Earth City Exit: Void Rerout
Ch'ang Speaks:
We were Ra'ana. Ra'ana, and the seeds she bore and nurtured.
a long time ago our ancestors were apes.
a Long time ago - as the day star traveled through the sky over and over -
once Ra'ana's children were mighty apes who ate leaves andlived in trees. but the day star changed those mighty apes and we became who we are now, the Ra'ana. One day an ape learned to talk and said the first word -- the first word all Ra'ana say -- Umi, meaning mother. The great apes still wander the steppes but our tribes diverged.
they only say 'umi' but they still eat leaves and play in the sun, on the steppes.
we meanwhile developed skills. we learned to forage and build cities...stepe cities where we composed love songs to the all powerful sun, the source of sustenance, and learned from the actions of the apes, our ancestors. but the day star changed us...we evolved. we learned to write things down, we learned art and song and wrte songs of love to teh day star and the winds that flow from the day star.
and we learned. we sat in the art called mediatation, we learned many different things todo we caled skills. and we counted the movement of the different night stars as wel as the day star, we counted the times that the Ra'ana spun around letting us see the day star again and again. it is as i write this the number forty two followed by my fingers times my finger's times my fingers, but the mathematicians know more.
--or know more, before Emperor Hedgewarden and his Dynasts came in their star ships!
they came here and smiled in their strange clothes. laughing at us. Nariki was the first one who approached them to speak.
"why have you come here oddly dressed ra'ana?"
"We are not Ra'ana," Hedgewarden said. "we are from far away, from Earth. we are your rulers."
"What is a ruler?" Nariki asked. we watched from the steppe pass.
Hedgewarden slapped Nariki down to the ground! We had never seen a Ra'ana strike another Ra'ana -- we didn't know what to make of it.
Redgewarden bent down and grabbed Nariki by the throat - I remmeber - i could hear his strangled attempt to cry out. "we came to rule you. also own you. you little monkeys will make fine subjects. this is the wonderful world of Hedgewarden now! You will do as we say or get killed. You know what killed is, you little ape?"
we panicked in the pass, watching.
they speak Ra'ana but they don't act like Ra'ana.
they look like us too. wait and see.
look at their...clothes!
"Killed is when you don't do what your rulers say. that's us. and also Howerth. Hey, Howerth, get a load of this monkey!"
another one of the strange Ra'ana waked over to Nariki. Nariki has long beautiful black hair.
"i want that hair for my lab, George," and the fat one walked over. it had a fat pot belly - also something no Ra'ana had ever seen before.
i tell you this because this is the time that trouble began here on Ra'ana, for so many cycles we had celebrated the star wind. now these stranger Ra'ana had come.
Jade is next to me with his hand on my shoulder gripping tight. he is horrified beyond question.
they are killing nariki slowly.
we watch. we hear. they have come to Ra'ana to rule us. their starships..we have never seen anything like this before. they are huge and there is something horrifying about them. and they are killing Nariki -- the first one is Hedgewarden - -it is a name all of Ra'ana will come to know and fear. the other one, Howerth -- none of us has ever seen a fat man before. his belly is round. it looks like sickness, when people once ate bad plants from teh swamp where gases from the underdark escape.
they strangle and kill nariki and we cannot supress our wails. we have watched the aged die and wept -- but we have never seen anyone killed by another ra'ana before and we bgin to wail -
it isthe first time we have ever screamed the Ra'ana Death Wail. they look up to the pass and see us and here come their soldiers. butwe are hot with a new feeling...
they are coming in their strange machines tearing up the steppe with their strange machnes! coming for us with devices that go BAM and more Ra'ana are slain.
it is truly horrible. they rape us when they catch us, they rape us and hack us to bits. they set upon us and tell us we are dirty apes and they have come to rule us.
in seated talk days later we praise the strange Ra'ana from Earth for teaching us what rage means. the new ra'ana have evil magic. we did not even think of evil or good until they arrived. now -- some of the Ra'ana have become corrupt and behave as the now ra'ana do - but we know them and can see they have been corrupted. we do not blame them -- we know the bad magic -- it is like star wind but colorless -- dim and cruel - it warped our sisters and brothers hearts.
sometimes. other times it is white, bad blinding to our inner eyes, both cold...and hot, so hot. a glaring hateful.. oh, such a light --!
to divide the cycles - we think on what to do. this is when the trouble started and this is how it happened. we know how to live before and day star was good to us.
now the three of us, kirby wingfoot of the stepe horse riders, Kayex of the valley and myself, are three Ra'ana alone in the slave prison where they started sending those of us who would not bow down.
it has begun.
Atma's Fear
WHAT HAPPENED?
Well, the year was 193x, and a young and previously unacclaiamed genius named Nikolai Tesla revealed his world - saving invention -- a source of energy that would reduce the world's petrol and coal needs to near nil by the year 1960. Tesla was embraced by the world as a great genius and slowly the world began to reduce its already noxious overuse of fossil fuels . Tesla worked with Albert einstein and R. Buckminster fuuller, the renowned anticipatory design sicience -- and the world celebrated as men walked on the moon and venus in the year 1961.
Butthere was still much to do. the world's social atmospheres had to adjust as the new Tesla technology began creating new weather patterns -- and the innovations created forests in places there had once been deserts, predicting patterns in earthquakes, floods and tornadoes with Auric research into the earth's biological energy field, the van Allen belt. there were still advances yet to be made in social equality -- women marched in the streets for equal pay rights and job oppurtunites and oppressed people sfrom all parts of the world appeared as well to DEMAND the same rights for human existance -- "if there can be such men on the moon in ninteeen sixty one, why, then," said one of the many great voices of social restructurining, "can people not all study atthe same academies of learning?" Mohandas Ghandi, the famed President of the Democratic Region of Dravidia, said that those words would set a tone that createa United World, an achievment unprecednetd "in all of history." He was not mistaken.
