then and there that this was the last starship visit...no more, they said, no more. Our ships need to be more fit for war, not for populating. What a joke. What a sick joke. You know there's only fifteen-thousand starships left now? Before the War, there was Three Million. Three, Million. Can you imagine what we could've accomplished with such things? We might've reached the center of the universe. It's all now....too late. We're in the aftermath. The best is over, time to go."
He finished his drink, thanked the chef-bot once again, then went home. A week later, he fell asleep at work, and never woke up. I only hope that he was dreaming of a Starship, taking him to the edges of this universe....
Beautiful and haunting music with fabulous artwork depicting a theme and mood.
I'm trying to work out if it's AI generated or not, I think it might be. The islands trailing in similar ways to the clouds, etc.
I hope it's not, would unsub immediately @@oistinmanning7530
@@oistinmanning7530I think it is if so I guess I gotta find a new channel :(
Thank you for this. Makes me feel like I'm far away from my responsibilities, all alone. Everything is washed away, and there's only stars in my mind💫
Some of you write fantastic short stories. Well done
Beautiful ambient music and beautiful background - thank you!
I am tired...
There are some days where I feel it more now than others, and it does weigh on me. I miss being able to do so much. Honestly, those times when I had my meth addiction and relapse were amazing to me, because I was able to stay up for so long without rest and just... do. Playing guitar. Repairing things. Reading. Gaming.
That level of constant going, going, going is now behind me, a distant echo of a person I once was. A shimmer in the fabric of time of when so much felt novel; when time in this mortality felt boundless and endless. Now the many sleepless days and nights are gaining upon me, as though the encroaching dawn; as though the hound after the fox...
Truly, the phrase, “so much to do, so little time” has now found its’ way to me and I am saddened a bit that I am able to only do so much. It takes more energy these days where once upon a time, the energy felt as though it had no end; felt like it could not be depleted...
The addictions are behind me... but still the echoes and memories persist, albeit now more shallow than ever before...
Very cool background!
The Shapeless arrived with vast knowledge that some used to ascend to a higher existence. They introduced tools that surpassed our wildest imaginations and seemed to perfect nature itself. They shared our space, with such care and tenderness that when they left, the dying self mummified, the transhuman digitized, and those very few untouched by favor or grace emerged from hiding. Here those remaining match echoes of divine vibrations, and intone their cosmic prayers for all lost or lonely.
Excellent. Beautiful vibe of a once bustling town just crumbling due to neglect.
I love the atmosphere.
Play as the sun sets . Very trophy.
I woke to the familiar sound of rain dripping from the mouth of our cave dwelling into the irrigation canal. A lot has changed since my grandfather helped build that irrigation system. Back then people had hope, a vision for a brighter future. An entire generation of planetsiders unified by a common purpose. Now, it's almost painful to remember what that purpose even was. The Great Awakening changed everything. And now... the starships never pass by here anymore.
I remember that place. It used to be crawling with activity-a bonanza if you will. But ever since the war, things just died down. Most of the starships were commandeered for the war effort, new ports were created, and commerce moved elsewhere. I don't know if I would want to go back there. It just seems like a very lonely and still place. A place time had forgotten.
And when the account of the ages is etched into the cosmos, let those who exist long after us know that this was our finest hour!
This mirrors my dreams in the most achingly nostalgic way
“We used to sleep on the beach down on Coney Island”
"We used to call it the playground of the world"
One time, when I was small, I got lost on Coney Island, on the beach, but they found me. We used to sleep on the beach. Sleep overnight. They don't do it anymore.
The cars on fire
And there's no driver at the wheel
@@turdferguson5932 and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
Honestly this is the vibe that Starfield gave me as I played. It may be repetitive or lacking in content, but it let my imagination roam as I felt like every location I went to was lived-in. Every dingy, dirty mining colony or dark bathroom was honestly a treat to me, and one of my favorite things was enjoying the atmosphere whenever possible.
