The Settling of Atlantis
The following is a channeled story of the settling of Atlantis and its profound impacts on the world. This story is one attempt to fit the energies of Atlantis to a narrative that works with those energies. Due to the nature of myth and the way timelines cohere, many different histories of Atlantis cohered into this timeline, with many different stories. However, all of them fit the energetic flow described in the story below.
My name is Hunden. I was born on a world that no longer exists, which once orbited around a star that is now dying. We came on two ships - the Phoenix and the Long Horizon. The ships had left our home star as outcasts, excommunicated from the home world for thinking differently than the global population at the time. The colonists wanted a less rigid world; an opportunity for a new beginning in a place with more openness and flexibility.
The home world was a place of darkness. The people had a vast understanding of crystals and energy - what they called magic-science – although no intuitive understanding of magic and manifestation; and everyone strove for dominance and control, with no thought towards the needs of others or the results of their cruelty. The colonists were those members of the race who saw things somewhat differently. They did not believe in cruelty for cruelty’s sake, and wanted a world in which everyone could have their own space to grow and develop in freedom.
There had been a war that had devastated the world. The survivors were largely scrambling to rebuild their power bases and develop technologies that would overwhelm their opponents at the time the colonists had departed on their ships. Soon after the ships left the solar system and accelerated to a substantial percentage of light speed, we received word that the world had once again descended into war. The war raged for a generation, with news reaching us of each side visiting increasingly horrible atrocities on the other.
Without warning, our sensors showed us images of our home star expanding into a red giant, hundreds of millions of years ahead of its time. As best we could piece together, one side in the war had fired a devastating weapon against the solar base of the other side. The shields of the solar base deflected the weapon, and all of the kinetic energy was dumped directly into the star, destabilizing its fusion process and causing it to immediately expand into a red giant with no opportunity to prevent the process from occurring. Our home world was gone, lost inside the star’s rapidly expanding corona. All of its people had perished, all fully polarized negatively in the end, caring only about winning at all costs.
Colony ships had previously traveled to other planets in the Sol system, forming colonies on Mars and Maldek. Each colony initially flourished. The colonists had landed hoping to craft something different from what they had known on their home world. Each colony was founded on the idea of an untouched and untapped land creating the space for everyone to grow and have freedom and independence. Sadly, the colonists brought the social structures and ways of their home world with them and did not recognize the structures themselves as flawed. As a result, they created sectarian and stratified societies with patriarchal power structures of domination and control, just as had occurred on their home world. They thought themselves enlightened compared to those on their home world (and they were), since they at least publicly argued for fairness and equality, while at the same time building and reinforcing the structures that eliminated that possibility. On the home world by comparison, no pretense was made towards kindness or fairness. Cruelty and domination were the only ways to move and survive.
In each colony, once the resources had thinned to the point where abundance was not easily available for all and the collective actions of the population – each acting independently without a thought for the larger community – were leading to ecological disaster, these negative societal power structures gave rise to conflict and ultimately world war. Each colony had a first war that devastated the planet and led to a scramble by the survivors to reorient and rebuild their power bases. In this scramble, inevitably new powers and technologies would arise, leading to new conflict, and eventually the colony’s destruction.
Maldek was colonized first, long before Mars, and did not survive its colonists. In a moment of desperation and misunderstanding, one side in the second war activated a weapon that was much more powerful than anyone expected. It fractured the world, killing the planet and its inhabitants instantly.
Mars was colonized later, and was left damaged although intact after its colonists all perished. On Mars, one side created a crystalline weapon equivalent to a thermonuclear bomb, although without producing residual radiation. They launched it against the other side, expecting to devastate their defenses in one blow. Unbeknownst to them, the other side had developed similar weapons and launched them to retaliate. This quickly led to a strick/counterstrike escalation resulting in the complete destruction of the biosphere and the ruin of the colony.
On the Phoenix and the Long Horizon, we had hoped to get it right with Earth. Our ships were generation ships, and we had thousands of years to study the tragedy of our forebears and prepare for a successful colonization. We saw the destruction of our home world and the two colonies, and we vowed not to make the same mistakes. Earth was a world that was just giving rise to 3rd density life capable of sentience, with energies perfectly calibrated to support our existence. It was wide open, with land and resources in astonishing abundance.
The world we had left had been vicious and cruel. It had fractured into multiple tribes, or “families,” with the head of each family being the strongest and most vicious of them. People helped each other in their family in order to survive, but would happily backstab and undermine their own family members if it meant getting ahead in family politics. No place was safe. At no time could you feel secure. We had rejected that world, and the peoples of our ships had explicitly agreed to work together on this new world. In the world we were crafting, people would not take wantonly with force. Law would govern all, and bargains would be made for fair exchange.
Each ship carefully studied the problems faced by the prior colonies and decided that in each case, the error was in not integrating more fully with the biosphere and indigenous peoples of the planet. On each world, the colonists had landed and dramatically terraformed the planet to be more like their home world, killing off all of the native sentient life and most of the native biosphere. This had led to resource-thin worlds that inevitably gave rise to conflict. The colonists headed to Earth decided that taking on the physical bodies and some of the neural architecture of the humans would allow them to make use of the abundant resources already present on the planet, yielding a much more robust and long-lived biosphere.
