--
Liars and Dreamers
by Presley H. Cannady and others
ROBOTECH IV- The Odysseus Epic
Act One: Superdimensional Starforce Orion
______________________________
Copyright 1997 Presley H. Cannady
Copyright 1997 Anime/Manga Development Group
Copyright 1985 Harmony Gold
Copyright 1982 Tatsunoko Productions
Copyright 1982 Studio Nue
This story is not to be bought or sold, in whole or in part. The
electronic publication of this novel is intended for free access, and
does not intend to infringe on the rights of Harmony Gold USA. The
author has not accepted and will not accept any remuneration for this
work. This book embodies a plethora of writing philosophies and events
derived from the original series and mutually "sanctioned" source
material, the Robotech RPG, and the McKinney Novels. The author
expresses no interest in the canonical value of this work.
Fourth Edition 1997
____________________________________________________________
To Jim Luceno, who replied to my mail and gave me (although indirectly)
the encouragement I needed to complete this project.
For their cooperation and efforts into putting this work together, I
would
like to thank the following:
-Aubry Thonon and Peter Walker, for their fascinating epics in the
ORP/Pretoxican Universe
-Brian "Megazone/Zoner" Blicowicz, for his fascinating contributions to
the Misfold saga and the Undocumented Features
-Chris "Robotech Master" Meadows, for Rifts, Skybeasts, and especially
the Misfold Saga, for providing me with the inspiration to take a small
anime original script named the "Tieman Engagement" (Begun in 1992), and
turning it into the Robotech Saga you read today
and....
-Louis Barnes, president and founder of the Anime Manga Development
Group
-Andy Breitweiser, master of the Art of Tonfoolery and evil incarnate
- Travis Boroden and all the X-Files fans!
- Jason Kainu and Drew Webber, my first anime on-line contacts
and...
- Todd Hill (moderator of the Robotech Echo and participator in the
Misfold Saga), Greg Bower (Suggestion a la carte), Anna Exter (for
correcting my Japanese and giving me my awesome tagname), Gordon Gilbert
(for defining the line of Robotech and Macross I chose to ignore), Greg
Muir (and Turas Toa [You’ll see Greg]), Mark Weiss, and everyone on the
Robotech and Anime Echos.
____________________________________________________________
Fourth Edition
____________________________________________________________
Robotech IV: The Odysseus Epic is located at
ftp.cs.ca.edu.
Books in this series include-
Starforce Orion, Book 1- Liars and Dreamers-
rt-odysseus-epic.book-1.gz:
Starforce Orion, Book 2 preview- Separate Paths
rt-odysseus-epic.book-2.gz
The objective of all New Era and AMDG Robotech prospects is to follow
the television series while maintaining a sense of originality on part
of those who helped to author these stories. In short, we’re separating
them from the typical Hunter-Hayes plotline
Comments may be mailed to Chief Writer Presley Cannady at
cannady@magiccarpet.com
Thank you.
* * *
The sheer amount of Robotech material, source and spin-off, available
ten years after its television debut vastly overwhelms any attempt to
remain true to every facet of the medium. For the sake of
consistency--as well as preserving a degree of story’s original
merit--the Anime Manga Development Group established a set of prefered
guidelines to govern the source material alluded to or used in this
fanfiction. Currently, the major subsets of the Robotech medium rank,
in order of descending priority, remain the key source of external
consistency of the New Era Sagas and established sources. Although the
pattern of source priority almost mirrors that of the Purist fanfiction
considerations, the AMDG stresses adamantly that this in no way involves
the organization, the authors, or the fanfiction material in any
canonical debate. The order represents the prefered consensus of the
group, and is in no way binding or final.
1) The television series (the original 85 episodes) provides one of the
most flexible mediums to work with. As a consequence, the general rule
in the AMDG is to remain as consistent as possible with the series.
While this mirrors purist concepts absolutely, it nevertheless does not
share the intent or the ideal. New Era leans on a "universalist"
perspective, which recognizes all of the Robotech panorama as equally
canonical. The merit of the series is based purely on the preference of
the organization’s members. The AMDG also realizes the advantages of
adopting the original Japanese source material when applicable; source
material related to specific Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada
aspects may frequently override the AMDG’s preference of the TV series.
