Arek'Jaalan: Electric Sheep Production Update

Production continues apace on several components of the Electric Sheep project.


Planetary Materials

Our colony on Aphi IV is producing many materials envisioned as relevant to creation of infomorphic sheep. We also seek to glean insight into the history of the Takmahl from this temperate world, located in the same system as the Labyrinth. Although we have yet to discover substantial ruins, let alone technological relics, it stands to reason that the ancient sect made some use of Aphi IV. Project components produced so far include:

Nano-Factories: 13
Wetware Mainframes: 28
Robotics: 9
Biotechnology Reports: 114
Synthetic Synapses: 285
Gel Matrix Biopaste: 33
Transcranial Micro Controllers: 132


Takmahl Technology

The Takmahl were not known for infomorphism. However, their expertise in biotechnology and cybernetics applies to scanning and interface controls necessary to support infomorphism. At this time, the following materials have been recovered from the Museum Arcana in Zimse:

Takmahl Dynamic Gauge: 3
Takmahl Phrenic Appendix: 1
Takmahl Cohere Cord: 6
Takmahl Diamond Rod: 3
Takmahl Solid Mox: 1
Takmahl Ritual Texts: 2
Takmahl Binary Texts: 12
Takmahl Fractal Sheets: 12


Sleeper Tech

Sleeper Civilization of course serves as the inspiration for this project, and developed substantial expertise in both infomorphism and virtual reality. Although we have made numerous forays into Sleeper space, most have been in covert ships tasked with documenting the civilization's architecture. However, the following items have been recovered:

Sleeper Neural Network Analyzer: 8
Sleeper Data Library: 4


Blood Raider Technology

The Covenant descends from Amarr and Takmahl traditions, and the Raiders prosecute aggressive "farming" of organic entities (such as humans). Their scientists are naturally known for the expertise in breeding programs. Five have been acquired from Raider laboratories in Munory. Other materials of note include high technology treatises; and, the peculiar "bug ridden corpse" - an application of highly invasive cybernetics.

Although sheep do not represent typical targets of Blood Raider experimentation, introduction of cybernetics into living organisms overlaps with our objectives. Of course, our success criteria depend upon being able to compare the original animal with successive infomorphs, and so we must necessarily apply our cybernetics in a manner minimally disruptive to the psychological health of the target.

Scientists: 5

Classic Doctrine: 1
Formation Layout: 1
Sacred Manifesto: 1
Bug Ridden Corpse: 2


Other Technology

Some other high technology items recovered may provide inside into circuitry to support infomorphism. These include:

RAM Electronics: 2
RAM Robotics: 1
RAM Weapon Tech: 1


Datacores

While datacores are traditionally used in the production of military equipment, principles and processes contained within may provide insight into applications of relevant disciplines to our present purpose. Currently, we have engaged three research agents, spread across Viziam and Ishukone; we intend to add a forth shortly.

Pertinent datacores produced so far include:

Amarrian Starship Engineering: 31 (relevant domain: neural interfacing)
Mechanical Engineering: 54 (relevant domain: robotics)
Nanite Engineering: 8 (relevant domain: nanite scans; brain refabrication)

Active Researchers:

Bikan Uanen (Molecular; Viziam)
Gatan Falboudih (Nanite; Viziam)
Poirmavas Isoya (Electronic; Ishukone)

Arek'Jaalan: The Tech 2 Cow

After taking notice of Project Electric Sheep, fellow Arek'Jaalan contributor Valarie Valate directed me to the work of Anneka Tong, who sometime ago developed a cybernetic cow. Given the clear parallels with my "infomorphic sheep," I contacted Ms. Tong, and she kindly responded with several details of her venture.

One element in her response struck me in particular.

Rather than present the cow's mind with imaging of its actual environment, or a fanciful virtual one, she opted to translate reality into imagery the cow would "understand." In place of asteroids, the creature saw fields of grass. Actions the cow would then take to move and eat became signals to the mining barge's motion and laser controls.

Such an environmental translation would apply well in an infomorphic setting. One can imagine ships crewed by infomorphic "animals," manipulating controls through execution of their natural physical activities. Falcons might gather intelligence; hounds might give chase. Many animals - dolphins, ravens, octopi - demonstrate remarkable capacity for learning and problem solving. Infomorphic projections of such creatures might circumvent difficult problems with artificial intelligence. It may even be that rogue and Sleeper drones derive some of their cognition in part from such a technique.

Arek'Jaalan: Project Electric Sheep

Introduction

Many researchers postulate Sleeper civilization included "infomorphic entities." Although the nature of such entities has not been conclusively established, we tentatively envision them as previously human organisms which transferred brain functions to artificial media. Current cloning technology makes use of such media to move a totality of brain functions between clones, which can be considered an application of infomorphism. However, such transfers appear to leverage artificial media for only relatively brief periods.

We therefore propose to study sustained infomorphism.

In this context, "sustained" shall mean brain functions persist on artificial media, without degradation, for arbitrary periods of time. We mean to explore both passive and active infomorphism. Passive infomorphism shall encompass the storage, transfer, and replication of brain functions as static files. Active infomorphism shall encompass conscious interaction with environmental objects, both virtual and real.

Many risks preclude human subjects, and so we propose to use livestock - in this case, the durable high plains Athran Karakul. They're just so fluffy. While such animals may not exhibit the same cognitive functioning as humans (though this is arguable...), the highly adaptable creatures do process information, and their behavior can be compared with a base state. As research advances, progressively more capable organisms may become desirable infomorphic platforms.

Experiment Overview

Because we wish to compare subjects before and after infomorphic translation to ensure degradation does not occur between episodes, flash scans that destroy the central nervous system are not helpful. Moreover, they're just so fluffy.

Consequently, we shall instead infuse the target central nervous systems with nanite markers. These will measure biochemical activity, transmitting data along neural weaves to nodes communicating with external sensors. Modeling software will store data recovered from these sensors. A second nanite family will be programmed to read marker information, and to use such data to reconstruct nervous systems through gel matrix pastes, synthetic synapses, and cloned organic material.

In this way, we will realize mind transfer between clones of Athran Karakul without harm to the original animals. With a basic demonstration in place, it then becomes possible to explore applications such as multiple conscious instances of the same animal; and, extended states of infomorphism, both active and passive. Finally, aggressive techniques might explore adaptation of an animal's central nervous system to control of advanced robotics.

Research Aims

For static infomorphism, there will be no modeled neural interaction. Static infomorphic data will be subjected to transfer and duplication to establish the robustness of organisms moving between infomorphic and organic states; and, to establish multiple organic instances of identical brain function. Successful static infomorphism requires that, upon being "written back" to an organic nervous system, each instance of the organism express voluntary and involuntary responses within accepted deviations from behavior observed prior to infomorphic translation.

By demonstrating static infomorphism, we will show how an infomorphic entity could "survive" in an spore-like state as long as its storage remained undamaged.

In contrast, active infomorphs (and capsuleers) depend upon an industrial apparatus that is significantly more complex than "just" storage for their "immortality." Furthermore, active infomorphs and capsuleers are more vulnerable to environmental threats, such as mutation and infection, as well as the oppressive boredom of passing centuries. Of course, static infomorphs are vulnerable to the destruction or degradation their media. However, less complex constructs present fewer failure points than more complex ones, and static infomorphism would represent an attractive way to "sleep" away thousands of years.

For active infomorphism, software modeling will simulate brain functions. Success requires cognitive functioning at levels within acceptable deviations from the original mind. Furthermore, the karakul must not develop psychological illness while in an infomorphic state, such as depression, paranoia, or psychosis (at least to the extent animal psychology can identify such conditions; at the very least, organic brain functions can be compared on an electrochemical level). When "written back" to an organic nervous system, the active infomorph must exhibit complete involuntary process recovery, and must exhibit cognitive functions consistent with its prior state plus learning gained while infomorphic. Active infomorphs should also demonstrate the ability to adapt brain functions to variations in biological and artificial host structures.

If active infomorphs maintain brain function without degradation or illness, many applications arise - including agelessness, advanced industrial control, and recovery from catastrophic injury or disease.

Methodology

Establish livestock cohorts in a controlled planetary environment.

Develop non-destructive nanite-based neural scanning mechanism.

Develop modeling applications to store nanite scan data.

Develop reconstructor nanites to constitute stored neural data in organic matrix.

Develop organic matrix of biopaste and sythentic synapses to reconstruct nervous system.

Data Assessment

Train cohorts to respond to distinguishable stimuli.

Scan karakul central nervous systems using nanite markers.

Store scanned nervous systems on diverse media.

Clone original animals with substitute matrix-based nervous systems.

Apply neural reconstructors to substitute matrix.

Test clone responsiveness against previously trained stimuli.

Observe and document animal physiology and psychology.

