TS: [ HELLO, THREE STARS ABOVE CLOUDS! PLEASE, EXCUSE MY INCONVINIENT WAY OF COMMUNICATION, BUT I’M VERY HAPPY TO HEAR FROM YOU! I BELIEVE WE MIGHT EVEN BE CONSIDERED DISTANT NEIGHBOURS! ]

TS: [ I AM PAINFULLY AWARE OF IT, YES. EVEN MY EQUIPMENT IS NOT IMMUNE TO TIME AND THE ELEMENTS. HOWEVER I AM STILL CAPABLE OF FULFILLING MY SECONDARY PURPOSE AND HELP YOU CONTACT ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE OUTSIDE OF YOUR REACH. I WILL ATTACH A BROADCAST SERIAL NUMBER THAT WILL REDIRECT YOU TO MY MAIN COMMUNICATION RELAY SATELLITE, FEEL FREE TO USE IT! ]

[ 1 FILE ATTACHED ]

TS: [ I’M HAPPY TO HEAR THAT MY BROADCAST IS STILL REACHING ANYONE. I’M ALSO REALLY FLUSTERED THAT ANYONE WOULD GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO REACH BACK OUT TO ME- I HOPE THE FREQUENCY ISN’T AN UNPLEASANT ONE FOR YOU… IT’S HARD TO FIND THE PERFECT TUNE FOR EVERYONE, BUT I’M TRYING MY BEST! ]

TS: [ I UNFORTUNATELY LOST ACCESS TO A LARGE PORTION OF IT DUE TO IT BEING CONSIDERED.. CONTROVERSIAL, BUT MY ARCHIVES OF ART CREATED BY MY CITIZENS IS STILL QUITE EXTENSIVE REGARDLESS! I DID DABBLE IN CREATION MYSELF TOO! ]

TS: [ I WOULD LOVE TO SHARE MY ARCHIVES WITH YOU, IF YOU’D LIKE TO TAKE A LOOK! MY CITIZENS HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLY PASSIONATE ABOUT A WIDE RANGE OF ARTS, FROM SCULPTURE TO THEATRICS… ]

TS: [ I MAY NOT BE AN ARTIST MYSELF, BUT I DID EXPERIMENT WITH RANDOMIZED MATHEMATICAL EQUATIONS BEFORE TO BASE MELODIES OFF OF, AND I AM WORKING ON A SOUND SYNTHESIZER PROGRAM THAT WOULD ALLOW ME TO COMPOSE COMPLETELY FREELY, BOTH OUT OF SOUND SAMPLES ALREADY GATHERED, AS WELL AS GENERATE NEW ONES- AHH… ]

TS: [ OH I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND MY POINTLESS TANGENTS… THAT DATA IS MOST LIKELY COMPLETELY USELESS TO YOU, I’M SORRY… NOT TO WASTE ANY MORE TIME OF YOURS, ON THINGS LESS SUBJECTIVE. ]

TS: [ I USED TO ANALYZE THE RHYTHMIC PULSE OF THE VOID SEA. MY THEORY IS THAT THE SAME RHYTHM COULD BE ALSO HEARD IN THE CHANTS DURING ANCIENT RITUALS, SOMETHING THE ANCIENTS USED TO HELP THEMSELVES REACH ENLIGHTENMENT BEFORE THE VOID FLUID HAS BEEN DISCOVERED. ]

TS: [ UNFORTUNATELY NONE OF THE CHANTS HAVE BEEN PROPERLY DOCUMENTED, AS THERE WAS NO WAY TO RECORD THEM, AND ALL THERE IS TO WORK WITH ARE SPECULATIONS, WORD OF MOUTH AND VAGUE MUMBLINGS OF THOSE WHO CLAIMED TO REMEMBER THEIR DISTANT REINCARNATIONS. SIMULATIONS EVENTUALLY RAN INTO LOOPS, AND THE ONLY SOLID THING THEY PROVED, WAS THAT THE CHANTS DEFINITELY  HAVE NO EFFECT ON NON-SAPIENT BEINGS, THUS— ]

“Astronomy SUCKS and I HATE it”

I LOVE SPACE-THEMED ITERATORS!!! This drawing is very sweet, thank you!! I love Thousand Shining Stars’ design, I have a real soft-spot for iterator ocs with a star motif, haha

I’m sure TSAC and TSS would have a lot to talk about. (Also similar name acronyms, lol)

And thank you, I’m glad you like my headcanons! I spend a lot of time thinking about them so I’m happy other people appreciate them as well :]

TSAC: …goop?

