Alien Moon (or: "Why Our Moon Is More Beautiful Than Yours")

Member : ThomdeG

Image description

Excerpts from the Encyclopaedia Galactica, 534^th revised edition, Ophiuci Sector Capital, Galactic Year (GY) 20,415

Alien Moon. Opera^* by Rantus M’motai / Fourth Crèche (GY 19,987-20,102). Generally considered as one of his lesser works, Alien Moon (composed GY 20,020) has remained notorious however, because of its sweeping melodic constructions. According to musical experts, the chorus “Why Our Moon Is More Beautiful Than Yours” (see illustration; listen to extract) is the culmination of ultra-chromatic sliding which came into its own around the same period. In contrast, the libretto^* is considered insipid, according to most experts.

Opera. Art form, allegedly of Terran^* origin. Combination of music, song and spoken text. Eed Oksmiss the Zwilnik, the oldest opera still surviving in the Galactic Archives, dates back to GY 10,397. Linguistics: the term is of unknown origin and its meaning is uncertain. It is considered one of the few dozen Crypto-Lingua^* words that have survived. It has often been thought to be synonymous to another Crypto-Lingua word: politics^*.

Terra. Also called Urth, Urs, or Dirt. Mythical planet of a mythical star called Sun (or Sol) only referred to in a couple of space shanties of doubtful origin. Was allegedly the home planet of a small, bipedal, sentient species (often referred to as Martians) which – according to legend - suddenly died out when the Galactic Federation made first contact. No reference to Terra has ever been found in the Galactic Archives however.

Crypto-Lingua. Languages spoken in the galaxy before the creation of the Galactic Federation. Some doubtful linguistic remnants like Terran (or Martian) or Golubb are tentatively classified as Crypto-Lingua’s.

Politics. Art form, allegedly of Terran^* origin. Combination of spoken words and music. Considered to be a – degraded - variation of opera^*.

Libretto. Crypto-Lingua word, probably meaning “book” or “written word”.

Description of how this image was created
H. Karsten's and Trevor G. Quayle's 'greeble' blocks are the most conspicuous features in this image. The alien moon shows a Venus map. The height_field (GeoControl) is more complex than shown here. The aliens are the Grey Alien model which comes with Poser; I overhauled their texture maps however. The moon scene, of course, uses Bill Pragnell's unsurpassed method. A scattering media (type 2) is used to create the atmosphere. Two-pass radiosity was used.

General statistics
No of ratings	:	6
Min. overall rating	:	18 (3 / 6 / 9)
Max. overall rating	:	46 (17 / 15 / 14)
Sum of rating	:	198 / 360
Date uploaded	:	2008-03-11 04:13:06

Specific details Note: The maximum value below is misleading as the voting system has changed. If the member votes for all the entries and has created one him/herself, there is an automatic 20/20/20 score added to the value (This encourages all members who enter to vote).
Rating type	:	Min : Max : Sum : Out of
Artistic	:	3 : 17 : 64 : 120
Concept	:	6 : 15 : 62 : 120
Technical	:	7 : 16 : 72 : 120
Overall	:	18 : 46 : 198 : 360

Comments by members when rating this image

1.   29-04-2008 I like the moons, nice use of atmospheric depth. The structures with the pods are pretty cool too. 2.   27-04-2008 All the elements are well done, but the final image seems to be lacking in story 3.   21-04-2008 Quietly disturbing 4.   20-04-2008 Really like this for concept and atmosphere. I feel this would make a great poster. I like that the aliens in the background give the buildings and the whole image a good sense of scale. However, the only thing that bugs me a little is the way that the buildings are built into the ground the way they are.