Note: This post is a continuation of the Plane Speaking post from back in March of this year. You may, or may not wish to read that post before continuing onwards.
"Planes are to Space as Aeons are to Time, and both Planes and Aeons have a distinct resonance to one another based upon their specific and intrinsic relationship to Spacetime itself. In a way they are like unto two sides of a coin, except that Aeons are really more like the edge of the coin and Planes are more akin to the surface topogrpahy of the faces/flat sides...the whole thing is spinning, and it exists in multiple universes that may or may not overlap at any given point in their relative trajectories."
Preface to Temjurri Geopsychic Engineering Datanode, Riskail Edition (encrypted)
Planes are a big deal in Riskail. As if having an interconnected ecology that connects millions, billions, maybe trillions of worlds across multiple galaxies wasn't enough real estate, and the Twelve Primary Aeons that form a temporal Confluence at Riskail allowing the Twelve Ascendent Houses to meet, deal and comingle with one another on neutral territory, there are the planar layers, resonant spaces, synthecosms, infracosms and other alternative spaces that have been designed of discovered by various factions such as the Temjurri, Stonjin and others.
Right now, let's focus on the Planar Layers enveloping Riskail.
We'll get to Aeons later. Promise.
"Every body with appreciable mass distorts the non-fabric of spacetime to a smaller or larger extent. These distortions are like ripples in a pond, only radiating outwards in multiple dimensions simultaneously. These ripples form layers and over time the resonance between the body and the layers imbues those layers with slightly distorted topographies that reflect those of the body. Another, simpler way to demonstrate this effect is to see the various layers that accumulate around a world, moon or asteroid (or other body in space) are all slightly distorted reflections of the body that they are wrapped-around. You could say that the planar layers are essentially spatial echoes or quantal shadows of the world. The farther/deeper one travels across/through the Planar Layers, the more distorted the reflected topographies become. "
Preface to Temjurri Geopsychic Engineering Datanode, Riskail Edition (encrypted)
Planes are the products of the intersection of space and consciousness. They are alternative, parallel and sometimes aberrant or outre expressions of space and matter that are shaped through the direct interaction of consciousness via the mechanics of observation and imagination.
Planes are alternate spaces. Planes are direct, resonant extensions of the chakras
Adam Smith is more than an economist, he's a legendary superhero in Riskail, one who fought against the horrid apparatarchists, vile conformunists, and other forces that stood against the mighty empire ruled over by the majestic old man on the purple mountain whose great white house was flanked by shining seas. Smith is rumored to be one of the Patriots interred within hallowglass and nanoridium. He sleeps a timeless slumber waiting to be recalled to life beside Jefferson, Hamilton of Macedonia, Alger the Amazing Self-Made Man also known as the Boot-Strapper, Warlord Patton and his demi-canid mechanized cavalry corps, Ford the Industrealist, Carnegie the Magnifient Librarian, Roosevelt-Prime, the Euphoreconomicon's scribe Galbraith--who also is believed to be one of the primary authors of the Analects of the Capitalists, The Masked Gipper with his pin-striped war-monkey, and the other magnificent Rough Riders who defended the Freemarkets, reigned-in the excesses of the Robber-Barons (Carnegie himself having been redeemed from amongst their ranks to become a stalwart member of the band). Few remember any longer the ancient tales of their greatest battles against the insidious market-forces of Fu Manchu, the Red Saint Lenin and his maniacal beetletariat, the mad bear-monk Rasputin, or the fearsome wrath of Uncle Joe Stalin.
But that is Riskail. Here and now, in the waning years of the Toxic Age, we know the True Story of Adam Smith and his works, don't we?
In the course of building-up the maps for the Great Rift, the various Basins and Abyssal Gorges, the Etched Plateau, High Tombs of Yuddoth and so forth for Riskail, I've been searching for some decent references to work with, especially for the way that craters actually form, and the manner in which canyons erode into shape. One rather useful source for this purpose has been the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment of the University of Arizona in conjunction with NASA and the JPL. These very nice people have made a selection of 15 pages filled with 236 pictures taken by the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter which you can find at their site.
