Category Archives: Elyen

Creationivity

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I’ve been working away at this concept of a novel series, Elyen, for over a decade now, though it’s gone by a number of other names in its earlier forms. Maybe it should not be taking me as long to make the kind of progress that I have in that time (which I will deliberately not specify), but the fact is that the story has changed immensely from its original concept.

I think that, out of all of the changes, the most profound is that of my role as the story’s author. In fact, I seriously question if ‘author’ is even now the right word for it anymore. What I mean by that is this: When I first set out to work on what is now Elyen, I had no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I was the story’s author, it’s creator. It wasn’t even a question. There was no alternative way of looking at my relationship with that early body of work, no other function to it beyond that which you would expect to exist between an author and his story.

Now, I see myself as being more of a reporter, if anything. The story might as well be its own living thing, and I am merely studying it. The universe (/multiverse/metaverse) that is Elyen, and the world of Drendast in particular, have become their own sovereign domains, into which I am now little more than a privileged guest, granted the freedom to write about anything I see.

I am become Marco…

Anyways, I’m sure you can imagine how perplexing it is to arrive at a conclusion like that and then pair it with the notion that I likewise exist as some unknown element within that same story as well.

So now I question whether I have ever created anything now encompassed within the body of work that is now, and will yet be, Elyen. This threw my head for a little spin when I really started thinking about it last night. My conclusion, however, is that I have created (and now maintain) the means by which I observe and report the goings on in Drendast. And that’s still a very vital part in the grand scheme of things, though not as dictatorial (why can’t we just shorten that down to just ‘dictorial’??) as what I believed my role was when I first began.

I now believe that the events which unfold in Elyen do so largely independently of how I might wish for them to, and that the characters have every bit as much free will as I believe that I, myself, have. I am unaware of what influence or impact I may or may not still have, if I ever had any to begin with. In either case, when I record something and it goes into the body of work known as Elyen, I understand that such things could just as easily have gone any other way. More accurately, given the multiversal nature of Elyen, it should be stated that anything I record is simply only one way (out of countless other ways all taking place simultaneously and in parallel) that things are going.

And if there’s one thing I wish to convey through the writing of Elyen, it’s that anything and everything that can happen, is happening. The question is not “what happens in Elyen?“, but rather, “which version of events am I seeing unfolding in Elyen?“

…Polo.

Viria: Mamissamus

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In Elyen, or at least on Drendast (or rather in Drendast, given how most Drendains reckon their orientation to the planet that birthed them, even though, like us, they live on its surface), there are those of the synthetic variety who keep viruses as pets for themselves. You might think that that would be a bad idea.

Sometimes, you’d be right.

Mostly, however, the worst thing that ever happens is that the viruses, or viria as they are known as here, get misplaced. Sometimes, that can cause a great deal of harm, other times, a great deal of hilarity. In one case, there was one Synthetic Intelligent entity (SI for short) that had a pet virus called Mamissamus, and… well… It got lost somewhere in a physical domain populated with animal kind. If memory serves me correctly, I believe that even the ancestors of your human kind were among the affected. 

For what it’s worth, this is approximately what Mamissamus looks like when rendered into a physical manifestation:

            Don’t let the classy act fool you, Ma’am is one cunning strain, and not
                                        to mention totally into cross-dressing.

For the life of me, I still don’t know what the big draw was, but apparently Mamissamus (or, as you may have gathered already, Ma’am for short) had a particular penchant for mammalia DNA specifically. Without getting into too much detail, it wound its way right up there into the ancestral roots of warm-blooded, sexual vertebrates and latched on. Though mostly harmless, Mamissamus’s occupation within the mammalian lineage triggered a biological response that ultimately resulted in what is known today as “menstruation” — a rather messy business, from what I understand.

I should be honest with you, when I say “was” and “had” and otherwise treat this little anecdote as though it all took place a long, long time ago in the distant passed, the fact is that Lynic, the SI alluded to in the above, has been in a real tiff for the passed few days, which is about how much time has passed since he realized Ma’am was missing. How did a virus that only went AWOL a few days ago come to be responsible for eons worth of bleeding and serious discomfort, you ask? Well, being of Drendain origin, it has the ability to time travel. Obviously.

