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Being the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty seven
To my dear, dear nephew, Herbert George Wells,
Long ago, civilization reached unrivaled heights of scientific understanding, crafting marvels of technology in the ages of mythology long gone.
That's what the old tales tell us, but if you look around, you'll see just a few ancient ruins. That they're still there at all, old enough to have ancient forests on their balconies, and indeed that they should scrape the very sky itself in the heights that they reach — “Full league five, their rooftops lie...,” to quote the bard — is testament to the building skill of long ago, but to ascribe more than this to the builders is sheer folly.
The world-plates cruise the sky in the same old way, their courses yielding to one another as their bumper fields interact, each repelling the other in their turn. A simple natural law: bodies surfing across their spherical orbital shells force each other away inversely with two pi times the separating radius between them; that is to say that the force between planetary bodies of any spherical shell drops away with increasing radius, and increases its push as they draw closer to one another, and that proportionate force isn't a linear scale but depends from the simple area of a spherical surface.
Much like modern theories of the “atom” — untested, but philosophized to form the foundations of matter — so too do the heavenly bodies occupy only certain spherical regions of the sky, with little to nothing between each shell, and proceeding firmly in a like count: 2, 8, 18, 32, 32, 18, and 8.
Far, far down in le Hermetian sphere, we see two lone world-plates. Above that, as you well know, lies la Aphroditian shell, eight world-plates in all, and wandering as they do like water striders on the surface of a pond, or pucks across the surface of an ever-popular air hockey board at a beachfront amusement park. Another eight such occupy our own Gaean shell, our world being numbered among these. Eighteen world-plates cross the vastness of la Barsoomian shell, a weighty number, indeed, but not the most impressive of the lot.
Beyond these, we see a full thirty two world-plates in each of the next shells, those named les Jovian and Cronerian shells. Here we see a curious diminishing in their plenitude, les Caelerian and Poseidonian shells bearing only eighteen and eight, respectively.
These are the numbers of world-plates known to mankind in this day and age, though some imagine further such.
One can only conjecture as to the meaning and origins of their footprints. In the first four shells, we see bodies of reasonable size, on the order of some twenty nine million square miles to one hundred ninety eight, their radii in keeping with such circular areas, their surfaces curving ever so slightly in keeping with the spherical shell curvature of the aether on which they sit. That each should bear unlike numbers of world-plates is common-sensical when considering the increased area that goes with their distance from the sun.
That a similar arrangement obtains for the outer shells is also a reasonable premise, but why those next four orbital shells should be occupied by such very large world-plates, between three billion and twenty four billion square miles, is at this time not entirely within our grasp. Suffice it to say that this will surely be cracked, remaining as it does, one of the last great mysteries of our age. Few things remain unknown today to science, and it's only a matter of time until we master this one in turn.
Of some interest, and no little heated debate, is what brings them to their courses. The most contested, yet still standing with the greatest correlation, is that of solar flares, sunspots, and more generally solar storms of any sort. This is both supported and tempered to a degree by the theory of multivalent paramagnetism, currently presumed to be the mechanism bearing our shells and causing our world-plates to conform to the shell radii as they do. Such solar activity has seen some anecdotal connection with the world-plates' movements, of course, but it stands only as a partial input at most, the connection not bearing sufficient statistical significance to be the sole cause. As such, some put forth one model or another of great masses of materials, each attuned to a different shell, and even to different resonance nodes therein, some going so far as to include the lunar bodies as secondary inputs, as one might in some mad gearbox. In any event, these stem from those toys so very popular these days; you know the ones — little magnets swinging on almost-balanced rings, their gyrations made all the wilder by seesaw-like mobiles. Yes, well, the less said of this, the better.
Of greater interest to theoreticians is the great discontinuity in their relative sizes, and some question about the conjectured — and quite empty — “four-and-a-halfth shell.” Nonsense, of course, but it doesn't stop the uneducated masses' curiosity and theories arising periodically. Arguably worse is the incessant search for a ninth such shell, presumed by many to hold only two world-plates. Are we to believe that they are — and without staggering at this thought — fully of a scale some three hundred billion to twelve trillion square miles each? This is the very height of humbuggery, I tell you, and to entertain such can bring you only to poverty and ignominy.
