okay so we all agree that scifi often draws parallels between space and the ocean, right? like, starships, and captains, and crew. right? well now consider:
tales of space leviathans - great glowing serpents and nebulaeic kraken and celestial whales, dismissed by most as the feverish hallucinations of those stricken by madness developed from months or even years of isolation in the void, but believed by others who conduct expeditions and send out probes fitted with recording equipment in the hopes of capturing a glimpse of conclusive evidence of these elusive beasts
ghost starships, populated by skeletal crews of men lost in one of the many legendary battles fought across space and time. sometimes a ship will report seeing a vessel that has been MIA for aeons, or run off-course into dangerous territory, drawn by a distress signal with no physical source; the echoes of the sins of the past.
space atlantis - legends of ‘lost’ planets and civilizations; some say they were destroyed, others that they were crushed under the weight of their own hubris, others still that they developed technology advanced enough to hide themselves and any signs of life from even the most sensitive ship’s scanners. they are the object of both scorn and fascination in the scientific community.
areas of intrigue and foreboding, where vessels sometimes enter and never return; the equivalent of our ocean’s bermuda triangle - treacherous asteroid belts whose dense gaseous fog rings make navigating them a suicide mission; uncharted planets and sectors whose inhabitants don’t take kindly to strangers they catch trespassing; areas where communication equipment fails and ships’ systems are affected in unpredictable ways, leading vessels to drop off the map and reappear, if they do at all, in unexpected locations via an unknown trajectory.
space pirates (being ‘tossed out of the airlock’ is equivalent to walking the plank)
space lighthouses - ancient stations built on uninhabited moons and asteroids, run by old, eccentric spacers too attached to their spacefaring ways to retire peacefully and consign themselves to solid ground and content themselves with looking up at the stars they once used to roam. some serve as rest points for crews on long voyages, while others are rumored to be haunted, or fallen into disrepair.
spaceship junkyards, floating in uninhabited areas or dumped on scarcely populated planets, stripped clean of any useful parts by scavengers looking to make some coin or repair and improve their own vehicles.
black holes = space whirlpools
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