Sol

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The remainder of this article contains lore created collaboratively by the Blaseball community.

If you are a member of the Seattle Garages, or if you are any other notable god-slayer, please be aware that the following article is false, and the article you are looking for can be found under Sun (Real)

Sol, formerly known as The Sun, also known as Well we weren’t expecting to have to start adding numbers but I suppose it’d be Sun 1, recently re-christened Evan T. Horizon; until recent happenings a white-hot sphere of burning plasma at the center of the solar system; roughly 800,000 miles in diameter; composed of approximately 73% hydrogen, 25% helium, and 3% "special sauce"; the point of reference for a number of calendars, worshiped in many cultures as a deity; the brightest object visible from Earth, as well as one of the brighter stars in the galaxy; emitting deadly beams that both nourish and burn; inescapable and inevitable; to be feared and loved like nothing else; our curse and our burden; is still the head coach of the Hellmouth Sunbeams, at least in the hearts and minds of fans and players alike.

Sol in their current form is a stellar-mass black hole, composed of the above materials plus an indeterminate quantity of Moon. They possess a gravitational pull so strong that nothing - not even radiation in the form of light - can escape it, raising questions among disbelievers as to how it is able to transmit coaching information.

History

Birth and Coaching Career Prior to Season β1

Sol formed almost thirty years ago^{[citation needed]} following a gravitational collapse of matter so great it precipitated nuclear fusion at its central point. Sol proceeded to convert hydrogen to helium at its core for an indeterminate length of time prior to the dawn of Blaseball, if such a time exists, generating much light and heat to be gratefully absorbed by the Immaterial Plane (if such a thing existed prior to the dawn of Blaseball).

Sol is, was, has been, must be, shall be, and will have always been, per Sunbeams policy, the head coach of the Hellmouth Sunbeams. Attestations dating back to the dawn of Blaseball describe Sol as an incredibly motivated coach, who accepts nothing short of absolute dedication to the game from its team.

At some point prior to recorded history, Sol’s ancient hatred slash rivalry for the demon Blazibaal became common, if unverifiable, knowledge in the minds of all who knew of the Hellmouth Sunbeams.

Additionally, Monsieur Beamn was hired as Sol’s personal assistant.

Coaching and Controversies in the Discipline Era

Coach Sol led the Sunbeams to a modest 40-59 record in the first observed season of blaseball. Any remarks from Sol of the opening of The Forbidden Book were obscured behind a large celestial body, following which Garages pitcher Jaylen Hotdogfingers was incinerated and the Hellmouth swallowed up the Moab desert.

During this time, solar-aligned entities made themselves known in Hellmouth, giving rise to the religion now known as HELIOLATRY (see more below).

Controversy

The Sun was accused of incinerating Jaylen Hotdogfingers by several players and fans of the Seattle Garages. Complainants cited the lack of any sign of umpire involvement in the case - as well as the solar eclipse that took place for most of Season β2 - as proof that The Sun committed a crime, and was trying to escape. The Sun did not respond to the accusations, though rebuttals by solar apologists argued that as rogue umpires and incinerations only occurred during an eclipse, the Sun’s light was in fact what prevented incinerations, not caused them.

In assumed retaliation for these perceived slights, the Garages took a strong "anti-sun" stance, as can be witnessed in THE SUN IS OUR ENEMY, a zine created by the Garages. That the Garages have stated a desire to destroy the sun has been claimed by many. This alarmed many members of Hellmouth, although the Hellmouth Anti-Tourism Board, working in conjunction with an unknown and ominous group, report that the situation had "already been handled."

Sol’s Collapse

On the Season β10 Election Ballot, Black Hole was offered as a decree. It was first observed during the Season 10 Championship final series between the Baltimore Crabs and Charleston Shoe Thieves. With the crabs clinching games One and Two of the series, the Crabs led the Shoe Thieves 9 runs to nil in the 8th inning of Game Three with a game record of 2 - 0 for the five-game series. Crabs batter Silvaire Roadhouse reached first base, advanced to second on Pedro Davids’ ground out, then reached home and scored on Tot Fox’s single.

Following this, the game log declared (line breaks added for clarity):

THE CRABS ACCUMULATE 10

THE SUN COLLAPSES

THE MOON IS SWALLOWED

THE BLACK HOLE FORMS

SUN 2 RISES

Following this unprecedented cosmological shakeup, play proceeded mostly as normal until the Crabs scored a run in the bottom of the 11th inning, ending the game and winning them the championship.

