Zero Elysium

The new AEONS CONFER album, ZERO ELYSIUM, tells a dark science-fiction story about the ultimate loss of control. Every 27,000,000 years extinction-producing asteroids from outer space hurdle toward the Earth. These asteroids are once again on their deadly collision course - and no one is safe. Whereas the concept album SYMPHONIES OF SATURNUS depicts a dystopian society on the wane, ZERO ELYSIUM tells the story of one individual’s scramble for survival as the apocalypse rains down.

IMPACTORS The world is in the midst of being destroyed by a perpetual bombardment from the depths of the universe. Almost all forms of life on the planet have been destroyed. Civilization has been pulverized and all has sunk into magma and ashes. The age of human arrogance is over. Yet, even where death seems inevitable and survival unreal, the will to survive among those who are still alive remains unbroken.

Mercilessly, huge celestial objects penetrate deeply into the Earth’s planetary surface and destroy large parts of the mantle. Humanity is momentarily overwhelmed; life evaporates within a wide radius of the impacts. There can be no security from such danger, and there never was.

TERMINATION ARTIFACTS A chaotic formation, blown apart wildly, freed from previously stable gravitational forces, races at inconceivable speed into the center of our solar system. Countless compositions of rock, ice, matted dust, and metal are on a direct course with the manifold forms of life inhabiting planet Earth. The universe is constantly being observed, mapped, scanned and analyzed. In spite of humanity’s feeble attempts at controlling its own fate, celestial bodies often approach the world unnoticed for a long time and appear abruptly - and at threatening distances. Suddenly, large objects appear in the immediate vicinity of the Earth. Their enormous speed and their sheer abundance prevent a globally overarching coordinated defense system.

The panic that news of the oncoming asteroids causes overshadows attempts by mankind to mount an internationally coordinated defense. Humanity, as usual, has opposing interests and is entangled in them, and is too concerned with irrational claims to power. In the midst of an atmosphere of fear fueled by misguided decisions, the protagonist activates his inherent potential to use established, open-source scientific knowledge to survive. As the first impacts are occurring, he encounters in his pressure-fueled research a special phenomenon, which the humanoid sciences in their relatively short history paid no attention to.

WISE DEFLECTOR The aim of the protagonist‘s plan is to create a defense construction to protect the Earth's surface, while using a massive plasmoid shield to deflect the asteroids of NEMESIS. Seeing how close humanity is to being nearly almost destroyed focuses the efforts of the protagonist. Despite increasingly devastating impacts by more and more objects, the protagonist realizes he must use existing science and further develop other knowledge to the extent necessary. The giant asteroids, which have the ability to wipe out all life, must be fought off.

While society is breaking up, the process of creating such a powerful mechanism requires extensive scientific expertise. Access to the world's knowledge elites, if they are even still alive after the first asteroid impacts, is less possible than ever. The first few tries at the new design are successful, but the time available seems to have expired. The protagonist’s state of stress exceeds his ability to cogitate and now is the thing driving him forward. The aggressive will to live overcomes the neural protective mechanisms of his body as more asteroid clusters approach and break through the Earth's magnetic field, unleashing their concentrated destructive power throughout the world.

PLASMOID On the dark side of the Earth, the one facing away from the sun, the planet‘s magnetic field unites to form a tail. In extreme conditions, this tail stores a huge source of energy: the plasma of strong solar winds. A magnetically concentrated PLASMOID contains a gigantic energy charge. This holds a potential to be exploited. Taping the pure plasma, releasing it from its magnetized sheath and distributing potentiated plasmoids across the planetary magnetic field can strengthen the Earth's defense shield to block even the largest objects from entering the planet‘s atmosphere.

The protagonist recognizes the mass-extinction-promising warning signs. A special mechanism to send a jet of plasma with a high energetic charge into the outer atmospheres of the Earth was never even on humanity’s radar. But according to previous physical knowledge, it’s an option to be realized. The protagonist manages to get specific components and makes plans to create a sufficiently powerful plasma generator, and does so all in the face of hopelessness and against the backdrop of mass confusion and a populous that has lost its scruples.

