This is a collaboration with my good friend Hoevelkamp, go see more of his work at: http://hoevelkamp.deviantart.com/ Backstory: The natives of Raenil have evolved to live with the strange rhythms of their binary solar system. For all of their recorded existance they have worshipped the distant second sun that comes briefly near every 638 years. They have adapted their bodies to live with the rising temperatures and radiation every 319th birthing cycle. But when a strange phenomenon appears in their sky, a glowing ribbon of sunlight that is bright enough to be visible at high noon, they are terrified. Their religions scrambled to come up with explanations, and their scientists observed and discussed it just as fast as they could. But their only real hope is their fledgling spaceflight program. Armed with the knowledge that they have roughly 160 years until its arrival, they built and armed a gigantic spacecraft. After countless trials and awe-inspiring tragedies, they have created a warship upon which rest the hopes of their entire species. Built out of a hollowed-out moon and propelled with gravity wave engines, they point their craft towards the brilliant enemy and pray toward their gods that their weapons will have an effect, any effect. Then without warning they are hailed in a bizarre language from an approaching craft. After only moments, they newcomers are able to understand their own language and speak it back to them. Standing on two legs with pale pink skin and tiny eyes, they offer their aid in only a handful of sentences. But there are those on the titanic spacecraft that would rather see what their own weapons are capable of before submitting the fate of their race to anything so bizarre looking. Deep inside the moonlet, enormous engines of war are powered up .... Explanation: The "ribbon" is actually a cosmic string that is inexplicably stable, a phenomenon that has been theorized to exist. It is a one-dimensional distortion of spacetime created during the early universe, and the glowing visible element is actually the 'ripples' that it's existence creates. Wikipedia says: "The formation of cosmic strings is somewhat analogous to the imperfections that form between crystal grains in solidifying liquids, or the cracks that form when water freezes into ice." The strange looking newcomers are humans, who have advanced technology able to either destroy the string or deflect it from its current course. But the big question is: will they get the chance? Or will war break out during the aliens' first contact with another species. More on cosmic strings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_string Thanks for taking a look :)