So anyways, it’s fallen to me to try to locate and retrieve the poor, lost virus. With any luck, Lynic and Ma’am will be re-united before long (and you warm-blooded folk will hopefully go back to not bleeding in strange places periodically). But please, whatever you do, don’t get your hopes up. Honestly, I really do have better things to do, and if I can’t track it down within the next day or two, I’m writing it off as being gone for good. If it comes down to that, you’re just gonna have to keep putting up with the after effects of Ma’am’s tampering until you figure out a way to adapt all on your own, mkay?

Have you tried, I don’t know, not letting yourselves be on biological autopilot? Really, going through the reproductive motions only when you actually want to reproduce is the way of the future. Just saying. Anyways, good luck with that!

 

Flora: Alluem Numana

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Care and effort are hard to exhibit in the face of apathy and laziness. Such is the struggle I deal with when it comes to describing some of the finer details of Drendast. In this case, I have a very, very pretty picture in my head, but when I try to find the words to describe what it looks like, I lose interest. The struggle continues, such that I am determined to press on despite the lack of enthusiasm for doing so. Perhaps, that is a quality that sets me apart as a truly awful writer.

Perhaps, I am okay with that.

With that said, I have always loved trees. I know almost jack shit about them as they are in the present day natural world, but maybe that is for the best. I have more blissfully ignorant wiggle room to work with when when trying to describe the kinds of vegetation that exists in my mind’s world. In this case, I wanted to share some thoughts concerning a species of tree known as Alluem Numana.

The name “Alluem” just sounded cool to me, and “Numama” hints at a source of magic(k), and otherwise paints a more enchanted picture in one’s imagination. At least, that’s the hope.

I wish I had a great deal of plant taxonomical details to relay, but instead, all I’ve got are the gists: Alluem Numana are very much like oaks in that they are very large, green and broad-leafed, deciduous hard woods. Being as they are native to Drendast (and Drendast is nothing if not Earth enlarged in many respects), they typically reach the heights we see more commonly seen among Coastal Redwoods: that is to say, tall as fuck — and yet, like oaks on Earth, they’re far from being the biggest trees on Drendast.

Apart from their height, however, there’s also the fact that they glow at night to take into consideration. I could be wrong but, in my mind, the idea of trees that light up and give off an aethereal, enchanted aura of one sort or another after twilight has set in seems to be a fairly well established fantasy trope at this point in the history of fictional literature (and other media). I can’t trace where I first got the idea from, but I know it was before the release of Avatar. In either case, it can hardly be avoided in a place like Elyen, given that nightfall only takes place once every three years (or months, depending on your reckoning). Well, months or years all the same, the point is that there are long periods of darkness for one third of the time at any given point on the surface of Drendast on a consistent basis. Therefore, it should not be so strange that the ecology reflects that fact in unique ways (in this case, with vegetation that lights up when the suns finally take their leave).

Other than that, it should be mentioned that they belong to a family of temperate rain forest trees.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperate_rainforest

Like so, only with, you know… actual oaks… and glowy bits at night…

So, giant-ass oaks that glow at night. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Alluem Numana of Drendast. I will have a little more to divulge about them in a second entry I will link to from here in the future.

Drendast, Part 1: The Big Picture

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Image

My best attempt to track down the original creator of this image came up inconclusive, but there’s a strong chance that credit for this picture goes out to BBC. Or Mother Nature. Or a space agency of one sort or another. Or an artist, you know, like the kind who render images like these for fun. Either way.

I’ve been sitting on a lot of ideas pertaining to the story I’ve been working on called Elyen for a long time now, but in all this time, I’ve hardly shared any of the details publicly. This is my first major disclosure of some of the bits and pieces I’ve got going on so far, starting first with the setting.

Much of Elyen toys with the idea of parallel universes/multiverses. In fact, Elyen is the name of a particular(ly large) multiverse, within which the characters will end up doing a great deal of sight-seeing. At the heart of Elyen is the planet Drendast, serving as a the primary hub between universes.

Drendast is a mega water-planet forged in the ether eons ago. It is absolutely massive. It originally sported no less than 12 super-continent sized landmasses called Subworlds spread evenly across its surface and separated by unfathomable distances of sheer ocean. It is so huge that rather than orbiting around a star, it had three of its very own sun-sized stars orbiting around it, ensuring a perpetual state of day light . 