They also provide an array of Digital Terrain Models that might prove useful as well, down the road, if not immediately. If you work in 3D then these might be of more use to you. We've only just acquired Bryce in order to dip our toes into the 3D end of things...which means more tutorials to go through. yay. No guarantees when we'll start producing anything 3D-ish for the blogs. You will be seeing some new stuff in a very different style/technique fairly soon however. But more on that when it's time to show, not just tell.
But wait, there's more: Solar Voyager is a very nice website devoted to Space Art and there are some very talented artists showing off their work on that site--the tutorials are also a nice resource. NovaCelestia is another, related site devoted to high quality space art that we definitely recommend to anyone interested in this sort of thing. And of course, we have to mention Digital Blasphemy, one of the absolute best of the best space art sites out there, bar none. Yeah, we could probably assemble another set of ten or twelve space art sites for you, but we're still recovering from a nasty bout with a fever that just wouldn't go away, so this will have to do for now. Maybe we'll come back and flesh things out a bit more, later.
We're seriously considering setting up a recurring feature for Useful Resources...let us know what you think.
"So is all said at once. Virtue is the link of all perfections, the centre of all the felicities. She it is that makes a man prudent, discreet, sagacious, cautious, wise, courageous, thoughtful, trustworthy, happy, honoured, truthful, and a universal Hero. Three HHH's make a man happy--Health, Holiness, and a Headpiece. Virtue is the sun of the microcosm, and has for hemisphere a good conscience. She is so beautiful that she finds favour with both God and man. Nothing is lovable but virtue, nothing detestable but vice. Virtue alone is serious, all else is but jest. A man's capacity and greatness are to be measured by his virtue and not by his fortune. She alone is all-sufficient. She makes men lovable in life, memorable after death."
So there I was, taking a moment to clear-out some email and attend to comments, etc. and this popped into the in-box. Talk about synchronicity. I've been outlining the Riskail zodiac (and corresponding Tarot), which is based upon a slightly shifted re-distribution rooted in the orientation of the Degrees of the Houses to the Decans and some other obscure and opaque terms/concepts I won't bore you with now. Suffice it to say, I've been wracking my brain for a suitable way to bring more of the right sort of versimilitude into the mix. Balthazar's twelve virtues helps to flesh out the Aristotlean and other systems very nicely. Since this system is at the very root of a great deal of sorcery, magic, spell-casting, rites & rituals, even character development (remember Chivalry & Sorcery?), then I definitely need to have the proverbial ducks all in a row and Balthazar Gracian has come to my rescue in this endeavor, even if he has been dead for several centuries....
Prudence
Discretion
Sagacity
Caution
Wisdom
Courage
Thoughtfulness
Trustworthiness
Happiness
Honor
Truthfulness
Heroism
I'll be going into this in more detail at the Riskail blog in about a week, once some more of the accompanying illustrations/sketches are ready to post...
Our schedule has been a bit messed-up since we re-structured the blogs and Summer has really disrupted things, but it is all settling down nicely and we're making significant progress towards getting things running smoothly again. The articles on Chakras, alternative daemonologies/cosmologies, more Planar stuff, and the like are on the way. There are also a few more author profiles, and we've been watching how the last round of media-related posts have gone over in order to gauge whether or not to waste invest any more time is such things. If you have an opinion or advice on this matter, feel free to contact us. We're interested in what you like/dislike about our blog and your feedback can help us plot the best possible course forwards.
That said, there are a lot of Riskail things moving towards completion once and for all and we're very excited about that, especially as Autumn approaches and we enter into the busiest part of our production cycle here at Netherwerks. But today, after this post goes out, it is time for a nice long walk with the new camera. We're going to need some a huge amount of textures to work with on all this new artwork that's coming through the pipeline...
