One
"The search for knowledge must accompany the search for understanding. To know the secrets of the universe, one must first understand its nature." - Kem-L
He sat in his chambers, datapad in hand, half-scribbled notes scattered across his bed. He failed to notice the light of the morning sun creeping through the window as he studied his datapad, his eyes darting back and forth furiously, his lips mouthing words silently. Today was the day. The final day. Six years of university would come to end with a final presentation. Most students took the theories of others and sought to show understanding. But he would be different. He would present something brand knew. He belonged to the House of El. A dynasty long admired for it's scholars and heroes. Perhaps a new name would be etched into the annals of their history. Jor-El, the great thinker. Jor-El the conqueror of knowledge. Or perhaps Jor-El the fool. Jor-El the dreamer with the wild theories. Jor-El the failure.
In truth, this presentation would do little to prevent him from finishing top of his class. After all he was his father's son. Seyg-El had led the Science Council for many years and it was expected that his sons would all inherit seats on the Council. But fate intervened in the case of two brothers. Zor-El, the oldest of the three brothers, became leader of Argo City, a move that was supposed to be a stepping stone to greater things but Zor-El became content with his life there, raising a family and eventually became a voice of conciliation between the Science Council and a Raoist cult called Black Zero, a group of religious zealots who believed the end of the world was at hand. A seat on the Council for Zor-El may have antagonized the group who valued Zor-El's general independence from the ruling council. Jor-El's second brother, Nim-El, his twin died at a young age, apparently a victim of radiation poisoning. It had been theorized that some rocks scattered around the Gold Volcano in the Jewel Mountains had become radioactive due to the massive energy of an eruption centuries ago. Jor-El himself had become sick but managed to survive.
Now the legacy of his House fell to him. He was still a young man, yet to reach his thirtieth year. Most of his friends graduated five years before him but Jor-El remained in study, seeking to do more. Others had one major subject. Jor-El had three. Engineering, biology and physics. Jor-El was determined to make a lasting impact, to write his name into the history books.
"Our sun is dying," his father once told him. "Someday we will have to leave this world behind and find a new home for our people."
"How long?" a curious child asked his father.
"Oh, a million rotations yet, maybe two."
"That's a long time."
Seyg-El smiled at his son. "For you and I perhaps, but for the universe it is but a moment."
From that moment on, Jor-El became consumed with an idea. A dream that he could save his people. He was only a child of course but as he looked to the star that gave light to the world, a red giant as old as the god it was named for, he knew it would define him. And so it led to this day. His final presentation. His wild theory that would rewrite the history of the entire solar system and life on the planet. That he could be wrong didn't enter his mind until this moment as he tried to memorize his presentation.
"Jor-El?" The voice of his mother Nimda, rang out across the house. "Jor, come down and eat before you leave."
That he lived at home, his ancestral home, was not uncommon. Jor-El had yet to finish university or find a suitable life partner. In fact it was expected that when the time came, Jor-El would stay as the heir to the El dynasty and his mother would rejoin her husband in the capital. Such was the way of the world. Jor-El of course couldn't eat. He couldn't think about food. He knew he needed sustenance. He required energy to function. The red sun provided enough to walk or run, to play sports, to think. Yet food was still a requirement. It was a mystery that Jor-El had sought to solve as he prepared his potentially groundbreaking presentation but a concrete solution still eluded him. Standing up, Jor-El stuffed his datapad and notes into his pack. He was ready. Ready to fail perhaps but he would go down in a blaze of glory. His one hope was that his mentor was not only a genius but also wildly eccentric. Perhaps Jax-Ur would see the merits of his theories. It was too late to worry about it now though.
Three short hours later, Jor-El stood nervously outside the assembly hall at Tala University. Tala-El was the author of the first planetary constitution, a document that united the whole planet one hundred and eighty years earlier. It was a great achievement and another reminded to Jor-El of what was expected of the House of El.
"You look anxious," a voice behind him commented. Jor-El turned to see a familiar face standing there. Dru-Zod. A tall man with a handsome face partially hidden by perfectly even stubble spread across the lower half. His uniform gave away his military status, standing out like a sore thumb on a campus filled with scholars.
"Do you have to sneak up on me like that?"
