Fictitious matters

I haven't really been keeping up my blog because I've been busy, I'm sorry for that. The post this time is a bit of the book I'm planning to write. For now I'm calling it Novus. It's more setting barfed onto a page than anything, but that's more than anything I've done in years. I intend to start writing more as time goes on, and I'll put it up here.

Jere rose slowly, taking time to stretch and relish in the heat of the crackling fire, from where he had been seated reading a dusty old tome discussing the history of several prominent Sylian genealogies, then looked over to the desk where Nial was sitting; scribing a letter to some no doubt very important person- probably on Jere’s behalf. His devotion was enough to make Jere feel guilty, but Nial wouldn’t accept any charity, and was truly glad to be able to be the aide of who he saw as a great rising star; the only thing Jere could really think to do to make it up to him was to become as great as possible, and maybe grab him a cup of something caffeinated every now and then. This leadership thing is kinda hard, thought Jere, as he walked over to the counter to fix himself some cider and some caffeinated whatever-that-gunk-is for Nial.

After making both drinks and setting them on a tray, Jere glanced to make sure the germophobe, Nial, was busy with his writing, cautiously took a curious sip of the swirling concoction and immediately grimaced at its uneven thickness and taste which seemed to attack his taste buds. It wasn’t that it was BAD, it was just... very different. I’ll stick to my Cider for now, thought Jere, before walking over to the desk and placing the tray down.

“Hey Nial, I got you some of that stuff you like to drink, want to take a break with me?”

Nial looked up with mild surprise and took his cup. “You didn’t need to do that, but I suppose a break would be nice. For future reference, the drink is called dirlin. Considering it’s more popular than what you tell me coffee was in pre-Arrival Earth, it’s probably something you should know a little about. How are your studies coming?”

Jere walked over to the chair he had been sitting at and re-oriented it towards Nial. “Noted; just don’t ask me to start drinking the stuff. They’re going pretty well I think, but this is basically the ultimate culture shock. I’m not sure if it’s because of the addition of magic or if your kind of system might have been possible on Earth prior to the Arrival if things had turned out differently, but Sylian culture doesn’t have a whole lot in common with any Earth based one I’ve heard of. I’ve never been too big on Sociology, but I imagine someone who was would find many of their assumptions challenged by this stuff. It’s disorienting, but damn if it isn’t fascinating. I imagine you would have felt something similar when you first arrived here though. I was a little busy at the time being enslaved... What was it like, from your perspective?”

Nial laughed shortly. ”You’re right about the culture shock. That, we had more of. I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts on this for some time, putting the pieces together between pre and post Arrival is important; we’ve made enough mistakes since we came to this planet a short time ago, we need to clearly see where we are going. Back on Equinox, we were far from the only intelligent species around, but every other one had control of magic as well. For us, intelligence simply could not exist without the capability for magic, or vice versa. When we met you, just about everything we believed came into question.”

Jere nodded, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, I read a bit about that. I thought it was especially interesting looking at the etymology of what we would call Sentiency or Sapiency in English. Thinking or feeling doesn’t really cover what it is to be one of the intelligent species; your version seems to capture our place in the universe much better, even without magic. The idea that we are the “Changers”, the “Manipulators”, those who use; where others adapt to our environments, we make them serve us. Intelligence, magic, they all just seem to be symbols for this control we can exercise over existence. When you see the whole of existence as hardware and yourselves as the software, meeting something that defies the simplicity of those lines must be harsh, especially if you think you were placed in that position by the Gods.”

Nial smiles. “Well said, I personally think looking at a people’s language is one of the best ways to understand their values; you seem to have grasped this quite well. In the beginning, there were many of us who did consider you to be simple animals cursed of the Gods- having achieved thought but not deemed worthy of being blessed with the gift of magic. There is still much contention of what your existence means, but your friend the Ascended has made a huge impact on that. Your people owe him much, if he had not been here, the genocides and horrific treatment no doubt would have continued much longer than it did... I truly feel ashamed for the conduct of some of my species following the Arrival, but in our defence, I have no doubt that any of the other remaining sentient species on Equinox would have reacted much worse to it than we did, especially considering our complete surprise of finding intelligent life here at all. “

“Yeah, I don’t think the scars of what happened then are going to heal for a very long time, but it is true it could always have been worse. About your species and the surprise of finding us though, those are both things I’m blurry on. I know your race is somehow different from the others that were on Equinox, and that you needed to leave because of it, but all I’ve read about WHY doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. The closest I’ve come to understanding it is as some sort of magical pollution. And I just can’t understand how you could have moved your entire species to a new planet without having a clear idea of what was on it; clearly you at least knew Earth was environmentally hospitable to your people.” Jere said, visibly frustrated.

“That’s understandable. In many ways you are much more advanced than us with your specialized pure Science, but the limitations on that mean your species still hasn’t seen enough of the universe to properly understand how things work in different systems. I can give you the lecture.