Each ship chose its own method of integration with the peoples of Earth, who were just coming into awareness of themselves. The people of the Phoenix chose to adopt neural architectures that were closer to human, allowing them to better integrate with Earth life and communicate with its people, but at the cost of losing access to certain neural architectures required for understanding some of the deeper magic-science from the home world. The people of the Long Horizon chose instead to retain those abilities, at the cost of certain Earth neural patterns that were deemed unimportant and foreign to our home world’s understanding.
* * *
After many millenia, the ships arrived in Earth orbit, and after scanning the available landmasses, we found a series of islands that were acting as a bridge between two large landmasses. We named the largest islands Undal and Unal. On Undal, we built the city of Keor and founded the nation of Atlantis. Our magic-science allowed us to quickly construct the beginnings of a city, and we soon located and mined crystals of sufficient size and quality to power our technology.
On Unal, to our surprise, we encountered a being of great power, who called itself the Dweller of Unal. It did not rouse itself from its meditations very often to converse with us, yet it was clearly very wise and seemed supportive of our plans to build a new civilization on this planet. Although the Dweller did not ask it of us, we built a temple on the island to honor the Dweller and its wisdom. We designated a crew member of the Long Horizon, with deep understanding of magic-science, as the Keeper of the temple, in order that the Dweller’s words would be heard by our entire civilization, and new magic-sciences could be spawned from the Dweller’s insights.
Given that the crew of the Long Horizon had retained substantially more understanding of magic-science, they were deployed to continue building out the city, while the crew of the Phoenix were tasked with exploring the new world and learning more about the terrain, the animal and plant life, and the human tribes that had appeared in increasing numbers during the millennia of our travels through the void.
I had been the Chief Engineer on the Phoenix, and I left with the other Phoenix crew members to explore this new world and to see what simple technologies, like irrigation, we might be able to teach to the humans. We found the humans fascinating. They were a heavily tribal species, similar to us, although they did not seem to possess any of our intuitive understanding of crystals and energy. For them, the crystals were just pretty rocks, rather than the powerful tools they were to us, and they were sadly forced to work with only the kinetic energy generated by their own labor. Even as depleted as our understanding was compared to those on the Long Horizon, we nevertheless retained much of our home world’s intuitive magic-science understanding, and were able to make use of all of the technologies our society possessed. What we had lost was the deep understanding of magic-science that allowed us to craft new and inventive technologies.
As we interacted with the humans, we started to notice some interesting features of their culture that were starkly different from our own. We saw strange encounters we didn’t entirely understand – some people would help other tribe members even when it was difficult or uncomfortable. This was something entirely foreign to us. To us, the “enlightened” members of our species, barter and exchange were the epitome of grace - already an enormous improvement over what we had come from. This seemed to be something more even than that. Interestingly, the people from the Phoenix seemed to intuitively understand the benefits of this behavior, even if they couldn’t clearly express why. The few members of the Long Horizon who had accompanied us, on the other hand, saw it only as a strange insanity. Why would someone help another when it would provide them with no guaranteed benefit?
My colleagues and I spent several years flying in small vehicles around the planet, witnessing the enormous abundance and variety of flora and fauna available to us. We couldn’t quite understand why, but there was a peacefulness to our existence that we had never continuously felt prior to our transformation. We all remarked on this, although the colleagues accompanying us from the Long Horizon said they noticed nothing different. Eventually, we decided to return to the Phoenix, which was still orbiting the planet, and from there transition all of the crew members into residence in Keor, merging with those of the Long Horizon and forming Atlantean society.
* * *
During the next months, as the crew fully integrated into life on the surface, we started noticing how strangely uncomfortable we were by our experience in Keor. Society was functioning exactly as we would have expected, but the crew on the Phoenix were all uncomfortable in a way they hadn’t noticed before. Homes were being built, temples erected, new technologies deployed, transgressors shunned – all the usual bustle of a productive society. Yet something felt wrong.
Shunnings were a regular part of society on our home world, and something that the Crew of the Long Horizon fully endorsed. After all, with so much available space - an entire world for the taking – if a member of the society wasn’t desirable as part of the community any more, it seemed only right that they should be shunned. Shunnings were a regular spectacle, with large shunning events in which everyone could take out their anger on the shunned person, even after the person has been forced away from civilization to go live with the humans. It was a wonderful release for society, and kept society pure, with fewer disruptive elements. Our society had always endorsed this, and when family members or close colleagues were shunned, it was simply understood that all relationships and affection towards that person would cease, you would never speak with them again, and you would find convenient times to vent your frustration about them long after their departure.
The crew of the Phoenix had initially expected to endorse shunnings as well, since they were so rational and obvious as a cure for society’s ills. However, something about the human neural architecture disrupted this clear understanding. Suddenly, it did not seem as obvious to the members of the Phoenix that someone who one previously had a close relationship with could simply be excised from one’s life without a thought. To the members of the Phoenix, a surprising panoply of emotions arose in response to the idea of shunning one of their own. If the person was in their immediate family, it was suddenly shockingly difficult for the members of the Phoenix to simply excommunicate them, and it was easier although still difficult when they were colleagues. And once the person was excommunicated, it no longer felt particularly satisfying to speak poorly of the person after they had departed. It just gave rise to sadness, rather than satisfaction.
