From Far Away Land Adventures in the Materiosphere… Giant space tortoises are gigantic tortoises that live in space. They begin their lives as aum eggs which are formed of music within the Materiosphere. The music coalesces and builds over a long period time eventually forming the the shell of the aum egg in which the baby space tortoise forms. These eggs generally occur within stellar nurseries of nebulae and dense gases. Once the egg grows to a substantial size, the tortoise within becomes aware and through psionic powers, moves the egg from the region of its birth to find a star that it can call home. Once the home star is reached, the aum egg hatches and the tortoise is born. The tortoise will orbit the star for the rest of its life. As the tortoise orbits the star it feeds on the light and grows over thousands of years, finally reaching the size of a small moon. Once the tortoise is fully grown, its psionic abilities develop to maturity and the tortoise will reach out into the cosmos to converse with other space tortoises like itself. These conversations prevent the tortoises from feeling lonely and lets them fellowship with others of their kind. Once a space tortoise has lived hundreds of thousands of years (in some cases millions) its orbit will degrade, and the tortoise will merge with the star. The star will consume the tortoise but as this happens the sapience of the tortoise merges with the star and thus a sapient star is born. The sapient star may then ponder the cosmic wonder, create life, or sleep gently until it too dies.
