Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » Travellers (Semi-Open RP between Tara and Catrin)

Catrin shone with creative contentment – she loved how the bracelet turned out. She gave Tara a wide smile in which she accidentally revealed all her sharp teeth again, and went to the food processor while Thyr and Tara were speaking about her. She selected what seemed like fruit juice and a meaty-sounding dish, and waited for food and cutlery to be produced for her, then she took it back.

Before she started eating, she smiled at Tara and Thyr. “Knock knock. The subject of your conversation is here”, she said just when Thyr was speaking about her magic in this universe. Then she started eating slowly, quite obviously both exhausted and entertained.

Tara's tail curled in embarrassment, "Sorry! how rude of us!" She said, she then smiled slightly, "Though I would suggest to try not to smile so widely next time. Baring one's teeth is not a...ah... friendly gesture."

"Indeed. It is normally a threatening gesture, indicating that you have many strong, sharp teeth capable of tearing out the throat of your enemy." Thy said, "A gesture related to this would be to bare one's throat by extending the neck and tilting the head, depending on context this can be a sign of profound respect, submission or surrender or trust, since your neck is exposed to the claws and teeth of the other individual or individuals."

"Predator ancestry." Tara said by way of explanation, "Or at least, my species is based on a predatory species. We don't have a fossil record for our own species... we developed the theory of evolution, of course, but we never managed to fit ourselves or the other Elder Races into it. It caused a great deal of controversy and confusion within the academic community, still does in some circles."

"Indeed." Thyr said with a nod, "The Terelain fossil record extends back some two hundred and fifty thousand years, but before that there is nothing, and yet the Terelains have a great deal of shared DNA with other creatures on Aerin, suggesting that it is indeed their world of origin."

Catrin stopped eating for a moment and nodded. “Thank you for telling me. I was distracted – I'm glad you like the bracelet. Just be careful with it – the emerald strand would not withstand impact.”

She went on eating after that, nodding when Tara and Thyr explained about the records. “Interesting,” she commented after she finished chewing a mouthful. “I can see how that would frustrate people. Maybe it will remain a mystery, motivating people to be scientists and spend their lives researching it. By the way, would any of you by any chance be interested in my answers on what you were talking about before, or would you like it to remain a mystery, too?” she asked, her tone a little ironic. She went on eating without waiting for an answer, her bowl almost empty.

Tara shrugged, "The prevailing opinion is that either our religion is correct and we were created by the Elder Gods, or that our religion is based on the fact that our species was uplifted or genetically engineered by an advanced alien civilisation that has now vanished, and that our ancestors and the other Elder Races drove them off, or possibly adapted their technology after they left."

"The main problem with that theory." Thyr noted, "Is that we have very little evidence of spacefaring civilisations existing in te Post-Atlantean Period that predates our own Kingdom, and most of what we found appears to be of Terelain origin anyway." He 'shrugged', "I suppose we'll figure it out eventually."

"As for your magic... well, give us a little time, and if we can't work it out then you can tell us." Tara said with a smile, "Oh, and don't worry about the bracelet; I know that emerald is a fragile gemstone, I can simply do this," She passed her hand over her bracelet and there was a slight shimmering multi-coloured aura around it for a moment, "There. a simply three-layer protection charm. The first layer repulses objects that come too close, that I might accidentally knock it into or get hit with, the second layer strengthens the emerald to make it more resilient and the third stops the silver tarnishing."

Catrin smiled. “Nice! Now you can be the envy of onlookers and people will probably try to guess how that was made. You seem to like puzzles. Is that a species-wide pastime, or special to you? If you'd like to take up the research of my magical capabilities as well... good luck,” she said with a small smile before finishing her meal.

She then drank the juice and went to get some more food. “No evidence of something doesn't mean it didn't exist,” she added as an afterthought to Thyr's earlier statement, then she selected a new dish and waited for it to be created for her. This time, it cheese in it, and some vegetables. “Besides, it's possible to have the technology to create a new species, but not spacefaring technology, although I'm certain someone has already thought of that. Either way, it's an interesting mystery. Do you think your origin might explain why you were enslaved in the first place? A race created as capable servants? Or is it an unpopular theory?” she asked with a smirk.

