Bridging the gap between Fantasy and Philosophy

People are Starting to Suspect the Inquisition (Page

First Panel

The team is led into a lavishly overdecorated throne room with an arched entryway.  Three guards stand on each side of them, spears at the ready.

Voice from off-panel: “My lord, these four strangers were captured by a patrol in the Sanctified Fields – they appeared in an unknown manner without having crossed any of the borders.”

Second Panel

The view shifts to over the shoulders of the team, and the rest of the throne room becomes visible.  A moderately overweight man in heavily decorated robes occupies the throne itself, and a young man stands on his left side reading from a scroll.  The panel is split in two diagonally, in the first half the man on the throne simply stares at the team, in the second he leans over and whispers to the aide.

Third Panel

Aide: “It is the infallible judgment of his great and noble supreme radiance that the visitors be executed by beheading in the courtyard.  Thereupon their heads will be mounted on pikes and…”

Tarith: “stop” (his speech bubble sparks with magical energy)

Fourth Panel

Everything has turned blue and appears slightly unfocused except for Tarith and the man on the throne, who suddenly seems much more attentive.

Tarith: “I see your confusion.  It’s a psychic link, it puts two or more people in a shared dreamlike state for near-instantaneous communication.  Very handy for dramatic confrontations like we’re about to have.  You might have learned how to create one if you hadn’t killed all the people that knew how.”

Scene 4 – what will come to be known as the plane of Technor

By now, I shouldn’t have to tell you that history on this planet didn’t go quite that way. There was no power surge, and the storm never happened. The world just kept getting more and more polluted, until finally ecosystems started to collapse and the world started to turn barren. By this time the political situation had also changed. The power struggle had never really ended, but all the patriotism and idealism had lost out to another enemy: profit. Businesses had grown and expanded and grown some more, and eventually they started deciding that they could get into the whole manipulating-underdeveloped-countries racket too. By the time the environment became a critical concern, it was corporations that ruled the world, not countries.

The lack of clean food, water, and air was finally getting to the point where it impacted profits, so the biggest companies all gathered together to have a meeting. It was the head of a relatively quiet and unobtrusive firm that came up with the solution. Agricorp Industries, originally a farming conglomeration that had expanded into utilities, volunteered to begin (at its own cost) the lengthy and expensive process of standardizing the world’s infrastructure. As the representative put it “If Mother Nature will no longer support us, we shall pave over her. If we can no longer grow food, we shall synthesize it and use wasted fields for power plants.” Humanity’s dependence on the natural world had finally come to an end, and would become self-sustaining.  The other corporations, blinded by greed, were happy to accept a solution to the problem that didn’t cost them anything.

A century later, the world is unrecognizable. A vast metallic super-city covers the globe. The only places it does not reach are the far north and south. In the south lies a massive, radiation-infused dump. To the north, the Enclave, a last repository of the natural world, kept as a sanctuary by the those few who rebelled at the idea of a planet-wide city. To those few people who have cause to distinguish the city from the planet itself, it is simply called “The Belt”
Agricorp’s investment has paid off, as they now control the distribution of food, water, and power (air is complementary). They have become so rich that wealth is only an abstract concept to them, and the executives form a hereditary dynasty that surpasses even the ancient kings and emperors in decadence. The entire population lives below ground, as the surface is reserved for solar panels and those rare people that can pay more than a solar panel is worth.

High in orbit, massive labor forces are at work harvesting the last remaining natural resource – the moon. It is this particular endeavor that will lead to disaster. A fault in a particularly deep mining tunnel triggers a seismic cascade that tears the now-fragile moon apart and sends pieces of it falling towards the planet below. It is here that chance intervenes once again, as the largest piece of debris vanishes on contact with the atmosphere. Observers conclude that it must have struck at a precise angle so as to shatter explosively into pieces too small to survive reentry. With the biggest threat out of the way, emergency craft are able to divert all but one fragment. That last fragment strikes the headquarters of a genetic engineering corporation, and blasts a crater large enough that it vanishes over the horizon. As the dust clears, a tear in the fabric of reality appears in the crater, and five similar tears appear across the planet. New stars and planets have also appeared, but the only people who can see them are busy chasing down moon fragments.

Scene 5 – what will come to be known as the plane of Vauna

It should come as no surprise that things did not go so well on this planet, but it may surprise you just how badly they went. Emergency crews spent all of their time trying to stop the largest moon fragment from hitting the surface, and not only did they fail, they missed all the other pieces as well. The surface was obliterated. Only five corporations survived, and they, along with a loose alliance of the non-corp personnel that survived, have been at war ever since for the scarce resources.