Well and enough. We needn't consider further such foolishness, turning our eyes instead to the more well-rounded and well-grounded matters of intellectual discussion.
NB: This is my own modification of the Janet left-step periodic table. The rows here are filled by principal quantum number (my own arrangement: non-standard) in order to illustrate the moons' literal orbits of this AU.
▲ Right side of n-adjusted Janet table. ▲
▲ Center of n-adjusted Janet table. ▲
▲ Left side of n-adjusted Janet table. ▲
We see the world-plates' shell regime reaffirmed in the very world-plates' own lunar bodies' sub-shells: first two moons in a circular “shell” around their primary, the “sharp” sub-shell, sometimes rebounding by the action of their own bumper fields, causing one or the other to slow down or speed up, even bringing their motion to reverse itself, only to then collide once more at some later point as the one catches up with the other from what soon becomes behind, or, having become retrograde to instead meet again at a point counter to the previous collision. This is the case for all shells' world-plates, of course, but we mustn't hesitate to point out even the most basic atomic principles of astronomic planētēs if we wish to present sensible discourse with rational beings. It goes without saying that this is the only lunar sub-shell of the only lunar shell for our two Hermetian world-plates.
That Primus and Helios have one and two lunar bodies, respectively, is a given, and I shan't belabor this by naming each later world-plate and its associated progression of lunar body count. Les Aphroditian world-plates have from three to ten lunar bodies, and so on for those of upper shells. We all know how many each has, and that Gaea stands at fourteen moons, supplying all of the reflected light that we could ever ask for, at times all coming together to shine from a single direction, and at others spread out across the compass. That they have some leeway above and below our horizon does mean that how many might be visible at a time varies, and even that we should have periods without light at all, or that one might pass above while another crossed below, but now we're getting into such elementary points that we might as well discuss the fact that water is wet.
Returning to the topic at hand, we see, beyond the moons of le Hermetian shell, a double layer of lunar bodies running through closely concentric circular orbits: always two flying along in the inner course, the second “sharp” sub-shell being only the first of two such sub-shells for any of les eight Aphroditian and eight Gaean world-plates' lunar shells, and up to six in the next, this latter being the “principal” sub-shell, of course, these world-plates thus boasting eight lunar bodies in toto. Naturellement, this holds for all lunar bodies of all world-plates but for those of the innermost world-plate shell — le aforementioned Hermetian shell.
The same again holds true again of Gaean bodies' moon-plates (and the satellites of all planetary bodies in later orbital spheres): a shell of two moons with no sub-shells, a second shell of two and six complete, and a third shell — the “diffuse” sub-shell — containing three sub-shells of the same two and six count in their entirety plus a third of up to ten such lunar bodies.
With the fourth we see what one would expect by this point in one's study: thirty two lunar bodies permitted per primary in the first three shells. Past this, we encounter what was once so very confounding for centuries — millennia, in fact — that fact of the fourth sub-shell (the “fundamental,” as you know) containing never more than a further thirty two lunar bodies.
A simple progression of four lunar bodies being permitted to each successive sub-shell is what one might expect, yielding the obvious sequence of 2+6+10+14+18+..., of course, but as we all know, that great and glorious astronomer Aufbau — of whom we needn't say more if only to avoid gilding the lily, his fame and brilliance being so well known to all that he remains a household name to this very day — showed how le Jovian shell breaks this pattern, and that to search for further lunar bodies than those fourteen in the fifth lunar sub-shell of any world-plates therein will forever remain a fruitless effort.
This can of course be seen to remain true of le Cronerian shell's world-plates. To continue in this line is unnecessary, as you've surely spent many a candle in the stacks. Suffice it to say that there is indeed much deep and weighty thought given to the subject. I must grant that it is indeed a puzzle that le Hermetian shell stands alone, unmatched with a like shell, while la Aphroditian pairs its numbers with those of le Poseidonian, and la Gaean following suit in its match with le Cronerian, and la Barsoomian with le Jovian, but to conjecture thereon without sound reasoning, much less substantial evidence, is to return to the aforementioned humbuggery.
