OSR: Clerics of Pegāna

Here are some spells for Lord Dunsany's Gods of Pegāna (1905). If you need a ready-made public domain pantheon for your games and you don't want the standard Law vs. Chaos dualism of Anderson and Tolkien. It was a fun writing exercise, even if I chose to stick with the unfortunately gendered language of the original text.

Michael Whelan

 

The Testament of the Prophet Zoz

In the Temple in Aradec of All the gods save One, the High Priests of all the lands came to dispute and examine the matters of the gods. And a great debate arose touching on the games of the gods. Some said the gods play their games with dice, and some say they play their games with cards, and some said they use neither dice nor cards but only words and deeds. 

And the Prophet Zoz, who was the least of all the prophets, said that the gods play their games with dice, but rolled them only for the pleasing sound they make.

That night did the Prophet Zoz dream of a world where the gods attended to the prayers of men, and walked the Earth, and where the rattling of the dice of the gods could be heard on cold and still nights. Benisons and curses fell like rain upon the people, and they cried out: "Would that the gods did not attend to our prayers!"

When Zoz awoke, he wrote of this world, and would rebuke those who complained that the gods heeded not their prayers, saying: "Such a world have I seen in a dream, and it was not a pleasing world, for the prayers of men are foolish. Praise the gods, for they play their games in secret."

This is the testament of the Prophet Zoz, the least of all the prophets.

Raphael Lacoste

The Clerics of the Gods of Pegāna

Priests attend to the temples of the gods, but Clerics go among the people and do the will of the gods. One man may be a Cleric of Kib and a Cleric of Sish and a Cleric of Mung, if he thinketh he may please Kib and Sish and Mung and all other gods besides. For if he displeaseth the gods, they will set their faces against him, and his prayers shall go unheeded, and his hopes shall turn to ash.

These are the Workings of the Clerics of Kib

Kib, Sender of Life in all the Worlds

Best-loved of Clerics are the Clerics of Kib. They cut not their hair, nor their nails, nor wash, and yet they are welcome in every home. The aspect of the beast is evident in them.

The touch of a Cleric of Kib healeth the sick and restoreth life to the dying, if it be the will of Kib.

Kib may awaken the mind of a beast, likening it to the mind of a Man, so that the Cleric of Kib may converse with it or command it in the name of Kib. And thereafter the beast may again be a beast, or it may be a Man, if such is the will of Kib.

Kib, who made all beasts, may make another beast to answer the prayers of a Cleric of Kib, but whether it be a sheep or a bird or a serpent of the deep is according to the will of Kib.

The Cleric may look at a stick and say: “This is like unto a serpent,” and behold, Kib maketh the Sign of Kib, and the stick is a serpent. Or the Cleric may: “This stone is like unto a tortoise,” and behold, it is a tortoise. But the Cleric may not gaze upon a statue and say: “This is like unto a Man,” for Kib, who made Man, liketh not the presumption of sculptors, and will surely abandon his Cleric.

And the Cleric of Kib may speak all the tongues of men, for Kib was the first broke the Silence of Pegāna.

These are the Workings of the Clerics of Sish

Sish, the Destroyer of Hours.

The Clerics of Sish are aged before their years, and wear rent garments or ashen rags, for the breath of Time is upon them, and the teeth of Time pass near their flesh. And they are burdened by sad knowledge of days long past, or strange thoughts of days to come.

The Cleric of Sish may petition Sish to hold back Time, which is the hound of Sish, from harrying a beast or a stone or any other thing, and, if Sish wills it, the thing may stand untouched, while all around falls to ruin. And a thing untouched by Time may not move or speak or think or do any other thing, but may only be, and remain so until Sish lets loose his hound once more.

Sish may also let Time fall upon a thing with ravenous hunger and unconstrained strength. And a thousand, ten thousand, ten million years may fall upon the object of the wrath of Sish.

And Sish may turn his head to the right, and then the Cleric of Sish may walk as swiftly as an arrow. And Sish may turn his head to the left, and then the Cleric of Sish may walk as slowly as a tortoise or fall as a gentle leaf. But Sish easily tires of such prayers.

Secrets hath Sish, but not Desires, for these are the domain of Yoharneth-Lahai, and not Causes, for these are the domain of Dorozhand.

Slid - Sidney Sime

These are the Workings of the Clerics of Slid

Slid, Whose Soul is by the Sea

The Clerics of Slid are fickle and restless, for the Song of Slid resounds in their ears and dances through their limbs. They find no rest in Slid, for the moods of Slid are felt in his Clerics, and Slid is never still. They that go down to the sea in ships offer gifts to the Clerics of Slid.

The chill of the deep is in the hands of the Clerics of Slid, and the warmth of the gentle sand. 

Slid may turn his Cleric to sea-foam and water for a time, so his will may be carried into dark and secret places. Or he may raise his Cleric on a column of spray, or preserve him from drowning, if that be the will of Slid.

And should the Cleric sing the Song of Slid, just as rivers and streams sing, it may pleaseth Slid, and beasts and men who hear the song may dance in joy, as waves dance upon the shore.

Slid may command the waters of the sea and the courses of rivers, calling them or forestalling them. Slid may call a spring from the rock and watereth the hills with his blessings.

Mung - Sidney Sime

These are the Workings of the Clerics of Mung

Mung, Lord of All Deaths between Pegāna and the Rim

Mung walketh behind the Clerics of Mung, and his hand resteth upon them. It is an awful thing to know the presence of Mung. For men forget that one day they shall meet with Mung, but the Clerics of Mung know this to be true always, and neither sleep nor drunkenness nor age will remove the dread of Mung from their hearts. Thus, whatsoever garment a Cleric of Mung dons, and whatsoever their practices, the knowledge and dread of Mung is plain upon their features.

Beasts and men mark the approach of a Cleric of Mung and know that Mung walketh behind, and know Fear in their hearts, and Terror at the Shadow of Mung. And the Fear and Terror of the Shadow of Mung maketh men blind, so that they flee heedlessly into the darkness, and may there meet with Mung.

