The solar system is full of many hidden corners, some hiding right under our noses, so to speak. The most magnificent of these elusive places is Vulkanus, seeming like a world of dreams. If we didn’t know it existed, it would seem like an invention by a third-rate sci-fi author.
The hunt for “Vulcan”
Vulkanus has a long and varied research history. The hunt for another planet in our inner solar system goes back all the way into the 1600s when astronomers like Christoph Scheiner and Capel Lofft reported seeing transmercurial objects. The first specific proposal for such a planet beyond Mercury was made in 1838 by Thomas Dick. French astronomer Jacques Babinet gave this hypothetical planet the name Vulcan, after the Roman god of blacksmithing. As the search for such a transmercurial object essentially requires one to look directly at the sun with a telescope, you can imagine the difficulty of actually finding it.
The first solid evidence of its existence made without burned retinas was presented by Urbain Le Verrier in 1940. Le Verrier observed irregularities in Mercury’s orbit that could not be explained by commonplace Newtonian physics. He calculated that the most straightforward explanation is the existence of the proposed Vulcan. In 1846, using the same methodology on our seventh planet Ouranos, Le Verrier predicted the existence of planet eight, Neptune, which was discovered the same year. Said success gave a lot more fuel to his earlier speculations on Vulcan, beginning a widespread search for it. With each passing solar eclipse, the astronomers of the day looked for it and some claim to have actually seen it. But the discovery could never be confirmed by others and Le Verrier’s calculated orbit never proved to be predictive. By the eclipse of 1908 the search for Vulcan was deemed a failure, the planet did not exist. Around 1915, Mercury’s anomalies could reliably be explained by Einstein’s theory of relativity, the sun’s warping of space-time being the actual culprit.
Vulcan, appearing on an old astronomical map from 1846
Then, in late 1932, something funny happened in Germany. Using an archaic version of one of the very first infrared telescopes, astronomer Michael Peter Lustig of the University of Göttingen made a major discovery in the morning sky. It was a planet-sized object, intermediate in size between Mercury and Mars, clearly (and apparently searingly hot) circling in the inner solar system. However, it was not transmercurial, but instead between the orbits of Mercury and Venus, making it the actual second planet of our solar system if counted from the sun. Having the thermal images to prove it, Lustig concluded that at long last he had discovered Vulcan (or Vulkanus as he calls it in his writings, a peculiar German spelling of the god’s latinized name) and that previous astronomers had been unable to find it because they were simply looking in the wrong place. What he could not explain, however, was why it was apparently only visible in the infrared. If Vulkanus truly existed at the reported distance, he correctly concluded, it should also be visible to the human eye as a morning star, just like its two neighbours.
Lustig was unfortunately never able to resolve this paradox himself, for in 1933 the nazi party took control over the Weimarer Republic. Lustig, being of Jewish descent, fled the purge of his university and emigrated with his family to the United States, thankfully taking all his work with him. Unfortunately, he died of a respiratory illness shortly after arriving, before he could finalize and publish his results. Though dutifully kept by his wife, his observations thus went forgotten for the better part of the decade and especially throughout the Second World War.
In the late 1940s, as fate would have it, his work fell into nazi hands. Or rather the hands of one particular nazi, Wernher von Braun, who, through Operation Paperclip, was now working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (later to become NASA). Using newer instruments, he was able to confirm that there was indeed a large object glowing in the infrared spectrum between Mercury and Venus. After wide publication followed a series of both American and Soviet orbiters and landers trying to unveil the “phantom planet”.
The first successful one was NASA’s Da-Gama-2 in 1968, a satellite similar to the Mariner ones. Its major discovery was the true reason why Vulkanus does not appear as a morning star: It had a dense, carbonic and opaque atmosphere, like Venus, but said atmosphere was pitch black, absorbing nearly all visible light coming in from the sun instead of reflecting it like its neighbours. Vulkanus could therefore only be seen by the human eye if it were to pass right in front of the sun, which is exceedingly rare to be observed, due to the fact that it also orbits our star with the highest orbital inclination of any known planet in the solar system, circling it almost perpendicularly to the sun’s equator. This also brings into question if the earlier sightings of “Vulcan” were indeed caused by Vulkanus or were instead something completely different.
