PAGE ONE (3 panels)
Panel 1. The depths of interstellar space. A massive starship soars through the void (we see it as a three-quarter view from the front). This is the Great Ark, home to generations of space travelers, and it will eventually become the Great Keep when it sets down on the surface of Andronus to serve as a city for the planetary settlers. So be sure you give it a massive look, and plenty of long, tapering tower-like projections so that it will vaguely resemble a vast, fantastic city when it sits on the planet’s surface.
CAP: “FINALLY, WE COME TO THE THIRD EPOCH. UPON THE DEATH OF THE MOTHER WORLD, OUR FOREFATHERS ROAMED THE SEAS OF INFINITY.”
CAP: “THE GREAT ARK SERVED AS HOME TO TWELVE GENERATIONS IN A SEARCH THAT SPANNED THE GALACTIC LATITUDES.”
Panel 2. We’re inside the bridge of the starship, looking over the shoulder of its handsome captain as he points toward the large viewscreen. On screen is a brightly gleaming star shining amid the void. This is the legendary Septimius the Fourth as he discovers Kalyptis the dragon star. Several balding elders in ornate robes of office stand behind him and gaze in wonder at the blazing star. (The clothing worn by the captain, elders, and crew is an eclectic mix of sci-fi gear and Shakespearean Greco-Roman style.)
CAP: “AT LAST, SEPTIMIUS THE FOURTH LED THE PROGENITORS TO THE STAR KNOWN AS KALYPTIS. SOME SAY IT WAS THE SPIRIT OF KALYPTIS ITSELF THAT CALLED TO SEPTIMIUS IN A DREAM. ARCHIVAL RECORDS ALTERNATELY SUPPORT AND DENY THIS CLAIM.”
Panel 3. We’re outside the great starship again, but it looks much smaller as it floats in the orbit of the great, blazing star. Now we see for the first time the trinary planetary system: two Greater Planets (Andronus, Andrylla) float on the either side of a moon-sized world (the Middle Planet, Elyptra). It’s as if the worlds were a string of three monolithic pearls floating in space, held together with an invisible string, and the middle “pearl” is less than half the size of the two outer planets. NOTE: It is actually the unique gravitational field of the substance known as Nyzium, which fills the core of the Middle Planet, that holds the two larger planets together in a single orbit (a trinary system that would otherwise be physically impossible).
CAP: “THE DISCOVERY OF SUCH A SINGULAR WONDER, THE GALAXY’S ONLY TRINARY PLANETARY SYSTEM, CONVINCED THE PROGENITORS THEY HAD AT LAST FOUND A NEW HOME.”