Some Relevant Materials

Gel-Matrix Biopaste (Oxides, Biocells, Superconductors)
Oxides (Oxidizing Compound, Oxygen)
Oxidizing Compound (Reactive Gas)
Superconductors (Plasmoids, Water)
Biocells (Biofuels, Precious Metals)

Synthetic Synapses (Supertensile Plastics, Test Cultures)
Supertensile Plastics (Oxygen, Biomass)
Test Cultures (Bacteria, Water)

Biotech Research Reports (Nanites, Livestock, Construction Blocks)
Nanites (Bacteria, Reactive Metal)
Livestock (Proteins, Biofuels)
Construction Blocks (Reactive Metals, Toxic Metals)

Hazmat Detection Systems(Polytextiles, Viral Agent, Transmitter)
Polytextiles (Biofuels, Industrial Fibers)
Viral Agent (Bacteria, Biomass)
Transmitter (Plasmoids, Chiral Structures)

Nano Factories (Industrial Explosives, Ukomi Superconductors)
Industrial Explosives (Fertilizer, Polytextiles)
Ukomi Superconductors (Synthetic Oil, Superconductors)

Wetware Mainframes (Supercomputers, Biotech Research Reports, Cryoprotectant Solution)
Supercomputers (Water-Cooled CPU, Coolant, Consumer Electronics)
Biotech Research Reports (see above)
Cyroprotectant Solution (Fertilizer, Test Cultures, Synthetic Oil)

Time Frame

Because of the need to monitor behavior of animal cohorts for extended periods to ascertain impact of infomorphic translation, research will necessarily stretch months or years into the foreseeable future.

Current Status

Several planetary colonies are now producing relevant materials. Over a dozen nano factories (to produce necessary marker and re-constructor nanites) have been developed, as has a parallel array of 28 wetware mainframes (to store infomorphic data and perform neural modeling). Roughly a hundred biotechnical research reports detailing characteristics of initial cohort responsiveness to nanite marker have been generated.

We are in the process of amassing more livestock, increasing reserves of biopaste and synthetic synapses, and fabricating precautionary hazardous material detectors.

No infomorphic translations have yet been attempted.

Lupe Sebiestor - Part IV

The Hotel Lux-Tarantor anchored one of Crystal Boulevard’s terminus points, fusing every cultural meme in the galaxy into a towering wedding cake of beams, arches and domes. Because her decorative arts conveyed inclusion so extravagantly, Quafe booked the edifice to host persons of interest during each capitol performance. Sebastain Ecce, the corporation’s chief marketing officer, stepped crisply through vaulted salons at the summit. Glitterati buzzed congratulations as he passed. The “Winds of Change” Tour was his brainchild. Earlier stops in Caldari and Matari space continued to resonate. What would Amarr bring? Ecce smiled over his unvoiced concerns: what, indeed?

Watching from streets, balconies, and catwalks embracing the Boulevard was on one level even better than being aboard the liner: not as exclusive, but the audiovisual stimulation could not be matched. Cyclopean structures and atmospheric projectors waited upon Producer General’s command to unleash the most advanced immersive experience imaginable. Moments from curtain, Ecce migrated with his luminous guests toward the soaring windows. Staring into the Boulevard’s gullet, even the jaded anthropologist felt pangs of anticipation. “My privilege and honor to present,” Saroux’s distant voice intoned, “Lady Ghiselle Arghelos.”

Painted in flashes of light and swaths of darkness, amplified by lossless speaker rigs that eschewed all distortion, Sophia’s Requiem soared over a sultry night’s metropolis. If perhaps indifferent to Amarr’s superstitions, fashionable youth certainly appreciated the tectonic force of that choral thundering – gloriously accentuated by Producer General’s abstractions of charging, luminescent stallions. The power of the soprano’s voice did not require an understanding of the ancient words sung; and miles tall, her Amarratti veil transformed into titanic leviathans. At such scale, Sevat’s mandalas traced labyrinths of streaked henna. Ecce dictated a cybernetic memo: he wanted mandalas on models by morning. As Ghiselle’s exhortation of the divine built to its climax, Etienne Saroux drew a solar eclipse on the horizon with the bewildering brushes at his disposal. Confronted by a vocal cascade from a hole in the sky, the assembled millions questioned their previous indifference: if there was a God and that God had a voice, it certainly sounded like this. Light faded; the mob contemplated.

“It’s said,” Ecce observed wryly, “all Amarr wants from music is to listen for God in darkness.”

After several minutes, Luminaire’s stirring quiet shattered abruptly beneath the heavy feet of Qaim Bok. The gargantuan Brutor beamed his expansive smile, laughed his booming roar, and set the stage on fire. Dressed in brassy plates from head to foot, the giant and his dancers interpreted lost hymns as Imperial fleet formations. His audience, transfixed through the first act, remembered how to dance. Faster and faster, stronger and stronger, Bok pushed them to the edge of stamina and chased his cast from the stage. As flames died, he ended with his own telling of the Twin Wolves. Echoing the requiem’s crescendo, Bok maintained a howl on his voluminous lungs, leaving the city Moon to replace eclipsed Sun.

Moonlight suited Zan Mareiyaa.

The wizened Achura pulled an antique bow across his stringed contraption – members of his precise quintet following in turn – and a chill tickled the humid night. Mareiyaa sang in sonic greys, the sound of an ink painting. Lights softened to blue and rust. The audience visualized frozen seas and wind through ancient trees. This was the land of the Twin Wolves on another world, where the snow leopard stalked perpetual twilight as mountain queen. Most consistent of the “Four Winds” in his approach, Mareiyaa inspired awe through a voice like advancing glaciers and inhuman mastery over his instrument. His technique confused minds into seeing what they heard. He did not end with voices falling from the sky or Fenrir’s cry, but the sound of an owl gliding over snow.

Three stunning performances, and accolades directed at Ecce by his guests reached fevered pitch. Who but the Wizard of Brand could have anticipated everything progressing so well? Politely excusing himself from the peak, Ecce took advantage of a long intermission before the finale to descend toward the street. He wanted to feel how much trouble they were in. Already, neural links hummed with conjecture from pundits: that editor had a point way back when, didn’t he? Charming and talented as the pop star might be, Babelle did not belong on the same stage as these three. The best “Quafe’s Boy” could do now was to avoid mistakes and prepare for a triumphant home opening.

But there were rumors the idol planned a “surprise,” weren’t there? Ecce understood that completely containing Babelle’s intentions would have been impossible. At least discipline held to “rumor.” How would it turn out? The Wizard of Brand lived in odds, and odds told him Babelle would stumble in front of the universe. Ecce and his team would then work feverishly for redemption above Luminaire: classic formula, triumph of the underdog, etc. – like they planned it.

Still, failure hurt.

In the thick of the crowd, Ecce felt dawning apprehension. Gallente’s prideful revelers understood the charismatic celebrity representing them was seventeen. Yes, the boy was an accomplished dancer of extreme physical attractiveness. But he could not match what they had just seen. The crowd further understood this meant the Federation was about to be embarrassed by a concert only it made possible. The others would never have tried. The Tour was meant to unite, and unite the others would… in mocking Federal culture.

“And finally,” rumbled Saroux’s magnificent Gallente voice, “Javierre Babelle.”

Projections focused initially on red mist, then fell to a muscular arm stretching to a hand twirling scissor-like knives: “hell cicadas.” Attached to a central ring, the blades faced one another and could spin about quickly, producing a harsh sound as they rubbed. Useless in combat, the weapon served as a totem for ritualistic torture popular with Raider Covenants. Gasps preceded a quickening thrill – and dread. To open Red and Gold, D’har Mec snapped two cicadas like grim castanets. But popular as the story’s adaptations were in the Federation, few considered it “high art.” This could end badly. The projections retreated to fully reveal Babelle – drenched in crimson and wrapped in his little vine. The screaming started then. The star’s ardent fans surged to press hands against any surface touched by his image. Ecce considered such displays unhealthy and demeaning, but relaxed somewhat. The mob had been shown a vision of paradise, and that it seemed would be enough for them.

“That’s one question answered,” clucked a Gallente pundit smugly. “The young gentleman does not stuff his pants after all.”

Ecce brushed Federation commentators from his mind. The crowd’s reaction was enough. What did the others think? Matari sounded bemused. Caldari held their opinions. A.C.N. cut to a distinguished Ni-Kunni choreographer. Did he have something to do with this? “Only a small part,” the man insisted. Perran Soif emerged and the crowds went insane. If anyone could pull this off, it was her! Layered in diamonds and gold, the actress struck a pose. Spectacular costumes accounted for half the role’s great difficulty. Because Babelle’s strongest talent fell in dance, the production stuck to a strict interpretation of Amarr’s royal ballet – no singing required. The severe posture and precise motions of that style, however, created a death trap for outsiders. They frequently fell into parody; or, to avoid that, remained timid. No one doubted Babelle’s skill in “street trickery” could meet the technical challenge, but few believed the teenager could restrain an urge to camp it up.

The Blood Dance progressed as challenge and answer in Flamenco Torsad. Manipulating the cicadas came easily to Babelle’s dexterity. As he slashed, mist exploded to symbolize a torturous strike against some hanging victim. However, blades were not Mec’s primary weapon against the princess. He communicated lethality through muscle tone, shifting the tension beneath his skin: strong, quick and focused. It was an advanced technique Ghiselle recognized as second nature in Bunnibal. Babelle learned quickly, and almost possessed a body to match. Slash stomp kick, other dancers fell to spinning blades as he circled Naboahe, grazing her with lethal tips.

The princess had none of his threats, however, and pounded her own seductive rhythm. Behind him like a cloak, she held Mec’s arms with her hands to still the blades, pulled down onto his chest, and lower. Along Crystal Boulevard, the jet turbine of adoration screamed into higher revolutions. Saroux played the crowd, shifting cameras around the idol to taunt with quick visions of all they could desire – and then away. How the faithful howled! Ecce retreated to the Lux-Tarantor. There would be no need for an underdog’s redemption. Babelle would simply triumph.