And sometimes Mung maketh the Sign of Mung, and those before the Cleric know Death. And sometimes he maketh not the Sign of Mung. It is a hard thing, and terrible, to be a Cleric of Mung.

Yet the touch of a Cleric of Mung banishes Pain and Sorrow, for they flee when Mung appeareth. And also Pestilence, for where Mung is, Pestilence hath gone before.

It may happen that Mung maketh the Sign of Mung before a Man, and the Life of the Man goes forth among the Worlds, but the body of the Man persisteth in movement and speech, as if it were a beast. This is an abomination unto Mung.
 

There are no Workings of the Clerics of Limpang-Tung

Limpang-Tung, The God of Mirth and Melodious Minstrels

There are no Clerics of Limpang-Tung, or perhaps every minstrel is his Cleric, and every joyful heart does his will. When darkness falls upon the heart of Man, and he is troubled, the playing of the harp may sooth and refresh him.

Yoharneth-Lahai - Sidney Sime

These are the Workings of the Clerics of Yoharneth-Lahai

Yoharneth-Lahai, The God of Little Dreams and Fancies

The Clerics of Yoharneth-Lahai are full of gladness, and their rest is untroubled. Soft are their robes and soft are their feet, and soft too are their words, for sleep is the field wherein Yoharneth-Lahai sports.

The Cleric of Yoharneth-Lahai pray to direct the dreams of men, to send them pleasant repose or the Terror of the Shadow of Mung. Many secrets of the heart are known to the Clerics of Yoharneth-Lahai.

Yoharneth-Lahai may set a veil before the eyes of Man, such that they may wonder whether they dream or wake. For in the desert, the Mirage is the dwelling-place of Yoharneth-Lahai. And some men are not troubled for long, for they say “This vision is but a passing fancy.” But some men grow quiet, and wonder if they live or dream, or if aught before their eyes has substance or mere appearance.

Yoharneth-Lahai knows the desires of men, and may tell his Cleric if a man be just or unjust, wise or foolish. A lying tongue shall not avail a man before a Cleric of Yoharneth-Lahai.

A Cleric of Yoharneth-Lahai may cry “Rest!” And the Man will rest, if it be the will of Yoharneth-Lahai.

These are the Workings of the Clerics of Roon

Roon, the God of Going

Footsore are the Clerics of Roon, and strangers in any land, for they never cease to wander. Loath are they to return to a place or cross a threshold twice, save by a strange and winding road. Yet weariness is not in their limbs, nor the agony of toil, for Roon walks with them.

Before the face of Man a Cleric of Roon may cry “Go!” And, if Roon so wills it, then shall go, and walk the Earth without rest, until they meet with Mung. And some may become Clerics of Roon on this journey, for the ways of Roon are long and arduous.

Knowledge of paths and roads hath Roon, and of far-off lands and distant deeds. No lock may bar a Cleric of Roon, nor rope bind him, nor snare entrap him unless it is the will of Roon.

The winds are subject to the word of Roon, and may be called up or sent away at the will or Roon.

And the Cleric of Roon may walk upon the water as if it were land, or the air as if it were stone, should it please Roon.

These are the Workings of the Clerics of Dorozhand

Dorozhand, Whose Eyes Regard the End

All men are slaves of Dorozhand, but some are chosen for purposes known only to Dorozhand. A man may be a shepherd one day and a Cleric of Dorozhand the next, and knoweth it not.

While Yoharneth-Lahai knoweth the secret of dreams and vain ambition, Dorozhand knoweth the secrets of times yet to come and times gone before, and the causes of things. Nothing save the secrets of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHA̅I̅ is kept from Dorozhand.

The knowledge of Dorozhand is terrible and true, and the Clerics of Dorozhand see much that they do not understand, or tremble to know. Great engines and the rustling of paper trouble the sleep of the Clerics of Dorozhand, and the Doom of Man, and the Last Fires, and the Slaying Mists, and other prophecies which the Clerics of Dorozhand keep from the ears of men lest they grow restless with foreknowledge. The fall of the dice of the gods sounds like thunder in the ears of a Cleric of Dorozhand, and they see what is writ thereon.

Dorozhand may whisper in the ear of his Cleric, saying what will happen, whether it be the outcome of a great battle or the fall of a die. Or he may withhold his knowledge, for the schemes of Dorozhand are subtle.

Dorozhand may make the Sign of Dorozhand before a man, that he may know both his beginning and his end, and all things between, and for what purpose he was made, and from whence sprang his joys and sorrows. And this knowledge crushes the Life of Man, as a millstone grinds meal. For Knowledge is the gift of Dorozhand, but never Hope.

And it may come to pass that a Cleric of Dorozhand enters a new city in a foreign land and finds a table prepared for him, and knows that it is the will of Dorozhand. For when the Prophet Ṣalmu-āru walked in the desert, he found a stick to aid him in his weariness, and he gave praise to Dorozhand, who planted the seed that became the tree that grew the branch that fell to the ground in the path of the Prophet Ṣalmu-āru. 

But when the Prophet Ṣalmu-āru fell into a pit, he did not praise Dorozhand, though Dorozhand had stirred up the men to dig for riches in that place, and set clouds before the face of the moon. And Dorozhand waxed wroth, and the Prophet Ṣalmu-āru swiftly perished.

MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHA̅I̅ - Sidney Sime

And whether there be Clerics of Hish and Jabim and Bofa and Triboogie and all the other gods save one, Zoz saw not, but he knew that there were no clerics of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHA̅I̅.

Sci-Fi: Unexpected Desirable Outcome

Paul Pepera

Unexpected Desirable Outcome

They’d let him name his ship. He picked “Hope”, after the virtue and after his sister. Translating Hope into Galactistandard was difficult, but they’d settled on “Unexpected Desirable Outcome.” A few alien consultants politely pointed out that if you didn’t expect an outcome, your prediction system was poor. Why would you admit that? But Wyatt liked the self-effacing implications.

