The Sight
Projector
The
long-foreseen end of the Zinc Era was brought about by a
great discovery. This is not surprising: as the expected time drew
near, researchers naturally stepped up their efforts, knowing it was quite
likely that one of them would prove to be the agency that triggered
the eomasp. And one of these teams turned
out to be right. One of them made the breakthrough at the precise
time decreed for the end of the Zinc and the start of the Gallium
Era.
The momentous achievement consisted of a
technique for projecting one's vision, so that an explorer could sit in
a chair in a safe place in Syoom and rove with nen's sight thousands of
miles into Fyaym without having to go there.
Peculiarly, the eomasp
occurred, and the new
era was seen to begin, even though for a while the inventors
refrained from publicising what they had done. This is because everyone
knew that the Zinc Era would end on the day it did;
expectations created the excitement; this alone was enough to cause the
eomasp. Everyone knew that something big had
happened, and that it was being kept secret.
Meanwhile
a select company of "mind-nauts" were chosen to undergo the initial test-voyages of
their sight with the sight projector. Some of those who
projected their vision into Fyaym never came back; their bodies
languished in Syoom, their minds lost who knows where. On a few
occasions a worse thing happened: a Fyayman power effected a mind-swap,
keeping the Syoomean rover imprisoned and sending another mind to occupy
nen's body in Syoom.
Finally it was discovered that mental
projections were being deflected in a systematic pattern from a certain
area. A ring was drawn on a map to determine the forbidden area, a
huge realm deep in Fyaym, thousands of miles from sfy-50, the
border with Syoom. Something there, the Sunnoad and his advisers theorized,
did not want to be seen. That might well be because an attack of
some kind was being prepared against Syoom.
The time had come to cease reliance on sight-projection
and to organize a physical expedition to penetrate the area of
mystery.
The Other Syoom
A fleet of airships was gathered by Sunnoad Restiprak Zentonan 33337, and set forth.
Journeying deep into Fyaym, it approached the forbidden area and found that
the Sunnoad's previous assumptions had been wrong: the inhabitants were
not trying to hide from him; in fact they were overjoyed to
learn of his coming. The area was being besieged, and it was
the besiegers who had been deflecting the sight-probes, so as to prevent
a rescue attempt.
The besiegers were a pirate culture of near-humans, to
whom the Sunnoad now gave battle and partly defeated, opening a way into
what became known as the "Other Syoom": the allied empires of Yalar and
Nii. These beleaguered lands, it turned out, had been
transmitting telepathic appeals for help which had been instrumental in
causing the discovery of sight-projection in the main area of
Syoom. And they had another technological surprise in
store.
Ipemenir
Because Yalar and Nii had been isolated so long, their
siege mentality had forced them to intensify certain areas of
research. This had an effect on their racial unconscious, in that
they were half-knowingly accumulating a "bank" of mind-energy rather
like the Bank of Light in the Phosphorus Era. Only this "bank" was
not under conscious control at all. And it chose this moment in
history to expend all its force in energizing an individual.
As soon as the Sunnoad's fleet had cleared a way through
to the Other Syoom, a flash of raw power surged out and across the
distance between the it and the main Syoom, to the city of Jador
where lived a certain Ipemenir Honnd. No one knows how the "bank"
knew - if it did know and was not just acting blindly - which
person to energize. The effect on Ipemenir, who already
possessed a certain renown as a powerful fighter, was
awesome. The change in him caused an
eomasp straightaway. The 63 days and 4
hours that followed were the Germanium Era, also known as the Era of
Ipemenir.
The Sunnoad had not been able to prevail further against
the enemy, nor had he succeeded in keeping open the way to the Other
Syoom. The enemy once more surrounded that land and resumed
the siege. But now Ipemenir took a hand in the war. During
the era that is frequently nicknamed after him, his legendary
exploits saved the Other Syoom from disaster. And then came the
time of the "Burnout".
During the next four very short eras, 33 (Arsenic), 34 (Selenium), 35 (Bromine), and 36 (Krypton), Ipemenir
succeeded in creating a salient of Syoom reaching out through Fyaym
towards the Other Syoom, though not reaching all the way there.
His final achievement was to capture a great fortress which became
known, in era 37 and after, simply as the Rubidium Fort. Then he
crumbled into ashes.
The Rubidium Era
Era 37 lasted 5,955,630 Uranian days; 242.6 Uranian
years; the equivalent of 20,382 Earth years. It has acquired the
sobriquet, the Age of Spies. A great alliance was forged between
the main body of Syoom - the 400,000,000 square miles around the Sunward
Pole of Ooranye - and the Other or Lesser Syoom - the empires of Yalar
and Nii. It was an era of great conflict, of active hostility from
Fyaym, where powers had arisen which subjected civilization to severe,
concerted pressure. Altogether it was a fighting era. During
all this time the salient, at the end of which stood the Rubidium Fort,
was successfully defended and preserved; mind-nauts projected their
sight from the greater to the lesser Syoom to transmit vital
intelligence to Yalar and Nii; and sometimes these same mind-nauts would
change to real explorers and bring help from the Fort across the stretch
of Fyaym to the Other Syoom.
Eventually, however, the enemy
forces in Fyaym evolved a defence against Syoomean
sight-projection. This defence took the form of vegetable
mind-traps, analogous to our "Venus fly-traps", but which caused the
minds of mind-nauts to "stick" and be unable to return to their
bodies. Such evil flowers were soon planted in many places,
luring so many visual explorers to destruction, that the corps of
mind-nauts was disbanded, the efforts to help the Other Syoom failed for
lack of intelligence, and finally the Rubidium Fort itself fell to the
enemy. The woe of this last event triggered the next
eomasp and the next era.
Finale
After these
catastrophes one might have expected the onset of a new dark age, like the Nitrogen
Era. However, Sunnoads and their advisers had long perfected plans for what to
do when the Rubidium Fort finally fell. Now under the present Sunnoad,
the great warrior Jad Darkal 35480, those plans went
into operation. They depended upon extreme secrecy and loyalty on
the part of the entire Syoomean population. Remarkably, the plan
succeeded.
For forty-two days - era 38, the Strontium Era - Fyayman
forces, fresh from their victory over the Rubidium Fort, advanced
into Syoom. The Sunnoad waited, while the enemy airships
sailed steadily into the trap he had laid. Details of this
epic must be left for fuller treatment elsewhere; here suffice it to say
that the trap was successfully sprung. Era 39, the Yttrium Era -
163 Uranian days, 28 hours, 2 minutes - was occupied by the colossal
battle in which the Fyayman coalition forces, which included some
Quonians, tried vainly to escape encirclement by the
Syoomeans. Hundreds of airships were destroyed or captured;
hundreds of thousands of Fyaymans surrendered. News of the victory
caused another eomasp, and the Zirconium Era
began under good auspices, appropriate for a great new age.
>> The Institutes of Fate
[Return to top of this
page]
[Return
to front
page]