Welcome back to Surakosai

Month of Erbesta Day 30

Welcome back to Surakosai, the jewel of Noantri New Earth! It has been a long time since this Datawell has been active. Now Datawell Surakosai, a journal of the City, has returned under new management. We will be bringing you notes on all things Surakosan, whether people, arts, architecture, food, politics, history, economics, gossip,or anything else that lights our screen. We are an independent collective, not connected with the media giants of the City. Why yet another Surakosan journal? Because Surakosai is the most important city by far on the north coast of the Middle Sea. It is the port for all ships going north or south, the depot for all the resources moving from the Northern Icefields to the savannas of the Southlands, and all places between. When the great volcano Aitna puts forth ash and smoke, it is Surakosai which dusts it off. To its north and south are the two big military bases, air and ground, which protect the entire central area of the Middle Sea. And around our Inner Harbor are the resorts, hotels, casinos, Convention Center, and entertainments which draw vacationers and travelers from every settled area. High above the city is the Nouergic Institute, said to be the most powerful psionic establishment in the entire Northern area.

Three years is a long time, even on Noantri New Earth where after more than two hundred years things still seem impermanent and improvised. We hope to bring you Surakosai in all its variety. If you aren't there, this will make you feel as if you are. 

Next: A visit to the "Algon Unity We are One World" restaurant. Algon cuisine with a heaping helping of ideology....

The Church of the Unborn, part 4

Nilankha

Anthimia 24,  234 AC

Redon III and his entourage of hope and exodus (Noantri Odiyan) had departed, and the grey months of Algonar went on without any new developments. The interstellar Noantri network of telepaths dutifully relayed news and promises of the Gateway, but nothing happened. An Algonar year went by, and more, and the Noantri of that world, living under increasing economic and social restraints, began to doubt that the Gateway would ever deliver them. In late autumn, the telepaths relayed devastating news: Redon III was dead, by his own hand, as it had been revealed that he was having a sexual relationship with his young male theophore assistant, Omeir. This was regarded as a fatal breach of a sacred trust. Redon III left a strange suicide note in which he promised that he would return in another incarnation, who would be even more powerful than he was. 

The news split the restive Noantri population into angry factions, the betrayed and the loyal, the yearning and the resigned. There were quarrels and fights, attacks on the telepathic messengers and the theophores and sorcerers who remained in service among the colonies. Some insisted that the Gateway was coming back, just around the corner; others told them to give up, that the Odiyan was a dream of idiots.  Most of the Noantri fell into a despairing dream, fueled by boredom, drink, and entertainment. That last was the main draw for Noantri, since that year, the global song contest "Algonar Star" had a Noantri contestant as a finalist. Nyasia Tuan had quickly become a celebrity even among the Other-humans, with her emotional renditions of songs of sadness and exile, such as "By the waters of Algonar" and "Redon's Lament."

There were rumors, always rumors, that the Gateway was coming back, even that it would be set up in Noantri territory so that people could simply walk through from their own streets. As the finals of "Algonar Star" approached, and the weather worsened, few people noticed the comings and goings of cloaked Noantri folk, in and out of the dimly lit Temple of the Unborn. They seemed to be bringing things in and out of the Temple, but when they were questioned they knew nothing, admitted nothing, and were authorized to be there. There were some new Noantri in town, and immediately there was a wave of interest, as if the Gateway were finally being brought. Yet there was no public announcement that the Gateway was imminent.

The snow was swirling in bitter cold winds the night of the "Algonar Star" finals. No one was outside, and the plaza and precincts of the Temple were deserted. Everyone was inside watching the contest on their screens, waiting for Nyasia's performance. It was after midnight when she performed, and everyone awaited the verdict. But the Noantri and their neighbors would not hear the verdict, because just as the performance ended, all the screens, indeed, all electronic devices and electricity in the Noantri temple precinct and places nearby failed. Those closest to the Temple saw a strange flame of multicolored light erupting from the Temple, and after that a huge yet muffled explosion that broke windows all around the area. And in that explosion, the Temple collapsed in a vast cloud of dust and rubble that mixed with the snow. It was a very strange explosion, in that the building seemed not to blow up as to blow inwards, an implosion rather than an explosion. Much of the interior of the Temple, its statuary and art and carvings, was missing. The only thing left of it was the outside wall, along with the architectural ornaments and sculpture, including the finials from which the doomed Redon III had preached. 