UDO, his custom-trained voice assistant, woke him up three hours early with a non-emergency tone. He stuck an arm out of his sleeping sack and tapped at the nearest screen. A long transmission in Galactistandard appeared. An open broadcast, but it specifically named his vessel, along with every other vessel in system. The automatic parser had run into real trouble. Large portions of the message were highlighted in speculative yellow, and a few clauses weren’t translated at all. Wyatt switched to the raw Galactistandard, sighed, and got to work.

‘Hzoc’ is the species name. “Explorer Individual Hzoc Letien” right, that’s odd. Starts with a disclaimer, Request, no consequences. So even reading this doesn’t require a response of receipt. Dum dum dum dum... Request assistance... what’s this word? I’ll come back to it. Request assistance something something something manipulator size.... under 154cm total... I think that’s followed by...

Thirty minutes later, with a great deal of cross-checking, Wyatt worked it out.

“Medical assistance. Hzoc Letien is in medical distress and needs help. The issue is on the upper side of its body. The issue is physical in nature. The issue will kill them. The issue is not complex. Further instructions can be provided,” Wyatt summarized aloud.

The Orlo vessel Large Reflective Grub, the scout ship that had picked up his Hitchhiker Waiver and hauled him into this system, had already responded. “Reply: unable to assist. Clarification: regret.” Wyatt stared at the word.

Galactistandard did not make regret easy. If you took the time to respond to a message that did not ask for a response, said you were not going to help, and did not clarify why, then the regret was built into your response. To state it again was, as far as he could tell, an intensifier. Galactistandard was a language, not a physical law, and species used it in different ways. Even if the Orlo could help, the Large Reflective Grub was several thousand kilometers away, coasting towards another station in the ring of factories and solar collectors dotting this system's asteroid belt.

Could anyone else help? The Orlo were too far away, and the only other non-automated ship at this station was occupied – or, more accurately was – a hibernating Downlink Ball, waiting to be picked up by another ship in a few decades. Maybe he should have spent some time greeting the Hzoc, but he’d been enjoying a long conversation with the Orlo.

Wyatt opened the file on everything Humanity had recorded about the Hzoc. It wasn’t much. No images. No recorded contact. No connections. No rumours. Their habitability code listed a methane and nitrogen atmosphere at 0.3 bar and 45 degrees C. Not breathable... but workable. He could stick his bare arm into that without any issues, not that he wanted to.

“Reply: Human Explorer Individual Wyatt Anvar. Acceptance: tentative. Request clarification procedure. Request: tutorial. Request: images.” He copied in the standard human wavelength and resolution codes and sent the message. It wasn’t good Galacticstandard, but he hoped it would do.

“Fuck it,” he said out loud. He had no idea how long Hzoc Letien’s medical distress would continue before death, or its equivalent, intervened. They could already be dead. But it was him out there, he’d want to know that someone was at least trying to help. Wyatt brought up a system map. Hzoc Letien was docked to the station, on the same shadowed side but further down. Over a kilometer away. Invisible, at least to his eyes. Wyatt switched to the flight control panel, tapped the “undock and reposition” button, scrolled through the checklist, and confirmed.  

UDO turned off the magnetic plate and automatically pulled through the mooring wire. Wyatt thought about how lucky it was that hadn’t set up umbilicals or a more permanent connection. In under a minute he was free, typing a flight path frantically into the console. Slow, steady, and radar-guided. He locked rotation and distance to the station’s arm and puffed sideways at just over 2 metres per second. Above, blinking through the window, he could see UDO’s navigation light pulsing a general warning signal in Galactistandard. The randomized pause between code-pulses made it impossible to mistake the pattern for light glinting off a rotating ship.

A reply from the Hzoc, and it was a complicated one. Wyatt watched the parser chew on the files. A video! This was something new. He opened the file. The video was low resolution, around twenty seconds (if the parser had calibrated it correctly), and had no sound. A blurry blob in darkness. He fiddled with contrast and brightness settings, then replayed the file. Much better. Hzoc Letien was a green-grey... lump.

What’s the scale? If that’s the interior of the ship, it’d be about the size of a cow. Four limbs? The pod looked just as crowded as UDO, with curved metal panels and soft bundles of who-knows-what. He watched the creature move around the pod, brace itself against the walls, and loop two limbs around something unseen. Whatever it was pulling came free suddenly. The alien flew back. It collided with the edge of an open panel and flung its limbs out in a gesture that Wyatt interpreted as agony. The sharp edge of the panel had gouged a deep wound in the Hzoc’s back. No matter how it positioned its limbs, it couldn’t reach the wounded spot. Wyatt watched the video again. Pull a little too hard and something snaps, he thought. Could happen to anyone.

The message also contained a sequence of black-and-white images, presumably copied from the equivalent of Hzoc anatomy textbook. Lines, diagrams. Instruments. A clamp-like thing with grips like the end of a whisk. A blade. And, astonishingly, what seemed to be sutures. From the images, Wyatt finally acquired a firm sense of the Hzoc’s form. Six limbs, not four. Starfish-like. Two limbs, what Wyatt decided to call a “head” and “tail” were unique. The other four were identical. The four main limbs ended in filaments or ribbons. The underside of the Hzoc’s body didn’t contain a mouth. Not a starfish then, a plesiosaur, with fat flippers and a very short neck and tail.

The creature had no skeleton, just a series of plates along its back, under its skin... or its suit? One or more of those plates had shattered. The sharp edges were, presumably, digging into its flesh every time it moved. Was it just in pain? No, it had mentioned death. Perhaps the injury threatened the bladder system that ran through the creature. A few phrases from the initial message made more sense. The Hzoc were vacuum-adapted. If its skin couldn’t seal, it couldn’t leave its ship. All he needed to do was remove the broken plate or plates, then ladder-stitch the outer layer shut.

