Creating Stars
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For a long time when I first conceptualised my idea of what the star system of Kalla, I had no way of recreating it. What do the star and blackhole look like? How do I describe it?
Back then in the early 2000s I could grab a few pictures of the internet of what an artists impression of things might be. I had the pictures in my head, the pictures I’d found, and then I would try and write what I thought I would see.
Now that is so different. With Space Engine (www.spaceengine.org) and other similar tools, it’s been possible to begin to visually recreate the star systems I had in mind. Space Engine especially helps with this. I’ve been able to recreate almost everything I need completely, allowing me to take some nice screenshots (as is seen at the start of this post) and to let me really plan and map out what would happen in a star system, what is realistic, etc.
I began in November to work on plotting where I needed Kalla to be, and then start working on some of the star systems nearby that had featured in my first novel, or that were in my short stories. Now I wanted to share some pictures of some of the scenes or views that have featured in my writing up to this time.
The image at the top of the page is a view of the seventh planet (Kalla-7) that is in orbit around the main two stars of that star system, Kalla-A (a blackhole) and Kalla-B (a red supergiant). This is featured in an upcoming short storie I’m completing called ‘Chase’ (in the Academy series). The idea of a dual ‘sun’ rise is something I think must be the most beautiful sight to behold.
This next image is one of the moons that features in another upcoming short story called ‘Entombed’ (also from the Academy series). Less visually stunning than the Kalla one, I still think being able to observe the gas giant planets in a system from their moons must be beautiful. Here this image helped me visualise the scene from the moon that the main characters would see and react to.
In the next novel, and briefly mentioned in Empire, Mukari is mentioned. It’s more distant that Kalla is from Earth, the night sky completely alien to any person from earth. In this picture you can see an active volcano as well as the aurora visible on many planets.
Mukari is important in that it is one of the most distant outposts (at the time of the current stories) from Kalla. The second novel features a journey and that needs to be mapped out in a way that keeps consistency. Stars are seldom lined up in a specific direction, but they are off at angles, allowing for shortcuts and various different routes to travel between them.
Recreating these locations helps me to keep a consistency that is important in my stories, keep them bordering on reality, despite being science fiction.
With this project, my plan is to put together some posts from time to time that show the places that can be seen, allowing me to put pictures to the words and ideas of my mind.
Let me know what you think. 🙂