Like unto this progression in small and large, this returns us to the world-plates' orbital shells: whereas the world-plates' bumper forces spread outward circularly, affording them their comfortable avoidance of collision with a strength that drops with twice pi of the distance, so to do those lunar bodies of a given sub-shell though with a greater presence, theirs dropping as it does with the linear distance alone. It takes one but a moment to consider and ascertain the obvious reason for this. A world-plate's force spreads out over a steradial annulus around it, being that it must carom at unknown angles to skitter freely until its next encounter; a lunar body by contrast must remain within its circular course, hence bringing its repulsion to bear in only one of two possible directions, these being the intuitive direction of its current travels, and that counter to it, and so their repulsive force drops only linearly with the distance.
In essence, a world-plate at some set distance from another will affect the other with some force F such that the two now set at twice that distance — two radii, more precisely worded — will have between them a lesser strength of F/4πr. This is seen as a simple geometric result in two dimensions: the circumference of a circle is 2πr, and so the resulting force diminishes alike; in general: n-many radii, the resulting force is F/n2πr. This is a simplification to the Euclidean, but at the scales involved this is of little consequence; naturellement, for a rigorous application, one must resort to the Riemannian. In the linear case of lunar repulsion, a similar effect is noted to be F at some distance r, and F/nr for a given value of n-many radii.
It is natural, therefore, to consider the question of sub-lunar tertiary bodies, secondary to them and at fixed points with respect to them, aquiver with need to seek elsewhere, and perhaps presenting some consequential libration, but given no quarter for wandering through such paths as their primaries or those of their primaries once removed, and hence doomed to remain forever alone, never to know the unknown rebound nor to see other than a single face below them. Indeed, though none such have yet been observed, there is some possibility conjectured by the young and more hot-headed theorists. One such, a maverick by the name of Lagrange or some such, has argued just that, and on more than one occasion, even to the point of the temerity of having submitted mathematical papers arguing just this. Naturellement, these are dismissed, unread, as should any such ridiculous notion, and the wise student is well advised to do just that.
To continue this further though, is only the mad work of a hatter, as the next step would have quaternary bodies' repulsive forces increase with separation! Put another way, they would actually force each other away more strongly at a remove than when nearby, with the resulting tendency in practice then being of approaching one another as if by some ridiculous attractive force. One might entertain notions that capture one's mind's eye to some extent, but such really must be permitted to go only so far.
The taproots of each world-plate are vast: miles-wide collective organisms similar to bamboo, with tensegrity netting meshing them together all along each world-plate's edge, providing a convenient transportation system to and from any world-plate beneath them at such times as they reach those stationary valleys in the orbital shells when such can be accomplished, but again, this is only a natural function of the universe. Could we but resolve other stars' systems, then surely we would see just such details therein, perhaps with winged green men flitting hither and thither and yon.
That the taproots should seek to couple with those natural prominences as we see central to our world and those below us is only to be expected and need no explanation by way of ancient design. Any such organism must only reasonably wish to put forth the effort commensurate to the return, and in this will be seen to perform beyond the immediate value in order to achieve whatever might lie beyond the horizon, and in so doing no doubt achieve nothing for its efforts at times while greatly amassing reward beyond measure at others. It is just this principle that drives the taproots to their periodic efforts, connecting and achieving such communion at those rare times and for brief periods of union until one world-plate or the other is soon wrenched slowly away by another approaching on its own shell, its couple soon broken with its erstwhile mate of the pair.
Some over-reaching dreamers speak on such matters, imagining such great engineering feats as to rival the ancients, to affix artificial taproots of our own manufacture to those stable points that seem to harbor some lulling force in the world-plates' travels, hence permitting congress without awaiting any two world-plates' vertical alignment between shells.
Indeed I commend such fancies to the future, the world of tomorrow as it might be. I cannot speak to the complexities and challenges of such endeavors, noting only that even the question of strength of materials alone issues its own silent warning.
