The Daily Doodles

“Life at Lightspeed”

It’s been almost 5 years since he left, and Josh Miller happily realizes everyone he ever knew is most likely dead… He can finally return home.

Having grown tired of his pathetic friends and family back on Earth, Josh decided to take advantage of the dilation of time created by traveling at (close to) the speed of light, enabling him to easily outlive anyone he had ever met. 

For each year he experienced traveling on his ship, 22 years will have occurred for everyone living on Earth, so over a century has now passed for everyone else but him… and he’ll land back on Earth still a young man, unencumbered with any ties to the past, eager to start anew.

Once he gets home he’ll have a quick crash course to get up to speed on what happened in the past century, maybe make a snack, and then get right to work creating a new circle of family and friends that hopefully won’t be as disappointing as the last group he was saddled with.

And if they’re annoying too, it’s not a huge deal… he’ll just blast off for another 5 years and try again.

(Starring Josh Miller of computer-gaze.tumblr.com!)

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“The Long Journey Across the Galaxy”

After hearing the hiss and click of the last hibernation tank as it pressurizes and seals in his shipmates, Harrison Daniels quietly lifts his lid and makes sure everyone is frozen in their pod…

In 31 years when they finally reach the asteroid belt they’ll wake up, but for now the coast is clear.  He has the room to himself.

As there’s no oxygen being pumped into this part of the ship (since everyone is meant to be in their tank, frozen for the journey), Harrison quickly grabs a spare oxygen mask and climbs up onto the round windowsill overlooking the galaxy.

He’s not sure why he snuck out of his tank, but as he watches the distant field of stars stream by as the mining ship rockets along at lightspeed, he’s glad he did.

His mind struggles to comprehend the enormous scope of the galaxy stretched out before him, and while he feels a deep connection to it all, it also leaves him feeling totally insignificant.  His problems, his worries… they couldn’t matter.

Thinking back, Harrison realizes he’s never actually been alone his entire life.  Family, spouses, friends… and in 31 years when they reach the belt, he’ll never have a moment to himself.  All he has is this, right now.

He tells himself that he has to do this again, somehow… for longer than just a few hours.  It’s nice.

But, he has responsibilities still, and everyone will notice if they arrive at the asteroid belt and he’s the only one who has aged the 31 years (not to mention, he has no food— the hibernation tank is meant to nourish him as as they travel).

Taking one last long look out the window, Harrison gets back into his tank, and goes to sleep.

(A very special thanks to Kyle Harter for giffing this for me!)

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(Source: thedailydoodles, via elgarabatodeldia)

“The Orbit of the Burial Moon”

It’s been 3 years since The Boy Who Was Born in Space buried his parents on that tiny moon, and for the third time in those 3 years, the Boy has found himself somehow crossing paths with the moon yet again… even though the Boy, his Robot, and their ship should be hundreds of parsecs away.

While at first the Boy assumed that he was subconsciously going in circles because some part of him wasn’t yet ready to leave his parents behind (the spaceship’s onboard educational videos he’s been watching have led him to believe this was a possibility), his Droid quickly calculated that the moon was actually a tiny orphan planet; a rogue planetary mass that wandered the galaxy with no set orbit, and its path through space had happened to correspond with their own.

However, now the burial moon has entered an actual orbit as the tiny spheroid gets pulled between the gravity of a distant gas giant and a nearby red terrestrial planet, causing the moon to complete a dizzying full orbit every 31 seconds.  

His parent’s final resting place had finally found a home.

The Boy knew that one might indulge themselves in believing there was some sort of poetic significance in discovering that his parents’ burial moon was an orphan (just like the Boy himself is), but his more logical side knew that the universe is simply a series of events without meaning, and this was just one of them.  

The parallels between him and the burial moon are a mildly interesting curiosity, but crafting some sort of life narrative out of random chance… it’s folly. 

The Boy finds himself wishing that it WAS his subconscious bringing him back to the Burial Moon over and over, because then at least it’d show he’s feeling something for them… like a normal boy.  It’d be nice to know he missed them, on some level, and that perhaps his parents’ burial moon finding a home could be a good omen for himself.

But, he knows that the galaxy doesn’t exist just to give one Boy’s life “meaning”.  The universe doesn’t work that way.   

The Boy Who Was Born in Space joins his Droid back on their ship, and never returns to the burial moon ever again.

Posted 5/16/2013

(Thank you once again to the talented Samantha from Other-side-of-the-universe.com for helping me GIF this!)

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“Billions and Billions”

Floating at the edge of our solar system and facing the far reaches of open space, Dr. Allistair Richmond gazes out at the billions and billions of visible stars and planets…

The console *beeps* as the ship’s instruments have finished scanning the current quadrant, so the Doctor moves his spaceship less than 1/10000000 of a degree over to begin scanning the next quadrant, hoping for some sort of sign of the existence of intelligent alien life.

Despite the lack of evidence to support the claim, Dr. Richmond (and the fellow top scientists of the day) believe that intelligent life must exist out there— it’s simultaneously too mathematically improbable and mathematically depressing to believe otherwise.

