As technology makes perfectly simulated virtual universes a fact, the most vital human intellectual endeavor is inquiry into how a conscious mind can discern a physical universe.

The notion that one might be the only conscious mind in existence, known as the “Problem of Other Minds” in the Western philosophical tradition, known to Western psychology as “Solipsism Syndrome,” is abhorrently alien to any human who lives with other humans, as almost all humans do. Yet this same notion is so natural to any human in solitude that it is a primary concern of space agency research into how humans can live in vast, empty, extraterrestrial landscapes.

The Steppe is an exploration of the horror and glory of a human accepting that which is humanly unacceptable, yet logically undeniable.

I am here, wracked, my body rotting out from under me... All is pain...

"Do you believe in eternity?"
"No."
"Do you believe in death?"
"No."
"That's rather paradoxical."
"Isn't it, though?"

Have no fear of the solitude.

Fear the creatures.