Da-Gama-2’s radiowave sensors were able to map Vulkanus’ surface through the dense clouds, revealing a varied landscape of mountains, hills and plains. There were also vast, flat surfaces, which were originally interpreted to be mare features like on the Moon. The next mission was the lander Sethlans. It was originally expected that the surface of Vulkanus would be much like that of Venus, only much worse, completely sterile and insanely hot. But after Sethlans made it past the searingly hot veil of the atmosphere, it measured the temperature going down drastically and, instead of landing on solid ground to melt away, it splashed into a viscous liquid and sank like a rock, obviously unprepared for such an outcome.
Learning from the experience, Sethlans-2 followed shortly after, equipped with a built-in raft, only to ironically land on solid ground. This at least gave it the opportunity for more controlled observations, which shockingly revealed that Vulkanus was not just livelier than expected but also inhabited.
Vulkanus up close
Later missions, both robotic and manned, have greatly expanded our knowledge of the phantom planet, as well as the wider nature of the cosmos. With a radius of about 3000 km, the planet is slightly smaller than Mars, but, apparently due to higher density, has a higher gravity, about 46% that of Earth’s. The planet’s rotation is retrograde, like that of Venus, with the sun rising in the West and setting in the East, though the daylength is only about twenty hours.
Vulkanus viewed from orbit (with the opaque atmosphere digitally removed).
Extraordinarily, all evidence agrees that Vulkanus is what is called a carbon planet. Unlike the other inner rocky planets, where oxygen was the dominant atom during formation, Vulkanus is mainly composed of carbon. While it still has an iron core, its mantle is therefore not made of molten sillicates, but instead silicon carbide and titanium carbide, in some places where pressure is high enough even pure diamond. Its crust is made of black graphite, the material we use for our pencils. Carbon planets are deemed impossible to have formed inside the stellar nebula of our early sun, due to its chemical composition and that of the other inner planets. This, combined with Vulkanus’ highly unusual orbit, makes it very likely that it does not actually originate from our solar system but was a former rogue planet that migrated from elsewhere. While this is still the leading hypothesis, a lot of questions remain unanswered, such as where exactly it came from, how old the planet is and when it arrived here. It could potentially be much older than the solar system.
Vulkanus’ carbonic nature is also what creates its bizarrely unique surface conditions. Millions if not billions of years of erosion have created a very finely grained graphite and carbon dust. Low gravity and strong winds, created by high air pressure, help keep this dust almost constantly airborne, creating an opaque black veil across almost the entire globe. Said veil is what makes the planet seem invisible against the dark background of space, but is also what helps keeping its surface habitable. The majority of the sun’s energy that the planet receives is absorbed by the black dust which keeps the intense heat in the upper atmosphere. The temperature on the dim surface is thus less extreme than it would be at this distance to the sun with an intense greenhouse atmosphere like Venus or with no air at all like on Mercury. A similar phenomenon is observed during the global duststorm events on Mars. This “atmospheric heat shield” is ironically quite similar to how we used to think Venus’ atmosphere worked before the Venera probes.
A surface map of Vulkanus
That said, conditions on the surface are not at all habitable for life as we are used to. With an atmospheric pressure of about 40 bars and an average temperature of 70 degrees Celsius, a human can only stand on it with a specially made exosuit. The air is mostly made of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane and hydrogen. Free oxygen as well as water are non-existent on Vulkanus. Any free oxygen that enters this environment would immediately (and probably explosively) react with pretty much everything around. The seas, lakes and rivers are instead made of liquid hydrocarbons, not unlike on Titan. Whereas Titan’s cryogenic lakes are made of liquid methane and ethane, Vulkanus’ hot seas are a much more complex mix of various alkanes, such as n-octane, pentane and hexane. For simplistic purposes it is referred to as “primordial petroleum” or just petroleum, because it is basically nothing other than crude oil, albeit of abiotic origin. Although Vulkanus has a petroleum cycle like Earth has a water cycle, in some places the oil seems to simply ooze out of the ground, sometimes even as geysers, hinting at some formation process deep inside the crust. The seas have a distinctive yellowish tint, which is thought to come from sulphurous elements ejected by the planet’s constant volcanic activity. In some colder regions of the planet, the petroleum seas become enriched with liquid hydrogen sulfide, which helps making it a good solvent not unlike water.
