Chapter Text
Astronomers reported earlier this week that the comet Tiamat will be returning on its 240 year orbit around the solar system to make a close pass by Earth.
“Tiamat is a dear friend to Earth,” said the astronomer being interviewed. “It has passed us by many times throughout history. While comets have historically been seen as a bad omen, a sign of disaster, we now know that they are an astronomical phenomenon with no superstitious influence on life here on Earth.”
The headlines scrolling beneath him read, “Shen Corp stocks fall as founders take a step back from the business — Comet Tiamat buzzes by Earth during the Mid-Autumn Festival — Youtuber giant breaks international law in new video.”
“The comet’s orbit is well known and studied, and will not have a direct impact on Earth despite its proximity. We have determined that it will makes its closest pass on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, but it will be clearly visible to the naked eye in the weeks approaching and following the holiday. Halley’s Comet will seem like a smudge in the sky compared to the beauty of Tiamat. Those with binoculars or amateur astronomers with their own telescopes are recommended to head out to a dark place and see the comet for themselves starting tonight.”
“And when will the best time to view the comet be?”
“As it makes its closest approach, so the Mid-Autumn Festival. For those traveling this holiday, I recommend heading out of the city to the countryside. This is a once in a millennia event.”
A young woman scrolled through endless blog pages, her screen reflected brightly in her glasses. Pausing for a moment, she took a sip from a big foam cup with a long, red straw.
With a definitive click, she leaned back, her computer chair groaning.
“Well?” said the girl sitting on the bed behind her. The two girls were in a shared dorm room, two captain-style beds running parallel with only a meter and a half of space between them.
“None of the planetary scientists have posts about it on their blogs,” the girl at the computer responded. “Youtubers? Sure, everyone is excited. The people who actually make the calculations? Career scientists and hobbyist amateurs who use the NEO database? Radio silence.”
There was a pause. The only sound was from a group of feminine voices, muffled, passing outside their room. The sun shone brightly through the single window.
“It’s only the modern day Halley’s Comet,” the girl on the bed scoffed. “These people should be all over it.”
“You’d think so,” the other opened the most prolific blogger’s site on the internet archive. Since news broke about Tiamat, the page hadn't even been archived.
It was a once in a lifetime event, and yet the news had only hosted astrophysicists with hardly any knowledge on planetary science talk about Tiamat. Only physics department professors focused on subparticle physics and the like. No astrophysicists with planetary science colleagues, no planetary scientists themselves, just people who liked to hear the sound of their own voice as they made vague approximations. They weren't the people doing the real math involved in calculating orbits and trajectories.
The typical figures who gush about this sort of thing were silent. They weren’t even posting about plans to go see the thing.
How close would Tiamat come, exactly? No one seemed to want to say, despite near-earth objects being something that the news loved to gush about when it seemed like something would come close.
It was highly suspicious.
Why were they silent on the specifics of Tiamat, exactly?
Taking a deep breathe, the girl at the computer restarted it, mashing a key violently as it rebooted. With a few clicks, her computer’s operating system had changed.
“Eh? How’d you do that?” her roommate asked.
“It’s called dual-booting,” said the girl at the computer. “I can show you how it works later if you’re interested, but you only really need to do it if you need to be flexible with your OS.”
The girl on the bed wrinkled her nose. “Right, that computer science junk. Listen, I’m going to go grab some food. Want anything?”
“Noodles, please,” the girl at the computer responded. Once again, her glasses were alight with the reflected light of her browser.
The other girl squinted. Her roommate was using a different browser, maybe Chrome doesn’t work with her niche computer setup? It didn't look like Firefox either, though. Shrugging it off, she left, heavy door slamming behind her.
Glancing at the door and back, the girl at the computer sighed. She navigated to one of the sketchiest forums she knew and searched: Tiamat. Mostly the same nonsense as on the rest of the internet, of course. She cleared her search and refresheed.
There. At the top of the forum’s most recently updated threads.
So, about Bahamut…
The following conversation was vaguely worded, using coded language to step around what the users were actually saying. It was enough to get around the censors.
There were a lot of numbers. References to code that had been scraped off the internet, but could be recreated with a undergraduate’s knowledge of orbital dynamics and coding.
Two points in orbit around a massive, central point. Their paths crossed, but with enough distance separating them that there was no worry they would interact.
The girl at the computer thought, brow wrinkling. She added in some physics. One point lost mass over time, shifting its orbital dynamics. More than two massive points orbited the center, influencing the orbit of the smallest point. She made the points have a physical radius. Suddenly, the closest approach seemed a lot, lot closer.
Maybe close enough to collide. But also, maybe not.
The smallest of the points would just barely glance the cross-section at closest approach. Enough to graze the atmosphere. But it was moving fast, it could escape.
Maybe it was nothing to worry about. Maybe it was.
She went back to the forum post. Scrolled. Thought.
Her roommate came back with food.
“So?” she asked, chopsticks aloft. “What’s the verdict?”
“I think I’m going to convince my family to go out to the country for the Mid-Autumn Festival.” The girl at the desk took a foam cup of hot noodles from her roommate.
“That bad, huh?”
“Well, it’s not the end of life as we know it,” she shrugged, slurping up a long noodle. “But, wherever it hits won’t be having a good time.”