It's commonly accepted that most of the galaxy's sophonts are either descendants or creations of humanity who came into being on the fabled world of Earth. The location of this ur-world of the humanoid phyle is lost.
The original civilization of humanity collapsed (perhaps multiple times) or perhaps it ascended. Whether the end was glorious or tragic, the true history of these times is only fragmented legend.
The Archaics rose with the aide of knowledge salvaged ruins of the past. They built crystalline cities that floated in the air, and connected the noospheres of their worlds with superluminal relays via wormwholes.
Something happened. There was a Great Collapse and galactic civilization fractured into individual worlds, and some of them slid back into savagery.
The Radiant Polity, one of the successor states to the Archaic Oikumene, was torn asunder by conflict between toxic memes. The Instrumentality of the current age was born out of this struggle.
The planet Phobetor is home to monsters: Bandersnatches, kalidahs, cateblopases, and crocotta are among the deadly bio-art horrors released onto the world's surface by the artists living in the dilapiated floating city above it. This artists' colony became the Phantasists of today.
Great pics but after that i was lost like some of the descendants!
ReplyDeleteThe future can be complicated.
ReplyDeleteFuture underwear looks a bit uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteIt's a grim future in that respect.
ReplyDeletejust looked up kalidahs. I am impressed by the array of literary nonsense those floating artists have cooked up.
ReplyDeleteThey've got a lot of human (and post-human) historical imagination to draw from.
ReplyDeleteYou think you know a place, and then, suddenly Phobetor pops out at you from the star map. What's there? A people who have so much glamor and allure that you never notice the hellworld where these helping professionals come from.
ReplyDelete