CONFRONT THE SUM He goes on and pushes himself beyond the limits of exhaustion and feels unity with the technology he is creating. Given the devastation of many parts of the world, the only remaining chance for survival remains to be a functioning, plasmoid network largely spanning the planet. The protagonist pushes his limits to the ultimate breaking point and first attempts to create a massive plasma field succeed. A plasmoid confrontation with the oncoming asteroids seems close and inevitable.

The more desperate his attempts to stabilize the magnetic field by increasing the amount of plasmoids to resist the countless galactic celestial bodies, the more the protagonist's conviction of his omnipotence grows.

NEMESIS A dark star, which has never been discovered in space, is displacing all objects in its path. This celestial body, which is the sun's twin star, is constantly breaking through numerous asteroid belts and gas nebulae on its faraway path through the blackness of the universe. NEMESIS also travels through the Oort Cloud in the outermost part of our solar system and knocks comets belonging to the cloud out of their long-established orbits.

Countless, unfathomably large objects of rock, ice and dust shoot out into the infinite. The time until the first impact is mercilessly short. The Earth's magnetic field usually shields the planet from hostile influences, such as plasma thrown into space by solar flares or smaller celestial objects. However, the current onslaught of asteroids is too much for these natural protective barriers and brings annihilation.

REPULSE In the midst of all the destruction to the Earth’s surface, a jet of plasma emerges from a sphere that has not been fully destroyed but almost has. The protagonist has an encouraging success. The beam hits the correct focal point facing away from the central star. A wide network of plasmoidal units begins to unfold. Some objects fired from space are deflected as expected. The available energy of the mechanism seems almost consumed after a short use. The final plasma discharge targets the position of NEMESIS, the dark, far-distant companion of the sun.

Although the deployment of the high-energy material initially holds on its astronomical course, the plasma jet dries up. The noble attempt to generate a defensive weapon in the form of plasmoidal shielding by means of human knowledge does take place, but is not successful due to the lack of time, cooperation and adequate technical-institutional equipment. The world is catapulted back millions of years to the eclipse of all life as a result of the late recognition and uncoordinated action of the leading powers.

ZERO ELYSIUM In many places, the incessantly bombarded crust of the Earth breaks and liquefies and is replaced by magma. In one of the less-damaged regions, that was not as much poisoned by ash rain and exiting gases, the protagonist is one of the rare survivors. Haggard by his defeat, the protagonist tries with his last bit of energy to find shelter. Moving obstacles aside and digging, he moves into the underground. Far from light or a sufficiently oxygen-rich atmosphere, survival below the pulsating and largely-decomposed and maximally-burned surface is uncertain. But the last remaining opportunity in the face of oblivion is organic life itself. Because of the biological potential for selective adaptation, the chance to live on exists in the phenomenon of genetic mutation.

Against all despair, the protagonist’s determination to resist the deadly superiority prevails in a doomed environment. Like the remainder of humanity, the protagonist seeks single-mindedly for a place where one's own existence can be possible, if only temporally. Due to the toxic acids and vapors that seep into and envelop the Earth’s surface, making it unbearable, he descends. Crawling, he discovers with the means available to him the structures of a once thriving civilization. He works his way further into the interior of the Earth.

PANDEMONIUM A return of all life as we know it at the Earth’s surface will not be possible. This world is and will remain forever a different one. From now on, the laws of underworlds reign. The darkness will rule forever.

The ascendency and fall of the increasingly isolated protagonist is an equivalent of the downfall of mankind. At the height of contemporary progress, there is a personal fusion with the created, technical, digital world. But despite its feelings of omnipotence, humanity will experience the limits of its influence as it faces natural forces, before which it will surrender.