The crew of the Phoenix also noticed something interesting about the shunning that had never been obvious to our people before – when a shunning occurred, people would tell increasingly inventive stories about the person that had been shunned. Over time, people would mention those stories as though they were fact. It was as though people were building a new reality around the stories they were telling themselves, in their eyes seeing the shunned person as increasingly evil and worthy of hatred.
Those of the Phoenix were doing the same thing, but something about the human circuitry that we did not share with those of the Long Horizon seemed to allow us to see what we were doing with a bit more clarity. It was as though something that had previously been everywhere in our experience suddenly had edges to it, allowing us to intuit that the thing did not go on forever and was only in fact a thing. As a result, we became less and less comfortable with the shunnings.
I decided to speak with someone in authority from the Long Horizon in order to see if we could address the problem of these strange false realities. I resolved to meet with Thotme, Keeper of the Great Temple of the Dweller of Unal. Thotme’s prowess with and understanding of magic-science was legendary, even by the high standards of the Long Horizon.
* * *
I met with Thotme at the Great Temple. The crew of the Long Horizon had spared no effort in building a beautiful temple to the Dweller. It was clear to all of them how helpful the Dweller could be, and they hoped that the temple’s beauty would entice the Dweller to give them more secrets. So far, it had not worked. The Dweller had remained continuously in meditation, and would rouse itself to speak with the Keeper only every few weeks.
Thotme turned to me with one eyebrow raised as I entered, clearly curious why I would travel to the Great Temple just to speak with him, when I could have easily reached out through our communicators.
“Hunden, it’s a surprise to see you. I hadn’t realized you were back from your surveys.”
“Hello, Thotme. I came back with the last team about 20 days ago. You’ll be delighted to know that we met with over 1000 different tribes and have learned much from our explorations.”
“Wonderful! Are they bowing to us as gods already?”
“Ha! No, we haven’t presented ourselves as such, although it would be easy enough for us to do so if the need arises. For now, they just think we’re humans from a more advanced society. We are spreading the name and legend of Atlantis far and wide.”
“Good,” laughed Thotme, “I’m not sure what the point of all of your travels is, though. We have everything we need without trading with them, and we can wipe out all of the humans without any significant ecological consequences. There really aren’t very many of them, after all.”
“I don’t think we should jump to genocide just yet,” I noted, trying to avoid any hint of alarm from creeping into my voice. “The humans haven’t shown themselves to be particularly problematic, and I think there may be some things to learn from them. Their neural architectures really are unique, and there are aspects to what the Phoenix crew picked up from the humans that we are still trying to understand - which brings me to the point of this visit.
“Since joining Atlantean society, the Phoenix crewmembers have pretty uniformly found themselves surprisingly uncomfortable around shunnings. It seems that something we picked up from the human neural architecture is leading us to see that when everyone is involved in the shunnings, we are all creating false realities around the person being shunned. Those false realities are much worse than what the person actually did, and no one seems to care.”
Thotme looked at me quizzically. “Why would we care how we treat someone who we have shunned? We’ve shunned them.”
“Whether or not they are still in our society, why would we want to make them out to be worse than they are?”
“Shunnings are a great release for our society,” replied Thotme, “They let people compress all of the anger and unhappiness they may be experiencing into a ball of rage they can hurl at the person who has been shunned - as almost a symbolic recipient of all of society’s grievances. It’s a huge release valve, and limits the amount of overall discontent.”
“Isn’t there a better way?”
“I can’t imagine what that could be,” replied Thotme. “Shunnings work so well, and there is plenty of land for the shunned person to settle in away from Atlantis. If they want to make themselves a king or queen among the humans with their magic-science, they’re free to do so. By the way, is your sister back from the surveys?”
“Airella? Yes, she’s back. Are you finally ready to meet her in person? I know that you and she have been speaking via communicator for months now.”
“I’m more than ready! I’ll reach out to her now and set a date!”
I left the Great Temple chuckling about Thotme’s clear besottment with my sister, and at the same time worrying that this difference in our neural architectures could end up making joint Atlantean society more difficult.
* * *
Years passed, and Atlantean society continued slowly integrating, although the discomfort felt by the crew of the Phoenix never lessened. Shunnings continued as a regular occurrence, and inevitably, members of the Phoenix were some of those shunned. Over time, the citizens of Atlantis would hear rumors about those shunned. Some had decided they wanted to spend their lives in quiet contemplation, away from the humans, and so had retired to caves or used magic-science to build a home in the wilderness. Others, particularly those who were originally from the Long Horizon, had indeed decided to become kings or queens of the humans, quelling any resistance with magic-science and similarly using it to construct palaces and cities.
The members of the Phoenix that were shunned seemed to be having a harder time. Unlike the Long Horizon crew, they could not independently create new magic-science technologies from loose crystals. The parts of their neural architectures that related to magic-science were only sufficient to allow them to use existing magic-science technologies. Creating any magic-science technology with sufficient power to shape matter or quell unrest with the humans required an intuitive understanding they no longer possessed.
For the shunned Phoenix crew members, they were forced to choose between subsistence farming and complete integration with the humans. Although they could leave Atlantis with magic-science weapons and tools, and although Atlantean technology could hold a charge for a long time – sometimes years, depending on the power draw – eventually they all had to be charged to continue functioning. That energy was available wirelessly in Atlantis, or otherwise via a large portable power generator the size of a truck or light plane, if for some reason remote charging or power generation were necessary, and – with difficulty – by a crew member of the Long Horizon using their intuitive understanding of energy flows. For the Phoenix crew members, although they could initially cow the humans with their technology, they could not maintain dominance solely through technology over the long term, as most of their magic-science eventually stopped functioning.
