BYUN BAEKHYUN: BEYOND DETECTIVE ▷ EXO GAMEBOOK

Prologue

PROLOGUE, OR A DISCOURSE IN HISTORY

Ever stopped to stare at the night-time skies?

The blackness over your heads is not just an empty canvas. There are glitters. There are stars.

It is estimated that our Milky Way galaxy alone hosts up to 400 billion stars. 75% of them are red dwarfs of late K or M spectral classes. Each star hosts a planetary system of its own, like our own Solar System. If there are so many stars in this galaxy, and so many planets orbiting every shining star, intelligent life must exist somewhere out there. When we gaze out to the stars, there might be someone else staring back at us.

These planets, these alien worlds beyond our Sun are called extrasolar planets. Or staying true to the Greek roots—exoplanets.

There are many reasons why humans are searching for Earth-like planets all over the Milky Way. Some are searching for a second planet that we can call home in case something bad happens. Look at the unhealthy rate we humans are destroying Earth (and each other!). Some want to satisfy their curiosity and need for knowledge—several thousand years ago humans went exploring the seas to look for undiscovered lands, today humans are exploring the vast space to look for exotic planets. A remarkable achievement!

Some dreamers seek to ease the burden of cosmic loneliness that we face day by day, waking up to see an empty sky devoid of life; knowing that we're alone in the universe. And if there are extraterrestrial life out there, they might only be simple microbes. Like bacteria. Ah, our poor celestial cousins.

More existential musings later, we're still asking questions... and searching.

Recently, researchers say that the answer lies in red dwarf stars. Red dwarf stars are so commonly found, and almost single one of them has a planet in the habitable zone where life can thrive. Each year, more and more planets around red dwarf stars are found by astronomers. Even NASA’s Kepler space observatory had documented the existence of small, rocky Earth-like planets, some even are well-equipped with liquid water. That is, if the distance between the planet and its star is just right. Not too hot and not too cold.

One of these red dwarf stars is Gliese 1288. At first, it was only another dwarf star similar to anything from Wilhelm Gliese’s Catalogue of Nearby Stars. This tiny, red star is only 15% of our Sun’s mass, and shines much dimmer. However, in late 2018, two teams of planet hunters from the Chinese-South Korean joint Seoul Mandarin University had announced the discovery of a rocky planet about the size of our Earth orbiting Gliese 1288, and is situated in the habitable zone. After a decade of constant observation, the new planet was designated as Gliese 1288 c.

Gliese 1288 c is surrounded by two moons. Given a red dwarf’s cold temperature, Gliese 1288 c has to orbit more closely that it became tidally locked to its star. Which means, the one side that faces the star will bask in eternal daylight, while the other side facing away from the star will freeze in an evernight. The two extremes of temperature will result in a constant exchange of flowing air between two sides to keep the planet temperature in balance—and causing strong raging winds along the way. There will be a never-ending windstorm.

Skepticism arose about the habitability of Gliese 1288 c. Especially as red dwarf stars give out solar flares that can erode a planet’s atmosphere if the planet has a magnetic field too weak. The planet’s small Earth-like size gave little hope for the existence of life. The magnetic field might be indeed too weak.

“This is not the case”, said 2015 Nobel Prize winner Kim Young-min of Seoul Mandarin University. Kim, who won the Physics prize for devising a method to detect the magnetic field of exoplanets, had used his invention to discover that there was an anomaly in Gliese 1288 c. A stronger magnetic field is radiating from the planet itself. His discovery baffled astronomers and physicists worldwide. How is that even possible?

Nevertheless, Gliese 1288 c had set a new record for habitable exoplanets by having an ESI (Earth Similarity Index) of 0.97 and a habitability index of 0.94, making it as a highly likely candidate to support life, intelligent or otherwise. Exobiologists began to speculate about the existence of exoplanetary life on the planet, or referred to as EXO-Ls for short.

In April 2020, a competition was held by Weibo and SMTown (SMU’s own social networking site) to select 555 messages for the ‘Our Friendship Letter’ project. Users from China and South Korea had recorded a million videos and friendly letters for this purpose. Celebrities and astronomers also contributed for the project. Our Friendship Letter, the collection of 1288 text messages, photographs and movies was beamed in binary format from Seoul directly to Gliese 1288 c.

The broadcast reached Gliese 1288 c in 2041. The inhabitants of the planet were shocked by the message they had received. A parade of moving and still pictures in a language they did not understand was something too otherworldly for them. A message from heaven? A mission from a higher being? Mathematicians, linguists and psychologists all over Gliese 1288 c tried their best to decode the message into their own language. And soon, a translation was published.

The alien languages intrigued the inhabitants. What heavenly languages! A harbinger of new knowledge! A gate to a new era! All came from a race similar to them! Textbooks and dictionaries were written. Language centers were set up. The mania and euphoria caused them to learn Korean and Chinese (in their own spike-like scripts, not in Hangeul/Kanji) and naming children in these languages became the new style. Meanwhile, upper-class ones prefer European names as they sound more refined and elegant.

By 2100, Korean and Chinese are the most widely-spoken languages in Gliese 1288 c. Though, some of them do speak English and local dialects. The planet was divided into three parts—Chinese is spoken in the North, Korean in the South, and English around the equator.

Before the message came, Gliese 1288 c had never had a proper name for their own planet, only ‘Home’.

But the last line in the mysterious message had inspired them:

Hello, Exoplanet. The Earth welcomes you.

EXO Planet became Gliese 1288 c’s name ever since.

But why, you ask, is Gliese 1288 c so special? Of course it is special, this is the place where your journey starts. And if you’re not prepared enough, it’ll end soon.

Welcome, Baekhyun's Fate. Welcome to EXO Planet.

A/N: Finally! A prologue! I hope it wasn’t too confusing (as expected of me). I’m only giving my opinions based on the things I see in EXO’s History MV. Don’t worry! Things will get better, I promise! T^T

Dedicated to comrade KimchiiDesu for helping me with the construction of one of the realms in this fic. *wink wink*. It was a question I had asked in early July. At that time this fic was only a novella before I altered it radically.

List of currently habitable exoplanets and methods to find them are there in the media section~ =====>

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! If you seek an out-of-the-ordinary love story set in highschool with decent language and pacing, you should read Games We Play! Fast enough to keep you thrilled! Detailed enough to make you dream! GRAB YOUR COPY NOW! ^^ See external link!

XOXO,

HCl