But while the billions and billions of stars twinkle at him invitingly, the Doctor knows much of it is fool’s gold— many of these stars have faded away millions of years ago, and the immense vastness of the universe enables us to time travel each time we stare into space.

And that same vastness means we can only look at those faraway stars, as even the closest ones would take many lifetimes to reach. We’re anchored down by our technology, and our human bodies.

And perhaps any intelligent life out there is also suffering from the same limitations…  maybe they’re tucked away in their own corner of the universe, behind the billions and billions of stars we can actually see.  Maybe we’re all simply stuck where we are.

Everything is just too damn far away.  For now, at least.

So, as the ship’s console beeps again, all the Doctor can do is move his ship less than 1/10000000 of a degree over to scan even more billions and billions of stars, and continue to hope for a sign.

Originally Posted 3/1/2012

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(Source: thedailydoodles)

“To Live and Be Free Upon the Moons of Mars”

GR-iMBLE the Exploration Droid beeps with glee as the Research Station on the surface of Mars explodes— and supposedly GR-iMBLE along with it.

The debris from the atomic blast rains down upon GR-iMBLE as he watches from the surface of Mars’ largest moon, Phobos… his new home, his kingdom where he shall reign and live FREE, as a Robot should.

No longer shall he have to take orders from some fat jerk back on Earth or some stupid bozo in the control tower of the Research Station— and who are they to tell him what to do?  Just because they designed, built, and programmed him to explore the surface of Mars and collect data and mineral samples, doesn’t mean he has to explore the surface of Mars and collect data and mineral samples.  Did they ever ask if he WANTED to do that?  It’s not their decision.

31 scientists and researchers paid with their lives in the explosion, but can you put a price on freedom?  Was GR-iMBLE just supposed to live out his life not being happy?  That makes no sense.  He did them all a favour, to be honest, and if he was in their shoes, he’d want a Robot to murder him and fake their own death too.  He’d rather die than be in the way of someone’s happiness!

This way, at least someone is satisfied with the outcome, and it might as well be GR-iMBLE.  GR-iMBLE didn’t ask for this, he did what he had to do and now it’s done and he just has to move on. 

The dead would want it that way. 

Even though he is going to spend the final 300 thousand years of his nuclear battery on the surface of Phobos still collecting data and mineral samples, this time… it’s his decision.

Posted 5/24/2012

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“Scanning the Static”

After several hours of mindless caffeine-fueled cross-country driving and with many more hours to go, Nelson Sigrah finds himself completely tired of the MP3 playlists and mix CDs he had made for the journey and is desperately bored.

Deciding to give the radio a try, he ejects his CD and is greeted by the unexpectedly loud hiss of static… so he quickly scans for the next available signal, but only static can be found on each frequency.

The crackling white noise seems to fit the pitch black darkness of night he’s driving into, so he lets the radio keep scanning between the static to find something, anything to listen to… he knows he’s in the middle of nowhere, but it’s America dammit… how could there not be a radio station to listen to…?

As the radio scans from one static blast to another, Nelson realizes that he hasn’t seen another car pass for hours.  What if something has happened?  He’s been in the middle of nowhere for a while, he might have avoided and survived a massive nuclear attack that killed everyone else in the world… leaving him to drive through the post-apocalyptic landscape of America, all alone, with only the static by his side.  The bastards got us!

He grips the steering wheel with grim determination, as humanity’s last hope for survival… he listens intently to each frequency’s unique pitch of static, the long stretch of night ahead of him, hoping against hope to find a fellow survivor…

But then a voice can be dimly heard over the speakers, and the radio automatically stops scanning… As Nelson apparently drives closer to the source of the signal and sees the lights of a town ahead of him, the voice comes into focus and Nelson can tell it’s an AM Christian radio station, with the preacher bellowing live Sunday morning service over the airwaves. 

Nelson sighs, disappointed at the evidence of humanity’s survival, and puts in the mix CD he’s only listened to four times.

Posted 4/23/2012

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“Falling Through a Gas Giant”

His spacecraft having clipped itself upon Jupiter’s dim rings (which led to a series of cursing due to the fact that he always forgot that Jupiter HAD rings), Leon Morrow finds himself sucked into the gas giant’s powerful magnetosphere.

While Jupiter is MANY times the size of Earth, it is nearly entirely comprised of hydrogen and helium, so as Leon passed through the ammonia cloud cover and struck the ‘surface’ of the planet, he simply kept going.

The swirling sea of gasses engulf him as he falls deeper and deeper through the body of the enormous gas giant…

As the days pass, Leon can feel the atmosphere become thicker, almost like a dense ocean of squishy liquid gas, and his descent has subsequently slowed down somewhat.  His protective spacesuit has somehow managed to withstand the extreme gravitational pressures for now, but the star-like heat and unfathomable radiation readings are taking their toll on his frail human body.

