The Planetarium was named by Nikos Irwin, the first human to set foot on that planet, after a picture in a book that his mother used to read to him as a kid.[1][2]
It was from this planet that somehow, stumbling upon a flaw in the Long Earth, the silver beetles managed to reach Earth West 1,217,756.
Ken Bowring believed that this planet was part of the globular cluster Messier 15 (M15), located thirty thousand light years from Earth.[3]
Appearance[]
There, the sky is orange-brown and bright stars are visible in the clear sky.[1] The stars on the left side had a green tint while those on the right were pure white and the sun is red on this part of the universe.
After this planet has been invaded by the silver beetles, pale, transluscent domes were scattered all around the land, built for xenoforming the atmosphere to be breathable for them. The beetles also built roads and bridges to facilitate their operation.
The Long Utopia[]
Discovery[]
In April 2052, young Nikos Irwin was looking for his dog Rio who fell into a cellar hole on Earth West 1,217,756.[1] Nikos entered the half-dug cellar to look for his dog but ended up facing a large group of silver beetles. Nikos, panicked, managed to injure a silver beetle with his flashlight and saw another silver beetle grab his wounded companion and step away, despite being in a cellar.
With beetles surrounding him on every side and closing in on him, Nikos try to step using his Stepper several times until the switch broke in his hand. With no other way to escape, he finally managed to step and ended up in the Planetarium.
As Nikos as taking in the scenery, a beetle came to him and made him lose consciousness to bring him back to Earth West 1,217,756. Nikos, scared, grabbed Rio and ran home. He came back three days later with his friends and showed them his discoveries.
The Abrahamses[]
For several years, only the kids of New Springfield knew about the Planetarium until 2057.[4][2] As Nikos and his friends grew up, they hung out less and less at the old Poulson place but Lydia, his little sister, and his friend Ben Abrahams, who arrived with his parents in 2054, took over the place.
One day, as Ben went to see his mother to show her some grapes he picked up, she noticed a silver armband on his right arm. After questionning him about its origin, she learned about the beetles and decided to investigate the place for herself.
The next day, Agnes Abrahams left Ben with Marina Irwin, Nikos' mother, while she would explore the cellar hole behind the old Poulson house with Nikos and her husband George. Nikos told about how he discovered the place and named it the Gallery from a picture he has seen in a book as a child and took them to the Planetarium by holding their hands.
In the months that followed, George Abrahams went back to the Planetarium and even brought Joshua Valienté, an old friend of his.[5]
The militaries to the rescue[]
After a while, George called the militaries in order to have a better study of the silver beetles and what they were up to.[6] The US Navy sent the USS Brian Cowley to deal with the situation. Aboard the twain, a team a scientists led by Dr Ken Bowring, from the US Geological Survey.
A community meeting was held and the militaries told the pioneers that they would have to abandon their homes. After a heated debated where the militaries admitted that they didn't know what the silver beetles were doing, George Abrahams stepped forward and was brought to Ken Bowring and ended up bringing the militaries to the Planetarium.[7]
The militaries set up a small base camp at the Planetarium.[3] There, they discovered that the silver beetles didn't come from the Planetarium and that they were xenomorphing it as they were an expansionist species.
The Cauterizing[]
In the end, to prevent the silver beetles to spread across the Long Earth, Earth West 1,217,756 was detached of the Long Earth chain by Stan Berg, helped by Sally Linsay and Lobsang, making the Planetarium inaccessible by stepping.[8]