Regardless, Atlantean society provided them with no aid. Their names were added to the lists, and regular events held to hurl bile and abuse at effigies of all of the shunned continued. My colleagues came to me with increasing complaints of discomfort around the shunnings. In addition, as Phoenix crew members were shunned, their families and colleagues felt a strong desire to reach out and provide aid to the shunned person. It was frankly a bizarre experience. No one understood why this impulse was there, yet all of the Phoenix crew felt a sense of compassion arising towards the shunned person – an impulse that still felt alien and strange.
One other problem had arisen that was surprising and difficult to understand. The members of the Phoenix had noticed that members of the Long Horizon often had strange eccentricities. They would get easily overwhelmed by what felt like common occurrences. As a result, more and more of the former crew of the Long Horizon drifted towards a burgeoning “priest” caste, led by Thotme as the Keeper, who focused on the creation and production of various magic-sciences, and much of the work of day-to-day Atlantean life had fallen to the crew of the Phoenix, who could better get through the ordinary day without becoming overwhelmed.
I resolved to speak to the Atlantean counsel and see if we could find a better way forward. Since my conversation with Thotme several years earlier, I had been struggling with how to solve this problem. As of yet, no clear solutions had arisen.
I petitioned the counsel, and was given a date of 20 days' hence to plead my concerns. I used the time to survey all of my colleagues, from both the Phoenix and the Long Horizon, in order to better understand everyone’s concerns. When the day arrived, I stood before the counsel and spoke of my concerns. They roundly rejected them all. I spoke of my concerns regarding the shunnings, and as with my conversation years earlier with Thotme, I was met with uncomprehending stares. When I raised the issue of the stratification of society, I was rather blithely informed that the crew members of the Phoenix would have to accommodate and adjust, since those of the Long Horizon were the ones making ongoing Atlantean civilization possible. I was shocked at this response.
Peering at the assembled counsel, I realized that almost all of them were former crew members from the Long Horizon. When and how had that happened?! Fundamentally, I had noticed that the crew of the Phoenix did not act tribally towards each other by instinct (although lately, we had been forced to somewhat by necessity). The Long Horizon crew, on the other hand, seemed to be strongly tribal – much more like we all used to be before we adopted human neurology. It was astonishing to witness the effects of tribalism from the outside – not a good feeling at all.
* * *
“I’m leaving to head back out to the wild and explore more of the planet,” I told Airella, as we stood in the doorway of her son’s room.
“Do you have to leave now?” Airella turned away from me, tears in her eyes. “Things are feeling very off lately, and I don’t like how stressed you have been. You don’t look well.”
“Airella, I have some serious concerns about the members of the Long Horizon. They appear to be amassing power in a way that feels like they are setting themselves up to rule. I am really worried about that, and wonder if it is possible to stop.”
“Hunden, that seems a bit farfetched, don’t you think?” Airella paused, “Thotme would be very upset if he knew you were talking like this.”
“Please don’t tell him,” I exclaimed. “I don’t think I would enjoy his response.”
“He would never move against you,” said Airella, “I’m sure of it. Regardless, I won’t tell him.”
“Thank you. I love you and will miss you while I am gone.”
Airella looked at me fondly as she walked over to her sleeping son. She picked the boy up from the crib, gently rousing him from his nap. The child nuzzled gently against his mother’s chest, opening his eyes and emitting a gurgle of delight upon seeing me. “Unka Hungun! Unka Hungun!” the toddler proclaimed.
“Hello Thoth! I wanted to say goodbye to you before I left.”
The boy peered at me with troubled eyes. “Wheah go?”
I looked into my nephew’s eyes, and as always was struck with the intense feeling that I was staring into my own soul, as though I almost couldn’t tell whether I was myself, looking at him, or him, looking at me. “I’m leaving Atlantis for a bit to go on a trip. I’m not sure when I’m going to be back and see you again, so I wanted to give you a big hug and say goodbye to my favorite little pal.”
Thoth giggled and bounced in his mom’s arms, reaching for me to hold him. I picked him up, spun him around, and hugged him tight, covering his cheeks in kisses as he laughed. “You be a good little boy for your mommy and daddy while I’m gone, okay?”
“Okay!” shouted the excited creature climbing all over me, as I flipped him around my arms, shoulders, head and torso, and swung him between my legs.
“Speaking of daddy,” I said as I handed Thoth back to Airella. “Does Thotme know I’m leaving?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll mention it to him when he gets home.” Airella hugged me. “Take care, Hunden. This world can be a dangerous place.”
“Is it strange that I feel much more at peace when outside Atlantis than in it?”
“Right now, that does not seem strange at all.”
I left Keor on a flyer bound for the large continent west of Undal. I decided to see if I could locate Tresnus, the pilot of the Phoenix, who had been shunned a few years earlier. He and I had been good friends on the Phoenix, and he had been held in high esteem by the crew throughout the voyage. I never understood why he had been shunned. It appeared to originally have been related to some lie he had told in order to advance in the early days of Atlantis, while most of the Phoenix crew were still out on their surveys. From what I understood of the situation, it seemed rather trivial. However, as with all shunnings, the claimed crime had now been told and retold and expanded on so many times, that I wouldn’t be surprised if at the next shunning event, he was listed as the perpetrator of mass murder.
