Y-33N - Part 1 (Patreon Commission for VDO)

TAGS: A VDO Story, Growth/Expansion, Continuous Growth, Ascension/Goddess, Literal Impossibility

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The completion of the Y-33N Hyperobject in the center of the Pandemonium galactic megacluster was, in many respects, nothing more than the logical endpoint of what had been a long-ongoing process. What the scientific community had deemed to be a pipe dream, possible only millenia in the future, assuming complete and total unrestricted cooperation between all constituent species of the Assembly… had been projected, drafted, and constructed in just under twelve standard months.

The sheer scale of it was such that it altered cosmology on an appreciable level; the amount of mass necessary to even construct the Hyperobject had consumed multiple satellite galaxies, the population of which offered to relocate onto the artificial construct after being informed of what it would serve to do. The gravitational pull of it was so gargantuan that absurd quantities of negative mass had to be employed in order to prevent the entire thing from collapsing into a galaxy-sized singularity; even then, every other structure in the megacluster was now effectively orbiting the Hyperobject, serving as it did as the “throne” to the intergalactic community.

It was at once an engineering project on a scale never before thought, and a means to bring the multiple individual mega-polities of Pandemonium together in the service of a greater goal. For centuries already, the greatest scientific minds had been proposing an expansion to the hyperdimensional travel system, via the construction of an artificial “hub” in the relative center of the cluster; rather than having to bounce around multiple galaxies to get to one’s destination, anyone could travel to this central cluster and then simply pick a destination.

The material and generational requirements, however, made it prohibitively expensive, and whenever the idea was brought up, it was almost as quickly put back on the shelf as a pie in the sky, hopeless dream by hopeless romantics, who were definitely not aware of the simple, logistical reality of such a hyperproject. And indeed, no one believed it was possible… at least, until she came along.

Rumblings were heard throughout subspace when the ascension first began, though none alive in the galactic megacluster could make heads or tails of it. The signatures were too exotic, too wildly out of line with understood physics to be real; most assumed it had to be some form of hyper-boosted “pirate signal”, an attempt by one of the intergalactic “trade consortiums” to hijack parts of the hyperlane network to avoid detection by authorities. It wasn’t until news arrived of a new “divine cult” springing up in a relative backwater system in one of the many galaxies of Pandemonium that most people began to piece together what had happened.

Not that they knew what it was; intellectually, at least, no one had any real idea what this “cult” was about, nor who they worshipped, nor even what the purpose of it was. Intellectually, very few people could know; as much as intergalactic society was brought together by technology that the near totality of it could barely understand, there were still limitations: travel between galaxies took months to years depending on destination, and even hyperdrive navigation within each individual cosmic oasis was still highly dependent on local weather conditions, hyperlane stability, among other esoteric factors.

In practice, the only people who really knew about the hyena were those who either lived on the planet she did, or were close enough to it to be part of the same administrative sub-division; anyone else was effectively barred from knowing about her, at least until information began to be disseminated through the Infranet… and even then, it was hard to tell what was fact, fiction, or something else entirely.

And yet, this was no obstacle for information about the goddess to spread regardless, even without the help of subspace communication. Even if the vast majority of intergalactic society was, literally speaking, unaware of her existence or anything pertaining to it, they still “knew” she was there. Much in the same way one is aware that one exists, much in the same way one knew that gravity was a thing, much in the same way one knew that up was relative, they knew that she existed.

It became common knowledge, after a point, to understand that the hyena was real, she was just as powerful as people said she was, and that was just… normal. It wasn’t some grand revelation that shook the very foundation of existence itself as much as it was just an extension of one’s everyday life; one moment, they didn’t have a goddess to turn to, and the next, they did. It wasn’t that much of a shift, considering their day to day existence didn’t exactly change: they were still required to get up, perform labour, then go home to enjoy themselves before starting over. They still had friends, they still went out and did things that they wanted to do, they still performed annual check-ups; nothing changed, apart from the fact that now, they had a hyena goddess in the universe

At first, no one thought much of it. There were the obligatory dissenting voices, a handful of holdouts that, oddly enough, did not contest the existence of the yeen, but rather how and why everyone suddenly became aware of them; rather than pointing out that this might’ve been some dangerous shift in reality, they instead insisted on comprehending the phenomenon rather than simply accepting it as it was. For most others, this was seen less as an affront and more of a complete waste of time; did people run research projects to find out if water made things wet? Did scientists waste time confirming whether the colour red was, in fact, the colour red?

