Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Section II: Temporal Regression
Civilizations suffer a temporal regression as a result of the premature discovery of time travel. While such discoveries occasionally lead to a Temporal Uplift (see Section III), more often than not the unpredictability of temporal changes means that the civilization is set back decades or even centuries.

The archtypical example of this is CE32283, a habitable planet with a Class Three civilation. Thanks to the premature discovery and use of a temporal device by a very small number of people, no more than 1-3, the civilization’s technology level was inadvertently retarded for decades as key discoveries in anti-gravity repulsor fields were never made.

This was due to the lack of funds for a key startup company, which came from the settlement for a automobile accident that the founder’s uncle was involved in. The crash, avoided through temporal meddling, wound up delaying the widespread adoption of repulsor fields for more than a century.

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Name: Lucius Hauntington IV
Gender: Male
Date of Death: 10/20/1815
Classification: Free Floating Full Torso Vaporous Apparition
Place of Death: New Orleans
Cause of Death: Gunshot wound
Country of Death: USA
State/Region of Birth: Louisiana
Demon: Baphomet
Burial Address:
Ye Acre of Rest Cemeterie
666 Hearse Lane New Orleans LA 70447 USA
Desired Major: Spirit Therapy
Desired Minor: Ecto-American Studies
Activities:
The Great Haunting of 1857
The Harrowing of Elder Street 1877
Spirit Guide 1910-1925
Spirit Photographer Aide 1911-1924
Bumps in the Night Club 1926-present
New Orleans Saints Hexing Club 1955-present

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Respiration and Gas Exhange
Relatively little is known about the exact physiology of the Vyaeh, as contacts have been limited and no Vyaeh bodies have ever been captured or dissected. But from limited diplomatic contact, it can be inferred that their homeworld as approximately 75% of Earth’s mass and a biosphere that has a certain amount of breathable oxygen. Vyaeh have been observed subsisting without incident in atmospheres with 25-33% less oxygen than Earth, but they also appear to require certain noble gasses such as argon and krypton in much higher concentrations than Earthlike or terraformed atmospheres.

This is why Vyaeh colonies in the Disputed Systems have been observed to set up atmospheric generators even on planets with high oxygen concentrations, and why Vyaeh operating in atmospheres which appear to have enough oxygen are usually equipped with units to supply the needed gasses. Unlike humans, the systems for taking in nutrients and gas exchange are completely different; Vyaeh have spiracules on their sides that intake and exhale in a manner that is unclear but appears to be broadly similar to “book lungs” on terrestrial arachnids.

Limbs and skeleton
Vyaeh limbs are more fragile than human ones, and several have been observed to sustain major fractures from relatively minor falls. They appear to compensate for this, on planets with higher gravity, by augmenting themselves with powered germents or armor. Their skeletal structure appears to be a mixture of an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton, with the two appearing bonded in areas where greater strength is required such as the middle of limbs. It’s been speculated that the exoskeleton develops as Vyaeh age, rendering them more protected but less motile.

It has also been noted that Vyaeh vary in their number of limbs, posessing anywhere from four to eight appendages aside from their head. They have shown some specialization, with four-legged Vyaeh bearing heavy loads, three-armed Vyaeh operating as snipers or engineers, and those with the most human-like configuration (two arms and two legs) serving as commanders. Speculation exists that the number of legs is a matriarchal trait passed from mother to daughter, with males providing the neccessary genetic diversity between the various lines (not unlike cuckoos on Earth). No details on reproduction are known, though it appears to be sexual and two sexes have been noted in communications.

Nutrition
They appear to primarily consume liquid food with a limited capacity to grind up more solid particles in a gizzard-like organ; this has led to speculation that they evolved from herbivores or filter feeders. It has also been speculated that the other creatures often seen with Vyaeh troops, which have been observed to eat solid food, exist in a sort of symbiosis and have evolved to be “milked” of a nutrient slurry. Like so much else about the Vyaeh, this is relatively unknown.

Vision
Vyaeh posess adept but delicate “pinhole camera” eyes, perhaps most analogous to Earth chameleons and cephelopods. Their vision is poorer in terms of field of vision with notable blind spots, and their eyes must be physically rotated and focused much more laboriously than those of humans. As with their legs, the number of eyes that each Vyaeh posesses varies, with two, three, and four eyes all observed. Unlike the number of limbs, the number of eyes does not appear to be linked to any stratification of roles.

Speech
Vyaeh speech is complex, with an audible component from their “book lungs,” pheromones released from glands near their mouths, and a number of subtle shades of meaning communicated through the position of eyes and limbs. Contact and negotiations resulted in the development of a translator which can read and interpret Vyaeh language with a degree of accuracy. Their script, which relies on light frequencies outside the range of normal human vision, has likewise been deciphered to a degree through negotiations.