As day broke, horrified onlookers gathered in the ash-covered snow, and the Noantri of the area swarmed over the ruins, salvaging anything they could. The city of Algonar was aghast, despite the low status of the Noantri; what form of terrorism was attacking the city? Were the Noantri finally about to be eliminated? Did they have some secret weapon? Were the Noantri preparing some horrible revenge on those who destroyed the Temple? The plazas filled with military vehicles and soldiers, and the Noantri, carrying their fragments and their relics saved from the dust, retreated behind their walls, waiting for whatever disaster would come next. 

More snow covered the ruins and the rubble, as the Noantri huddled in their houses awaiting the worst. But perhaps the worst was not violence, but inaction. Their temple and their hope was gone, without any idea of who might have done this awful deed of destruction. Did the Other-humans bomb the building? Did one faction of Noantri set the explosives, to spite their internecine enemies? No one knew. No one would know for a long time, as the winter months dragged by. Finally, a whisper of information came through the telepathic relays. The Gateway was coming. The Gateway was finally coming to Algonar. But those who would pass through it must leave their city, leave their homes, take their possessions and vehicles and pets and any valuables they could, and trek out into the countryside where the Gateway would be placed in an outdoor, natural setting. Why? Wasn't the Gateway supposed to be within the city, as Redon III had promised? The secret of the Gateway filtered into the Noantri community, and it has been a secret even until now, known only by a few historians.

The Gateway was indeed set up in the city, at the center of it all. The Noantri team had built the support structure inside the Temple of the Unborn. What better place to make the journey to the promised land of the warm Golden Sun? But the makers of these early, untried Gateways had no idea of the gravitic stresses such a warp made on its surrounding structure. The Temple was never built to sustain such intense stress, and as soon as the first full-strength Gateway was set, it caused a catastrophic collapse inwards, through the gate, blasting most of the interior of the Temple as well as the workers and their equipment into a destination of doom. 

And this is where I will end my story. We look again at the pointed finials, marked by the harsh weather of a long-gone land and by the disastrous failure of a Gateway. Of course the story does not end here. The epic of the Odiyan, the Ingathering of the Noantri, the journey of the Noantri of the old world to the Gateway sites, and the rise of Redon the Fourth, all of this would require a hundred Datawells to tell. I will also say that Nyasia, having come in second at the "Algonar Star" competion, was the first Noantri of Algonar to go through the Gateway to New Earth.

I leave this lecture with an invitation to visit the Odiyan Museum at the University of Surakosai, where you can see and actually touch some of the finials and other relics from Algonar. Perhaps some of you will perceive an echo of the original voice that issued forth the call, and envision a distant reflection of that sapphire-blue nouergic light.

The Church of the Unborn, part 3

Nilankha

Anthimia 8, 234 AC

The last time I posted an installment of this story, we were discussing the Ingathering movement on Algonar. Now let us return to the matter of the finial building ornaments, with which we started this tale some time ago. The temple built by the Church of the Unborn featured numerous spires, some of which were deliberately shaped in the form of male organs. Others had a more neutral, abstract shape and had finials or lightning rods at their apexes, such as the ones you saw at the beginning of this lecture. The towers and spires of the temple bore names of Noantri who had contributed the money for their construction, as did many other features of the Temple. The interior of the Temple also displayed hundreds of small flat metalwork images of babies, each one added to the wall when a healthy, surviving child was born.

As the Ingathering progressed in the interstellar Noantri community, the situation in Algonar continued to deteriorate. The loss of industrial jobs and the service work associated with them brought the city not only high crime and poverty but the desolation of empty buildings: factories, schools, shops, and residences. The Noantri were not immune from this desolation. The "faithful" still hoped that the Nouergic Gateway would open for them, taking them to the land of the Golden Sun. But other Noantri had given up hope, instead attempting to leave the city and migrate elsewhere, or turning to a peculiar form of Noantri crime, fraud and fortune-telling and spurious "future-finding" or telepathic eavesdropping and spying. The Noantri of Algonar were restless, and inter-Noantri violence, sadly, increased.

