Planetary prince

“ A Planetary Prince is not visible to mortal beings; it is a test of faith to believe the representations of the semimaterial beings of his staff. But these schools of culture and training are well adapted to the needs of each planet, and there soon develops a keen and laudatory rivalry among the races of men in their efforts to gain entrance to these various institutions of learning. ”

“ With the emergence of human groupings, this Planetary Prince arrives to inaugurate human civilization and to focalize human society. Your world of confusion is no criterion of the early days of the reign of the Planetary Princes, for it was near the beginning of such an administration on Urantia that your Planetary Prince, Caligastia, cast his lot with the rebellion of the System Sovereign, Lucifer. Your planet has pursued a stormy course ever since. ”

“ From the early days of the arrival of a Planetary Prince to the far-distant time of the settling of the planet in light and life, they are the only group of intelligent beings to remain continuously on the sphere. ”

“ The prince's corporeal staff early organize the planetary schools of training and culture, wherein the cream of the evolutionary races are instructed and then sent forth to teach these better ways to their people. These schools of the prince are located at the material headquarters of the planet.
Much of the physical work connected with the establishment of this headquarters city is performed by the corporeal staff. Such headquarters cities, or settlements, of the early times of the Planetary Prince are very different from what a Urantia mortal might imagine. ”

“ On those worlds where these helpers of the prince have been permitted to mate with the superior groups of the native races, such offspring usually succeed them.
These assistants to the Planetary Prince seldom mate with the world races, but they do always mate among themselves. Two classes of beings result from these unions: the primary type of midway creatures and certain high types of material beings who remain attached to the prince's staff after their parents have been removed from the planet at the time of the arrival of Adam and Eve. ”

“ A Planetary Prince may also have as assistants one or more of the third order of his own group of sonship and sometimes, on certain worlds, one of his own order, a secondary Lanonandek associate.
The entire staff of a world ruler consists of personalities of the Infinite Spirit and certain types of higher evolved beings and ascending mortals from other worlds. Such a staff averages about one thousand, and as the planet progresses, this corps of helpers may be increased up to one hundred thousand or more. ”

“ On normal worlds the primary midwayers maintain their service as the intelligence corps and as celestial entertainers in behalf of the Planetary Prince, while the secondary ministers continue their co-operation with the Adamic regime of furthering the cause of progressive planetary civilization. ”

“ Life is initiated on the planets by the Life Carriers, who watch over its development until sometime after the evolutionary appearance of mortal man. Before the Life Carriers leave a planet, they duly install a Planetary Prince as ruler of the realm. ”

“ In principle, one simply informed the planetary government that it was now subject to the sovereignty of his Imperial Majesty, the Galactic Emperor. This information was always conveyed by a Ministerial Secretary, directly under the Prime Minister and only one more step down from the Emperor, in the present instance Jurgen, Prince Trevannion. To make sure that the announcement carried conviction, the presumedly glad tidings were accompanied by the Imperial Space Navy, at present represented by Commodore Vann Shatrak and a seven ship battle-line unit, and two thousand Imperial Landing-Troops. ”

“ He moved a dial, and looked expectantly out through the vitrolite panel.
Bill saw the green film run suddenly over the tiny blue globe floating among the stars. The azure sphere seemed to melt away, to dissolve into sparkling green radiance. In a moment, where the great blue ship had been, was only a spinning spiral of glistening viridescence.
"Look at Mars!" cried the Prince. "This is a challenge. If they want peace, they shall have it. If they want war, they shall feel the power of the vitomaton!"
Bill turned dazedly to look at the broad disk of the red planet. ”

“ Some months later, when Bill was landed on Trainor's Tower, on a visit from his new home in the City of Space, he found that the destruction of Mars had created an enormous sensation. Astronomers were manfully inventing fantastic hypotheses to explain why the red planet had first turned blue, then green, and finally vanished utterly. The sunships of the Moon Patrol were still hunting merrily for the Prince of Space. Since the loss of the Triton's treasure, the reward for his capture had been increased to twenty-five million eagles. ”

“ Neptune, as we have seen, remained monarch of the watery realm; and Pluto, notwithstanding his metamorphosis into Satan, still continued to be prince of the lower regions. They fared better than did their brother Jupiter, who, after the overthrow of their father, Saturn, became ruler of heaven, and as sovereign of the universe resided at Olympus, where, surrounded by his merry troop of gods, goddesses, and nymphs-of-honour, he carried on his ambrosial rule of joy. ”

“ His enemies will, therefore, be ecclesiastics and warriors, but he will defeat them, because Venus, the ruling planet, is much higher in the sky than Mars, and is in the apogee of its excentric; but he must beware of captivity or exile on account of the position of Mercury, which is also injured by being in quadrature with Saturn. There is nothing to indicate a violent death, and the prince will die from natural causes, but Venus shows that he will cause his own death by immoderate sensuality. ”

“ Such princes, in times of old, were Saturn, Hercules, Jupiter, and others—men who reigned gently, yet firmly, equal to all chances that came, and worthy of the divine honours that awaited them. For mankind could not believe that they quitted the world in the same way as other men. They thought they must be taken up into heaven to be the lords of demigods.
When the prince is good, the subjects are good, for they always imitate their masters ”

“ Among the planets, the sun has most influence on honours and dignities and is well placed, and only Saturn in opposition to medium cœli shows that the prince will meet with some serious adversities, which, how- ever, will be overcome as everything else is so favourable. ”

