User blog:ThothDjehuti/What Was Dalton Really Up To? Part 4: The Realm of the Stars

The Realm of the Stars! People sometimes say it was just sort of a glorified planetarium. But as always, dalton had something unusual to say.

I always thought it was interesting that he picked the planet Jupiter. A planet that's always in transition. It's constantly changing. And I think this theme of change permeates the realm of the Stars.

Not just in the attraction and drama request but in the whole design. The entire Realm -- everything was always twinkling; morphing into something else. Nebulae and galaxies were always coalescing and dispersing all around you.

And of course, Nebula Quest -- the attraction itself -- was the nexus of all that.

Because the vision that Dalton shows you in this ride is a vision of a universe in which nothing stands still -- a vision of a universe that is constantly expanding, in which everything from planets to stars to galaxies to nebulae to superclusters is constantly on the move.

And of course, the Navigator invites you to appreciate the beauty of these nebulae. I mean, that's the point of the ride, right? "Nebula Quest." You're looking for this specific nebula that's disappeared. You're flying around in space trying to find it.

'''But when you find the nebula, it is changed. '''

It no longer looks like the image the Navigator had on file, right? Stars change! In fact, every star has changed massively between the time it sent out the light that reached us, and the moment those photons actually hit our eyes.

And again, this is not presented in an obvious way. Nebula Quest is just family-friendly ride around the galaxy -- around the universe, really. But everywhere we go in that universe, there is change. And I think Dalton is inviting us to consider the possibility that the only thing that is real is change.

And I think the underlying message the Dalton wants us to take there is that all we can ever do is capture snapshots of beautiful things that we see in spacetime. By the time we arrive, things are probably never going to line up with our ideas of what we expected them to be.