Across the Scattered Worlds

20090408

Miruvorane

Final Report of the World Health Organization
Task Force on Miruvorane™-Affected Births
December 2015

STATISTICAL SUMMARY

(May not total due to duplication of categories)

Total affected pregnancies (world): 156,213 (± 0.4%)
Total stillbirths (world): 62,084 (± 0.7%)
Total nonviable (world): 45,156 (± 0.3%)
Total gross physyical deformity (world): 18,952 (± 1.4%)
Total acephalic (world): 7,218 (± 0.1%)
Total hormonal abnormalities (world): 16,720 (± 0.5%)
Total no recognizable abnormality (world): 629 (± 0.4%)
Total 12-month survivors (world): 37,926 (±0.1%)
Total 18-month survivors (world): 26,863 (± 0.3%)
Projected 60-month survivors (world): 12,934 (± 11.3%)
Projected 10-year survivors (world): *ERROR*

The tally of human misery and individual tragedy concealed by the figures above will never be fully known. This is a tragedy that touches not only the families directly concerned, but every one of us. Though only a drop in an ocean of human woe, these figures touch us all as no others can. These lives sacrificed were not fellow participants in the world's miseries, in patriotism, ethnic pride, territorial gain, economic greed, or even blunt hatred. These lives belonged to the only ones on this sorry planet who could truly be called innocents. They were not sacrificed for any cause, however noble or ignoble -- they were not sacrificed for any great plan, divine or human -- they were sacrificed merely by accident, by terrible mistake, by carelessness. We think we have learned, but we have not. There will be other mistakes, if perhaps none as grievous. And this shameful episode in out history, a true slaughter of the innocents, will haunt us all from now until the day we die.

Vavrinec Divizich,
Secretary-General of the United Nations
for the World Health Organization

copyright (c) 2009, Don Sakers

Find out more in Dance for the Ivory Madonna

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20090402

The Duchy of Geled

Following the fall of the Empire, Marc Tattersall, Provost of the Province of Geled, announced that Geled would host the Imperial Council. Nearly two dozen authentic Councilors managed to reach Geled and hold a meeting, at which (surprise!) Marc Tattersall was declared Emperor. The other Provinces, however, had their own ideas, and since the Geled Council did not have a quorum, the legality of the declaration is in serious doubt. Although Marc Tattersall maintained that he was the legal Emperor, and kept the title until the end of his life, his successors gave up the claim.

Instead, Geled maintained the fiction that it was still a Province; until c. 4700 CE, it was known as the "Province of Geled" and the leader was styled "Provost of Geled." Subsequently, the area was known as the "Duchy of Geled."

At the same time, the former Province had splintered to a much greater degree than Credix; while the Tattersalls tried to maintain Imperial traditions, strong neighbors and mass movements into and out of the Transgeled left the realm on permanent military footing. Marc's daughter, Cambrea Tattersall, reorganized the realm and strengthened the Navy. Her successors continued the work, until Geled became primarily a military state.

In 5372 CE, the expanding Natalese Confederation pushed up against Geled's borders, and the two states mutually declared war. The war continued, with much damage on both sides (including the destruction of Ultrawave Relay Beta in 5378 CE), until 5408 CE, when the Independent Traders organized a peace conference on Escen. As a result of this conference, disputed territory was granted independence as the Free Territory of Cisnatal.

The long war, however, had proved so destabilizing that, by 5440 CE, Cisnatal had dissolved and the Natalese Confederation was in rapid decline. By 6100 CE the Natalese Confederation was gone.

c. 6390 CE, Geled began ultrawave contact with the Ebettor; the first face-to-face contact occurred in 6484 CE.

About 7700 CE, Geled entered into a series of treaties with the Independent Traders. These treaties not only gave the Traders greater access to Geledian territory and trade; they also served as nonagression treaties between Geled, the Credixian Imperium, the Sardinian League, Borshall, and the Escen Hegemony. Shortly, Geled and Escen signed a treaty prohibiting intrusions into one another's space.