I found Tresnus on the southern portion of the continent. He was working with the local tribesmen, and had clearly suffered. He was gaunt and had a haunted look on his face. When I asked him what his experience had been since the shunning, he talked of having to scrounge desperately for food after the charge on his beam weapon was depleted. He ultimately joined the tribal village we now stood in the center of, although he said it was an uneasy relationship. The tribesmen did not entirely trust him, nor he them. He always felt that he was one wrong move away from finding their spears in his stomach. They tolerated him for the time being, due to his knowledge, but that was all. Not, I would imagine, a very relaxed existence.
We sat under the hot sun and discussed the situation in Atlantis. Tresnus sighed and shook his head. “I wish I had more of an opportunity to spend time with the Dweller,” he said. “That was such an incredible experience.” I looked at him in surprise – I had forgotten that he had been on the team that had discovered the Dweller’s abode on Unal.
“Why out of everything to miss in Atlantis did you mention the Dweller?” I asked.
Tresnus looked at me with surprise. “When Thotme and I uncovered the Dweller’s abode, we were dumbstruck. The Dweller radiated power like nothing I had ever experienced. Every cell in my body tingled. I could see timelines in my head stretching out into the future towards a glorious Atlantean civilization, and I knew the Dweller would help us to get there. I was the one who suggested building the temple – it felt like the only appropriate worship for a being of that magnitude. Thotme was initially against it and never would have pursued it, but he changed his mind the moment the Dweller stated his approval when I raised the suggestion with it.”
“Fascinating,” I said, after a few moments of consideration. “I haven’t had the opportunity to speak with the Dweller. He was in meditation whenever I have been at the Great Temple. Regardless, Thotme monopolizes any conversation at this point, since he or one of his acolytes is always there to act as Keeper if the Dweller rouses itself.”
“I hope you have an opportunity to visit the Dweller, Hunden. I have no doubt it would be transformative for you. It certainly was for me, although not entirely as I expected. If I hadn’t met the Dweller, I wouldn’t be shunned.”
I looked at him in shock. “What do you mean?”
“The charge that was raised against me, while true, was very minor. My son had desperately wanted to see the inside of the Great Hall in Keor. Since it is generally closed to the public due to the high energies involved in power generation, I told him that he would have to make due with photos of the inside, since it was closed off. He begged me and begged me, and I finally decided that it could do little harm to sneak him in. I was able to gain access due to my prior rank, since on the Phoenix I had often been involved with issues arising related to the power generators. I lied to the guard and told him that my son was a member of my team with full clearance, and I was able to get him inside. My son had an amazing time exploring the inside of the generator – and I showed him the vast crystal grid laid out in the Hall, with sparks of lightning arcing between the glowing crystals. My wife was from the Long Horizon, and it was clear that my son had an intuitive sense of the power flows that was different from what either the Phoenix crew or the Long Horizon crew experienced. This experience had awakened something wonderful inside of him, and he began speaking excitedly about his ideas for new power generation technologies. We would have happily left without incident, except that with absolutely terrible luck we ran into Thotme on the way out. Thotme had been in Keor on business, and he had visited the Great Hall to relay some understandings he had gained from the Dweller around power generation. And Thotme had previously met my son. His eyes blazed with anger when he saw us, and he railed at me about violating the clearly defined boundaries of the Great Hall. I assumed that would be the end of it, but several days later, I was approached by the magistrates, and before I knew it, I had a quick trial and was shunned!”
“That’s horrible!” I exclaimed. “Do you think Thotme caused your shunning?”
“Yes, I do. I have spent a lot of time ruminating since I was shunned, and the only thing that makes sense to me is that Thotme wanted the Dweller all to himself. The Dweller had said to us that either of us could be Keeper of the Temple if we wished. I had asked if I could have some time before becoming Keeper, so that I could explore the world and meet the humans. The Dweller agreed, and Thotme took the role for the time. We had agreed that at some point in the next few years, we would switch off and I would become Keeper. I think Thotme used this as an excuse to eliminate a rival as Keeper. You yourself have told me of the result – it sounds like Thotme has been quickly consolidating his power base in Atlantis.”
I shook my head, at a loss for words. I knew Thotme was ruthless, but I never expected something like this. I gave Tresnus what magic-science I could, although the list of what tools I was allowed to give to shunned individuals was very small, and did not include anything that would substantially elevate him amongst the tribesmen without risking his death once the charge was depleted. He thanked me deeply. We smiled and hugged, although I could sense the fear lurking behind his smile. He knew that his time on this planet was limited unless something changed for him very quickly.
“Please send my love to my family. I understand why they have not visited, and I wish them well.”
“They are deeply concerned for you, Tresnus. I spoke with your son before my departure. Like your wife, he cannot be found to have visited you directly, less suspicion fall on them. You know I’m taking a small risk in seeing you myself, although my current position with respect to the natives gives me some leeway to take a flyer without notice.
“I’d like you to have this communicator I built. It’s linked solely to a side channel in the Phoenix’s sensor array, and so won’t come to the notice of the Atlantean Counsel. Your wife and son each have a paired unit, so you can speak with them again.”
“Thank you, Hunden! From the bottom of my heart, you have given me a truly great gift. How long will the charge last?”
