Here’s the deal…
The Plath of today, including Sheloran, have absolutely no idea, but once, very long ago, when the elder races of this galaxy were but grunting savages the Plath were an ancient and powerful race.
Their technology was so far advanced that it transcends anything known today.
For hundreds of thousands of years, they dominated the galaxy, perhaps not entirely despotically, maybe not even as a colonial power, (that hasn’t been discussed) but as far as sheer power by any measure, they were on top of the heap.
They have even been referred to as one of the “first-born”, whatever that means.
Then, something went terribly wrong…
The exact nature of the event has yet to be discussed in any real detail but whatever it was the Plath became absolutely certain that it would spell their doom, that everything they were was rapidly approaching the “end”.
Terms like them, “The Befouler”, “Annoying fate itself”, “The Corrupted One”, and the like were used referring to whatever they encountered or did.
They obviously fucked up.
In discussions between The Great Prophet and The Great Seer it was mentioned that whatever this was had claimed every race that ran afoul of it.
The Great Prophet said the following about “it”:
“What happened happens to all who reach that terrible point. Nobody has passed that final horrifying filter. Even the progenitors themselves were broken by it.”
It seems that there might be yet another “great filter” ahead of every single civilization currently in existence…
The flashbacks, visions, and dreams written so far center around one group of beings far in the plath’s history, the generation that either caused the great disaster or were the ones trying to deal with it and takes place over several years (long enough for the young female “witch” in the mini-arc to visibly become older)
The events of those days:
A powerful and influential group, the “Revisionists” lead by an individual referred to as “The Great Prophet” decided that the best response to the disaster was to completely regress, abandon all technology, and dismantle their entire society saying that this would stop their progress towards their end, possibly even averting it.
It seems that Plath society of that day were separated into distinct castes with genetic interlocks in place to keep each one “pure”.
Despite the extreme stance, it seems that the majority of the castes came to agree with him.
One caste in particular, the seers, vehemently opposed this move.
A conflict of some sort broke out with the very powerful seer caste whose mastery of genetic manipulation bordered on the magical and who seemingly could actually analyze probability well enough to look forward or backward in time. This escalated to them actually engaging in armed conflict with the rest of the Plath.
Despite their power, the conflict turned against them. It isn’t clear in what form this war took or if it was a full caste on caste war or if was just elements within a greater caste but the group called “the sisters” were “fighting and dying” in an increasingly losing fight.
As the arc begins a female Plath, part of a group referred to as “witches” or “seers” using a scrying pool to gaze into “all that is” while a ship was in hyperspace staring into the “timelessness” of that reality looking for some consciousness that she had felt impinging on her mind from time to time.
Eventually she finds Sheloran, who was seemingly reaching backwards in time in a dream state for some reason.
This was initially “triggered” by Sheloran’s obsession with a particularly immersive VR game called “Submerged”. It seems that the surreal organic landscapes of that world might bear a strangely coincidental resemblance to the “world” of the ancient Plath… maybe…
Whatever the reason, Sheloran has become gamer’s addiction level obsessed with “Submerged”. She’s losing sleep, skipping meals… you know how it is… (we all know… don’t pretend you don’t…)
And the more she plays it, the more vivid and disturbing her “dreams” are getting.
There are several reasons for this that will be mentioned as we reach them.
When she locates Sheloran, in the far future, she believes that she has found “her”, someone she believes is proof positive that the Revisionists, no matter how successful they appear to be, will ultimately fail, everything they do being undone. Fate cannot be denied after all, only delayed.
Armed with this “knowledge” she goes to work…
Years pass, long enough for to appear a little older, and she finally is ready to make her move.
After being in seclusion for a long time, she resumes contact with her coven, now in hiding.
She addresses them confirming what is now obvious. The Revisionist victory is certain.
She advocates “surrender” even going as far as to have entered negotiations with the leader of the Revisionists, The Great Prophet on their behalf.
When her sisters, especially their ancient leader, the Great Seer, object saying that everything, including “the words of the progenitors” would be lost she simply replies that it was going to happen no matter what.
Concerning their defeat she says,
“The brightest colors shine with their victory. Anyone who peers knows that, however, the brightest colors aren’t the only ones. There are deeper, more subtle hues. Our fate remains unchanged!” Murmurings started to spread from hundreds of shadow-filled alcoves in the walls.