Suddenly one foggy autumn, the Ingathering team of techno-prophets returned, and this time they were headed by the leader of the Nouergic Gateway project, the immensely charismatic Redon the Third. We are all mostly familiar with his role in the Great Gateway, but he was active on many worlds long before the Migration. He appeared with his entourage as out of nowhere (actually, a Gateway site some ways out of the city, complete with vehicles driving through the Gate), and they settled as guests in one of the richer Noantri urban compounds. The presence of the Nouergic leader caught the attention of all the Noantri factions, who flocked to the Temple to hear him preach (through an electronically enhanced voice) that the Migration was coming, that the Gateway was already in action, and liberation was imminent. He was tall and majestic, clad in Noantri grey with a great cloak of grey floating about him like a cloud. He had long, flowing blue-grey hair, and manifested, as Nouergists still do, an aura of colored light - with him, it was a brilliant mid-blue, the color of sapphire. 

The phenomenon of pseudo-reincarnational lineages is still obscure to this day; it is very rare and has never been adequately explained. Redon III was the third incarnation of the man who may have been the originator of the Ingathering movement, Redon I the Great, who was based in another Noantri colony in a different star system. Redon II lost his life in a space battle with an Other-human enemy, and by the time Redon III appeared, he was already in his thirties (by New Earth reckoning). The theophoric gift transferred across incarnations and indeed intensified, so that Third was more powerful than his predecessors. It was Third who designed and implemented the modern Nouergic programs which led to the Gateway.

It was this Redon III, who had a talent for showmanship as well as theophoric power, who captivated the Noantri of Algonar. Instead of preaching inside the Temple, or on the plaza outside it, he climbed (through interior stairways) to the portico, where a line of spires pointed skyward. Redon III appeared on the edge of the portico, moving about, holding onto the narrow spires that supported the pointed finial and leaning precipitously into space. The sapphire glow and the tossing cape was a spectacular sight, as he proclaimed the future of Noantri, the passage to New Earth, and the fertile future of a free people.

And at the end of his proclamation, he did something which both scared and astonished the crowd. He let go of the spire and launched himself into thin air! But he did not fall; gravity had no hold on him, and he floated, standing on fog with his arms outstretched, until he slowly descended lit by blue fire, to alight on the ground as if he had no weight at all. Then, before the Algonar police could stop him or break up the crowd, he and his band disappeared into nowhere. 

Redon stayed for about a month, traveling through the Noantri colonies on Algonar planet, returning to the Temple to preach. Only when he felt that his message had reached enough Noantri did he leave, promising that he would return in Nouergic strength, to lead the people through the Great Gate to their new home on New Earth.

Part four will follow.

The Church of the Unborn, part 2

Nilankha

Ersta 22, 234 AC

Algonar was a city built on heavy industry, especially the making of motor vehicles and construction equipment. Its founding and location was dictated by the iron ore and petroleum deposits which were essential for that civilization's technology. It was a grim, polluted, grey city of huge residential blocks and dusty office complexes on the shore of a large lake, with barren mountains in the distance. Its architecture was built not for pleasure or comfort but for the simple housing of workers, both Other-human and Noantri.

The large Noantri population in Algonar worked mainly in the service industries, not the mines, refineries, or factories. They lived apart, as has been said in part 1, and were constantly under suspicion, since not only were they another species of humanoid, but were (correctly) rumored to have mysterious psychic powers. Despite the racial distrust that often boiled into hate, the other-humans often used the Noantri as fortune-tellers, curse-lifters, or spies.

