Intergalactic Summit

I love the oral tradition!

History is supposed to be entertaining, not walls of text and footnotes. Lady Noh is doing a wonderful job at breathing life into Matar's ancient days and I've been captivated since the first installment.

Of course, I know better than to take it all as straight-up fact. Earlier in the thread I gave an insight into the wisdom of our Khargai, which is often hidden behind her bizarre rituals and dramatics. And whilst we focus on the message of the story as what's important we should never dismiss the creative flair that goes into the telling.

And I'm delighted to see that we're not the only ones who use herb to enjoy a good story!
On our Caravan, we have a whole ritual centered around this, which we simply call "The Telling".

Khargai Talakha will summon a dozen or so adult members of the Caravan, along with another dozen teenagers who have recently come of age, to sit in a circle and take turns to tell one of our stories. Pipeherb is passed between the speakers before they begin their turn. Through this ritual, the younger ones learn the stories and are encouraged to add their own flair to the telling. The pipeherb helps them to relax in the presence of the higher-ranking adults and stirs up their creativity.

As they mature into journeymen, merchants and outriders this creative flair will play a part in developing the characteristics we're known for - the ability to think on our feet and make good out of whatever situation we find ourselves in.

[SAISIO III.

A silver metallic yurt approximately 187 and one third meters in height wiggles in a wind sweeping across corrugated glacial moraines. In the distance, brick monasteries cling to serrated granite slopes. A procession of monks in black robes winds its way through the moraines toward the yurt. Yellow ribbons and streamers flutter around them. Eerie, mournful wind instruments and sharp drum beats accompany their progress.

INSIDE THE YURT.

Caldari derblinkielights and dashummienoises percolate between brushed grey steel risers and short walls. Achuran technicians in grey woolen tunics step smartly between cubicles. GREATEST NEPHEW paces anxiously behind the CRONE. She is all wrapped up in matte black cashmere from head to toe, with no apparent means of peeking out.]

"Still no signal, Honored Matriarch!"

I have complete confidence in myself and Caldari Graduate Ninja, Greatest Nephew. There's probably interference from the polymer thingies and ceramic metal weaves in the tomb walls.

Meanwhile, our Cartel salvage crew has reached The Murk!

[Projected visuals flicker and dance. We see the bridge of a scrappy nautical vessel and its imposing Brutor captain. Beyond, the air is a boiling cloud of dark blasting mist and light blasting mist. On rare occasions when the mist separates, a rising and falling sea of light grey waves and dark grey waves shifts unevenly.]

"Right, Ma'am, we have arrived at the coordinates specified. Quite a sea."

Indeed! The Murk, in long lost times known as Svartalfvangr. Below is an impact crater of unusual depth. To the east are the slopes of a shield volcano triggered by the impact, Mons Muspel. To the west are the much younger Five Frost Giants. The lava flows from each side created a marine trench with extremely steep sides of nasty, nasty black basalt.

[The Brutor nods and casually braces his foot on a railing while he takes hold of a nearby strap. The world outside spins like a load of laundry.]

Oh my goodness what happened!? Are you all right?

"Ship rolled, Ma'am. I wouldn't expect many old ships to survive long up here."

No. In fact, that was the point!

Svartalfvangr was the most sacred Sebiestor field of honor. When Sebbie thanes and the like got into disagreements that could not be settled by slapping each other silly naked on sharp ice, they each would get into their finest ceremonial long boat and sail at one another - one fellow starting from the Giants, one from the slopes of Mons Muspel.

"In wooden boats?"

Yes.

[The Brutor shakes his head.]

Yes, exactly. It was a form of ritual suicide. The thane favored by the gods would survive, you see, of course, it makes sense to a Sebbie. There was no real fighting. As you might imagine, just being in the middle of Svartalfvangr in an open long ship (even with sophisticated for the time leather, fur, and wax "wet suits") pretty much meant going numb and falling into the sea.

Now, Sebbie long ships themselves were almost impossible to sink. More often than not, empty boats washed up ashore, indicating that the gods favored neither and that the people were better off without them both.

Rarely, both thanes would survive, in which case the gods intended for them to get over their silly nonsense.

If neither thane survived, but crew members survived, they became celebrated among their simple folk.

If one thane survived, he became a true Sebbie among Sebbies, a great leader for a great people going great places, you know, that sort of thing. This almost never happened.