“Yes, they will ‘win’,” the Plath said. “but they drive their vessel upstream. Their strokes are powerful and their vision is keen so they will succeed. They can win against us and they can prevail against those from the other realm. They cannot, however, defeat the greatest threat of all, time. Yes, they paddle with such furor but their arms will grow weak, their eyes will grow dim...” She smiled to the assembled Plath.
“And the river never stops. They will not cheat fate. They only cheat time. Who cares if they gain hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years? It matters not. Fate will not be denied. Yes, they have the force of arms. Yes, they have the hearts of the people. We have time itself. Time flattens mountains, drinks oceans… It even ground the progenitors themselves into dust! And this ‘Great Prophet’ thinks he can win, he can succeed where even the almighty progenitors failed? Let him try! There is no need to fight, no need to suffer! There is no reason for any more of us to die! Give them their victory!”
She goes on to state that she has negotiated very favorable terms. If they stop interfering and do not seek to increase their numbers, they can live free and even continue to engage in their rituals and practices for the duration of any of their lives.
The Great Seer agrees to these terms agreeing with the witch emphasizing the words,
“The past is immutable, as a result, the future is set. The only thing we have is the present.”
It is also stated, for the first time, that the Great Prophet is selecting and preparing a single planet on which the Plath will sequester themselves and allow themselves to regress. Both the witch and the Great Seer agree that if this must happen they should use their skills (presumably their mastery of genetics) to ensure that it is done properly.
After the meeting the witch meets privately with the Great Seer to reveal the real reason why she advocated “peace”. She reveals what she had actually been working on for all those years…
Revenge…
To the Great Seer’s horror she reveals that she has a way for them to ultimately “win”, to be able to take their revenge on all parties, the Revisionists, their supporters, and even The Befouler.
She then opens her hand to reveal a single, solitary seed.
What transpires next isn’t clear but it seems that the Great Seer agreed to her plan and even supported it for awhile.
At this point many years pass in the past before the next echoes.
The seers not only surrender but have actively supported the Revisionists and are in the process of making what will be the Plath homeworld not just a prison, but a true paradise creating a genetically engineered miracle of a complete ecosystem where the Plath will have everything they need... produced by native plants!
The next echo centers on The Great Prophet and the Great Seer, once bitter enemies, now close (very close) allies meet as the now truly ancient Great Seer reveals the sister’s latest masterpiece, a tree that produces berries containing a single cure-all for cancer.
It seems that the Great Seer, and the rest of her coven have come to truly embrace the vision of the Revisionists and unity has been fully restored among the Plath. It seems that the seers may still believe that the Revisionists are “wrong” but have another reason as shown in the following passage,
“Forgive me,” the Great Prophet said. “but I can’t help but notice that you haven’t called me a fool in quite some time.”
“That is because I may have reconsidered things,” the Great Seer said with a gentle smile. “We have become wise, filled with the knowledge of all that is. We have become powerful, being able to say that we stand foremost among the first-born. But this...”
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She took a deep breath of pure, clean air and looked out over the countryside.
“With this we can claim that rarest of all treasures. We can seize what even the progenitors themselves failed to grasp.”
“And that is?” The Great Prophet asked.
The Great Seer lifted her secret eyelid and turned to the Great Prophet, her eyes shimmering with a thousand colors.
“We can become, happy,” she sighed. “I have peered deep into reality itself. I have bent all that is to my will. I have chambers filled with treasures and delights of a thousand worlds. I have tasted vices and pleasures that shouldn’t even be discussed, especially with you,” she laughed. “But I have never been as ‘happy’, as filled with contentment and joy, as I have been these past few years. Working the soil, feeling it under my bare feet, watching my plants grow and thrive in the soil, as part of a living breathing world… This… This is what we should have been doing all along! Every thing we have done, everything we have achieved… It was just wasted time. I know that now. We all do.”
She knelt and kissed the Great Prophet’s hand.
“Thank you! Thank you so much! You aren’t leading us to ruin! You have shown us the path to joy!”
It is then clear that full reconciliation between the two groups has been achieved.
There is only one dissident…
The original Plath from the first dream, the witch, now called “the heretic” is still devoted to her revenge, which the Great Seer now vehemently opposes. She says,
“I should have struck her down when she showed me that accursed seed but I was weak, foolish, seduced with her poisoned whispers…”
Whatever this “revenge” will be causes the Great Seer to fear for the Plath’s future believing that whatever the Heretic is planning is a very real threat.
She then surprises The Great Prophet by saying that she not only feared for their future, she feared for their daughter.
