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Massive Lei Gong rises in the distance, with 6 members of it's extensive family of moons visible, over the Tratung Mountains in this view from the moon Zhun-Ti.

The monks of the Jaffei Order live far above the forest and it's inhabitants, both literally and figuratively. Living an ascetic existence amid the freezing mountaintops, they continue their Order's reason for existence; their attempt to fulfill the Prophecy of Clarke. Found in the holy book "The Sky's Backside" written by the prophet Clarke millennia ago, the Prophecy states that when all 9 billion names of God have been calculated and printed into physical existence, it will reverse Hubble's constant, causing all of spacetime to slow and then stop it's expansion and begin it's contraction into an eventual singularity, essentially triggering the end of this universe and the creation of the next.

The monks have strung together a network of sublight transmitters to contact their brethren on other worlds in order to assemble the holy List in real time. This small, unassuming temple here on on Zhun-Ti is a permutation generator that generates the many possible combinations of letters that make up of the names of God, which are then sent to through the transmitter to a printing station, to be printed out on prayer flags and hung from the Final Stupa. When all 9 billion prayer flags have been hung, the monks will have, in effect, destroyed the universe, all in the names of God.

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If anyone has read the short story "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke, found in the compilation "The Other Side of the Sky" (aka "The Sky's Backside" .... translation errors in ancient texts are a pain aren't they ), then you'll probably recognize this. It's sort of a re-imagining of the story with a different setting ... what can I say, it's one of my all time favorites 

I like the picture, and can certainly imagine a religious group trying this.  Yes, I have read the story, although with today's computers, I doubt that it would take very long.

The "fast" printer we had at work, for printing statements, could print 75 B&W pages per minute.  If we assume that a prayer flag is one page, it would take 228.16 printer-years to print 9 billion of them.  Allowing for downtime, 500 printers would certainly be adequate.  And there are much faster printers available.  We could probably do the job in less time than transmitting the data to the nearest star, especially if they're limited to sublight speeds.

I'm not going to try it, though...

N Kalanaga

nice story and awesome picture
and Nkalanga what is bad if they print them for 229 years?? they are monks thay have all the time of universe, and maybe they neeed special printer for that

I know  I thought of that lol but i figured they could have some kind of justification for taking so much long. They need a sanctified golden printer, blessed by the 327th Dalai Lama himself and carved with scenes from the life of the Prophet Clarke And all the name generators are limited to only coming up with one name per day, the monks have to spend the rest of the time chanting sutras

Because, seriously, if they started anytime soon with no interruptions, the universe would be over long before humans got to another planet and did worthwhile colonizing

True, they can take as long as they like.  But, if they're in no hurry, there wouldn't seem to be any point in sending the names to other worlds to print them.  On the other hand, as both of you said, these are monks, and efficiency isn't necessarily a virtue. 

In any case, it makes a good story, and a good picture.

N Kalanaga 

-In the Names of God!-

that was the first thing I though when I saw this jaw-dropping picture, great work.

NK: yeah these guys have their own way of doing things for sure 

Pogona: lol thanks!

Yo again,
everything is perfect! Good work! Just one thing - pls post what software are you using. This will show better the work you did there. I hope you understand what i mean.

Brian, both of your renderings are great!!  Jan  

Thanks guys, NasteX: for this one i used TG2, 3dsmax, and Photoshop.... and my tablet the monks and bridge are painted (take a close look at the temple) and all the upper sky is too