Eclipsing Suns

Eclipsing Suns

I can’t remember which novel JR said influenced the world of S6, but I was recently reminded of Asimov’s Nightfall and wonder whether its eclipse narrative might have some bearing on the plot …

[Spoilers for Nightfall ahead – highly recommend you read the story (it’s short!)]

For anyone not familiar, Nightfall is set on a planet with six suns - enough suns that the planet never experiences darkness. Every 2000 years or so, the suns and the planet’s moon align just so, and an eclipse occurs. And every 2000 years, something cataclysmic occurs that ends civilization. The only records of the event are embedded in the mythology of an ancient cult’s scripture. 

During one of these cycles, a team of astronomers and psychologists collaborate with the cult, and together determine that they are weeks away from the next eclipse. The scientists lock their loved ones away in a bunker and prepare equipment to document the eclipse, which they do not believe they will survive. (Having never experienced nighttime, they have a pathological fear of the dark. Even more concerning, however, is the threat of the Stars mentioned in ancient scripture, for these have the power to burn cities and drive men to madness.)

And when the eclipse occurs and people see the night sky for the first time in two thousand years, they are struck with terror and knowledge of their insignificance, and all the world over, people set their cities on fire to blot out the stars’ truth and the horror of the long night.

… What little we do know about S6 reminds me of this. Like Clarke and co., these scientists attempt to learn what happened to a lost civilization (Eligius III) while hampered by a cult-like organization (Second Dawn? Wonkru? Whoever now inhabits the planet?) that has attached mythological meaning to the natural phenomenon of the eclipse. JR has said that something crucial happens when the suns eclipse, and though suns eclipsing themselves does not create total darkness, as here, we can guess that there will be psychological ramifications attached to it.