"It's how they trained me. Always maintain the element of surprise. Especially when there's fun to be had." Zod responded with a grin.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Jor-El asked as he tried to calm himself to prevent his presentation from escaping his memory and floating away with the wind.
"My superiors are worried about a threat on your mentor's life. Personally I think it's nonsense. Jax-Ur is eccentric but he's not dangerous. I think they're just trying to keep my feet grounded now that I'm a captain. They don't want my ego running away with itself."
"Captain Zod, the babysitter." Jor-El said with a chuckle. Tradition on Krypton stated that males took the names of their house to go with their own forename, females took the names of their fathers but military personal had no forename and were called by their rank and dynasty. Thus Dru of the House of Zod became Captain Zod. Zod's lineage was not a remembered one. The House of Zod was just a few generations old and had added little to the world. Like Jor-El, Zod was determined to make a name for himself and had long ago abandoned his forename, even before joining the military.
"No job too small," Zod commented with a slight tone of resentment. "I'm expected to stay by his side until he lands safely on Wegthor in the morning. I swear whoever thought it was a good idea to put a laboratory on the moon has obviously never thrown up in a space transport."
"Better you than me. I hate space travel," Jor-El concluded, almost vomiting at the thought of the G forces required to push against the gravity of the planet and break through the atmosphere. As students filed into the hall, Jor-El's eyes fell upon one in particular. She was his competition. The only one in the whole class who came close to equalling his scores. She was also the most beautiful woman on the planet in his eyes. As her gaze met his, Jor-El looked away shyly. She walked passed him, seemingly disappointed, not that Jor-El noticed. But Zod did.
"Oh for Rao's sake. Don't tell me you still haven't talked to her."
"I...I don't know what you mean."
Zod couldn't help but roll his eyes. They had been down this road before. " You've been in the same class for three years. Today is your last day. Your last chance. Take it."
"That's easy for you to say. Her father is Lor-Van, patriarch of one of the oldest dynasties in Kandor.
"And you're an El. The most famous dynasty on the entire planet. The reserved, mild mannered genius approach isn't working. You need to take command."
Jor-El looked at Zod quizzically. "She's a woman Zod, not some enemy soldier on the battlefield ."
"You're saying there's a difference?" Zod asked, stifling a laugh. Jor-El shook his head.
"Sometimes I wonder how your wife puts up with you Zod."
"Oh Faora knows how to put me in my place. Believe me."
"Well my place is inside. I have a presentation to give, Rao help me. Are you coming in?" Jor-El asked, unsure which answer he'd prefer.
"Oh I'm not missing this."
As they entered the assembly hall, Jax-Ur stood at the front. Despite devoting most of his time to his experiments on the moon, he loved to teach. That he could shape the future of people like Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van gave him great satisfaction. In his class were the minds that would take the world to the next level. He signalled for Jor-El to take his place at the front as Zod leaned up against the wall, feigning interest. Most of the subjects discussed and taught in the assembly hall went way over his head.
As Jor-El stood at the head of the class, the eyes of the room all on him, Jax-Ur sat down next to a student. "The floor is yours." he said, gesturing to Jor-El. Silence descended as Jor-El struggled to remember his first line. This was it. His moment. And he couldn't remember a word. Jax-Ur saw the signs of stage fright instantly. "Maybe you should start with who you are?" he offered.
Jor-El took another few moments. "Um...Krypton." A whispered laugh spread across the room.
"Hello Krypton," a voice from the back shouted back. More laughing.
Jor-El took a few deep breaths as he glanced nervously around the room. Zod remained still, observing him. Jax-Ur was distracted by the voices around the room. The woman of his dreams though just stared at him and smiled softly. Suddenly Jor-El knew exactly what he needed to say.
"My uh...my name is Jor-El and my presentation centers around our home. Our planet. Krypton. It is about our life-giving sun, our very lives. Krypton is the closest planet to Rao, named for the god of gods. While it has long been assumed that there once existed one, perhaps two planets closer to Rao until the sun expanded to a red giant, it is believed that life did not exist on our world until that cosmic event that saw Rao transform from a yellow star to the life-giving red sun we have today. Life could not exist before then because our planet existed outside any kind of habitable zone in the days of the yellow sun. I am here to day to contest that belief. I believe that life existed long before the expansion event. Perhaps more importantly however, I believe the ancient yellow star is the source of our ability to absorb solar energy."
