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HUMAN COLONISTS' SETTLEMENT ON AN ALIEN PLANET NEXT TO a colorful GREEN PRAIRIE full of exotic COLORFUL WILDFLOWERS on the alien colony exo-planet, depicted in the style of Ivan Bilibin and Darwyn Cooke using the precision rendering of Boris Kostygov and Daniel Gerhartz and Thomas Wells Schaller
"The EarthMotherDaughter Lunaball Tournament" © 2026 A.J. Jones. All rights reserved.
Accompanying text is ©2026 A.J. Jones. All rights reserved under international and Pan-American copyright conventions.
Fictional backstory follows, set in a lunar colony, 2097 CE
(q.v. https://deepdreamgenerator.com/ddream/egze7y6a2qs)
Student's Name: Maya Collier (Age 13)
…At the front of the room, the wall-mounted projector hummed, casting Maya’s vibrant, impossibly colorful digital painting across the display board.
"I call this 'The EarthMother-Daughter Lunaball Tournament,'" Maya began, her voice casual, her eyes sweeping over her classmates. "The setup looks like a fairytale, but it's really about how Earth plays games with us."
She pointed to the sky in the painting, where two moons hung suspended over an ocean of rolling green. "I put an extra moon in the sky because one moon is our home but the bigger moon is just an airless black space trying to kill you. The three Luna balls are bigger than the players, who play in evening gowns. Read that as you will."
She gestured toward the distant, grand buildings perched on the manicured hills. "Our domes are built to keep everybody alive. But these emerald domes? Like the grounds, the domes are big, expensive, mostly empty spaces built for a tiny handful of elite Earthers."
A soft hush fell over the room as the class took in the piece in light of what Maya was saying.
"Are those... are those the flowers?" whispered Andromeda (previously Andrew) from the second row, leaning forward and pointing at the image. "They're so pretty it hurts to look at them!"
"Yeah," Maya said softly. "Greenery is just... everywhere, there."
Near the back, Jax—a kid who had spent the last three months in detention for plastering anarchist graffiti all over the place—was sitting up straight.
"Tanj, Maya," Jax said, a rare note of genuine respect cutting through his usual scowl. "You literally illustrated the class divide. Look at the spacing of those robed figures! The privileged few hoarding entire continents while the rest of humanity—Terrans in the slums and all of us down in the regolith—fight over scraps. It's a direct critique of the terrestrial bourgie hierarchy!"
A few kids snickered at Jax’s vocabulary, but a ripple of murmuring agreement passed through the room.
Then Leo, sitting in the corner with his boots propped up on an empty seat, leaned back and spoke.
"Okay, okay, deep stuff, Collier," Leo called out, playing the class clown to break the growing tension. "But what I want to know is, What are the rules to Lunaball?"
Maya didn't hesitate.
"There's just one rule : win at all costs," Maya declared, her voice ringing out over the room. "No matter how hard you have to kick the ball!"
The class roared its approval. Then, the class bell rang. The students hoorawed Maya all the way down the hall.