As it stands, I believe that our greatest hope lies in harnessing those mysterious geysers of power as we see launching aloft bodies of ichor on occasion. Of course, as we see from the simple observation of travel and transportation along the taproots, the natural air all around thins some as we reach ourselves farther from any world-plate. Only those hardiest of souls can make such transits unfazed, to say nothing of unscathed, though some hope is offered by those most peculiar denizens that choose to remain thereon, undaunted by the conditions, and unthwarted by the lack of resources. To them I say, to borrow your idiom, “Good show, man, good show!” That being said, however, it returns us to the sobering thought of how one might best make use of the geysers. That they have the power to launch forth a significant mass from world-plate to world-plate is demonstrated, but leaves open the question of survival en route. Even relegating them to mere cargo presents great issue with the acceleration, but to consider passenger travel compounds matters exponentially — food, air, bodily needs. Some advanced designs have been passed around, more indulgent fantasy than serious proposal, most centering on bathyspheres. Some even advance ridiculous notions of such aeronauts plying trade courses over and between the worlds, if one can imagine such hubris! Whether anything might ever come of such flights of fancy is a question for future generations, but such fevered images leave me questioning the authors' full sanity and indeed almost proffer that their interests might best be served in Arkham Asylum, even with such maundering of strange doings as surrounds the area, indeed the whole of the region surrounding that damnable Miskatonic University of theirs, steeping the casual observer in a sense of foreboding and doom, and luring too many an unwary student into absinthe fueled delusions and hallucinations.
Such comings and goings as one might see as great airships pull fast or weigh anchor, their swarthy navvies setting sails and such, their mighty gears driven ever onward by the most powerful of steam and finest of clockworks, these grab hold of the blood, heating it with a such mesmeric power as to risk carrying one away. It is incumbent on us, therefore, to resist these moments of frivolity, to bring them under our control and maintain an even keel. What wonder might spring from them can only be dreamed, never realized, and leave the soul yearning for that that is not and can never be. I commend you to a life of fortitude and cool logic, without that one should give weight to such musings and be brought low.
Exploration and colonization — and exploitation — of other world-plates is a dream with some enticement, and if some way could be found to exploit other worlds, then rest assured that we will find it. The one thing more sure than the laws of physics is the greed of man, and woe be unto any native lifeforms living out there upon our arrival. Such also leaves open the question of warfare: those standing at the lower shells might enjoy some greater warmth and closer neighbors, but only as long as those in higher shells continue to tolerate their existence. Simple kinetic bombardment offers itself, if nothing else, and where there is a difference, there you find war.
There are those, I should also mention, who turn their eyes toward the other worlds and think and ponder, wondering if life might exist on them. To consider, in all sobriety, what might lurk beneath us in the darkest recesses of the world, and in sound accordance with the best of our scientific knowledge, applying further some extrapolation of current technologies, is itself no light matter, but still within the purview of sensibility. Indeed it would be some wonder indeed were we to have reached the heights that we have without that grain of imagination that goads us on to discovery.
Certainly it's conceivable, but one could as easily conceive of invisible pink unicorns for all that it helps. If life indeed exists elsewhere in the shells, then surely it is constrained to only that one blessed with temperance of conditions, as is our own. That our seven neighbors could, in principle, support life is unassailable in the face that our very own stands as just such an example. At most, one might imagine steaming jungles parboiling any pitiful attempts at life on les Aphroditian shell worlds, and a sere hot desert on either of those in le Hermetian. Conversely, such reasoning might bring one to picture frozen deserts in the distant next shell, la Barsoomian. Whether life could once have existed on the fanciful worlds of that empty penultimate inner shell is to count angels on pinheads, one forbears mention of this in prudence and understanding the limited cognition of those of lesser wisdom.
Indeed, are we meant to believe, as some impious wish to suggest, that even now in these last years of the nineteenth century, this world is being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than our own, and that as we busy ourselves about our various concerns we are scrutinized and studied, perhaps as narrowly as we with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water?
C'est de la merde !
Think on these matters, consider carefully their ramifications, and we will speak again soon. For now, I bid you fare well, as I'm off to the kabaddi finals and plan to tour the exposition tomorrow in search of something sound to spark the mind, and leave you with this, hoping in good faith that it finds you well, of sober mind, and in good health and good time.
Your doting and ever-concerned uncle,
Jules Gabriel Verne
O ~~~ O