The central distribution nodes of the old super-structure are the only thing still standing, and these are the treasure that everyone is fighting for. The nodes have the equipment to salvage the rubble, and already extend deep enough to reach all of it. Rather than use those resources to repair the super-structure, the six warring corps hijack the production facilities to make weapons of war.

The Enclave also survived the initial destruction, and while they were quickly wiped out by the far more militant corporations, they launched a satellite before they were destroyed. The Second Chance had been in production long before the moon fell, making it the single most advanced piece of technology on the planet after the wide scale destruction. It was also the last successful space launch, narrowly leaving orbit before even the poles became shrouded by orbiting debris. It had been built to safeguard the seeds of rebirth, a series of genetic samples and incubators necessary to rebuild the world after its destruction. The Enclave had been preparing for the eventual social self-destruction of a greed-based society, but their contingency plans fortunately covered an actual destruction as well.

The warring corporations became spiteful as the centuries went on, and all but one of them began to develop doomsday devices that would vaporize all but their small piece of the world. War being what it is, they eventually reached a standoff of mutual destruction. Diplomacy broke down, and each activated their own personal doomsday machine. In the heart of the Scavenger Alliance territory, the one group who had not built such a machine, the populace had all gathered together for one last party before the end of the world. As the ground began to shake, they all looked skyward for one last glimpse of the stars. So it was that they alone saw the stars change, and new planets appear in the distance. In the base of each corporation, the doomsday machines had failed. Each mechanism worked perfectly, each bomb exploded on schedule, but all of the destructive energy simply vanished. As each machine powered down, a tear in the fabric of reality appeared in its place.

Scene 6 – what will come to be known as the plane of Primos

The Second Chance lived up to its name after the doomsday explosions. Rotania was carefully reseeded with a new and balanced ecosystem. Centuries passed, and the world rapidly recovered with help from the satellite. Finally it was time for the last function of the Second Chance to be fulfilled. It activated its engines one last time and landed on the surface. Dormant nanites activated, breaking most of the components down into raw materials that would revitalize the planet. Once the outer shell fell away, stasis pods containing the last 100 humans were revealed.

Unfortunately, it was not yet their time. The computer failed in its final task, and the stasis pods remained unopened for many more centuries. Rotania flourished in the meantime, evolving strange new forms of life. One of these was the dryads, sentient plant-like beings of great intelligence and wisdom. With a genetic hive-mind, they were able to access the memories of their ancient microscopic ancestors, an unbroken chain going all the way back to the time of the dwarves, and after more than a thousand years magic once again flourished on Rotania and developed even further into natural psychic talent. After a time, they found the stasis pods, and after much debate activated them and welcomed humanity back to the surface of Rotania. They taught the humans much, and the colony of Utopia was formed in the crater of the ancient satellite. The Utopians were distrustful of the dryads and their mysterious power, but the settlement was the only place that offered shelter from the hostile wildlife, so there was never any real source of conflict. In time, the two species grew closer, and humans began to unravel the mysteries of psychic power.

Even this idyllic world was not without danger, however. Rotania had been around for a long time by now, and the sun that it orbited was nearing a new stage in its life. The Utopians and dryads sensed this, and began to prepare a solution. It was eventually realized that the only possible solution was a massive exertion of psychic power, the kind that would only be possible if every individual pooled their efforts. The Utopians and Dryads searched long and hard to find the perfect focus for their power, and eventually settled on a young human male named Lunos.

On the appointed day, each dryad and human channeled their full psychic energy into Lunos. With the massive surge of power he did something no other psychic had ever done: he discovered how to transcend the limits of time itself. The power flooding through him overwhelmed even his exemplary mind, and he was consumed by the collective urge to prevent the destruction. He reached back in time, manipulating events at five other key moments to prevent worldwide disasters. He took the moon fragment from Technor and threw it in the path of the shockwave that would have devastated Zodian. He gathered the energy surge from Arcania and used it to shock Yagros out of its collapse. Finally, he took the destructive power of five doomsday devices and channeled it to rejuvenate the sun itself. As the sun returned to its normal hue, the dryads and humans relaxed, and withdrew their power from him. Without that connection, Lunos was unable to relate to a reality constrained by time, and he vanished into a higher level of existence.