But there would be more changes. there were also forces devoted to stasis and the repressive -- they styled themselves the NeoPlatonists' Party and in the year 1976 they staged what was not really seen as bid for power.
there was complaining and clamoring. Riots broke out, and many feared that the new social sense of order that had been established would be shaken to its foundations by the overly wasteful legislation of teh NeoPlatonists, whose motto was Only One Republic, Only One God, Only One way.
Time passed and fortunes shifted. Nonetheless there were more innovations, as the pioneers into space established colonies on venus, the Moon and in orbits between the outer planets -- by the year 1985 the earth people had explored with manned expeditions all the planets of the solar system.
the Philosopher poet Benjamin Glasse made sweeping statements about the uselessness of war between differing nationalities with the same DNA, and the aerospace scientist-artist who called himself simply Fin developed the breakthough surpassing even Nikolai Tesla's breakthroughs -- the Void Rerouter -- a propulsion development that shattered distance goals -- and suddenly decided to take his friends and leave the Earth system behind. The Sol system was about to erupt in what seemd to be a final war -- between those who styled themselves as resistors, and the neoplatonist dynasts who had clevely siezed power -- the hedgewarden family -- and war was definitely breaking out on the bases on Venus and Luna -- and electronic war was taking place on the earth,. teh neoplatonists had harnessed te innovations of the great inventor Nikolai Tesla and used it to create a field for human auric manipulation -- creating the infamous BLACK SUMMER of 2012.
but some of us wee already gone, gone untelleble distances away from the earth.
THE VOID REROUTER
find a black hole. catch a ride. aim your coiled gun at the black hole and the black hole just wants to jump into your gun, it almsot seems to feel compulsed.
In a soup of quanta and calculations and magnetic figuring a miracle occurs and you have harnessed the power of the black hole into the engine of a truncated bullet that seats six hundred you call the Alpha Theta One. You built it in the high mountains of Boulder, Colorado in the 1980s and when it was revealed it was hailed a sa real innovation in medium orbit travel, by your friends, the Earth City Union. Then in 1998 --
--in tense and worried 1998 when the whoel grid seemed about to go dim and you could see with your artist-scientist eyes that there ws something to fear far more than god - and it was going to turn off the sun to ensure frightened subservience in a monster pattern you had no desire to fight against -- or be around for.
your name was Fin and you had worked to create interstellar overdrive.
"We're, uh, we're not leaving here...we're GOING THERE. Try and lok at it that way.
the Earth City Union, savvy and careful developers and designers all looked at your prognostications of the actions of the earth's increasingly Neo-platonist dominated government. there was no need to force consensus. No one wanted to stay. at all.
So you aim your particle cannon at the black hole.
The black hole is turned on by your style and leaps, leaps madly into your particle cannon. "maybe we can find some old world disorder," one of your friends said.
"precisely," you agreed.
and on terra the neoplatonists were preparing to turn down the sun. just a touch. they were proud and the sun was so bright. It was THEIR time to shine, they had decided "emperically".
and in twenty minutes you were staring at the beauty of a starfield -- leaving behind the quibbling Neoplatonists and the confused and rebellious could-be resistance flinging spambombs at indifference...
You were Earth City Union and glowing like a green gassy friend was the gigantic planet you named Elgos because you could. No one there to stop you.
so far.
ships' first mate epona lantrue
ships' captain jon finn
astrogator marc halley
research engineer bard allen
doctor terry thornley
alpha academy: Sociology jeanette sidarel
head research engineer art cameron
entertainment hologram teo t'waki
operations apprentice michael malloy
alpha command operations administrator ajax mcneil
Conversation record mode on.
Marc:when i look at starfields i get this feeling like...onc eback on Earth we used to go toback rooads where it was really hilly and there were no lights --
Jeannette: Marc, i was THERE.
Marc: Oh, right.
Jeannette: It's okay...it's been a long time. When Mike used to take his foot off -- he'd cutthe power and coast.
Marc: yeah.
Jeannette: but this is also like...like driving a car in the snow.
Marc: yeah.
long pause.
Marc: itshould be about ten Minutes before we sync up with the Alpha.
Jeanette:
why did he call it that anyway? It seems Arbitrary.
Marc:
huh. (hits buttons on command console) I think it was...at first...but then he started creating an ordering system based on...propulsion -- and how good we were getting at constructing drives.
Jeanette:
It's like: marc you never ever let on that you could do all this stuff. nd now -- it's just
Marc:
You could keep a secret or two yoruself. those guys were all such --
Jeanette:
Men?
Marc:
so much worse than that. I could add white men.
jeanette:
(silence)
Marc:
there's a pattern in earth's history from the forurteenth century all the way to the 21sct of Conquering and being Conquered -- and invariably the sufferes were women and tribal races.
jeanette:
Ireland...
Marc:
I know. Well, that saying about the Irish being the "niggers of Europe" -- i i don't know if it was an acknowledgement or a put down.
Jeannette:
You know, capitalism is based on scarcity. That's why all thsoe guys tried to toss me around like a medicine ball and then tried to bury me under the fucking back carpet. they ALL wanted to own me...I own me. Women are the niggers of the world, Marc. I got decent socialology grades: but they were classical -- just the pattern -- so much 'you're mine' and pretty soon its all about 'he was so nice until we got married.'
epona:
this job can bite me. i hate space.
terry:
why do you say that?
epona:
well, you for starters.
terry
what did i ever do to you?
epona:
oh...ask me stupid questions out of nowhere that there aren't any answers for...get on my nerves while i'm concentrating on my job...pester the living qus out of me and make my oh, so joyful life even that more --
terry:
wait a minute -- are you feeling all right?
epona:
no...actually i feel a little funny. i think i'm sick...or something...can i go lie down?
terry: aww. well, why don't you go lay down...you know how to get there right?
epona:
umm...well captain finn said i have to finish this. (alludes to potatoes)
terry:
screw the captain!
epona:
okay...
terry:
here: what are you doing, peeling potatoes? let me do it for you. go lay down. lieutenant shah will check you out.
epona:
...i don't know...i feel better already. maybe i should just finish these potatoes.
terry:
are you sure?