“It doesn’t use much power, and the Phoenix is engaging in heavy beamforming. It should last about a decade. I hope to see you again before then, regardless.”
“I cannot thank you enough, Hunden. You have given me back hope, now that I can speak with my family again.”
* * *
I took the flyer back to Atlantis and decided to stop at the Great Temple and speak with Thotme. To my surprise, he was already waiting there for me.
“I don’t have long to speak – I need to catch a flyer to Keor for an event this evening. However, I wanted to speak with you first. I saw that you visited with Tresnus.”
I was stunned. “How did you know that?” I gasped.
“I have the Long Horizon inform me whenever its sensors detect someone has visited him. He was a potential Keeper, and there are certain…factions here that are displeased that he was shunned. I wanted to make sure that I was aware if anyone potentially problematic was speaking with him.”
“And do I qualify?” I asked lightly.
“Of course not, Hunden. Why would you possibly qualify?” Thotme seemed agitated, overwhelmed. He took note of the shadows lengthening against the wall. “I have to go. Let’s catch up more soon. I would love to learn of how Tresnus is fairing.”
Thotme hopped into the flyer, and it quickly rose into the sky. I was deeply concerned by what I had heard from Tresnus, and Thotme’s interest in Tresnus and tracking of anyone’s movements with respect to him all but confirmed that Thotme had been responsible for his shunning. I shuddered, turned towards the Great Temple and decided to step inside and spend some time in the Dweller’s presence.
* * *
I walked into the Great Temple, and it was surprisingly empty. Normally, the Keeper or one of his acolytes was always present in case the Dweller roused from its meditations. Today, it appeared Thotme had left in more of a rush than I had realized – or my arrival had flustered him. Either way, it seemed that I was alone with the quiescent form of the Dweller. I sat on a meditation cushion in front of the Dweller and spent a few minutes with eyes closed centering myself. To my surprise, I heard a deep rumbling voice inside of my head, bypassing my ears entirely.
“Welcome, Hunden, to the Great Temple. I have awaited your visit.”
I looked with surprise at the form of the Dweller, which was still silent and unmoving, and said out loud, “Dweller, is that you?”
“It is,” the Dweller said in my head. “I have many ways of speaking with your people. This way ensures that we are not disturbed.” Just at that moment, one of the Temple acolytes entered the room, and took a position near the Dweller, waiting for it to rouse itself, and not realizing that it already had.
“Thank you for speaking with me,” I said silently in my mind. “I feel very honored.”
The Dweller laughed. “We honor each other, as we are one.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“In time,” the Dweller intoned, “you may understand.”
“Is there anything you can tell me that would guide me in my current situation?”
“I can only tell you what is highest and best for all beings.”
“Well, I would like to know what that would be.”
The Dweller sighed in my mind. “I will show you.” At that moment, the acolyte stood up sharply, almost as though puppeted, and quickly walked out of the room. “We will have some time now. Follow me.”
The Dweller suddenly stood, its form towering over me. It walked over to the wall, where an archway appeared. “We travel to the Halls of Amenti.”
“What are the Halls of Amenti?” I asked, as we descended down the tunnel. I glanced back and saw that the archway had disappeared behind us.
“The Halls of Amenti were formed in anticipation of your peoples’ arrival. It is a gift to your people from Gaia, the animating spirit of this world. It is the resting place for the Children of Light, beings who came to this world to help humanity flourish here, although humanity’s path to that flourishing will not be without strife, alas.”
“Why are you showing this to me?”
“Hunden, it is your role to give knowledge of this gift to the Atlantean people. Since your time under another star, your people have lived short lives, barely able to survive for 80 of the years on this planet. The humans have similarly short lives, although that was not always the case. You see the humans as having barely evolved their sentience. Yet, they were once a great people, with a global civilization merged in harmony. They are a fallen people now, reverting to savagery, and awaiting your peoples to lead them towards heaven.”
“We are going to make heaven on this world?!” I exclaimed. “That doesn’t feel very likely given the current tensions.”
The Dweller looked down at me and smiled a sad smile as we walked. “The events that are occurring now will one day lead to heaven on this world. Yet that will not be for some time yet, as your people measure it. Until then, both the humans and your people have much learning yet to do. Your people in particular are establishing patterns on this world that will lead to much suffering before there is salvation.”
I didn’t love the sound of that. “Is there anything I can do to limit the suffering?” I asked.
“Continue to do as you are doing - move with your heart. You and your kindred are the first of your peoples to ever do that. Almost all of your peoples move from the solar plexus or lower. You are something new – a seed that will one day blossom into deliverance for the entire universe.”
“The entire universe?” I asked with surprise. “That seems hard to believe.”
“Believe it or don’t. That is entirely your choice. This world is very important for all of reality. It is a fulcrum on which many stories have come together, and upon which much turns. I and those of my kind have been shaping reality since its inception in order to create this planet, with these people, and these events. Although the path may seem dark, and the way is very long, be assured that this path we are all laying down will one day lead to enlightenment and peace for all beings everywhere who desire it. And these next few months are critical for establishing the energies to lead us there.”
“I choose to believe you. Despite the darkness I see in my society, I will hold to the belief that it is for the best, and it will sort itself out, even if I don’t live to see that. And I will do my part as I can.”