The complete lack of water may in fact have been what prevented Vulkanus from becoming a hellhole like Venus, as the lack of water vapor made it much less prone to a runaway greenhouse-effect.
Biosphere
It seems astonishing that a dark, almost hellish world such as this could be the abode of life, but really, is it that much different from what we have already encountered on more distant objects like Titan? Indeed, there is some broad similarity between here and there, as Vulkanians also use the local hydrocarbons as a solvent instead of water and have similar chemical cycles. The major difference is that life on Vulkanus, using acrylonitrile (which is only available in its ice-form on Titan), builds membranes from azotosomes and can thus create cells and everything that can be made from cells, making them a bit more similar to us in construction.
The forces of natural selection have fully exploited this fact and we can encounter on this planet a wide diversity of life, often in forms we know analogues of. In fact, Vulkanus seems to be the most biodiverse out of the inner planets, second only to Earth. There is a panoply of unicellular organisms as well as large flora, which in some regions can concentrate into dense jungles. This makes Vulkanus the only inner planet apart from Earth that (still) has forests. Flora on Vulkanus is mostly black-leafed, probably due to the dim surface lighting, and focussed on absorbing infrared. Using this energy, they react octane with methane to create acetylene and, as a waste product, hydrogen.
Fauna on Vulkanus, predictably, feeds on said flora, reacting the acetylene with hydrogen, much like we burn sugar with oxygen. A large part of the planet’s fauna seems to be aquatic or amphibious, with few creatures living deep inside the dry highlands, though a lot of the life in the forests has gone unsurveyed.
Large fauna on Vulkanus consists primarily of two clades which have yet to be formally named. One group consists of what can be called vertebrate-analogues which walk on two limbs. They seem to possess no eyes but instead perceive the world through a melon-like organ on their heads which they use for echolocation. What at first appears like a lower jaw is in reality a flexible tentacle with teeth that can be curled up. The other major group consists of exoskeletal creatures that can evoke stick-insects in some ways. Their sensory organs are also not immediately obvious, though they have long tendrils growing from almost every end and corner of their body, which likely aid in feeling the environment. Both clades possess members that grow into quite large sizes, making Vulkanus one of the few other known planets with megafauna.
Other types of organisms have also been reported, such as carbide snails, two-headed worms with legs, plants(?) that slide around on muscular feet like slugs and a creature that can only be described as a “one-footed snorkel-monster”.
First contact
Decades of exploration have in recent years put Vulkanus into the focus of economics. Not only would its petroleum oceans provide enough fuel for multiple Earths over multiple centuries, but diamonds are also at least a million times more common on it than on any other rocky planet. Outside of the jewellery industry, diamonds are becoming more important each day, as they can also be used for mining equipment and as semiconductors. Even more useful is the planet’s silicon carbide, which has a widespread use from tools, electronics and astronomical instruments to automobile parts and heat shielding. Especially the latter makes it a highly sought-after material for the exploration and eventual colonization of Venus and monitoring Mercury’s machine accident.
With space becoming a more lawless place each day, it should therefore come as no surprise that many private companies are seeking ways to exploit such resources, often under the guise of being government contractors. One such company is Aurora Industries, which has already established a research station in the planet’s orbit, with the express goal of one day building a “company town” planetside for “further operations”.
During initial geological surveys (no doubt made to scout future mining sites), some quite strange features were observed across the planet. Rings or mound-like structures and cleared areas of forest. Inside them were found strangely regular objects apparently made of vegetation. Intrigued, the researchers sent drones to one of these sites to take a closer look. Erected inside one of these rainforest clearings were structures made from local vegetation, propped up tree logs covered by foliage to build a roof. These were clearly artificially made dwellings! Huts! Around the site were also found scraps of worked bone and objects made of carbide. These probable tools had a distinct palaeolithic appearance, not unlike Lomekwian or Oldowan industries from Earth.
