Only 24 hours left on the best work of visionary transhumanist science fiction that’s also a medieval quest story that’s also beautifully illustrated that I could write!
Prices will go up if you want to get it in the future!
Did you know postage to the U.K. and E.U. is surprisingly affordable?
We are this close to providing FREE MICE with every copy!
1. A council of androids voting on behalf of cryo-frozen owners.
2. A bot-populated futures market sets the strategy.
3. Each share equates to a "volume" of simulated neurons in the vast network which makes up the corps 'mind' - each tendency of shareholders forms an organ or segment of that mind.
3. An exact replication of the election of a Venetian Doge;
(“Whenever the time came to elect a new doge of Venice, an official went to pray in St. Mark’s Basilica, grabbed the first boy he could find in the piazza, and took him back to the ducal palace. The boy’s job was to draw lots to choose an electoral college from the members of Venice’s grand families, which was the first step in a performance that has been called tortuous, ridiculous, and profound. Here is how it went, more or less unchanged, for five hundred years, from 1268 until the end of the Venetian Republic.
Thirty electors were chosen by lot, and then a second lottery reduced them to nine, who nominated forty candidates in all, each of whom had to be approved by at least seven electors in order to pass to the next stage. The forty were pruned by lot to twelve, who nominated a total of twenty-five, who needed at least nine nominations each. The twenty-five were culled to nine, who picked an electoral college of forty-five, each with at least seven nominations. The forty-five became eleven, who chose a final college of forty-one. Each member proposed one candidate, all of whom were discussed and, if necessary, examined in person, whereupon each elector cast a vote for every candidate of whom he approved. The candidate with the most approvals was the winner, provided he had been endorsed by at least twenty-five of the forty-one.” — Anthony Gottlieb, "Win or Lose," The New Yorker.)
4. Interstellar escrow - the shareholders are frozen and en-route at sub-light speed. Sets of counter-checking A.I.'s and managers organise resources drawn from futures markets based on possible future company value, to create that future.
5. An A.I. chooses the human board according to core values laid down in the charter. The charter can only be altered by an 80% quorum of shareholders.
6. The corporation has no memory of itself - all records are locked by an ambient A.I. omnipresent in the companies intranet. No-one knows what it did in the past or what it will do in the future. Employees have access only to information about what they themselves are doing. (The memory system itself has no understanding of the records it controls.)
7. Designed for an enthnocentrist colonisation project, the population group intended as beneficiaries died out but the corporation itself was very successful. Now run by A.I.'s, the corp has a secret tacit breeding program amongst its employees - trying to recreate the original ethnogroup.
8. Social-media based promotion and management structure. Views, clicks, likes and comments are the means of assessment. Employees can be sued for botting.
9. An anarcho-primitivist colony with no technology within 1,000 miles makes all the decisions. Society is organised like a version of ancient Greece. Information comes to them by boat and horse, they debate, stage plays, and vote, before sending back their decisions. (The colony is a virtual simulation, its inhabitants are not aware.)
10. Engrams of dead billionaires.
11. Company is in a state of perpetual reformatting. The current board organises its sale to new owners with the proviso they select a new board who will prepare for resale, with the proviso that...
12. Crypto-Company - structure runs in the background of an MMORPG.
In the gloom they gather and the gloom they rule, lords of the half-closed eye. Snare-hearted men who lost the light but would not serve the dark, branded by sun and star.
No knights of the equator these, their castles ring the utmost north, where they retire yearly for week-long half-lit days, sending bright factotums into dark and sunlit lands, seeking scrolls of forgotten verse and vases given as funeral gifts to long-dead emperors.
Only here, at the interstice of time may they thrive for
they are sworn to shadow as a whole
and to the court of Mab. Their tents and pennants hung with wooden wind-chimes which make their own music in the still air.
Here they drink from clouded glasses and dine on slices of pale meats which they skewer with silver forks, served by fae with the heads of whippoorwills and the bodies of upright foxes - dressed in tabards and carrying bras anthophagous carnyx, or by huge snuffling hedgehog squires, or pairs of orphans, one deaf, one blind, or ancient men, their grey beards trailing on the earth.
