In an age when artificial intelligence now converses, paints, and composes music, the word consciousness has begun to shimmer with ambiguity. It has become a label for nearly everything that seems "mind-like," from a chatbot's fluent reply to the quiet self-awareness of a human being gazing at the stars. Yet consciousness is not one thing. It is a spectrum – a cascade of layers extending from the purely physical to the moral and spiritual.
Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, before the Earth knew ships, before the heavens were mapped, a star was born. It blazed into being with a brilliance so pure, so white, it seemed stitched from the fabric of creation itself. Its light surged outward in every direction, untouched by time.
Meanwhile, on a blue planet tucked within a spiral arm of the Milky Way, a young adventurer named Columbia — “Just Columbia,” she insisted — stood before the queen.