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It is illogical to search for the light, to find it, to pretend Vulcan is still there.
And yet …
The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second. The luminosity of a planet is a simple computation as measured by distance from its star. Therefore, although Vulcan is destroyed, faster-than-light travel would allow us to visit a planetoid far enough away that, within the night sky, we could perceive Vulcan as whole.
So we travel.
We go outside and look up in the darkness.
The light of Vulcan is amid the constellations.
We remember. We hurt. We remember even though it hurts. We are here to remember.
We are the lightkeepers of Vulcan.
We search for the light.
***
On Earth, the light of Vulcan lacks the luminosity of the much closer Venus or Mars. But with distance is endurance, a trick of mathematics allowing sunlight that shone upon a once-whole planet to continue to travel as reflected light through space. The planet is gone. There will be no new light of Vulcan. But the light of the past remains visible.
We fashion telescopes, old-fashioned arcs of glass through which to view the light of our world.
Schoolchildren from New Vulcan visit. They look through the arcs of glass to see what is theirs, a world they never knew, a world that endures only in light and memory.
It is illogical that we prefer telescopes to sensors, that we wish to see with our own eyes the light of the planet where our people began, warred, followed the teachings of Surak, and found peace.
We cannot glimpse the dusty reds of Mount Seleya.
We cannot feel the chill of the meditative underground of the T’Karath Sanctuary.
We cannot hear the low-toned conversations of the busy markets of the ShiKahr District.
But we can see the glow of our planet, high in the sky of another world.
We are the lightkeepers of Vulcan.
We search for the light.
***
The annual day of remembrance is on the 24th day of the month of Tasmeen. The stardate is unimportant. Our calendar, created on our world, marks our passage of time.
The light of Vulcan vanishes from Earth. Too many years have passed. This distance no longer protects the light.
We travel farther, telescopes packed into storage containers, another solar system with a view of our planet that is no longer there.
It remains illogical to search for the light, to find it, to keep watch over our myth-home of Vulcan in the darkened sky of another world and another and another.
Our ever-changing location becomes a pilgrimage. Schoolchildren from New Vulcan look through arcs of glass as their parents did before them. They see a world they never knew, a world that endures only in light and memory.
Our telescopy innovations become known, and species approach us to consult on constructing observatories. We lend our knowledge, for we are seekers of the light, bringers of the light, finders of the light.
We share the light.
When the light of Vulcan vanishes again, we travel farther, farther, another solar system, another. Many of us never knew our home planet, but we perform this work in memory, in honor, in reverence.
We are the lightkeepers of Vulcan.
We search for the light.
***
It happened to our ancestors, the destruction of our planet, Vulcan, the planet that has been gone for centuries. Yet it also happened to us, the loss of our world that has become a pale light in far away skies.
We have never glimpsed the dusty reds of Mount Seleya.
We have never felt the meditative underground of the T’Karath Sanctuary.
We have never heard the low-toned conversations within the busy markets of the ShiKahr District.
But we watch the night sky, and we remember.
Our telescopy innovations have resulted in observatories across Federation space, yet schoolchildren from New Vulcan make their pilgrimage to us, to look through arcs of glass to see our world that endures only in light and memory.
Remembrance is logical. We will continue to watch the skies.
For we are the lightkeepers of Vulcan.
We search for the light.
***
A processional of ships brings those from New Vulcan who wish to witness the upcoming event, an accurate prediction of millenia-old computations.
We assemble on a planet, the last planet before the nebula will swallow any light of Vulcan that could have proceeded farther.
We watch the night sky.
We look through curved glass and we see the light that was once the reds of Mount Seleya, the meditative underground of the T’Karath Sanctuary, the busy markets of the ShiKahr District.
We remember.
The light shines.
There is a flicker.
The light is gone, an emptiness in the sky.
The light …
the light …
the light …
the light of Vulcan is no longer visible.
However, the light of Vulcan endures.
The light of Vulcan is within our people. Every Vulcan possesses the memories taught from generation to generation. Every Vulcan knows to bow our heads for the loss of the light we had first seen as schoolchildren looking through curved glass, and every Vulcan knows to honor the light.
For we are the lightkeepers of Vulcan.
We search for the light.