I hit the like button solely for that painting.
Im an old soul now, looking back at only the memories of Earth. Of Orion. My little home in New England. I remember when they announced Yorckita, when they started the Orion program. It wasnt a long trip for us selected folks, we were gone in a decade. We spent all those years together just to learn about living. The ships have stopped coming from Earth, the colonies are now on their own. We are alone. We carry the torch of Earth. The databases hold our histories, scattered and reinterpretable. Our gene vats hold every species of tree, frog, and jungle cat you could think of. Weve been given the chance of building a better humanity. Pray our children remember it.
I look upon the barren earth;
Its people empty of all mirth;
The sky is full, the land is dry;
The only rain, from people's eyes;
The starships never pass by here, anymore;
The heart of the world was struck by bore;
Its vibrant life was torn fully out;
I was hopeful, but now I doubt.
I remember being a child that would wake up early to watch the sky being painted anew. Afore the rising of the sun, the drones would draw their lines of atmosphere and I'd take a deep breath as to keep within me the fading memory of the last day. Grown now, I look back on those days and wish only to have such depth of breath as I await their late arrival. Coms chatter assures a resupply every morning shortly after the sunrise; twenty odd years now that promise echoes across emptier planes. My rockets are paltry in comparison to what once arced away from the skies. Suborbital, vain attempts at what was once an unquestionable certainty. The ignorance of youth once asked if we could ever find life beyond our gravitational hold. Now, the ignorance of youth asks if we can find such within it.
This art is killer, reminds me of sci fi book covers from the 70s or so.
... and we're okay with that... sure we went adventuring for a few hundred years and it would have mattered... but now, we tend the garden, orchard and flock, we sit on the porch, hold hands and watch the moons rise... we smile and laugh and take comfort in each others company... and wish all the ships (where ever they may be) safe travels...
Symbols of hope, symbols of peace
No longer a part of this society
Why aren't they talking? What does this mean?
Questions upon questions I must keep inside of me.
Is the war really over, did they just flee?
Am I the only one who cannot see?...The starships never pass by here anymore..
I found bone under a rock last week. It was pitted and hallow but felt more solid than anything I’ve felt. I took it home to show my pa but he said it was trash. Everything’s “trash” to him since ma’s been gone. I put it on my desk, I thought it was neat. It was sharp and angular but every edge was smooth to the touch. Yesterday my pa saw that I had kept it and he got upset, “you’re always filling my place with trash! I need this place to be clean, don’t you get it?!” I took the bone and ran out to the edge of our plot. I looked over the edge and threw the thing as hard as I could. It spun end over end out over the big drop. What happened next I can’t stop thinking about. It slowed and then halted, right there in the air. The bone just hung there in space, like it was lighter than air. It’s still there now. I thought it would be gone this morning after I finally left it but it isn’t. It’s just floating there, not moving an inch. I can’t stop thinking about it, “what was made of those bones?”
Art like this never ceases to amaze me.
yes, this is a great work of art, in the music, the painting and the provovation or inspiration of us to dream, think and feel a mood. It all starts with a beautiful painting, followed by well produced , haunting music.
Unfortunately I think it's AI. I'll happily be wrong, but yeah
@@oistinmanning7530 aww, my late grandfather had alot of 70s Sci fi stuff that had art exactly like this. it was so cool to see what that generation thought space exploration would look like. oh well.
They say there used to be fields, rows upon rows of lofty grass catching the golden hour. There were rivers that were clearer than the sky, so deep you could look into them and find the night. I dont really believe those stories anymore, part of me really wanted too. Great grandpas eyes always sparkled when he spoke of those times. Now i see it was probably a trap of nostalgia, maybe he couldnt bare with the idea of this being all there was. Blabbering on about starships that hailed from far and wide to come and see our great empire, but who would come see someplace like this?