Wyatt flipped back through the messages, then spotted a little red warning dot at the end of the Hzoc’s atmosphere list. Methane, nitrogen, formaldehyde, not great, hydrogen cyanide, very bad, and in bright red, chlormethine. He tapped to expand the entry and was greeted with a wall of red text. Blistering. Death. Slow death. Fast death. Horrible full-body symptoms. What sort of insane biology produced chlormethine? The atmosphere code doesn’t list a percentage. Was it trace? A temporary product? Could he count on that?

“No leaks,” he mumbled. “And even if I could get my EVA suit into the Hzoc ship, and it didn’t dissolve or explode, I can’t do surgery with those thick gloves. The robotic arm? Maybe, but it’s not designed for atmospheric use either. I could wrap it in a bag, but then...”

Wyatt sent off another message. “Acceptance: continuation: tentative.” The grammar check lit up in yellow, but he hit the override and plunged on. “Request: time to death.” Galactistandard did not have a lot of room for bedside manner. “Request: tutorial: airlock Hzoc Letian vessel.”

The Hzoc vessel was visible now in the faint glow of UDO’s navigation lights. A long cross-braced arm covered in radiators, and fuel tanks and a nuclear reactor at the far end, with a pressurized grey cylindrical module attached to the station. It was hard to gauge its scale visually, but the screen showed that the pressurized segment alone was three time the size of the UDO. No windows, just the usual collection of lumps and aerials and ports.

“Reply: imprecise estimate: time to death [3 hours],” appeared on the screen, followed by a series of images. Hzoc technical drawings were even less comprehensible than their anatomical drawings, but the airlock seemed to be a sort of sheet or membrane. He’d seen a similar device in training; other species apparently used similar technology. An inch-thick sheet of goop with reinforcing strands running along one direction. Objects could slowly push their way through a sealed slit in the middle of the goop. Contiguous objects only; a pipe would still let all the air out.

The autonavigation system chimed, nulled velocity, checked for anything that might the hull, and carefully swung the UDO’s stern around, dropped and locked the magplate. The suitport was less than 10m from the Hzoc airlock.

“Not bad,” Wyatt said. “I’m here. Now to do something useful. Come on, brain.” He didn’t feel like a steely eyed missile man. He felt helpless and tired and stupid. In order to help, I need to get my arms into that capsule. The airlock design will help. Option 1, I use the EVA suit. Can’t use delicate tools. Wait, I can’t use the Hzoc tools at all, I think. Wrong finger shape.

He tapped out another message. “Inquiry: Hzoc atmosphere biology general react polytetrafluoroethylene, [stainless steel]?” and let the auto-parser chew on the statement for a few moments, converting English nomenclature to grammatical strings of Galactistandard. If Hzoc biology ate teflon, there wasn’t much he could do. Luckily, the response came back negative across the board.

Option 1, he mused. EVA suit arms in a Teflon bag. No dexterity. Option 2, robot arm in a Teflon bag. Even worse. Option 3. Give up. Option 4...

Teflon bag. Why had that popped into my mind all of a sudden? Teflon bag...

“Oh that is dumb,” he said aloud. “That is very, very dumb.”

He opened up the life support menu and initiated a depressurization program, from 1 bar down to 0.6 bar, and with extra oxygen cycled in. He set his EVA suit’s baseline values identically, but with a pure oxygen mix, even though the suit’s systems were currently dormant. As UDO’s fans spun up, he popped open the surgical kit, took out a handful of stainless steel instruments, and stuck them in a plastic pouch.

Sutures, he remembered. What are the chances human surgical thread is compatible with Hzoc biology? Zero. He opened the image of the Hzoc surgical tools, added a marker and boundary box, and sent it back with the note, “Request: make this.” He stuck the bag of instruments in the small sample airlock and cycled it to vacuum.

“Ok, Hzoc Letien, I have a plan,” he said. “Let’s see if I can describe it to you.”

Explaining a plan in Galactistandard had several advantages. It forced Wyatt to examine his assumptions, to check for ambiguities, to go through a procedure step-by-step. He gulped down oxygen-rich air as he typed, trying to push nitrogen out of his body. The plan made several assumptions, including that a species that put a nuclear reactor far away from their living space didn’t enjoy casually bathing in ionizing radiation, that a species that sent over diagrams and videos was, to some degree, sighted, and that Hzoc Letien wouldn’t do something violent or foolish. 

Hzoc Letien accepted, tentatively.

 

Wyatt opened a storage pouch and drew out one of the extra-large teflon bags stored inside. The bag was milky white, but still translucent between bands of with high-tensile polymer wires. In training, he’d seen one of these bags hold 1 bar of pressure in vacuum. Sealed with the locking plastic flaps and with tape, of course, but it held. If an alien wanted an in-situ sample of something from a pod, but the sample didn’t fit in a vial or jar, then a bag could, in theory, work.

He also grabbed a roll of sealant tape, slapped an anti-nausea patch on his arm, and started UDO on the pre-EVA checklist.

The suitport was a small airlock, bigger than the breadbox-sized sample airlock, and just large enough to fit one very uncomfortable human. The inner door was a plug door, designed to seal under the pressure of air in the pod. The outer door was locked against the back of the EVA suit, and opened inwards, into the tunnel.

Wyatt stuck his head into the space, opened the outer hatch, and began carefully taping the bag to the top of the ring of metal on the back of the EVA suit. He carefully creased the tape with his thumb. No gaps, no air bubbles.

After ten minutes, he retreated, then entered the tunnel and EVA suit feet-first, the correct way, sealing the inner door behind him. Working blindly this time, he taped the rest of the bag to the edge of the suit’s entryway, leaving a gap by his left kidney. Slowly, letting air escape through the gap, he pulled the bag in behind him until it was wedged in the small of his back, then closed the EVA suit’s door. He sealed the last bit of tape, rearranged his arms into their arm-holes, and checked his helmet displays. Everything looked good. Suit pressure of 0.6 bar, pure oxygen mix. “UDO, EVA door seal check,” he said. Servos whined as the door flexed inwards.

