Eldridge

Eldridge was a rocky body which orbited the star Procyon A, usually referred to as a moon despite technically holding the classification of planetoid. Prior to the Tamagoyaki Event, it was a significant location for the arts during the Golden Millennium, and served as a destination for artists of all persuasion. The tradition of patronage on Eldridge was begun by the Baron of Eldridge, well known for his extreme diversity of investment in little-known areas of art, including but not limited to windmill-prophecies, the Filigree Movement and Ciiiineyeyeoneo. His patronage caused the rise to popularity of many of these, and prompted a cultural renaissance on Eldridge which would gradually spread throughout the rest of human-inhabited space. It is widely accepted that the clash between the emphasis of Eldridgian culture during this time on breaking with tradition and the comparatively rigid conventions espoused by the Calanthites played a role in their eventual fragmentation.

Unfortunately, Eldridge did not survive to see the cultural revolution it initiated rise to full galactic prominence. Little is known about the circumstances surrounding the Tamagoyaki Event, as all records relating to it are corrupted beyond recovery. What is certain is that whatever happened had a considerable and lasting impact on the surrounding region, as the Procyon system is even today registered as a Level 9 Forbidden Zone by the Orion Cooperative Regions. The circumstances leading up to the event are no more illuminating. There was a significant rise in paranoia and night terrors among much of the populace in the preceding months, a trend which was revealed after further analysis of patient records to have continued up to several decades earlier. Society had largely collapsed on Eldridge several days prior to the event, with the aforementioned paranoia having grown strong enough among the majority to severely impair their functions. Transmissions from the colony grew increasingly panicked and unintelligible until 8413 Galactic Time on 011-01-101-11110-0-44-3819.9, at which point all communications abruptly ceased. Radio silence continued until exactly 4181 on the following standard day. It was then that the last communication from Eldridge was received: a 36-second-long hyperdense block of data in an unknown format, exactly 264 bits (around 2.3 exabytes) in size. Later analysis would reveal the exact length of the transmission to be equal to that of 337016056721 hyperfine transitions between two energy levels of the ground state of a cesium atom, which is of note in that it is an Eisenstein prime. Efforts at deciphering the transmission have thus far ended in failure, and, in one notable case (that of the Jupiter Brain), disaster.

Procyon A faded from sight in the years following the event. Recently, Procyon B has been showing signs of a similar dimming.

All attempts to send expeditions to the Procyon system have failed.

I would build that dome in air,

That nighted dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

-Excerpt from  by Ánthos Daskydox