"When I said the cloud may be alive I meant that the material inside it may be organized in an intricate fashion, so that the behaviour of the whole cloud is far more complex than we previously supposed."
The Black Cloud - Fred Hoyle
Sir Fred Hoyle FRS was a brilliant scientist, probably mostly associated with his passionate advocacy of the Steady State Theory. He came up with the term "Big Bang" to disparage the rival theory. He should perhaps be better remembered for his work on the nucleosynthesis of elements heavier than helium.
As well as being a respected scientist, Fred Hoyle turned his hand to writing. He published his first novel, The Black Cloud, in 1957. It is a hard-SF work that opens a window into the workings of the scientific community in the 1960s. I am sure today's "woke" crowd would have strong opinions in the portrayal of the novel's female characters.
The Black Cloud
The premise of the novel is simple. A small (by astronomical standards) and dense (in comparison with other nebulae) cloud approaches the Solar System. It slows down and hangs around causing environmental damage and climatic havoc on planet Earth. The UK government sets up a team of scientists, sequestered in Nortonstowe to study the object.
The team's observations of the cloud lead them to believe that the cloud is a living organism. It is not a biological entity, as we understand terrestrial life, but a totally new form of life. Its actions lead to the conclusion that this alien lifeform is intelligent.
Call of Cthulhu
The Universe may be teeming with gaseous life. How the clouds interact with other interstellar species, e.g. byakhee, shan or mi-go, is anyone's guess. They are creatures of incalculable intellect and, therefore, must be aware of the entities that humanity identifies as gods, e.g. Yog-Sothoth, Ghroth or Azathoth. Individual clouds may worship, combat or ignore these entities as is their wont (i.e. as plot dictates).
Black Cloud
This principle composition hydrogen held together by gravity and electromagnetic fields. Ice particles increase the cloud's density and provide a surface area to catalyse chemical reactions. The nervous system works by exchanging radio waves between different sections of its structure. The size of the creature means that the speed of light is a limiting factor. It takes several minutes for signals to travel between different parts of the cloud. (As a reference guide, it takes approximately eight minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth.) Ionisation of the outer regions of the cloud absorbs frequencies, used internally, to prevent external interference. Millimetre band radio waves (EHF) can penetrate the ionised region allowing its use for external communication.Where possible, the cloud follows geodesics when moving through space. It ejects bursts of plasma to accelerate, decelerate and change direction. If a burst were to hit an inhabited planet, it would create a catastrophe on the scale of the mass extinction event that ended the dinosaur era here on Earth. It can attain high speeds by this method, fast enough to achieve the escape velocity from a star system.
Black clouds spend most of their time in interstellar space. There they absorb the sparse interstellar medium while travelling between stars. After arriving in a star system, it surrounds the star absorbing radiation and the stellar wind. It is thought that stars' magnetic fields are detrimental to the cloud forcing it to move on after a period of feeding. The cloud replenishes some of its mass by absorbing stellar winds. It is possible that they travel between galaxies along galactic filaments.
A black cloud reproduces by splitting off a small portion of itself and seeding it in a gas cloud. Planetary nebulae or clouds from supernovae are rich in post-helium elements that a seed might need to grow. They have indefinite life spans. Theoretically, there is no limit to how big or how old one of these could be.
Radioactivity interferes with internal electromagnetic fields and is, therefore, harmful to black clouds. A well-placed nuclear warhead would inflict a painful wound to a black cloud. To kill one of these creatures would probably require the delivery of the whole world's nuclear arsenal.
In human terms, a black cloud is vast. Game statistics are largely meaningless. What is the SIZ of a creature whose radius rivals that of an orbit of a planet? These creatures have enough mass to perturb planetary orbits.
Scenario Seeds
The mi-go have tired of humanity's presence on Earth. They have decided to cause a mass extinction and see the opportunity to do this by attracting a black cloud. They are building a signalling device that will attract a nearby or passing creature away from Proxima Centauri to the Solar System.
A black cloud has entered the Solar System and caused environmental devastation as described in the novel. The player characters must learn to communicate with the cloud and convince it to move on.
In the future, a spaceship arrives at Betelgeuse to more closely study a star nearing the end of its life. It discovers some black clouds feeding off the gas shed by the dying star. One of the clouds takes an interest in the ship and follows it around. They ship cannot return home, lest the cloud should follow it.
A cult of Ghroth has foreseen the coming of a black cloud. The cult leader hatches a plan to summon Ghroth to consume the cloud. If the investigators succeed in preventing the summoning of Ghroth they must now deal with a black cloud which intends to feed around our Sun. If the cultists succeed the black cloud is consumed but now the threat is Ghroth. Alternatively, the cult may wish to persuade the black cloud to destroy large sections of the world with small bursts of plasma.
Weblinks
Wikipedia's entry on The Black Cloud
Goodreads' entry on The Black Cloud
