Break Moe's Brain: Undead Sun
By Casca
She appeared before the Council, wreathed in flames of agony. "My solar
tether has fallen!" she wailed, her tears burning prophecies of doom in
flaming script as they struck the floor. "It is now in the hands of the
Usurper. Soldekai is dead in the Spirit. A blasphemous new cruelty is now
birthed upon the Earth." She turned as she spoke, rage and grief fighting
for eminence in her voice, looking each Archangel and councilmember in the
eye. Rage won.
"This is your fault!" she accused the Council as a whole. "You, who would
not help me in my pain and madness and grief! You, who would rather not rock
the boat! You, whose petty politics are more important than the well-being
of an Archangel! You have all brought this upon yourselves!" She was
positively shrieking now. "They have slain the Sun and raised it in unlife!
THIS IS UPON ALL YOUR HEADS!"
After she had departed, silence filled the chamber. "The sun shines on both
the just as the unjust," murmured Yves.
It all started when Belial and Saminga started talking about the Good Old
Days: Human sacrifice, murder cults, burning alive at the stake. Saminga
noted that humans have an easier time committing atrocities when they can
rationalize it, and the easiest form of rationalization is "It's necessary
for survival." He savored the irony, especially.
Belial countered that it was much easier back then, as the humans didn't
have a global community to provide support and humanitarian aid.
"Threaten the globe", Saminga riposted.
Belial allowed as how that had been tried during the cold war. "Ah, nukes.
So wonderfully destructive. Like focusing the sun on a single point..."
"Bah, the sun," sneered Saminga. "Giver of life. If only there were a way to
kill it....."
The two Princes looked up at the same time. "Vapula," they announced
simultaneously, and went to see the Genius Prince.
The plan was devilishly simple. Saminga recalled all Coffins of Undeath and
transported them to Tartarus. There, Vapula would construct a framework
large enough to encompass the Sun and incorporating the Coffins into its
design. Necromantic rituals would be bound into the frame, turning it into a
sun-size Coffin.
Belial would ensure the Superscalar Coffin would not be consumed by the
Sun's fire. When the design was complete, the Solar Tomb (as Saminga dubbed
it) would be transported around the sun. At the stroke of midnight (any
midnight... it didn't matter, as midnight is based on the position of Earth
relative to the Sun, and the Sun doesn't move), it would be transformed
into..... THE GREATEST UNDEAD THE SYMPHONY WILL EVER SEE, AND ALL WILL
TREMBLE BEFORE ITS TERRIBLE MAJESTY!!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHH!!!!!
(*ahem* Thank you, Saminga. Go play with your Neil Gaiman dolls.)
... transformed into a Zombi.
Yes, a Zombi Sun.
Stop looking at me like that.
Sidebar: How the $#!% do you zombify a sun?
It's playing fast and loose with canon, but it's just this side of possible.
Consider this:
- Everything in the Symphony is made of Forces. Corporeal things like
rocks, trees....Suns.... are made of Corporeal Forces. Sometimes lots and
lots of Corporeal Forces.
- Apparently, all you need to become a Zombi are Corporeal Forces. A
corpse, which is nothing but Corporeal Forces, can be zombified.
- It's a stretch, but the Sun can be thought of as alive in a certain
sense. It was born from stellar gases; it lives and consumes its fuel; when
that fuel is consumed, it dies. Symbolically and metaphorically, it has to
be alive: how can something that is identified with life and life-giving
properties by all of humanity not be alive in some figurative sense?
- It's a combination of Necromantic ritual and Vaputech (a kind of black
magic in its own right.) and has the loving attention of three Demon
Princes, as well as the Prince of Darkness. That's enough of a handwave for
just about anything.
The only problem was how to get it there in the first place.
As a celestial artifact, it could be carried along in celestial form, then
materialized when in position. However, the Disturbance would be
significant, and given the distances involved the invaders would be detected
before they were in place, and the angels at the tether would be able to
mount an effective defense, with Gabriel being invoked the moment a Demon
Prince made his presence known.
The Song of Celestial Motion was dismissed as being too Essence-intensive;
while each Prince certainly had enough to move the Solar Tomb, such an act
would leave him weakened, and weakened Princes become dead Princes. The
possibility of sharing the burden was likewise unfeasible, as the only thing
the three could trust each other to do was finding a way of contributing
less and exploiting that advantage.
It was about this time Lucifer wandered by and offered his assistance.
The Sun, he explained, is as much about Light as it is about Fire. He once
had a tether there, millennia ago. Perhaps if he... persuaded... it, it
would reopen, however briefly.
Sunspots? You bet. What, you thought patches of darkness on an otherwise
bright, life-giving object weren't sufficiently symbolic?
Care and Feeding of your Zombi Sun
All Zombis have needs. This one is no exception, and it's a doozy: Human
Sacrifice. A human ritually burned alive at the stake, actually. Otherwise,
the Sun takes a body hit every 24 hours.....
Naturally, this Need won't be detected at first. But as the Sun takes
damage, its 'lifespan' shortens, and it burns through its fuel faster.
Pretty soon, the Sun will begin its transformation to Red Giant many
billions of years ahead of schedule, and you can bet the scientific
community is going to sit up and take notice.
Once the panic has reached hysterical proportions, key servants of Infernal
Fire and Death will begin influencing the death cults which pop up in every
crisis. They will be able to give scientific proof that ritualistic human
sacrifice is needed to appease the Sun God, and the only way for the human
race to survive is to propitiate this hungry god.
Belial is happy is because humans are being burned alive. He also gets to
hurt Gabriel even more, by perpetuating a great cruelty upon the world. And, in perverting the Sun into a scorching destroyer, he takes her greatest
tether from her.
Vapula is happy because when they're not sacrificing themselves, the humans
are worshipping at the altar of Technology in the hopes of colonizing
another planet and/or halting the sacrifices.
Saminga is happy because human sacrifice is widespread and
institutionalized. Oh, and he's just made an undead with it's own gravity
well.
And, come to think of it: don't vampires have a Vulnerability to sunlight? I
wonder what happens if that sunlight comes from an Undead Sun.....
Pleasant Dreams. >:)
I'd like to thank everyone who helped me create this vile abomination: the
darkwave band Upbeat Depression, whose song "Dead Sun" I mis-read and
started me down this line of thought; EDG, whose comments on my "Forces
Question" post nicely obfuscated my intent, while still enabling me to get
the answers I sought; and Cathy King and Ruth Evers, two of my players,
whose minds I broke when I described the rough draft of this idea to them
(on Holy Saturday, of all days).
I'd really like to be able to thank God as well, but I suspect He has far
too much class and taste to want to be associated with a project such as
this.
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