As a consequence, the reader might fare better considering this
fanfiction as equally a Macross...etc. fanfic as it is a Robotech
spin-off.
2) As Peter Walker states in his third echelon of criteria, common sense
extrapolations play a major part in writing any sort of fiction that
leans heavily on scientific speculation. While neither the First Writer
nor any of the other AMDG staff claim to possess any sort of scientific
expertise, the AMDG feels obligated to remain as technologically and
scientifically accurate as possible whenever possible. As a
consequence, hobby writing has driven the group to research various
scientific assertations presented in this fiction. This is not to say
the the New Era Sagas are error free; in fact, the situation is very
much the contrary. Nevertheless, the AMDG will and does make an effort
to effect changes whenever errors make themselves visible to the writing
staff.
3) Secondary Robotech source material occupies the third echelon of
criteria; largely because of the AMDG’s lack of comics, the RPG, Art
Books, novels, and other such medium. The AMDG does not recognize the
"creator’s final say" precept often championed by other Robotech
fanfiction writers; realizing that Carl Macek is a human being, and by
that definition fallible, his assertations made both in the TV series
and in secodary source material may fall suspect to AMDG scrutiny. As a
result, several of Macek’s ideas have been replaced in favor of either
scientific extrapolations or dramatic creativity on part of the AMDG’s
writers. Nevertheless, secondary source material provides an invaluable
resource of information and detail neglected by both the original
series, as well as the component animes and their source material.
4) The fourth level of writing standard is obsfugated in terms of its
priority; the AMDG heeds the indisputable fact that the input of
readers, the works of other fanfic writers, and concepts and ideas
freely exchanged in critical discussion often influence the writing
staff in ways that the previous three echelons are incapable of. The
unwritten echelon depicting free creativity as the foremost motivation
behind writing the New Era Sagas marries seemlessly with the idea of
exchanging ideas with critics and casual readers; indeed, discussions
with other fanfiction authors may lead to improvements within one’s own
work. Therefor, the AMDG wishes that the reader consider this fourth
echelon as one of variable priority, as the writing staff may or may not
heed the suggestions of others.
Editors Note-
Presley Cannady- FIDONET 1:272 / 60
INTERNET-
cannady@magiccarpet.com
Editor’s Note- On a cold day in September morning, 1994, 14-year old
Presley Cannady drove off in an irritatingly small bus for a private
school just inside Montgomery, New York. The first day of his
high-school years, he stumbled over introductions to a lovely young
female classmate and lost his lunch money upon arrival. It would be
three weeks before Presley would appen to overhear three people
discussing something of interest; Gunbuster. Prez immediately turned
around and introduced himself to Lucien Barnes, Andy Breitweiser, and
Nick van Hage; people who would become friends for life.
By October, Prez, after viewing at least 60% of Lou Barnes' then current
anime archive, was allowed to join the close loop circle of Tonfoolery,
whom the "Grandmaster"-- Andy Breitweiser --founded as an advanced
system of ineffectual martial arts excercises. The result was an
increase in the rate of insanity and the beginning of wide-spread
popularity for Tonfoolery's most famous offspring, the Stick Comics.
Nick, Lou, and Andy receive all credit for this black humourous work of
art; violently funny and luridly entertaining.
Contrary to public opinion, the first anime ideas that would later forge
the group did not emerge either from Lou or from Presley. Instead, Andy
Breitweiser was largely responsible for the foundation of the fanfiction
aspect of the group with original Horabue 23 plotline. Although this
story has yet to reach fruition, it was the driving force that thrust
the AMDG into being. By November of 1994, Presley was already finishing
the first few chapters of his Tieman Engagement, an original anime idea
that would later be the cornerstone to a whole series of Robotech
fanfiction.