“Sealed,” UDO reported. 

“Decouple suitlock,” he said. The bolts around the back of the suit retracted. The inner plate of the door stayed attached to the ship, while the outer plate was attached to his back. He reached over and gently undid the clamp connecting his backpack to the ship, then, with great care, swung it closed. It clicked against his back, and a new set of lights blinked green in his helmet.

He turned and carefully opened the tiny sample airlock and removed the bundle of surgical instruments. Finally, he unclipped the safety line and, with one hand always clinging to part of his ship, climbed down to the enormous trusses that composed the arc of the station. The Hzoc ship isn't to port, he thought, it's up. And up he climbed. He could have pushed off and drifted, but what if he missed, or started to tumble? Even with the gyro in his backpack, it was too great a risk. His maneuvering pack could have puffed him over instantly, but it was another system that could easily fail. Best to minimize the risks, not compound them.

“UDO, cycle the air in the suit. Maintain pure oxygen mix, 0.6 bar,” he said. Better to lose some air and try to get the last bit of nitrogen out of his blood than to die in of a stroke. He could see a faint white cloud in his rearview camera as UDO flushed the suit, the hiss of new air entering, then silence.

The Hzoc ship was lightly textured, as if the outer shielding had been knit from thick wool and then sprayed with white paint. The airlock, or gooplock, was just above the station’s scaffolding, surrounded by the half-embedded rings he’d seen in the diagram. The outer protective door was open, as, to judge by the extremely faint light visible through the rubber-like sheet, was the inner door. Wyatt could see nothing inside the ship.

“UDO, switch radio to band 44,” he said. He could try tapping on the hull, but transmitting on the Hzoc’s frequency seemed quicker.

He clicked the press-to-talk button on the front of his suit. “Greetings: formal: Human Wyatt to Hzoc Letien” he said in rapid but carefully enunciated Galactistandard. “Declaration: location of this one is adjacent to airlock. Request: this one enter.

The Hzoc transmitted back and UDO read out the text. “Acceptance.”

Wyatt was surprised to feel a brief flicker of anger. He realized that part of him had hoped the creature would deny entry, or be dead already, or have come up with a better plan, or revealed that this was all a test put on by the Orlo or some other species. He knew it was just part of his mind looking for a way out. No way out now. He could always leave, of course... but who would he be if he left?

He pushed the bag of surgical tools into the goop, marvelling as they sunk through the layer of mysterious gel. Was it biological? Some extremely fancy polymer? The shadows inside the pod shifted.

“Tools,” Wyatt transmitted. No time for grammar.

He turned around carefully, facing his backpack towards the airlock. “UDO, unclip backpack lock,” he said. He swung the backpack away from the suit, locking it to his left in the position normally used for maintenance or docking.

“UDO, hold command. Set the desired pressure of the suit to 0.3 bar pure oxygen, but do not depressurize,” he said. “Repeat that back to me.” UDO dutifully repeated the instruction. “Perform command,” he said, and watched the indicator on his display reset, while the measured pressure remained constant.

Reaching to the bundles of tools on either hip, he clipped his left safety line to one of the rings around the airlock, clipped his right safety line to the opposite side, then repeated the process with his two utility lines.

“UDO. Hold command. Open EVA suit door.”

“Invalid command,” UDO said, “EVA suit is not docked. Opening the EVA suit door will cause the suit to depressurize.”

Oh no it won’t, he thought, because I have a teflon bag. Assuming the tape holds, and that it expands into the airlock, and that the bag doesn’t pop. What a stupid way to die. Here are the mummified remains of Human Explorer Wyatt Anvar. He stuffed himself into a trash bag. We don’t know why. Heh. Heh heh heh. Is this nitrogen narcosis? No, wait, the pressure is dropping, not rising. Get it together.

“Override. Hold command. Open EVA suit door.”

“Override accepted.”

“Request: Imperative: position Hzoc Letien to airlock increase to maximum. Position tools to airlock increase to maximum,” he broadcast.

“Acceptance,” came the response a moment later.

Wyatt pulled his arms out of the gloves and wedged them against his sides, then pulled his head down and hunched over. He wiggled to line himself up with the rearview camera, just barely visible if he looked up and into the helmet. “UDO, perform command,” he grunted.

The door swung open and slammed into the backpack, hard enough to rattle Wyatt’s teeth. He stretched backwards, like swimmer bouncing off the wall of a pool, pushing the bag towards the airlock. Alarms beeped frantically as the pressure dropped like a stone. Wyatt’s left knee flared in agony.

Directed by Wyatt’s arms, the bag slid into the airlock. “UDO override retract all lines,” he said, and the EVA suit’s servos began cranking the braided steel lines back onto their drums, forcing the suit’s entrance flush with the gooplock. “UDO lock lines,” he said, when he felt like he was close enough.

Well this was a fine place to be, he thought. Half in and half out of an EVA suit, bent over backwards, in a bag, in the dark. At least there are no leaks. And I’m alive. Somehow. He could see the Hzoc ship only dimly through the bag and his new mildly bloodshot eyes. Hzoc Letien was flattened against the opposite wall, with the bundle of tools clutched in one set of tendrils.

“Greetings,” Wyatt said aloud. Just in case, he signed with one hand. He suddenly realized that this was probably the first time Hzoc Letien had seen a human. What an awful first impression.

The alien gently cartwheeled around the craft and touched part of a bulkhead. Wyatt couldn’t see what it was doing, but a moment later, a screen lit up, flickered, and settled on a black-and-white Galactistandard pattern. “Greetings.”

Non-vocal then. It might still be able to hear me, since it was able to understand and reply to my radio transmissions. But I can’t help if I can’t see, he thought, and those bumps looks like lights.

 “Request: Increase radiation... blackbody full.” Wyatt said and laboriously signed. I hope that gets the point across.

The soft yellow glow slowly increased. When the pod was bright enough to see details, he said “Acceptance. Inquiry: acceptance.” Best to check if the Hzoc was comfortable.