I ask grandma about it sometimes, but she just shakes her head whenever i try to spark a conversation of the past. She seems to miss something, but i dont think she can quite remember anymore.
A starship, moving through the sky like silk, what a sight it would be to behold. I can only dream of such majesty to come upon this sorry place, id rather not delude myself though. There is work to be done.
Though, sometimes, when the lady of the night drops her veil, and her eyes shine upon this sorry land...I can't help but look up for just a moment. Maybe, just maybe I'll catch a starship and for a moment there would be hope.
All the systems on the third Radcliffe bend say the same. The old routes of the last century don’t make sense anymore, now that the new engines can cross the void in the same time it used to take to system-hop just halfway round the bend. And frankly there’s simply nothing there that makes a detour worth the time and expense.
So the third-bend Radcliffe worlds are basically on their own, and are perfect magnets for a certain class of fugitives and discontents. Someday, perhaps, their great-great grandchildren will develop something that lures the starships back once more.
I always come to your channel when I need a dose of inspiration. Your videos have a way of lifting my spirits.
"The starships never pass by here anymore," Ralthama said. Her age was up for debate, but she was suspected of being the oldest among the colonists, and her dangerous teachings were often conducted in secret. "We stopped wondering why."
She shrugged as she moved from the steps of the catafalque and towards the cave, with the children surrounding her, each one eagerly searching the skies for any trace of anomaly. "It's true," she continued, ushering the last of the group into the makeshift classroom. "That is why we no longer get any pizza deliveries. Papa Gino's. Domino's. Pizza Hut. Gone. I remember a time when such things fell into this world like raindrops from the sky. Like manna from Heaven. Now, children, it's your generation's turn to wonder."
Harsh.
Had me in the first half ngl
this gave me a nice laugh thanks
magical landscape , huge sci fi lover here!
i always feel sad that i was born in a time before we've discovered the galaxy, before a time where we know of hundreds of worlds and planets and galaxies all with infinite numbers of stories of their own...i feel lonely thinking that we only know earth right now, and ill die long before we discover any sort of sentient species inhabiting this universe with us.
i wish i could be an explorer, discovering strange and alien ecosystems, and touch them for myself...i try to stay away from those sorts of fantastical landscape paintings simply because they remind me of what i won't be able to reach.
Our world is filled with sentient life. Go pet a dog.
Once were the Great War.
Billions of starships raging like thunderous suns, blasting the immortal void with weapons of mass destruction. That’s what the poet wrote about it, leting me wonder : how could a war be that beautiful ?
But here, only a quiet campagne hospital was built. I used to fix droids, ships, even, some times, people of my kind, mentally broke by the war which was continuously runing in their head.
This planet worth none they said on Earth. Nothing run under the ground, no oil, no gaz, no gold. So when the war was over everybody leave.
Except me.
And I’m so glad. So glad to see this piece of rocks, longing in the immortal void, never touched again by the war, never touched again by the men.
At the end I hope it will remain this way. But for now I’m still in peace :
The starships never pass by here anymore.
I get a vibe of Cocytus from The Dig here, dusty tired planet where stone and ancient tech have become one. ❤
The elders called them Pilgrims. Earthy toned skin, green curly hair. The last documented starship crossed our path some 80 years ago. But yet some still claim to see their faint plasma trails streak across the sky. We remain optimistic one will come back like an old friend to share news of their new home. I often look to the night sky and think of them. Do they think of us too? Or were we just a curious thing to look at along their stellar route?
Alone. Completely alone. Not another soul for eons in any direction. The ships that once zipped through this empty landscape are long gone, as are the familiar faces that accompanied them. Decades in complete solitude destroys the delicate human mind, leaving a husk of the wonder and beauty that once filled the chasm in my empty skull.
They never told me why they stopped coming. For years I anxiously awaited the arrival of another shipment, another soul to talk to. I lost track of the years long ago. Nobody is coming. I am here, alone, forever.
