Chapter Four: Stars and Realms

After the First Difference and before the emergence of living beings, the universe passed through a prolonged lifeless age. Modern cosmology can infer aspects of this period from stellar evolution, the structures of Primordial Realms, and ancient remains, but it cannot fully reconstruct its early processes. Differences gradually formed stable relations; matter and energy developed enduring structures; and space and time acquired scales on which they could be described continuously. In this way, the worlds known to later ages began to take shape.

The stars are the most readily apparent part of this process. Suns illuminated deep space, planets formed through long ages of evolution, and galaxies, black holes, and nebulae together composed the vast structure of ordinary cosmic space. Later scholars called the stars the bones of the universe, for they predated life, civilization, and paths, and provided a stable material background for a great many later worlds.

Seas of stars, galaxies, stars, planets, black holes, and nebulae together constitute ordinary cosmic space. In modern world classification, “Star” is used in a narrower sense, referring primarily to a naturally formed, planetary, spherical or near-spherical material celestial body in ordinary cosmic space whose overall structure is sustained through natural evolution. A Star’s rules are continuous with those of the surrounding universe. Those capable of nurturing native living races over long periods are generally called life-bearing Stars, while the rest are classified as ordinary Stars.