“Acceptance,” flashed onto the display.

“Request: position Hzox Ld...” he signed, stumbling in his haste, “Request: position Hzoc here.” He wiggled his arms to show his limited range of motion, pinching his fingers together.

The Hzoc was larger than he’d expected, and as its bulk swung over him, he saw that its skin, or whatever coated it, was textured like asphalt. The cluster of red filaments on the end of each of its four legs, or what Wyatt had chosen to call legs, had a metallic sheen and square white tips.

And what was it using as an input device? A keyboard? He squinted at the bulkhead. More like an abacus or the volume dials on the front of my EVA suit. Strings of cylinders, rotating under the tendrils.

There’d be time for questions later. Hzoc Letien carefully positioned itself next to the bag. With the pressure inside the bag the same as the pressure inside the Hzoc vessel, Wyatt could, with great care, pinch and fold the bag enough to use the tools he’d brought over.

One of the Hzoc’s limbs passed over the bag. He saw, but did not feel, the filaments, move across the surface. Incredible control. Wyatt looked again. There was a black globe embedded in the softly tapered end of the limb, just above the tendrils. An eye? And was that little groove a mouth, a chemical sensor pit, or something else? He realized he’d have to revise his mental view of Hzoc anatomy yet again. Focus. Don’t anthropomorphize. See. Don’t project.

The Hzoc positioned itself very carefully, brought the arm with the tool bundle around, disassembled it, and handed a clamp to him. It was clearly reasonably intelligent and able to extrapolate. Wyatt stared at the jagged wound in the creature’s back tried to remember every step of the procedure. He was already sweating in the heat. The suit’s thermal system kept his legs cold, but his face was squished against 45 degree plastic.

It wasn’t difficult, just tedious and slow. The Hzoc’s skin had three layers: leather over rubbery sponge cake over a broken porcelain plate. With claps, forceps, and carefully drilled patience, Wyatt extracted splinters of glass and pushed them towards a waiting arm. Red tendrils caught the pieces and stowed them in a wall pouch.

Another arm passed him a cube of blue fibres, while yet another arm tapped out “Request: to liquid.” Assuming it was a sponge, Wyatt dabbed it along the wound. It seemed to absorb the clear oily fluid and leave behind blue flakes.

In training, he’d performed tasks like this (though perhaps not quite as difficult). He’d trained for frustration. Moving greased marbles with chopsticks. Rewiring a console in a vibrating, tumbling simulator. Mild torture. A hundred tedious, pointless, personalized tasks and tests designed to find and exceed his limits, so he’d learn to recognize and control fatigue, impatience, and fear. 

“Request: tool. Clarification: sharp with long long...” but the alien was already handing him the pre-prepared Hzoc needle and thread. Brass, or maybe a gold alloy? The scale was wrong. It was smaller than expected, and he struggled to use the steel needle holder. His eyes burned with sweat. At least the stitching was easy. The outer skin layer didn’t tear or stretch. All the while, the Hzoc watched with one or more arm-eyes. 

And then, finally, he tied off the last suture and passed back the needle. “Request: inspect this,” he gestured.

“Acceptable,” flashed the display panel. Then, more characters. “Request: place hexagon here.”

What hexagon? But the Hzoc was already extracting a package from a wall pouch. It carefully peeled a large hexagon covered in brown slime from a protective case, handed him a clamp, and positioned the sheet above the wound. Simple enough, he thought, as he did his best to position and smooth the dressing. 

“Request: time to death,” he signed.

The Hzoc shifted away from him. “Reply: unknown,” appeared on the panel.

“Reply: Desirable outcome,” Wyatt signed back, grammar be damned. The Hzoc’s tendrils waved all at once. Wyatt had no idea what that signified.

 

He caught his breath and considered his next steps. Suddenly, despite the heat and the exertion, his blood turned to ice. He felt sick. He’d made a terrible miscalculation.

With the bag inflated, he couldn’t close the back hatch, and if he couldn’t close the back hatch he couldn’t dock to the suitport. Even if he had the strength to pull the bag back into the suit, it was coated in who-knows-what horrible chemicals from the Hzoc and its atmosphere.

This really had been a stupid idea. He stared at the Hzoc, and it, uncomprehending, stared back at him.

He’d have to leave the bag behind, but the bag was the only thing keeping air in his EVA suit. If he squeezed the door mostly closed, and then disconnected the bag... He was glad he’d laid down the tape stepwise, so it could theoretically be removed in one pull. He’d still have to pass it hand-to-hand, behind his back. Not ideal.

“Request: imperative,” Wyatt signed, after what felt like an eternity. “Grip this.” He pushed a fold of bag towards the Hzoc. With one set of tendrils, it cautiously grasped the folded plastic.

“Request: imperative: maintain position of this,” he signed. “Request: imperative: not inside airlock.” He gently slid back into the EVA suit while the alien held onto the bag with a firm grip.

“UDO,” he said, “unlock lines.” The four wires connecting him to the Hzoc hull flexed slightly, but friction on their drums held him in place for now. He turned to the right, twisting gently, cautiously, to give him enough room to shut the rear door. Not enough. He unclipped two of the lines.

“UDO, switch to override mode, and close rear door to 5 degrees.” 0 degrees was locked, 5 ought to be enough. Servos droning, the door slowly swung closed. Wyatt twisted gently to keep the bag from tearing away from the suit prematurely. He could hear air hissing through a few tiny gaps in the tape.

“UDO, hold command. 5 second countdown, then close and lock the rear door.”

While he’d never experienced decompression, it had been part of his training. He breathed rapidly, then said, “Perform command,” and exhaled hard.

“Five, four, three,” UDO dutifully counted. Wyatt swung his arms and legs back and tore away from the Hzoc ship. He couldn’t tell if the bag tore free or not. Air rushed around his ears. The door pressed against his back. The bolts clicked closed. Over the frantic beeping of alarms, he could hear the life support system trying to restore pressure. He opened one eye and checked the pressure gauge. It was holding. His ears ached, but he otherwise felt no worse for wear. He turned slowly. The bag stuck out of the Hzoc gooplock like a tissue in a tissue box, flat, deflated, and detached, with a ring of tape around the edge. Wyatt whooped with joy.