Within a few months, Presley and Lou began to ponder innocently what it
would be like to write a sequel to a popular 1980s television series,
Robotech; while adopting the newest in Japanese animation style and
Japanese storytelling . At the same time, Prez had engaged contact with
Drew Webber and Jason Kainu, the latter a member of the late North-East
Anime Club (to which the AMDG, and all its preceding incarnations, owes
its allegiance too), on FIDOnet, as series of linked BBS's that hold
newsgroup-like mailing forums on various topics. Presley joined AnimeNet
and the Robotech Echo around mid-November, plugging his newest idea.
Only two weeks before, on page fifty of the Tieman Engagement, Prez
decided to shift the focus of his story to that of a Robotech sequel for
a number of reasons (one, he could not generate enough new mecha designs
to satiate his coauthor; and two, their was greater potential for this
story at least to be developed in the Robotech Universe than in an
original one). The changes would not cause his story any immediate
continuity problems, as Prez was still quite an infant to the intricies
of the Robotech series, and he still was unaware of the existence of the
novels and source material , or even the connection between Robotech and
Macross (which he had seen on occasion at his uncle's house). Therefor,
Kyoko Yamato became Kyoko Yatsumi, main character of what was
immediately renamed Robotech: The Odysseus Epic.
Lou Barnes and Presley Cannady first became thoroughly familiar with the
Robotech universe in January of 1995. Prez a copy of the McKinney
timeline, lifted from the End of the Circle with additions by Edmund
Loo, and immediately found that there were severe changes to be made.
Fortunately, with a lot of revision within the fanfic's timeline, the
team was able to solve the problems with moderate difficulty. At this
time, Prez decided to officially consolidate the four-man (core. About
seven other kids at school encouraged the group) team during one of the
group's "Gatherings" on discussing the future of the project. With this
meeting, several new sagas in the Robotech: New Era were
created--including Lou Barnes' The Lynx Missions and Presley H.
Cannady's Iliad Epic and Leopard Sagas. In addition to this, inspired by
the spirit behind Andy Breitweiser's Horabue 23, the then-ARMDG began to
create folders for future non-Robotech original projects. Today,
projects such as Crap Point; Nokomo High (Kungfoolery), Ravenworld, and
Raven's Dew; Bubblegum Chaos; Valkyrie Seed; Kido Senshi Gundam 0079:
The Fourteenth Day; and Lunar Seven each possess comprehensive dossiers
and/or are in the stages of pre-writing/actual-writing.
The Anime Manga Development Group has come a long way in the past three
years. With nearly forty members off and on Internet, its own Quake
Clan, and an affiliation with two other fan groups, the AMDG is looking
to the future of the entertainment world.
-Presley H. Cannady and Lou Barnes
(
cannady@magicarpet.com -
lbj@magiccarpet.com)
June 25, 1993
* * *
Prologue One
"Advent"
Robotech IV - The Odysseus Epic
Act I: Superdimensional Starforce Orion
by Presley H. Cannady (
cannady@magiccarpet.com)
and Lou Barnes (
lbj@magiccarpet.com)
_______________________________
THE YEAR 1171 WAS THE HARVEST YEAR OF RILAC, MARKING THE SIXTEEN
HUNDREDTH anniversary of that Tirolian nation-state’s subjugation by the
one superpower that had arisen out of the plains wars, centuries
ago--Tiresia. Aeon Lanack, as those who so prospectively looked to the
stars were now joyfully proclaiming, had produced some of the greatest
advances in Tiresian civilization since its rise some three thousand
years ago. Years ago, Tirol had finally stepped out into space; a
virgin to the interstellar community that would await her. The first
alien contact--with the ursinoids of the Karbarran Hegenomy--initiated
the staple mercantile characteristics the Republic embodies today.