“Wise words, Hunden. It is for words like those that I have chosen for you to be the first of your peoples to see this.” The Dweller stepped through an archway that had materialized out of the darkness. I followed, and stepped into a room that, despite the darkness of the tunnel we had just stepped out of, was filled with a blazing light at its center. It was an enormous flower, made of fire, except the light was not the reddish light of a wood fire, but rather the blazing light of sunshine, without any experience of sensory overwhelm. At its center was an enormous amethyst pillar, from which a syrupy golden light gently pulsed. With each pulse of the light, it bathed my skin, bearing an indescribable richness that filled every fiber of my being with health and vitality.
I gasped in shock, as I looked up at the Dweller. “What is that?! Its light on my body is the most incredible feeling I have ever experienced!” The Dweller smiled at me. “It is the eternal Light of All That Is, condensed and amplified to provide the Spirit of Life to all who witness it.” With those words, I suddenly became aware of the other beings in the room. As my mind became able to focus away from the incredible flower, I saw a number of thrones spread throughout the room, with beings deep in meditation seated upon each.
“Witness the Children of Light,” intoned the Dweller, “with their bodies in slumber. They incarnate as humans on this world, in order to guide the development of the race. Now that your peoples are here, they will incarnate as them as well. Soon enough, there will be little enough distinction between your peoples and the humans in any case. You will all simply be humans of Earth, and the Children of Light will continue guiding you all towards this world’s ultimate fate.”
I nodded. The eventual merger of our peoples with the humans had been our expectation from the beginning, when we chose to modify ourselves. “And what is that fate?” I asked.
“I already told you,” admonished the Dweller. “This world will one day come together in unity; and in doing so, it will heal wounds that have resonance throughout the universe. The changes that are wrought in the process of that healing will fundamentally reorder the universe into a more beneficial pattern for all beings. The work of countless lifetimes and the suffering of countless beings will one day lead to heaven on this world and countless others. And our work will help shepherd this world towards that golden age.”
I reeled at the enormity of what the Dweller was saying. It was hard to imagine how what we were doing here could have any sort of larger consequence for the universe; and at the same time, I fully understood that I did not see the larger pattern. If such a pattern did exist, the Dweller almost certainly saw much more of it than I did!
“You said ‘our work’. Are you referring to you and me, or others as well?”
“It is always a co-creation, Hunden. And yet, in that instance, I was referring specifically to me, you, and all of the other incarnations of us that will aid this cause throughout history, like your nephew Thoth, as an example.”
I thought I was reeling before, yet this left me in a state of shock I had never previously experienced. “I don’t understand. I am you? And I am also my nephew?!”
“Come,” said the Dweller. “You have learned what is beneficial, and you have received the Spirit of Life from the Great Flower. Let us return to the Temple.”
I turned and began to walk with the Dweller back towards the tunnel archway. “What did you mean by the Spirit of Life?”
“The Spirit of Life is the great gift from All That Is. When you bathe in the Light of the Great Flower, the Spirit of Life quickens your animal body and sharpens your consciousness. It reverses aging, and thereby extends lifespan considerably. The Spirit of Life can be renewed whenever wished, simply by standing for a short time in front of the Flower. This is a gift to be shared with all of your peoples, so that all may travel to Amenti and stand in the Hall with the Flower. And thus the people of Atlantis will be freed from some of the limitations of a short life; and Atlantis can, for the ages, stand as a beacon and lesson for the world.”
We stepped out of the Temple archway, once again back in the main hall of the Great Temple. Thotme stood there in surprise and intense agitation. He had clearly been concerned about the disappearance of the Dweller upon his return, and had been angrily yelling at his acolytes when the archway appeared in the Temple and we emerged. The yelling immediately stopped, but the look of shock and rage leveled at me was highly discomfiting. The acolytes took the momentary lull to run out of the hall.
The Dweller moved silently towards its dais and sat upon it. With a solemn voice, the Dweller said to Thotme, “Hunden has something to show you. After your term is complete, he shall be the next Keeper, if he so wishes” At that, the Dwellers eyes closed, and it once again settled into its long meditations.
* * *
Thotme turned to look at me, shock and intense curiosity written plainly on his face. “What just happened, Hunden? Tell me immediately.”
I relayed my conversation with the Dweller, although I left out the parts regarding me, the Dweller and Thotme’s son Thoth. We walked through the archway, which remained open and visible to all and began the walk down to Amenti. Despite this incredible discovery, Thotme seemed agitated, as though he were resentful that the Dweller had chosen to share this with me. We walked down the corridor in brooding silence, which ended with a gasp from Thotme when we entered Amenti.
After basking in the Light of the Flower for some time, we turned and began walking back to the Temple. Thotme turned to me eventually, breaking the silence. “Airella told me what you said to her about the Long Horizon crew taking over the government. I am deeply offended that you would say such a thing. We believe in fairness, and can’t help if everyone on the Phoenix is too busy playing with the humans to pay attention to government.”
I couldn’t believe that Airella would betray my confidence; especially over a topic with such potentially dangerous repercussions if shared. “Thotme, I didn’t say that to upset you. I’m merely seeing a worrying trend - the Long Horizon people are increasingly creating the rules that we live by, and the Phoenix people are increasingly being forced to follow those rules without any say.”
“You and all of the Phoenix people are just jealous of us. You gave up most of your magic-science to be more human, and what has it gotten you, except weakness? You are all pitiful!”
