Event Horizon

The Explanation

I am Q.

Q for Quasar, Quantum, Quark, or Quintin, it's whatever you would like to choose. I have chosen to take the letter Q for my identification, even though it is sentimental, illogical, and irrational to do so. If you are wondering why, I could not explain the full reason to you, since you do not have complete understanding outside of anything besides your own puny race. I am able to find what you call laymen terms to help you understand part of the reason. My race has evolved past the point of names since we are always changing. Names define an object and we are not definable by any word you have created or any other language I have come across throughout the universe. But I have found your defining of objects and people and nouns quaint and have taken up this hobby myself. I have even named some of the nameless star systems I have encountered for my amusement. I remember the double- suns that circled each other that had the most beautiful nebula in purple that I named Sandra. But I digress. By now, you know who I am, but not what.

I am a black hole.

Or what you call a black hole. Yes, my race does suck in mass and gravity and stop time along with devouring light. Your scientists have gotten that much right. We do also exist in the center of your galaxies and are the reason of your existence. All that is besides the point; we are also sentient beings, not just the lifeless horror stories of space you make us out to be. In fact, we are not just the holes in the universe you make us out to be. We are two parts under one being: an avatar and the black hole. As an avatar, we can walk along a planet's surface, 'swim' through open space, or even visit suns without being completely obliterated. And we look just like you. Our exteriors have been modeled after your race; bipeds with opposable phalanges and a cellular skin. Our interiors are vastly different. The insides of our avatars are not fueled by bones, tissues, organs, or muscles like yours. Our insides are the other end of the black hole that you never see. What you term a 'wormhole'. Sorry to destroy your science fiction idea of dimensional travel through wormholes- you'd just become our dinner. And yes, our food source is, as you would expect, different from your human bodies. We create our life forces from whatever matter and energy we inhale, altering their molecular structures and breaking down atoms to the quarks, and from their breaking them down even further into-

Oh right. You don't know anything past quarks.

To put it in your terms again; planets, light, matter, anti-matter, and stars are like our carbohydrates. They fuel us.

Again, you must be wondering, "what does any of this have to do with humans?"? Well, rather a lot actually.

You live on a planet. We feed on planets. There is also a supermassive black hole at the center of your galaxy that is slowly eating its way to your solar system.

Ah, I can feel your understanding.

There is good news and bad news. I suppose I will give you the good news first.

I am not the black hole devouring your galaxy. In fact, I can't even begin to eat your galaxy as much as I would like to consume you. You're one of the few galaxies we've ever encountered that has living organisms, and by far the furthest advanced. Do your small minds even comprehend the amount of energy even one of your bodies holds? Devouring your solar system would create the most powerful black hole in existence; perhaps even greater than the one that exploded to creature the universe. But I cannot even taste your galaxy; like magnets, black holes cannot connect to objects that are charged the same. I have tried to eat you, but it's like trying to connect a north poled magnet to another north poled magnet. It is incredibly frustrating.

The bad news is this: my species, though few, have an inborn hate for one another. We are power hungry. We have a rudimentary caste system starting with the lowliest primordial black holes and evolving upwards. Micro black holes, Stellar Black Holes, Intermediate-mass black holes, and finally the Supermassive Black Hole (in case you're wonder, I am an intermediate-mass). We were created from supernovas with one desire: to consume everything. Even each other should we become so strong. The more we eat, the more powerful we become. And we are envious beings with much avarice.

I suppose I have more to tell you that will seem like good news. I am protecting your galaxy.

"A heavenly saviour!" You are thinking. "An alien hero! So unselfish!" Well you're wrong. I am doing this for a selfish reason. I could care less for your insignificant lives. What is the phrase that your kind so often uses? 'If I can't have you, no one can.' I will continue to eat other galaxies and suns and become stronger, hopefully emerging as a supermassive black hole. But eventually I will fall, because whosoever can eat your galaxy will become the strongest of them all and I will have no chance to stand against such a monstrosity and become it's food right before it eats you.

So you have no real chance. You all will die.

It's just a matter of time.