About 7800 CE, Georges Naiman took control of the Escen Hegemony, and turned it into a military dictatorship. A cold war developed between Escen and Geled, and Geled slowly became more like Escen.

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20090325

Market Slump Continues

25 March TE 275

NEW YORK The Imperial stock market ended the day down nearly 7%, the worst one-day decline in more than 25 years. Across the board, declining issues led advances by 6-1. This marks the seventeenth consecutive daily decline in stocks; markets are down nearly one-third from their high in January. Economists blamed this most recent sharp decline on the continuing succession crisis, although AIs from the Bureau of Economic Management conjecture that an economic slowdown was already established well before Empress Cathie Kuchta's death.

Sayyid Zora Carroll, speaking for the Imperial Council, promised a swift resolution to the succession crisis, and predicted that markets would recover soon.

Quotes for the Top Twenty at today's close:

Schmidt Foundation: 326, down 37
Dalanian Antigravitics: 1498, up 2
Bank of Luna: 548, down 32
Imperial Centcom: 976, down 64
Gigasoft: 293, down 5
Rockwell: 383, down 19
Xerox Life Sciences: 806, down 8
Dow Genetics: 382, down 22
Mitsubishi Shipping: 832, down 24
Borshallan AIs: 807, down 50
Phuctra Manufacturing: 787, down 42
Coca-Cola: 2202, up 8
Karphos Corp: 571, down 17
Wuorio Construction: 403, down 78
Chase: 959, up 81
General Electronics: 592, down 2
Nippon Metals Interstellar: 468, down 11
Bank of Elendan: 525, up 88
Dovan Construction: 723, down 51
RC Fashions: 893, down 78

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20090318

African Rebirth

from African Rebirth by Hassan Kerekou (2039)
University of Harare Net,

...Returning Blackamericans brought many things with them, but two of their gifts alone were responsible for most of Africa’s salvation and rebirth.

The first gift that Blackamericans brought was their effete attachment to Western notions of sanitation and public health. Mother Africa horrified them with her casual acceptance of disease and death, her parasites and endemic viruses, her lack of clean-water standards, and above all…her unspeakable toilets.

Imagine a continent whose people are daily robbed of their energy by dysentery, malaria, schistosomiasis, sleeping sickness, AIDS, and a host of other diseases. Imagine a people whose bodies are alive with larvae, worms, fleas, and worse. Imagine malnutrition as a daily companion.

These are the people who managed, in spite of physical degradation that would destroy a lesser folk, to build great Timbuktu and Zimbabwe, Songhai and Goa, Meroë and Jenné. These are the people who conquered a continent, ridden with disadvantages that would make any other people lay down and die.

Now imagine this continent with Western sanitation and medicine. Gengineered viruses to kill off the parasites, water filtration, waste reclamation. Vaccines, antibiotics, bionics, regeneration. Imagine cool, clean water and safe, dependable electricity. Imagine the boundless energy of this people set free, young healthy muscles and minds working together for the betterment of all. Imagine this people possessed of the accumulated knowledge of Humankind, able to avoid the mistakes of earlier cultures. Imagine this knowledge, combined with the virtually-untapped natural resources of Mother Africa and the best technology of the age.

The wonder, my friends, is not how much Africa has accomplished in a few short decades…the wonder is that it took so long.

The second gift Blackamericans brought was more subtle, but just as vital to Africa’s renaissance. This was their matriarchal tradition, sprung from the terrible years of slavery, when Woman was the only link to Family. From the first moment of the Kurudi, the Great Return, Blackwoman came to Africa as the equal partner— some might even say, the superior— of Blackman.

Nowhere was the cultural clash between African and Blackamerican more bitter, than over the place of women in our society. African tradition made her equal to a cow or pig; Blackamerican tradition exalted her as the soul and leader of the family, strong and independent. Blackwoman arrived on African shores confident and capable, and she was not about to take on the subservient role that tribal elders decreed.

In the end, the old ways withered…and well they did! For the job of building Umoja was too great for us to leave out half our strength. The task would take every iota of Man’s determination, every milligram of Woman’s endurance. Every shoulder, every hand, and every brain was needed. United, equal, Man and Woman built together what none could have built alone.

