The Crater Chronicles

The Astronomer

My name is Tycho.

Or at least, that is what I prefer to call myself. In truth, neither I nor anyone else I meet will ever know my real name. Maybe I never had one.

Being able to choose one for myself was liberating. Most people are stuck with something chosen haphazardly, by people who knew next to nothing about them--despite what they might claim. I have never understood why people name their children as infants, often before they are even born. Naming someone like that is like betting on their personality, and after meet an exceedingly meek Aristodemos and psychopathic Lily, I've come to realize just how peculiar a name that fits is.

That being said, my name is Tycho. Not because my parents named me such. Not because a friend gave me title by which to go by. No. I am Tycho because I wanted to be Tycho.

It all started when I found the half collapsed ruins of a building like nothing I had seen before. The granite plaque standing outside was weathered to the point where half the engraved name was unintelligible, but a few bronze letters had hung onto it through all the trials of the year. They dubbed it an "ULIC LIR."

I had no prior conceptions about what an ulic lir was, and to be truthful, I was well beyond apprehensive as I ducked my way through the holes in the double doors that, judging by the abundance of shattered glass, had once been covered by--you guessed it--glass! As it turned out, that ulic lir was the most dangerous and glorious wonderland I have ever stumbled across.

Books.

In a world of snow, ash and bitter emptiness, books are a luxury worth thrice their weight in food. My generation is one of escapists, and books provide the perfect outlet for that. Your average city might have 100 books, but I have yet to come across a Crater settlement with more than 20.

But this building, this ulic lir, had thousands. Many had been rendered unreadable by time, and most were missing pages, but it was still the find of a lifetime.

With a little bit of digging (in both the literal and figurative sense of the word), I uncovered some of the building's history. It seemed to have once been a sort of archive from which people could borrow books. Why they would ever return them was beyond me, but I assumed the Old Folks had their reasons.

I spent about 3 synodic lunar periods in the place, reading as much as I could between the unfortunate necessities of maintaining my bodily needs. By far the most interesting book I read was one on the subject of Astronomy. Most interesting to me was the history aspect. So much knowledge was lost in the aftermath of the Detonation, and in many respects, humanity was back to square one. Thus, reading about people trying to learn the same things we were seeking after was an oddly touching experience.

Enter Tycho Brahe, one of the greatest pre-telescopic observational astronomers, and an all-around bizarre man. Suffice to say, I took a bit of inspiration from him.

Pre-telescopic is far from the perfect description of my world--as is post-telescopic. Telescopes do exist--I've lived my whole life in the shadow of one of the Old Folks' strange sky domes--but those we have are simplistic, low powered and a significant pain in the neck to maintain. So, excluding the few people insane enough to spend a lifetime protecting their equipment from the unforgiving bite of an ice age, humanity is living in the age of the naked eye.

Did I mention that Tycho is a really cool name? Because it is. And now, it is mine.

-Found scrawled on the back cover of a battered textbook titled The History of Astronomical Discovery. Undated.