The boy did make mistakes. With each, Soif grabbed a tender spot, and in that same gesture revitalized her costar and focused the crowd elsewhere: look what I have! Finally, A.C.N. wondered aloud if the Ni-Kunni monopoly on Mec was in danger. Not yet, their choreographer demurred. Yes, Babelle performed well; but Perran Soif was a woman possessed. Perhaps Ghiselle Arghelos had actually trained her replacement. Watching from sidelines, the diva smiled. She had not obsoleted herself, but furthered the art – and tied a second interstellar superstar to her House.

The ballet blurred through conquests to a final dance. Cardinal Tezzan’s fleet had pinned the lovers in a forsaken pocket of Querious. On a haunting set, they waltzed together with apparitions of their legion victims, brushing each with liquid sensuality. Having been dominated by Naboahe to this point, the time had come for Mec to turn the tables. For that, Babelle leveraged his physical experience with the Lupe, pressing Soif with such insistent subtlety that light years away, adoring multitudes melted imagining the touch. One hand behind firmly, fingers gentle against her forehead, Mec dropped into a tender kiss. On Luminaire, the screaming faded into whimpering, frozen silence. Cardinal Tezzan’s brilliant fusillade commended the sinners to Hell – and Javierre Babelle to history. At last the ancient choreographer conceded: his people’s monopoly on Mec had ended in a Gallente teenager. “But,” the man smiled, “only through the relentless will of two uniquely gifted women.”

But the Federation saw only triumph – and in relief, was happy to share.

Lupe Sebiestor - Part III

The “Four Winds” set course for Amarr and Javierre Babelle became a fixture in Ghiselle’s breakfast nook. The young star wanted to emulate her Pator surprise, to shake expectations – break the box! But the risk unnerved him. For Amarr, his staff planned a magnificent ball with waltzes, tangos and fox trots. It would sizzle with chic fun. Everyone would clap and the critics would write pleasing reviews of a good time had by all. Babelle did not want to fail those who put so much into making him a star by falling on his service mark.

Did that mean he should stay in the box?

Ghiselle insisted they spend the rest of the morning watching “Red and Gold.” The story of the Sani Sabik D’har Mec and Princess Naboahe had ruled Amarr’s musical stage for centuries. At the play’s outset, Mec ambushed Naboahe’s transport, murdered her crew one by one, and showered in their blood. Naboahe used that time to seduce her captor and turn him against political rivals. Through awkward, savage moments, love conquered both. Fleeing past obligations, they set off for distant stars. Pursued by raider and imperialist alike, the young couple ultimately crashed headlong into Fate aboard a battleship “drenched in the souls of its countless victims.” They would reunite in Hell, plotting conquest of that infernal domain.

Though initially conceived as a morality tale exhorting duty over heart, the intervening ages had swung audience sympathies to the lovers. Scandalous costumes, graphic sexual acrobatics, spectacular sets and three sword dances fused with Amarr’s ferocious demand for vocal excellence to make “Red and Gold” one of the most daunting productions in space. Soon after discovering it, the Gallente giddily reinvented its story year after year. From impeccable staged presentations to late night screenings where teenagers licked raspberry sorbet from one another’s nipples to assert their wickedness, demand for “enigmatic vampires” on Luminaire outpaced that of even Dam-Torsad’s insatiable glitterati. However, while Gallentean debauchery and masterful choreography rarely disappointed, Amarrians remained dismissive of superficial emotionality. Sin and heresy were not fashion statements to that people. Sure as God’s wrath, if characters were heretical sinners, they damn well better mean it. Bright as he was attractive, Babelle caught Ghiselle’s drift: take ownership of “Red and Gold.”

Immediately, his staff felt under siege. They begged Rengal to intervene: why would Lady Arghelos put such a notion into a teenager’s head!? Of course Babelle should tackle Mec – in five years! His voice still sounded too cute, those giant baby blues detracted from his menace, he oozed softness, no one could fab viable sets or costumes in a few weeks – and they certainly would not use hand-me-downs for such an important event! Genuinely hurt, some to the point of tears, they demanded to know what the pop star had done to deserve such scheming.

Rengal felt sympathy for their position and raised it with Ghiselle. The boy was very young for such a “mature” part. The role demanded unique male leads. While Ghiselle ruled as one of the most accomplished Naboahes in Amarr, the family’s men always went for supporting roles. Mec typically served as springboard for rising Ni-Kunni prodigies. The chemistry of rage, duty and artistry unique to that culture built the emotional maelstrom required for the role. Babelle was a spoiled Gallentean teenage pop dancer, not an oppressed, conflicted….

“Roll a pampered Gallente with one of our Lupes long enough and his duck quacks.”

“Curious” expressions invariably meant Ghiselle had a plan.

“Ghi Ghi,” Rengal sighed, “we can’t all see through the fog as you can.”

“Let’s bring everyone together, then.”

Bunnibal occupied Babelle while old people huddled. Though Ghiselle’s gravity soothed the Gallente, they remained fearful. Quafe invested heavily in the tour. No one would appreciate a blunder. Ghiselle placed her own reputation at stake as well, however, and insisted Arghelos would deliver costumes and sets of sufficient merit: no “hand me downs.” How could they be ready in time? Slave labor. There was no budget. Ghiselle would cover the cost, on condition she get the costumes back. Babelle’s staff harbored reservations about labor conditions and subject matter. But they understood “their boy” had outgrown easy obedience. If they refused him, anger would jeopardize the rest of the tour. Moreover, if Babelle delivered a Mec acceptable to Amarr, his celebrity would transcend. No better partner for than Ghiselle Arghelos existed for making that happen – even given the soprano’s manipulations.

What was her game?

Several Arghelos Family directors received the game icily. Annual “Red and Gold” productions served as primary vehicles for new fashion lines. They did not want to compete with an event of this visibility, let alone with their own designs. Javierre Babelle would become a vehicle to surpass all others, Ghiselle responded. Sevat smiled at that, and Ghiselle knew her brother saw through to the plan’s culmination. But he was a genius. Others pressed: cozying up to that teen would alienate traditional clients. They stood to gain more clients than they lost, and furthermore, Ghiselle’s final intentions for the tour would outstrip any animosity generated by a pop star. “Traditionalist” anger would focus on her, and cement the family’s status as a bridge between cultural monoliths.

“A dangerous political calculation,” Marquessa Algheros sighed.

“Mother….”

“You will say we have failed to walk the Boulevard because of our infant stride. When the dust settles from all this, we will face a difficult recalibration. I agree, however, that new growth demands new tactics. Sevat….”

“I’ve already started.”

While thirty floors of craftsmen began round the clock execution on Sevat’s vision, Babelle’s team looked for a suitable Gallente Naboahe. Intaki film legend Perran Soif, a raven-haired beauty twice Babelle’s age, had built her enormous following in large part on portrayals of the iconic princess. But would such an established actress take the risk? She leapt at it voraciously. After Quafe engineered her release from existing contractual obligations, Soif warped to the “Four Winds.” Choreography began upon her arrival.

Beyond a newly vested interest in Babelle’s success, however, Ghiselle faced pressures of her own. She was to open in Amarr and there would be no painting outside the lines this time. Her choice of material was characteristically “unusual” – but grounded in ancient tradition. Predating the unification of Athra, Sophia Kaliarestrani murdered not a single relation more than required to become matron of her House – an ancestral tributary to the present monarch’s tribe. Even early in her rule, “legend” maintained no natural birth had produced Sophia. Rather, she clawed into the family from subterranean hells settlers retreated to after the Collapse. A body of ghoulish cybernetics supported this, as did the inhuman genius Sophia leveraged to carve a path of carnage through history. In contrast to tyrants skilled at only destruction, Kaliarestrani’s rampages unerringly preserved individuals of subsequent advantage to her.

In modern times, the Tomb of Hagia Sophia slumbered far from Dam-Torsad’s burning horizon. A conch shell two kilometers wide and nearly as tall – black, bloody and golden – the magnificent cathedral spun fantasies of unrivaled horror and beauty. Contemporary engineering could not explain its construction. “Legend” again provided its own answer: after seven hundred slaves placed her sarcophagus on a great slab, the tomb pulled itself from the earth to encase mummified tendrils of Sophia’s mechanical body. These tales further insisted her ravenous intellect still twirled in the webs of that cyclopean crypt, intent on a terrible vengeance. The sect dedicated to this relic toiled unceasingly to appease her. Forgotten by the outside world, only a few scholars knew of their rituals. Recognized by the duchess as “useful” millennia ago, Arghelos nobility numbered among those few. In honor of that past, and the present sovereign, Ghiselle would sing the Requiem of Hagia Sophia.

Traditionally, a legion choir of three thousand performed the piece on anniversaries of Sophia’s “death,” shrouded in the shadows of her mausoleum and unheard by the world at large. Few would recognize its notes, the tour did not coincide with Sophia’s “passing,” and the masterpiece contained no clear vocal solo. All this qualified Ghiselle’s selection as curious. However, in contrast to Pator, the soprano’s staff saw these drawbacks as opportunities for a unique performance, even without the unprecedented approval of her request for an Amarratti from each royal house.

While the lanky Lupe Sebiestor sauntered as public luxuries for Amarr’s tres riche, the elfin Amarratti sparkled in private as treasures permitted only to royalty. In a process of secrecy and expense doused liberally with dubious morality, Ni-Kunni zygotes were gelded and minutely engineered to produce the finest voices imaginable. Considered likely to create normative frictions with champions of liberty across the galaxy, their existence was unofficially “need to know.” While Tash-Murkon stood out, rarely did a house keep more than a handful. Perpetually child-like, Amarratti retained pristine voices for decades, performed only before royal blood – in the somber redoubts of noble chapels – and were never recorded. To present five in one of the most public concert tours ever mounted, and further to preserve that performance for yet more commoners to see, raised eyebrows – and in some quarters, hostility. The Empress had given her consent, however, and artistic directors for the other royals felt “creatively titillated” by Ghiselle’s proposition.

