The following is an essay by Shireen Hamsadeh, Department of Inter-Planetary Affairs, Pakesh University, dated 12th December 2479.
| Olympia | Clarus | Comitor | Feras | |
| Vagor | Hell | Domus | Kayrif | |
| Overlook | Harmonia | Bragos | Gracia |
Our sun is one among millions of stars that make up our galaxy. Some say the number of stars in our galaxy approaches millions of millions. Be that as it may, the Celesti Sector is our immediate neigborhood in this vast galaxy, and is itself vast, containing tens of thousands of stars. Light, traveling at its fantastic speed, would take one hundred years to go from one end of the Celesti Sector to the other. This essay describes the Celesti Sector as we believe the Gods, who make their home on Olympia, must see it. To them, Olympia is the capital of the sector in the same way that Pakesh is the capital of Ursia. Olympia is one of the hundreds of habitable planetes revolving around the suns of the Celesti Sector.
We have the name Celesti Sector from the gods. The second word in the name explains itself. The first word is the name of the enormous beings that create conjunctions on the worlds. These beings exist only in our neighborhood of the galaxy. There are many theories about their origins, but no proof to support any of them. We will not discuss the celsti here, but instead will concentrate on describing the prominant planets of the sector, and the manner in which the gods govern them.
In the centuries following their arrival in the Celesti Sector, the gods discovered dozens of bioformed planets linked by hundreds of conjunctions. They discover more planets and conjunctions every century. At the last count, the Olympian council knows of one hundred and fifty bioformed planets and three thousand conjunctions.
Terran species survive well on the bioformed planets. Travel between the planets is made simple by conjunctions. Sapiens live on most planets, as do Terran flora and fauna. When Olympia was first settled, in the fifth century before the founding of Endromis, several hundred gods arrived from Terra, soon to be followed by more, and hosts of demons and demigods and dozens of rogue daemons. A century later, two thousand elves arrived, and a century after that, two thousand dwarves arrived, courtesy of the Illuminati. Three centuries later still, the gods brought two hundred thousand sapiens from Terra. In the twenty-fifth century after the founding of Endromis, three thousand years after the arrival of the first gods, the Olympian Council estimates the population of the Celesti Sector as follows.
| Species | Population |
|---|---|
| god | 1,000 |
| demigods | 10,000 |
| demons | 100,000 |
| daemons | 100 |
| sapiens | 500,000,000 |
| elves | 2,000,000 |
| dwarves | 4,000,000 |
Dwarves live mostly on the Free Worlds and Olympia. Half the elves live on Olympia, where thy make up the entire administration of the Olympian Council. Of the remaining million elves, almost all live on Clarus. Four hundred million sapiens live on the Free Worlds. The remaining hundred million live on the hundred or more Open Worlds, under the watchful eyes of the gods.
The Laws of the Gods are the laws laid down by the Olympian Council. The gods elect twelve of their number to the Olympian Council every one hundred Olympian years. The council passed the Free World Declaration in 13 BE:
There are additional clauses, (7) to (10), particular to each Free World, given below. Rule (4) has been relaxed for Clarus, but not for the other Free Worlds. Note that imports are restricted, but exports are not. The gods import goods from the populous Free Worlds. Most Open Worlds are subject to no trade restrictions, but creatures upon Open Worlds must abide by the Laws of the Gods.
On the open worlds, injuring a god or an emissary of the gods is punishable by death. The forces of Olympia will come after you and kill you. In the Free Worlds, the gods do not seek to protect themselves with their police and armies.
The gods believe they must limit the population of the Open Worlds to one hundred million, or else their own safety will be threatened by the uncontrolled weight of the sapien population. They fear the Illuminati will invade the sector if the sapien population grows so strong as to pose a threat to the Illuminati planets.