It seems that The Great Prophet and The Great Seer had become quite close indeed.
Using her mastery of life itself the The Great Seer had “breathed one final breath of life into her old bones” and made it so she could once again bear a child! She also reveals that she and her caste had finally cracked the genetic interlocks that kept the Plath’s castes “pure” allowing them to once again interbreed, something that they had long wanted. She called it “The last barrier to our true freedom”.
With that barrier removed, the Plath bloodlines could mingle and once again return to a homogeneous baseline. They could return to what they once were!
Upon hearing this the Great Prophet was overjoyed, and not just because his love bore him a child.
He said,
“I’m just an old member of the warrior caste,” the Great Prophet said as he held his love in his arms. “I can’t peer into pools. I can’t bend fate or weave genes, but I don’t need any of that to see the future, our future. We will be just fine, all of us for now and for all time!”
“How can you be so sure?” [the Great Seer asked]
“You might think you know fate,” he smiled. “but I do know war, which this is, a very strange war, to be sure, but it’s war. We are beset on all sides. On one front we have them and the Befouler. On the other we have the witch and her cult. We don’t peer into pools, our knowledge of the colors is one of instinct, inscribed into our bloodline. I don’t believe the war to be won. I know it.”
He threw his head back and let out an impossibly beautiful war-song.
“Our daughter!” he sang. “Our daughter will cut them all down! You use a sword to cut down a swordsman. You use a starship to destroy a starship, and… you use a blasphemy to strike down a blasphemer! You use a monster to consume a monster!”
He grabbed the Great Seer and started to dance with an impossibly fluid grace.
“Do you… Do you realize what you’ve done?!?”
The Great Seer didn’t truly understand but was happy for him.
The next echo focused on the Heretic
Around this same time she, actively hunted by the seers who now wanted her dead, she had fled to the fringes of “civilized space”, looking for a species that would “stand the test of time”. Using “the colors”, their way of scrying, she found the Tol, a delightfully lusty and barbaric people.
They were thrilled to bits that one of the “First-Bornz” showed up and a Tol king, the “Fat King” threw a massive feast and celebration that lasted days.
The Heretic was suspicious at first, but after closer look and getting to know The Fat King better, she decided that he would do quite nicely for her plans.
At the end of this echo, the last one thus far, she places a ripe fruit on the grill mystifying the nearby Tol. She then briefly describes caramelizing sugar to enhance flavor impressing a nearby servant.
“Really?” the servant asked. “I never thought of that!”
“It’s one of many things I will teach you,” the plath smiled.
It seems that she intends to “help” them but her idea of “help” might now be even more twisted by hate than Patricia Hu’s.
***
All of this transpired very very long ago. Current Plath have absolutely no idea that any of this happened. All that remains of those days is a “mythical” Great Prophet who forms the center of their rather strict and mildly repressive (but in a very nice way) religion and a truly impressive thirty-two volume “bible”.
It contains more text than the old Encyclopedia Britannica and still serves as the single guiding light and primary resource for the Plath people. It isn’t just a “bible” as many of us would think of one. It an a comprehensive guide to horticulture, herbalism (with complete recipes), agriculture (complete with tables predicting cyclic climatic shifts that will be good for millions of years), construction and engineering using native materials, conservation, ecological practices…
Everything…
Every single thing a society needs to maintain a pre-industrial pastoral life is in there!
The Plath lived a perfectly stagnant, utterly peaceful life “stuck” right where the Great Prophet (and the rest) left them who knows how long ago until first contact with the Federation.
In a shocking surprise, the bible discusses what to do when this happens along with tips, tricks, and strategies in dealing with them and how to keep their culture stable and safe. (Go figure)
It’s a miracle! The Great Prophet was clearly a messenger from the creator!
As far as the fact that the cure for cancer literally grows on a tree along with thousands of other such miracles go, the Plath never bothered to question it other than they were “blessed by the creators” and give credit to most of it to the Great Prophet, his wife, The Gardner, and a host of other “saints” that figured out how to use all of these wonderful cures so very long ago.
If you ask one of them, they believe that just about any planet has to have plants every bit as good as theirs. If you look, there is usually a dark age or some tragic loss of knowledge in a planet’s history. Maybe, oh by The Great Prophet!… Maybe they lost their bible? Creators! That would be horrible! Whatever would one do if the bible was lost? Ohhhh that’s making me feel funny! I know! A soothing cup of dream-needle tea! That will make me feel better!