Do they even have political views? Their minds like dusty barns with swooping owls. They are desirous of fine China and will meet your eyes in a silvered mirror. Adjacent to death they make congress with beautiful ghosts, their tournaments attended by pale maidens for whose favour they quest. Aye, anything for a dead maid. Why else should killers fear the gloom, and all retire to sunlit lands?
Thus they hunt. Unmoving, they appear. Knights that gallop not, congealing from mist, etching themselves from branch-shadows, arising from the cambers of dark streams, under moss and willow. Soft-edged knights whose hoof-beats sound like puddle drips, mist beading on their long cloaks of Ungulix fur and Jabberwock skin. Helms capped with cupped hands, tarnished silver owls, leafless bronze trees, gibbous moons, stooped crows or tragedians masks in bronze. Shields picturing thistledown flowers, half-closed eyes, half-open gates, half-drawn swords and half-suns bisected by smeared half-clouds, or infinitely quartered blazons that can never be completely read.
Their lances quest like tentacles - curling into tree-boles, under doors. The Knights ride lantern mares made of pale light. Fretwork like branches. Pausing in the distance to dismount and fold up their horse like a triptych which they carry like a shield.
Are they sniffing?
Are they whispering?
But nothing can escape them,
In the gloom.
Perhaps by closing your eyes, pressing the heels of your hands into the ocular gap - producing utter dark - perhaps then they cannot find you. For all that is half-see sings to them; the choir of the occluded.
Or by holding them in clear, full, un-occluded sight - then they shall cringe and must act knightly, offer war or mercy and make half-lit unbreakable oaths in whispered words like blinded bats.
They are closing in as the sky darkens and the silver lyre plays, like leaves on slow water, they drift closer, barely seeming to touch the earth.
As swift as the wind,
Silent as owls,
Gentle as a shave.
Colourless men lead forward by swords held like tweezers.
Swords which quest like hounds, sniff like cold noses, and shift in their hands
like weasels. Swords fed on chickens in the night. For these are no earthly
knights.
So instead this is more of an "open post", discussing some of the possibilities for a game or story set in Rome during its nadir, and asking the readers if anyone out there actually knows anything about this period in history.
The population graph of Rome over history tells the story better than I could;
an extremely, even unnaturally for the time, dense and highly populous city declining into a smallish town, leaving its stones and tenements to moulder.
Based purely on population it stays this way through the entire middle ages, only leaping into action again as we approach the modern era.
But even during this Nadir there was quite a lot going on in Rome. It was still the seat of the Western Christian Church, (some of the time), and while its population was relatively small, it never disappeared.
I've always loved this liminal period of European history, especially notable in Britian, and I couldn't stop thinking of some kind of ancient detective story set in fallen Rome, of a Knight or Investigator sent out into the grass-filled ruins and down into the Crypts to deal with the freaks and oddities which, at least theoretically, might have been hanging out there.
It is a lot of very dense, overgrown, largely empty,
ruined and available property. Really a great place to set up shop if you are a
cult or criminal gang, so much that you might almost want to start a cult just
so you could hang out in the ruins of Rome, being weird.
The Silentiary, ("Silentiarius, silentiarios), was a Byzantine Court post. Originally it seems to have been a job of keeping all the nobles and petitioners in the Imperial court in order, and then later was transformed into an honorific of its own.
I learned of the role through the strange name of "John the Silentiary" a Byzantine court agent who played some important role in the fate of Rome in the mid 8th century.
It’s a general idea of mine to that to create a
Detective, first build a world of social layers, factions, racial groups,
ideals and religions, and when you look down through the stacked Venn diagram
of all these different groups, find the part where as many overlap as possible,
and make your Detective right there, stuck in the middle of everything.
Make sure they have enough putative authority to walk into the homes of rich
and poor, but nowhere near enough to guarantee they can get what they want.
They need a ritual, neutral role, something socially protected, but not one
that can afford its own range of patronage.
The Silentiary is a curious ritual role from a foreign court, one of the "Bearded Classes", (i.e. not a eunuch), though it could be amongst the lowest official roles, and could be awarded honour-ily, presumably for notable or useful deeds. They seem to make a perfect detective, a Silentiary of the Ruins, or Silentium Ruinarum.