As Jor-El began, a hush fell over the room. It was a theory that had never been heard in academia. As far as anyone knew, life before the red giant was impossible. Yet the history of Krypton would be forever linked to the life of the sun.
"Having studied everything from fossil records to planetary orbits of the solar system, I intend to present a scenario meant to go some way towards explaining our existence." Jor-El continued his presentation as he activated a console at the front of the class. A series of holographic screens appeared, showing diagrams and simulations all pre-programmed by Jor-El the day before.
"Rao was once a yellow star. And Krypton existed on the outer edge of the habitable zone. Life existed. But it was sparse. The harsh reality of a cold climate, shifting tectonic plates and a thin atmosphere meant that life could not flourish as it did today. In essence, food was hard to come by. So life had to adapt. It began taking in energy from the sun."
"So why aren't we green?" a question from a student. "You're talking about photosynthesis right? So why aren't we green like all the plants?"
Jor-El hadn't been expecting questions but he was on a roll now. Any nervousness had gone out the window and once he got started it would be impossible to shut him up without fitting a muzzle over his mouth.
"That's a good question. And the answer is simple. It wasn't photosynthesis. Life didn't take in solar energy for nutrients. At least non plant life didn't. The energy served a different purpose. I believe the harsh environment of early Krypton forced animal life to adapt significantly to endure and survive. Stronger lungs to take in more oxygen in the thin atmosphere, enhanced vision and hearing to aid hunting on a world where food sources were few. Enhanced strength and speed was a must. But there wasn't enough food to generate the kind of energy required to make these abilities work. So evolution turned to the sun. That is why we take in solar energy today. It is a trait left over from another age.
"But why aren't we leaping tall buildings then?" Lara asked, sitting right in front of Jor-El.
Jor-El hesitated. He lost his train of thought for a moment and found himself staring at Lara Lor-Van. He shook it off though and continued. "That is the big question. To answer it we need to look at the sun." The truth was that Jor-El didn't have an answer. Nothing definitive anyway. Just a vague theory. But today was about theories. Crazy or not. He knew he had probably lost most of the class as soon as he mentioned enhanced abilities but it didn't matter. The purpose of the end of year presentation wasn't to be right. It was to show that one could form opinions, formulate theories and follow them to their conclusion, whether right or wrong.
"The sun expanded. It became a red giant, swallowing up the inner planets and leaving Krypton as the closest planet to the sun. It exists now at the centre of a new habitable zone. The event destroyed most life on the planet but something of the early days survived. This time though life flourished. An abundance of plant and animal life made the enhanced abilities of the earlier period irrelevant. Over time these now unneeded abilities became dormant. It may even be linked to the transformation of our sun in a much more direct way. I believe that a unique energy signature within the solar radiation of our red sun served to suppress these abilities. Evolution is generally concerned with survival of the fittest but entire species of...super powered creatures could have led to a mass extinction. Perhaps Kryptonian life, now flourishing all over the planet, evolved in a way to prevent that by preventing these abilities from being activated, essentially making them dormant. It's possible that in some creatures, these abilities may still exist, hidden away under a red star."
"That's quite a leap." Jax-Ur commented, engaging with his student.
"It is," Jor-El responded. "To be honest I don't have definitive proof. It's theory right now. In my experiments I did expose several rodents to synthetic yellow sunlight. They appeared to show signs of increased strength. Unfortunately their bodies could not contain the energy within their cells and they all died. Rodents exposed to natural sunlight from Rao showed no change whatsoever. It leads me to believe that at the very least, there is a physiological link to yellow sunlight which suggests to me that life did exist prior to the red giant expansion and that it found a unique way to survive."
"And the rest is conjecture?" Jax-Ur asked.
"Some of it. But I believe it certainly warrants further study."
"I agree."
And suddenly the pressure was gone. Jax-Ur was impressed. As Jor-El presented his evidence he was confident that his last day at university was worthwhile. Perhaps he could add to the legacy of the House of El. When the presentation was over, most of the students made their way outside to enjoy their freedom as they left university behind them. Only a few stayed behind to talk with Jor-El, including Lara.