Scene 7 – Conclusion

Lunos’ actions had consequences that he could not foresee, however. Time is not meant to be tampered with, and the events that he had changed could not change because they had already happened. Reality warped and tore as it tried to bring everything back into order, and the five versions of Rotania that he had influenced were pulled forward in time. On each planet distortions appeared, that would come to be known as the gate network because it was possible to travel between them. Each planet came to be known as a ‘plane’, a shortened form of ‘planet’, and was given an individual name. What happened after that?  Well, that is what the future is for…

Great Tales from History is a new series, delving into the history of the worlds of Rotania.  Unlike other series like New Horizons, the stories themselves are not connected to each other, except to the extent that they are all a part of the same history.  Much as Galen’s Journey is presented as a comic in written form, Great Tales is presented as a television show in written form.  Enjoy!

New Horizons: Chapter 6

One well-placed sword-thrust later, Brinsley looked up from his work just in time to catch a microsecond glimpse of Volere Darchon’s cloak before it disappeared behind a closing emergency door.  Volere was not Brinsley’s most immediate concern however, as the guards were now starting to collect their wits after the chaos of his invasion into the throne room.  Brinsley quickly dodged past them into a side room, closing the door behind.

“Jackpot, looks like me hiding place turns out to have been the administrative room.”

He was moving to blockade the door shut when an alarm began to go off, and a soothing computerized female voice began calmly informing everyone that they had 9 minutes remaining before detonation. Knowing that he lacked the technical skills to accomplish anything useful in that amount of time, Brinsley abandoned his blockade and  simply grabbed every portable data-storage device he could find – hoping they would contain enough to figure out later what was going on.

The guards outside were no longer interested in fighting, they seemed more concerned with saying last prayers, crying, and glaring angrily at the still-sealed door Volere had fled through.  Brinsley noted with interest that the Champion had joined the fray, apparently having run up from below in an attempt to defend Volere.

“What’s wrong?” Brinsley said cheerily “We’ve got a whole eight minutes and ten seconds left.”  As everyone in the room turned to stare at him, he pointed at the closed door.  “I assume that used to lead to the shuttle hangar?”

One of the guards looked quizzical “Yes, but why ‘used to’?”

“Theoretically speaking, it would need to have shuttles in it to be currently a shuttle hangar, and given that your employer locked the door behind him and activated a self-destruct, I suspect he would also have gone the extra step of destroying and remaining shuttles so they couldn’t pursue him.  Which also makes him your former employer.”

The guards looked at each other for a moment, and then one of them spoke again.  “Alright, you’ve made your point.  Since you seem to be the only one of us not fearing for his life, does that mean you have a plan to get out of here?  All of the doors are sealed.”

“I might at that.”  He addressed the Champion “Tell me good sir, in our fight down there you struck me as the sort of person who possesses considerable skill with a great variety of weapons, and probably has a collection of them.”  The Champion nodded in the affirmative, and Brinsley continued.  “Good.  And in that collection, do you happen to have a selection of high-intensity laser rifles, the sort of which might be recalibrated to burn through a floor?”

“I have several, but they won’t work with the disruptor field up.”

Brinsley motioned towards the control panel on the chair, and it obligingly emitted a shower of sparks.  “I believe I have dealt with that obstacle.”

–

Several floors down, Brinsley bid farewell to the escaping guards.  “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, you should be able to make it from here.  I have a friend to collect in the prison.”

Brinsley had concocted a plan, but the timing on it would be very close. For this reason, he was pleasantly surprised to find Laurie already out of his cell and working on something in the main guard room. Laurie looked up at him in mild shock.

“I didn’t expect to see you again. Most people would have gotten out of here by now.”

“I’m not most people” was Brinsley’s response. “How did you get out of your cell?”

“I’ve had an escape route from the cell set up for months.  It was the guards and the rest of the tower that I needed out of the way.  How were you thinking of getting out?”

“It’s a long shot, but I was thinking that if we were able to get one of these prison doors unhinged and attach a bunch of flammable material to one side, we could…”

“…jump out the window and glide to safety, and the auto-lasers would fire at the combustable material and ignite it, slowing the decent and pushing us over the lake.” Laurie finished. “That was my plan too. I’ve just been finishing the door.”

Brinsley was taken aback for a moment.  He was not used to other people coming up with the same ideas as him.  “You realize it’ll take considerable skill to aim and land”

“And there’s a decent chance that the door won’t hold. Yes, I’m aware. But I’ve had to jump out of a lot of windows in my life, I know how to pull it off.”

“Let’s give it a shot, then”

The two men picked the door up and began making their way towards the window.