“Thotme, it is clear to me that you are not someone I can reason with, so I think it best if I depart. Perhaps you can spend more time thinking about the issues I have raised once your term as Keeper has come to an end. In the meantime, I’m going to spend a little time away from Atlantis. I’ve been finding the atmosphere here somewhat unpalatable of late. Goodbye, Thotme.”
“Thanks for leaving, Hunden.”
* * *
I took a flyer out and landed it a 10 days’ walk from Tresnus, so that if Thotme were tracking my flight path again, I would have a plausible argument that I was meeting with one of the nearby villages, but had stayed away from Tresnus. I packed a large backpack filled with light farming equipment, so that Tresnus could be able to manage subsistence farming separate from the villagers, if he so chose, and put on a personal levitation belt, or skimmer. These made travel over relatively short distances very easy, and it had the added joy of feeling like you were flying. Unfortunately, they were exceedingly power-hungry devices and would drain their charge after about one full day of travel, especially when carrying as much weight as I was carrying. Since I was now a 10 hour skimmer flight away from Tresnus, I didn’t have a lot of spare capacity. I left the meadow in which I had stored the flyer and skimmed quickly towards Tresnus.
Within minutes of departing the meadow, my communicator started chirping a warning of my flyer departing. I quickly pulled up the control interface and saw that it was, in fact, taking off. I attempted to control it and bring it back, but it was not responding to any of my commands. I raced at high speed back to the meadow, but I was too late. The flyer was already aloft and quickly moving away from the meadow.
I pulled up my communicator and called Airella. “Hunden, is that you?” Airella sounded like she had been crying. “I’m so sorry; I had no idea that Thotme would do this. I didn’t think it would matter if I told him, and I thought it might help him to see reason if he knew some people were displeased.”
“What happened, Airella? Why did my flyer just leave me? Is that related to what you’re talking about?”
“They’ve shunned you in absentia, Hunden! They say you’re consorting with traitors in order to foment rebellion.”
“What traitors am I consorting with?”
“They said you’re meeting with Tresnus in order to overthrow the legitimate Atlantean government.”
“I have no interest in fomenting rebellion, Airella. You know that! I just wanted society to have a discussion about how to proceed given the issues we face! Everyone has been hiding from these problems.”
“Hunden, I don’t think they’re going to give you a chance to argue this in court. They’re just going to shun you. There isn’t anyone in the government who is willing to stand up to Thotme. I think you’re going to have to do this on your own for a little…” The communicator’s network connection suddenly vanished. I was alone.
I flew the skimmer towards Tresnus, moving slowly now, so as to conserve power. Although I had the farm equipment, I was lacking in the basic equipment that every shunned person ordinarily receives. It would have to do.
* * *
The Spirit of Life was not a gift for me, as I lived for the next two hundred years before finally passing. I lost my dear friend Tresnus more than a century earlier. We had built a life together, using the meager equipment I had brought and what simple technologies we could make from the available materials. However, he continued to age normally, while I aged at a fraction of my prior rate. I had to watch him slowly become old, then infirm, then pass on. After I grieved for some time, I took a wife from the local village, and slowly integrated into their lives. When I finally died, I was the chieftain of the village, which had grown into a sizable town.
The news from Atlantis was minimal, as I could only get snatches from traders and others that spoke with Atlanteans from time to time. We were able to speak with Tresnus’s wife and son for a time, but eventually that communicator’s charge was depleted. Our last call was a tearful one. I hadn’t ever been able to speak with Airella or Thoth, given my concerns about Airella’s trustworthiness. Over time, it appeared that as expected, the governance of Atlantis was coalescing around the Long Horizon, and specifically around a cult created by Thotme. The Spirit of Life was ostensibly being given to everyone, but people who Thotme seemed threatened by were consistently shunned. He had elevated the priest caste to become the ruling class, so that Atlantis was increasingly becoming a government run by a priest-king – the Keeper.
On the night before I finally passed on and left this mortal coil, I had a vision of the future. I saw a glorious civilization arise under the reign of the Keeper, as the island of Undal became filled with towns and cities of unsurpassing beauty. I saw how the power dynamics that were establishing themselves prior to my shunning ultimately led to increasing consolidation of power with the priests, and less and less oversight or dissent from anything they did.
Eventually, there were disputes within the priest class, which segregated. There were increasing tensions, that ultimately led to a devastating war. 40% of the population would die, and the island of Undal would be devastated from the various energy weapons. I tossed and turned in my sleep as I saw the survivors of that war not learning its lessons, and instead once again attempting to gain advantage from the new magic-sciences developed during the war, exploiting the power vacuums left after the its conclusion.
Inevitably, this led to an arms race and the outbreak of new war. When Thotme and the high priests in desperation attempted to gain an advantage by taking free energy from the formless, effectively raping the universe, the Dweller arose from his slumber in alarm. It had the Lords of Amenti trigger changes within the Earth that led to enormous earthquakes and tidal waves that sank the islands of Undal and Unal, and left the civilization of Atlantis nothing more than a barely-remembered myth.
As my dream faded, I silently asked the Dweller how what I was seeing could possibly coincide with what it had said – that the events around my shunning would set the seeds for the world to eventually become heaven. To my surprise, in the dream the Dweller replied. It said that if I wanted to see more of the pattern, I had to get bigger. I resolved in my next life to make sure that happened. I knew that one day, I would see this world, and its people, redeemed.