Looking up at those stars, a man of high station--dressed in an
elaborate house-coat and traversing the ceramic floor which so resembled
Earth’s marble--found himself in complete awe as the heaven’s his
ancestors had gazed upon for hundreds of generations before opened her
secrets to his mind. Thoroughly fascinated, the man smiled on this warm
summer evening. Tiresia was a humid city during the summer, far warmer
than what would be considered hospitable. It was a city of history, the
city in which his ancestors had come to when they had stepped from the
stars, long ago; removing themselves from the shadowy gloom of Tirol’s
master. Fantoma was resting harmlessly in the western sky, neither
threatening to blot the sun for months at a time nor thoroughly ensuring
a steady day of sunlight. Furthermore, it blended into the star-field
behind it exquisitely; the thick and heavy upper atmosphere of Fantoma’s
edge graduating into a magical and majestic hue of complementary colors,
aesthetically soothing and yet discordant at the same time. It would be
some time, not in the lives of the children of Tirol, before that world
would be seen by anyone from this quadrant of the galaxy. However, the
night of his son’s birth, his thoughts drifted elsewhere.
It was a time where the Invid remained dormant, peacefully
entrenched on their far off world of Optera, orbiting an insignificant
star outside what would be named the Trianguli Cluster Expanse . In
orbit, hundreds of superluminal ships, powered by fusion drives, carried
scientists and surveyors throughout the Tirolian quarter of the Fourth
Quadrant, exploring and discovering to satisfy both the Tiresian
scientific community and the more economically and politically driven
Council. It was a time when Haydon slept, and his feats of old were the
stuff of mythology and religion. His legacy spread across a quadrant
made of hundreds of sectors, across light-decades from Tzuptum to
Valivarre to a little known, backward world just starting to pull her
civilizations into a competitive stature with her galactic neighbors.
The blue-hair, regal biochemist stared at the stars, looking to the
Galactic North as if trying to make out something that wasn’t there,
something far off, in both space and time. His companion and long-time
friend had wondered at length of weather this seemingly lowly scientist-
one who commanded such respect -was not one of the houses of lords that
had long since ceded power to the council or joined with it. The young
soon-to-be father continued to search out the stars, searching for
something seemingly irrevelent to date, custom, or event. Nonetheless,
it would prove to be all too relevant. It was a time where history was
bound to change. He always wondered if Valivarre was once Pretoxira, a
goddess that wasn’t even spoken of amongst the most of the inhabitants
of Tirol. A point so far in the past that it bore no relevance on these
troubled times.
The man, the would-be-father, looked at the city and remembered. A
political official, this particular man inhabited a town-house that
complemented his station. A two-story affair, it opened to the main
street--an archaic structure that once supported the weight of both
motorized vehicles and mu’taa-drawn carriages in its day--with a massive
veranda, spreading into the town-square below. In this particular
Tiresian suberb--a political estate, some might append--this was the
largest house, located in the center of town. Above, a series of
magnetic levitation trains moved back and forth at supersonic speeds,
arriving from the larger cities. From Tiresia and her neighbors,
maglevs and planetary aircraft were capable of transporting
people--civilian and military from one location to another without much
difficulty and with appreciable expedience. At one time, the
governor-senator’s mansion (this particular home) had once been a
receiving station for an old land-train, a form of transportation that
had dismissed itself into the annals of obscurity centuries before.
"Will you look after him, make sure he’s well-educated--by the best,
Charsea?" he finally broke his gaze, turning to his friend and
confidante, Charsea Derelda. The Senator nodded.
"I swore on Fanto I would," he replied. "You should really try to
release your tension. Relax. Your wife is about to deliver your first
son. I do not no why you-"
"I’ve your friend for twenty seasons, Charsea," he replied.
"Besides, your wife to will be delivering your first son. Mine will
need a companion, someone who will be able to care for him and rear him
in the path that he has already chosen." For my sake, he must chose that
path. For the sake of the Universe.
"I understand," Charsea didn’t of course. In his mindset, he
understood, but he really did not know his friend’s perception of the
future. "I will care for him, as I will care for my own child."
"Thank you, Senator," the man bowed, and at once heard the pains of
his wife in labor. "Come, she’ll be waiting for us."
Hours later, in the next chamber, the midwife held the child up,
offering thanks to Valivarre for the deliverence of this first child.
She thanked Valivarre, and H’ydon, the Gods of Thought. And smiling
ironically at all this was the mother, her eyes with joy as the Tiresian
midwife gave up the child to her. Nearby to Charsea was a close family
member and friend, Zol d’na Derelda. He looked dazically at the child,
bewondered at this most miraculous of events. Even more so, he was
confused by the erratic actions of the child’s parents, who seemed to be
the victims of Tirol’s changing place in the grand scheme of things.
