The Where (or Elemental Worlds)

Elementalism. Modern fantasy is as obsessed with the word as it is with any other fascinating idea that has its roots in ancient or medieval philosophy. It is a beautiful - if somewhat old-fashioned sentiment - to feel closer to the four original elements: earth, water, air and fire - and in some cultures a fifth - space. The 'elements' that all life seemed to be born out of to the primitive eye.

Stories, of course, are mostly narratives built around a simple core idea. And elementalism is a simple idea with much potential. At least, in the mythological sense of the term. The word 'element' is used for a large number of things today. Among others, it still conveys the idea of the basic building blocks of the existing world, but, as with all things, the building blocks of the existing world are no longer as simple and, more importantly, 'compact' as they once were.

If fantasy were to evolve with the sciences, the number four - or five, as the case may be - might well have to be replaced by a hundred and ten. That definitely complicates things.

But more than that, it creates a certain sense of hierarchy. The original elements were equals, if not to your staunch fire temple devotee - definitely from a quieter philosophical point of view. It would be quite difficult, however, to prepare an argument that would place, say, Bismuth, on the same footing as Oxygen. Even if I were to look at it quietly and philosophically - leaving quantity and abundance out of the equation - Bismuth, in turn, would definitely be superior to Unnilbium, fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on which way way you look at it - also named Nobelium.

Or would it? If the Ununtrium Tribe, blessed with and devoted to the worship and use of the element Ununtrium, were a so-called Uncontacted - or in this case - Undiscovered tribe in the deepest darkest caverns of the farthest reaches of our 'elemental' fantasy world (it would have to be quite a technologically superior tribe as it would be fantastically difficult, even in our fantasy world, for Ununtrium to occur naturally, since in our - also 'elemental' - world we haven't even discovered it yet), would they not consider their patron element to be above and beyond your petty hydrogen and nitrogen and what have you? Especially since they would have a much more appealing name for it - something that would probably be more pronounceable - or at least have a certain ring to it - if only in the Ununtrium - or whatever they'd call it - tongue.

Elementalism, after all, is its own religion - a way of life or whatyoumightcallit. And even a hundred and ten is a small number compared to the cultures and traditions of our world. Looking at it this way, perhaps, it's not such an insane idea for a fantasy story after all. A hundred and ten gods or a hundred an ten nations or even a hundred and ten planeteers is still less complicated than our 'elemental' world. Orbitalism - some strange kind of continentalism - would make things easier to categorize - as would your little political - or in this case, periodic - groups and associations. Historic world wars between the Metallic and Non-metallic factions(think that's a bit one-sided? well, think again) and haunting industrial disasters(okay, that really wouldn't be anything new) would be easy enough settings - but there's still one question that would need a little bit of thinking - and some lengthy justifications(often overlooked, omitted or added just as afterthoughts by the authors of many fantasy worlds).

What would the plant and animal life look like?

The Who? (We Only Want Our Heads Back.)

We Only Want Our Heads Back.

We Are Peaceful Cyberspace Aliens Whose Heads Have Been Captured By The Screen Font Georgia.

We Can Live Without Our Heads, But The Venerable Large X-Height Font Must See That This Can Be Quite Difficult.

If Our Heads Are Not Returned, We Shall Be Aided By Our Ally On Earth, Verdana, To Fight Georgia.

Beware. You Might Have Our Heads. But We Have Verdana.

the what? (apple stories)

Here it is - the apple of discord from Greek mythology. It's big, round and red - and it shines gold in the morning light.

Over the years, we've seen it disappear, return, disappear and return again and again garbed in the cloaks of youth, love, sexuality, sin and science.

It could be a separate religion by itself - with the number of well-known characters that are associated with it, whose lives are in a way determined by the apple, who are remembered for their relationships with the apple.

We could look at the apple as something that has come into close contact with these characters - and thus has grown in terms of symbology and semiotic baggage because of this contact.