Here was now the very first sign of (albeit primitive) intelligence on another planet, but there was as of yet no trace of who had inhabited these dwellings. The huts were quite large, the roof often standing three times taller than the average human. The tools were also huge. These must have clearly been brutes, but what did they look like? What were they like in behaviour? The abandoned camps didn’t offer much information.
Then, during another survey, a camp could finally be observed in the state of habitation. The mysterious Vulkani were unlike anything that had been seen before. Clearly being related to the arthropodal group of Vulkanus, they appear somewhat like stick-insects if blown up to a size of a moose, if not taller. The body is divided into clear sections. The backmost one holds four legs on which they walk, then comes a long connecting piece, then a section with four arms, a sort of “neck” and then finally an utmost bizarre head. It consists of a large hinge, which superficially looks like a toucan’s beak, and a smaller hinge at the “chin”. More detail could not be made out, as the drone was instructed to keep a distance between itself and the aliens, out of fear of a violent reaction.
Much had been made about how to deal with this discovery. Should these organisms be further studied or simply be left alone? Some debate was had over whether they were truly intelligent while some religious fanatics either denied their existence or advocated their destruction. Conspiracy nuts of course went wild, claiming that what NASA revealed was just the tip of the iceberg, that there was a whole alien civilization on Vulkanus and that they are probably the ones piloting all the flying saucers (which is frankly quite funny to imagine, as these aliens would probably explode or worse if they came into contact with Earth’s atmosphere).
In the end, Aurora Industries did something quite unusual, but, in hindsight, sensible. They sought out an anthropologist, Samira Ahmad, who had experience with uncontacted tribes, gave her basic astronaut-training and brought her to Vulkanus to study these organisms and maybe establish contact. But how do you make first contact with a completely alien intelligence? Even if not as abstract as, say, Europa, you cannot just walk up to them and say “Hi”, because there is always a non-zero chance that by pure coincidence “Hi” is their word for “I [Redacted] your mother three times last night.”
Ahmad did the smart thing and first studied the aliens remotely using drones and satellite data, mapping their movements and behaviours. She found the aliens to be half-nomadic. They have several campsites that they migrate between with the changing of the planet’s seasons. During times of petroleum rain, they settle out in the highlands and forage for vegetation and small fauna there. Shortly after the end of the rain season, they go to their camp in the forest, feeding on the newly grown flora there. During the dry season they migrate to the coast and feed on small aquatic animals. Interestingly, before they leave their forest camp, the Vulkani modify parts of the jungle by creating open clearings, perhaps to promote better growth for smaller plants until they return. Although the flora they feed on is not domesticated, this could be seen as an archaic precursor to agriculture.
After mapping out this migration pattern and narrowing its timing down in a calendar, Ahmad and her team initiated the next step, one inspired by the first contact attempts on North Sentinel Island. The Vulkani clearly have a material culture, as evidenced by their tools, and rely on tangible food resources for survival. So, perhaps, they would understand the concept of a gift and, if they do, build up a positive association with those who gave gifts. This was at first done very discreetly. Ahmad first identified the alien flora that the Vulkani preferred eating (especially sought after seems to be a sort of hard fruit, almost like a coconut, from the placode-palm), which her team then gathered up and left behind in every hut at the campsite shortly before the inhabitants would arrive. Her team would retreat before the aliens came and observe what would happen next over drones. The aliens seem to have at first been confused, but then, matter-of-factly, gathered the gifts in a storage pit with other food items, which likely meant they accepted the gift, even if they did not know from where it came. This continued for months, though sporadically (spoiling them at every opportunity could lead to the negative consequence of them becoming dependent on the gifts). Over the course of this, Ahmad added more and more human artefacts among the gifts, such as an iron rod, a spare spacesuit helmet and even an electronic tablet. The aliens were not supposed to do anything with these, it was mainly meant as a way to slowly acclimatize them for the human “aesthetic”, but the Vulkani found some creative uses. The helmet was used as a bowl, for example, while the tablet was thrown around by some juveniles like a frisbee, indicating a form of play behaviour (that would surely not bite later researchers in the ass now that the natives associate human tools with toys).