Days from the concert, the Amarratti arrived under cover of artificial darkness, tucked inside a hovering metallic palanquin guided by a towering Valkyrie in biomechanical plate – the royal crest brilliant on her chest. The procession made its way to Ghiselle by deserted freight corridors. Although the soprano had retrieved her staff from exile, only Bunnibal waited with her to receive these guests. When the contraption settled, its lone escort removed her helmet to reveal the cybernetic face of a heavy metal kameira.

“Lady Ghiselle Arghelos,” the formidable woman’s mechanical voice hummed.

Ghiselle inclined her head in acknowledgement.

“Kameira Baroness Hrelta Kes, Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Lupe Sebiestor?”

“This is Bunnibal.”

“The first I have encountered,” she nodded. “I will let them out.”

If the Lupe was a domesticated wolf, lanky and awkward in its lethality, the Amarratti were a cheetah’s litter – clearly unnatural, but with a different flavor of menace. They appeared adolescent, though well into their twenties; and moving, retained a wide-eyed childish wonder – mixed with adult calculation. Everyone in the room possessed inhuman gifts, and they measured one another.

“Ghi Ghi,” cried the Amarratti!

As one of a handful of singers who could perform with the alien “boys,” Ghiselle knew them all and they cherished her company. That greeting done, Bunnibal and the Amarratti circled, warily. Amarratti were sexually inert. How would the Lupe’s arsenal play out? Their senses were preternatural. His angles and smells “interested” them, and his raw strength elicited glee. Trying to catch one, however, Bunnibal discovered those slight, athletic bodies moved quickly. The chase spun into frenzy interspersed with feigned boredom. There would be no victor. That satisfied Ghiselle enormously.

The Amarratti remained secluded in Ghiselle’s quarters for the duration. Only Piehtor, of noble blood, was permitted to work with them. Each “boy” required but a cursory pass through his lines, bouncing beneath Ghiselle’s raised arms squeaking as they filled in the gaps. More giant boxes arrived from Amarr: costumes and sets for Babelle. The star’s “garment” was a golden rope braided with crimson velvet – so as not to rub. Wrapping from left foot up to right hand over few parts in between, “the bloody vine” drew attention far more than it obscured. Soif screamed with delight at the site of it.

“My dear,” whispered Ghiselle to the actress during a moment of isolation, “for success, you must screw the boy’s courage to his sticking post.”

Shortly before curtain, Ghiselle’s brother furiously painted Mandala Vestments on each Amarratti. The ancient technique’s fleeting nature served as its primary appeal, and few illustrators could apply ink to skin quickly enough to prevent even ordinary perspiration from washing away the designs. Amarratti wore such mandalas rarely, usually no more than two of them in a performance, and only Sevat’s skill allowed him to cover five head to toe with enough time to last into – if not through – Sophia’s Requiem. As colors exploded across flawless complexions, those assembled to assist the genius instead fell under his spell: magical, inhuman – guided by the hand of God. The sound of brushes and involuntary giggles in perfect pitch became a concert unto itself.

Ghiselle walked onto stage alone, opalescent gown gleaming against a backdrop of black velvet. From one end of her empire to another, vast public spaces dimmed as she melted onto screens, walls, and even the air itself. Her people fell quiet. For Caldari, she sang of love; for Minmatar, joy. Foreign critics often complained the Amarr wanted nothing more from concerts than to sit in darkness with closed eyes waiting for the voice of God. Her people expected faith. Sophia’s requiem began as a deathly whisper, Ghiselle’s voice flowing through impossibly soft registers without wavering. The orchestra grew. Many imperials looked at neighbors, puzzled, having expected one of the famous ecclesiastical masterpieces. Translucent images of Hagia Sophia’s grand choral legion sketched across the blackness as subtle ghosts. Only a handful of cathedrals could afford such choirs, but very few recognized this one.

The first Amarratti walked from blackness to stand beside Ghiselle. Aboard the “Four Winds,” the crowd murmured. Abroad, questioning voices stammered more loudly. Of all outlets covering the tour, only a curmudgeon at ACN recognized the creature: “unprecedented!” Ghiselle, the orchestra, and distant choir fell silent. The boy began to sing. Could such a body really produce that sound? The physical effort demanded by perfection showed beneath painted skin. Remaining Amarratti emerged one by one. As the orchestra, Ghiselle, and the choir returned, the blackness lifted slowly. Amarr’s blinding sun flooded the chamber. Music rose and fell. Only after the light dimmed noticeably did the crowd begin to understand what was to transpire. As Mandalas streamed down torsos and thighs to accumulate in vibrant abstraction on legs, Athra’s shadow traveled behind the singers, their voices loud and soft, rising to God and falling toward Man. Still unsure of the composition’s identity, Amarr’s billions nevertheless clutched one another, weeping at satisfaction beyond all expectation. Some had heard Sophia’s choir before, others one or two Amarratti, many Ghiselle – but no one had heard them all at once.

Pressed by the perfection of her companions, Ghiselle felt her way to new heights. She demanded this excellence not to impress the audience before or the endless billions without, but the goddess in her tomb. Ghiselle believed the legends, and wanted the Hagia Sophia’s approval. That ancient tyrant’s grace meant the soprano would be avenged. The final commendation to God roared to its crescendo. Ghiselle, Amarratti, and three thousand remote voices sustained their final glorious note and the “Four Winds” pilot guided his ship into full eclipse. Amarr’s corona flared as a cosmic halo. Yes, it was there: the voice of God.

Silence before the thunderbolt; as a unit, Ghiselle and the Amarratti turned to their left and bent at the waist into formal bows. The audience followed the line of submission. An elegant woman stood slowly and lifted her veil. Ignoring gasps around her, she clasped her hands beyond her chest and, smiling with eyes closed, nodded. Her majesty, the empress, impossible scattered voices exclaimed. After an appropriate time, Ghiselle turned her attention to the rest of her audience and the galaxy.

Having pleased the present, she prayed silently that she had also pleased the past.

Evidence Potentially Supporting Shattered Time

Today, my favorite Brutor happened upon a remarkable instance of identical Sleeper installations embedded in very different spatial environments.

Perimeter Checkpoint A



Look for asteroids in the upper left, and take note of the "cool" gas cloud ("cool" in relation to:)


Perimeter Checkpoint B



You see indications of the same asteroids as found near Checkpoint A. Here, however, there exists a "storm" comparable to that surrounding the "rift" above the "active" Talocan Static Gate.

Although many explanations for these storms are possible, there is at least a superficial temptation to assert the "cool" gas follows the "hot" storm in time.

This may therefore be a single pocket, broken into different times and ejected into separate spaces within J132009. Alternatively, the storms may be part of the natural cycle of such pockets. On subsequent visits to both locations, I only saw the "cool" cloud at each, suggesting the storms are temporary. I waited some amount of time to see the storm cycle, but did not detect any variation in the "cool" cloud. Moreover, this temporary nature does not seem to be universal across Sleeper sites, as I have seen many such storms, but this is the first I have seen change into a cooling cloud.

In any event, this site demonstrates Sleeper installations may be vulnerable to the spontaneous eruption of such storms. Because sites found by others show the storms controlled in a ring of thermoelectric converters, the Sleeper civilization - or at least some of its installations - appears to have at one point lost control.

I submit when not controlled, these storms catapult the affected installations across at least space. This conforms to described properties of the spatial rift embedded within the "active" Talocan static gate:

"A natural phenomena that rumor says will hurtle those that come too close to faraway places."

Because space and time are intrinsically related, I further submit the storms may be "spitting" multiple segments of installation time lines across space as well.

Did The Seylin Incident Shatter Time As Well As Space?

I initially considered conspicuous similarities between disparate Sleeper and Talocan installations merely evidence of efficient fabrication processes. However, industrial standardization poorly explains similarities in natural landmarks. While a site may benefit from such formations, it rises into high improbability the ancients manufactured them to precise order.

For some time, even natural similarities provoked only idle curiosity in me. However, flying between three instances of perimeter hangars in J103619, I began to feel the experience resembled that of deja vu. As I have been documenting descents into rabbit holes more carefully recently, the resulting imagery has now built into something of a coherent story. With respect to the hangar instances, while the time of image capture I had not developed notions of temporal shattering, identical landmarks do begin to emerge from the imagery.

Perimeter Hangar A



Perimeter Hangar B



Perimeter Hangar C



The formation behind the hangar in particular triggered my sense of repeating the same experience as I warped between sites. It was, however, the Outpost Frontier Stronghold that led to a belief these were not separate constructs, but the same construct shattered into constituent pieces of its time stream and reassembled in our present age (or, perhaps, some age we perceive as “ours” upon entering W-space). An enveloping energy storm, and a huge asteroid embedded within its own storm, stand as the most notable features of Outpost Frontier Stronghold:

Outpost Frontier Stronghold A



Outpost Frontier Stronghold B



Outpost Frontier Stronghold C



Beyond the coincidence of an identical giant asteroid paired with it in every instance, the physical relationship between the stronghold and the asteroid remained consistent across sites.