"If you take the position that our mythologies are based upon a racial memory of a highly advanced alien civilisation creating us, then no, Terel's Children were not created to be servants. Our mythology holds that the universe was created by deities we call Primordials, and that before or during the creation of the universe they became divided by a difference of opinion, the two oldest Primordials, Time and Chaos, had a disagreement; Time wanted to create the universe as a place of harmony and order, but Chaos wouldn't allow it, for he embodied primal chaos and such a universe would weaken his power. Eventually the entire race was split between the two and it led to war, the first war. We call it the War of Creation or the Dawning War."

"This may allude to a civil war in the alien civilisation, or that the civilisation arose out of some terrible conflict." Thyr said.

"Eventually Time's side won and the universe was made, their adversaries either repented and joined them or were cast out into the Void Beyond All. The Primordials had been weakened by the war, however, and they were unable to complete their task, and so they made the Elder Gods who would create worlds and seed them with life, there were many of these Elder Gods and a small group of these created the world of Aerin, or at least chose it and seeded life there." Said Tara.

"This led to a belief amongst Terelains that all other religions besides their own are also true, to an extent, and that the gods of the Saiv and Humanity and other species were Elder Gods the same as the Old Ones. If you believe the mythology to be about aliens, then it has been suggested that the Old Ones were therefore a group of scientists or a colony of aliens who terraformed Aerin."Thyr said.

"The myths say that the Terelain Race was created first, or at least that Terel was the first of all things made, and that he was much-loved by hi creators at first, he helped them in their work and eventually came to be the first five Elder Races of Aerin, who were taken to live in the Halls of the Old Ones. There they lived besides the Gods and delighted them with their innate skills, the Terelains sang and danced and wrought wonders with magic, the Fae brought forth beautiful plants and animals for the Elder Gods to marvel at, the Cerendiel sculpted masterworks of architecture, as well as delight the Gods with the invention of poetry and philosophy, and the Ikari amazed them with their skills of acrobatics and flight, working with the Cerendiel and Terelains to fashion many great and wondrous things."

"The myths then take a dark turn." Thyr said, "The Elder Gods slowly fade away from the Elder Races, becoming bored and callous, or so it seemed, eventually shunning them entirely or enslaving them. Cruelty stacked upon cruelty, until Mother Tara spoke out against Toren himself, the Master of All, king o the Old Ones. Angered by such effrontery, Toren struck her down. She died in the arms of Father Terel himself and wept tears of blood, all the while Toren mocked Terel, whispering into his ears, for Terel did not, could not understand what had happened to her for he had never before seen Death."

"Terel then rejected Toren and stood against him also, Toren called forth the wind to strike him, but it turned aside and would not slay Terel, he called upon the sun t scorch him from existence, but it would not, he called to the seas to drown him, but to no avail, and finally he ordered that the earth should swallow Terel, but his pleas were ignored, for Terel was the brother of the winds and the sun and the sea and the earth and they would not slay their brother." Tara said softly, "And so Terel took with him his brother and sister Patriarchs and Matriarchs and as many of their descendants as he could and he fled the Halls of the Old Ones, forging a blood-pact, the Mai Aiellen, the Ancient Pact and forming the Gloru Salai, the Glorious Alliance. Angered by this rebellion, the Elder Gods created the sixth and final Elder races, the Dragons, to hunt down and destroy their creations."

"Those who say the Old Ones were aliens believe that Terel, or at least a group of Firstborn Terelains, sabotaged the weapons or ships of the aliens, preventing them from simply bombing them from orbit. Stymied in this, the aliens engineered the Dragons to act as aerial scouts and heavy-artillery." Thyr said, "It is recorded that the Elder Races fought a guerrilla war against the Elder Gods, and that the tide only turned when Terel, or possibly some ancient long-forgotten king we have merged with other historical figures to create Terel, convinced Faraclaw the Terrible, father of all Dragonkind, that he and his people were little more slaves, tools of the Gods and turned the Dragons against the Elder Gods, for this the Dragons were also bound to the Mai Aiellen and became the sixth and final member of the Gloru Salai, an alliance that lasts to this day, even if all the other Elder Races have long since faded away."

Catrin's food got made while she was listening to Tara and Thyr's explanations, and she took it to her chair while listening, and started eating. It was quite good, too – she liked the cheese's texture. When Thyr got to the dark turn, she froze for a moment, her fork halfway through to her mouth, but she went on eating after a moment, finished the bowl and drank the glass of juice. Then she bent her knees and rested her head on them while Thyr was finishing his tale.

When he was done, she looked at Tara and then back to him. “That was quite a piece of racial memory,” she said with a smile. “And excellent thinking by Terel. I can't even imagine what it's like to know nothing about death, and having your loved one killed,” she added, growing sombre. After a brief pause, she asked, “Are there any theories about what happened to the Primodials, too?”

