THE ORIGIN MYTH OF THE SOLARIANS

By Grey Star

In ancient Mesopotamia, the origin of civilization, there was an unimportant individual. He was a nameless king. Born into power, and a decent ruler, but not respected enough to be encoded into memory, and after his death his name was lost. However, the king's soul was powerful, and after his death it became infused with the power of the stars themselves, the burning plasma that makes up the core of every star. The soul broke apart, splitting into eight different parts. Infusing itself into floating rocks in space, suddenly eight metal beings awoke in the empty blackness of space. The investigated their steel skin, glowing eyes signalling to the others where they were. The beings knew that being made of the forge wasn't right, yet this is how they were born, so how could it have been anything different. They cast their gaze upon a barren, rocky planet, and began to fall into the sky, far, far away from Earth.

A galaxy so distant from Earth was remarkably devoid of life. Interstellar travel was possible, but species were unique mostly to their planet. The galactic community was made up of few species, and a remarkably small number of individuals. The systems of the stars however, were populated, but filled with strife. Successful management of multiple planets required often brutal strategies, creating a place of alien life where it was frequent for refugees of one warzone travel led to another star, to another war. Technology was primitive, magic was in its barbaric infancy. Wars consumed the stars, and with the consumption of the stars, the galactic community was barely more than a few individuals at a time of any species, either refugees, explorers, outcasts, or insane attempted conquerors.

However, out of this time of strife, a mortal rose. What his species was is lost to time, and as a result he is mostly depicted as a human figure of indeterminate features, a blank slate. He only had three things to his name. A red scarf that was worn across his neck, and stretched behind him into a flowing cape. A sword forged of simple metals and intense effort. Lastly, a powerful, well earned command over the strongest magic of all. Star Magic, the lifeblood that gives the stars their lifespan and glow, magic that flows through the blood of the Stars themselves, the gods of the galaxy. This mortal had no last name, no history, no family, no connections to any past, present, or future. He was a nomad, making due with ugly things, and setting right the wrongs of the galaxy he was born into. He only answered to one name, and refused many of the titles and curses given unto him. His name was Destiny, and he was a hero. He moved from star system to star system, using his powerful magic to not make himself the rightful ruler by force, but instead to inspire the downtrodden, the oppressed, and the consumed to rise up and cast off the chains of their situation, and by empowering the individuals to resist their governments, corporations, and rulers, he systematically ended the wars consuming the galaxy, the environmental and economic collapses, and ensured a better life for those he came across. He tore apart everything that had hurt someone to end the pain, that seemingly his only reason for his actions. When he had put an end to the strife, stopped the pain, and finished stabilizing the galaxy, and ventured into a system that none had been able to locate before. He found a place long though mythical, a land of dreams and fairy tales, a holy shrine reserved only for the righteous dead. Destiny had come to Bastion, the home of the Stars.

The Stars, eight metal beings, were holy figures that were worshiped across the galaxy. Before each species' inevitable descent into strife, the Stars would suddenly appear on the planet, seemingly without space travel. The eight would preform good works across the planets the species were located on, each preforming miracles that were associated with a specific one of the eight, using the powerful Star Magic that had given them life and coursed in the blood inside their metallic bodies. After improving the lives of the societies they visited, invariable their gifts would be turned against the purpose of improving life, and instead used to worsen it for various petty justifications. The Stars would leave after realizing the situation was untenable, and seeing species after species making the same mistakes the same way, again and again and again. Every species in the galaxy had received a visit from them, every species would use the gifts of the Stars against themselves, and every species would descent into their own separate ages of strife. Through the galactic community, stories of the Stars' visits caused them to ascend from legendary aliens into god status, even as strife consumed the star systems. It was these stories of these gods that gave Destiny the influence he needed to inspire the individual, taking command of the primary galactic religion to put an end to the ages of strife, and caused Destiny's stories to join the myth of the Stars.

Landing on Bastion, Destiny left behind his spacecraft, and explored the small world of brown grasses and twilight sunsets. He found many small rivers of water, flowing at an easy pace across the land. He found many open fields of grass without a tree in site. He found an empty sky that frequently rained and stormed, but would always empty out again. He did not find choirs of the dead, singing the praises of the Stars. He did not find magical creatures and devices. He did not find cabals of extremely powerful magic wielders, the evil demons who inhabited the planet of the Stars. Instead, he found an empty and plain planet, almost as if a well tended graveyard than a place of worship and magic. After days of exploring, he found the legendary, mythical stone temple that the Stars called home. It was as plain, even if massive, as the rest of the planet. He ventured inside, looking to at long last meet those who he shared magic with, some of the few people he could call kin, the gods he prayed to. He found a lived in home, a place where eight gods would spend their infinite lives working on the various domains they were responsible for. A section of the temple each dedicated to each Star's personal Activities. He almost thought the place abandoned, the gods having deserted their sacred land, when he walked into the center of the temple, a meeting table between the eight, all waiting for him. The defacto leader greeted Destiny first. The Stars explained that they had parted away the cosmic shroud that kept their world hidden for Destiny, and Destiny alone. They admitted they were surprised that a mortal ended the ages of strife in the entire galaxy, even more so at the idea a mortal could utilize Star Magic solely through effort and need. Two things that the Stars, the gods, themselves could not, yet a mortal could. They explained they could offer Destiny anything. Immortality, riches, an endless harem, power beyond his imagination, even the whole galaxy to rule over. Yet they knew that Destiny only cared for one thing, and that was the value of work, rather than any other reward.