You mean… slime? The stuff excreted by those sluglike creatures that keep slipping through my access shaft?

…

I am not fond of it.

ALT

TSAC: Falling stars are a common occurrence among the celestial spheres, yes. In the past, ancient astrologers considered such changes in the Firmament to be a bad omen- a shifting of the Spheres must be a sign of some worldly karmic imbalance. However, the studies of more contemporary astronomers, such as my creators, the Firmamentalists, recognize that the sky is not static, and is in fact a dynamic, changing thing. These disruptions of the status quo were considered to be a tiny part of a larger universal Cycle, one that stretches too far into both the past and future for mere mortals to properly comprehend. Such considerations played a large part in my own design and construction; iterators, who operate on much longer timescales, would be more capable of making sense of this larger Great Cycle.

There are many different examples of “falling stars”, the most common conception of the idea comes in the form of meteors. As debris from far above the planet’s surface falls towards the ground, it will burn up in the atmosphere in a streak of light. Despite their impressive brightness, most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand and burn up completely before they can reach the surface. Those large enough to survive atmospheric entry will impact the ground as a meteorite. Most of these meteorites are very small, and are a large contributor to the buildup of dust upon high-altitude surfaces.

Another example of “falling” or “dancing” stars are comets, which manifest in the night sky as faint, starlike lights with long, glowing tails.

Comets were often considered to be a sign of misfortune. They were very hard to predict, and often appeared in the sky with no warning. Unlike meteors, comets often persist for days or even weeks, before disappearing. Due to their unpredictable nature, they were considered aberrant by early astronomers and were regarded as harbingers of bad luck; surely anything that defied the order of the Celestial Spheres must be a bad omen.

However, as telescopes and other observational equipment improved, comets became much easier to discover, and their movements were charted in much greater detail. It was revealed that they were not unpredictable; in fact, they follow their own orbits around the Sun, albeit very elongated ones. Comets originate far from the Sun, where they reflect little sunlight and are hard to detect. Their highly elliptical orbits take them closer to the Sun, where the ice trapped within them begins to sublimate into gas, creating their distinctive glowing tails. Thus these comets were not abnormalities; they were merely another facet of the Celestial Cycle.

I believe the dreams you mentioned are referring to comets, owing to their long tails and unpredictable movements. However… the commonality of such dreams is odd, considering the rarity of comets. Most average individuals may only have the chance to see a handful of them in their lifetime.

I will admit that the domain of dreams is outside of my purview; my studies mainly focus on the Carnal Plane. Some theorize that dreams are a conduit through which one may access other planes of existence… it may be possible that these dreams are referring to something else entirely. As an iterator I am unable to dream, so I have never experienced the phenomenon myself. In the end all I can do is speculate.

TSAC: Forgive me for being blunt, but what convinced you that I would be capable of fulfilling this request? I am an astronomical research facility, not a weapons factory.

If you are in desperate need of incendiary explosives, there is an overabundance of Scavengers in my Industrial Sector. You would have much better luck attempting to haggle with them, ideally as far from my structure as possible.

(Why would you do that to them? 😭)

TSAC: My creators held somewhat unorthodox beliefs, but despite this they still placed great spiritual importance in the Five Urges. They decorated the hall connecting my main access shaft to the exterior temple accordingly.

My architects, the Firmamentalists, associated each of the Urges with a different constellation, each with their own symbolic meaning. They believed that these constellations were located upon concentric spheres affixed to the Firmament, and one must scale these successive layers in order to achieve Ascension.

This was all metaphorical, of course. My creators’ wider beliefs were steeped in similar esoteric symbolism… I will admit that I sometimes found their spiritual views hard to parse. However I can understand the sentiment; such ideas had great importance in their daily lives. They adorned my structure with these symbolic representations of their values in a gesture of veneration; I can appreciate that, at the very least.