"I thought it was very interesting." she commented as she watched Jor-El pack up his notes. "I took solar mechanics in my first rotation you know. My father is a Raoist which is ironic given his place on the Science Council."
"And what about you?" Jor-El asked, trying to work up the courage to ask her out. Of course he had been trying for three years and could never get the words out. This time would be no different.
"Oh I love the sun." Lara said with a smile. "It's a giant nuclear reactor. And it's dying. I feel like I want to save it. Stupid I know. I'll be long dead when it dies. By then we'll have colonized the stars."
"Of course if we don't the entire species will be dead." Jor-El responded, instantly regretting the morbidity of his statement.
"Swallowed up by a supernova." Lara replied with a strange sense of wonder. "I'd love to hear more about your theory. Do you want to maybe get some lunch?"
And there it was. After three years of waiting for Jor-El to make a move, Lara took matters into her own hands. Jor-El almost said no on reflex. He managed to stop himself though and give her a nod of his head. He couldn't speak. As they left the assembly hall together, Zod and Jax-Ur looked on.
"Well it's about time," Zod muttered.
"Three years in my class and they finally get their act together on the last day. Typical." Jax-Ur replied.
"Speaking of time, we had better get you to the launch site."
"I don't need your protection Captain. Those zealots are full of hot air. That's all."
"You're probably right," Zod agreed, "but orders are orders."
Time passed quickly for Jor-El and Lara. When their parents discovered their blossoming relationship, the matchmaking began but the couple were determined to take things slow. They both had careers to think about and much they wanted to accomplish. Lara gained a position as part of a solar monitoring project that involved a series of satellites circling the sun, recording data and sending it back to Krypton for study. Jor-El started out as a research assistant for Jax-Ur and his trans-dimensional gateway project, designed to create a means to travel to other worlds without the expense and long journey of sub-light space travel. Luckily for Jor-El, he was stationed on Krypton rather than its moon, Wegthor and was able to spend much of his time with Lara.
It was on one fateful day as they ate together that two events that would signal great tragedy occurred. The first happened as Lara's personal datapad showed new data coming in from the solar satellites. She stared at the data for a few moments and slammed the pad down on the table.
"Stupid thing. Either that's faulty or one of the satellites is malfunctioning."
"What's wrong?" Jor-El asked.
"See for yourself," she replied, shoving the datapad into his hand. "According to that there was a massive energy spike six cycles ago."
"You're sure it's a fault?" Jor-El enquired as he studied the data for himself.
"It was like a quick burst. I don't know, it's probably just a solar flare. The energy output was insane. We may have to just scrap the satellite altogether. It's more efficient to just send up another but that means another month of sleepless nights. I hate the sun."
"I thought you loved it?" Jor-El tried to suppress a teasing smile.
"Oh shut up." Lara grabbed the datapad from his hand. She glared at him for a moment, watching his smile grow. She stuck out her tongue causing Jor-El to burst into a fit of laughter. Lara soon followed.
The datapad ended up on the floor. Neither of them knew the tragic truth behind the energy spike and it would be years until it was revealed to them. By then it would be too late as other events conspired to distract everyone from their fate.
On that same day as the sun set and the moon rose overhead, a flash of light from the moon announced a tragedy. Wegthor, an ancient deity and the name given to the moon bore witness to a tragedy. As Jax-Ur pressed ahead with an experiment despite the warnings of the Science Council, an unstable wormhole gave way to an intense explosion, killing most of the three hundred thousand people living and working in the lunar base. Jax-Ur himself survived and faced with the prospect of facing judgment for his part in the tragedy, disappeared.
It was this event that saw Black Zero transform themselves a mere annoyance to a threat to the people of Krypton. Believing that the lunar destruction was a sign from Rao that the ed was near, the Raoists demanded a halt to all technological advancement and a return to simpler times if the world was to appease Rao. The Science Council rejected the notion outright, but when Jax-Ur returned, driven mad by his actions and now declaring himself the prophet of Rao, the entire planet found itself in a holy war, the first of its kind since the tribal wars that once divided the planet.
It was a war that would change everything. It would see the rise of a new leader, breed fear among the ruling class and ultimately it would all prove to be pointless. Sacrifices would be in vain, lives lost for nothing. Whether by divine hand or the random nature of the universe, the wrath of Rao would descend upon the doomed planet Krypton.