Prime is the Elemental Plane of Void - a What If...
by Cab Davidson5 spheres, and an infinite number of outer planes linked to each.
4 elements, and 4 elemental planes.
What if that's not true. What if reality is far, far worse than that. What if there are 5 elemental planes and that the prime is no such thing at all.
The prime plane is empty. Yeah, sure, there are little bits where elemental vortices dump some matter, air, energy or cause time to work. But 99.9999999% of the prime plane is empty, timeless, and cold. What if the dark truth is that the prime plane is, in origin, the elemental plane that most closely corresponds to entropy? After all, living things on the prime do tend to die, most of them in a shockingly short time when exposed to the real matrix of what that plane is actually made of. Perhaps the only true residents of the plane, the only true natives are the strange void living entities?
What if in the longer view, stretching back to a time that only Thanatos, Valerias, Ixion and few others can hope to understand, it wasn't the sphere of entropy that came along and tried to upset the cosmic apple cart by interfering in the lot of living things, what if it was the "positive" spheres that needed the contention, the risk of death and the conflict that only truly mortal beings could face to replenish their own numbers? What if the real fight in the multiverse isn't the positive spheres battling for power among themselves and against the plotting of entropy to destroy all, it is in fact the invasion of the void by elemental matter to create life such that it can die?
What if, at that level, the real aggressors of the multiverse are the positive spheres? If the Prime is actually the element of void, pure, clean, right and true? And perhaps the real justice in the multiverse is entropy seeking to clean house?