Curse of the Fifty Worlds!
You may have heard the wondrous news that Pluto is once again a planet, eight years after being relegated to the status of dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Plutonians, Rejoice!
I commanded the initiation of a worldwide nine-year long feast, festival, festivity and celebration, culminating in the ritual trampling of Tokyo by Godzilla and the celebratory re-ignition of Mount Vesuvius as a Jubilee, with all public executions cancelled, all slaves freed, and all debts cancelled in this announcement here: http://scifiwright.com/2014/10/pluto-is-a-planet-again/
Unfortunately, I lack the legal and real power to have these commandments carried out, but I wish I could do what they do in Katroo for birthdays to solemnize the rebirth of Pluto. (Yes, yes, I know the rebirth is not officially official, but I care not a tinker’s damn. I never heard of Dr. Wesley Mouch, or any of the other alleged experts who declared Pluto not a planet before they committed their jejune act of cosmic vandalism. The thing was done on the sly, after most of the delegates had left the convention.)
Erik1880 left a comment. He quotes the Pluto-haters thus:
“If Pluto is a planet, the number of planets in our solar system could rise to 25, “with the possibility of 50 or 100 within the next decade. Do we want schoolchildren to have to remember so many?”
Erik1880 quips (and, in my opinion, with some justice) ‘Really? Science would now operate on the criteria that “we take a position dependent on it not making the public have to think too much”. If so then astronomy would be in a race with psychology to see which of the two is the most useless “science”.‘
Well said, Mr. 1880. I must add a comment of my own, which by pure coincidence addresses just this issue.
Allow me to quote myself. This is from ARCHITECT OF AEONS, Part Six, Chapter Two:
When Montrose was born, there had been eight planets in the solar system. Two hundred years before that, there had been nine; and two hundred years before that, only six; in antique times, there had been seven, counting the Sun and the Moon as planets, but not Earth.
During that brief golden age when he had ruled, it had offended the majesty of Nobilissimus Del Azarchel that older generations had more worlds in their solar system than his, and so the Hermetic Order had decreed any object pulled by gravity into a sphere and greater than 250 miles in diameter was a planet.
Hence from those days onward were there fifty planets in the solar system, including Ceres, Orcus, Pluto, Ixion, Huya, Varuna, Quaoar, Eris and Sedna, and many other small, cold, outermost worlds named after small, cold, outermost gods: from Apollyon and Ahriman, through Ceto and Chemosh, Eurynomos and Erlig, to Orcus and O-Yama, to Pwcca and Proserpina and Typhon and Tunrida, and onward.
And schoolboys for many centuries after cursed Del Azarchel whenever they had to memorize and rattle off all fifty names, from Abaddon to Zipacna, no doubt wishing that all the hell gods from the various world mythologies whose names they recited would torment him.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