CUT TO:
BRIDGE. Finn and Bard are relaxing and lazily at that. they are watching the events unfold on a medium sized view monitor. the main screen shows that the Alpha is in orbit around a Jupiter - like planet -- a gas giant. the dialogue between bard and finn is always quick, as if they have been friends for life and always know how to respond to each other. which they have. finn is thin and dark haired, wears a mustache. bard is redhaired with a high-and-tight..
finn:
Did thornely just actually say "screw the captain?"
bard:
that is what she said.
finn:
screw the captain? screw her. i'm going down there.
bard:
why?
finn: well, i might get lucky!
bard
i think maybe she meantthe other kind of screw.
finn:
yeah, but (pulls a hand mirror from chest pocket, seems to be looking for chives in his teeth) that's epona lantrue.
bard:
yeah. just came up from Earth so?
finn:
she really likes to do it. everybody says so. freaky wild.
bard:
her? wow. i wonder if terry knows that?
finn:
how do i look?
bard:
(stares pointedly. an eyebrow.)
finn:
oh...right.
bard:
you look fine but you sound like you've....ugh. nevermind. can i at least watch?
finn:
only if you save!
bard:
puts head down as if fatigued.
finn:
see ya!
(as finn backs up we see a pullaway view of the ship's interior as if for the first time. finn himself walks to the corner of the bridge area to where the teleport booth is.)
finn: (to booth) jon finn. captain!
booth:
you didn't have to say that.
fin:
(brightly:) scullery!
cut to the scullery. terry is attempting to take the potato peeler away from epona. epona is obstainately resisting.
epona:
(epona's voice is a drawn and harried, tired and much worried and yet not sleepy -- it's an intelligent voice, the voice of someone who is depresed and does not appreciate their station in life yet sees little hope of imporving it. she is curvacous and bald.) no, no, no...really, it's alright.
terry:
give me the fucking potato peeler and do it -- ow! (fx: blood spurts up in a small but visible fountain.)
epona: (sincere) oh, my god! (can't help smiling) i am so sorry.
terry: ow...my hand...ow...
finn appears.
hey, kids, what's going on here? wow, thornely...you look like you could uh...ugh...
terry: (icy) use a doctor? get the hell out of my way
finn:
get the hell out of my way, what?
terry:
get the hell out of my way, JON....
finn:
(stepping nimbly out of the way as she is charging forward with a potato peeler, already wrapping her bleeding hand in her white coat) that's captain jerk to you, doctor.
terry:
thornely. doctor. sickbay.
booth
without delay, doctor
terry:
argh! fucking machine! if it was without a delay why would you fucking --
(she vanishes)
finn:
(to epona who is standing with her hands at her side as if she has no idea what to do next)well, what happene dhere?
epona:
well, jon, she um...i don't know! she just...do YOU want to do this?(alludes to potatoes)
finn:
well, um, no. hey wait? why not. i'll peel some potatoes. but she took the -- hey are there still the
epona:
(pushes a button on the wall) right here. (peeler appears)
finn:
wow...still here after all this time. you know (begins peeling) i designed and basically built the entire alpha myself.
epona (noncomittal, just standing there) guess that's why it flies so fast
finn: well...it's fast. you know it was me who got them to stop calling ships 'she'
epona:
just a dream.
finn:
wha-a-a?
epona:
this is all just a dream isn't it. not real.
finn: well now you;re being existential. it's a s real as you want it to be.
epona: i wish it were less real or a lot different.
finn: really?
epona: this is boring. this whole thing. peeling spuds. cleaning bulkheads. that whole mess with the computers that took forever. changing my uniform.
finn:
even changing your uniform is boring?
epona:
even talking about boring things is boring. i'm a class two pilot. i would be a class one but i got assigned to this -- oh, don't get me wrong, its an excellent ship but that GUY is always at the helm and i don't know when i'll ever get assigned any time on the bridge.
finn: well you could have asked me!
epona:
huh? (showing more than nominal emotion for the first time) wow. but of course..you're the captain.
finn: you get a raise too!
epona:
well i don't care about that, i just want to steer her. i mean it.
finn: you really like ships, don't you.
epona:
(smiles shyly)
hey, could you do me a favor?
epona: sure, whatever!
finn: would you take off your top?
epona: (beat) sure, whatever.
the scene fades as she is removing her top.
----
scene two
BRIDGE
music:
the other day i took a walk to the other side of the trail
feeling exalted i walked to the other side of the trail
one foot in front of the other
too see what i could discover
far far away to the other side of the trail
bard is sitting watching with a bemused expression on his face. we close up on his face, its features and the glow of the monitor.
then soft defocus on bard's face and focus on the starfield in the main viewscreen and the plant that the alpha is orbitting as the camera pulls back. soon that scene fades as well and we dissolve to behind bard -- we are looking over his shoulder and slowly tightening up on what he is watching
bard:
(bemused) wow. incredible. what a show.(the shot tightens up even more, right over bard's shoulder and his alpha insignia to the monitor where we can clearly see finn and epona making serious love on the scullery rug.)
we watch this for a couple of minutes; at a certain point the music changes to a very high poitched, almost operatic sound of a woman's voice hitting high notes. then the music fades to incidntal background sounds)
then cut backwards...to over bard's shoulder again...then back evenb farther to the starfield and the gas giant. bard is reaching twoards the monitor...it looks as if he about to raise the volume when from behind him
terry:
what the HELL are you doing.
bard
(spaz take) (sqauwks) oh, my god you almost scared the life out of me.
terry:(pissed, her hand in a bandage) what the hell is that?
finn:
that is...that is the captain and...uh...that girl who was cleaning the bulkheads yesterday.