All of that notwithstanding, boats did occasionally sink. Particularly strong seas could snap even the very flexible wood used by the Sebiestor shipwrights. Splintered wood pierced crude air bags set into the bilgie areas down around the footsies, and remaining displacement no longer sufficed.

Those boats plummeted several miles, either directly or bouncing down shattered basalt slopes to a sea floor particularly hostile to life. Now there are weird things down there, certainly, but not a lot of wood. The Five Frost Giants are bare bottomed, we are north of Murkamooka's forest line, and the currents here largely blast down from the even less woodsy pole.

An absence of wood means an absence of wood munching worms.

An absence of wood munching worms means that sunk boats persist. Persistent sunk boats mean that I can reconstruct Mulgie in an authentic fashion from their remains! Now, the pressures will be extraordinary, but as I understand it, your equipment accounts for that.

"Yes, Ma'am. If the drones locate wrecks, we will identify discrete sections, isolate them with accompanying sediment and sea water, and surface enclosures with attention paid to ameliorating the effects of decompression. These surface conditions are too violent, however. And I don't imagine it ever calms."

No. The Svartalf rage eternal in their depths.

"Right. We'll pull anything we find south beneath wave action and surface it under more agreeable conditions."

Stupendous, Captain! I knew you were the man for the job.

"The Cartel appreciates opportunities to assist with historical conservation, Ma'am."

A model organization, one of the Cluster's finest.

Baba Yaga and I go way back.

Yaba Gaga is a more recent acquaintance. Now there is a Gallente pop tart with unusual specifications for her lycanthropic Sebbois, even by my standards.

[SAISIO III.

The CRONE sits on a plain wooden stool, in a cave - before a white jade disk approximately 56 and one seventh meters in diameter (behind which water falls from glittering heights unseen far above). Beyond the jade disk, barely visible in mist and glare, large rectangular constructions rise off kilter from a deep crevasse moraine.

GREATEST NEPHEW sits on a rough straw mat to her left. CYLINDRICAL KAMEIRA stands to her right and back, surveying the jade disk. Further to the CRONE'S right, a quartet of two Achura stringed instruments, one wind instrument, and one totemic drum kit plays asynchronously discordant yet sublime notes. ]

Well, darling, it's ironic the younger monasteries here seem worse off than those older monasteries back home, especially given we were only driven off this planet twice.

"Noh-Jo shall fly Yellow again, Honored Matriarch!"

I hope so, sweetie. It's... kind of warm down here.

[ACHURAN TECHNICIANS finish assembling a series of high technology pylons and struts before the CRONE. The lights dim. A glow appears between the pylons. The quartet changes its tune. The woman playing the long stringed bass plucks out a quick, catchy beat with her silver thumb hook.

An image forms in the glow curving before the CRONE.

A Silver Atmospheric Sporty Vehicle (SASV) drops toward a patchwork quick of dark and light grey waves that rise an fall in a sickening rhythm. As the SASV nears the sea's surface, its directional thrust turbines roar and gurgle, fighting chaotic wind and driving mist.

Ahead, a nautical vessel plows full force against the swells. It leaps from the water, crashes back down, bow submerged, then rises gloriously like a great whale casting off foam.]

What is the situation, Lovely Vherokior Niece?

[Inside the SASV, a caramel chocolate Vherokior beauty narrows dark cinnamon eyes.]

"The situation is grim, Honored Matriarch."

Can you handle it alone?

"Of course, Honored Matriarch. However, if I may be so bold, I request assistance with vehicle control."

Greatest Nephew?

[GREATEST NEPHEW places his forehead against the cold stone and concentrates.]

There may be a little latency, darling!

"That will not be a problem, Honored Matriarch."

[The bass plucker's stringed comrade and the wind instrument join her. Their catchy tune builds.

A gull wing rises beside LOVELY VHEROKIOR NEICE. The beautiful young woman clamps something onto a fixture in the cabin and tumbles backward out of the SASV on a line. Her skin tight plastic polymer thermal jumpsuit glistens in Svartalfvangr's driving mist. GREATEST NEPHEW maneuvers the SASV in pursuit of the speeding salvage vessel.

Occasionally in the distance, the white beards of Fifth Giant tumble down to unforgiving seas.