Each Open World has a population limit and is owned by a god or corporation of gods. Every hundred Olympian years, the Olympian Council carries out a census of each planet. If the sapien population exceeds its limit, the owners must pay a proportional fine, and take steps to reduce the population. Each planet must have associated with it a force of well-trained and unquestionably loyal sapien soldiers numbering one percent of the planet's population. These soldiers must be under the control of the same corporation that owns the planet, or under direct control of the Olympian Council. They can be called upon by the Olympian Council for service at any time. They serve both to keep order on their planet, and to give security to the gods.
The combined armies of the planetary corporations and the Olympian Council make up a one-million strong fighting force. The gods trust this army to dominate rebellion in the Open Worlds, to keep the large population of the Free Worlds confined, and to deter the Illuminati from invasion. But the more active gods believe that their army would be powerless against the superior technology of the Illuminati.
The main expenses of the gods are their standing armis, their administrations, their opulent living, and their biological bodies. On average, these bodies cost ten million Olympian Dollars ($) each, and must be replaced every century. The standing army of one million men costs eighty billion dollars a year, when you include all its associated administration, supply, and pensions for retired soldiers. The Olympian beaurocracy alone costs twenty billion dollars a year. The spending of a thousand gods upon magnificent buildings, opulent parties, fabulous gardens and creatures, amounts to about ten billion dollars a year.
The Olympian tax per sapien in the Open Worlds is $1000 per year. With one hundred million sapiens in the Open Worlds, that makes one hundred billion dollars in taxes per year, which pays the eighty-billion dollar army budget, and the twenty-billion dollar administrative budget.
Most gods running their Open World planets are unable to extract $1000 per year per sapien from their population. A family of four must provide $4000 per year.
Even if a god has the skill to obtain $1000 per sapien per year from his populations, there is the risk that the population will grow beyond its legal limit, bring fines upon him, and force him to kill off the excess. Or the population might shrink, leaving him with the same amount due each tax, but too few people to provide it. Between the years 500 AE and 1500 AE, many gods went bankrupt trying to keep control of their planets.
The Free Worlds supply extra income to the Gods, and at low risk. There are no taxes due on the Free World populations, so all a god has to do is persuade people on the Free Worlds to give things away, and what is given is all profit, and not taxable. In the years 1000 AE to 1500 AE, many gods saved themselves from bankruptcy as a result of their Open World operations using the profits from their Free World operations. The most profitable Free World was Clarus, where the rules governing temple plotsa and summoning, combined with the freedom of its various human races, conspire to provide more profit per person. The average income per sapien in the decade leading up to the turn of the fourteenth century was $2000 per year.
When Gelden brought the Dark Ages to Clarus (See Clarus), the population collapsed and the income from the planet vanished. Over the next two centuries, twenty of the one hundred Open Worlds were sold by gods who could no longer afford them. All of these twenty were purchased by large planetary-management corporations, owned by ten or twenty gods at a time, and run by elves.
By the fifteenth century AE, half the gods of the sector were showing signs of senility. These gods retained their rights as citizens to vote for the council and own planets. The lucky ones entrusted their affairs to their elf servants. The unlucky ones went bankrupt trying to manage things themselves.
By the twenty-fifth century, nine-tenths of the gods show signs of senility. Five hundred of them spend most of their time hibernating in healing-chambers that appear to slow the effects of their mental aging. The Opens Worlds are in the hands of the elves who run the Planetary Corporations, and the hundred or so active gods who run their planets themselves. The elves run their planets according to the tenets of the Olympian Peace and Prosperity camp. Some of the gods do the same, but others are making good money with Cultural Dynamism.
The Peace and Prosperity style of planetary management leads to a steady population, well-cared for and protected from invasion. In the twenty-fourth century this style of management provided between $1000 and $2000 income per sapien per year. After paying tax of $1000 per year, the planets were yielding a healthy profit for their owners.
Many of the Cultural Dynamists allow their populations to swell without check between the censuses. They extract only $500 per person, so in the first few decates they make a loss on the planet. But as the popoulation grows, they begin to make a good profit. A decade before the census, with a populations three or four times the legal limit, the planet owners arrange for plague, war, and disaster to reduce the population to the limit again. It is an exciting game, and brutal, but the Cultural Dynamists are making more money than the Peace and Prosperity camp, and their money is giving them more power in the council.