“Statement: Human Explorer Wyatt Anvar is alive,” he shouted into his mic. He spent a few moments catching his breath and satisfying himself that his suit was truly sealed.

“Reply: desirable outcome,” Hzoc Letitan replied a moment later.

“Request: imperative: release thin white object,” he said, tugging on the bag. It slowly emerged from the gooplock. He debated what to do with it. He couldn’t bring it back inside the UDO, but if he let it go his hosts would probably be annoyed. He decided to postpone a decision.

Half an hour later, he was back inside his ship, exhausted but alive. His EVA suit was down to less than 20% stored air, but he could top up the tanks in a day or two. It didn’t seem to have taken any permanent damage, save for a few scrapes on the titanium frame. The pain in his knee from his less-than-optimal decompression routine was slowly fading. Air mix in the living module was back to normal.

“Request: informal: conversation in [four hours],” he typed. He had a thousand questions for the strange being he’d just met, but he needed to rest, to check his own systems just as carefully as he’d checked the UDO’s systems.

“Reply: acceptable.”

 

Three weeks later, Hzoc Letien emerged from its ship, which Wyatt had learned was also named Hzoc Letien, and carefully trundled down the station truss, gripping with two limbs at all times. One of its non-eye limbs was half-embedded in a bucket-like device which served as a radio transmitter, light source, manuvering unit, and toolbox. Currently, it contained a bag full of carefully cleaned and sterilized human surgical instruments.

The Hzoc crept its way along the Unexpected Desirable Outcome’s hull and peered into the window with one black eye. Wyatt waved. The red tendrils, like a fringe of hair or a bushy eyebrow, waved back.

Microfiction + Film Notes: Dune 2021

 

Take It To The Top

 "I'm sorry!" he squealed, holding his hands in the air. "It's not my fault!"

"What to you mean?" I said, doing my best to seem grim and resolved. In truth, my murderous rage had been replaced with a mixture of regret and pity. 

"I... well, there's no easy way to say this," he said, "but I automated my job a few years ago. The quarterly reviews are written by a program that takes your metrics and assigns them sentences from a lookup table. I know I shouldn't have done it, but it was..."

"Motherfucker!" I exclaimed, and he dove for the floor. When he cautiously stuck his head back up, I was already sitting, gun in my lap, giggling away. "You lazy bastard, I knew it! I thought you just copy-pasted old reviews."

"I did at first," he said, apologetically, "but this was quicker. You were a good worker, for what it's worth. Never had any complaints."

"That's because I automated my job years ago," I chuckled.

"That makes sense. Anyway, I wasn't the one who fired you. Not really. I got an email from the Department Manager saying we needed to cut staff, and I picked your name at random. Downsizing, the email said. I guess it's contagious because they fired me next. Look," he said, gesturing around the office. For the first time, I noticed the lack of decorations and the tragically overstuffed banker box in one corner. "It's my last day."

"Well let's go talk to the DM," I said. 

[Three Days Later]

"And it turns out nobody is responsible! Even the people who write the programs don't fully understand the programs. And what I want to know is," I said, waving an admonishing finger, "what you're doing about it! Is this the plan for your creation?"

God leaned forward, stroking His beard with one hand. "You aren't going to like this," He said, "but..."

Silicone Dreams

Silicone! Glass made flesh! A magical substance that bonds metal to glass, glass to plastic, plastic to cloth, cloth to wood, wood to metal. The alchemists dreamed of a universal solvent; instead, we created a universal glue. Secreted into every joint of a modern home, the connective tissue of whatever architecture is calling itself these days. Imagine a world where things had to fit together instead of nestling in a squamous bed of all-engulfing silicone. Cracks sealed, gaps filled, the home becomes a perfect capsule.

Lignin, that miracle polymer, made plants into titans. A few ambitious and temperamental bacteria eat lignin. Termites and cows don't; they're just sacs full of bacteria. That's how we got coal; the lag between lignin and anything that could eat lignin. We talk of rot as if it were some inevitable law, but rot is far more unnatural than rust. 

A tree can remain a tree only so long as it lives, pumped full of antifungal chemicals and healing sap. When defenses fail, rot sets in, and fungi have their day. But silicone will never rot, never be devoured by ambitious bacteria, at least not in the forseeable human future. Give it a few million years. Plastics and resins can burn and have some tasty-looking bonds; they'll be the first to go, but little pellets of silicone will roll around the world long after we are gone.

Or maybe, filled with regret, we will give bacteria a head start via directed evolution and turn them loose on the world. Silicone erodes easily but doesn't rot. Imagine a silicone beach bubbling between your toes. Squishy sand, immortal, vulnerable to light and time but not life. Silicone, reeking of acetone like a dying monk or casting off clouds of acetic acid, stimulating the appetite while remaining implacably inedible. All hail the glass made flesh!

Notes on Dune (2021)

Dune (2021) features concrete, the distant future, genetic memories, Navigators, and musings on human evolution. It had a 165 million USD budget and is 2.5 hours long. Dune is full of noise. Incredible, visceral sounds. Jumps from darkness to blinding light. It's not quite a hostile filmgoing experience, but I did feel like a pea in a tin can by the end of it. At least I could understand most of the dialogue. Cinematography by Greig Fraser (of Rogue One fame), using a lot of the same visual textures (for good or for ill). 

The Last and First Men (2020) features concrete, the distant future, genetic memories, Navigators, and musings on human evolution. It had a budget of [not much] and is 1 hour long.

The Last and First Men consists of a thrumming score, narration, an oscilloscope, and long black-and-white shots of the monuments of Yugoslavia. These monuments are famous on the internet. They're usually presented without context, mislabeled, or given entirely fictitious histories.

