Main Worldline.
Saturn.
The enormous, magnificent Saturn reflected the dim sunlight. Beneath its earthy yellow hue lay cyclones that seemed calm but were in truth violently turbulent. Though those cyclones were not as distinctive, dazzling, and famed throughout the universe as Jupiter's Great Red Spot, their power was not the slightest bit inferior. Anyone who dared enter Saturn's atmosphere in the flesh was a master among masters.
Many changes in the human world were like Saturn as well, lurking beneath an outwardly tranquil surface.
In a void of space nine hundred and eighty thousand kilometers from Saturn stood a giant hypercube.
This had once been a place for collecting space junk.
The space cities of the Old Era still needed to discharge physical waste. Back then, all kinds of garbage were compressed into cubes fifty meters on each side and dumped here.
Once they arrived in the cold, lonely universe, they all froze solid, bound together by force-field anchors into a massive cube eight thousand meters on each side. From afar, it looked grand and imposing, its enormous volume enough to make one's hair stand on end.
But later, the new generation of space cities no longer needed to discharge physical waste, and this supercube received no more bricks or mortar.
Later still, breakthroughs in material recycling technology led certain companies to contract the supercube for redevelopment and reuse, sending many people here to strike gold. Legends claimed that unknown species, precious objects, and even profound, unfathomable miraculous arts had been discovered here, drawing countless scavengers to join the excitement.
For a time, tales of the Trash Hypercube's wonders were too numerous to count. That was when this place was at its liveliest.
But times changed. The garbage mountain was dug through and hollowed out, and this place eventually fell