Tantalized, I took great care documenting the next installation, which possessed features particularly well suited to comparison. The Fortification Frontier Stronghold consistently appeared with a crescent asteroid belt; and conveniently, J161854 included a distant event horizon. It was therefore possible to line each stronghold and crescent up with that distant point. I centered camera drones on the main installation, backed out, and rotated the field such that the event horizon remained in the same part of the image.

Fortification Frontier Stronghold A



Fortification Frontier Stronghold B



Fortification Frontier Stronghold C



The spikes of each facility line up with the event horizon and asteroid crescent. The slightly different appearance of the asteroids and plasma orbs may be attributed to their individual rotation cycles at image capture time. Though I have imaged only three sites, there were in fact seven in J161854 at the time of documentation.

With these new insights, I thought back to a Talocan quarantine installation I encountered some time earlier. One particular feature of that site now stood out in my mind: the static gate. I have encountered two versions of this gate: one which appeared inactive, and one which appeared embroiled in an energetic storm very much like that around Outpost Frontier Stronghold.

Talocan Static Gate (In-Active)



Talocan Static Gate (Active)



A space-time rift appears embedded within the storm of the quarantine site's "active" gate. Such a rift was not present in the storms engulfing Outpost Frontier Stronghold, leading me to believe the effect was stronger in the Talocan site. However, it was also far more contained, and so perhaps the Talocan Disruption Tower limits the spread of these storms:

Talocan Disruption Tower



Attempts to approach the space-time rift came to naught. As a ship (in this case, the pod of a faithful Lupe Sebiestor) closed with the rift, forward velocity slowed until further progress became impossible roughly 65 meters from target.



I submit a cataclysmic event fragmented space-time for these ancient installations. Rather than being separated by moments in time, and contained within a consistent space, they are now contained within a consistent time – but separated by space. Imagine entering a room, and happening upon a version of yourself returning from later in your own journey. As a candidate for that cataclysmic event, I point to events surrounding the Seylin Incident. Space and time are closely related.

Shattering one will shatter the other.

How might this work? The explosion in our present made use of an infrastructure built in the distant past. The blast was so powerful, it traveled not only through space, but back to the moment of its creation. Indeed, perhaps the detonation we witnessed was the doom of those ancients who enabled it. I cannot help but see parallels with myths my Faith, where God destroyed Babel for building too far, too fast.

Tangential Post Script
The Drake I used to extract archaeological samples from a coronation platform during one of my investigations has begun exhibiting strange behavior in many virtual reality interface processes. “Liquid” filaments slip in and out of renderings unpredictably, now. However, there has been no adverse impact on system performance (other than the distraction caused by observing their “playful” antics). Although my electronics and computer skills are reasonably developed, I am at this time unable to isolate or otherwise identify the source of these “virtual jellyfish.”

Lupe Sebiestor - Part II

While arranging the apparatus of her style, Ghiselle studied Bunnibal’s reflections carefully. Despite cumbersome sexual characteristics, the Sebiestor’s shifting posture lurched rapidly between masculine and feminine. The soprano could adapt half to stage, and invent responses for the rest. At first, she gave the boy only simple tasks, expecting him to stumble. His proportions stretched all wrong. Stringy muscles twitched without discipline. His gaze never focused. He moved constantly. But while Bunnibal flirted with catastrophe, he never tripped over willow legs, misjudged the distance long arms needed to travel, or slammed his head on an obstruction. Strangely scented spider’s fingers never fumbled. He fastened delicate clasps, smoothed fabric, and held utensils still even as tremors ran the rest of his remarkable body. And it was a remarkable body. When not occupied with some other task, his hands traded turns beneath clothing. The hygienic implications initially gave Ghiselle pause – and did much to explain his aromas – but over time, she found herself anticipating even those disquieting moments of autonomous hedonism.

Then, the Lady realized she was late for dinner.

Her gown flowed like molten carnelian through mirrored corridors, down grand stairs, between fountains and over marble. Social gravity warping space, Ghiselle appeared neither melodramatic nor frantic, but a lioness on the hunt. Alighting on the dais of a cavernous dining salon, she shifted from lioness to eagle – the fabric of her brilliant gown the creature’s settling wings. Titans of art, politics and industry warmed as she passed, sharing with each some kind observation. Humble, unapproachable, radiant, charming, gliding to the captain’s table, she towed appreciation in her wake. “The Lady should be late to dinner more often,” a suave chieftain chuckled to his companions. The other headliners sat in positions of honor around the captain’s table. From eagle to hummingbird, Ghiselle touched them lightly, saving her most effusive charm for the young Gallente targeted so unkindly by his own people. Ghiselle had intended to sit beside Javierre Babelle. But at the last moment, a new plan seeped into the Amarrian regions of her brain, and she tucked Bunnibal beside the star instead.

Youth should enjoy its company, she insisted, and not feel separated by “some old lady.”

Javierre pleased her, and Ghiselle no longer felt satisfied with simple peace. She resolved to pull the star into orbit of her House. With him, she could impale those Gallente fashion bastards in their own market. Bunnibal would serve as her shaft. Ghiselle had cracked some of the Lupe’s code. At distance, his unusual proportions forced an eye to linger long enough for that constant motion to hypnotize. Seen in action, his unnerving muscle tones demanded closer inspection. But close in, the complex smells he accumulated across his body lit subconscious desires, pulling the victim closer yet. Very close, rapid bursts of contact – gentle fingers along the arm of a lady; playful shoulders against men – doomed his prey.

The meal was fantastic; conversation, better yet. When desert had been cleared, Ghiselle suggested that the young men explore the ship. Babelle’s keeper – a sharp Intaki much like Rengal – knew to retain control over her charge. But one seat removed put her under Bunnibal’s spell, too, and she could not object before the bouncing pup carried away his newest friend. Ghiselle toasted their horizons. The following morning, she raised a mimosa to Babelle’s athletic back as he raced passed her breakfast nook, not completely inside the previous evening’s suit. Her spear’s tip worked toward Luminaire. Liltingly, she called for Bunnibal. Of course, the Lupe had made no effort to fit back into any night’s suit. He slunk through the doorway, unkempt, bashfully uncertain if he had done well.

“Have some toast,” Ghiselle said with a smile, sliding a plate forward.

As the “Four Winds” drifted from New Caldari to Pator, local performers boarded at stops along the way to provide entertainment. The headliners only took the stage at capitol stops. Because nitpickers and naysayers would subject every beat of every song to intense scrutiny, nights off were but quick respite from the calculations furrowing Ghiselle’s days. Her team floated in projections: proposing, analyzing, recommending, and rehearsing. With a week to go, they settled on a selection of harrowingly beautiful hymns from the earliest periods of each empire – predating the rediscovery of space, and so devoid of insidious contemporary subtexts. With three days to go, Ghiselle changed her mind.

“Don’t hate me.”

It was Bunnibal’s fault. In the Lupe, that clever Sebiestor mind concentrated on physical aptitude. After prolonged contact with Babelle, Bunni’s ambient motions about the suite mutated into elaborate dance sequences. Ghiselle saw Pator as an opportunity to “showcase native talent.” Hold on, Rengal interjected. Any benefit from Bunnibal’s tribal ancestry would be overshadowed by his “peculiar status.” Bunni was too alluring for vindictiveness! Rengal saw a serpent’s scheme beneath the twinkle in her lady’s eye, but played her part through. The Gallente would feel mocked. Charming. Caldari would cry commercial capitulation. Charming. Amarrian elements would demand excommunication. Only the ones nobody listened to anymore. Ghiselle asked for an appropriate selection of Gallente pop divas on which to base a new routine. Rengal jokingly suggested Angelika Kartel – Brutor drag queen and reigning monarch of Luminaire’s club scene. Perfect! But…. But it must be their little secret. Well, Etienne Saroux needed to know. “Producer General” only needed to know Ghiselle would change her routine midway. He could improvise from there.

“Dear God,” the flamboyant Gallois lamented at Rengal’s news.

Headliners appeared according to a plan: host, foe, ally, lesser foe. In Pator, Ghiselle was to follow Qaim Bok. As the liner settled into its assigned path, the Republic unfurled opening ceremonies. The “Four Winds” concert hall rested safely near the mammoth vessel’s core, but immersive projections allowed the audience to see space as if through a vast, clear dome. For their display of pageantry, the Caldari brought the ship close to home, perching it between day and night while technicians painted the atmosphere with sublime effects. In contrast, the Matari kept the liner distant, leaving Pator only a glowing disk in an upper quadrant of the hall’s projection. Squadrons of frigates swarmed in remarkable acrobatic displays and raced to dance among sails of much larger ships. As Saroux guided his orchestra and adjusted lights, steel and fire beyond the ship built into a choreography that anticipated Bok’s triumphant emergence on stage.

A mongrel fusion of Vherokior and Brutor, Bok’s rumbling vocalizations originated in a mystic tradition expressed as force – not loud, fast or thunderous, but deep and inexorable. Earth sustained his shamanistic affinity, and that massive body – a boulder of slate with an enormous smile – anchored the chamber. The behemoth augmented his percussive chants by pummeling flesh and slamming great feet down powerfully. Around him, three women completed the elemental metaphor – Fire, Wind, and Water – moving with graceful acrobatics and vaulting from his limbs as if their muscular bodies weighed nothing. Beyond, another two dozen dancers added chorus and counterpoint, spinning torches glowed in the sweat of their limbs. The undulating mass shifted observers back to a truly remote time. At its conclusion, the audience cascaded adulation.