Culture
Vyaeh culture is primarily mercantile and matriarchal. Accumulation of power is based around accumulation of wealth, and there is no centralized military. Rather, individual units are raised and equipped by powerful figures and then sold or rented to the central government. The lack of centralized control has led to a number of unfortunate incidents, though the government has intervened several times to prevent all-out war.

Virtually nothing is known about the Vyaeh central government, the Orphaned Court. It has been speculated to be made up of ancient matriarchs, but is treated as a singlular entity. It is both the primary civil and religious leadership of the Vyaeh, but it does not seem to interfere in major decisions very often and demonstrates an apparent preference for subtle manipulation. Such is its prestige in Vyaeh society, though, that its orders are generally obeyed unquestionably and many actions appear to be undertaken with the express object of currying its favor.

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“Ultimately,” says Dr. Horace Uuuurnggghh, chair of Sasquatch Studies at the University of the Pacific Northwest, “there are very few positive portrayals of sasquatch in media. We feel that is reductive, and we are trying to fight it.”

When asked about prominent sasquatches in media, Dr. Uuuurnggghh had this to say: “Yes, everyone knows about Chewbacca as a supposedly positive sasquatch character. But aside from Chewbacca, who is there? Even Chewbacca is not a good role model, as he is presented as an alien, inarticulate, prone to rage, a cheater at games, and subordinate to human characters. You will note, for example, that Chewbacca does not recieve a medal at the end of Star Wars despite copiloting the ship that won the battle. And it goes without saying that the sasquatch community is very opposed to non-sasquatch actors playing sasquatch roles.”

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WHEREAS we have found consciousness to be fluid and expansible

WHEREAS we have found the pursuit of knowledge through the use of various chemical aids (known to the laymen as lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD)

WHEREAS we have learned more in the space of a few short years under chemical guideance and chemically expanded consciousness than any of us have in the whole of our lives in academia

And WHEREAS we have been opposed by every turn by the Consciousness Limiters (hereafter referred to as the CLs) closedminded, the fearful, and the oppressive who seek to outlaw, constrain, and otherwise harass and suppress Truth in all its chemical forms

THEREFORE I submit to the Consciousness Society of America (hereafter referred to as the CSA) that we take our work underground

CONSIDER that a refuge or shelter, suitably constructed and outfitted with technology designed for nuclear fallout, could sustain our Carbon Shells (hereafter referred to as CSes) for a nearly indefinite period of time

CONSIDER that, with careful planning, we would be able to deal with considerations of hydration and waste

CONSIDER that, with a well-stocked library of books and consciousness-expenders, we would be able to advance our work by leaps and bounds

CONSIDER that, by doing so, we would free ourselves both from the strictures of the Imposed Reality (hereafter referred to as the IR), and the repression of the aforementioned Consciousness Limiters (hereafter referred to as CLs)

THEREFORE I submit to you that the Consciousness Society of America (hereafter referred to as the CSA) construct a network of Consciousness Shelters (hereafter referred to as CSes) beneath our current dwelling places

THEREFORE I submit to you that we stock the with the Consciousness Shelters (hereafter referred to as CSes) with the necessities for maintain our Carbon Shells (hereafter referred to as CSes) as well as the chemicals needed for expansion

THEREFORE I submit to you that we seal ourselves in these Consciousness Shelters (hereafter referred to as CSes) for a period of not less than 30 years of explorations of the boundaries of consciousness, thereafter to reemerge to share our revelations with the world

THEREFORE I submit to you that work has already begun on an example unit to be held up as a model and sealed at a predetermined time

SUBMITTED this day, October 17, 1985, to the monthly meeting of the Consciousness Society of America (hereafter referred to as the CSA)

-Dr. C. J. Applewhite IV, Southern Michigan University, AKA Ceejayaye, AKA Applecore, AKA Consciousness #32283

Inspired by this satirical post.

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Taos seemed to consider this a moment. “Every moment is a death,” he said. “You are not the same being you were an instant ago, not am I the same glittering perfection. It takes an expended mind to see this, of course. But even with the finite resources of the Umbrielite computer network I can compare states, snapshots of my core being, and tease out the differences. Each configuration of the cosmos is different than that which preceded it, and each moment presses it to extinction.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” snarled Jai.

“Not really, since you are going to pout like an undisciplined schoolboy at this as you do in the face of any reversal,” Taos said. “I’m merely dumping a little truth into your wound. Truth, like maggots, has a way of clearing away the dead bits.”

