We first discovered the voidtree in a cavernous vesicle, deep beneath our planet’s crust.

The chamber had been pure vacuum before we cracked its shell, yet the tree had flourished, its bark glossy and airtight, its vascular channels impenetrable by all but the most sturdy of our scientific tools.

Within months, we’d successfully grown voidfruit saplings in a vacuum-controlled lab.

And at last, we looked to the skies.

You see, when our species first sought to transcend our arboreal origins, we fueled our industry on ancient compressed timbers. We hardened our hearts and our tools with advanced fibre composites, of hardwoods and the planar sheets of dense igneous rock which splintered beneath our thin membrane of fertile soil.

And when we first reached for the stars, even our finest woods were found wanting by the forces and pressures of the vast expanse.

It’s been three decades since we stumbled upon the future.

Eighteen launches of voidtech shuttles, slingshot into orbit carrying their crop of seedpods and scaffolding for the growth of the new saplings - for they are unruly twigs who resist our designs to shape them!

Today, the Copse is finally airtight. Thirty voidtrees intertwine, holding back the vacuum of space; amongst their roots, we may at last take our place amongst the stars.