Or, instead, did they focus on more important subjects, things that they actually should be throwing money at, rather than the obvious? The yeen existed; this much was fact, and had been fact from the moment she ascended to her rightful place. To spend any amount of time or resources attempting to “comprehend” something that just was, to most people, came off as needlessly wasteful, especially now that they had to focus on more important matters.

Much like the yeen’s existence became public knowledge, so too did her intention… or, rather, what she figured would be a neat idea. She wasn’t at all an engineer, or an architect, or anyone with an advanced education in theoretical astrophysics; what she was was a goddess with a plan, and that plan was to bring all people of the megacluster together… because, frankly, everyone being so far apart was kind of boring and definitely a hassle, so if that whole “hub” idea could be brought to fruition, that’d be exceedingly neat, please and thank you.

Almost instantly, polities throughout Pandemonium universally agreed that the hub project should go forward. While initial plans were to create a subspace pocket dimension that all extragalactic hyperlanes would connect to, when the hyena’s physical form became apparent to all, so too did it become obvious that they were going to need a physical hub, one that could hold their goddess in perpetuity. It was less of a containment facility and more of a tourist attraction-slash-throne room for their deity; since most travellers would be going through the hub anyway, they might as well make it so immense that the yeen could reside within, so all could bask in her glory.

Thus, the Hyperobject project was born, and with it, the greatest mobilisation of resources that sentient life had ever seen. Ringworlds and Alderson Disks were as ants compared to the support structures that would have to be built, nevermind the Hyperobject itself once it was completed; there were rumours that some galaxies were even thinking of transferring their entire population over to the surface of Y-33N once it was completed, given that the amount of empty land provided would be almost incalculable. In fact, the entirety of the megacluster could, theoretically, shift their housing, industrial and manufacturing operations over to the Hyperobject and still only occupy less than one percent of its total surface area… so, why not?

As intergalactic society geared up to create something that most had decried as impossible mere days before, back on her homeworld, the yeen herself, along with her fiancée, was preparing to celebrate her first-year anniversary. It was coming up in just a couple of months, and both herself and her soon-to-be-hubby were getting busy reminiscing over how much had changed in such a short time. The goddess-ascendant was, at that point, only vaguely aware that the rest of Pandemonium had woken up to the reality of her existence; after going through her whole life being a goddess, other people noticing didn’t exactly register that easily.

She was, after all, perfect in every respect, so it was only natural that others would see it as that. Less of a humble brag and more of a simple observation: gravity pulled things together, the sky was purple, and she was a deity; spending any more time on this than the most perfunctory of amounts was… pointless? It’d be like trying to argue that down is down; maybe interesting for a minute subset of specialist physicists who could get a kick out of it, but entirely without meaning for the rest of sentient life.

So she was happy to just live her life as it was; having met her fiancée back when he was still a he, back when he was a snake in fact, it was fun being able to poke their snoot and have them practically purr back as the serotonin rush flooded their brain. The change was difficult to process at first; for someone used to being a certain form, a certain shape, a certain defined gender for most of his life, suddenly being taken in by the yeen’s mere presence was certainly a transformative experience.

Yet, simultaneously, they didn’t see it as an imposition, nor indeed a break with their old life; rather, up until meeting the yeen, the former snake had operated under certainties that remained unquestioned: of course he was a snake, and of course he was a he, that was just how things worked. Never once had he stopped to think if he was who he thought he was; it took him meeting her before the foundations on which he had built his life to crumble… but not completely.

It wasn’t as if they were shattered into pieces and left to put them back together at their own pace, with no one to help. Rather, the yeen had taken a sledgehammer to a surprisingly fragile worldview, one that, instead of having to be pieced back together, turned out to obscure a much grander perspective. Now, they weren’t a god; they might’ve been turned into a yeen in their love’s image, might’ve transcended the idea of a biological sex to adopt a form that could take all elements from all possible sides, and indeed were significantly more powerful than before… but they weren’t a god.

That title belonged exclusively to the love of their (presumably eternal) life, the sole entity in all of existence that could rightfully claim the title of goddess without anyone so much as beginning to question it. They themselves were, and quite luckily so, merely granted some fraction of the yeen’s power by sheer proximity, seeing as she’d picked them as her consort, the one person she wanted to spend eternity with. It was a complex dance; neither of them quite knew what was going to happen now that the divine spark had triggered an inferno of ever-growing proportions, but the one thing they did know was that they were there for one another, and that was the sole fact that held any importance.