As LOVELY VHEROKIOR NICE hangs and sways above the ship, forms emerge from the grey mist. Misshapen, vaguely humanoid vaguely mechanical blobs lacking symmetry claw across the deck. It appears whoever guides the vessel knows of them, and strives to use the surf to knock as many off as possible.

Sometimes, this is successful - though not sometimes enough.

The CRONE squeals with delight.]

Dear me! Dear me! Auntie's suspicions about the Sebiestor suicide bowl had merit! Svartalf are not purely products of fermented seal fat on gums; and a Wendigo or two may well have cavorted with its Cult. Somewhere down in all of that, Grendl's Mummy calls for vengeance. I feel for the poor thing.

In you go, Lovely Vherokior Niece!

[LOVELY VHEROKIOR NIECE unlocks her chain and, with a smart tumble, lands in an appropriate three point crouch on the heaving deck. Unconcerned by its uneven posture or the crashing surf, she bursts forward. Asymmetrical vaguely humanoid vaguely mechanical shapes lurch at her.

The lethal young woman removes a telescoping electrified quarter staff from a previously undisclosed location (somewhere on her right forearm) and brings the tip across what should be a jaw, more or less. Driving mist washes away a spray of malignant decay as the creature tumbles backward and into the sea.

The ship begins to roll.

LOVELY VHEROKIOR NIECE wraps arm and leg around a support strut while driving an electrified tip through what should in all likelihood be a chest. The beast stops as the world turns upside down. When the deck resurfaces, the beast is gone; others have held fast, however, and eye the beautiful death machine in their midst with malice.

Stabbing her staff into a grating, using the motion of the ship to propel herself forward, LOVELY VHEROKIOR NIECE catapults above the raised talons of the Svartalf horde, decapitating one in passing before executing a tumbling roll across the deck, springing up one last time, and dropping into another appropriate three point landing.

Quick turn, cut; quick turn, thrust!

LOVELY VHEROKIOR NIECE slams a metallic disk onto a fastened bulkhead door; nanites go to work.

Headbutt! Strut grab! Roll!

The nanites finish. LOVELY VHEROKIOR NIECE cranks the bulkhead wheel; its locking bars collapse, the door opens. She removes the metal disk, ducks inside, slams the bulkhead on a flailing arm, and reattaches her disk. Nanites go to work as LOVELY VHEROKIOR NIECE herself braces the door. Nanites finish. The door is locked.

Skin tight plastic polymer metallic sheen shimmers in a dark access corridor.

LOVELY VHEROKIOR NIECE steps onto the bridge. CARTEL BRUTOR CAPTAIN fires one shot. Flashing electrified quarter staff knocks the projectile away.]

"I thought I was on my own," observes the captain.

"You are too valuable to abandon."

"That gives me a warm fuzzy. We'll need it. Brace for impact!"

[The charging salvage vessel's engines roar. The ship rises up out of the water one last time. Achuran drummer signals a crescendo. Ice!]

[AMARR PRIME.

Camera drones race around sandstone pillars buried beneath blossoming wisteria. An off-white canvas awning flaps in a light breeze beneath lapis lazuli skies. The CRONE stretches out on a rattan lounge wrapped head to toe in gold lame, half in shade, half not in shade. Bronzed Ni-Kunni in bronze chainmail push a heavy ebony entertainment set across terracotta tiles, stopping before the CRONE.

The entertainment center flickers to life.

MATAR.

LOVELY VHEROKIOR NIECE and BRUTOR CARTEL CAPTAIN scramble up glacial detritus. Behind them, the hull of their abandoned salvage vessel gurgles and collapses. Dark stains seep onto the ice and fight to gain some semblance of shape.]

Oh my goodness, sweeties, look at that boat! It's so big!

I'm amazed they got it up onto that ice flow...

We lose sight of the fact, sometimes, I think, that what we call "ancient" civilizations are not most ancient. Here on Amarr, three or so thousand years ago, an Order of Knights - the Ephisians (who I shall discuss shortly and in another context) - realized that the fossil and archaeological records of Athra contradicted the proposition that Mankind evolved on this planet. The Ephisians turned their attention to the heavens and wondered.

They would go on to do much more than wonder, but we'll just skip to the present.