terry: the new girl? (terri is high pitched but her voice can become very cold quiet and stark when necessary. she is actually in charge of the ship but this is more an acknowledgment than her rank. it has a little to do with her position as doctor and captain's girlfriend) the NEW GIRL? what a jerk!
bard:
yeah, what a jerk.
they are both silent for several beats.
terry:
how dare you patronize me.
bard:
huh?
terry:
well this has to stop right now.(turns, goes to the booth) thornely. scullery. (cut to: wide angle shot of the bridge area. we will be seeing this shot a lot. we clearly see as terry is walking towards the teleport booth, thunder and judgment in her eyes, bard is flipping a switch on the alpha's control panel. a blue light turns on next to the switch. the camer's eye also catches this.)
the booth has a blue light haloing its top where it meets the alpha's ceiling. it glows before telporting crew members to different docks but this time there's no teleport.) thornely. scullery. (nothing happens) i disabled it.
terry:
i outrank you. you are out of line. change it right now before I come over there and --
bard: calm down, doctor thornely. how would you like it if someone came up while you were in the middle of what is going on right there -- hey, wow! things have gotten oral.
terry:(runs up and hits bard in the back of his head with her fist.)
bard: (seriously) OW! what the fuck?
terry: i gave you an order, uh...lieutenant. enable the teleporter.
bard: while finn's off the bridge i'm the captain okay. and this is not about rank, doctor thornely. you HIT me! you wanna start talking about protocols and procedures i'll pull out my manual.
terry: (looks grim)
bard:
right now the thing you are lanning on doing make all the wrong sorts of sense.
terry: as if you could have the slightest idea of what i'm planning.
bard: pretty sure of yourself, aren't you, doctor scorpio?
terry: fuck YOU. what did you do.
bard: you have a few options right now. you can sit here and wait for finn and the scullery girl (terry: suppressed expression of frustration and jealous rage somewhere between 'grrr' and 'ooh') to get done doing what they are doing and then talk to your boyfriend about whatever you want to. you can wait here while i call the alpha mega and report that you struck an acting pilot and captain with a weapon --
terry:
what weapon?
bard:
i've seen you in action, doctor. whatever your rank was before you went medical you could have given me a concussion and not just a lump. you really have lost your fucking mind, haven't you? i may make piloting look easy but if you had knowcked me unconscious with your jealous rage well, what would you have done? i know what you are certified to do and not to do on the bridge of the alpha and i'm not going to waste anyone's time asking you what you know about that planet out there because i know it amounts to basic zero compared to (Terry: allright...allright...guilty) what myself, the captain and the REST --
terry:
guilty! look. he asked me to marry him yesterday
bard:
so? what they are doing right there -- you know this is a pissy little mess and i couldn't care less. if you want to go and botch it -- cause there is no way finn is gonna do anything but glibly pretend to not be offended by you interruptng what's going on right now and then calmly and without a shade of regret --
Terry:
schedule me out of his life.
bard:
-- schedule you out of his life. yes! we've heard the speech. he'll tereat you the way he treats Alpha Command when they get too hard and fast with the rules.
terry:
(shot: pulls way way high above tery's head -- or does tery look really really small? she looks like she migh cray, the experience has got several different and conflicting feelings in her she doesn't know how to deal with.)but he...(trails off. the engines rumbling low in the background. )this...
cut to: bard, the same eyebrow he had for finn in the previous scene, now raised at terry.
terry: (seems to have regained his composure) well...what am I gonna do?
bard: reaction - a compassionate face.
terry:
well you're not going to just sit there and watch it are you?
bard:
i have to. he told me to.
terry
WHAT?(high pitched)
bard:
well, he told me to record it anyway...
close up on terry. a slight tic in her left eye.
Terry
i. HATE. men.
(turns away and walks towards the teleport booth,. bellows. not high pitched) TURN IT ON BEFORE I SPACE MYSELF!
bard:
you're not in a good state of mind:
terry:
WHO THE HELL IS THE DOCTOR HERE?
bard:
don't go down there
terry
(with odd calmness)obviously i would rather die.
bard:
(the eyebrow again. flips the switch)
terry:
thornely. quarters. and SHUT UP about it.(exit)
(bard is alone on the bridge. with a heartfelt sigh he sits and looks at the screen. finn is standing talking to epona, who is peeling potatoes. he raises the volume.)
epona:
i know! this must have been fun to build then. is what you're saying.
finn:
well it took a while but it was basically a blast. why are you here peeling potatoes, anyway?
cut to: inside the scullery. looths like s kitchen aboard a starship should look.
epona:
i wake up for my shift and there's a fax with my orders for the day, every day it's different. i TOLD you what i have done in the week i've been here.
finn:
huh. mate standard, huh?
epona: you know something? i really hate it. i was born to fly.
finn: well you could become first mate. we haven't had one in a while.
epona:
first mate? i don't know if i could handle all that responsibility.
finn:
well...i handle the real responsibility. what you would basically be doing is watching my back monitoring bridge action and, well, occasionally getting to fly the ship. we're gonna be doing some research in the upper ionosphere of elgos -- you think you're ready for some atmospheric work? real flying as opposed to the general boredom of piloting a starship?
epona:
(close up. there are no windows on this part of the alpha -- but epona actually has stars in her eyes.) i can try...
cut to:
deep space:
narrator voice over
there have always been explorers.
in the year 1953 the scientist nikolai tesla introduced to the world a series of amazing inventions that would give humanity the power to travel vast distances in space.
by 1977, called 'the year space broke', japanese and russian scientists, working together, created an engine that would move a starship at c minus, just under the speed of light.
people though that was pretty good.
the years between 1977 and 1997 were exciting years for humanity. new discoveries of planets and even life forms all over the galaxy were heralded as humanity celebrated its new age of space exploration. but there were no other intelligent, developed life forms found. we were alone with our worst enemies...
humanity.
in the year 2001 the space business was multinational and booming.
and so was the business of space crime.