The Free Worlds lie within a sphere fifteen light years across. Olympia lies just outside this sphere of the Free Worlds. Hundreds of conjunctions link the Free Worlds to one another and to Olympia. The average time required to travel by conjunction between two randomly selected points upon the populated continents of the Free Worlds is nine Claran months, with overland travel at 1000 km per month. The average travel time to Olympia is slightly shorter, but travel to Olympia is restricted.
You can travel between the Open Worlds either by space bridges tuned by the gods and their daemons, or by conjunction. Because the Open Worlds are less populated than the Free Worlds, their inhabitants have discovered far fewer of their conjunctions. With fewer conjunctions to choose from, travel becomes less direct. It takes about a year to go ten light years across the sector by conjunctions. To travel from one side of the sector to the other might take two hundred years. But the gods have an extensive network of space bridges that connects Olympia with temples all over the Open Worlds. These bridges are called 'temple gates'. It is simple to travel from one temple gate to another, no matter how far they are separated. You can do so, however, only with the approval of the gods, and usually at a price.
Although not governed by the Laws of the Gods, the Watchers of the Free Worlds are funded by Olympia, in chief by the distribution of longevity drugs to its members. The watchers of each Free World are a global organization of accomplished adventurers who are paid to enforce the tenets of the Free World Declaration.
The Watchers guard conjunctions and act as customs men for trade between the Free Worlds. For example, they deny passage to any living creature that is not a native of Terra, or an elf, or a dwarf. They hope to stop hellspawn from spreading across the Free Worlds. Hellspawn exist in significant numbers only on Clarus.
Citizens of the Free Worlds can pass freely between the Free Worlds and Open Worlds, but they must have a passport that proves their citizenship of the Free Worlds. These passports are available from the Watchers at a fee of 10 gp. The watchers check passports at all conjunctions between free and Open Worlds, but not at those between Free Worlds. Citizens of the Free Worlds can bring back what they took out of the Free Worlds, but nothing besides. Citizens of the Open Worlds cannot enter the Free Worlds unless they are gods or demigods with the right to do so according to the Free World Declaration.
Not all conjunctions on the Free Worlds are known to the Watchers, but when those that are known open up, Watchers show up with clip-boards and assistants, checking everyone and everything that passes through. Sometimes they might levy taxes in accordance with local laws. In Clarus, some conjunctions occur in the outlands. These, too, are monitored by the Watchers, but doing so forced a practical agreement with black orcs, who now share the profit from such exercises.
The most dangerous and romantic responsibility of the Watchers is that of preventing time travel and time travelers from affecting the course of history within the Free Worlds. Any asymmetrically accelerated space bridge acts as a time machine. Space bridges carried by daemons on their travels between the stars can span millennia. Daemons, assisted by their servants and slaves, are the most prominent time travelers. They are the Watchers' most dangerous and terrifying adversaries.
Although an obscure field of study, paleantology gives us insight into the pre-history, the very ancient history, of our worlds, millions of years in our past, before the Gods arrived, and before even the Celesti. And so we devote a few paragraphs to paleantology here.
It is possible for a living creature to die and become part of the rock of a planet. Such creatures are said to be fossilized, and their remains are fossils. The fossilization process takes millions of years. Because the Gods arrived in the Celesti Sector only three thousand years ago, it is impossible for any life brought by the gods to be fossilized. And yet fossils have so far been found on fifteen of the bioformed worlds in the Celesti Sector. The silent forests that cover newly-discovered worlds contain no animal life, and yet the fossils discovered on Clarus appear to be of creatures larger than an elephant. The Gods have concluded that these fifteen worlds with fossils did, at one time, support their own life, which was native to the planet, having evolved from the birth of the planet by natural processes.