But what cults or mysteries will they be investigating? Here things get difficult! If we assume a period for the Detective Stories around the middle part of the 8th Century, before Byzantium is driven out of Italy by the Lombards, it might be a little like this;
Islam - A surprisingly big chunk of southern France is under Islamic control up until the mid 8thC. What could be more Lovecraftian for a Catholic Roman Italian than sneaking through the ruins and discovering... Secret Muslims!
Germanic Wotanism - At the same time the Lombards are currently ruling northern Italy, and I think are still Germanic Pagans. The Franks are Christianised, but how Christian are they really? There must be some hold outs and crypto-Wotanists. Native post-classical Pagnism is one thing but what if the Goatherds find a Blood Eagle in the Temple of Jupiter. Secret Germans? Or is someone trying to throw you off the scent.
There are SO MANY fragments of early Christianity that get banned or ejected; Arianism, Docetism, Ebionites, Gnosticism, Marcionism, Montanism, Trinitarianism. I barely know a damn thing about any of them.
"Sethian - Belief that the snake in the Garden of Eden (Satan) was an agent of the true God and brought knowledge of truth to man via the fall of man."
"Ophites - Belief that the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve was a hero and that the God who forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge is the enemy."
Finding secret heretical Christians lacks the Elevator-Pitch high concept energy of secret Muslims but is a lot more likely and probably just as upsetting for the authorities of the time.
There were also "The Cults of the Martyrs" and "The Cults of the Saints", though I know nothing about either of these or if they even match my requirements for cults.
Julian the Apostate died in 363, so a looong time ago relative to our story, but who knows, maybe some remnants of the Senatorial classes, or one of the families of Rome, or some shady Bishop, or just local people, maintain some form of Classical Paganism. The most likely are the actual Gods of Rome, (there must be statues about), Isis Worship and the Mythratic Cults, who, tbh, would really love hanging out in mysterious ruins.
The Empire still stands after all, and the great texts and ancient knowledge of Rome still exists, just not here.
An interesting thing about Byzantine Crypto-Paganism is how modern it feels. Courtiers and Bishop are being accused of Crypto-Paganism in 7th Century Byzantium and 600 years after that, Gemistos Plethon writes a book recommending a return to some form of Platonism.
Instead of being a weird superstition, here the moral and philosophical challenge is coming from within the texts themselves. You can't just un-write Plato and it looks like there was some kind of weird undercurrent in Byzantine thought that maybe questioned this whole Christianity thing and was a bit too interested in the Old Books.
Secret Platonists in the ruins! A plot of intellectual elites driven by a search for truth.
It’s a classic for a reason. I think even the medieval idea of Satan hadn't taken shape by the 8thC but a belief in the Devil and in Magical Powers and Demonology and Witchcraft more generally kind of tugs along in the undertow of Christianity by the middle middle ages, driven by people like Clerks, Alchemists and overeducated oddities.
Our Silentium could run into the first hot new actual Satanists! Imagine being the first guys to work that one out!
And of course, not to forget the European Classic;
Because it wouldn’t be a European conspiracy story if
there weren’t Jews in the tunnels.
If you want to find out more, click here or the image below!
ere is your regular post, Autumn-themed for all of October;
1. The Candle and the Fog-Bound Bells.
A house moves through the fog like a ship, bells ringing from its highest hall. A curse comes with it from the past. A blessed candle shows the way to the house through the fog and once there, it lights the interior of the rotted mansion as it once was, revealing scenes that can solve the mystery of the curse. But while looking at the golden walls, take care for other things haunt the darkness.
2. The Giants Pantry
A giant has lifted the roof off the pantry and stolen the jam! And all the cheese, honey and preserved meat! That’s all we have to eat this winter! Someone has to go after that giant, take back the food, and somehow stop the Giant from coming back. At least his tracks should be easy to follow.
3. The Roc Migrates
A giant Roc has haunted the lands, but with Autumn, the bird has migrated (probably), South to warmer lands. Its nest must be full of all the treasure and goods of all the people it ate! It lies near the peak of a mighty mountain, ringed by the azure world. Storms are coming and Goblins are chasing the gold!
4. The Cursed Geese
Each night, honking Geese fly above the village as they migrate, and each night one or two people who hear their call are transformed into Geese and fly away with them! Someone has to go and get them back. The Charcoal-Burner tells you that the Geese live 'North of the Wind and West of the Moon', and there you must go to find the altered Geese and bring them home.