The Age of Tirolian expansion into space had halted with the near
stagnation of bureacracy that existed between Tirol and her intersteller
counterparts, mainly Karbara and Haydon IV. A crossroads of trade,
Tirol had become, unfortunately, the victim of economic conquest by the
Karbarran markets and resources, victimized from her own lack of usable
resource. Though holding a monopoly on the slightly prefered monopolar
ore of Valivarre (the primary planetary body of this system), she was
left without enough to compete against the alien economic boom. Thus,
the Tirolian political arena had encouraged the sending of massive
technovoyagers in discovery of resources beyond the limits of her Local
Group collegues, while they desperately worked to solve the crisis from
a more local point of view. Charsea’s friend had been one of these,
having spent some four solar years in space to return empty handed
(though he often did not express dissappointment). The senator had
noticed his friend’s fixations on two points in the sky, to
constellations of very little importance.
"Amazing how the whole question of the universe, everything that I
work for can be summed up in one small, innocent child," he mused to no
one in particular.
The mother began to carress the child gently as Zol and Charsea
smiled, overlooking the new, proud parents. However, they both suddenly
thought to the future, the near future. The child’s parents had given
their first son to Charsea and his wife, and Zol, brothers and
representatives to the Senate. But as Nimuul boistered uncontrollably
about his lack of faith in their new intersteller relations, he found no
more comfort than being in the company of friends in joy.
"Look at him, honey," the mother cradled the baby to her breast as
the father gathered next to the child. Zol had never understood the
names that the father and mother used for each other. Odd-sounding at
most, and somehow familiar. The mother was the strangest of the two,
having a voice not only for the psalms of the Pretoxican Hymns, but a
strange music she called "pop." Her blue tressles waivered in the
moonlight as her face glowed with its own special radiance. Charsea,
and his wife, Umyo, held each others’ hand, realizing how painful it
would be to concede her child to the Senator. But they were resigned to
the fact, and Umyo went to join them in their new joy.
"Well, my friend," Senator Charsea beamed. "You may choose the
child’s name, considering that you will not be present for the naming
ceremony."
The father nodded. The next day, they would leave aboard the
spaceship they had arrived with, on an "exploration" mission across the
galaxy. The sublight vessel, oddly shaped like a muses tuning fork,
would leave the day after tomorrow.
"Valivarre has forbidden us any other name than...Zor," Rem and
Minmei smiled at their Senatorial friends. Umyo nodded in agreement.
"Zor, then. Zor, son of Rem. May he be as great a friend to my son
as you were to me," Charsea considered the name, its ascendency to an
ancient god of Tiresia.
Rem embraced his old friend, as his wife Minmei gleamed over their
newborn son.
* * *
HE AWOKE, ENTERING LIFE WHILE NOT UNDERSTANDING FULLY WHAT THAT
EXISTENCE specifically meant to him. Was he was he alive? What was
alive? What was this? Instinctively, he knew he was conscious. He
looked at himself, he consciously noticed he had the ability of sight,
and colors subsequently flooded his mind.
What was he. Who was he? Was he alive?
Sentience. Self-Awareness. Thought.....desire.
Awareness. He felt his own awareness. In his own language, one he
would forget in the countless other’s he would help forge, he chose that
most suitable description for a name:
Haydon.
He stared from the beam of energy that left him and his ship
stranded in a galaxy lightyears from the world of his birth. His two
siblings, unnamed and unconcientious of themselves, remained in stasis.
It was a void, a ship. The power, he knew the power. Ea. But what
was it?
There was something more, something hidden from him.
Knowledge. What was hidden was revealed.
He was Haydon, and he had purpose. To learn, to discover, to make.
The eldest of Three he was, staring out into a new formed galaxy,
with newformed stars.
He percieved work at hand. Creation or Chance? Was that a question
to himself? Did he know the answer? He amused himself by asking such
questions, a trait of the conscience within him. He was matter, yet not
entirely. His mind seemed to be able to focus in away that he could
only describe as metaphysical.