Watching from her distant command center, arms folded, eyes missing no detail, Rengal grew anxious. Bok summoned the jaguar queen, rode the raven prince and honored the stars. Those rituals exalted the soul of his people, just as Mareiyaa’s sylvan whispers had engraved the snows of Kaalakiota on the wind. Two for two, the host representatives surpassed mastery and planted seeds of respect for their cultures. Following the jaguar, raven, and stars – an Amarrian Holder now intended to appear with her favorite slave, Pator gleaming overhead, and mimic a Gallente drag queen. It was a horrifying reversal of Scope’s editorial slight. In a command center of his own, “Producer General” Etienne Saroux dimmed the lights and prepared his orchestra. Just what was the Amarrian witch scheming?

Ghiselle emerged to an anticipatory hush.

A voluminous, hooded gown in her people’s ecclesiastic tradition flowed around and behind to settle in waves at her feet. She began to sing. The lady would transcend on stage as an actress or dancer, but her art above all others was song. With a prodigy’s insight for breath, moving wind through and out – wrapped in diaphanous white and illuminated by simple lights – Ghiselle Arghelos staggered audiences with the force of her tone. Above New Caldari, she had sung secular favorites of love and life, leaving no eye dry eye. Near Pator, she opened with the hymn of a young hunter guided by a single star in a night’s sky otherwise fallen black. Rengal did not recognize the piece as one of those originally selected, but Piehtor smiled. They discussed it, he explained, but there were fewer reasons to go with it then. He understood the ancient Matari, and narrated. Rengal quickly understood what had changed.

Yes, it was all her fault.

Following his star, the hunter pressed north against wind and across ice, coming to a den of wolves. Weakened, he feared they might overwhelm him. Instead, they shared the meat of a kill. Sorrowful noises drifted to the young man through the night. Come day, he followed the sounds to a crevasse where the ice had separated from rock. Seeing him, two pups called brightly from the depths. The climb looked treacherous; and if the ice moved again, it would crush them all. But he could not abandon the small creatures to their fate, and descended. Slipping frequently on the slick, jagged rock, the hunter suffered many wounds. When he reached the pups, they cleared his blood with joyful licking. He could only carry one at a time and make the climb out, and so twice descended into that maw. When at last he returned to the wolf den, the damage to his flesh and bone was severe. Nature would drive the wolves to kill such a wounded animal, the hunter understood, but he took comfort knowing the pups carried his spirit in their jaws. The wolves kept him warm, however, and brought food as he recovered. The young hunter grew into a ferocious warrior: first Twin Wolf Shaman.

Matari who displayed the pups Geri and Fricki after Voluval vanished into the wilderness to cut their bodies on rock. While recovering from those injuries, they learned this hymn and sang it for their final initiation into the reclusive Twin Wolf Sect. The voices of those youths rang true, possessed of an intense conviction to embark upon lives of martial rigor and holiness. Ghiselle Arghelos did not know what it meant to be a warrior on frigid steppes, but her soul burned with a ferocious faith of its own. Before her audience, she transformed into a young shaman embarking on that first journey – while retaining all the skill and experience of accumulated decades shaking the highest windows of Dam-Torsad’s cathedrals. It was magnificent, and as her final piercing howl faded to a fierce whisper, Bunnibal emerged from the shadows.

A contraction pulled through the audience – not an audible gasp, but a silent tightening. Did the beast belong? Rengal’s heart paused. Ghiselle stood motionless and silently statuesque in her bishop’s shroud as Bunnibal advanced. Illumination seeped across the topography of his long, naked torso, revealing a creature born of nightmare – yet, hypnotic. The broad bluish white pantaloons of a Gallente hipster flowed from his narrow waist, swaying as he moved – a motion both like and unlike that of a man. Ghiselle’s penetrating mind had connected some dots as it studied the Matari hymn. These Lupe, which Saoul found only in central Amarr even having looked extensively abroad, descended in some way from Sebiestor bearers of Geri and Fricki’s mark. Back on Amarr, watching breathlessly atop one of Dam-Torsad’s architectural leviathans, Rengal began to think it just might work after all.

Should she take credit?

Bunnibal circled his prey. In his own control room, Producer General tensed. Slowly, long slender fingers fluttered over Ghiselle’s arms, rising to her shoulders, down and up. Do it, do it – do something, Etienne Saroux scowled silently. The clock was ticking! Too quick to see, Bunnibal’s fingers closed over fabric, his long arms twitched, and he pulled the bishop’s robe up and away to reveal a metallic body suit of outrageous design and a crown of brilliant diamonds.

An undulating combination of interjections erupted from her: the phrasings of jazzy blues matched to precise, dramatic gestures and mechanically tilting head. Unprepared, uncertain, shifting, the audience waited for guidance. Recognizing one of Angelika Kartel’s dominating hits, Producer General exhaled. “This… I can work with. Light!” The interfaces of his mind sparkled, his orchestra slammed a beat – and there was light. Ghiselle remained statuesque in her spot, moving head and arms with Bunnibal’s in a clockwork interplay. The Sebiestor’s limbs and long body merged into the abstraction of a great cloak with her former frock, spinning and billowing, catching the light and snapping occasionally to the orchestra’s chops. Ghiselle had voiced the hymn fluently in its ancient tongue, and now she pushed the Boulevard’s slang through herself and across space as if a native of those garish depths. With measures half sublime and half profane, the soprano bridged her foes from distant past to breaking future. Having delivered, she took her bow. Bunnibal bowed with her playfully – as if his entire life, not merely the last half hour, had been spent upon the stage.

Lupe Sebiestor - Part I

A week into the cruise, and still fresh water erupted from showerheads dousing Rengal Sanq. Knowing the extravagance – the spoiling luxury of it – each evening, the attractively aging Intaki red head vowed to spend no more time than needed among tomorrow’s geysers. Each morning, she washed away restraint. Quafe had spared no expense on the tour, why suffer? The previous night’s inaugural concert went off without hitch and Rengal, staff sergeant to Amarr’s Lady Ghiselle Arghelos, deserved some luxury! Their repurposed Moros “Four Winds” (one of the most secure liners yet built) drifted lazily across the face of New Caldari, its first capitol stop, and Rengal’s shower chamber appeared to float on a translucent disk surrounded by stars and the sparkling factories of that heavy world.

Such magnificent projections only encouraged her to waste more water….

Someone tapped on her shower door. “In space, no one can hear you tap.” It returned – insistently timid. Only one member of their delegation tapped like that. If the others had sent Bunnibal, they expected Rengal to flip out. Bloody hell. She flipped off water, on lights, crossed an absurd distance to the shower’s now visible door – and flung it wide. A lanky Sebiestor stammered apologies. Rengal locked on to him with a long, hard kiss. Bunni became excited. When she stepped away, he tried to hide his embarrassment. But that boy was a monster.

Shortly after Sevat Arghelos completed his “Jade Munnin,” his House sent “Brother” Sauol to every armpit and ass crack in the empire looking for Sebiestor youths resembling the masterpiece. The Arghelos firmly believed function followed form. If a space wight had engineered one awkward Sebiestor into a bipedal slaver, others that looked like him necessarily possessed “qualities.” Sauol now peddled those qualities in his exclusive “Lupe Sebiestor” line of consorts. All the fashionable ladies wanted one. Rengal initially dismissed it as “eccentric marketing,” but beneath off color flesh, lumpy skeleton, lanky limbs and protruding veins, Bunni did possess more than any young man’s fair share of “quality.”

How could such a narrow body move that much blood so quickly?

The creature tried to physically compress his sanguine emotions back into a state of composure. Was he serious? Increasingly, variations on “you’ll never believe what my Lupe did today” prefaced giddy girl talk at exclusive salons from Sarum to Khannid. Rengal felt compelled to watch for several moments before diving into morning bulletins. Nothing outrageous leapt out of the projections, and she wondered if she misinterpreted Bunni’s presence. The squirming beast approached. That spring would stay sprung all morning, Rengal knew, and she felt a twinge of guilt… before crushing the sensation mercilessly. His purpose was to spring.

“All right what happened?”

Bunnibal produced a thin crystal from somewhere and handed it to her. Rengal waved it over her desk and the contents flickered into sight: a review from one of Scope’s performing arts editors. Oh come on, she sighed, they sent Bunni to distract her because of a bad review? She wasn’t that unstable! The boy shook his head. It was much worse than a bad review, he insisted. Lupe Sebiestors could talk like normal people two tries out of eleven. Bunnibal stretched out a long slender twitching finger that mesmerized Rengal with its shape and inappropriate odor. Only after he tapped the air several times did her eyes focus on the words beyond its quivering tip. No, seriously, these boys were weapons.

Words, blah blah blah…

“With some horror, I found myself nodding along as a member of Imperial Amarr’s troupe observed: the Caldari sent Zan Mareiyaa; the Matari, Qaim Bok; and we, Ghiselle Arghelos. Who did the Gallente – sponsors of this undertaking – place on the same stage? Javierre Babelle.”

Rengal leaned back, closed her eyes, and wondered aloud why it couldn’t have been Sansha drones eating through the hull. She knew the pompous editor had overheard nothing and manufactured this scene to pimp a pet contention: Quafe’s teen lacked “qualities.” In fact, that young man had the best (correction, second best) ass Rengal had ever repeatedly laid eyes on. However, “Imperial Amarr” was blamed for dismissing him because “no reasonable person” could agree with superstitious slavers unless the stated facts stood undeniably before all. While any other performer on the tour would politely insist there had been a misunderstanding, the thought of antagonizing the young star would have been abhorrent to the Arghelos. “Make no enemy!” Rengal spoke to her Gallente counterpart, promising action. She called her “troupe” together and told Bunnibal to take a long shower. He tore off his designer rags on the spot and ran for the flowing heavens.