We were Ra'ana. Ra'ana, and the seeds she bore and nurtured.
a long time ago our ancestors were apes.
a Long time ago - as the day star traveled through the sky over and over -
once Ra'ana's children were mighty apes who ate leaves andlived in trees. but the day star changed those mighty apes and we became who we are now, the Ra'ana. One day an ape learned to talk and said the first word -- the first word all Ra'ana say -- Umi, meaning mother. The great apes still wander the steppes but our tribes diverged.
they only say 'umi' but they still eat leaves and play in the sun, on the steppes.
we meanwhile developed skills. we learned to forage and build cities...stepe cities where we composed love songs to the all powerful sun, the source of sustenance, and learned from the actions of the apes, our ancestors. but the day star changed us...we evolved. we learned to write things down, we learned art and song and wrte songs of love to teh day star and the winds that flow from the day star.
and we learned. we sat in the art called mediatation, we learned many different things todo we caled skills. and we counted the movement of the different night stars as wel as the day star, we counted the times that the Ra'ana spun around letting us see the day star again and again. it is as i write this the number forty two followed by my fingers times my finger's times my fingers, but the mathematicians know more.
--or know more, before Emperor Hedgewarden and his Dynasts came in their star ships!
they came here and smiled in their strange clothes. laughing at us. Nariki was the first one who approached them to speak.
"why have you come here oddly dressed ra'ana?"
"We are not Ra'ana," Hedgewarden said. "we are from far away, from Earth. we are your rulers."
"What is a ruler?" Nariki asked. we watched from the steppe pass.
Hedgewarden slapped Nariki down to the ground! We had never seen a Ra'ana strike another Ra'ana -- we didn't know what to make of it.
Redgewarden bent down and grabbed Nariki by the throat - I remmeber - i could hear his strangled attempt to cry out. "we came to rule you. also own you. you little monkeys will make fine subjects. this is the wonderful world of Hedgewarden now! You will do as we say or get killed. You know what killed is, you little ape?"
we panicked in the pass, watching.
they speak Ra'ana but they don't act like Ra'ana.
they look like us too. wait and see.
look at their...clothes!
"Killed is when you don't do what your rulers say. that's us. and also Howerth. Hey, Howerth, get a load of this monkey!"
another one of the strange Ra'ana waked over to Nariki. Nariki has long beautiful black hair.
"i want that hair for my lab, George," and the fat one walked over. it had a fat pot belly - also something no Ra'ana had ever seen before.
i tell you this because this is the time that trouble began here on Ra'ana, for so many cycles we had celebrated the star wind. now these stranger Ra'ana had come.
Jade is next to me with his hand on my shoulder gripping tight. he is horrified beyond question.
they are killing nariki slowly.
we watch. we hear. they have come to Ra'ana to rule us. their starships..we have never seen anything like this before. they are huge and there is something horrifying about them. and they are killing Nariki -- the first one is Hedgewarden - -it is a name all of Ra'ana will come to know and fear. the other one, Howerth -- none of us has ever seen a fat man before. his belly is round. it looks like sickness, when people once ate bad plants from teh swamp where gases from the underdark escape.
they strangle and kill nariki and we cannot supress our wails. we have watched the aged die and wept -- but we have never seen anyone killed by another ra'ana before and we bgin to wail -
it isthe first time we have ever screamed the Ra'ana Death Wail. they look up to the pass and see us and here come their soldiers. butwe are hot with a new feeling...
they are coming in their strange machines tearing up the steppe with their strange machnes! coming for us with devices that go BAM and more Ra'ana are slain.
it is truly horrible. they rape us when they catch us, they rape us and hack us to bits. they set upon us and tell us we are dirty apes and they have come to rule us.
in seated talk days later we praise the strange Ra'ana from Earth for teaching us what rage means. the new ra'ana have evil magic. we did not even think of evil or good until they arrived. now -- some of the Ra'ana have become corrupt and behave as the now ra'ana do - but we know them and can see they have been corrupted. we do not blame them -- we know the bad magic -- it is like star wind but colorless -- dim and cruel - it warped our sisters and brothers hearts.
sometimes. other times it is white, bad blinding to our inner eyes, both cold...and hot, so hot. a glaring hateful.. oh, such a light --!
to divide the cycles - we think on what to do. this is when the trouble started and this is how it happened. we know how to live before and day star was good to us.
now the three of us, kirby wingfoot of the stepe horse riders, Kayex of the valley and myself, are three Ra'ana alone in the slave prison where they started sending those of us who would not bow down.
it has begun.
Atma's Fear
WHAT HAPPENED?
Well, the year was 193x, and a young and previously unacclaiamed genius named Nikolai Tesla revealed his world - saving invention -- a source of energy that would reduce the world's petrol and coal needs to near nil by the year 1960. Tesla was embraced by the world as a great genius and slowly the world began to reduce its already noxious overuse of fossil fuels . Tesla worked with Albert einstein and R. Buckminster fuuller, the renowned anticipatory design sicience -- and the world celebrated as men walked on the moon and venus in the year 1961.
Butthere was still much to do. the world's social atmospheres had to adjust as the new Tesla technology began creating new weather patterns -- and the innovations created forests in places there had once been deserts, predicting patterns in earthquakes, floods and tornadoes with Auric research into the earth's biological energy field, the van Allen belt. there were still advances yet to be made in social equality -- women marched in the streets for equal pay rights and job oppurtunites and oppressed people sfrom all parts of the world appeared as well to DEMAND the same rights for human existance -- "if there can be such men on the moon in ninteeen sixty one, why, then," said one of the many great voices of social restructurining, "can people not all study atthe same academies of learning?" Mohandas Ghandi, the famed President of the Democratic Region of Dravidia, said that those words would set a tone that createa United World, an achievment unprecednetd "in all of history." He was not mistaken.