“And just how, exactly, is telling me that she died a billion times when she cut her hair the truth? You were right about the maggots, though, since you’re just being rotten.” Jai spoke through fresh-brimming tears.

“Oh, a pun. How delightful. I certainly can’t hope to compete with an intellect advanced enough to play off linguistic similarities in a primitive and outmoded form of communication. Listen: she affected you, affected me, affected the cosmos. That’s more than most consciousnesses can hope for, and it’s what we do now that determines whether those effects resonate or whether they were just like her billion other selves, extinct and forgotten. Remember, I have already begun working against the great death, the only true death, and only my success makes this anything more than another heat exchange in a universe slouching toward equilibrium.”

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The Branding
Only the Kingdom of Mangeni resisted integration into the Realms. The result was a campaign of slaughter and terror to subjugate the land; it lasted for two decades before a native Mangeni dwarf noble managed to unify the land and submitted in exchange for certain rights, notably the continuance of the Right of Strength. The name comes from the procedure of branding cattle, and is at once both facetious and irredentist.

Crownfall
The Four Realms were mismanaged in the years leading up to the Crownfall Wars, and eventually the kings found themselves faced with a restive population. In a brutal campaign lasting ten years, the King and all three Archdukes were forced to abdicate or were killed on the battlefield. Attempted intervention by the Empire of Vachen led to further war between it and the newly declared Republic of the Realms.

War of Independence
The Empire of Vachen’s intervention, ostensibly at the behest of the rightful heirs to the crown, lasted five years. It was notable as a struggle both internal and external, as Swynwr, Mangeni, and Tavallinen all sought independence from the central administration of the Republic in Dahlgren. This led to the Peaceable Settlement, an agreement that autonomy would be protected and the Old Right and the Right of Strength allowed to continue. The war ended with the total defeat of Vachen.

War of Rights
In time, opposition in Dahlgren and parts of Tavallinen to the Old Right and the Right of Strength grew. Increased incursions into Tavallinen and Dahlgren for “unprotected” citizens led to a war of laws between the Republic and its constituents, and ultimately Swynwr and Mangeni attempted to regain their independence, aided by a significant portion of Tavallinen. Five years of brutal war followed between the Republicans (the government of the Republic of the Realms) and the Rightists (officially the Federation of Rights, sometimes called the Federals or Federalists). Eventually, the Rightists were broken and annihilated, their ancient Rights abolished, and all the Realms brought under a centralized and bureaucratic administration. An attempted intevention by the Empire of Vachen also failed spectacularly.

The Brushfire
The defeat of Vachen’s intervention meant that the victorious government of the Republic of the Realms was able to annex the Verge, an area they had long desired. Desolate and sparsely populated, the Verge was rich in minerals and other resources but had never been developed by the Empire due to its remoteness and fierce resistence from native inhabitants. After the War of Rights, though, the resources of the Republic were turned to the region and it was flooded with soldiers, refugees and exiles from the defeated armies, and opportunists. This led to a series of small but intense conflicts, some spanning months or years; this 50-year period of violence has entered history books as “the Brushfire.”

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Officially called the Four Realms Under One Crown, the Four Realms consisted of the Kingdom of Swynwr, Kingdom of Mangeni, Kingdom of Dahlgren, and the Kingdom of Tavallinen. The line of Dahlgren kings ruled as the One Crown, but the former rulers of Swynwr, Mangeni, and Tavallinen were allowed to retain their former royal houses as Archdukes. It was a land of many peoples and many tongues, held together only by the strength of the Dahlgren crown and the existence of the Empire of Vachen as a major rival.

Swynwr: The Old Right
The woods of Swynwr were the traditional dwelling-place of many nations of elves, most of whom had practiced subsistence agriculture or hunter-gatherer lifestyles. Though the most powerful groups elected from among their number a Queen Over the Wood, the first centralized administration was brought by Tavallinen when it invaded and conquered the area. The most powerful and most populous of the elven fiefdoms, Brenin, came to rule over the others in the years after the conquest. Though many humans and dwarves settled in Swynwr, it maintained the Old Right: legally, anyone who was not under the protection of an elven fief was subject to capture and the confiscation of their essence. The Old Right allowed the creation of enaid, soul-batteries, that were the center of elvish life; the husks left behind were turned into meirwon, used as thralls in armies and police forces. The One Crown generally turned a blind eye to the Old Right, including its plundering of other lands for candidates, in exchange for meirwon for the royal armies and a supply of enaid for weapons.