“Treat a person ill and he will become wicked. Requite affection with scorn; let one being be selected for whatever cause as the refuse of his kind - divide him, a social being, from society, and you impose upon him the irresistible obligations - malevolence and selfishness. It is thus that too often in society those who are best qualified to be its benefactors and its ornaments are branded by some accident with scorn, and changed by neglect and solitude of heart into a scourge and a curse."
"On Frankenstein" (1818), Percy B. Shelley
This series has been transferred to the Riskail Blog where it will continue onwards with a tour of the grounds, a rogues' gallery of the Grim Cabal and much, much more. We hope that you'll come check it out...
This post has been moved to the Riskail Blog where the Veiled Riders will be further developed as part of the over-all Riskail Worldbuilding efforts and a story or three might likewise be in the near future over at the Riskail Fiction Blog.
This post has been transferred over to the Riskail Blog where the series on Gates, Worlds and Locales of Riskail continues as part of the overall Worldbuilding effort. If you found the various Riskail-based articles here at Old school Heretic to your liking or interest, please do consider checking out both the Riskail Blog for more Worldbuilding and the Riskail Fiction Blog for more Riskail-centered short stories and vignettes.
This post has been moved to the Riskail Blog and will be expanded upon as the seed-kernal of a sub-series in support of the Asylum-Chateau of Diodati project.
Beneath Devukarsha are the warrens, tunnels and nest-creches of the Grublings, a polymorphous conglomeration of beetle-descended species (and a few others as well).
This post has been moved to the Riskail Blog and you can find it here.
This post has moved to the Riskail Blog and you can find it here. The series will continue to provide an overview of the worlds immediately available via the Twelve River Gates and special in-depth explorations of select worlds past the River Gates are planned as well. We hope that you'll join us on this epic journey.
As for Riskail, creativity is highly valued and respected, indeed it is considered an essential complement to Life and Liberty. Freedom of expression is considered part and parcel of Liberty; one cannot have one without the other. They are both, Life and Liberty, Embodied Principles; abstract concepts of such intrinsic importance to Civilization that they have become enshrined and exalted beyond common Archetypes, most Saints and even the Vestals and Madonnas, as beloved as they are. The Embodied Principles have stood the test of time and revolution, survived the chaos and madness of the most troubled times and the glorious excesses of the best of times as well. They endure. They persist. They are outside time and deeply rooted in the heart of Civilization in a way that makes them ever present, like witnesses to all the crimes committed in their name or the small acts of honesty and integrity that oftentimes get overlooked or forgotten by all others.
The Academy which sprawls throughout Devukarsha, with campuses and labs, lecture-halls and libraries scattered across all the Twelve Tiers and beyond contains millions of years of accumulated, preserved, edited & annotated, regurgitated and re-mixed records, data, information and the works of countless generations, all collected and contained (barely) within its secular precincts where every gate has carved above it the single word Epistomonikos. Allow me to use an excerpt from the short-story of the same name to illustrate:
"It was an old word from an old world that meant 'Making Knowledge.' The Academy at Devukarsha was a place that was focused, some would say even obsessed on just that; the manufacture of knowledge. Like a barbarian-industrialist's soul-deadening prison-factory, the vast campuses of the Academy churned out an incredible amount of books, recordings, lectures, performances, tutorials, theories, and more. It was a huge secular cathedral dedicated to the intricate arcaneries of learning and the ancient and accepted traditional methodologies of teaching. One came here to study or to disseminate knowledge, to peel back the veils of ignorance, or to ponder great thoughts. Otherwise they found themselves driven away at the point of a blade -- and that only if they were fortunate not to have provoked a feud with some recognized authority, erudite specialist or tenured professor. Seruka had come to this place to learn and she would fight to the death to protect her right to study, to gain knowledge, to make her mark on academia. She still carried the matching pair of slim stillettos that her grandfather had presented her on her fifth birthday. At first they had been longer than her arms and she had to wield them like tiny swords. Now they fitted her hands like direct extensions of her will as only something long-practiced could ever do."
