Below the Stars
10 Dec 2021Iridium Nova
I'm currently exploring some hard to reach stars at the bottom of the galaxy. With a bit of jumponium, I can get to places few others could ever reach, providing some excellent views of that big sparkling disc we all call home.It's a bit funny to think of the galaxy as having a top and a bottom. Unlike a planet, the galaxy doesn't have a magnetic field that can tell you which way is which, so who decided that up was up and down was down? If it seems arbitrary, it's because it is. Some centuries ago, the powers that be got together and decided that they needed to figure these things out, because it's pretty hard to fight a war when half the troops can't agree on which way is up. Also, having a universal cartographical standard was kinda important for trade. And the only thing humans enjoy more than shooting at each other is money, so it's easy to see why it was necessary to slap some labels on that big sparkly disc. And so the brightest minds humanity could offer got together and put their thinking caps on for a week, during which much expensive liquor and food was consumed and figured out something that could just as well have been decided by the flip of a coin (though probably wouldn't have been as much fun).
And because of this, every time we open up our Universal Cartographics app, the galaxy is always aligned properly so we can figure out where the hell we are. Good job humanity.