Or we could look at these characters: Adam and Eve, Hercules, Atlas, Paris, Eris, Newton, Iduna, William Tell - as characters who have grown and remained in human memory because of their close association with the apple - a kind of philosopher's stone - that turns the everyday into history and mythology.

the why?( we care)

the cosmos is where we live. i wrote that down and then i wondered whether there was any point in the sentence. it isn't like saying india is where we live - because there are other countries where we might have lived but don't - or saying the earth is where we live - because there are other planets where we might have lived (or more probably died) but don't.
but it's natural to want to know more about where you live. natural to guess, and then be delighted equally by a confirmation or a contradiction.
natural to want to know whether your home has nine rooms - or eight (and the last promised room turned out to be a broom cupboard).
natural to want to know whether the central heating system will work fine for the next, say, five billion years.
natural to want to know whether the next few houses on the street have tenants yet - or the ones beyond.
natural to want to know whether the active nucleus of the township - its central hub - is the place most new apartment blocks are gravitating towards.
natural to want to know whether any of your neighbours are massively rich enough to swallow your little home whole.
natural to want to see whether the street outside is foggy or clear, and then natural to arm yourself with a flashlight to see the dark.
the dark. that's where so many of our questions come from and go back into. there's a fear associated with it - and a strange sort of fascination.
so far, we've been looking to the light for the answers to all these questions. looking to the stars and the energy they send, through storm and space, time and aeons to us, faithful observers of interstellar beauty.
teasing answers out of them - answers to our questions about them - and consequently about us.
and now we must look to the dark, as well.
it's been telling us, throughout our communion with light, telling us quietly but firmly that it's there - that it cannot be ignored. mischievously creeping into our observations and slyly toying with our gravitational calculations.
we live in the dark.
a dark that is penetrated by pinpricks of lovely starlight, true, but is dark nevertheless.
and it's natural to want to know what's hidden in the shadows of our cosmos.

the when? (or symphony)

The baton moved in a wide arc over their heads.
As the deep brass peals resonated through a thousand ear drums - something quivered in the foundations of the music hall.
It was new, built with the latest acoustic knowledge of the realms of sound, and filled with the best musicians in the world - an experiment, and achievement, the first of its kind - a musical symphony to best all others of its time.
The resonance created now had never been heard - never been felt before in the history of existence.
And these deep vibrations seemed to reach everywhere - and everything, traverse through the very molecules of the world.
But they had been underestimated. The resonance wasn't just reaching molecules - it was reaching the very fabric of space-time that held these molecules together.
And things were shifting.
And as the orchestra moved - with one single beautiful powerful wave of magnificent sound - so did the molecules of the world - and beneath them... space-time.
And with the loud percussion peal that marked the beginning of the first movement - somewhere within the molecules, within the atoms, within the quarks, far far within where space circled in on itself - a tight circle of brilliant energy began resonating with the bang - spinning and splitting into little bits of the primal matter - and moving out - to create space.
The orchestra continued, the music moved in chords and notes and harmonies. As the frequencies changed, the resonance miraculously survived - and with each new lovely sound - new lovely things began to happen to the universe that had just been birthed somewhere within.
It would last as long as the music lasted - go through miracles with each miraculous bar - sing with it - and die with it.

the "How?" (to travel around the Universe and some other things)

Last Monday I met Mr. Mobius again. He looked quite like his old self. His mole had shifted back to the left side of his face. And his squint was back in his left eye instead of his right – which is where it had been the whole of last year.

He shook hands with me, a little disorientedly. “I’ve been using the other one for a whole year,” he said, after mistaking my left for my right.

“That’s not the only thing you’ve been doing that’s strange – ”

Mr. Mobius looked around quickly and then smiled innocently at me.

“Sharp, aren’t you? Was it the mole you noticed? Or the sudden bouts of ambidexterity?”

“Both. Well, specially the mole. You’ve – you’ve changed. Twice in the last year.”

“Not changed, child. Just laterally inverted. Like what happens to you in a mirror.”

All sorts of strange ideas floated around my head.

“You’ve been through a mirror?”

“No,” he said. “Through is difficult. Around – that’s an easier trick. I’ve been around.”