It was in this situation that new, unfamiliar Noantri appeared among the communities. No one knew how they had gotten to Algonar, though there were rumors of strange lights and sudden bursts of electromagnetic disturbances in outlying areas, which the Algonar authorities could not explain. These new Noantri, speaking the late Imperial language of Algonar, introduced a radical and almost mythical idea: the Ingathering of the Noantri and their passage through a Stargate into another world, a world that would belong only to Noantri. No more Other-human persecution, no more reservations and ghettos, and a warm golden sun lighting a fertile, pristine new world.

The initial work had already been done, including DNA compatibility analysis, and pioneers were already there preparing the way for the Great Migration. The invitation was open: someday soon, there would be a way out of Algonar. Seekers were at this moment using the waning powers of interstellar spaceships to find Noantri populations. The call was out among all the Noantri, wherever they could be found: Odiyan! Which meant, the way out, or Exodus. It would not be by means of unreliable spaceships that they would travel to the New World, but through the Great Gateway, a massive nouergic working which had been re-invented in this declining age of the Last Empire by the master Theophore, Redon the Third.

But it would be years before the Odiyan was to be realized. The logistics of finding and moving what would be millions of people and their belongings, even with nouergic technology, took decades, perhaps even a century depending on the origin time of the movement and the discovery of New Earth. During the decline period of the Last Empire, the economy of Algonar deteriorated. The mines and oilfields were yielding less and less, and other Other-human countries were taking much of the mining and manufacturing work away from the older systems in Algonar, doing work more efficiently and cheaply. By the time of the flourishing of the Temple of the Unborn and the fertility movement, Algonar was a city in depression and sometimes even desperation.

Meanwhile, a fervor had grown among the Noantri. An escape was possible. There was a way out of poverty and oppression. Someday the Nouergists would re-appear and the Noantri could walk through the Gateway to the land of the Golden Sun. The children of the Church of the Unborn would have a safe place to grow up. The children were for the future on New Earth. And above the suspended image of the Mother rose another image, the Golden Sun. She was the woman clothed with the Sun. Soon the nouergic saviors would return to lead the Noantri through the Gateway.

Part three will follow.

The Church of the Unborn

Figure 1

Nilankha

Ersta 11, 234 AC

The artifacts you see in Figure 1 are called "finials," and they are architectural features from a structure built in one of the strangest passages of recent pre-Crossing history. They were placed at the point of carved and molded pinnacles which surmounted a building that was the headquarters of a cult that flourished on the racially and ethnically mixed world of Algonar. The purpose was not just decorative, but also practical and symbolic. They served as lightning rods to protect the temple's towers, and also were meant to call to mind biological necessity. As you can see, they are symbolic of male generative power, and the one on the left is meant to represent a sperm cell.

They are made of a strong but conductive metal, and over the years outdoors acquired a greenish patina. No doubt they had been struck by lightning many times in the turbulent weather of that part of Algonar. About fifty of these finials are known to exist on New Earth, having been brought through the Gateway by museum institutions or private owners. You can see one at the University of Surakosai's "Ingathering and Migration" display and research area.

Noantri and Other-humans on Algonar coexisted in a troubled relationship. Outbreaks of racial/species violence were common and the Noantri of the major cities retreated into ghettos or reservations, though their labor and talents were continually employed by the Other-humans. The cult-building was located on the border of one of the largest Noantri urban colonies, in Algonar City, the largest city on its namesake world. 

The cult's origins arose in the inequality between Noantri and Other-humans, especially that of fertility and population growth. Unlike our own reproductive systems, those of the Other-humans were almost constantly fertile. Those who wanted offspring - and those who didn't - were quickly endowed with progeny. The result was that the Noantri birth rate was much lower than that of our neighbors. The Noantri realized that they would, in time, be outbred by the Other-humans and lose their already precarious position in Algonar society. Given the difficulties of cloning and genetic engineeering, how could the Noantri increase their numbers in a natural and economically feasible way?

And so was born the cult which built the church of the bio-finials. It arose from earlier fertility cults practiced by both Noantri and Other-humans, but this new form was much more organized and persuasive. It built its power on the fear of annihilation, and perhaps the love of children. The cult quickly took root among Noantri of both sexes, and came to be called the "Church of the Unborn," although it was also called the "Church of the Holy Child" by its female followers. A well-organized funding structure emerged, directed towards financial support for mothers and children. Algonar's other-humans often aborted or abandoned their children, since they bred more than they could support, but the Noantri Church attempted to make sure that no Noantri child would suffer that fate. The social welfare aspect of the Church of the Unborn assured its success, and in a few decades they were wealthy enough to build themselves a temple. 