–

The plan worked like a charm, and Brinsley and Laurie landed safely on the very edge of the lake in a cloud of steam, quickly leaping onto land before their shoes could finish burning through from the heat of the door remains. They had just enough time to dive behind a particularly large boulder before the tower exploded. Even the self-destruct had been designed with an eye towards style. The flames burning in the eyes of the four skulls suddenly shot out over the lake as the four towers they were attached too fell outwards and slightly to the left, directing the immense flame jets into a circular pattern that vaporized most of the lake and sent a shockwave through the dams, shattering them into small pieces. As soon as the rumbling from that had died down the main tower began its show, a series of shaped charges that sent each floor exploding upwards, creating a massive upside-down teardrop shape of debris that then collapsed towards the ground, only to be violently dispersed by a final, subterranean, charge that sent a foot-high shockwave radiating outwards.

Brinsley and Laurie peeked out from behind the remains of their boulder. Far off on the other side of the now-dry lake bed, they could hear the cheers of the guards, happy to have survived another day.

“Is it over?” said Laurie.

“I think so.” Brinsley responded. “That last explosion had to be the power plant.”

They say there in silence for a few moments, then Brinsley pulled out the remains of his tea set and began to search for some water. “So how did you come up with such an insane plan?” he asked.

“Like I said, I’ve jumped out a fair number of windows in the last few years, so I knew I could handle the gliding part.” Laurie began “I also knew that with a self-destruct charging, the lasers wouldn’t be able to get full power. Plus, I knew that I probably wouldn’t get another chance to surf out of an exploding building on a prison door riding a stream of laser blasts, and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.”

There was a short pause while Brinsley chuckled, the Laurie continued. “So how did you come up with such an insane plan?”

“The wisdom of age and experience.”

Laurie waited a moment, expecting more, then simply chuckled and shook his head. “Well then, old man, I’d say this was a highly successful first adventure for us.”

Brinsley looked at him “The bad guy got away and we didn’t find any of the kidnapped villagers. Why do you call that highly successful?”

“Because if you can do all that without me, we’re guaranteed to succeed now that we’re together.”

Brinsley smiled, remembering the days when he too had been that confident.

“Actually, I’m still that confident, but now I know I deserve it.”

“I was thinking about a name,” Laurie said “for our adventuring team.  It’s going to be a brand new experience for both of us…”

“How do you figure that?” Brinsley interrupted “Sure you’ll be learning all kinds of new stuff from me, but what makes you think I’ll be doing new things?”

“Let’s just say I have an unprecedented talent for drawing people into new experiences.” Laurie retorted with a grin.

“So what’s this name you’re thinking of?”

“New Horizons” Laurie proudly proclaimed.

Brinsley considered for a moment and thought to himself.

“Do I dare take such a similar name when I’m trying to stay undercover?  It seems like a big risk, but then again I did just surf over a lake of acid propelled by lasers to escape an exploding building.  Of course, so did he…   Well, that settles it.  There’s now way Brinsley Sheridan is going to go down in history as the cautious member of his team.”

A small falling object, the final remains of the tower, caught his eye. He smiled, it wasn’t every day he received such a clear sign. He held out his hand, caught a small tin cup that had been welded back together by the force of the explosion, and poured himself some tea. Raising his glass to Laurie’s, he proclaimed.

“to New Horizons”

People Are Starting to Suspect the Inquisition (page 5)

First Panel

Galen, Jenny, Tarith, and Donal are being led across the hillsides, surrounded on all sides by the oddly-dressed soldiers from the previous page.  A tall white tower is visible in the distance at the end of their path.

Second Panel

The four trailblazers are locked in a stone dungeon, identifiable by the color of the stone walls as being within the tower.  Tarith sits sullenly in a corner, and Donal is leaning up against the door keeping an eye on the outside.

Galen: “So now that we’re alone again, somebody want to tell me why we can’t use the thought link to talk?  You just finished telling me right before we left that it was guaranteed secure.”

Donal: “It cannae be listened in on, but that doesn’t mean the exchange itself cannae be detected.  And since we’re in the middle of the Inquisition, we really don’ want them catching us using magic.”

Galen: “But we can talk normally without worry?”

Jenny: “They don’t have anything to eavesdrop with.  The Inquisition removed all remaining magic from the world and made it a life-threatening prospect to think outside the box even in non-magical ways.”

Third Panel

Donal: “Yeah, they’re not using spears because they like the look, that’s the extent of current technology.”

Galen: “So if they don’t have access to any kind of magic or advanced technology, how would they be able to detect the use of magic?”

Jenny: “That’s a good question, and one that has stumped scholars for centuries.  The prevailing theory posits that-”

Tarith: “It’s magic”

Fourth Panel

Everyone is staring in stunned silence at Tarith.

Tarith: “Oh they don’t know it’s magic, of course.  But it’s still magic.”

Jenny: “And how do you know-”

Tarith: “Flashback time, folks.  It’s time you learned a few things that didn’t get written down in the history books.”

Notes: squiggly panel border time