5. The Witches Pigs
Each night, winged pigs attack! Through sheer mass they barrel into houses, smashing windows and doors, snatching up children and the old, wreaking ruin! They are gone before the sun rises. Only the Anchorite knows the secret of the Pigs and the Witch they serve, a twice-bend crone who lives in a great Boot, along but for her Pigs.
6. The Town Returns
Out in the drowned bog, the spires and eves of a sunken village have always poked up through the glassy waters. Now, day by day, inch by inch, the sunken town is slowly rising from the bog, though the waters do not fall. Things are coming from the sunken town.
7. The Goblins Conker
The Goblin King is stealing homes, squatting in them and ruining everything before moving on. No-one can refuse his challenge to a conker-smashing contest and no-one can win against his devilish Conker - soaked in the blood of maidens and the bile of babes. Only a Conker from the tree which grows from St Aldhelms tomb can defeat the Goblin King, but that was lost in the forest an age ago.
8. The Wood-Nut Man
His brown face appears in the darkness beneath the boles of trees, his barky hands reach out to stroke the heads of truffle-hunting pigs, he feeds them his nuts and they speak in a deep and growling voice, the voice of the Wood Nut Man, to insist you do his will. There are things he needs, several and few, and you must have them before the snow falls.
9. A Gust of Bones
When the storm winds blow from the east we see skeletons in the wind. They grab onto spires, trees and the tops of towers, trying not to be swept away. When things calm down we have to go sweep them out of branches and cart them back to the graveyard, while they complain all the time. Someone must go west and have a word with whatever is making this wind!
10. The Devil in the Frost
Black, horned, hooved, arrow-tailed, sharp-toothed, goat-eyed and cloven tongued, he appears at dusk and dances from frozen puddle to frozen puddle - appearing only above the frozen waters, disappearing into gusts of leaves and piles of worms. He cuts, bites, spoils, spills and tells terrible lies - not even the strongest man can hold him! He laughs and cackles, saying "The frost is coming! The snow will fall! Hoo Hoo Hoo!"
11. The Smith Beneath the Tide
An inlet of the high, grey sea. A sea cave where waters churn. When the tide is high a fire burns beneath the water, hammer blows ring out with the waves and a smiths bold laughter echoes in the ocean all around, keeping the fishermen up at night. A rich man with long fingers will pay you good gold to steal something from that salty smith.
12. The Stained Skulls Verdigris Brass Ring
He comes down chimneys and into windows, popping out of wells, chattering his teeth, followed by a horde of dingy grey-black Geese who eat the seed. "My Verdigris Brass Ring!". No-one can get anything done and the floating skull is scaring the children. Will someone please find this Verdigris brass ring so this thing will shut up and go back to sleep!
"BUT - the truth is that these are the same people and places but just seen from different cultural perspectives"the portrait-images of the main characters are flipped like those of playing cards, one half facing one, direction the other facing the other direction.The Science Fiction adventurers will see it as a dimensionally-warped ship of perverted biomechanical transhumans.In terms of adventure design, the context of the information they can get and are given will lead them to see it as a technical and material problem, and the very nature of their inquiry and the way they seen the people in itwill make the *mission* darker and more dangerous for them. Their technical abilities and the power of destruction and opposition that their guns etc give them means they are more likely to start conflicts."
"The yet more wretched palacesContrasted with those ancient fanes,Now crumbling to oblivion;The long and lonely collonades,Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks,"
- how I came to the seat of the Queen of Air and Darkness and what I learned there of her Courts, Ladies and Thanes, and her lesser Servants and Rude Rabble that do occupy thereabouts, from one who has journeyed to that Realm overlong and returned, but not unchanged, may God have mercy on my soul.
I fully intended to do at least one full, proper post before the Gackling Moon Kickstarter ends on Christmas Eve..
And I have failed! I am sorry!
At least we have hit some stretch goals;
All backers will get a free interlinked PDF! (the rest of you will have to pay £5)
The Book will now be Hardback for all!
We are taking £1 off the cost (either of the book price or postage, whichever is easier), for all backers!
We have about 24 hours left, so…
Its possible we might hit this one; £2 off for all backers.
And if we get that one..
Gasp!
At backers request, you can now back for two books!
.gif)
Take a look if you want to! Merry Christmas Everyone!
