Oort Cloud

Far beyond our borders it lies; the offcuts of our creation. A vast array containing everything that once made us, stretching thousands of times wider than our own system. In the dead silence of space, it whispers.

Far beyond Neptune, the Kuiper Belt, and the Scattered Disc, the Oort Cloud envelops the Sol System. It is wider than the Inner and Outer World combined, and is believed to be a wasteland of frozen debris and cosmic dust. The Cloud is little understood, primarily due to the presence of ancient and malevolent entities.

As Old as Sol

Billions of years ago, long before life as we know it had come to be, rejected remains of the protoplanetary nebula were slung out into distant orbit by Neptune and the other outer planets. The majority of this protonic debris was concentrated in a dense inner cloud that still crests around the orbiting planets today. The inner ring of the Oort Cloud begins about two thousand AU out from the sun, thousands of times further out than Neptune. It would take a spaceship travelling at interplanetary max speeds eleven years to reach the beginning of the Oort Cloud. For reference, it takes two months to travel from Venus to Neptune.
This inner cloud feeds into an outer halo that forms a sphere around the entire Sol System. The outer halo is far sparser, and it would take the aforementioned spaceship a thousand years to reach the far edge of the Oort Cloud. The entire cloud, both the dense inner ring and the sparse outer halo are home to eldritch entities best left undescribed.
Further study is near impossible. The Oort Cloud is hazardous to intelligent minds, as is any information gathered within. Probes sent into the Oort Cloud return garbled and warped information. Attempting to interpret this information poses a great risk of Deep Space Syndrome.

As Unforgiving as Sol

The protonic debris contained more than just dust and dead rock. Among it was the same seeds of creation that led to life in our solar system. In the deadlands a different, hungrier, kind of life began, overseen by somethings, or someone, as old as Sol itself. Though today we have the brave Sentinels to protect us from most of the physical dangers of the Oort Cloud and beyond, and the Sol Sanitation Union to contain the cognitive hazards, ancient civilizations were not so lucky. Cosmic cults proliferated across the system, seeking to appease the entities in the Oort Cloud.
The more fortunate cults never drew the attention of the entities they attempted to worship. Those that did would invariably drive themselves extinct. As better methods of dealing with the dangers of the Oort cloud were developed, these cosmic cults have naturally faded away.

by Annie Stein

A Beacon from Afar

The Sol System is always in flux. As the Galaxy yawns, the galactic tide pulls comets out of the Oort Cloud and into the Outer and Inner Worlds. Other comets have orbits that take them into the Oort Cloud. All entities that enter the Oort cloud are irrevocably changed, however, regardless of their origins.
The sight of a comet streaking across the night sky entrances many. Warnings are issued when a comet contaminated by the Oort Cloud is detected. People are advised not to look up as it passes by, but many skirt the rule by viewing them through specially crafted goggles that purportedly reduce the risk of exposure.
Far more dangerous than the mere sight of a comet is the debris left in its wake. The SSU recommends people stay inside during particularly heavy showers of dust and rock, and special cleaning crews are deployed to contain the event if and when solid matter reaches the surface. Oort-tainted meteoric substances are extremely dangerous, causing a large amount of adverse mental effects. Many artefacts from ancient Cosmic Cults were made from meteoric metal, and the trade of these artefacts flourishes in black markets despite the risk.

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Related Articles

Outer Space
Locations Asteroid Belt ( The Collision Course ) · Oort Cloud Species Deep Space Leviathan · Orbitross · Astroplankton Materials Astrallite Technology Crystal Technology · Super Wide Access Network · Spacecraft ( Dragonfly Carrier ) Society Traditions ( Dumplings in Space ) · Organizations ( Sentinel ) · Conditions ( Deep Space Syndrome )

Distance from Sun

2,000 to 200,000 AU

Location under

Sol System

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