For the rest of sentient life, things were far simpler: the yeen was a goddess, and thus had to be served. While at first this was almost exclusively practiced through simple acts of prayer and devotion, the longer the “cult” was allowed to spread its message, the more physical the worshipping itself became. It didn’t take more than a few days after the initial wave of epiphanic awakening for the first offerings to be made; the yeen woke up, opened her front door, and saw a large feast prepared for her outside the porch, along with an immense crowd of supplicants waiting for her to partake of the bounty.

Now, she wasn’t going to say no; declining a gift given in such magnanimousness would be rude, not to mention a waste of perfectly good food. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was a shortage of it; just as long as there was mass to dump into the matter manipulators, anyone could have whatever they wanted… that and electricity, but the orbital solar arrays took care of that. It wasn’t until the yeen started looking at the people praying towards her, however, that she noticed something was off: namely, they were all hungry.

This state of affairs was so alien to her, having lived in an effectively post-scarcity society for so long, that the mere notion that someone would go hungry was nigh-impossible for her to comprehend. Why, in that day and age, where anyone could walk up to a public fabricator and ask for a three-course meal, would anyone be hungry? The answer was, of course, maddeningly simple; she just didn’t want to accept it, because then it was her fault and she had to do something about that guilt she was feeling.

A closer look and a few choice words later, and the yeen was rubbing her eyes and temples while doing everything in her power to keep from screaming out in frustration. That her supplicants would bring her a feast, she fully understood; that they would starve themselves by bringing her their food? That much was unacceptable. Literally, they could do that and still eat as well; there was no reason why they couldn’t just snack on something along the way, if they were so insistent on bringing her as much sustenance as possible as quickly as possible! It was ludicrous, and she made sure her worshippers knew that much.

Not that the idea seemed to penetrate their thick skulls, so insulated by blind adoration as they were. The yeen spent a good hour or so actually trying to convince her congregation to please, please, please not starve themselves on her accord, and please take care of themselves before they attended to her… only to receive blank stares and a great deal of confused looks. It took her giving up and proclaiming a “divine order” for her worshippers to get onboard with it, which itself left the yeen rolling her eyes before she just shrugged, went along with it, then reentered her home.

Her partner, having watched the whole scene with a non-insignificant amount of perverse enjoyment, was there to remind her that this was… if not normal, then at least expected. Of course people were going to give up their basic needs if that meant worshipping her even more than before; half the time, they themselves had to look in the mirror and remember who they were just to keep from blindly following the yeen along, wasting away all the while.

A horrifying notion, and one the goddess would not entertain, regardless of how “natural” it felt to her followers. No, first order of business was very simple: issue a command, to anyone who might be listening, that they were not to starve themselves just to get her more food; eat, be merry, have a full stomach, and then, and only then, turn their attention towards her, end of story.

For the goddess yeen, this was a simple enough order; indeed, she couldn’t possibly imagine how it could ever be misconstrued. But she was herself, and everyone else was not; the sheer difference in perspective was too much for her to properly understand, and as such, something that came to her a perfectly reasonable and easy-to-comprehend order was almost immediately taken in the most extreme direction by just about everyone else.

Firstly, everyone in the megacluster became aware of this order at the same time; not just that, but they were aware that others became aware as well, creating a feedback loop where the divinity of their new goddess became self-evident, especially now that she had given out her first divine mandate for all to follow. Secondly, while her worshippers were somewhat taken aback by her commanding that they put anything else but the goddess on the top of their priority list, this was quickly worked around: they could still make it their number one goal to feed their goddess, just as long as everyone else was properly fed as well.

This was not mutually exclusive; quite the contrary, as it gave nutritionists and culinary scientists a reason to be let off the leash to experiment with highly unstable compounds and avenues of research that had long-since been deemed “too dangerous” for polite society. It had been centuries since the first recipe for a self-fattening food had been discovered; almost instantly, it was banned for fear of what it would do if the information leaked out into the greater intergalactic community, especially when in the wrong hands.

The concept itself was quite simple: rather than eating the food, just being near it was enough to serve as a meal. One could “eat” the dish without actually touching it, mostly through the rampant abuse of quantum fluctations and negative energy sauces; the end result, unfortunately, was almost always uncontrollable: one couldn’t simply decide not to eat when next to the dish, resulting in a great deal of mass gain in very short time, almost always accompanied by a serotonin release of dangerous proportions.