Tara nodded, "It is, perhaps, the greatest tragedy ever known by any Terelain. It is said that he lives still, Terel the Eternal we call him, and that he wanders the world seeking out the place Tara's soul was hidden by Toren, after all this was before the creation of the Afterlives and there was nowhere for Tara to go once her soul was sundered from her body." Tara sighed, "And then, of course, was the Great Rebellion itself. He watched his brothers and sisters fall, fight, become hurt, he watched many of his children, grandchildren and other descendants die too, if there is anyone in all the universe who knows loss and loneliness such as the Oracle does, then it is Terel, and it is our fondest wish for him to one day be reunited with Tara, so that his pain may be eased... there are those who say that when they are finally reunited, Tara and Terel will return to us and together shall they usher in an unending age of peace."

"As for The Primordials, little is known of them, other than that they were the very personifications of the fundamental forces of the universe, some think that the Primordials ended up destroying themselves, or went into some kind of hibernation, a deep sleep that will last for all the days of the universe so they can recover from the Dawning War. Still others think that they abandoned this universe entirely and went to create others. There are some who think that a few Primordials remained behind after the others left; Time, who became The Oracle, or who gave Oracle her powers, Order her son by Chaos, whom she seduced to bear Order who smote his father and ended the Dawning War, whom they believe watches over all of the universe, guarding forever against his father's attempts to undo it until its allotted time." Thyr said, "Suffice it to say, that no one has ever seen a Primordial or been known to have interacted with one, and they have never been worshipped nor are there any temples dedicated to them, save for the Oracle's shrine to Time in Silisim."

That gave Catrin a pause. “Afterlives were created? When? How?” Almost so much that she didn't go to get more food, but eventually, she did go to the food processor and got a huge, syrupy dessert with some fruits, and more fruit juice. She shrugged when Tara said Tara and Terel would return and usher an unending age of peace. “That sounds improbable... still, maybe we could help Tara's soul?”

She smiled when the AI explained about the personifications, having an experience or two with personifications herself. Okay, that was a major understatement. “Time, Chaos, Order - quite a pantheon. Curious that they haven't been worshipped. Too much abstraction, perhaps?” she said mainly to herself, then she shook her head, took her dessert and juice and headed back to her chair.

"Abstract, difficult to relate to, plus there's little point worshiping deities that no longer exist within this universe and no longer interfere with it. After all, the whole point of worshiping a divinity is so that it can intercede on your behalf; grant you a better existence in the next life, heal a sick loved one, protected one who is in danger, that sort of thing." Thyr said.

"As for the Afterlives, well, they weren't exactly created, more like... converted." Tara said, "It is recorded that as the Great Rebellion wore on the armies of the Old Ones were growing more and more desperate; the demons and thralls and horrors=beyond-name were powerful, numerous, but they could not stand against the Gloru Salai. Eventually the Old Ones' forces were wiped out in a single, final battle, the few survivors fleeing into the wilderness. The Old Ones themselves fled the world to a realm they had created beyond the material universe, a citadel from which they could rest, regroup and strike back. There followed a period of relative peace, it lasted for centuries, perhaps millennia."

"Eventually, the Firstborn created five devices known as Thanatos Gates, portals between the two realms, of which only one survives to this day, all the others were lost along with the cities that they resided in; shattered by rising mountains, swallowed by expanding seas, buried by deserts rowing from once-fertile plains, but this was many thousands of years later during the Great Cataclysm that ended the Second Era. The construction of the Gates was completed late in the last Age of the First Era, and they were used by the armies of the Gloru Salai to assault the Old Ones' citadel, the First War in Heaven it was called and the Old Ones' Realm was torn asunder, they were forced back into a small section of the realm, which was sundered from the rest of the Realm and the piece was sealed with an ancient ward, a ward created by the Six Patriarchs and the five remaining Matriarchs, unfortunately the ward was incomplete; Cerend the Wise, Father of the Cerendiel, gave his life to save that of Terel himself during the final battle, with both a Matriarch and a Patriarch missing from the spell, it could not be fully completed and the seal was imperfect." Said Thyr, "But still, the seal was made and the Old Ones were imprisoned. The remnants of the Old Ones' Realm was named Aeh Renmaia by the Elder Races and they built upon the ruins of the citadel Ereth Renmaia, the Celestial City. The city itself was built to resemble Oberoth, the First City and the capital of the Terelains, the place the Gloru Salai was formed, the place were its leaders met in conclave."