But there would be more changes. there were also forces devoted to stasis and the repressive -- they styled themselves the NeoPlatonists' Party and in the year 1976 they staged what was not really seen as bid for power.
there was complaining and clamoring. Riots broke out, and many feared that the new social sense of order that had been established would be shaken to its foundations by the overly wasteful legislation of teh NeoPlatonists, whose motto was Only One Republic, Only One God, Only One way.
Time passed and fortunes shifted. Nonetheless there were more innovations, as the pioneers into space established colonies on venus, the Moon and in orbits between the outer planets -- by the year 1985 the earth people had explored with manned expeditions all the planets of the solar system.
the Philosopher poet Benjamin Glasse made sweeping statements about the uselessness of war between differing nationalities with the same DNA, and the aerospace scientist-artist who called himself simply Fin developed the breakthough surpassing even Nikolai Tesla's breakthroughs -- the Void Rerouter -- a propulsion development that shattered distance goals -- and suddenly decided to take his friends and leave the Earth system behind. The Sol system was about to erupt in what seemd to be a final war -- between those who styled themselves as resistors, and the neoplatonist dynasts who had clevely siezed power -- the hedgewarden family -- and war was definitely breaking out on the bases on Venus and Luna -- and electronic war was taking place on the earth,. teh neoplatonists had harnessed te innovations of the great inventor Nikolai Tesla and used it to create a field for human auric manipulation -- creating the infamous BLACK SUMMER of 2012.
but some of us wee already gone, gone untelleble distances away from the earth.
THE VOID REROUTER
find a black hole. catch a ride. aim your coiled gun at the black hole and the black hole just wants to jump into your gun, it almsot seems to feel compulsed.
In a soup of quanta and calculations and magnetic figuring a miracle occurs and you have harnessed the power of the black hole into the engine of a truncated bullet that seats six hundred you call the Alpha Theta One. You built it in the high mountains of Boulder, Colorado in the 1980s and when it was revealed it was hailed a sa real innovation in medium orbit travel, by your friends, the Earth City Union. Then in 1998 --
--in tense and worried 1998 when the whoel grid seemed about to go dim and you could see with your artist-scientist eyes that there ws something to fear far more than god - and it was going to turn off the sun to ensure frightened subservience in a monster pattern you had no desire to fight against -- or be around for.
your name was Fin and you had worked to create interstellar overdrive.
"We're, uh, we're not leaving here...we're GOING THERE. Try and lok at it that way.
the Earth City Union, savvy and careful developers and designers all looked at your prognostications of the actions of the earth's increasingly Neo-platonist dominated government. there was no need to force consensus. No one wanted to stay. at all.
So you aim your particle cannon at the black hole.
The black hole is turned on by your style and leaps, leaps madly into your particle cannon. "maybe we can find some old world disorder," one of your friends said.
"precisely," you agreed.
and on terra the neoplatonists were preparing to turn down the sun. just a touch. they were proud and the sun was so bright. It was THEIR time to shine, they had decided "emperically".
and in twenty minutes you were staring at the beauty of a starfield -- leaving behind the quibbling Neoplatonists and the confused and rebellious could-be resistance flinging spambombs at indifference...
You were Earth City Union and glowing like a green gassy friend was the gigantic planet you named Elgos because you could. No one there to stop you.
so far.
ships' first mate epona lantrue
ships' captain jon finn
astrogator marc halley
research engineer bard allen
doctor terry thornley
alpha academy: Sociology jeanette sidarel
head research engineer art cameron
entertainment hologram teo t'waki
operations apprentice michael malloy
alpha command operations administrator ajax mcneil
Conversation record mode on.
Marc:when i look at starfields i get this feeling like...onc eback on Earth we used to go toback rooads where it was really hilly and there were no lights --
Jeannette: Marc, i was THERE.
Marc: Oh, right.
Jeannette: It's okay...it's been a long time. When Mike used to take his foot off -- he'd cutthe power and coast.
Marc: yeah.
Jeannette: but this is also like...like driving a car in the snow.
Marc: yeah.
long pause.
Marc: itshould be about ten Minutes before we sync up with the Alpha.
Jeanette:
why did he call it that anyway? It seems Arbitrary.
Marc:
huh. (hits buttons on command console) I think it was...at first...but then he started creating an ordering system based on...propulsion -- and how good we were getting at constructing drives.
Jeanette:
It's like: marc you never ever let on that you could do all this stuff. nd now -- it's just
Marc:
You could keep a secret or two yoruself. those guys were all such --
Jeanette:
Men?
Marc:
so much worse than that. I could add white men.
jeanette:
(silence)
Marc:
there's a pattern in earth's history from the forurteenth century all the way to the 21sct of Conquering and being Conquered -- and invariably the sufferes were women and tribal races.
jeanette:
Ireland...
Marc:
I know. Well, that saying about the Irish being the "niggers of Europe" -- i i don't know if it was an acknowledgement or a put down.
Jeannette:
You know, capitalism is based on scarcity. That's why all thsoe guys tried to toss me around like a medicine ball and then tried to bury me under the fucking back carpet. they ALL wanted to own me...I own me. Women are the niggers of the world, Marc. I got decent socialology grades: but they were classical -- just the pattern -- so much 'you're mine' and pretty soon its all about 'he was so nice until we got married.'
epona:
this job can bite me. i hate space.
terry:
why do you say that?
epona:
well, you for starters.
terry
what did i ever do to you?
epona:
oh...ask me stupid questions out of nowhere that there aren't any answers for...get on my nerves while i'm concentrating on my job...pester the living qus out of me and make my oh, so joyful life even that more --
terry:
wait a minute -- are you feeling all right?
epona:
no...actually i feel a little funny. i think i'm sick...or something...can i go lie down?
terry: aww. well, why don't you go lay down...you know how to get there right?
epona:
umm...well captain finn said i have to finish this. (alludes to potatoes)
terry:
screw the captain!
epona:
okay...
terry:
here: what are you doing, peeling potatoes? let me do it for you. go lay down. lieutenant shah will check you out.
epona:
...i don't know...i feel better already. maybe i should just finish these potatoes.
terry:
are you sure?