Today, women and men are equal in culture and law across every Umoja client state. Women serve at every level of our society. One of the most revered persons on the continent is a Blackamerican woman who took the name Princess Mahlowi, and who now sits on the throne of the vast Songhay kingdom from which her ancestors were torn half a millennium ago….

copyright (c) 2009, Don Sakers

Find out more in Dance for the Ivory Madonna

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20090311

The Year 2030

It had been quite a year. After four bloody years and over a thousand deaths, the Euskadi civil war was concluded with the establishment of a second Basque homeland, the Basque Republic. On the recommendation of the AIs, the United Nations set 2030 carbon emissions totals at the same level as 2029; Secretary-General Pham Cao Ky predicted that2029 levels were sustainable indefinitely, and declared the global climate crisis over.

Three different clones of Seattle Slew carried off the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes respectively, leaving the racing world divided over whether the Triple Crown had been won or not. The Disney-Hohokus animated virtie Gorbachev shattered earnings records and made an instant star of its lead vocalist, Mahari Ge'ez -- but was widely criticized for its distortions of history. With the establishment of Kilwa, the second Umojan settlement on Mars, the Red Planet finally (albeit reluctantly) implemented a system of postal codes.

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20090304

The Daamin

Homeworld: Verkorra (Gathered Worlds), Nephestal (Scattered Worlds)

Also known as The High Race, the Daamin are small in number and stature, peaceful and philosophic. Physically, they most resemble meter-high rabbits. The Daamin were one of the original Seven Races of the Pylistroph.

When the Gergathan proclaimed Mertorthar c. 1.2 billion BCE, many of the Daamin refused to yield allegiance to the repressive new government. Led by the Elder Ashli Sicne, and accompanied by many of their friends, several million Daamin fled to the Scattered Worlds, where they established a new home on the planet Nephestal. This event became known as The Flight of the Daamin. One of the Singing Stones was destroyed in the Flight.

The Flight of the Daamin was a central event in Daamin history. Even though a billion years of slow evolution permanently sundered the exiles from those who remained behind, the Daamin of Nephestal never forgot their lost home, and never stopped longing for the star-crowded skies of the Core.

To the Terran Empire, the Daamin are known as the Kien Khwei. In the Scattered Worlds, the Daamin are often referred to as The Elders.

The titular head of the Daamin race is referred to as The Senior. The ruling council of the Daamin is referred to as The Wise.

The Daamin spend a large part of their lives in an alternate mental state called Forever Dreams, a state of nonlinear causality. Natural intitutive mathematicians, they constantly extrapolate and visualize possible futures, readjusting their visualization with each change in the environment. The Daamin see every person/place/thing in the world overlaid with possible future versions, a constantly-shifting kaleidoscope of predictive visions.

To the Daamin, some things are relatively stable and in focus: physical landscape features, buildings, anything motionless; also periodic or easily-predictable events. More fuzzy are living beings and things in chaotic motion; these tend to blur or smear.

Usually, it takes great concentration for a Daamin to leave the Forever Dreams anbd become exclusively aware of the world of the present. Those who can focus on the present to such a degree that they can deal with other races, are usually considered unstable or even mad by other Daamin.

The touch of other sapient beings is a source of discomfort and even pain for the Daamin, and they will take even extreme measures to avoid being touched. Throughout the Scattered Worlds, there is a strong taboo against touching one of the Daamin. Which is a pity, as their fur is so fine and beautiful that the impulse to stroke it is almost irresistable.

Daamin reproduction resembles a Greek tragedy crossed with the mating of fish and played out backwards over several years. Basically, one Daam drops an unfertilized egg. Years earlier another Daam, figuring out exactly where the egg will be dropped, arranges to have it fertilized at some time after it is dropped. Both the egg and the fertilizing material are carried by any of several intermediate lower animals.