The sun peeks through the clouds, beckoning me back to the debilitating solitude that fills every moment of every day. To think that one time, long ago, I could have awoken instead to the thunderous roar of a starship skittering through the azure sky above me is but a mere fantasy to my broken mind. I have no choice but to live on, scavenging my existence on this elegant hellscape. I repair what I can, and the rest slowly rots into the innocent soils below. Nothing here can repair the emptiness I feel in my chest. I've given up on trying to fill that with the monotony that surrounds me.
As my tools rust and my brain decays, I wait patiently for the day that I will meet my pathetic end. That day is not today.
Wait... Is that...? It can't be, can it? as I squint into the distance, a dark form slowly comes into focus. As it approaches, a familiar sound fills my ears, sweet as honey. Could it finally be over?
Entrancing, thank you
This artwork is like a combination of Outlaw Star, Cowboy Beebop, and Star Wars all put together. Someone put a lot of work in on this and it's amazing.
They shut down the last starports decades ago. Trade had ground to a halt, and tourists didn’t want to step foot on some rock on the outer rim, so there wasn’t much point in wasting power on them. We tore them apart for scrap and made farming tools out of it. I have a tractor with the words “Grasp the Universe!” embossed on the back. Part of an old advertisement I think, back when the corps cared about what we settlers thought.
We used to be a mine-world, but… well you know how that goes. It’s all infinite gains and unlimited wealth until the rocks dry up. Then all the investors pull out and run the second it looks like maybe, maybe the planet might be running low. Then we, the people they brought in to tear up the ground and pull metal from earth get left in their dust. Not a penny richer to show for it.
It was hard to adjust to a farmer’s life at first, but I didn’t have much choice. If you don’t grow your own food around here, you starve. Even in the glory days we relied on trade with the other colonies for food, the soil here is about as fertile as a desert. Hard to grow anything decent. But you gotta do it if you wanna eat nowadays. And it’s honest work, keeps the mind busy.
Sometimes, out on the fields, I look up at the sky and remember all the bolts of light that used to fly past the clouds. All those ships going to and from, doing god knows what in times better than these. But now it’s just the clouds and the endless blue. The starships never pass by here anymore.
I remember this place was once my home, now its what people call ruins, i grew up here and lived here through tough times and fun times, yet when the miners came they left nothing but ruin in their wake, if only i knew i would of played in the fields of grass and climb the trees more.
I wish i had lived more and cherished my life more, this place was once a beautiful planet one that prospered with life, these remenets dont do it justice for this place was once a planet full of laughter, if only i knew it all would of ended.
I would of lived more... i would of appreciated life more for what it is and what it could of been.
Live your life kid not anyone elses live your own life and take your own path, carve you name into history and be remember forever.
My time was short but well lived, love ya kid.
And goodbye ima take a quick nap.
This makes me wanna film a movie about a deep space traveller making a lengthy voyage through the systems of darkness and space that exist light years away, floating along through the emptiness with many years to go until the ship reaches its mysterious destination.
Man ya'll got talents on Writing a Sci Fi Story
The starships never pass by here anymore.
I used to wait for them. Every night. I’d stand out here, staring at the sky until my eyes ached, just to catch a glimpse of those glowing trails-proof that there was still something out there. Still life. Still hope.
Now, the skies are empty. Silent. No hum of engines, no flicker of distant lights. Just darkness.
I still remember the last time one passed over. It was just before the fall. Before the war. Before everything changed. They said the ships would return once the chaos settled, once the dust cleared. But it never did. Not for us. Not for this place.
I wonder if anyone out there even remembers. Or if we’re just... forgotten. Lost in the void like so many other places, so many other lives. It’s funny, how you can feel the absence of something so strongly, even when you were never part of it. I was never on one of those ships. Never touched the stars. But they gave me hope, they made me believe in something bigger.
Now all that’s left is silence. No rescue, no return. Just me and this endless, hollow sky, waiting for something that will never come back.