As Haydon looked on the many stars from the crystalline ship, he
departed in a smaller vessel to explore them, to discover himself, and
others besides himself.
In her sleep, the second of the Three stirred.
The Two were placed on a small world, a world of stagnation. Haydon
saw the cruelty of whatever had placed him here. For countless ages he
had amassed the scope of the Galaxy, exploring what was to become the
Fourth Quadrant. But what was his purpose?
Was he alive?
The question re-iterated, and became stronger with every expirement
that solved subsequent questions and posed new ones. His ship, a great
ship of great proportions, his fourth, had placed itself in orbit of
this first of seven worlds.
But there were only six in this space.
The Seventh would be the starting point for the First.
Onboard, he released thousands of seeds into the biosphere of this
first expirement. His siblings would be released of the energetic
pseudo existence they endured. To be released to thought, to
intelligence. To self-awareness.
But not entirely.
Many lightyears away, a ship operated by a scientific race known as
the Sagmunians watched the Haydon expirement further the development of
the Invid, playing the Great Designer among the sacred stars of that
Deity.
He returned to the blue world where he found is two siblings
sprouting a race on a dead end route of evolutionary stagnation.
The Flower was seeded, but its potential was left untapped from
aeons of unexploitation. It had to be moved. Like a phoenix, he
gathered his brethren and carried them far and away, across the galaxy,
where he placed them on a small, marble world.
Optera.
By now, he had seen millions of births and deaths, had witnessed as
a first hand observer the beginnings, developments, establishments and
crumblings of civilizations, empires, steller republics, and finally
extinction. It seemed so purposeless as he watched the workings of the
Designer seem to self-destruct and rebuild, only to self-destruct
again. So meaningless.
Twice he had visited the Seventh World, bringing humans to two of
the Fourth Quadrant Worlds. On Praxis he placed the protocol warrior
society, carefully engineering them over time to the Uri Initiative.
Finally, after geering the Preculturian humans many millenia in
sociological and technological development, Praxis had become a new
biosphere, no longer supporting human male chromosones. He had come as
a great Amazon warrioress, a woman, and had delivered onto them the
Whaashi, their only means of prolonging their race. He became their
great Mother, another facsimile of Haydon, who had many others on
various worlds. But none on the Seventh. The home of the Flower that
would change the events of these six worlds and the Seventh was already
under the Haven of the Designer.
For many years, during his journey through the realms of ancient and
long extinct civilizations, the experiments of Haydon on four of the Six
Worlds of Haydon (Optera and Tirol were generally left alone after the
transplantation expirements) had failed, but had established himself as
a key member of each planet’s indigenious sentient race’s religion and
history.
Tirol, he placed the Quara humans, paleo-Indo-European races of
great technological expertise, and once again, the mindset of a
warrior. After the Great Dominion Wars, the suriving clans, including
the Tiresians and the Rilacians, formed an alliance. They wiped out
most of the original Tiresians and Iliatians. New Atlantis, or Tiresia,
rose out of the dust of the home they had left long ago. They inherited
the longetivity of Tirol, and Haydon watched with amusing interest as
his Tirolian expirement expanded.
Time and time again, Haydon would enumerate himself amongst the
Fourth Quadrant populations. He had completely destroyed the Pretoxican
attempt to take the Fourth Quadrant by challenging their beliefs and
removing the keystones of their civilization. He had delivered the
Survivors of the many Pretoxican Settlement Eras to world after world,
until finally they rested on Pretoxira.
But after time, they had grown restless, and Haydon, as Ira, had
convinced a friend in the Pretoxican Government, Senator Tovaal Lanack,
to surrender his people from the death of the New Settlements onto a
world where they would rebuild their culture.
Tirol, caught in the grip of Fantoma. The ships of Lanack had
suffered the same, as fate interceded in finding them refuge on Tirol.
The Quara-humans that had visited death and genocide on the original
Terragens were faced with the same threat. Assimilated or killed, the
Pretoxican races subdued the Tirolian clans. Only the Rilac remained
strong enough to fight.