If such is the case, then we expect to see distinct creatures in the fossils of each of the fifteen worlds. Among those who study fossils, or paleantologists, it is axiomatic that no creature from one planet will ever occur among the fossils of another planet. There have been several episodes in which an exception to this rule appears to have been found, but in each case, the exception turned out to be a hoax played by one paleantologist upon the others. In short: it appears that independent and diverse life forms existed upon these fifteen planets.
Paleantologists can, to some extent, determine the age of a fossil by examination of the stone in which it is found, and the layers of stone with which the fossil was covered. The ways in which they determine the age of fossils are many and ingenious, but we will not present their methods here. Instead, we present their conclusion, which is that life on all fifteen inhabited worlds ceased suddenly and at the same time, twenty-five million years ago.
What caused the sudden end to life upon the inhabited planets of our sector twenty-five million years ago is a matter of speculation among paleantologists, and passing concern for the Gods. What if this cataclysmic sector-wide event occurred again? Some believe that the celesti destroyed all pre-historical life. But the cataclysm occurred twenty-five million years ago, and the Gods believe the celesti arrived in the Celesti Sector no more than half a million years ago. If the cataclysm were something engineered by a violent or agressive culture, the Gods believe it is unlikely that all fifteen inhabited worlds would be wiped clean of all life so suddenly. Therefore, the most popular theory of the cataclysm is that some galactic event occurred, such as the exploding of an old star, and the resulting burst of light and heat put an end to life on all planets in our sector, leaving only fossils as evidence of their existence.
Efforts have been made to recreate creatures from fossils, much as has been done for fossils recovered from Terra. Some of these efforts may have been met with short-lived success, but once again, it is possible that the strange creatures generated and photographed by paleantologists are further hoaxes.
Aside from the presence of fossils, the planets that held pre-historic life share other features. Chalk, limestone, and marble (all types of stone) are far more common on these planets than upon others. They have stable orbits and stable climates. Among the Free Words, Comitor and Clarus are both fossil planets. The others are not. Nor is Olympia a fossil plante.
On the following pages, we give brief introductions to some planets of the sector.
Olympia is an Open World, and home planet of the gods. It has maeon wind 2 Y, gravity 13 ms-2, days 32 hours long, solar year close to that of Clarus, and no moons. As a security precaution, the gods do not want sapiens and hellspawn breeding upon Olympia. All female sapiens must be neutered. If not, they can spend no more than twenty-four hours on the planet. Male hellspawn are present upon the planet for summoning to Clarus. They are entertained by neutered females on Olympia, but they are brought from Clarus or Hell when they are young. Most of the administrative and manual work on Olympia is done by elves, but there are many male sapiens and neutered female sapiens as well. Elf women do not have to be neutered because elves breed too slowly to be a threat to the gods. The official language of the gods is Latin, also known as the Language of Names, and is based upon the language of the Terran Roman Empire from which many sapien colonists were taken. Although Latin is the official language, many of the gods converse in Greek.
Clarus has one moon orbiting in 28 days, gravity 10 ms-2, days of length 24 hours, etc. Maeon wind strength is 1 Yardley. It is a Free World. Clarus means "distinct" in Latin. Clause (7) of the Free World Declaration divided Clarus into 1,000 temple plots each roughly 100 km square, although their sizes and shapes vary with the local terrain. Temple plots may be owned only by individual gods. That god is allowed to appear in person within 30 m of a chosen temple point in his plot. The location of this point must be declared in the Olympian Public Record. Each temple plot has associated with it a number of population blocks, each of which represents permission, under Olympian Law, for the a thousand humans to live within the temple plot. Every ten years, the Olympian Censor will estimate the population of each temple plot. The plot owner must pay an over-count fine for each person living in the plot over and above the number permitted by his population blocks. The over-count fines have varied over the centuries, but in they twenty-fifth century the fine is $1000 per person per year until the next census. If a god had ten blocks associated with his temple plot and twelve thousand people living there, he would have to pay two million dollars a year for the ten years between one census and the next. If he had only nine thousand people living there, he would do well to sell or transfer one of his population blocks because this plot does not need the block. In the twenty-fifth century, Claran population blocks are selling for around one million dollars each.