No where in the Cluster does the fossil or archaeological record support our globule of space as the point of human origin. We came from Somewhere Else, through the EVE Gate - an object of great reverence to many, including Ephisians, Sisters of EVE, and if I understand Ms. Denton correctly, the Thukker.

We may surmise that something constructed the Gate.

If any pieces of that equipment remain, then those artifacts rank among the oldest vanities of Man available to us. The Gate of course would rank as a somewhat younger vanity. And from there, we do not leap immediately to ruins in Anookies, but instead to these very planets on which we emerged from caves sometime between now and the fall of the Antediluvians.

Dirty little secret of the Empires, sweeties: they have been looting the greatest treasures of human knowledge, out of sight and of mind, for hundreds if not thousands of years right here under our feet.

Now, what we find down the rabbit holes does tend toward sexy and lethal; whereas here, infrastructure left by the Ante served, by and large, as the industrial bones of world building. Every now and then, a new bone pops up.

[The salvage boat has grown "arms" attached to "claws" but cannot quite stand.]

What we see there is a mineral and gas extraction substrate, likely interested in unusual crystal and metal deposits formed by the impact which created the Svartalfvangr. It has leveraged the unfortunate crew and metals of the doomed vessel in an attempt to organize itself into something useful for its task.

What would you think if you were a shivering Sebbie rubbing fermented seal fat on your gums one night in the mist by the Svartalfvangr when something like this appeared momentarily and sank? Or a Krusual initiate whose canoe was bumped?

Oh, no! It's a dragon!

Yes, of course. And here on Amarr we have our devils and demigos and the Caldari their demon winds. Gallente put such things down to too much rum between island hopping.

Fortunately, to prevent runaway transmutation and a big ball of goo, nanite fabrication primitives in such equipment included fail safe mechanisms to enter torpor after periods of time without instruction; or, to terminate conversion of adjacent material at a certain size, as determined by signal arrays constructed in the entity's "flesh." Of course, should something interfere with those signals, it could be catastrophic....

Is the electromagnetic pulse device in position and charged?

"Yes, Reverend Mummy," answers a disembodied voice.

Splendid!

Detonate.

[The entertainment center loses its signal.]

It will be a while before we find out how that all turned out.

Meanwhile, perhaps I should comment on the nature of these two worlds, Amarr and Matar.

Amarr was a fortress of piety settled by individuals of deep religious conviction who found themselves surrounded by a civilization of rampant technological excess. Fortunately, we needn't concern ourselves with such debased monstrosities, now. On this holy world, the great monotheistic philosophies of the Antediluvian machine concentrated with intense fervor, forming a veritable dungeon of the soul: Us on the inside, Them on the out.

Matar was the reverse, a dungeon of the body. The most distant world from the point of origin at the time of its settling, Matar received those Antediluvians who did not play well with others. Lets call them parolees - each wired with genetic markers, passed down through subsequent generations that, when exposed to the right stimulus, blossomed on the surface of the subject's skin, identifying them with their past, and establishing a magnificent test of "nature vs. nurture."

It would appear, these thousands of years later, that nature does in fact dominate.

Consequently, I read reports of a genetic test for "Matariness" with some amusement.

Such a test already exists. Anyone who expresses the Matari markings in response to the appropriate stimulus is a Matari. As a militarized expeditionary force, the Thukker would ordinarily not possess these markings. However, given their interaction with Matar during its re-emergence, it entered their line.

Similarly, if one were interested in determining whether ancestors of any Amarrian holders intermingled with the help, one need only administer the quaint Voluval ritual to a current member of the family. Wouldn't it be delightful if an Amarrian were to express the so-called Ray of Matar - that mark of highest treason in a now vanished time?

Nor can I.

In spite of entertaining stories.

Baba Yaga was mentioned. You should tell us all about her hut, Noh. It is no less fantasy than your history lesson... which, to be fair, is a great read.

Killing two imps with one holy laser:

Baba Yaga and Her Pale Eye Voluval

There you have it. The Pale Eye is a milky white, blind eye - similar in appearance, if not consequence, to manifestations of the Seer's Scar documented by that alliance which no longer includes a certain corporation.

Truly majestic, Lady Noh!

Please pass my compliments to your Foreman - the restored Isengardorommuhlgir looked beautiful. It was a respectful and fitting honour to the dead.

And that kilted Brutor... could I get an introduction?