Balancing Act I: Nativity
This story is a prequel to the original Balancing Act, which I started writing first and realized eventually that I had to do this first instead. That one is on temporary hiatus until I finish this one.
Balancing Act is going to be a trilogy documenting my take on the Superman mythos. Nativity tells how the legend began, from Krypton to Metropolis. The last story in the trilogy, Second Contact, is going to be a crossover with Carl Sagan's Contact and with other DC superheroes. Contact is a good book and an incredible movie and for anyone who hasn't seen the latter, what are you waiting for? It goes perfectly with Superman. Am I the only one who's ever noticed this? Anyway, this prologue and some future chapters will mention things from Contact. You don't need to have seen it or read the book to read this; all will be explained.
On another note, I feel I should say something about reviews. I like getting them, of course, and they can be quite inspirational, but I write fanfic only for myself. And since it takes me a long time to write anyway, don't expect regular updates. I posted the first Balancing Act in summer 2006 and have been working on it this entire time, but haven't updated it at all because I have to keep revising my ideas to make it work better. It's possible the same thing will happen with this one. At any rate, don't be surprised if I don't update this for months on end: but I'm still working on the damn thing.
Does anybody know how to make FFN accept line breaks without using a goddamn line like the one below? I can't stand those things.
Prologue
By human standards it could not possibly have been artificial: it was the size of a world. But it was so oddly and intricately shaped, so clearly intended for some complex purpose that it could only have been the expression of an idea. Gliding in polar orbit about the great blue-white star, it resembled some immense, imperfect polyhedron, encrusted with millions of bowl-shaped barnacles. Every bowl was aimed at a particular part of the sky. Every constellation was being attended to. The polyhedral world had been performing its enigmatic function for eons. It was very patient. It could afford to wait forever.
- Carl Sagan, Contact
Every sentient species wonders about the universe. Those who are able to reach the stars hold the cosmos in even greater awe than those who are planet-bound: for all the stars visible from a night sky, there are even more visible to a civilization with the gift of spaceflight. Some estimate that there are a hundred billion stars in the average galaxy. Some estimate that there are a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. The vast number of stars in the universe, then, is staggering.
If none of them were inhabited, it would be an awful waste of space.
Yet the universe is growing in space and time, and life has a curious tendency to appear anywhere it can get a foothold. There are countless young, planet-bound civilizations, several ancient species incomprehensible to common life, and any number of others in between. One and all, they are protected by the Guardians.
The Guardians have watched over the universe for so long that their origin or age hardly matter anymore. Only the fact that they work to guide young civilizations and to keep the peace is relevant. They reside in a planetary system ruled by a white-hot star, called Oa by some and Vega by others, collecting and storing immense amounts of data on every galaxy and star, sending their emissaries to intervene when interstellar conflict erupts.
When the Guardians judge a planet-bound civilization ready, they send out a message: an introduction to the cosmos, an invitation to experience galactic travel for the first time. This message spells out, in the universal language of mathematics, how to access the only construct in the universe older and more mysterious than the Guardians themselves: the startracks.
Perhaps the first civilization to stumble across the startracks were the Guardians; no one knows anymore. Even with the accumulated knowledge of countless civilizations throughout the eons, the startracks are still the quickest way of interstellar or intergalactic travel. Research into their nature has proved useless. Criss-crossing the universe, penetrating even into the farthest reaches of the void, they stand, mute, a tribute to their anonymous creator or creators.
The startracks have been used to visit other stars, to visit other galaxies, to keep peace, to make war. The child travelling along them now is a refugee whose homeworld no longer exists, going to a planet-bound people who are almost ready to venture out into the galaxy.
His spaceship is named Hope.