Had, was the operative word. Around ten thousand years ago or so (according to the few surviving historical records), one of the suns orbiting around Drendast came crashing down, causing massive devastation in its wake. But rather than destroy the planet outright, Drendast happened to be SO huge that it absorbed the worst of the impact without crumbling apart or evaporating away. Many myths abound to this day attempting to explain the cause of the judgement that reigned down from the heavens that fateful day.

Originally, the three suns were Tropreus, Neora and Selah. Now, only Selah and Neora remain.

Originally, Drendast had 12 thriving Subworlds. Now, a full third of them have either been rendered uninhabitable, or were vaporized completely.

Much of the action in the early stages of the story will take place on one of the remaining Subworlds called Sarenalis (Ser`n`AY`liss). Before the Fall of Tropreus, there was never (or very, very seldom?) any night fall. Like on most Subworlds, many of the creatures which evolved there had the benefit of being photovorus (light-eating).

There was certainly enough sunlight to power all of creation indefinitely when all three stars circled the world. However, since the Fall, all life became a struggle. Sarenalis was one of the Subworlds least affected by the Fall since it was located on the complete opposite side of the planet from where the impact took place. Still, great suffering occurred there as much as anywhere else where the night touched.

Once great and peaceful creatures took to predation and killing all in order to survive in the face of scarcity and chaos. Civilization fell into disproportionate states of disarray. Many advances in medicine and technology were lost. Most importantly, the Subworlds, which were once connected to one another by a series of ethereal channels (often mistaken for wormholes by outsiders) called Conduits, were now completely isolated. The oceans between Subworlds were simply too vast to ever cross using most surviving conventional methods of transportation of the day.

Geographic separation began to take its course. At the height of Drendain evolution in the day was a humanoid race known as the Sævanii. Ever since the Fall, the separation between Subworlds forced the original Sævian line to branch out and become distinctly new entities.

Now, nearly ten thousand years following the calamity that Tropreus brought down, the Conduits have slowly begun to repair, re-establishing the links between the remaining Subworlds, but more than that, re-establishing the links between Drendast and the now-wild external multiverse at large. Mighty airships have also begun to make an appearance, slowly replacing reliance on the Conduits as the only way to get around the planet.

Many creatures have begun to adapt to the new nightfall conditions, even making sense of the star-and-constallation-filled night skies for the first time in all recorded Drendain history. New ecological niches have begun to mature. Balance and vitality were slowly being restored to the planet.

However, a new element began to materialize in the natural world still very much under-repair: Ambition. Can the devastated people of Drendast survive this strange new drive emerging from among them to carve out a competitive way of life for themselves so soon after their world was nearly destroyed?

Nuts and Bolts and Progress!

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I try to do too much at once. I have been sitting on the same story now for over a decade. Obviously, it’s evolved. It’s nothing at all what it was when I originally envisioned it, but my problem is that I have a bit of a hard time committing to any particular version of the story. Who knows if, come tomorrow, I’ll see the story from some new, unforeseen angle and what to redraft the whole thing through the filter of the new vision.

Also, I can’t fully settle on what events should happen when. Lots of ideas, but they’re all disjointed. There’s a few overarching themes I have in mind, but very little substantial glue to bring it all together and hold it there in a way that feels quite natural. At least not just yet.

What is becoming more and more obvious to me is that certain things cannot be planned. There are a great many things which can only be discovered during the writing process itself. I’m finding myself increasingly guilty of letting ideas evolve exclusively in my head on their own to such a highly specialized extent that they suddenly start having very little in common with the heart of the rest of the story as a whole.

Instead, when I take to writing my ideas out in the direct context of actual story material, no matter how simple and incomplete they may be at first, they’ll at least have the benefit of being cohesive with the over arching vision. I’m now facing a turning point where I may need to open myself to some serious pruning. Eventually, the lofty and abstract concepts I’d like to feature in the story will make their appearance, but will they express themselves to the same refined extent which they currently exist in my head, or will they take an unexpected turn and show me something new instead? I’m getting closer to finding out each and every day.

Speaking of which, I’ve been busy the last couple of days. I’ve written a chapter for my story, Elyen, and will be looking to get some feed back from friends soon enough. If all goes well, I’ll share it online for anyone who’s interested in actually reading what I’ve been working on, rather than reading me talking about what I’ve been working on. Keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks.

Also, I drafted up a short poem called “Intentions” (originally called “Pretentious”), hosted on Wattpad. If you get a chance, please check it out and let me know what you think! It’s a quick read.

https://embed.wattpad.com/story/10888194
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