The whole thing rather seems like a large-scale chess game, and is further complicated by the fact that the Daamin are female most of the time, and only develop the ability to fertilize or drop eggs under certain conditions -- conditions which vary with the individual and the tribe.

Nowadays it's all done with machines anyway, but primitive Daamin versions of Romeo and Juliet probably sounded more like Tristram Shandy.

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20090225

Abomination

In June 2015, just in time for the Southern Baptist Convention, Cetaire-Maris Designs released a very chic, retro-1920s line of linsey-woolsey fashions under the label "Abomination." At a Paris press conference, Madame Rose Cetaire explained that the new line had been inspired by Deuteronomy 22:11: "You shall not wear a mingled stuff, wool and linen together." The Southern Baptists obliged her by noisily denouncing her company's "mockery of Scripture," and overnight Abomination became the hottest-selling line in fashion history.

A celebration, Miranda Maris decided, was quite definitely in order.

Accordingly, Cetaire-Maris Designs rented a large hotel for the Bastille Day weekend, and threw the door open to friends, relatives, business associates, and assorted well-wishers of all types.

Like all creative souls, Miranda and Rose had always been at home with artists, musicians, actors, talented people of all stripes. Sensing free food and great parties, they flocked to the hotel -- taking advantage of universal bohemian brotherhood, each brought his or her own entourage.

Drawn by the bohemians, journalists and reporters swarmed like moths to the flame. Journalists of course brought politicians and gray eminences; these in turn draw those who worshipped power. In the end, more than two thousand people eventually passed through, and Miranda did her best to spend time with all of them.

The party passed into legend, so that eventually tens of thousands would claim to have been there. When all was said and done, the Abomination Party was credited with the creation of twenty-five books, twenty new bands, fifteen billion-dollar mergers, a dozen marriages, ten gold records, eight blockbuster virties, six corporations, four Broadway musicals, three masterpiece paintings, two religions, and a proof of Goldbach's Conjecture.

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20090218

Filtan of thakar Lyph chaio

born on Kree c. 28,470 (Kreen calendar) (c. 750,000 BCE)

Filtan was the greatest of the Kreen poets. He lived in the days of Nova Barentikater, and although he was of Kree, he belonged to a chaio which symapthized with Barentikater. thakar Lyph chaio, in fact, had strong ties with ban Tau chaio on Barentikater IV. thakar Lyph chaio kept no Sebhra slaves (unlike other powerful chaios on Kree), and Filtan spoke out against Sebhra slavery at all times.

In the days directly before Nova Barentikater, Filtan was sent to Barentikater IV by the Miethara as a putative peace envoy (in fact the Miethara was trying to get rid of him), with two chaio-mates named Hylie and Aeth. Upon return to Kree, he found thakar Lyph chaio slain, and the Miethara in command of their ancestral lands.

Filtan's poetry was largely what we today would call science fiction, but his best-known work was his lament, "The Deathsong of Filtan."

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20090204

Jackie Paper

Miranda watches one boy, late teens or early twenties, easily the oldest she's seen. He struts across the floor like a swaggering tomcat, no doubt exuding pheromones with every step. She wonders what he will make of himself, when the muscles start to fade to flab, and the chestnut hair starts thinning. Will he become a respectable career man with a wife and a house and two children of his own? Will he go to church every week and pray for the souls of other lost kids? Will he be content with such an ordinary, uneventful life -- or will he strike out for the outside world that he has only seen reflected in the eyes of his erstwhile customers?

Born in the Christian Confederacy of American States, Jackie Paper was raised by Omi, an operative in the covert international organization known as The Nexus. But Jackie is gay, and if he stays in the Christian States much longer, he risks the death penalty. Now, in the company of Miranda Maris, the legendary Ivory Madonna, he has one last chance to escape....

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20090128

The Avethellan Empire

The Avethellan Empire ruled much of the galaxy for a period of about 58,000 years c. 5.2 million BCE. For the last 30,000 years the Empire was ruled by the legendary Queen Aemallana [some scholars conjecture that Aemallana was not one person, but was a throne name used by a succession of individuals].