The temple is well documented in a number of Algonar internet planispheres, especially Planisphere 24 which compiles a database of cults and sects. A video walk-through shows us the magnificent though strange environment within the cavernous space. Within the temple, it was as if one entered a vast womb. The tall pale colonnade to either side resembled bones, supporting a vaulted space of dark gleaming textures. Red glass clerestory windows high up in the walls turned the grey daylight of Algonar into courses of blood. As you advanced towards the central ritual space on the open floor, you entered into a zone of quiet, muffled by thick hangings of red sound-absorbing fabric, undulating in the slow-moving air of the enclosure. 

Along the sides of the main nave were subsidiary chapels where one could contemplate the wonders of Noantri biology, including visual environments designed not only to inform visitors but to engage their emotions, intensifying their desire to carry on the life of the people. The central ritual space was an island of golden light in this involuted world of red, and as you approached it you heard, softly, the sound of a beating heart, the heart of the Mother. She appears above the altar, suspended in her golden swirls of tapestry, her compassionate face looking down on the worshippers, beckoning them to follow her path and attain the ideal. I have no children myself, but perhaps this vision might have changed my mind! The temple's "pilgrims" included those who had already chosen, mothers with awe-struck children, some of the mothers already pregnant with another child. It was a woman's space, above all, and very few men, even if they were fathers, dared to trespass there. 

If you did choose the path of the Mother, the church organization was there to help you. Around the plaza of the temple were establishments, supported by donations from the community, to support the women who wanted to bring more Noantri into the world. There were pre-natal clinics, pregnancy and birthing places, and residences for the new mothers and children. This was a Second Recognition society, and most males did not have much contact with the females after their impregnation, so the "sisters" of the church, as it were, also became its administrators and helpers while their children were still infants, in return for child care. The statistics of this era of the cult are hard to discover, but during its heyday, it is possible that thousands of Noantri children were brought into the world at this site and at satellite sites around the Noantri colonies on Algonar. These new Noantri were often fostered out as they grew older, so that they could receive education and support outside the oppression of the city.

As a student of the dismal social sciences might suspect, this situation could not last very long. It was the expense and upkeep of the Temple itself that set off the underlying instability of the church, but the other main influence in its ultimate destruction was the shocking new factor of the Ingathering, and the visitors who came to prophesy a new destiny for the Noantri...

Part two will follow.

Happy New Year 234 AC

Khoshmazeh

Ersta 2, 234 AC

Let me offer you this ruby cup of Aurian wine, the Sharab of our homeland, and we will celebrate the New Year together. Yes, I know that there were snowflakes in the blustery air this afternoon, and it is still as cold as winter, but the spring equinox is here and soon the flowers will bloom. It is 234, marking the 234th year since the majority of the Noantri passed through the Great Gate to their new home on New Earth. That number is a bit arbitrary, because pioneers had been coming through preliminary Gates for 50 years before then, preparing the way for the millions to come.

Our Aurian ancestors were among the pioneers, and some of the first plants they planted in New Earth's soil were grapevines. The first planters didn't know whether they would survive, even despite genetic engineering that made them compatible with the biosphere of the new world. We wanted to duplicate the environment of our many Aurian countries in the Old Worlds, rather than attempt to preserve an alien and possibly inedible ecosphere.