And from Epistomonikos once more, a further description of the Academy:
"A massive hive of erudition and learning consecrated to the ten thousand Secular Saints, the Academy was home to numerous Cliques, Cabals, secret societies (ssshh!), committees, panels, inquisitions, laboratories and more. More than a hundred libraries were liberally scattered across the campus, each one jealously guarding its share of the amassed wisdom and hoarded knowledge of countless millennia, all carefully preserved by hereditary archivists, librarians (both committed and freelance), specialists and curators who watch over priceless collections of the relics and detritus of humanity's long climb upwards from oblivion's very brink. Clerks, scribes, monastic illuminators and calligraphers (both digital and by hand and brush/pen) struggled to process the ever-growing back-log of monographs, dissertations, research findings, patents, and other pixel and paperwork generated by innumerable students, Scholars and Experts, many of whom occupied themselves in correcting the errors of the woefully ignorant past, censoring the scandalous lies of vituperative frauds of bygone eras, and offering expert critiques on just what was meant by the greatest intellects, philosophers and scientists of previous ages."
Knowledge is another of the Embodied Principles within the cultures of Riskail, and it is a powerfully present one within Devukarsha in particular. In order for Knowledge to continue to grow and develop, the free flow of information is essential, however, if one makes all information equally open and free, that kills off the very sources of creativity from which it flows and depends. Even the telepathic Domnarchs and Mind-Tyrants of Mendakar realize this all too clearly demonstrated fact. When creators do not gain benefit from their work, they are reduced to being data-peasants and the equivalent of sharecroppers or the psychic equivalent of galley-slaves. Creativity grows dull, stunted and choked upon the franchise-ware and mind-debris of the imaginatively illiterate, just as pre-civilization collapsed under the weight of monocrity (the unholy trinity of monoculture-monopoly-medocrity) during the Age of Toxicity.
Creators do need to be respected, but they cannot become tyrants in turn as some have demonstrated in the past when their ownership of their own works -- almost always derived in part from previous works of others -- were used as weapons in order to stake-out intellectual fiefdoms and empires that restricted all others from doing exactly what they themselves had done. It was a dangerous and pernicious form of hypocrisy driven by greed and worse. The loss of creative works denied to humanity and lost to Civilization because of these barbaric, medieval-minded practices remains a matter of solemn conjecture amongst the archivists of the Academy. The damage strikes deep, and exerts a negative influence that is still felt to this day the farther back one researches into the stacks, exhibits, and collections. As hard as it is to believe today, but once, long ago and far, far away the mouse was a slave and the emblem of an oppressive corporate regime, not the happy-go-lucky mascot of the Eternal Revolution that we know and have come to revere since.
There is a razorsharp line between the needs of the few and the demands of the masses. Both have interests in the creations of their fellows, but Civilization has the most pertinent and legitimate interest of all. Thus all acts of creation are considered uniquely the property of their creator for one hundred standard (legal) years, after which they all become part of the Public Domain. With no exception, no extension, and no conditions other than free and complete access for all. When the average expected lifespan can reasonably be measured in terms of centuries, there's plenty of time and patience comes far easier than when human lives were of may-fly shortness and the myth of scarcity was all-pervasive.
Anyone convicted of plagiarism during the creator's century of exclusivity loses all rights and titles to their own properties, including their genetic profile, and are summarily executed by being stuffed into one of the Execution Bells which date back to the First Revolution. As their blood runs down the outer walls of the bell tower all their possessions are auctioned off below, and anything unclaimed or unsold is turned over to representatives from the Flea Market to do with as they so wish.
But of course, as any competent subversive or criminal can tell you; the first thing is to not get caught. The second is to hire a damn good lawyer.
Only the incompetent and stupid ever get rung to death for something as foolish as plagiarism. It's just not worth it. Especially when acquiring permission to use other people's works still under the Century Mark is a relatively simple and painless process. Usually. Many, if not most creators clearly and explicitly designate the extent of the license they are willing to extend to all interested parties directly within the body of their work. It's an ancient tradition dating back to Old Earth. It's still referred to as the Creative Commons License.
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