"The Elder Races turned Aeh Renmaia into a place for the souls of the dead to reside, and they took upon themselves the duties that the fall of the Old Ones had left vacant. you could say that, in a sense, in the time between the Old Ones' fall and the rise of the Younger Gods, the Elder Races themselves became Gods themselves. But despite their wisdom and power, the Elder Races were not true divinities; the mind of a mortal cannot comprehend the stresses and duties of a Deity, and so the roles of the Gods were taken up by councils, committees and such things; weighty and unwieldy, and prone to corruption. The Fall of the Old Ones brought about the Second Era, and sometime during that, probably either the Early or Middle Periods, came the Younger Gods, and to them was relinquished the care of Aeh Renmaia and its governance." Tara said, "They have been good stewards and benevolent caretakers so far."

Catrin managed to eat almost the whole serving of the dessert while Tara and Thyr were answering her. “That's an interesting piece of history,” she eventually said, “but why bother making an afterlife? I mean, wasn't there some sort of pre-existing arrangement?”

Tara shook her head, "No, there were no Afterlives before this point, at least, not for any soul on Aerin. After all, no one had ever died before the Old Ones were corrupted, and after the Elder Races rebelled against them the Gods weren't going to bother to create places for their souls to go to; why waste such effort on the enemy?"

"Thus it was that only after the War in Heaven ended, a title given to the conflict only after Aeh Renmaia was established as the Terelain heaven, that the souls of the dead had anywhere to rest. What happened to those who died before the establishment of the Afterlives is a matter of speculation and conjecture, and is a... philosophically unpleasant concept. It may be that the souls were simply obliterated and countless thousands, perhaps millions or even billions, of innocents were utterly wiped from existence during the Great Rebellion. Obviously that is not something that the Terelains wish to be a reality, but there have been few other alternatives offered that ere in the least bit plausible." Thyr said, "If it is true, however, it means that a great many of their Revered Ancestors exist s little more than names and memories, and for many of them, not even that."

Catrin 'shrugged'. “I suppose it's the concept of souls having to have somewhere to 'rest', an artificially created place, that I find... redundant. After all, what happened to all the other beings who died before that? Atlanteans? Surely there was somewhere for them to go.”

She went on eating when Thyr was speaking.
“So... Terelains think that if they hadn't created a place for souls to go, they wouldn't have anywhere to go. I can't say I like that idea, but it somehow fits into the concept of you altering everything according to your philosophies. And no,” she smirked, “I'm not going to present that opinion elsewhere either.” She finished her dessert and the juice and went to the food processor to deposit the dishes and get more wine.

"You misunderstand." Tara said, "Terelains believe that deities and Afterlives are provincial. A Deity is only omniscient or omnipotent within its sphere of influence; where there are followers, the deity has power, so therefore the Younger Gods have power within the bounds of the Kingdom, but not elsewhere, similarly The Guardian of the Xin'Ta'Faxi only has power within the Imperium. Similarly, the Afterlives are provincial. The Aerain Afterlives only existed when the Elder Races converted the Old Ones' Realms to that purpose, but the Atlanteans also had an Afterlife, so too do the Saiv and the Xin'Ta'Faxi. We do not suggest that these other species had no Afterlife before we created ours, but that their's and their Deities are intrinsically separate from our own."

"So, the Atlanteans had an Afterlife, and their dead went to it, but our people did not, nor did the other Elder Races, until they were created after the Great Rebellion. The Younger Races of Aerin; the Isthenir, the Gillorians, and possibly the Nymphaic Races, all have or had separate Afterlives created and maintained by the Younger Gods who decided to take those species under their jurisdiction." Thyr said, "The fact is, the Terelains believe that at one point their species had a near-divine understanding of both magic and technology and that they fell from this state, and now they seek to return to it."

"It is a rather... arrogant philosophy." Tara admitted, "But I suppose it stems from being the oldest and advanced civilisation on our planet, twice, and being the oldest extant galactic civilisation in our current times. Age bred a feeling of superiority as we watched other Races stumble toward civilisation and towards the stars, and such self-superiority became arrogance." She 'shrugged', "Still, you are entitled to be a tad arrogant if you're responsible for the existence of the galactic community. I mean, we had a period of a thousand years wherein we could have annihilated all of the new-to-sapience species of Known Space, and we did help them along when establishing themselves; giving them star charts, technologies, even helping to establish the groundwork for the Senate by... well, threatening them with dire consequences should their wars and squabbles prove too... irritating."