“ His mental abilities will be very good, because Mercury is favourably situated; and as this planet is in a good aspect with Venus and Mars, the prince will be fond of warlike occupations and field sports, and take an interest in surgery and other sciences. He will have good luck in his undertakings, as Saturn is in the fourth house and in his own sign of Capricorn, while Mercury and Mars occupy each other's signs; but as Jupiter is badly placed, the prince will be less successful in ecclesiastical matters. ”

“ To myself, who had passed much of my life on the four outer giants, on Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and Neptune, the little planet ahead seemed insignificant, almost, with its single tiny moon. And yet from it, I knew, had come that unceasing stream of human life, that dauntless flood of pioneers, which had spread over all the solar system in the last hundred thousand years. They had gone out to planet after planet, had conquered the strange atmospheres and bacteria and gravitations, until now the races of man held sway over all the sun's eight wheeling worlds. ”

“ The slim silver ship came gliding down, and hung just beside the vitrolite dome while eager hands helped him through the air-lock. Beyond, he found the Prince waiting, with a question in his eyes.
"No luck," Bill grunted hopelessly. "Nobody believed it. And the town was getting too hot for me. Lucky I had a getaway."
The Prince smiled bitterly as the newspaperman told of his attempt to enlist the aid of humanity.
"About what I expected," he said. "Men will act like men. It might be better, in the history of the cosmos, to let the Martians have this old world. ”

“ The Pioneer spacecraft carried this plaque on the journey beyond the solar system, bearing data that tell where and when the human species lived and that convey details of our biological form. When Pioneer 10 flew by Jupiter it acquired sufficient kinetic energy to carry it completely out of the solar system. Some time between one and ten billion years from now, the probe may pass through the planetary system of a remote stellar neighbor, one of whose planets may have evolved intelligent life. ”

“ As there are so many concurring signs, the prince will hardly survive that age, unless God, who alone has power over human destiny, specially prolongs his life; and if the prince gets over the critical period, he will have a happy old age. Passing to the question as to what planets are the ruling ones, it appears that Venus is ruler of the nativity (dominus genituræ) , being close to the tenth house or summum cœli; but Mars is in conjunction with Venus, and in the sign belonging to Mercury (Gemini) , so that these two also have great influence. ”

“ Probably much of the impressiveness of the spectacle is owing to the knowledge that those little points of light, shining now in a row and now in a cluster, are actually, at every instant, under the government of their giant neighbor and master, and that as we look upon them, obediently making their circuits about him, never venturing beyond a certain distance away, we behold a type of that gravitational mastery to which our own little planet is subject as it revolves around its still greater ruler, the sun, to whose control even Jupiter in his turn must submit. ”

“ Thus if a man lives for 120 years, all the planets will in turn have influenced his life in the above order, commencing from the planet of his birth. Again there will be corresponding sub-runs of all the planets during each planetary run. The races are also governed by such planetary influences.
The Solar Dynasty means that the particular type of humanity so denoted was born under the influence of the solar planet. When all the planets have in turn exercised their influence over this Dynasty, it disappears for a time and is re-born under the influence of the Sun. ”

“ Further, we must consider the planets in aspect with them, or those of their own or of the opposite sect that overcome them. For when the planets which govern the Lot of Fortune are in power, they make the subjects rich, particularly when they chance to have the proper testimony of the luminaries; thus Saturn brings riches through building, or agriculture, or shipping ventures, Jupiter through fiduciary relationships, guardianships, or priesthoods, Mars through military operations and command, Venus through gifts from friends or women, and Mercury through eloquence and trade. ”

“ No attempt has been made to identify the bodies of the dead. The passenger list is printed below.
Military officials are inclined to place blame for the outrage upon the notorious interplanetary outlaw, who calls himself "The Prince of Space." On several occasions the "Prince" has robbed sunships of cargoes of vitalium, though he has never before committed so atrocious a deed as the murder of scores of innocent passengers. ”

“ More than half the stars we visit have planets that can support human life. And every one that can does. Once there must have been an interstellar empire. So why are all their civilizations so backward? ”

“ And this is what establishes the sovereignty of the Supreme on the worlds long settled in light and life. Such advanced planets are indeed poems of harmony, pictures of the beauty of achieved goodness attained through the pursuit of cosmic truth. And if such things can happen to a planet, then even greater things can happen to a system and the larger units of the grand universe as they too achieve a settledness indicating the exhaustion of the potentials for finite growth. ”

“ The Government of Planet Pluto, now and henceforth, assumes for itself as lawful all dominant rights of independent nations to possess and control all territory, properties, materials, supplies and all other resources on and beneath the surface of Planet Pluto. ”

“ Our familiar planets, Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, the earth, and even our little moon, seem to raise their voices and take actual part in the councils of almighty power, to move about as perpetual benefactors, gathering and spreading beneficence abroad, instead of cowering, a hapless few, like [251] storm-stayed travellers, around the dying embers of our poor old sun, passive recipients of the light and heat and life which we have been taught to believe are slowly sinking into ashes and fading away in eternal darkness and death. ”

“ If it were quite immaterial to the welfare of the planetary system whether all the planets moved the same way, or whether some moved one way and some another, then the nebular hypothesis would be entitled to all the support which could be derived from the circumstances of the case. Take, for instance, the eight principal planets Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. All these planets move in the same way around the sun. ”

“ Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus—not one of them was suitable as a world for us Neptunians. And we had, also, no desire to move to another planet, in truth, since so many ages had it taken for us to build our great compartment-cities upon Neptune and Triton, to shield them with their great roofs, that it was impossible for us to leave them, even had we been able, to start anew upon another world. ”