But now, he felt the Shapings turning against him, as an ill-wind
drew from beyond the galaxy. He shrugged it off, and then, went to rest
in his world.
Haydon IV released its grip on its artificial lifeforms, its now
dormant Awareness even denying its Creator’s existence...
* * *
IT HAD SWEPT OVER HER AS IT HAD SWEPT THROUGH ALL THE GALAXY. THE
MILLIONS of cries from the death thrall of the Shapings-renewed--or its
successor--resounded in her. She had not felt this way in millenia.
Not since the Tiresian had stimulated the feelings inside her that she
learned to surpress and deny.
There was no other way but forward.
The Regis gathered her children to her, and led them far from New
Praxis. The Second Transmutation was quiet in the wake of the Storm.
The Storm known as the Severance.
Zor had somehow awakened a feeling that had stirred in her once
before. Once before she became self-aware.
The Question.
WHAT AM I? WHO AM I? AM I ALIVE?
* * *
BOTH EYES FLUTTERED AS HE CAME AROUND. IT WAS STRANGE FOR HIME TO AWAKE
taking leave of the everlasting glow of the afterlife and return to
reality and mortality. But this wasn’t real. He was floating, his mind
still living. But he should be dead, dead with the Masters. Had they
won? Was Dana alright? The pattern was still incomplete. The
Transmutation, every cell remembered the original as he had connected
with....
...Rem?
What or who was this? He pondered on that question as he found
himself moving away from a hill sparsed with Flowers of Life. The SDF-1
was no longer there, moved somehow.
He had slept through the whole thing. Zor Prime smiled to himself.
The Paradox of Zor was not over. His father was Rem, but Rem was also
he, as well as Zor’s clone.
But he was also Zor’s clone. And one had carried his child.
Another Paradox was in the making. The mating of Sterling and Zor had
caused a rift that had contributed to the setting of the Reshapings...
* * *
Sometime later....date 2060...C.E.
THE IEM THAT EMBODIED THE CORPOREALNESS OF ROA GLANCED OVER THE GALAXY
with weary, ancient despondence. Having witnessed that the
cross-dimensional Incident which had brought some attention to a small,
unimportant pinpoint of this galaxy’s Fourth Quadrant, he had wondered,
even as he transmited his an inappropiately disenchanting report, why
his superiors risked setting such dangerous beings loose on the
universe. Ignorant of even their own origins, the "guinea pigs," as a
certain First Quadrant, space-faring race might have categorized the
Essence Children--if they had known the truth, their lack of mastery
over their potential only proved to inflate a boundless swell of
frustration in Roa’s "throat."
As his gaze averted to his sole companion, his assistant, his
essence suddenly began to flicker and falter. Roa’s corporeal persona,
in all of its mortal, material weakness, cried out in mental anguish.
Clearly, Bae--wholly corporeal and free of the torment of
nigh-immortality--realized that something had gone horribly wrong....
"NO! Turn away! TURN AWAY!" With the most primitive of sentient
creature quality, Roa screeched as a single, barbaric flash swept across
the material and immaterial of his being; the emotion of dread filled
him thoroughly.
Every mental string and physical string of his body quaked with his
ardent cry...
...but it was too late, the Leader-Crystal returned to its
three-dimensional existence WITHIN the galactic range. Roa’s warning
ignored, it had failed to recognize the shallow depth of the galaxy’s
collective gravity; even the incorporeal fell under the jurisidiction of
physical laws, and paid, as did the mortal, for violating the sanctity
of the Universe’s Law. More so than any sentient retribution, the
punishment of the cosmos dealt its hand with dripping, instantaneous
vengeance.
From the Or’loth, Roa could literally see the spacetime fabric tear
and vaporize under the fold stress, leaving a vessel--the length of a
small star-system’s diameter--occupying a realspace volume that fell
beyond the realm of the microscopic when compared in scale to the size
of the galaxy. Yet the higher dimensions felt the crushing magnitude of
the Mothership’s local gravity, and the abuse her hyperspace transit had
rendered manifested itself as a tsunami of gravity in normal space. In
the eye of Roa, the light of the brilliant, spiral galaxy seemed to
dim--if only for a moment.