CUT TO:
BRIDGE. Finn and Bard are relaxing and lazily at that. they are watching the events unfold on a medium sized view monitor. the main screen shows that the Alpha is in orbit around a Jupiter - like planet -- a gas giant. the dialogue between bard and finn is always quick, as if they have been friends for life and always know how to respond to each other. which they have. finn is thin and dark haired, wears a mustache. bard is redhaired with a high-and-tight..
finn:
Did thornely just actually say "screw the captain?"
bard:
that is what she said.
finn:
screw the captain? screw her. i'm going down there.
bard:
why?
finn: well, i might get lucky!
bard
i think maybe she meantthe other kind of screw.
finn:
yeah, but (pulls a hand mirror from chest pocket, seems to be looking for chives in his teeth) that's epona lantrue.
bard:
yeah. just came up from Earth so?
finn:
she really likes to do it. everybody says so. freaky wild.
bard:
her? wow. i wonder if terry knows that?
finn:
how do i look?
bard:
(stares pointedly. an eyebrow.)
finn:
oh...right.
bard:
you look fine but you sound like you've....ugh. nevermind. can i at least watch?
finn:
only if you save!
bard:
puts head down as if fatigued.
finn:
see ya!
(as finn backs up we see a pullaway view of the ship's interior as if for the first time. finn himself walks to the corner of the bridge area to where the teleport booth is.)
finn: (to booth) jon finn. captain!
booth:
you didn't have to say that.
fin:
(brightly:) scullery!
cut to the scullery. terry is attempting to take the potato peeler away from epona. epona is obstainately resisting.
epona:
(epona's voice is a drawn and harried, tired and much worried and yet not sleepy -- it's an intelligent voice, the voice of someone who is depresed and does not appreciate their station in life yet sees little hope of imporving it. she is curvacous and bald.) no, no, no...really, it's alright.
terry:
give me the fucking potato peeler and do it -- ow! (fx: blood spurts up in a small but visible fountain.)
epona: (sincere) oh, my god! (can't help smiling) i am so sorry.
terry: ow...my hand...ow...
finn appears.
hey, kids, what's going on here? wow, thornely...you look like you could uh...ugh...
terry: (icy) use a doctor? get the hell out of my way
finn:
get the hell out of my way, what?
terry:
get the hell out of my way, JON....
finn:
(stepping nimbly out of the way as she is charging forward with a potato peeler, already wrapping her bleeding hand in her white coat) that's captain jerk to you, doctor.
terry:
thornely. doctor. sickbay.
booth
without delay, doctor
terry:
argh! fucking machine! if it was without a delay why would you fucking --
(she vanishes)
finn:
(to epona who is standing with her hands at her side as if she has no idea what to do next)well, what happene dhere?
epona:
well, jon, she um...i don't know! she just...do YOU want to do this?(alludes to potatoes)
finn:
well, um, no. hey wait? why not. i'll peel some potatoes. but she took the -- hey are there still the
epona:
(pushes a button on the wall) right here. (peeler appears)
finn:
wow...still here after all this time. you know (begins peeling) i designed and basically built the entire alpha myself.
epona (noncomittal, just standing there) guess that's why it flies so fast
finn: well...it's fast. you know it was me who got them to stop calling ships 'she'
epona:
just a dream.
finn:
wha-a-a?
epona:
this is all just a dream isn't it. not real.
finn: well now you;re being existential. it's a s real as you want it to be.
epona: i wish it were less real or a lot different.
finn: really?
epona: this is boring. this whole thing. peeling spuds. cleaning bulkheads. that whole mess with the computers that took forever. changing my uniform.
finn:
even changing your uniform is boring?
epona:
even talking about boring things is boring. i'm a class two pilot. i would be a class one but i got assigned to this -- oh, don't get me wrong, its an excellent ship but that GUY is always at the helm and i don't know when i'll ever get assigned any time on the bridge.
finn: well you could have asked me!
epona:
huh? (showing more than nominal emotion for the first time) wow. but of course..you're the captain.
finn: you get a raise too!
epona:
well i don't care about that, i just want to steer her. i mean it.
finn: you really like ships, don't you.
epona:
(smiles shyly)
hey, could you do me a favor?
epona: sure, whatever!
finn: would you take off your top?
epona: (beat) sure, whatever.
the scene fades as she is removing her top.
----
scene two
BRIDGE
music:
the other day i took a walk to the other side of the trail
feeling exalted i walked to the other side of the trail
one foot in front of the other
too see what i could discover
far far away to the other side of the trail
bard is sitting watching with a bemused expression on his face. we close up on his face, its features and the glow of the monitor.
then soft defocus on bard's face and focus on the starfield in the main viewscreen and the plant that the alpha is orbitting as the camera pulls back. soon that scene fades as well and we dissolve to behind bard -- we are looking over his shoulder and slowly tightening up on what he is watching
bard:
(bemused) wow. incredible. what a show.(the shot tightens up even more, right over bard's shoulder and his alpha insignia to the monitor where we can clearly see finn and epona making serious love on the scullery rug.)
we watch this for a couple of minutes; at a certain point the music changes to a very high poitched, almost operatic sound of a woman's voice hitting high notes. then the music fades to incidntal background sounds)
then cut backwards...to over bard's shoulder again...then back evenb farther to the starfield and the gas giant. bard is reaching twoards the monitor...it looks as if he about to raise the volume when from behind him
terry:
what the HELL are you doing.
bard
(spaz take) (sqauwks) oh, my god you almost scared the life out of me.
terry:(pissed, her hand in a bandage) what the hell is that?
finn:
that is...that is the captain and...uh...that girl who was cleaning the bulkheads yesterday.