After this phantom gift-giving became routine, Ahmad took the risk and tried to hand over a present in person. She and her team approached one of the camps as it was being inhabited, each one holding a plaque-palm-nut in their arms. First, they stood well outside on a hill, waiting until the aliens would notice them. When they eventually did, the Vulkani reacted in a panicked way, obviously disturbed by the sight, for there is nothing natural on Vulkanus that approaches the human form. Some big individuals stepped outside the camp’s borders and brandished their weapons high into the air. The largest one was wielding a club whose inserted head was a hewn diamond, several times larger than the Hope Diamond. Even though it is the hardest known material, it still brittle and can be damaged by other diamonds, so it should perhaps not have come as a surprise that in such an environment these creatures were capable of modifying it by simply bashing two diamonds against each other. It still came as quite a shock to realize that these “primitives” could craft weapons that could seriously damage even metal hulls. The mere existence of weapons also indicated that these creatures knew violence and perhaps even conflict.
The team kept standing on the hill and held their gifts in the air as a clear sign of what they were bringing. The Vulkani eventually calmed down and lowered their weapons a little. Ahmad used this as a cue to approach. It was a long and arduous process, as with almost every step the aliens held their weapons up again until the researchers stood still and waited for them to calm down. But eventually they were able to stand in front of the Vulkani nearly an (alien) arm’s length. They laid down their gifts and the natives hesitantly picked them up. Then the team just stood there again, simply showing their bare hands as a sign of non-aggression. And the aliens just stood there too, waiting, perhaps now soothed by the realization that they could easily destroy these intruders anytime they wanted. It was an odd stand-off. Ahmad considered this already enough for a first step and wanted to leave, but then one of her younger teammates did something that seemed catastrophically stupid at the time. He extended his hand out to the Vulkani, as if wanting to shake their hand. This was careless beyond belief, as outside a human context such a proactive gesture could have easily been interpreted as an act of aggression.
Against all odds, the Vulkani did not take it that way. Hesitantly, the largest of the aliens extended one of his own hands and, with clear curiosity, gently touched the teammates’s hand. From each knuckle of the alien’s three fingers extended long tendrils, which carefully felt up the astronaut suit from top to bottom. Then the alien withdrew its hand again and they all just stood there again, waiting. Ahmad took it as a sign that it was finally time to leave.
These meetings repeated until the natives gradually warmed up to the aliens. Ahmad used the increased closeness to further study the physical details of the creatures. She was the first to report that the big hinge of the head spans between itself a series of strings and that the tendrils at the end of the head are used to pull at these strings to produce sounds. It was a biological string instrument. She concluded that this, in combination with hand gestures, is how the Vulkani communicate with each other, a fascinating language whose sound she described as being similar to sitar music. How exactly this evolved is difficult to say at our current state of knowledge, though similar organs are observed in more archaic fauna on the planet, where they are used for filter-feeding. She has nicknamed the aliens “harpheads”, a nickname that has stuck around. The smaller hinge on the skull she found out to be the actual mouth, the jaw being weirdly “backwards”. It even possesses teeth, which are often heavily worn in the adult harpheads, perhaps due to the generally tough diet. Six curbs on the edge of the skull she interprets as primitive eyes capable of seeing either in the visible or infrared spectrum.
Their material culture is mainly based on archaic tools and dwellings. Most of the tools, such as diamond grinders, are used to manipulate tough vegetation. Weapons are rare and mainly used to bash small animals on the head, likely a supplement to their diet. Art, cosmetics, clothes or anything of spiritual significance is so far unknown in them, though Ahmad’s team has yet to observe what happens when one of the harpheads dies and how they deal with death. As fire is impossible on Vulkanus due to the lack of oxygen, the aliens have no hearths around which to organize their campsites. At the centre is instead usually a single large tree, often a plaque-sakura. She observed that sometimes the aliens will use their carbide hand axes to carve curbs into the tree. This happens at semi-regular intervals. The significance of this is unknown. Maybe it is of spiritual importance or maybe it is a form of early calendar, a counting system or perhaps even a census record. Or maybe they are just sharpening their axes.