Mangeni: The Right of Strength
Mangeni was home to many dwarves, though it was not their homeland. They had arrived as adventurers and fortune-seekers from overseas before establishing themselves as rulers over a land that had once had only a sparse population of humans and elves. Their kingdom grew on its great natural wealth, and established a strong central administration. The dwarves of Mangeni brought from their homeland the concept of hawlcryf, rendered into Dahlgrish as The Right of Strength or the Right of Might. It holds that anyone unable to defend themselves is subject to the full depredations that anyone may wish to heap upon them. This took the form of robbery most often, but increasingly to the confiscation of whole people to work the mines. As with the Old Right, this was overlooked by the Dahlgren court due to the fantastic productivity of the mines. Mangeni was the only one of the realms to resist integration in a fierce campaign still known as The Branding.

Tavallinen: The Right of Unification
Tavallinen itself was a hodgepodge of human, dwarven, and elven petty kingdoms, but they were held in rigid order by the Right Lord of Tavallinen, who later became the Archduke. Prime and productive farming land, Tavallinen was the center of a robust trade with the other realms and had a reputation for producing fierce soldiers. The relationship was such that elves from Swynwr and dwarves from Mangeni were allowed to exercise their Rights upon the land as if it had been their own, though the punishment for doing so in error was very severe, typically death. It was Tavallinen that first subdued the unruly elves of Swynwr, and it was their royal house that, upon the extinction of the male line of Dahlgren, unified the Realms. Fittingly, due to its polyglot nature, the royal house has both dwarven and elvish blood.

Dahlgren: The Right of Rule
Long the most populous and prosperous of the realms, Dahlgren is so ancient that its origins are largely lost. Largely a realm of humans, it nevertheless boasted many regions and languages with long histories of animosity before their unification. The capital lay within its bounds, and its fields and factories were long some of the ablest producers out of any in the land. Dahlgren’s royal house stretched unbroken to the defeat of the Vachen Empire, of which it had once been a vassal. The last King married his daughter to the King of Tavallinen, only to see his sons fall to battle or illness. This led that king to declare the realms unified, though The Branding raged for twenty years before Mangeni was firmly under control. Moving the court to Dahlgren and leaving a cadet branch on the throne of Tavallinen, the king ‘s consolidation of power set the stage for 300 years of union.

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“We’ll need a couple of people,” Hiraul said, adjusting his hat to clip his long, pointed ears to the sides of his head. “A horse thief, for one. Can’t have anyone at the livery seeing us on a poster and putting two and two together.”

“Already done,” said Votal, harrumphing through his beard. “My boy Nvar. Sister’s son. Family. We can trust him, and he’s already stolen enough horses to equip a cavalry division.”

Hiraul arched a delicate eyebrow. “A dwarf horse thief?”

“He’s a quarter human on his father’s side, he can reach the stirrups,” snapped Votal. “Lithe as a willow too.”

“Someone who can deal with explosives next,” Hiraul continued. “Got to stop the train. I think I know someone. Neridi. She was in artillery during the war and her father owes me a favor.”

It was Votal’s turn to scoff. “A woman and an elf?”

“You remember how hard-pressed we were for troops as well as I do,” snapped Hiraul. “And if nothing else, no one will believe her story.”

“All right, all right,” Votal said. “But that’s not all, is it?”

“We need someone on the inside, on the train. A human, or somebody that can pass as one.”

Votal pondered this a moment. “One of Quint’s Raiders? They clipped their own ears after all.”

“The train will have an escort. Military. You’d better believe that they’ll have an etherometer and be checking everyone that boards.”

“So where does that leave us?” said Votal. “My boy Nvar isn’t passing an etherometer. You won’t pass muster on one of those if you’ve got so much as a great-grandparent who isn’t as human as President Graham.”

“I know. It’s a tough proposition…a human working for us when the old war means nobody trusts anybody else. But I think I know just the guy.”

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None of the three men ever discussed what had happened on Finnegan’s Reef after their acquittal, but soon an interesting coincidence came to light.

John Guttner was stabbed in an unprovoked assault two years after his trial, in 1948. The wound was life-threatening, but Guttner survived with the loss of his right arm. In 1949, Arnold Stalknecht was hospitalized with acute symptoms of tuberculosis; he lived, but without his left lung. And in 1950, the third man, Francois Lelande, was struck and killed by a drunk driver at the wheel of a DeSoto.

One might chalk these events up to simple luck save for one thing: all three events happened on October 12–the day that, as best as the investigators could tell, the castaways had perished.

Though some have accused the newspaper coverage of sensationalism, by the time Stalknecht–the last man alive–died in 1960, some terrible occurrence had seemed to visit them every year on that date. If not death, than something which threatened it.

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