Chapter One
Now in The 5,982 Year From The Beginning of Our Faith, I, Gray
Boar, sit down to write of The Beginning of All Things. For it is
said that I am wise in these matters, but it is not so. I have
only The Light of Those That Have Come Before Me. My wisdom is
only the product of Their long study, research, and suffering. I
am wise only because I stand upon the mountain made by Those Who
Came Before Me.
2 Now as to The Beginning Of All Things, there are three theories
held by The Great Races, but in one thing these theories
agree....
3 In The Beginning there was only the vast, empty darkness of
space....the soft dark velvet of nothingness was everywhere.
Then, something came to be, and how it came to be, no one is
sure. For it was long before there was anything that had reason,
it was long before there was anything that thought.
4 Now, the first and most popular theory as to how this something
came to be, was that it condensed out of the darkness of space,
itself.
5 The second theory held by many, was that a rift opened in the
fabric of space, and the something poured through from some other
form of existence.
6 The third theory was that the something was created by a divine
being of super intelligence, a controller of all the universe.
But few of The Great Races held much faith in this last theory.
For if a divine being created everything, where did the divine
being come from?
7 But after the something came to be, there is general agreement
in all the theories. The something began to gather together and
press upon itself, and it began to change. And The Ancients
called this great gathering of the something The Mega.
8 And The Mega pressed within itself until the pressure was so
great that it exploded, throwing great chunks of itself out into
the darkness, to orbit what had once been its center.
9 And these great chunks were called the universes. And the
universes pressed within themselves, and they, too, exploded,
throwing fragments into vast orbits around their centers, also.
And these fragments were called galaxies.
10 Now, the galaxies did not have enough mass to fall in upon
themselves, so they began to cool, and suns began to form. They
were born, died, and were born again, scattering the new elements
they were producing throughout the galaxies.
11 Then, slowly, about some of the suns as they cooled, planets
formed. Out of the billions of planets that formed, only a few
milliion had life. Out of the millions of worlds that had life,
only on a few thousand did that life reach intelligence. Out of
all those thousands of worlds we know only four well....Hades,
The Beloved, Haven, The Despised, Peepi, The Friend, Earth, The
Hope.
12 Now Hades was a harsh world, and perhaps the strangest of all
the known worlds, for its very existence was a mystery. Its orbit
was five-hundred of its revolutions. It had three sisters and
four brothers, but it did not share their orbits.
13 Where its brothers and sisters had orbits slightly inclined
above and below their sun's equator, Hades' orbit was almost
exactly on its sun's equator. And where its brothers and sisters
tilted on their axis so that their seasons came alternately,
north and south, Hades' axis always stayed parallel to its sun,
so that its seasons only changed as its orbit carried it closer
and further from its sun.
14 But strangest of all, Hades did not travel in the same
direction as its brothers and sisters, but orbited its sun in
reverse, and rotated in the reverse direction.
15 So strange were all the conditions on Hades, many belieevd it
was not a natural planet. It had been made by some Ancient Race
for some unknown purpose, and for some strange reason it had
never been used, for it lay barren for millions of years. The
rains came, and fell on muddy ground. There were no plants, no
animals; the clear waters of its beautiful lakes lay empty. The
world was silent and bare.
16 Then, one day a Visitor came- an Ancient Traveller who had
long journeyed from star to star. And when his great ship settled
upon the barren ground, he emerged, and looked upon the empty
world. "What a pity," he thought, "that this world
has no life. Though it is a harsh place, life could survive here,
but the Spark has never come. I am old; tired. Let me end my
journeys here. I will bring life to this world. I will spread
myself into its waters, that each part of me will become new
life, adapting to its environment, growing, changing, filling
this world with all kinds of living things, that each spark of me
may again reach for the stars."
17 Now, The Old One had many plants and small animals on his
ship, and he very carefully planted them here and there on the
land. And when the plants had taken, so the small animals would
have food, he released them. And when this was done, he sent his
ship into Hades' sun, so it would be destroyed, for it was too
dangerous, he thought, for just anyone to find.
18 And he rose into the sky and broke himself into many pieces,
and each piece hovered over one of Hades' lakes, and there broke
up into its smallest parts.
19 The Ancient One's intelligence was gone....split up into the
tiny sparks he had left behind. The sparks grew, devided, grew
again, living on the richness of the water. But slowly some began
to grow. They fed on the tiny plants in the water, or on their
tiny neighbors, and they grew still larger. Fins came, and,
scales, and some of the creatures of the water began to venture
onto the land.
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