Interpersonally, the aliens are quite affectionate with each other, often touching each other and literally staying in touch with their tendrils. When in a good mood, they will slide their hands across the back of an individual they fancy, like how one would pet a dog. After some time, the aliens started doing the same to the astronauts, which they took as a sign of social approval. How the harpheads reproduce has yet to be observed, though it likely happens in a manner similar to other fauna on Vulkanus, by rubbing their cloacas against each other. It would nonetheless be interesting to find out if they give live birth or lay eggs.
One day, Ahmad tried to communicate with the aliens by fashioning a crude but heat-resistant string instrument. When she played it in front of them, the harpheads were overcome with an aura of curiosity and confusion. At first, they just stood around her, doing nothing but observe and listen. Most and eventually all quickly lost interest, perhaps because of her lack of musical skill or because they recognized that she had nothing to say to them. All except for one large individual, an elder, judging by the wear on its teeth. It just sat next to her, opened its harp and continuously played just a single string. When she stopped playing to observe the elder, it got seemingly upset and used its hand to point towards her instrument. It then dawned on her. The harphead wanted to teach her how to play a specific tone. And so she tried until she was able to reliably imitate the single tone the elder was playing. When she finally succeeded, the elder clapped all of its four hands on the ground, in a manner similar to how chimpanzees may express joy. Then he played another string, waiting for her to imitate it again. This continued until Ahmad was able to reliably play a simple four-tone melody.
When she returned the following weeks to replay the tune, her team was greeted quite friendly every time, with the harpheads being curious and touchy. To this day neither she nor anyone else really knows what the melody means, except that it must be something positive. And perhaps, for now, that is all that is needed. On a recent journey, she left the crude instrument behind as gift at one of campsites, intending to eventually replace it with a better one. Drone-observations showed that the harpheads were still fascinated by it and tried to play it themselves. Why exactly they wanted to is a good question, seeing as how they have their own built-in strings, but it was probably just fascinating to them to have an artificial device that could replicate their “voice”. Due to rough play, the instrument eventually broke, but the aliens are apparently a crafty bunch. Using “wood” and strings they pulled off prey animals, they have built their own crude imitations, which some have dubbed “xeno-banjos”. At first, the harpheads seem to have only used them as toys, but over time they became increasingly associated with elder individuals who had their natural strings broken due to accidents. They had evidently been repurposed into speaking-devices for the disabled.
Ahmad’s research continues to this day and seems like an unending fountain of fascinating interactions. It fills me with joy and hope. We live in very cynical times, you see. Gone are the days of optimism. Corrupt politicians and the endless greed of corporations have disillusioned us about the supposed betterment and progress of society and history. It has come to the point where people cannot think anymore that things will ever get better. Some have completely stopped trying to work towards a better world, as they do not see the point anymore. This is reinforced by all our media, which is afraid of both idealism and taking itself too seriously. Every serious moment is broken by unnecessary humour, always evaporating any sense of immersion by pointing out the unrealism of the scenario. The superheroes of my childhood, who acted idealistically out of the genuine kindness of their heart, have been replaced by demigods that are all too human. Gone is the bold spaceship captain who took his diverse crew to stars no one has been to before, to seek out strange new worlds, lifeforms and civilizations and interact with them in the most idealistic way possible. He has been replaced by the Musks of the world, who would rather see Earth burn than to give up their wealth. Space is no longer seen as a place of adventure. Either it is a corporate and lawless hellscape or a dark place, filled only with uncaring emptiness or unimaginable cosmic horrors. Gone is all the enthusiasm. The layman sees no fun anymore in space.
But even darkness must pass, and this first contact, I think, shows that there are still reasons to be optimistic. That we can have a positive interaction and impact on the cosmos. That space is not just a place of danger but also offers opportunity, maybe even friendship. Hopefully we will have learned all the right lessons from this for the day we encounter an intelligence more advanced than us. For, I am certain, they will decide how to deal with us by judging how we interact with lifeforms we consider “lesser”.
