The stories so far, Edited and ready to roll. Options

[Troika]

OK, this thread will contain any and all stories that are posted on the geocities site and labelled as edited. These babies we don't have to worry about until it actually comes time to stick em in the game.

I will sort out this thread... in other words, please do NOT post up stories yourself... it could lead to multiple copies which could prove problematic later.

Also, please keep posts in this thread to a minimum. This is mainly just a place where people have quick and easy (although not necessarily organised) access to the stories already finished with.

[Troika]

Section: Arcane Text

Written by Caen Argu (stargate525)

Blasphemous Papers: Theology and Astrology
By Caen Argu

This report has been submitted by I, Master Wizard Argu of the Mages Guild, on alternate theories of Theology and Astrology. In it I shall attempt to disprove commonly held ‘facts’ of these two subjects.



Planets
The planets are the gods. That they appear as spherical heavenly bodies is a visual phenomena caused by mortal mental stress. Since each planet is an infinite mass of infinite size, as yet surrounded by the Void of Oblivion, the mortal eye registers them as bubbles within a space. Planets are magical and impossible. The eight planets correspond to the Eight Divines, with the ninth as the mortal planet, Nirn.

I disapprove of such a casual dismissal of such an interesting occurrence. It has been proven that if one were to levitate high enough, that Nirn takes on the appearance of a curved horizon. I believe that the planets are nothing but other incarnations of our own planet. Furthermore, I believe that if one could levitate long enough and with enough supplies and preparation to survive the trip, one could travel to another of these planets. While I have nothing to positively prove this claim, it is far more logical than the one that current lore provides.



Nirn
Nirn is a finite ball of matter and magic made from all of the god planets at the beginning of time, when Lorkhan tricked/convinced/forced the gods to create the mortal plane. Nirn is the mortal plane and the mortal planet. Its creation upset the cosmic balance; now all souls have a vested interest in Nirn.

I agree that Nirn is indeed a finite ball of matter; if you sail long enough east you will wind up on the west. But the remainder of this definition is nothing but self-promoting babble. It is a ball of earth, same as the other planets.



Masser and Secunda
They are small planets, insofar as one infinite mass of infinite size can be smaller than another. Planets do have orbits, or at least lunar orbits are perceived to happen by mortals. Moons are regarded by various cultures as attendant spirits of their god planet, or minor gods, or foreign gods. The moons of Nirn are Masser and Secunda. Masser and Secunda, the moons of Nirn, are the attendant spirits of the mortal plane. They are like the mortal plane in that they are temporal and subject to the bounds of mortality; in fact of this, the moons are dead and died long ago. The moons used to be pure white and featureless, but today their 'skin' is decaying and withering away. Their planes are likewise dying. Mortals perceive this as the moons being spheres with patches of their 'surfaces' completely eaten away; as the moons spin, they seem to become slivers or ragged crescents. These are not caused by shadows, because you can see stars through the black patches of the lunar spheres.

I propose that Masser and Secunda are smaller spheres of earth, much like the planets, that were somehow ‘slaved’ into their parent planet. While I do not yet know if their connection is physical of magical, I assure you it is THERE. I also contend that the moons are not dead, but have life upon them. Through careful observation through a telescope (a Dwarven magnifying device) of the two planets, I have observed that the planets have ebb and a flow of pieces on their surface. I contend that there is water there, and where there is water, there is life. I believe the slivers and crescents we see are indeed caused by shadows, and that the ‘stars’ seen where the moons should be are in fact cities on Masser and Secunda, which the eyes is not powerful enough to see without surrounding blackness.



Space
Space is the interpretation of Oblivion, which is black and empty and surrounds the mortal plane. Space is infinite, but it acts just like a planet, in that Oblivion is 'surrounded' by Aetherius. You can see Aetherius by the stars.

The lore seems to be correct on this. I believe that space is the absolute nothingness that the planets and the universe are suspended in. It behaves like water in that it has currents, and draws the planets about the sun, and the moons about their planets.



Stars
The stars are the bridges to Aetherius. They are perceived as holes on the inside surface of space. Because they are on the inside of a sphere, all stars are equidistant from Nirn. Larger stars, therefore, are not closer to the mortal plane; they are just larger tears in Oblivion. The largest tear in Oblivion is Magnus, the sun. Shooting stars are bits of matter and magic, either from Oblivion or Aetherius, that sometimes move through the cosmos. The largest shooting stars are really planets with independent orbits, like Baan Dar the Rogue Plane.


This was a theory I was unable to explain until recently. I was experimenting on gasses from Red Mountain when I accidentally sent a shock spell into it. It exploded, nearly leaving me blind. But what I saw was a great sphere of white light, right before the explosion. I now believe that the stars are great pools of that gas, lit on fire by magic. They do eventually begin to burn out and become unstable, falling from the sky in shooting stars. The larger and slower moving ones I have dubbed comeates. They are different in that they were once planets that were consumed by the magic fires, still traveling around in their orbits. To prove my theories, I have successfully created a star from a large quantity of that gas, and it is now in my research facility, being fed a constant stream of gas to keep it from burning out.



Constellations
Constellations are collections of stars. Since each star is a bridge to magic, constellations are very powerful phenomena, and are revered. There are generally accepted to be thirteen constellations. Nine of these are made up completely of stars.

Constellations are powerful events only because they are great bodies of magic in close relation to each other. The effects of these are not yet known.



Magnus
Magnus is the sun, the largest hole in Oblivion, and the gateway to magic. Magnus was present at the creation of the mortal plane, and, in fact, was its architect. Prehistoric Nirn was a magical place, and highly unstable to the first mortals. Magnus then left, some say in disgust, and Oblivion filled in the void with the Void. His escape was not easy, and tatters of Magnus remain in the firmament as stars.

Magnus appears to be the largest pool of magic in space. It is pulling in space in a spiral path, creating the orbits of the planets. If these rotations were to stop, all the planets would fall into Magnus and be consumed. However, since space is in fact nothing, there is no need to worry of its running out, and of a subsequent lack of orbit.



The Sky
The sky is another visual phenomenon caused by mortal mental stress, the night sky in particular. The sky is as impossible as planets; in essence, when you look into the sky, 'you look outside the material plane'. At night, Nirn is surrounded by Oblivion. The day sky is the multicolored elemental cloak of Magnus the sun. It changes colors as elemental influences rise and fall. Thus, when one looks at the day sky, they see into the remnants of Aetherius, and stare at magic. Those phenomena of the spirit realm that inhabitants of Nirn interpret as a universe came into being during the Dawn Era. It was created through magic and myth, and this process is interpreted in a variety of ways too numerous to mention here.

I believe the sky to be an ‘outer skin’ surrounding our planet, and possibly others, from the rigors of the nothingness of space. It is made up of air, with the outer reaches being the gas of stars. During the day, especially at sunrise and sunset, the sun burns off the outer layer of the sky, causing the redness. This act also reduces the insulation we have from space, which is why nights are cold. The blueness of the sky during day is the reflection of the great oceans and bodies of water on Nirn, bouncing back to us from that outer gas. That is also why we see the stars at night, when the gas is diminished and the reflective properties have slackened.

This post has been edited by Troika: Mar 13 2006, 05:42 PM