Twenty odd professionals sat somberly in Rengal’s parlor. The only young face otherwise among them was at that time contorting with autoerotic tension in her shower, and she knew it would take him all morning to rain down on New Caldari. The waiting list to enter bondage with House Arghelos stretched to a distant future. After graduating the University of Caille, Rengal spent a decade running the careers of Luminaire’s bohemians while waiting her turn at servitude. Finally enslaved, she spent another decade rising from kitchen help to Lady Ghiselle’s majordomo. Now composers, musicians, fashion designers, historians and coaches waited for her to speak. None possessed the genius of those eventually given the Arghelos name, but each commanded sufficient technical and artistic skills to be called “master” in one or more fields.

“Ghi Ghi will realize the story is asinine fabrication,” Rengal sighed, “but she must act decisively. I will recommend she send us all back to Dam-Torsad, keeping only Bunnibal here.”

They discussed this for some time. Apologies would not erase all doubt, and Babelle’s youth would render him more likely to take accusations at face value. Several individuals volunteered to confess and accept punishment. But Lady Ghiselle would refuse to single anyone out over a fabrication. At last, the soprano entered. She looked nothing like a glamorous model, celebrity, or socialite, but possessed a social gravity all her own – bending reality to its will. She sat near Rengal on an identical chair; immediately it became a throne. Ghiselle recognized there was a problem. Rengal explained. The star agreed with the proposed solution, however “Bunnibal might be happier with the larger group.”

The larger group diluted his “qualities.” Ghiselle was no squeamish prude. She spent her life around libertines, and avoided debauchery not from moral conviction, but a need to maintain robust artistic health. Bunnibal was certainly too much for any one person to handle, was he not; in fact, where was the boy? Masturbating in Rengal’s shower. Well, see, that was the Lady’s point. She couldn’t send him away, Rengal insisted. He would not see the politics, only the rebuke. They conferenced Sauol, and he promptly agreed with Rengal. Bunnibal recognized Ghiselle as alpha…. Oh come on!

“A Lupe’s loyalty is fanatical,” Sauol continued. “Bunnibal may appear immature, simple, deviant, but he will sacrifice without thinking. Sending him away denies that. Please Ghiselle – give him a chance to make you happy.”

Ordinarily, Rengal found everything about Sauol Arghelos distasteful. He rarely “acted” appropriately, as other members of the family strove to do. But when sincere, he was very sincere. Ghiselle agreed. Done with his rain, Bunnibal fidgeted damply as Rengal explained developments. The boy’s tangled hair pulled in more attention when wet, droplets sparking on tips. His long, inhumanly flexible spine shifted incessantly between curved slouches. Each motion flowed sensually, musculature stretching and bunching like rope in heavy cream. Rengal put palms forward, took a deep breath, and rushed to gather discarded clothing. Bunni had managed to fling musky stained fabric to every corner of the huge stateroom. Finished, she handed the pungent mass to him as a lump. Lifting her hands to pat her own hair, she realized his scent tainted her from even that simple contact. Weapons, they were weapons! Bunnibal continued to hold the pile of clothing.

“Put them on,” she instructed patiently.

Mutely, he pulled the rags over his skin, smooth and sensual… Rengal turned to face the original art on her walls. Bunni would be the only one remaining behind, she cautioned, and the tour had just begun. It was a lot of responsibility. Was he ready for that? Oh yes, the elongated half-naked beast insisted, he was ready! Strapped opposite one another as their drop ship shook furiously toward a resort hotel two miles tall, Rengal exchanged first a smile and then uncontrollable laughter with a wizened old Amarrian pianist named Piehtor. Above, somewhere in space, a middle aged artistic genius of uncompromising professionalism prepared for an elegant evening with the “help” of a young sexual mutant of uncompromising appeal.

Asked about their good spirits, “Heaven works its will,” Piehtor replied.

The Jade Muninn

That decrepit priest had found a remarkable slave, Sevat Arghelos sighed as curtains rose and singers warmed their arias. But was the boy’s price so ruinous as to preclude the purchase of a robe? No, the celebrated painter conceded, Oseguira Tash-Murkon’s narrow beast demanded freedom from any pious obfuscation. The recital chamber atop Emperor Family’s Oris bauble melted from dusk to night. Amarr’s blue arc glistened beyond glass and stars flickered to the score. One evening’s grace, however, could not keep Sevat’s focus from Oseguira’s prize.

The youth was no pretty pet in the tradition of such concubines. He was instead quite unattractive in a most attractive way – gaunt, feral, aloof, timid, protruding, sunken, skittering, bald with thick eyebrows and then hairless to an off-putting mat of fur over a priapic root. The lines of a tattoo, not quite in an expected style, peaked beneath his skin when Oseguira touched him well – no, it responded instead to the performance. Was it a jellyfish? Inexorably, the profane creature forced itself into an obsession of Sevat’s Muse. He could bear it no longer! At intermission, the artist asked permission to paint Oseguira’s Sebiestor.

“It would be a great privilege,” he insisted humbly.

“Kind of you, my beautiful Arghelos,” the corpulent gentleman replied. Appearances aside, his voice was deep and refined. “For such recognition of my selectivity, the privilege would be mine. But this pup belongs to me no longer than contracted. Moreover, he is a blank, and so to consort with him beyond the confines of his unseemly ghetto requires another fee – to ensure proper authority holds proper distance.”

Bringing a blank naked prostitute to such a gala fell on the far side of eccentric, but Sevat said nothing of the sort. For several moments, he said nothing at all. While beyond any branch of succession to his house, Oseguira remained a man of clout. If this boy lacked formality, nothing would prevent the priest from simply taking possession – no need for bribes. Consequently, the feral youth could not have been an urchin born in some crevice. He looked barely old enough to fight. Was he a rebel written off by previous owners, the comfort of a fallen Brutor messiah?

“You hide your reflections,” Oseguira hummed. “But Muninn is a pod’s flotsam, recovered from the aftermath of some request and now an entry on a hangar’s asset sheet. I have no desire to provoke technology’s wights unnecessarily; nor will state security enter their barrows without great cause. But should a ‘terrorist’ leave the nest, hooks wait. I therefore pay for dereliction to maintain the status quo; yet I cannot recommend you do the same, because it is not in you to do it well. And risk prowls those slums that spring from the storage capacity of pod people. Consider all of this.”

Sevat thanked Oseguira sincerely and would think on it.

Having thought, his Muse would not bow. Several days after the concert, Sevat moved purposefully through his bourgeois enclave, greeting passers-by with charm. House Arghelos hewed studiously to the periphery of influence. Disavowing political roles, it provided trappings of wealth to those in power – art, music, fashion, drama, medical miracles. “Make no enemy.” Sevat never lacked a kind word, not even for the third son of a minor baron who lost his fortune in a freighter tragedy.

“You’ve been exercising with dedication, I see.”

“I have, thank you!”

An imposing Ni-Kunni met Sevat at the entrance to Oseguira’s villa. Leading across catwalks over space, the butler at last gestured to a couch with a view. An elegant woman drifted forward with wine. They knew his preference in advance. When Oseguira entered, Sevat complimented the vintage warmly. Whatever his internal dialog, the artist strove always to elevate contentment in all around. For his own contentment, he requested instruction on how to find the youth Muninn.

Seeping like a fungus through pressurized compartments of a colossal hangar, Tor Gaim spread as a tangle of cargo containers cut, welded, and stacked into habitat. Narrow paths and occasional tubes threaded courtyards to cramped plazas. What began as a few hundred refugees trying to make their way beneath an indifferent captor had blossomed into a tumor of miners and colonial laborers policed by a kameira centurio named Gaim and his troops. Purposefully collected in that space, Matari fighters feared little inside and much out; so they concentrated within the particularly inaccessible Spider’s Nest. At the bottom of that unnerving tenement, a “tavern” sprawled around gargantuan conduits servicing the larger station. Puddles of strippers, sex, gambling, narcotics and “music” accumulated between its porous walls.

Sevat gravitated toward a lethal woman to inquire on Muninn’s availability.

The Brutor might have seen an effete heir to a family that held titles of nobility as long as there had been titles of nobility. However, “make no enemy” did not depend upon the social standing of those potentially alienated. Though known as a painter, Sevat was first and foremost an Arghelos. In consultation with siblings and cousins, he had created a persona that belonged. For the duration of his performance, even the socialite’s closest friends would have believed he sought villainous dissipation to offset his boredom – such was the acting skill House Arghelos demanded of its painters.

Yryal Vhat wondered what compelled Amarr’s sodomites to overpay so much for such a homely boy. Sevat could not speak for others; he drew to calm only his own temptations, and Muninn’s ragged flesh suited that art well. Drawing or penetrating, scoffed Vhat, time was time and the price would be the same… but yes, the boy was available. Little demand existed for him among Tor Gaim’s miners. She even encouraged down time to ensure he could be up for any devout fetishist who happened by.

“You’ll pay more tonight than the rest of this filth combined will all week,” she growled.

The boy’s “room” was an open dumpster with a hole and a bed. It stank. Muninn lay casually on the mattress. He remained completely at ease as Sevat pulled out notebook and pen. Yryal snorted at the archaic implements: “a ‘serious’ artist.” Sevat invited her to stay. She held no interest in a customer’s dysfunction, only payment, and turned to leave. But the sound of the artist’s pen brought her back around.

