Well to be fair they aren't too dissimilar from planetary nebulae, as they almost always look mathematical and are usually very symmetrical. Here's a selection of random ones I just made in my app, they use the same velocity maps so don't expect the colours to be different, and for most of them I only used 50k points so they aren't as high res as my others(calculating takes time!).
Here's a pic of real-life planetary nebulae, though the colours are different they aren't too far off, with a bit of distance based noise they could be quite similar.
http://lithops.as.arizona.edu/~jill/EPO/Posters/PlanetaryNebula/pnepic.gif
Also, the other day someone told me my storyline sucked
, and that it was too far-fetched. So yesterday I rewrote it, hopefully it explains things a bit better(though it's still a bit far-fetched
). There is more to the storyline, but that will be covered in-game as players play it.
The year is 2358, the human race has expanded greatly in the past century to the point where the solar system is the only barrier for further advancement. For decades scientists have been theorising viable means of long distance travel to nearby stars and only recently with the discovery of subspace has such a task been possible. Subspace, a plane of existence that theoretically has no concept of distance or time is a huge breakthrough as it has the potential to allow instantaneous travel to anywhere in the galaxy or universe. Initial short distance subspace jumps within our solar system have been carried out without fault, years after its discovery it was finally time to test long range subspace jumps. From the birth of subspace technology construction on a deep space science vessel has been under way, the Exodus(may change). Designed to be propelled into the nearby Alpha Centauri star system it would take extensive readings of local space and utilizing a self-contained subspace module would jump back to earth with this new data in the hopes of expanding mankind's reach among the stars.
The Exodus' mission was designed to only last 7, soon after its departure strange solar activity had been detected which could have played a part in the Exodus' failure to return as it's since been 3 years from its departure. The unusual solar activity couldn't be explained by scientists, the sun was simply exhausting fuel millions of times faster than it should be and would soon expand making life inhospitable on all colonized planets. Months passed with no reduction in the drastic depletion of the sun's Hydrogen supplies, many people fled the solar system via conventional space craft, some risked the new subspace teleportation. As the last of the colonists from the Mercurian space station departed for Earth it was destroyed by an unknown means. Several of the last departees claim to have seen objects of unknown description emitting weapons fire toward the station, but these rumours quickly died down in favour of solar flares destroying it. Weeks later the Venusian space station and shipyard suffered a similar fate but due to the reduced solar interference detailed scans were transmitted back to Earth, they depict a large group of vessels destroying the colony.
By now the truth that the human race was under attack by an enemy with far superior technology was unquestionable. Hundreds of nuclear weapons were delivered using the subspace teleportation network to Venus' orbit in the hopes of destroying the aggressors as their next target was most likely Earth where most of the population was stationed. This tactic initially seemed to work as there was no detectable activity around Venus for a month, until hundreds of ships larger than anything of Human design appeared in orbit of the planet, from orbit the enemy fleet systematically leveled cities with ease. Our space defense technology and fleet were far out gunned and did no damage against their colossal vessels, as the enemy fleet was in range of several subspace nodes the only way to rid the enemies would be to teleport them away from the planet, the destination was not calculated so they'd likely get catapulted anywhere in the galaxy. The subspace network activated and began locking onto each ship and teleporting them, this worked for several ships until they turned their weapons fire attention to the nodes, the weapons however did not destroy the nodes but electrocuted it causing the satellites to overload. Combined the network encapsulated earth in a subspace bubble, once the bubble was fully formed the solar system around Earth vanished, hundreds of stars flew by, many of them turning into supernovas until finally the power in the subspace network was fully depleted.
Earth was ejected into a dense plasma field, slowly drifting through space. The field was too dense to get any readings about where they were but once new ships were built with short range sub-light jump drives, scouting missions were sent out. They were able to find they were in high orbit above a white dwarf, though the local constellations could not be identified. Several stars were very close to their current one and scouting missions to them were undertaken. The scout ships were able to cross the void between stars using multiple short range jumps. Upon scouting these systems hundreds and thousands of alien vessels of multiple configurations were spotted over several days, none were similar to what had previously attacked Earth so after several months of careful observation first contact was made. A Human scout party was sent to one of the busy areas of the solar system and other than scanning the vessels, the aliens didn't seem interested in the Human ships. Contact was made to a large structure orbiting the first planet, numerous attempts were made to contact the station but it yielded no reply. The scout party jumped back to Earth explaining that contact had failed when suddenly a single ship of similar design to the station appeared in orbit. It took several detailed scans of the destroyed cities on the surface and began broadcasting in all Human languages to Earth.
They explained that they were a race called the Sopharan and from sensor logs taken from the attacks that a race called the Svarog had attacked them. Their logs don't have an entry for the Sol system based on our astrometric data but when a search including time was performed the attack likely occurred over 8 billion years ago, they explained that the network was not configured properly for long distance travel and were very close to being destroyed from such a risky uncalculated jump. They transmitted a recent star map showing the sectors the Svarog had taken over showing only a handful of safe systems which were populated. The Sopharans agreed to provide protection to Earth in its new home, but it was unlikely they would be attacked by the Svarog due to being so close to the core Sopharan systems and the dense plasma field making sensors highly distorted.
