This was the center of the galaxy.
What was the most extreme environment in the universe? It was not a stellar core: by the universe's universal standards for "extremes," that place was as comfortable as a hot spring. Nor was it the surface of a black hole. Though it devoured everything, it still lacked sufficient scale. Neither was it a star-forming nebula. Though brimming with energy and violent activity, it ultimately still had peaceful intervals. The environments that truly qualified as cosmic extremes were these most dazzling galactic cores—they were magnificent and radiant, yet absolute regions of death. At least, that was true for civilizations that had only just entered space.
The galaxy we had entered possessed an enormous central core. Within this region, just 1.1 light-years in radius, deadly vortices made every step difficult. Astonishing mass had been compressed into that 1.1-light-year radius, forming an ancient supermassive black hole at its center. Beyond the black hole's event horizon, along the boundary marking the "safe distance" where it could no longer capture matter, bright and violently active primordial matter had been compressed into a dense "cloud shell," continuously producing intense Gamma Rays and all manner of ionizing radiation. The violent release of energy and streams of matter hurled everything in the region outward, driving everything beyond the central core with it. Highly active matter collided, reacted, and fused with less active matter, and the brilliant light and surging material jets released in the process—mainly hydrogen, with minute amounts of helium formed within the jets—extended as far as fifteen thousand light-years away. From deep space, the Galactic Center looked like a hazy silver giant egg lying in the void.
Within that 1.1-light-year range of the central core, everything would be disturbed by the black hole. Though such an environment could not