Sevat did not capture what people saw at a distance in fussy strokes. He moved close, pressed hard, and shaded fast. His pen did not pause because its master wondered where to place it next. It fell silent only when the melody of a particular drawing so demanded. Muninn retained his unnatural calm at all times. When Sevat grabbed an arm or a foot to adjust it, the boy moved without resistance and held without instruction. He did not flinch when the painter buffed flesh to bring out color, opened the boy’s mouth, or spread toes and fingers.

Others came to Yryal with their matters and stopped to watch as well. So it went until Sevat covered every page, front and back. He stood. The crowd regarded him expectantly. When he asked them apologetically if anyone could find something adhesive, a utilitarian bonding agent was produced almost immediately. One by one, he fixed his pages to a wall, the texture of images on back bleeding through to front. What appeared at first looked nothing like the boy, but enough like something for the crowd to anticipate each addition – a foot, an elbow, those fertile testicles. Sevat’s earlier manipulation of his subject smeared through time and perspective. Eventually, an abstract distortion emerged of a youth on his twisted bed in a swirling room watched by a distant crowd. Sevat rubbed his fingers in the wall’s rust and smeared its color across ink. Back and forth, rust from the wall, dirt from the floor, painting with fingers and filth, Sevat Arghelos produced a masterpiece that belonged.

Muninn’s reaction triggered a sensation the painter ordinarily denied himself. The boy no longer flopped on his bed, pleasantly indifferent to surrounding circumstances, but instead perched on its edge – staring into the painting like a predator. Discoloration spread beneath his skin, filaments stretching the length of his narrow body.

Sevat took pride in that.

Muse satisfied, the painter spent weeks back in his loft expanding more deliberately on treatments of the Spider’s Nest. Once he had drawn something “seriously,” he could revisit its inspiration at will. The architecture, crowds, and breasted underworld queen of that alien place spilled a fortune in rare paints across a dozen canvases, feral imp slinking through every shadow. On shorter visits, Sevat saw that his original remained in Muninn’s crate, sealed to the wall by thick plastic. The boy behaved in a more animated – and animalistic – manner now, switching from indolence to a squirrel’s frenzy without warning. He was also frightfully strong. Sevat looked for cybernetic clues, but saw only flesh. House Arghelos bred snooping curiosity from its line long ago, however, and so this heir remained content to merely wonder.

He wondered with alarm why Yryal might visit his residence.

She affected her own transformation for the trip: in a smart suit beneath neat hair, the Brutor terrorist presented as no more threatening than a university administrator come to fawn over genius. Sevat ran with her premise. If he seemed momentarily flustered, it was only in demurral to extravagant praise. They wandered off. There had been a fight in the Nest. Happened all the time, of course, but this one destroyed Sevat’s painting. A man was thrown through its wall from the other side. Vhat berated herself for not thinking of that. Of course, she wanted to move the painting immediately after Sevat finished it, but Muninn howled whenever it was touched. The Brutor berated herself again for relenting. Sevat expressed horror that she would place herself at such risk over the painting at all.

“Muninn is not taking it well,” she explained. “Can you come?”

Aristocratic reflexes warned of danger. Sevat timed his other visits whimsically, followed alternate routes, and behaved as an asset that did not want to end up pirate’s ransom. At the same time, any contact with authority – potentially triggered by accidental events beyond Yryal’s control – would lead to her death. He therefore felt a poetic obligation to match her risk with his own. When he agreed without voiced objection, she appeared stunned.

“One of Commander Gaim’s kameira will shadow us,” she said. “There will not be an incident.”

Her eyes misted slightly as she turned away. Sevat had agreed before she told him of the kameira, and his trust flustered her. There was no incident. Muninn sat rigidly on his bed, staring at the destroyed wall, pathetic flaps of plastic and paper hanging down. He did not look up when the pair entered. Sevat sat next to him.

“It’s still in here,” he whispered, “and in here.”

The genius tapped first on his own head and then on the boy’s chest. Muninn grabbed hold with ferocious speed and wailed. It was not a human sound. Sevat wondered then if the creature ever actually spoke. And wouldn’t it be comic if his obsession’s suffocating grip became the death of him in that intimate moment?

“We’ll replace it with something even better,” he promised after Yryal pried him free.

A tall order, but turning to his savior, Sevat asked if the colonies served by this place might turn up jadeites, preferably a boulder the size of Muninn’s “room.” He would of course pay. Yryal would of course inquire. Scarcely two days later, Sevat gasped at word the jadeite had been delivered – “though it is a bit larger than you requested.” Floating in a pressurized maintenance bay, the kidney shaped boulder was an order of magnitude larger than he requested. No payment was required.

“What are you thinking, cousin?” asked Berragan Arghelos.

Sevat was the family’s most gifted painter; Berragan was its sculptor. Sevat described his intention to carve something in the shape of an egg with the larger part of the kidney, and attendant pieces with the remainder. He could certainly have cut the rock himself, but subtle irregularities might then doom his work. Berragan and teams of his most skilled slaves crawled over the boulder – tapping, rubbing, and listening with unaided ears. Their examination went on for days. During all that boring time, Muninn left the observation deck only for the briefest moments. Finally, Berragan erected a polymer tent around the boulder, attached small explosives, and shattered it.

They pinned the “egg” and set upon it with water jets, sanders, torches, steel, and sonic utensils. Sevat knew what to carve and directed the teams; Berragan knew when to stop them. Their combined skill allowed the boulder itself to reveal Sevat’s narrative. What resulted looked as if the destroyed painting had been wrapped around the rock and illuminated from all sides, casting shadows of space deep into milky green white swirls. With the carving done, Sevat discolored the rock in places with blasts of intense heat. Finished, a ruined painting of paper, rust, and dirt rose again as a phoenix from its egg – ten meters tall in hard, precious stone.

“The Jade Muninn,” he announced.

Confronted by its staggering beauty, this one time the artist permitted himself tears over his own work. Muninn inched forward so carefully his motion became invisible – as if any footstep might scare the bird away. His tattoo spread. Darker than before, and growing darker yet, it crept up the boy’s neck to his face. Each time the lines showed, their paths differed from any time before. When finally the boy touched rock, his filaments glowed. Arghelos saw color more accurately than most anyone; and still, Muninn’s light matched the jadeite’s million hues perfectly.

Sevat did not believe that to be a coincidence.

The colossal carving belonged in a fountain before some palace, museum, or cathedral; but it would go instead to the “unseemly ghetto” of Tor Gaim. That is, if they could figure out how to get it there. The masterpiece could easily be moved into the stream of commerce. But the ghetto’s corridors dealt with smaller and more regularly sized cargo. Wasn’t that a foolish oversight, thought Sevat ruefully? They considered their options carefully for a few days, and then a flurry of excitement among dockhands interrupted contemplation. A ship was being “towed” to a neighboring bay.

Sevat’s aristocratic sanctuary maintained its own small port to service yachts ferrying socialites between the station and Amarr – not “real” ships. Moreover, capitol chauvinism had denied him any interest in travelling abroad. With almost child-like glee, he hurried to watch the arrival, confessing his complete ignorance of spacecraft to Yryal.

“Anathema,” she said, and to clarify: “Amarr covert operations frigate.”

The maintenance bay pressurized and a ramp extended. Columns of kameiras in dress black marched forward. Two of the largest slaver hounds Sevat had ever seen emerged from the frigate. They were followed by a dark bald giant eight or nine feet tall. “Kameira Centurio Yzmal Gaim,” Yryal whispered urgently. Gaim meant to see the Jade Muninn for himself, but Sevat was not prepared for what the statue’s namesake would do when the slaver hounds entered its chamber. The boy circled an imaginary point once, his tattoo flashed, and he charged the dogs – fingertips drifting across the metal floor. It happened too quickly for Sevat to attempt any intervention, but surely Yryal could have…! Boy crashed into hounds, as a mass they broke against the giant’s legs like waves; everyone held their breath. Gaim allowed the snarling to continue several moments and then said simply, “Muninn.”

His voice was a distant glacier calving icebergs. Within a heartbeat, the dogs and Muninn fell into panting stillness on the floor. With a grunt and a nod, Gaim directed the slavers forward. The procession continued. Sevat forcefully suppressed uncomfortable questions. Gaim looked deeply into the Jade Muninn for a very long time.

“Most impressive, Lord Arghelos,” he smiled. “Where will you install it?”

Sevat explained his intentions, and the circumstances inattention to detail placed him in. Gaim thought for several moments, turned back to the Jade Muninn, and walked the bay’s perimeter. As he passed each one, the squat cubic death machines arrayed around the chamber twitched with exhilarated fear at their commander’s proximity. Returning to Sevat, Centurio Gaim nodded.

“Very well then, we’ll tear out that wall.”

Gaim strode back to the frigate alone, allowing Muninn and the slavers to remain outside and “play.” Eventually, Sevat forced himself to turn away from their disturbing frolic. After all, House Arghelos thrived on letting sleeping dogs lie. Gaim arranged structural details with Emperor Family’s plant and the Jade Muninn was floated into place. Rather than obstruct ground traffic, they suspended it in “moonbeams” high above. Nearby tenements installed rooftop gardens with benches, and charged visitors to sit. Sevat Arghelos gladly paid to gaze at his greatest work during quiet evening hours – a bottle of red wine by his side, fleshy Muninn curled contently at his feet, dreaming.