terry: the new girl? (terri is high pitched but her voice can become very cold quiet and stark when necessary. she is actually in charge of the ship but this is more an acknowledgment than her rank. it has a little to do with her position as doctor and captain's girlfriend) the NEW GIRL? what a jerk!
bard:
yeah, what a jerk.
they are both silent for several beats.
terry:
how dare you patronize me.
bard:
huh?
terry:
well this has to stop right now.(turns, goes to the booth) thornely. scullery. (cut to: wide angle shot of the bridge area. we will be seeing this shot a lot. we clearly see as terry is walking towards the teleport booth, thunder and judgment in her eyes, bard is flipping a switch on the alpha's control panel. a blue light turns on next to the switch. the camer's eye also catches this.)
the booth has a blue light haloing its top where it meets the alpha's ceiling. it glows before telporting crew members to different docks but this time there's no teleport.) thornely. scullery. (nothing happens) i disabled it.
terry:
i outrank you. you are out of line. change it right now before I come over there and --
bard: calm down, doctor thornely. how would you like it if someone came up while you were in the middle of what is going on right there -- hey, wow! things have gotten oral.
terry:(runs up and hits bard in the back of his head with her fist.)
bard: (seriously) OW! what the fuck?
terry: i gave you an order, uh...lieutenant. enable the teleporter.
bard: while finn's off the bridge i'm the captain okay. and this is not about rank, doctor thornely. you HIT me! you wanna start talking about protocols and procedures i'll pull out my manual.
terry: (looks grim)
bard:
right now the thing you are lanning on doing make all the wrong sorts of sense.
terry: as if you could have the slightest idea of what i'm planning.
bard: pretty sure of yourself, aren't you, doctor scorpio?
terry: fuck YOU. what did you do.
bard: you have a few options right now. you can sit here and wait for finn and the scullery girl (terry: suppressed expression of frustration and jealous rage somewhere between 'grrr' and 'ooh') to get done doing what they are doing and then talk to your boyfriend about whatever you want to. you can wait here while i call the alpha mega and report that you struck an acting pilot and captain with a weapon --
terry:
what weapon?
bard:
i've seen you in action, doctor. whatever your rank was before you went medical you could have given me a concussion and not just a lump. you really have lost your fucking mind, haven't you? i may make piloting look easy but if you had knowcked me unconscious with your jealous rage well, what would you have done? i know what you are certified to do and not to do on the bridge of the alpha and i'm not going to waste anyone's time asking you what you know about that planet out there because i know it amounts to basic zero compared to (Terry: allright...allright...guilty) what myself, the captain and the REST --
terry:
guilty! look. he asked me to marry him yesterday
bard:
so? what they are doing right there -- you know this is a pissy little mess and i couldn't care less. if you want to go and botch it -- cause there is no way finn is gonna do anything but glibly pretend to not be offended by you interruptng what's going on right now and then calmly and without a shade of regret --
Terry:
schedule me out of his life.
bard:
-- schedule you out of his life. yes! we've heard the speech. he'll tereat you the way he treats Alpha Command when they get too hard and fast with the rules.
terry:
(shot: pulls way way high above tery's head -- or does tery look really really small? she looks like she migh cray, the experience has got several different and conflicting feelings in her she doesn't know how to deal with.)but he...(trails off. the engines rumbling low in the background. )this...
cut to: bard, the same eyebrow he had for finn in the previous scene, now raised at terry.
terry: (seems to have regained his composure) well...what am I gonna do?
bard: reaction - a compassionate face.
terry:
well you're not going to just sit there and watch it are you?
bard:
i have to. he told me to.
terry
WHAT?(high pitched)
bard:
well, he told me to record it anyway...
close up on terry. a slight tic in her left eye.
Terry
i. HATE. men.
(turns away and walks towards the teleport booth,. bellows. not high pitched) TURN IT ON BEFORE I SPACE MYSELF!
bard:
you're not in a good state of mind:
terry:
WHO THE HELL IS THE DOCTOR HERE?
bard:
don't go down there
terry
(with odd calmness)obviously i would rather die.
bard:
(the eyebrow again. flips the switch)
terry:
thornely. quarters. and SHUT UP about it.(exit)
(bard is alone on the bridge. with a heartfelt sigh he sits and looks at the screen. finn is standing talking to epona, who is peeling potatoes. he raises the volume.)
epona:
i know! this must have been fun to build then. is what you're saying.
finn:
well it took a while but it was basically a blast. why are you here peeling potatoes, anyway?
cut to: inside the scullery. looths like s kitchen aboard a starship should look.
epona:
i wake up for my shift and there's a fax with my orders for the day, every day it's different. i TOLD you what i have done in the week i've been here.
finn:
huh. mate standard, huh?
epona: you know something? i really hate it. i was born to fly.
finn: well you could become first mate. we haven't had one in a while.
epona:
first mate? i don't know if i could handle all that responsibility.
finn:
well...i handle the real responsibility. what you would basically be doing is watching my back monitoring bridge action and, well, occasionally getting to fly the ship. we're gonna be doing some research in the upper ionosphere of elgos -- you think you're ready for some atmospheric work? real flying as opposed to the general boredom of piloting a starship?
epona:
(close up. there are no windows on this part of the alpha -- but epona actually has stars in her eyes.) i can try...
cut to:
deep space:
narrator voice over
there have always been explorers.
in the year 1953 the scientist nikolai tesla introduced to the world a series of amazing inventions that would give humanity the power to travel vast distances in space.
by 1977, called 'the year space broke', japanese and russian scientists, working together, created an engine that would move a starship at c minus, just under the speed of light.
people though that was pretty good.
the years between 1977 and 1997 were exciting years for humanity. new discoveries of planets and even life forms all over the galaxy were heralded as humanity celebrated its new age of space exploration. but there were no other intelligent, developed life forms found. we were alone with our worst enemies...
humanity.
in the year 2001 the space business was multinational and booming.
and so was the business of space crime.