In the Season 10 Election results, the Black Hole decree passed with the following message:

TIME TANGLES

RETROCAUSAL EVENT RECORDED

INITIATING PLAYBACK:

WARNING: SUN 1 LOW FUEL

PRESSURE AT CRITICAL

SUN 2 WAIVERS

Aftermath

The retrocausal destruction of Sol caused widespread panic across the Immaterial Plane, as the sun had been scheduled to burn out “when the last Blaseball pitch is thrown”.

The assorted sun-worshipping cults of Hellmouth, collectively known as HELIOLATRY, also struggled to reconcile the new cosmic order with their tenets and teachings. The collapse of the original Sol into a non-luminous, mostly-invisible point in spacetime which emits nothing, much less light or warmth, posed major philosophical conundrums for many sects of HELIOLATRY. Many sects experienced schisms between those who thought it appropriate to keep worshipping the remains of Sol, and those who thought Sun 2 was deserving of their adoration.

(For more information, read more at HELIOLATRY, or at individual subpages of HELIOLATRY’s various sects.)

Impacts on the Sunbeams

The Hellmouth Sunbeams were left without a head coach to direct them in the season of Peace and Prosperity, when the weather cycle was dominated by the impacts of Sun 2 and Black Hole weather. Despite this setback, the Sunbeams had their best regular season in 11 seasons of blaseball, and went on to win the Internet Series.

Several Sunbeams team members with a close metaphysical connection to Sol experienced severe reactions, including psychic feedback, memory loss, and wilting. While most recovered with few long-term ill effects, the Season 10 post-season and off-season before Season 11 were described by Beams head office as “a stressful time for the whole team”.

Several rivals of the Hellmouth Sunbeams, notably the Firefighters and Garages, sent messages of condolence and sympathy for the beams’ loss of coach, while also expressing disappointment that they had missed the chance to snuff out the sun for themselves.

Sol is still considered the head coach of the Hellmouth Sunbeams, who tributed 170 runs to the black hole over the course of Season 11, more than any other team. Following the successful season 11 campaign, the team launched a rocket from the La Sal Mountains southeast of Hellmouth. Loaded with game footage, journals, letters, photos and physical mementos, it was programmed on a direct course for Sol’s last known location.

Worship

The Sun has been an object of veneration in many cultures throughout human and human-adjacent history. Humanity's most fundamental understanding of the Sun is as the luminous disk in the sky that watches humanity, always watching, and stares back into the wide eyes of those that dare to look into it. In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the Sun was thought to be a solar deity or supernatural entity, and is still considered a god or all-powerful entity by some religions such as Hinduism and HELIOLATRY.

The worship of black holes has not been nearly as widespread, probably because black holes are hard to spot and by their very nature unable to stare back, or emit any kind of data. Worship of Suns was and still is widespread and varied throughout Hellmouth, with many different belief systems rising naturally from its close association and relationship with the sun. HELIOLATRY quickly became popular among fans of the Sunbeams, although many follow one of it's many offshoot branches, commonly referred to as "sects." The state change of one Sun into a black hole was not a “biggie” for many sects, particularly for fans of the Sunbeams who associated Sol more strongly with the position of “Sunbeams Head Coach” instead of “Tireless Base of the Food Chain, Source of All Light Warmth and Life.”

Common Methods of Worship 

The citizens of the Hellmouth can be observed worshiping the sun in a variety of ways, which could be confusing and upsetting to misplaced tourists who failed to properly research the culture before their visit, as evidenced by being tourists to the Hellmouth in the first place. Although the different methods of worship are constantly increasing and difficult to categorize due to the constantly growing and expanding nature of HELIOLATRY, some of the most common forms are as follows:

• Staring into the sun
• Letting it stare back
• Concealing large amounts of your body, or revealing large amounts of your body
• Photosynthesizing with your plantly neighbors
• Throwing coins into the sun
• Yelling at the sun
• Singing at the sun
• Marching around at night in large heavy robes
• Weeping in the streets
• Succumbing to the power of the sun and letting it burn you from the inside out

Some forms of worship, although still considered important methods of demonstrating devotion, are very rarely seen in Hellmouth. Examples of some lesser-seen forms of worship are as follows:

• Being good at Blaseball