I don’t even know why I keep looking up.
This is the most NMS-feeling playlist I've ever felt. Seriously, boot up the game without multiplayer and have this play in the background... you feel like you're watching bits of plastic move whenever you see another living "entity". It's very uncomfortably safe feeling.
There is something unique about feeling... entirely alone.
It can be extremely stimulative to a being, a material world from times long past and gone and devoid of the creativity of movement and life slowly degenerating down to nothingness.
no, its awful. Trust me I know. except for going to work and occasionally having time with rare friends, I am alone. my relatives don't know me. I have no children or wife. Trust me, being alone bleeps bleep pretty bad.
@@lukeyznaga7627 Fotchenetly we all have the ability to chang whatever we choose, it's not always easy and it may be slow and not all at once but it takes just one little thing you find that one can be cause over and START. !
A wagging tail speaks,
Joy unbound, love everlasting-
No words are needed.
_“A few times a year, I can see lights passing from one side of the horizon to the other in a second, perhaps the space ships do pass by every now and then”_
"The Starships never pass by here anymore..."
"How come, Grandpa? Are they ignoring us cause they're mad? Like how I ignore brother when I'm mad at him?"
"Oh, hoho, no! No, my dear," He said with a chuckle, "... they're not mad at us. They..." he took a long pause, and then, with the release of a breath that seemed to pull his already hunched shoulders a little closer to the ground he said, "They can't face their shame."
"Shame?"
"Yes. Shame, Eisley." His face tuned to stone as he turned to the horizon.
"I still remember when they told everyone about the New World. I was just a boy, could barely read. My papa sold everything that he could live without, and one month later, I was on the first dreadnought colony carrier to leave for the New World."
"Dread... nought? What's that?"
"It means fears nothing, to dread not. For a dreadnought class starship is too big to know what fear is."
"Wow!!"
"Yes," he said, now turning to face Eisley, "and how dreadful and mighty it was. On the day I was boarding, I felt as though I would be swallowed up by it's colossal shadow forever if I let go of my mama's hand for even a second. She told me, "Son, I know you're scared, but, listen to me, because once you board this ship, you will become one of the very first boy astronauts in all of history! You may not understand it now, but you have the entire human race cheering you on. You carry their hopes and futures with you to the stars!" He paused again. "...No child should have to bare the weight of that burden."
"I don't understand, Grandpa."
"And I hope you don't ever have to. You see, our world, the old one where I was born, was sick. Rotten. Dying. And it was our fault. Well... our ancestors' fault. By the time my parents sent me away on that terrible ship, the sun hadn't been seen in the sky for three years."
"You mean your mama and papa didn't come with you?!"
"No. No, they did not... My papa bought as many entries into the lottery as he could afford, because you see, the lottery could win you and your family a lifelong subscription to MegaHabitat 1, a man-made oasis and last bastion of life on the old world. Normaly, it was only accessible to the ultrarich who could afford the exorbitant monthly premium to live there. It was easy enough for them, too, since they owned and controlled the markets that operated there within... rat bastards in a closed loop system... And the lottery, there was a catch; only parents of healthy children could enter, and the children of the winners would be elected into a new and experimental space program, The New Eden Endeavor."
"That - that's horrible!! How could they be so selfish?! How could your mama and papa give you away like that?!"
"They didn't. They didn't know that I would never come home."
Silence. Long and mournful silence that was only relieved by the sound of sand being gently swept in the breeze across the canvas of their lean-to.
"The Starships never pass by here anymore..."
The war has ended and the planet has lost its relevance as a stopping point. The once loud and busy moon station is gone, fhe bazars are empty and the last few inhabitants are left. They have no place else to go or to call home. Legend has it that a boy will be born who would inspire a galactic war to unify the federation with its capital on this planet. We wait for that day, in silence and meditation
I’m really in love with this video, I imagine myself chilling on one of these floating islands every time I watch❤️