Yet that moment simultaneously represented an eternity to those the
Iem had just damned. A trillion screams of deaths screeched across the
vacuum as entire worlds died. A trillion screams silenced in the
physical, yet heart-tearingly audible in the depths of Roa’s soul.
A trillion screams cried out in sorrow as life closed its final
judgement on them. A trillion screams welled up as the great cheating
fate of the universe played its great game and laughed ironically over
its victory; The cruel relationship between victor and victim.
A trillion screams of agony suddenly fell silent as fate cheated
Humanity and the Galaxy once again.
* * *
ZOR PRIME LOOKED FROM HIS FLEETS TO SEE THE EASTERN HALF OF THE GALAXY
TURN black as a background coruscate dominated the hyperspace-band
realm. He qualmed as his computers interpretted their meanings. His
crew, the ones who had brought him back, explained carefully what had
happened, and he knew what was to follow.
* * *
THREE YEARS OF RIOTS PLAGUED EARTH AS IT FELL UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE
SEV-erance. Struggling to survive, humanity once again faced the brink
of its own self-destruction, the stimuli having been set and having
passed, noticed and unnoticed with results to the same end.
"Tirol is no more!" Humanity cried to whatever gods were left alive,
to the Great Designer himself; in desperation...
* * *
ADMIRAL HAYES-HUNTER LOOKED OVER HER SHOULDER AS A SLIGHT CHILL BRUSHED
against her spine. Shrugging it off, she returned her concentration to
the holographic projection. Decades--centuries--back home would pass
them by like weeks, and that ever increasing conviction that she had
long outlived the life span the Cosmos had dealt her hinged forever on
Lisa’s soul...
* * *
FROM NEWSPACE, REM FELT THE CHILL WINDS AND WITNESSED THE FIERY LIGHTS
RACE across the sky; violent auroras that filled his heart with pure
dread. In the distance, baby Michael and Minmei enjoyed the beauty of
the evening illuminations, smiling and singing together the many songs
Minmei had acquired over the years. But to Rem, something new had come
of this. Haydon had left; he felt the departure of his presence. Was
this a sign of freedom? Did Haydon leave this universe for them to
build completely? Something else. In the timelessness of this world,
he would scan through the real universe to discover the horrible truth.
* * *
DR. NICHOLS ONCE SAID THAT PROTOCULTURE’S INFLUENCE WOULD SOON QUIT THIS
corporeal universe--or at least that supernatural power that so many had
connected with the Flower of Life. Few scientists were willing to
transcend the chasm that segregated the physical reality with the
supernatural, psionic world, and Dr. Louis Nichols numbered amongst
them. In a way, he had his reasons. Still, no one--whether they delved
into metaphysical or the material--could have ever expected this. Those
who subscribed to the mysticism of protoculture had long believed that
they had entered a new age. Maybe, in some strange way, they had.
After all, many proposed that protoculture’s sentient half was only
beginning to seek itself out.
To the Iem, that mysterious presence, ethereal and magical, was
called Ea. The True "Protoculture."
* * *
THE TEAR THROUGH TIME--AN ARROW THROUGH THE DELICATE, CRYSTALLINE BUBBLE
that had safeguarded their universe from the others, torn asunder once
again. The Event had its own consequences stretching far back in time.
The action eternally repeated itself as the final death of the universe
and the primeval chaos moved to occupy the same point in an
simultaneously collapsing and expanding space-time. In an instant and
an eternity, one reality "after" another came into being.
-------==========*****End Prologue One*****==========-------
+---------------------+
/ \
_______________/ \_______________
/--<Prez, The Reverend of Funk >-+------------------------\
| Presley H. Cannady II | Author of the |
|NROTC Candidate | Robotech New Era Sagas |
|
cannady@magiccarpet.com | and various fanfics |
\-------------------------------+-------------------------/
+--<"...The mothership has landed...funktacular...">----+
/ | \
/ | \
/ | \
/ | \
/=========\ /=========\ /=========\