The number of population blocks available on Clarus is limited to fifty thousand, so the total population must be fifty million or less to avoid over-count fines. It was only in the twenty-fourth century that Clarus achieved its maximum population, because of the Dark Age. During the Dark Age, Olympian introduced the Once Percent of Lifetime Summoning Rule, which modified clause (4) of the Free World Declaration to allow pantheons and spirit agencies to serve the population of Clarus. In particular, it allowed divine medicines to be supplied to Clarus, which in the long run greatly increased the influence of churches in civilized nations. Hellspawn, even if born and raised on Clarus, are not considered citizens. Therefore they are not free to move through conjunctions to Open Worlds, but they may be summoned to Clarus under the provisions of the One Percent of Lifetime Summoning Rule. In modern times, the Gods control the population of Clarus by means of reversible sterilization administered to woman when they reach puberty. The Gods charge money for the reversal of this sterilization, or allow their clerics to pick those who ill be permitted to have children, and so limit the number of children families can have.
Comitor is a Free World. It has no moon, and a marvellous night sky in which the milky way is a bright swath of pink and green. Its year is four times longer than that of Clarus, but its day is almost exactly the same. Gravity is 8 ms-2. Maeon wind strength is 0.8 Yardley. Comitor means "accompany" in Latin. Clause (8) of the Free World Declaration divided Comitor into plots, which were distributed among the gods in the same way as was done on Clarus. On Comitor a god is permitted to roam and act freely within the borders of her plot. Because of the restrictions on imports to Comitor, pantheons and spirit agencies cannot serve the world's inhabitants, and it is not possible to restrict the planet's population by administration of sterilization as it is on Clarus. Nevertheless, Comitor is subject to population blocks in the same way as Clarus, with a total of fifthy thousand blocks for the entire planet. The Gods control population with plague, war, religious taboos against having children, and by encouraging the use of naturally-occurring contraceptive drugs. The population of the planet reached fourty million in the tenth century AE, and has varied between thirty and sixty million since that time. The peak of sixty million occured in the eighteenth century AE, and led to the Dark Age of Comitor, in which the Gods used plague and war to drop the population below thirty million in the space of twenty years.
Feras is a Free World. It has three moons, one very close, orbiting in eight days, and generating tides of up to ten meters, and the others farther away orbiting in eighty and ninety days. The close moon has apparent diameter four times that of Clarus's moon, and sheds more than enough light when full to read small print. Gravity is 12 ms-2, the day is 21 hours long, and the year is 1.7 times as long as that of Clarus. Maeon wind strength is 1.5 Yardley. Feras means 'wild' in Latin. Clause (9) of the Free World Declaration give gods complete freedom to do as they please upon Feras. No effort is made there to enforce laws of non-violence between gods, although it has come to be taboo for gods to harm each other there. Because of the restrictions upon imports to Feras, pantheons and spirit agencies cannot serve the world's inhabitants. There are no population blocks. Feras is one of only two planets in the Celesti Sector where the population is not limited by any Olympian Law. The population of Feras in the twenty-fifth century AE is around two hundred and fifty million.
Vagor is a Free World. It has no moon, but its night sky is illuminated brightly by three nearby stars, two visible from the southern, most populated, hemisphere, and one from the northern hemisphere. Each star is as bright as Clarus's full moon. The two southern stars are called Raptor and Tyrannus. Raptor rises as the sun sets at the end of the southern winter, and Tyrannus follows it four hours later. The northern star is called Calypso. It rises as the sun sets in the middle of the northern winter. Gravity is 10 ms-2, the year is 0.6 of a Clarus year, and the days are 28 hours. Seasons, aside from being short, are not severe because the tilt of the planet's axis is only a few degrees. Maeon wind strength is 0.5 Yardley. Vagor means "wander" in Latin. According to clause (10) of the Free World Declaration, there are no plots on Vagor. The gods may travel freely. But no intervention in the affairs of Vagor's citizens is allowed. The gods are not even allowed to reveal themselves as gods. The same applies to demigods, who take animal forms. Vagor is supposed to be like the original Terra in that the gods must go amongst its people incognito. Human spies and visiting gods help enforce this rule upon all gods and demigods who visit the world. Because of the restrictions upon imports to Vagor, pantheons and spirit agencies cannot serve the world's inhabitants. Vagor is one of two planets in the Celesti Sector with no limits to its population, but its limited fertile land area and erratic climate make it a harsh and unpredictable world. In the fifteenth century AE the population reached a hundred million, but a sudden drop in the average global temperature reduced the population to ten million by the twentieth century AE. Since then the climate has warmed, but fierce storms destroy crops and flood coasts. In the twenty-fifth centiry AE, the population has risen to fifty million.