Catrin 'shrugged'. “What I meant was that perhaps when no afterlives are set up, there's a default option that gets applied and souls get taken care of. Never mind, though. I'm glad to know how you view it. Thank you for the explanations,” she said with a smile.

She laughed when Tara was done speaking. “Yes, I know exactly what you mean.” She got her wine and walked back to her seat. “Can we do party-suitable things again? How about playing a drinking game?” she asked and took a sip of her wine. "We could each say two things or stories about outselves, one true, the other one a lie, and the others have to guess which is which?"

Tara smiled and nodded, "Sounds fun!" She looked thoughtful, "Story-telling is a massive part of my culture; I warn you, I'm good at it!"

"Indeed, Tara could have become a Loremaster if she wanted." Thyr said with a nod.

Tara wrinkled her nose and shook her head, "Me? A Loremaster? Hardly. I don't have the memory for it. Anyway, stories!" She drained her glass, "I've got a few... let me see.... well, I remember when I was younger I was only just starting out in field work, so I decided to study a culture that was already well-known and easy to get to, kind of like practicing really, anyway, I went to the Sithrimni Collective because they're a very open people. I landed in the main spaceport of the primary city of Mathiarna, the most heavily populated planet in the Xaz'Mathiadu system, so I landed there and decided to do a bit of sightseeing." She shook her head, "I somehow managed to wander into the city's Spire of Memories and started talking with a noviate there."

"This was long before I joined her." Thyr said, "But I've heard this one before. The Spire o Memories is a repository of psychic energy on a Sithrimni planet, it is basically a nexus for the Group Mind, a place where all of its knowledge is stored."

"Exactly, so I was talking to this noviate, asking him about what it was like to be integrated into a group mind, about all sorts of things, and once I was done speaking with him he asked me, 'and what are you then?'." She smirked, "I was surprised, since I thought that he could just pull the information from the Group Mind, so when I told him that I was a Terelain he started asking me all sorts of questions, it was almost sunset by the time we'd finished talking, and he said 'Well, I've got to go now' and he just... vanished in a flash of light." Tara's expression went serious, "Now, the Sithrimni don't possess matter translocation technology; no teleporters or anything, so I was left standing there, opened mouthed, thinking, 'where the hell had he gone?' when another acolyte wandered by and asked me what was wrong, I told him about it and... it turned out I'd been talking to an Echo."

"A ghost." Thyr explained, "The Group Mind can store the memories and personalities of individuals, and occasionally one of these stored mind-states will appear from out of the Group Mind in a place where psychic energy is strong, and that's what happened there. Tara had been talking to a Sithrimni who had died thousands of years ago, who was born before the Sithrimni discovered spaceflight."

"Another time, I was browsing through the historical archives in the Spire, when this random Sithrimni walked up to me and asked me what I was looking for, now I thought she was just being helpful, so I told her I was studying the Mind of Sithrim, and before I could blink her eyes were glowing and her voice had changed and... I was talking to her...it.... the Mind itself." Tara grinned, "I was talking to the combined consciousness of the entire Sithrimni species itself! So...I got to interview it, her, whatever. She offered to telepathically link me into the Collective so I could experience what the Sithrimni do, but I couldn't do it. I've been warned against it by my elders; there is too much experience, too many memories in even the youngest Terelain, and we don't know what would happen if a Terelain were to ever become Joined. The Mind might gain access to our ancestral memory, and Gods know what would happen then."

Thyr smiled, "Of course... she lying in one of these stories.."

Catrin listened to the stories, smiling, and when Thyr mentioned that Tara was lying in one of the stories, she smirked. “Of course. And since this is a drinking game... If I guess wrong, I drink my wine, if I guess right, the two of you will do the same. Sounds good?” She asked Thyr, then looked at Tara to see if she agrees.

Tara nodded, getting up to get more wine, "Sounds like a plan." She said.

Thyr nodded to, "I'll 'drink' too." He held up his empty wine class and the virtual liquid magically refilled the glass, "I suppose hey're a few perks to being an AI." He said with a grin and a wink to Catrin.

Catrin smiled at Thyr. “A few, hm? Okay... The first might be true, then.”

Tara smiled slightly, "Whoops, try again." She nodded to the wine glass in Catrin's hand, "Drink up. The first story was the lie, the second one was true!"

Thyr smiled, "I think it is Catrin's turn now to tell us a few tall tales."