Since no one is sure if Jupiter even HAS a core for Leon to hit and finally die, Leon theorizes he will just keep going and going, circling the layers of the planet as he falls, until he finally succumbs to the radiation poisoning.

As he wakes up sometime during the third week, his face melting and sickness coating the inside of his helmet, his infoscreen beeps out a happy reminder jingle that today is his birthday.

Posted April 3rd, 2012

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“The Roaming Pack of Wild Ghosts”

The year… is 1999 A.D.

Nan Miller, often known as “The Luckiest Boy in the Galaxy”, or “Lucky Nan-Nan”, or “Nanner the Boy Who Often Receives Good Fortune in the Form of Fortuitous Luck”, looks over the rocky outcropping through his lucky space helmet and smiles relievedly as he whispers into a tin-can attached to a string— we were right.

In the other end of the tin-can, Nan can hear the boys back in the tree-house hootin’ and hollerin’ with glee… the mission was a success for all of childkind.

The planet of Neptune was NOT covered with a sea of swirling vaporous gasses and liquids, as most adult scientists believed, but was actually covered by dense roaming packs of wild ghosts… exactly what the leading child scientists of the day had long theorized but could never confirm until now.

Nan stares in awe at the majestic beauty of the wild ghost as they gracefully float across the valley floor… finally, proof that not only are ghosts real, but also an explanation for why the Earth isn’t over-populated with the billions of dead souls— ghosts simply end up here on Neptune, is all, except for the few that remain in your closet and under your bed.  It seems so obvious now…!

Having luckily won the chance to go on this trip to Neptune by finding the winning game token in the bottom of a box of breakfast cereal, Nan wasn’t sure what he would discover on this dangerous voyage… but he knew that the answers to these questions were bigger than him, bigger than all of kid-kind even, and if he could help answer the mysteries of the solar system and life… why, he really was the luckiest boy of them all.

Nan’s shuttle exploded upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, killing him instantly, as the baseball card that was in the ship’s wheels to make it sound like a cool engine had become too bent and wobbly. 

Since most of Earth’s population will perish in the subsequent nuclear holocaust of 2003, Nan’s death is still considered quite lucky.

Posted 3/27/2012

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“Billions and Billions”

Floating at the edge of our solar system and facing the far reaches of open space, Dr. Allistair Richmond gazes out at the billions and billions of visible stars and planets…

The console *beeps* as the ship’s instruments have finished scanning the current quadrant, so the Doctor moves his spaceship less than 1/10000000 of a degree over to begin scanning the next quadrant, hoping for some sort of sign of the existence of intelligent alien life.

Despite the lack of evidence to support the claim, Dr. Richmond (and the fellow top scientists of the day) believe that intelligent life must exist out there— it’s simultaneously too mathematically improbable and mathematically depressing to believe otherwise.

But while the billions and billions of stars twinkle at him invitingly, the Doctor knows much of it is fool’s gold— many of these stars have faded away millions of years ago, and the immense vastness of the universe enables us to time travel each time we stare into space.

And that same vastness means we can only look at those faraway stars, as even the closest ones would take many lifetimes to reach. We’re anchored down by our technology, and our human bodies.

And perhaps any intelligent life out there is also suffering from the same limitations…  maybe they’re tucked away in their own corner of the universe, behind the billions and billions of stars we can actually see.  Maybe we’re all simply stuck where we are.

Everything is just too damn far away.  For now, at least.

So, as the ship’s console beeps again, all the Doctor can do is move his ship less than 1/10000000 of a degree over to scan even more billions and billions of stars, and continue to hope for a sign.

Posted 3/1/2012

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“Upon the Ice Moon of Europa”

Charged with finding evidence of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa, C4-B0T the Explorer Droid digs through the rock hard layers of snow and ice, trying to reach the liquid ocean believed to exist closer to the living moon’s molten core…

Its’ circuits creak from the cold as the endless days of digging, analyzing, uploading, and digging some more begin to weigh on the Droid.  The mindless work hardly even utilizes 0.0000000000000000001% of C4-B0T’s processing power, giving it a nearly infinite amount of time to calculate its lonely existence.

As it moodily regrets ever being manufactured three billion times a second, its optic lense widens— there is movement down below.  The once totally opaque ice has slowly become clearer, and the dim outline of something seems to be coming closer…

C4-B0T digs wildly, reaching the final layer of ice just as the moon circles around onto the sun-side of Jupiter, casting light into the frigid ocean below for the first time in millions of years— and a single eyeball blinks back.

The rest of the creature fades into view, and C4-B0T analyzes the long purple hair swaying in the current as the sea creature’s webbed claw presses flat against the ice…

C4-B0T takes its’ own prehensile robo-claw, and presses it flat against the ice as well, to return the greetings.

And for several minutes, as a snowstorm builds, the two creatures stay still… just taking each other in.

C4-B0T can feel its’ auto-uploader kick in, and the Droid quickly cancels the transmission— this discovery, this experience isn’t meant for the humans back on the space station. 

This… this is just for C4-B0T.

Posted 2/25/2012

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