The grapes grew and flourished, and ever since they have become the symbol of our new homeland. Here is our celebratory table array which we set out in our homes and restaurants for the New Year. Sweet-tart berries, sweet grain pudding, the grapes in a bowl along with the Seeb (apple). Eggs from our domestic morgh birds. A bulb or two of Seer (garlic) and a small crystal cup of serkeh (vinegar) to remind us of the hardships of our Old World and our early days in the New World. And here are the non-food items: a Holy Book of our Scripture, a couple of little red fish swimming in a bowl, taken from the pool in the atrium of our house, and a handful of coins, polished up for prosperity. See this copper coin with the nine-pointed star on it? It's from the Old Country. Imperial Currency. I don't think it was worth very much there. These oil lamps are also replicas of ones from the Old Country. Even though we were persecuted for our faith, for our very existence, we still want to remember the Old Worlds. And here's another descendant of the Old World, the fragrant spring hyacinth known as the sonbol flower. 

And what about the mirror? What does that mean and why is it on our festive table? This is a family treasure of mine. It was brought here through the Gateway, wrapped in a cloth of woven silver and carbon fibers, which it now rests on. The mirror, which is not made of metal or glass, has nouetic properties. We say that if you look at this mirror, you see not only yourself but your connection to the inner world, through the spiritual Barzakh or inner Gateway. We set these foods and symbolic things out not only for ourselves, but for the souls of the departed, the Fravashis, who gather along with us to celebrate the beginning of a new Earth year. The lights of the table, and the lanterns we light outside, guide them to our homes, so we can reconnect with them at a time when the Barzakh is especially transparent. What would you see if you looked into the nouetic mirror? 

Let us celebrate and drink from the illuminated vine! Happy Nowruz (New Year) with all its lights and blessings!

Memories of Chrysopolis

Nilankha

Lupercal 22, 233 AC

As we approach the beginning of a new year, I look back on the important events of 233, at least the events in the scholarly world. The opening of the Siran archives to the general public in 232 was a major breakthrough in the remembering of Noantri life on an Other-human settled world only a few years before the Crossing. The Siran other-humans were quite a diverse lot themselves, with plenty of different races and ethnicities on which to vent their prejudice, but they never missed a chance to harass and persecute the Noantri who lived among them. It was an easy choice for the Noantri of Sira to vacate their old home and go through the Gateway to the New World. Meanwhile, the Other-humans, to put it anagrammatically as we say, the "Antri-Noi," left behind a vast internet planisphere that our archivists copied in its entirety before they went through the Gate. It's a treasure-trove of culture from a civilization that was slowly losing its higher technologies. By the time of the archives, interstellar travel was almost lost, and fusion power had also begun to sputter out.

This year we received another archive, this one more incomplete and much older, from a world named Anta-kabiri. This world was settled by genetically engineered other-humans, who had terraformed a planet orbiting a red dwarf star. It would seem unlikely that there were Noantri there, but according to the personnel records of various engineering and scientific establishments, there are some recognizable Noantri genomic, visual, and textual records. Their lives were lived in a vast industrial complex, lit by the fiery gloom of the red star. An interstellar spaceport orbited the planet, as big as a small moon. It is the kind of thing that we may never see again here in this far-off sector of the Galaxy.

I spent some of my younger years, along with my then-husband, working on salvaged planispheres at Chrysopolis. This is the duplicate of the Great Library at Eridu, and it is the repository of all the media salvaged from the Old Worlds whose formats can not yet be deciphered. The founder of Eridu, the legendary Nouergist Redon IV, decreed that a duplicate library be founded at a safe distance from Eridu, lest the single Library be somehow destroyed. We Noantri historians take the long view, and did not blink at the prospect of a project that could take a century to achieve. Generations of informaticians and antichronologists worked to unlock these ancient collections of texts, images, media, and whatever scientific lore survived the great destructions.

Chrysopolis was, and is by design a place of almost eerie serenity, set in the deserts in the eastern part of Khemi. It is a resort for a certain type of person who has no taste for partying, gambling, or carousing. Text stores, theaters and concert halls, and elegant restaurants entice the wealthy and the intellectual. The city is made of golden adobe and eco-glass which shines like an unearthly mineral in the sun. In the central plaza, reached by vehicle-free walkways lined with palm trees, is the duplicate Library, designed by the famous Nouergist architect Apsou-Ari. Under its white arcades are building elements brought through the Gateway and now imbedded in the stucco wall. Some of them are said to glow in the dark, still charged with theophoric fire.