“Around a mirror?”

“Just around the Universe.”

I stared.

“How?”

“In my Expansion Capsule. It uses a plane of relativity where there’s no such thing as the distance around the Universe.”

“So this spaceship – your Expansion Capsule thingy that bends space to nullify distances – ”

“It doesn’t bend space, child. Gravity does that. It just spaces out your molecules so you can become comparable to the size of the Universe – which has a pretty spaced out molecular structure – and you can slide across the gravity curves.”

“…bends space to nullify distances, it – it inverts you?”

“No. It’s just space that does that. The Universe twists before it loops back in on itself. So every time you travel around it – you come back laterally inverted. (And upside down too – but that’s easily corrected in an upside down world.) Your mirror image comes back instead of you. It’s like traveling around a Mobius Strip.”

“Seems to me that you’re the one who twists everytime you travel out there. Not the Universe.”

“That’s it. I’m the man who likes to twist around the farthest reaches of the last collapsible dimension and come back to tell the tale.”

“Also twisting himself a little bit in the process.”

Mr. Mobius smiled his strange lopsided smile and said:

“You look older today, child. You’ve had a long year, too, haven’t you?”

The Which?

Quark A stood on the quivering brink of time and looked around at quark B, whose eyes – well, no, call it consciousness – hovered over the distant horizon of squiggly shapes and colours.
“Is it time?” it asked, the question traveling on invisible matterless waves of the primal ether over to the other quark.
“For what?” Quark B whispered.
Quark A wiggled its eyebrows – very figuratively. The equivalent in the quark world was a series of short continuous waves that would look like an earthworm if someone chalked the waveform on a blackboard before physics class. Or a kitten playing with wool, of course.
“What?” Quark B said.

Good morning reader. This is a hypothesis. It is not real. It is as unreal as the supposition that it is morning – whereas, more likely than not, it is after sunset.

At the dawn of time…there was a light. It wasn’t a light really, more of a Light. And there was an inability to pronounce capital letters. And then there was a need to pronounce capital letters – well, a need to pronounce anything, so that the light could become a light, you know. The need became a Need and manifested itself in matter. And then the fun started. The Light and the matter sent giant waves of improbable instigation towards time and the fun began before the fun began – before there was anyone to say that it had begun – or notice that it had begun.
And chance after chance after chance after chance later, quark A stood on the quivering brink of time and asked quark B a question.
Quark B misread it, as I’m sure did all of us.

The question floated all over the primal ether and burnt into the quantum foam of the brink of time – to be etched there for all eternity – or even a moment, which is the same thing.

Or was it there from before – a question – not The question – the answer to which, as we all know by now, is 42 – but the Question. A hovering uncertainty that doesn’t come from anywhere and doesn’t really go any where but lies dormant and restless in the heart of matter across the multiverse.

An intransitive. Quark A sighed and shook it’s head. It looked at the brink of time – at the edge and beginning and end of history and prehistory and chronicles and timescales – and asked the funny little shapes and loops of colours it could see whether they were time. Time. And they didn’t answer. At least in Quark language.
And Quark B just took the question as another question and paid no further attention. And the question – as with all questions asked at the beginning of cosmic history and cataclysmic follow-ups – stayed there forever, to subconsciously plague all consciousness for all eternity, at least, all eternity before the end of all things. After that, we’re told, things… change.

But which question was it? What is the question buried in the hearts of all consciousness? Is it the eternal Question that asks Time whether it is, in fact, Time? Or is it the more mundane unromantic (even if Quark B didn’t call it that) question that asks the next consciousness whether it is time for the next thing lined up in everyday history to happen?

Which is more important? The transitive or the intransitive? The Light or just the light? The Question or just the question?

Put it this way – an earthworm…or just a kitten playing with wool?

I don’t think anyone except that environmentalist with grubby gloved hands and soil-smeared goggles will differ.

Primal ether did a few more cosmic rifts and catherine wheels and smiled. Quark B edged a little closer to quark A. It was a beautiful brink of time.