In practice, this meant that those exposed to these foods would, in the near totality of cases, become hopelessly addicted to them, unable to do anything other than surround themselves with greater and greater feasts, until their bodies became immobile piles of fat that required specialised technicians just to move around. And while most would agree that such a life would still be desirable, there was now a bigger issue: if they became immobile, they couldn’t worship the yeen.

This alone served as the catalyst for a new inquiry into the use of self-fattening foods. If, by some miracle, a recipe could be devised that would allow the person transporting the meal to be fed by it without becoming addicted to its effects, then it’d eliminate all issues with feeding their goddess: the haulers would remain fed without wasting time eating, and the yeen herself would be granted an endless repast that she could delight herself with until all of the universe was cradled by her ever-expanding, stuffed form! A win-win scenario, as far as anyone was concerned.

This went right over the yeen’s head, who was far more concerned with the fact that she was waking up significantly bigger each morning. No concern regarding the growth itself, that is; that she was destined to become ever larger and more dominant was a perfectly normal, acceptable fact of life… but she still lived in a house, and had been postponing (definitely not procrastinating) a move even after the need for it became evident.

Perhaps, on some level, she knew she didn’t need to worry. Perhaps her divine self was fully aware that the precise moment the very thought of needing a bigger space to live crossed her mind, then her worshippers would be whipped into a frenzy making sure that reality came to be. Perhaps, even though the yeen insisted she didn’t want people to go out of their way to serve her, she liked the idea of being the centre of worship… perhaps, because she wasn’t going to admit that to herself where her partner could hear and then poke fun at her over.

What mattered was that, once she woke up with one half of her body on the bed (literally on the bed; the other hyena she shared it with had been pushed off) and the other barrelling through the wall to the living room, she looked outside to see a great number of prying eyes staring at her through the panoramic window. One of them, the one person with an actual helmet, produced a simple thumbs-up, then pointed in the direction of the front door; grumbling, the yeen dragged herself over, knowing for a fact she was not going to like whatever she saw…

… and then coming face to face with some kind of floating, perfectly spherical orb, right above the street. Absolutely enormous, likely about as wide as a standard SSTO runway, it neither bobbed up and down nor rotated, nor vibrated or in fact exhibited any sort of motion: it just… stood there, as a seemingly permanent, painted-on fixture, hard to distinguish from the background unless the yeen actually put some effort into it.

As the behelmeted person explained, it was an orb. As they clarified, once the yeen shot a squinted glance in their general direction, it was a self-sustaining, self-propelled, vacuum-proof, space-capable, adaptive habitat meant for her and her consort: effectively, a living, breathing home that could take them wherever they wanted, with no need to stop for food, supplies, water, or anything else she might need. Indeed, given the state of the nanotechnology used for its construction, the goddess could step inside, close the main hatch, and then never leave, and would still be more than capable of interacting with the outside world; absolutely top-grade holographic suite, she was assured.

On one hand, this was ridiculous; on the other, she had half-expected it to happen, just not so quickly. Her mind, however, was firmly on the latter side, preferring to go with the flow rather than stop to think about why anything was happening; yes, she had an orb now, and one that was apparently capable of sustaining her and her consort for as long as the universe could physically exist… but that was hardly any more impressive than her being able to subconsciously commune with all sentient life simultaneously.

Quite literally so. Both things were equally impressive, because both things were simply an extension of her divinity; if she was to sit down and actually think about it, maybe she’d come to a conclusion as to which was, technically speaking, a more grandiose achievement, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that her worshippers were attuned to her in a way that she didn’t want to bother explaining, she was attuned to her worshippers in a manner so subtle that even they didn’t understand it, and now she could grow more without worrying about roofs.

Granted, the growth itself was eventually going to become something of a problem, especially with all that food she was being given, but that was precisely why everyone was focusing on that whole “hub” thing she was just vaguely aware of; surely, once that was built, then she could just move to it and not worry about anything else until she outgrew it. Really, it was less of a permanent solution and more a case of it being such a massive stopgap that she could afford to not worry about it for some time; best not to think about it, lest her followers skip ahead and start building something even more ridiculously expensive.

Her consort, meanwhile, had little recourse but to go with the flow as well; they couldn’t really explain any of the things that had happened to them, nor could they begin to wrap their heads around the orb, but they knew they were real, they knew the orb was real, and to a certain extent, they shouldn’t think about anything else. Pulling the thread was sure to reveal eldritch truths that only the yeen goddess was privy to; best to just assume everything worked as intended and get busy introducing themselves to the “ship” AI.