r/WorldBuildingMemes

Harperium, Element 164 on the United Federation of Orion’s Standard International System Periodic Table, is a superheavy element with atomic symbol Hp. It is exceedingly unique among the superheavy elements due to not only sitting on an island of stability, but also itself being extremely stable even amongst elements that sit on the islands. While Dubnium-270, the longest lived superheavy element besides Harperium, has a half-life of around one hour, Harperium-482 has a half-life of three thousand, four hundred and twenty seven years. Not only that, Harperium-482 mostly endures “relatively” harmless alpha decay, meaning it is one of the safest superheavy elements to be around. It is often dubbed the “Miracle Element”.

This makes it extraordinarily useful, being super dense, physically safe to use, extremely hard and tough, among other qualities. Much Harperium-482 would be made to continue chemical experiments. However, Harperium synthesis would also become one of the Federation’s main Critical Strategic Materials alongside Antimatter, with its synthesis being top priority for hardened defenses on ships and buildings.

Some trace elements of Harperium have been found in nature in areas of high-mass collisions, however the vast majority of it is synthetic. This gives the Federation a significant leg-up over its adversaries, who mostly still use steel, aluminum alloys, and other standard materials.

Meanwhile, Cantorite Humanity understands Harperium as “Magicrystal”, “Starshine Quartz”, or “Catalysos”. It is a magical catalyst that shapes how the world is. They understand it as the thing that gives them magic; by consuming it, your body generates magical energy by which you can move mountains. They have little understanding of its natural chemistry, but it is found all throughout Cantora in surface deposits, mines, and lakebeds.

Eventually, the two meet. And all hell breaks loose.

“What in the absolute fuck do you mean you’ve been consuming superheavy elements for milennia!? That stuff hasn’t been found in nature in this amount ever! And it does alpha decay! It kills you from the inside!”

“You have no magic!? Your world had none of this at all!? How did you survive!? Magic is fundamental to our lives and you just never had it!?”

So yes, Element 164 does give sapient species magic powers. It is also a regular chemical element with symbol Hp. Cantora has a lot of it due to it being the site of a neutron star merger several billion years ago. And Orion loved finding an absolute motherload of one of its most expensive resources.

Meanwhile, Tellurian Humanity would eventually adapt, growing the organs necessary to process Harperium into magic abilities that they never needed evolution-wise. So yeah. Sci-Fi Magical Girls.

And this does explain a lot of things. Like why Cantora has such a high child mortality rate compared to comparable times in Earth’s history—they eat radioactive crystals.

Some additional context for those wearing context-hats, context-shirts and carrying context-signs:

The term "anthropocene" is used, in universe, to refer to to the time where humanity was the "dominant species".

For point 4: Humans have developed a reputation as "being incapable of considering non-humanoids to be people", the most prominent reason for that being the consumption of Kelpwyrm children by some human fishers over the early decades and centuries after the apocalypse.

Point 5: This is an often recited phrase by more or less anti-human groups.

In my setting, sapient cat sized spiders flee their dying world via portals to Earth in 2029, and this compass takes place 7-10 years after that. More info on what's going on in the Gulf of Mexico/Mississippi river region of North America here.

You have just woken up from cryo sleep on the world of Hoss Prime in the Derivian System 40 systems away from earth. You went into cryosleep being told by the mega corporate empires that you should take part in The Great Adventure of 2950. You and billions of other would board ships and head to ‘uninhabited’ solar systems and from there a couple generations of engineers would terraform the planets and make a paradise for you and your family, if you had one. You and billions of others took the idea and went through with it and well in the blink of an eye you have woken up in a Rever Corporation Cryogenics facility.

Firstly it’s the year 4082 and well those cryogenic pods had apparently had a error. Apparently the time locks broke when the year hit 3000 as well no one added in Y3K protections. So hundreds of thousands of people remain frozen to this day with 5-100 people coming out of Cryosleep every year. But also their is more worries as several settlement ships with cryopods were destroyed so well let’s hope you didn’t have anyone you loved or cared about on them.

Leaving the facility and stepping out onto the planets surface their is no visible atmosphere making monitor for space craft easier as, did they forget to mention, they are at war with the in habitants of this uninhabited system. Bodies of people, strange insectoids, robot things, weird animal hybrid people, litter the streets in piles that men in “Rever Securities” uniforms are setting light to. Looking up and away from the body toy see the sun of this system is a permenant eclipse with this piece of tech known as a star eater. Incomprehensibly, to you, large ring that makes th eclipse by sucking in energy from the sun it messes with light giving an eclipse like look.

Also fashion seems to have really regressed or someone’s idea of paradise is someone’s bad rendition of the 1980’s. The architecture two is overly grandiose and neon to the point it burns the eyes to stare at fhe horizon.

Wanna explore the new world of endless freedom… good luck as your shit out of freedom. Stay in the upper layers of the hab city and enjoy a authoritarian corporate state constantly at war with others. Go bellow and enjoy sprawling slums thr size of continents where crime is more common than clean water. But hey at least both look right out of cyberpunk. Maybe though you think of escaping to the stars, bad luck there as well everyone in the solar system usually kills humans on sight due to the Rever corporation exploiting every ounce of sympathy these people had to hurt them.

Enjoy your new life!