Is their use in The Last and First Men appropriate? I think so. The film is about deep time. Using decaying monuments whose meaning is largely forgotten, makes sense. It's hard to argue that they're being exploited for profit; the film grossed less than $10k at the box office.

The Last and First is a quiet, contemplative, hypnotic, arty film. As science fiction, it's as dated as its source material, but so is Dune. 

It's been a long time since I read the books and I don't have access to a local copy of the film, so these notes might be less coherent than usual.

Et tu, Brutalism?

Are the ships in Dune brutalist, or do they merely appear to be? Can a structure be brutalist without the context of the brutalist movement? Brutalism, as Kate Wagner says, is as much a "big mood" as a formal style linked to a particular period and to specific architects.

I don't know. It's not my area of expertise.

It's interesting that a concrete starship with crazing and pour layers and lumps of aggregate feels right - even intriguing - in 2021, but would have been completely ridiculous in the '70s. "You can't just film a retaining wall and pretend it's a space ship. Space ships are sleek and colourful, or if they're not, they're at least clearly technological."

Dune also has a peculiar blend of high and low technologies. Some ships hover as if by magic. Some require balloons. Some require wings. Some feel like they're steered by holographic controls or mind-links. Some have buttons and toggle switches like a '60s helicopter. It's all a bit odd. Why use flappy ornithropters or hot air balloons when the spice harvester scout pods hover like many indie developers without any visible means of support? The divide is not consistent; the high-resource Sardaukar use balloon-ships. What are the rules of this setting?

Low Gravitas Warning Signal

The film can't decide if it's using formal language or not. Some conversations are stylized, some are full of contractions and generic Hollywood filler dialogue. All the actors are competent, but there's a tiny nagging sense that they're winking at the camera and saying "we're in a film, isn't this all a bit silly".

This is odd because Dune is an immensely serious film. There's no comic relief. I don't mean Whedon-esque quips and banter, I mean anything that relieves tension and allows the film to build momentum again. The closest it comes is landscape shots. If you're going to go full serious, commit! Put the Opera back in Space Opera. Write dialogue that uses the English language to its full extent, and get some classically trained actors to deliver it. They're used to saying very silly things with gravitas.

Containment and Contentment

It would be interesting to see a film that contains its own sequels, in the form of flash-forwards and prophecies. We know how Dune plays out. Revenge. Blood. Triumph. Etc. We might not know the details (and some of those details are fucking weird, but the basic plot is clearly and unambiguously given to us in the first film. We don't need to see the love story; we've seen it. We don't need to see the revenge-murders; we can imagine them them. It's a retelling of the same story. We know how it ends.

It would be amazing (and impossible) for Dune Parts 2 and 3 and Maybe More to take a different direction. Dune (2021) isn't telling a story. It's portraying historical events. Any deviation feels like alt-history. Sure, scenes get cut and details get changed, but it's still Dune, in the same way that the Christmas Carol is the Christmas Carol. But they could do it. They could introduce a twist or two that nobody who's read the books or seen the other films expects. Give the Spacing Guild a subtle plot of their own. Introduce another Great House. Change Paul's attitude towards the Golden Path. Bring back Thinking Machines. They won't (the cowards), but they could.

It's also interesting that this version of the story cuts the CHOAM corporation, or any corporate aspects, out of the script. It's an entirely feudal affair, not capitalism-as-feudalism. There's still talk of profit and loss, but no directorships or all-consuming commercial power. Imperialism is fine as long as it's the right kind of imperialism. Resource extraction is fine as long as it's done by nice people.
 

Ambivalent Schemes

The Atreides are nice to the Fremen because they want to use them. Their strategy is subtler than the Harkonnen burn-and-oppress tactics, but they're not winning hearts and minds for their own sake. They want an army for ambitious political reasons; the Fremen could be manipulated to be that army. The film vaguely presents this as a good thing. Rebellion against the system is only intolerable until the system can utilize the rebellion.

"The Holy war is spreading across the universe like an unquenchable fire. A warrior religion that waves the Atreides banner in my father’s name. Fanatical legions worshiping at the shine of my father’s skull."

It's not their cause. It's just another move in the game of the great houses. Will the sequels address this in any meaningful way? Probably not. Critique the savior-narrative, but still go along with it, because it's fine as long as you feel guilty.

OSR: Thomas Infolded

Straight from a nightmare I had.

Thomas Infolded is, by most definitions, a cannibal. He eats people. Technically, he infolds them. He weighs twenty two and a half tons, but he can fly.

And he looks just like anyone else.

Imagine the outline of a human being on a sheet of paper. That's a normal person.

Thomas has the same outline, but the paper inside the outline is crinkled and warped and extends backwards and forwards. There's more surface area. There's more Thomas. A lot more Thomas.

He eats people by touching them and folding them into his body. For a few seconds, they look like they're falling into his flesh, as if he's much farther away (and much larger), or they're shrinking. And then there's a ripple and warp and he's whole again.

He eats people to gain their memories and their powers. He's a polymath. He speaks most languages. He's a very powerful wizard (but keeps it hidden in his infoldings, so you'd be hard pressed to detect it from a distance).

Stab him, and fresh hearts swim to the surface. Thomas's outline is human, but the filling isn't. Not really. Not anymore.

Thomas has a lot of HP. Physical damage is irritating but rarely dangerous. He's eaten people who can regenerate; he heals very quickly. He's hard to assassinate; his infoldings have eyes in all directions. He's hard to poison and hard to trick. He can fake his own death (he's done it more than once).

It might be possible to kill him by letting him eat someone unpalatable or fundamentally unstable.

He's strong, but not overwhelmingly strong. There's only so much muscle you can cram into a human-shaped outline. He's smart, but his brains still take time to process information.

But he's been alive for a long time. He's eaten several immortals. He's not done eating yet.

Space Out of Colour

A bit of microfiction in the style of Things by Peter Watts.

Massive spoilers below the cut for Colour out of Space (2019) by Richard Stanley.