Planets And Spheres

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This topic is closely tied to several other articles. Readers are encouraged to review the following pages for additional context:

• The Great Empty

"Who can tell me the speed of light?" — Aurelian professor to his students

Although both planets and spheres may appear similar from afar, they are governed by different principles. Planets are natural worlds, shaped by physical laws of nature and evolution. Spheres, by contrast, are altered or transformed worlds. Spheres are planets that have been engulfed and rewritten by the mysterious energy anomaly known as The Great Empty during the Convergence.

Planets

Planets are conventional celestial bodies that are governed by stable natural laws. They orbit stars, possess predictable climates and geologies, and evolve according to understood and documented processes. While many planets contain traces of magical energy, such energy is generally secondary to their material reality rather than the force that defines them.

On planets, gravity, the atmosphere, and time behave consistently. Life evolves through ecological and biological systems that are recognizable and explainable. Mountains, oceans, and continents remain stable over long periods. Matter behaves consistently, and spacefaring vessels can chart and approach planets using traditional means of navigation.

Planets may be strange or possess inherent magical phenomena, but they remain fundamentally ‘real’ in the ordinary sense.

Spheres

Spheres are worlds enveloped by pockets of the Great Empty and have been transformed by its influence.

A sphere may have once been a normal planet, or it may have emerged through entirely unknown means. Once the Great Empty takes hold, the world becomes something fundamentally different. Within a sphere, reality itself may bend.

On spheres, physical laws may change or contradict themselves. Entire environments may be altered into forms science struggles to explain. Magic and energy anomalies often permeate every aspect of existence. Landscapes may shift or behave in strange ways. Travelers may experience distance distortions or spatial paradoxes.

Each sphere is surrounded by Great Empty energy fields that isolate and sustain its altered state.

Sphere Collision

Free-floating spheres, those in the drifting pockets of the Great Empty, may collide with one another or with anchored energy fields in star systems. When spheres near one another, they form connections. When they collide, the resulting phenomena can be relatively catastrophic, with the worlds’ respective realities being pushed together. This is very rare in star systems inhabited by known sentient species, but has been observed in other galaxies and continues to present a very real threat to habitable spheres.

The dimensional envelopes that define a sphere are permeable, allowing multiple spheres to pass through one another without disruption to their overall structure. This leads to the energy fields overlapping, distorting, and eventually separating, often with very little to no visible damage to the spheres themselves. The contents of those spheres, however, are another story.

The landmasses, oceans, structures, and living organisms contained inside a sphere remain fully physical. When two spheres drift into sufficient overlap, their internal contents can be forced into direct contact, much like the shifting of tectonic plates creating valleys or mountains. Oceans can spill into unfamiliar basins, mountains may crush forests, and entire ecosystems may suddenly occupy the same physical space. In some cases, civilizations and environments collide with catastrophic force. Most sphere overlaps are brief, lasting only hours or days before the fields drift apart again. However, even this temporary intersection can permanently reshape both worlds involved.

In rare cases, prolonged overlap may result in sphere grafting, where portions of one world remain embedded within another after separation. Entire islands, mountain ranges, ruins, or species populations may be left stranded on a foreign sphere, creating hybrid environments. Though the spheres themselves retain their integrity, those living within them may experience the event as nothing less than an apocalypse.

The severity of sphere collision can be determined by how much of the two spheres intersect during the event. Partial intersections will be localized reality-warping disasters, while complete intersection of two spheres will likely result in sphere-wide fundamental changes and destruction.

In the modern era, many researchers are dedicated to monitoring the movement of spheres to predict such disasters.