Eientei GensokyoBoard

Silence. Cold, unbroken silence. That was the name of the blanket that had been wrapped around the star system ever since its original period of creation had ended, and its star and planets had calmed down after an eternity of stellar turmoil filled with planetary collisions, orbital shifts, and asteroid buckshot. The star stood at the centre, shining rather dimly, a blood red light that enveloped all that faced this glowing ball of heat. Around it orbited 8 planets of varying size and composition, formed eons ago, forged from dust, debris, and sheer heat into massive balls of stone, metal and gas, bearing surfaces formerly covered in vast oceans of molten material, oceans that have long since grown cold and solid. Even those planets so close to the star that their atmospheres were heated up to hundreds of degrees, the surface underneath cleansed of all life by the scorching power of the red light, were mere shadows of their former selves when it came to temperature alone, the mind-boggling temperatures of the past making several hundreds of degrees seem like mere child’s play. Undisturbed serenity had been achieved over time, a natural process that applied to most standard star systems that had left their turbulent formation behind, and had yet to reach the eventual, often violent death of their star, and in part of the cases, their entire system. As with most things in existence, however, outside meddling tends to enjoy disrupting serenity to varying extents.

It all started with a ripple, a brief wave seemingly within the very fabric of the universe itself, sweeping through the system. It was a rather harmless wave, one that at best disrupted the appearance of things for a brief period of time. Then, a bright, purple flash, its appearance masking the sudden creation of a cloud-shielded rift, torn into spacetime roughly in the middle of the gap between the small, red star and the outermost planet of the system. A sleek, ornate bow pierced through the clouds, followed by a second, and a third, and soon after, innumerable more, the harbingers of the vessels they were part of. Strange vessels most definitely, painted either clean white, crimson, scarlet, carmine, or imperial red, covered in ornate gold and silver parts, and bearing superstructure constructed in a style quite peculiar for a space vessel, with rows upon rows of purple-black banners adorning each and every single hull. There was a certain beauty that radiated off of these elaborate vessels, an aura of magnificence, of riches, and of nobility; vessels owned and commanded by unknown entities that enjoyed vast luxuries, no doubt. Their appearance was something capable of making its onlookers highly curious of the possible interior of these marvelous creations, a curiosity that often intertwined itself with imagination, fantasies of walking the grandeur most likely contained within these peculiar hulls, and enjoying the unimaginably wide array of luxuries that came with it. Quite magnificent indeed.

And yet, this arrival wasn’t just one of beauty. Along with the enigmatic fleet and the feeling of wonder it invoked, there was a feeling of dread. Horrible, disgusting, instinctive dread, for in the vessels’ wake followed a pandemonium of sounds: the sounds of chatter, of music, of dinner, of dancing, of footsteps, and above all, sounds of laughter. Loud, garbled laughter, produced by many, and seeming to have originated straight from the spoken gibberish of a raving madman, there was something about this mass expression of enjoyment that gave it an innate, underlying wrongness, as if this enjoyment was caused by acts either so deprived or so alien that it seemed as if those who attempted to imagine the worlds within for too long without proper protection would sooner or later be lost to their thoughts forever, mumbling and rambling about things too horrible or too foreign for normal minds to cope with.

What most definitely didn’t help alleviate this dread was the peculiarity of the superstructure of these vessels; their basic appearance seemed like a blend between old palaces and old mansions^[1] combined with something more fitting for vessels meant to cruise the dark void of space, complete with armament, yet there was something about this combination that seemed...off. Or rather, unfitting, for what kind of force creates luxurious space vessels of such an ornate design, yet also seems to have designed these same vessels with the goal of being warships, their armament way too heavy for anything even remotely resembling a luxury cruiser? What reason could one have to create this strange amalgamation instead of luxurious vessels with a powerful escort. After all, every bit of space taken up by luxuries is space that could’ve been used for military applications, and vice versa, logically leaving one with a subpar design that is supposed to be both and doesn’t shine as either. It was a nonsensical design in that regard, something that a sane designer would’ve never let progress beyond concept designs meant as thought experiment; the mere fact that in that otherwise calm system floated a fleet of things that really shouldn’t logically have been built was strange at best, and worrisome, perhaps mildly sinister, at worst.

The fleet of alien splendour was on the move, uncaring, perhaps even unknowing of whatever dreadful wonder it had the potential of causing. It flew past planets: frozen planets, gas giants, barren worlds, all were left untouched by the fleet, its vessels bearing no apparent interest in surveying any of them, heading straight for the star instead. With its decorated hulls bathing in blood red light, gold and silver brightly shimmering, a course was plotted across the galaxy. It was a strange course, quite erratic even, zigzagging across one half of the galactic disk, before flying straight over the galactic core to continue said zigzag across the other half. A crackle, a flash, and the fleet was gone, off to continue their illogical galactic journey, revelling in luxury, filling the void with laughter and music wherever they went.

Another wave echoed through the star system as the fleet left. No, not a wave, but a shudder.