We had been planning this move for centuries, we investigated Earth as much as we could; but there was no magical displacement here, so you were invisible to us. To us, no magic use meant there was no intelligence here. Science, even when magic is involved, is about deduction, and when one of your conditions or assumptions are wrong it throws the whole thing off. We’d never seen anything like you, so we expected nothing more than rabbits and grass. Figuring out Earth was liveable for us was determined by different methods. It’s difficult to explain without going over a lot more magiscience than I want to right now, but it’s like how you can tell the base components of a star by breaking up the light into colours; we could detect the presence and general type of organic compounds on Earth, but we couldn’t actually SEE what was here.

 For your other question, it’s not pollution. Not really. It was just global change, and we were being evolved out. The natural build up of free magic left after the deaths of Changer animals like us slowly made the atmosphere poisonous to us. As far as I know, we were the last remaining animal species remaining on Equinox- it simply has not been a planet suitable for purely chemical life for some time. Instead, it was the magus and demagus kingdoms that flourished; magus being organisms which incorporate magic into their biology, and demagus being organisms whose very biology IS magic. “

“Alright, I mostly understand, but I don’t see how that isn’t pollution. Surely being natural doesn’t make it any better? And will the same thing happen here?”

“No, one of the reasons we chose to come to earth is because it lacks the capability to store magic to anywhere near the same extent. A few floating mountains or something of that nature may appear after enough time, but nothing dangerous.

It’s not pollution because pollution is more or less purely harmful and this is not; being natural has little to do with it. More rain in this desert might be bad for the creatures that are adapted for survival with less, but it’s good for creatures adapted for more. It’s just change. Eventually that stored magical residue left in our bones made Equinox inhospitable to us, but it actually strengthens magi organisms. We just weren’t needed in our ecosystem anymore, so we went somewhere we thought we might be. Now that chemical-based creatures have disappeared there though, and considering neither magus nor demagus leave free magic when they die, there’s no telling how the system will change.”

“I see. Why does being a chemically-based species make a difference in your reaction to humanity though?”

“Some of us at least saw the hypocrisy in judging you before we knew all the answers, as we ourselves were judged for our differences on Equinox. The depopulation of a planet of all standard organic life is a slow process, and with our own ever declining population we become an increasingly uncommon sight to the other residents of the world. It became increasingly easy for those who did not know us to come up with reasons to hate us. Many of the other Changer species began to say that we were inferior; that the gift of the gods was killing us because we had been judged as unworthy. I think some found pleasure in going from persecuted to persecutor, but most who thought about it only found shame. It is likely that The Ascended was able to make such a difference only because the people were already looking for an excuse to change”

“You say that, but while they are mostly being treated much more humanely and the genocides are done with, most of the remainder of humanity is still enslaved. Is that not still oppression?”

“Is owning a horse oppression? Yes. Does it matter? Not really. I do not wish to offend you, but I am as my people in this regard. You and those other few who were Awakened with our Arrival are Changers and are nothing less than our equals, but only you. Following the recognition of the Ascended, we have accepted you into our society almost seamlessly and persecution of the human animals has stopped almost completely. Perhaps they are more noble and valuable than common animals, but to us they are still animals. Unchosen by the Gods. If you wish to improve how they are treated even more, you may attempt to do so, and may well succeed, but I doubt you will ever convince any of us of their equal worth. I will join you in condemning our past actions, but in this I hold firm.”

“It’s obvious I can’t agree with you, most of those I loved were taken when you came here because they did not Awaken, and the chaos of the situation has made searching for them extremely difficult- I don’t think I will ever find them, whether they are alive or dead. Still, I have come to understand, and I won’t be offended by it anymore. I’d rather not contribute to the hate between our species; I intend to fix things, not complain about them.”

“A noble goal, and one you’re quite capable of I imagine; between your relationship with the Ascended one, the speed in which you are adapting to the current world, and your own skills with magic you’re gaining a fair amount of attention. You aren’t like many other humans.”

“Thank you for the confidence, that’s what I’m hoping.” Jere idly stirred the remaining dregs of his cider by swirling his finger over the cup. “A lot of shit has happened since your species came here, and I hate it, but at the same time... I can’t help but feel giddy knowing that there’s a whole new world out there now to explore and make a difference in. I don’t get it, the world has always been huge and asking to be explored and fixed and mastered, but I never really bothered. Yet, a disaster for humanity has me exhilarated just because it brought something new along with it. I hate myself for it, but I suppose in the end it’s a good thing. If I didn’t have such an obvious flaw, I might mistake myself for the good guy...  At least I know that I’m selfish.” Jere glances at Nial, who is looking at him intently, and chuckles. “Sorry, I talk about stuff too much sometimes”.

Nial shakes his head slowly and says “No...” A hard to read expression slides across his face. “It’s really quite... quite alright”.