distant regions of this universe.
Frequent mentions of the “Gateway of Life” may be a reference to a naturally occurring rift in space that permitted instantaneous travel between these planets, allowing for the possibility of close interaction between species of very different cultural development.
A further reference to the “Faint and Haunting Web of Minds” also suggests the hypothesis that empathetic connection between sentient beings may have occurred through the rift itself, implying that all these cultures had evolved with a dim but compelling sense of the existence of other minds in other places.
An attempt to destroy the Death Ship was made by all 5,444 species acting in concert, by “Webbing the Evil into a State of Grace and Kindness,” which implies an attempt to harness the power of empathy to redeem and “de-evil” the marauding Death Ship and its crew.
This attempt evidently failed; the universe is now a ghost of possibilities; and no trace of the Gateway of Life or the Faint and Haunting Web of Minds remains in the aridness of this once fertile and endlessly astonishing universe.
Lost Civilisation: 5,900,300
The history of this civilisation is recorded as a 34,334,333 hour film archived here.
The text which accompanies this film, which is approximately four billion words long, is archived here.
For the purposes of this summary log, here is the opening paragraph: We are defeated. You are the victors in this battle. And yet you know no mercy, and no respect; merely contempt. We have abased ourselves before you and you have shown us contempt. We have enslaved ourselves to you and you have shown us contempt. We have pledged ourselves to you, and you have shown us contempt. We have offered you our lands, our wealth, we have offered to execute all our leaders and soldiers and leave only the civilians and the weaker sexes alive, and you have ignored us, and hence shown your contempt. So let it now be understood: We damn you. We curse you. We invoke all the demons in the myriad demon dimensions to eat your souls. We show our contempt for you, we shit on you, we piss on you, we eat you and shit you out then piss on you, we… [etc]
Lost Civilisation: 11,900,300
These sentients were biped and prided themselves on art generated by bioluminescent energy, and firework displays that sometimes lasted for years.
Relics left by this civilisation include the image of a map of the universe which shows a single planet at the centre of a universe of stars, indicative of a pre-technological society without sophisticated astronomical apparatus. This is at odds, however, with certain fragments in the data trail, where there are references to colony ships settling multiple planets and ruling the universe.
These stories may of course be fictional, a legacy of a society that dreamed of settling the stars but never did so.
This civilisation is unique in that there is no record of it having encountered the Death Ship prior to cessation of its reality.
For an account of the end of this universe and surmises about its possible causes, read the files archived here and here.
The second of these files consists of a long account by an artist from this civilisation called Minos which is of considerable interest to this archive. It contains details of a war between his people and a species they called the Parakka; tall creatures with a single eye and claws for hands and with three tongues which hiss when the creature speaks. The memoir begins with the words: Hate me if you like. I care not. Love and hate are just illusions. Death is the only truth. And I should have died a long time ago. I wish indeed that I had. For I have sought death; I have taken bold and reckless gambles; I and my crew have fought wars that we could not possibly have won, and we have won. When I do eventually die, this voice recording will be left as a trace in the folds of space. It will be found, one day, by some explorer ship or other. And my story will be known. The greatest story in the history of all the universes. So my words will live for ever, but I care not for that. I just want to die. This is why I am dictating this, my suicide note, my declaration of defeat.
It is not clear what these last lines mean; the rest of the broadcast is partially corrupt, and is currently being studied by Star-Seeker Jak who for some reason takes a particular interest in the Parakka and in this lost civilisation and claims he will one day be able to decipher the rest of the story.
BOOK 9
Sai-ias
My world was chaos.
I had returned to the interior world from the hull bay to find the lake emptied of water, bodies strewn all around; and a vast fissure stretching across the Great Plain. But gravity had been restored; and now the shattered bodies of the dead and injured in the attack lay on the grass and savannah and in the muddy lake bed, rather than hovering in mid-air as before.
“Sai-ias.” A flutter of wings by my head; Lirilla was still with me.
“Save me,” Lirilla said, in acknowledgement of the fact I had saved her. Though she did not know why; for she had no notion we had been friends for hundreds of years.
“Quipu? Fray? Doro? Are they safe?” I asked.
She knew the names of these beasts of course. And obediently, Lirilla vanished, and returned.
“Quipu, safe,” she said.
“Fray? Doro?”
“No Fray. No Doro.”
She had been around the ship and back in the blink of an eye; I knew she could not be wrong.
Quipu was safe; but Doro and Fray were missing; fallen, or so I feared, through the crack in our world.
“Sai-ias?” said Lirilla anxiously.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“Lirilla, fear, full,” said Lirilla.
“You’re safe, you’re safe. I’m here now.”
“Lirilla, wish, dead.”
“What are you saying sweet bird?”
“Lirilla, wish, dead-ship.”
“Me too. Me too.”
But the attack had failed; the Ka’un were still alive.
We spoke of it that night, Quipu and Lirilla and I, in the hours after the disaster; in a series of rambling and repetitive dialogues.
“No need to ask who,” said Quipu One. “We know who.”
“Some lost civilisation,” added Quipu Two.
“Seeking revenge,” added Quipu Three.
“From this universe or from some other universe?” asked Quipu Four.
The Quipus together intoned: “We will never know.”
“It must have pursued us,” said Quipu Three, “for-who knows how long.”
“And yet it failed,” Quipu One pointed out.
“It tried, at least,” said Quipu Three. “There’s grandeur in that. My own people-well. We were so powerful and yet-we-”
“Gone,” said Quipu One, “like a light being switched off; all our people, gone.”
“Ground, healed?” said Lirilla. For earlier that day the crevasse that had opened up in the grasslands slowly, over the space of several hours, had closed.
“I do not know how that could have happened,” admitted Quipu Four.
“Magic,” I said.
“Not magic,” contradicted Quipu Two. “Some kind of force-field effect.”
“?” said Quipu Five, who was struggling to keep up with the discussion.