Avethell's matriarchal culture was rich, although somewhat spare. Poetry and music were much valued. Avethellans tended to be long-lived, in excess of several centuries at least [whether this was their natural lifespan, or their lives were extended by technology, is unknown.]

There is evidence that psi played some part in Avethellan culture. Telepaths were much more common than in Human populations.

The windmill, which Avethellan settlers constructed everywhere they went, became the symbol of Avethell. The Golden Throne, cast on Avethell at the beginning of the Empire, was another important symbol.

In the 600th century of the Empire, Queen Aemallana summoned the hero Kylvin delv Minatan, who traveled to Messilinia in the Galactic Core and all-but-defeated the Gergathan, bringing an end to Diebethar. Messilinia becomes second Capital. The Seat of Aemallana was established there as a second Throne.

In the 700th century, Aemallana was lost. Her successor, Mooridann, took the Seat of Aemallana, reduced the defense fleet and made other unwise decisions. Ten years later, the resurrected Gergathan proclaimed Malreppidar. The Avethellan Empire fell soon after. In the chaos of the Fall, Dareenten, an Iaranori known as "The Last Galactic Rider," rescued the heir and the Golden Throne, taking both to Nephestal for safekeeping.

The period of Avethellan rule, especially after the conquest of Diebethar, is considered a Golden Age by succeeding cultures. To this day, Aemallana is worshipped as a goddess among the Avethellans, and her name is revered throughout the Scattered Worlds.

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20090121

Maerdik

Situated a few parsecs outside the actual boundary of the Galactic Core, somewhat to Galactic South, Maerdik is one of the few Gathered Worlds which has any commerce with the Scattered Worlds.

Maerdik is the playground of Delger. Delger's creations abound there: Talebba constructs that supervise the channeling of the populace. For Maerdik is primarily a port of entry and departure, a controlled gateway through the Curtain of the Hlutr.

As recently as 100,000 BCE, Maerdik was a much busier world of two-way interaction, when the Core's power had been broken. When the Gergathan was still fighting to regain power in the vicinity of Messilinia, the Galactic Riders were paying regular visits to Maerdik, and there was a vital, thriving culture composed of a melange of all the peoples that had been left there two million years earlier in the fall of Malreppidar.

Gradually, over a thousand years or more, Kaylpeskrit expanded, and finally Maerdik felt first the rumor, then the breath, and finally the full smashing power of the Gergathan. And with Maerdik's fall, the Curtain of the Hlutr was re-established to warn Scattered Worlds vessels away from Kaylpeskrit.

Still there is an underground on Maerdik. The Galactic Riders may have given up on the world, but the Council of Free Peoples never did. Now Maerdik is a vulgar ruin compared to its former self, a planet dominated by Delger's agents and by the transient population of soldiers and servants who pass through its cities -- but even yet there is some small hope, and both the name of Aemallana and the knowledge of the Scattered Worlds are kept holy in the ruins by beings of peace.

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20090107

Delger

Delger is the Gergathan's majordomo and right hand. A Talebba lifeform, Delger directly participates in the thoughts of the Gergathan. Delger, however, retains considerable independence and autonomy, and acts as a mobile lieutenant for the Gergathan.

Delger's physical body has gone through thousands of generations of replacement; each Delger customarily bears a surname which is actually its Coruman serial number. For example, the Delger active during much of the Second Terran Empire was Delger Maisimnunter, or Delger 234612.

While individual Delgers have been persuaded to join the side of the Scattered Worlds, the Gergathan maintains a prototype Delger within its own substance, and can regenerate a new, improved model whenever necessary. Each new Delger learns from the mistakes of its ancestors.

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Across the Scattered Worlds

20090408

Miruvorane

20090402

The Duchy of Geled

20090325

Market Slump Continues

20090318

African Rebirth

20090311

The Year 2030

20090304

The Daamin

20090225

Abomination

20090218

Filtan of thakar Lyph chaio

20090204

Jackie Paper

20090128

The Avethellan Empire

20090121

Maerdik

20090107

Delger

Scattered Worlds Books

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