Hell is the most famous of the Open Worlds owned and operated by the Princes of Hell, nine gods who worked together on Luma in genetic engineering, who bought the world as a venue for their war games. Four of them are now in poor mental health, and have given over control of their affairs to the remaining five. The five active princes, also known as The Devils, are Lucifer, Beelzebub, The Princes of Hell created the species known as 'hellspawn' out of humans and animals, and many other monsters besides, both useful and disgraceful, to make up the armies they pitted against one another in their games. When several hundred thousand orc soldiers from oneof Lucifer's armies broke through to Clarus (fifteenth century after the founding of Endromis), plague and war almost did away the human population of the planet.
Domus is the name of a world, an island, and a city. Domus the city rests between two slopes of snow-capped mountain on Domus the island. Domus the island is the only habitable land on Domus the world. Domus the world is a hundred light years from Olympia. Nevertheless, it is a stopping point for travelling to all points in the sector, and from centuries past and future. Domus has maeon wind strength 0.3 Y, magical core attraction 0.8 Nmg-1 gravity 9 ms-2, day 42 Claran hours, year 800 Domus days, one moon with period 54 days, an axis tilt of twenty-three degrees.
The climate beyond the gate is temperate. The city looks West, towards the setting sun. A river flows between the shoulders of the mountain and through the city, cascading through its Eastern gates, and meandering out of its Western gates. The seven-meter high wall of the city is made of stone blocks, each cut to its own shape, and resting without mortar upon those beneath it. The wall runs in a rough circle, one kilometer across. Forty thousand people live permanently in within the walls, accompanied by an average of ten thousand travelers at any one time. There are three hundred registered hotels, two hundred restaurants, one hundred bars, twenty museums, thirty theaters, twenty music-halls, ten gymnasiums, five market squares, six parks, forty fountains, and twenty public bath houses. There are fifty temples staffed by clerics. The clerics are called upon frequently for their services as healers, but rarely as providers of spiritual guidance. Domus is the home to its own philosophy: Zen.
To be a master of Zen is to allow your emotions to be governed only by the present. The zen master does not brood upon the past, or become anxious about the future. Nevertheless, he prepares for action and learns from his lessons. He does not anticipate the outcome of a confrontation, but concentrates on performing as best he can during the confrontation. Zen is popular in Domus because it allows you to overcome the anxiety and confusion that arises from knowing your destiny as a result of time travelling. And everyone who goes to Domus has traveled in time. There are no conjunctions to the planet. There was one once, but it has stopped. For the last thousand years, the planet has been accessible only through gates, and these gates are brought by daemons as light-speed between the worlds, and therefore have time shifts of several decades to several centuries. Hundreds of gates to other worlds are set in the mountain walls to the east of the city. These are tended by gatekeepers paid by the daemons or divine agencies that maintain the gates. The gatekeepers keep stairs leading to the gates clear of obstruction, tend to plants and gardens, and watch for travelers, who they will help, or to whom they will relay messages.
[Awaiting transfer of notes from QTG diary.]
[Awaiting transfer of notes from QTG diary.]
[Awaiting transfer of notes from QTG diary.]
[Awaiting transfer of notes from QTG diary.]
[Awaiting transfer of notes from QTG diary.]