The Stars brought Destiny to a laboratory, a place that was the focal point of their combined work. They explained to the mortal that the gods had an ulterior motive for all their work across every species. Every time they appeared, they would attempt to uplift a species, to save them from environmental collapse destroying their planet's ability to support life. Every time, the Stars gifts would be turned against its purpose, used to wage war. The reason why every single species that Destiny had found knew Star Magic and believed in the myth of the Stars was because the species that did not receive the Gift of the Stars wiped itself out, unable to look inwards long enough to reflect on what it was doing, and causing some great environmental collapse or war that drove the species numbers to a dwindling amount, followed by extinction, and the irreversible damage to the planet preventing a new formation of life. After countless experiments and acts, the Stars always providing the tools but never taking control of the species, they came to the conclusion that life was inherently unable to survive attempts to expand beyond a single star system, and that due to evolution, the Stars themselves would always be alone in the galaxy, life continually growing and dying, unable to solve the same problems over and over again. Refusing to be alone for their infinite lifespans, they created a plan. Sampling more species of both sentient and non-sapient than can be counted, they had a genetic database that effectively allowed for the creation of any life they could develop. Though they were able to solve some of the same problems that always lead to extinction of any sentient species, they were unable to solve the others, including ensured, eventual self destruction without outside help. They believed that Destiny would be able to provide a change in the equation of life. A mortal who accomplished what the gods could not deny an infinite number of attempts, each following the same rules, including the all important refusal to control another species. So the Stars offered Destiny the only reward they could, a chance to create a species capable of surviving throughout the galaxy without self destruction, something that might outlive all other species, something to ensure the galaxy would be lived in and purposed.

Destiny was used as the missing part of the Star's grand creation, a child species to fill the galaxy with life. His body was used for genetic material with their already existing candidate to create hundreds of unique, "original generation" batch grown lifeforms. The Stars examined his mind, taking his morals and beliefs, putting them into the subconscious of the new species as an ingrained, guiding morality. They examined his soul, and used it as a template for the formation of the new life forms' souls. At last they examined the magic that flowed through Destiny's blood, and imparted samples of Destiny's blood into every "original generation" life form. It was this way that Destiny's blood would carry through the new species, giving them an innate ability to perform magic, and the chance, though not guarantee, to rise above the limitations of the body and access the power of the stars themselves, Star Magic.

The Stars created one thousand and one genetically unique life forms, belonging to an artificially created rather than naturally arising species, designed to overcome the obstacles present in the survival of life itself, a combination of a designed life form with the final components being provided by Destiny, the father to this new species. This new species would be called the Solarians, for they would have the fire of the sun as a core part of their physiology. The first was named for the star that Bastion orbited, Sola. Sola was the first, and unique, compared to the rest of the "original generation" batch, for she received none of the material the Stars had taken from Destiny and given unto the others. Destiny left Bastion, his life extended to fulfill his final role for the galaxy, the Stars raised Sola on Bastion, into her own person, to ensure that her role as the origin and mother of the Solarians would succeed. When she came of age, and told her parent Star that she felt a need to love someone, and to reproduce, they merely chuckled and suggested she court her friend Destiny who had recently arrived on Bastion from a long trip seeking a legendary, rare space faring creature. One date lead to another, and Sola proposed to Destiny. The two were married by the Stars. Because of the fact that Destiny and Sola were of two species, they were unable to conceive. The Stars provided them with children, the "original generation" batch of Solarians, and the first was named Luna. Through an eternity, Sola and Destiny raised a thousand children, creating a stable population on an ideal planet in the same system as Bastion.

The mother was Sola. The father was Destiny. The first child was Luna. These three that were the first of the Solarian race.  The sun that provides the Solarian people the fire in their veins was named for their mother, Sola. The planet that revolves around the star Sola was named Syn, a more lovely name than Destiny but inspired by the father. And the moon that hosts the government capital of the Solarians was named Luna, for it requires both the mother and the father to exist.

=======