The average Plath is just as happy as can be and as snug as a bug in a rug. They don’t really trouble themselves pondering too much about stuff like that. The fact that Matron Gebashorn’s dawn-tubers are fully twice the size of theirs at this point in the growing season? Now that is something to worry about! She is NOT going to win again this year… I swear to poop!
However, things have sort of gone a little screwy of late for the Plath.
It’s all those nasty human’s fault…
The Terrans are the worst!
The Federation war shook the Plath, hard. I mean… the Terrans used weapons that contaminated vast swaths land, ruining crops, threatening the very world!
A gigaton-yield salted nuke is ugly… and they were used…
It made the Plath afraid… Truly afraid for the life of their entire people… their world…
Their world was in danger!
An “alarm clock” went off…
And the Plath have been desperately mashing “snooze” ever since…
Massive doses of certain medicinal herbs are being actively cultivated in an emergency measure because they were being over-foraged. (It’s ok… It’s in the bible… It’s best to let them grow naturally but, if you absolutely need to, you can prepare growing beds using the following method…)
What is really distressing is a very dangerous and unhealthy “Terran fascination” that is happening among some of the Plath that were young during the Federation War. They are fixated on all things Terran. They “simply have to know everything about them”.
These disturbed individuals are especially drawn to Terran games, horribly violent ones! I mean… these things are sick! They just… play them over and over… especially military ones…
They study the Terrans like they should be studying the bible! It’s… it’s just wrong!
Then that horrible horrible… fiend… introduced that game (you know, Federation Fun Time, the combat simulator based on actual Terran training software that you can use to actually engage very realistic Terran units? With an AI so good that you could actually learn something about fighting them? That “horrible” game?)
God I hope they catch that… that Befouler…
These “damaged” Plath don’t “hate” the Terrans. They just feel the intrinsic need to get to know them really really really well… The need to know Terran culture, art, music, literature… Anything that helps them understand how a Terran thinks.
Gentle Plath society is at a “loss” and is trying to “help” these Plath but it seems that some of them might be incurable.
Most do seem to be reachable though and things are starting to settle down… Or they would if they could just find out where those detestable games are coming from!
Things are slowly starting to return to normal. Most of these Terran stained Plath are, with care and treatment, able to return to relatively normal life.
Others that seemed utterly beyond saving just “stopped” being “weird”, thank the Great Prophet! The prayers of their friends and families must have been heard! (or maybe their ‘curiosity’ was ‘satisfied’ and they could finally go back to sleep—who knows)
Unfortunately, there are still more… lurking out there… still watching those horrible movies and playing those terrible games…
***
What is going on with Sheloran?
Who knows for sure. There are several things that can be definitely known as true.
The Plath are used to having access to thousands and thousands of “wonder drugs” that just pop up out of the ground, possibly for long enough that they have evolved (or devolved) a little. Sheloran has been away from ready access to many many things that she took for granted, some of which she has clearly stated that she desperately wants.
There could even be compounds in their staple crops that “help” them. That has yet to be confirmed or refuted.
It’s been more than long enough for any of these compounds to fully leave her system. Several of them are expressly to “help” with strange dreams, recurrent disturbing thoughts, throbbing or pain around the edges of the eyes (specifically those exact symptoms).
Any of these herbs could be a convenient “off switch” for what is going on.
Conversely, she could be experiencing “malnutrition” of a sort and without certain necessary compounds she could be facing increasingly serious symptoms. (Which would make a grim sort of sense… “Heretics” are really dangerous. A built in “kill switch” wouldn’t be the worst thing now would it?)
Another possible "mundane" explanation is that when she was in jail, not that terribly long ago, she was given a “vial” of malporixlorh extract. In the dream the witch, who was adept in its use, placed two drops on her tongue and then made the decision to add one more and considered it a risk.
The Terrans dumped a whole test tube of it down her gullet! That might be a little problem… Especially since her entire nervous system had been disrupted about as much as it could be…
And then she was dosed with a truly excessive amount of something that “unlocks and opens” things intending it to “reset” her brain and help things reconnect...?
And there are no inhibiting herbs available…
Hmm…
Probably nothing to worry about…
There is one other potential bit of oddness floating around Sheloran...
The Great Prophet proclaimed that his daughter (the mother being The Great Seer) would protect them. His actual daughter is, of course, lost to history...
It has also been briefly mentioned, but an unofficial but pervasive legend among the rather repressively religious Plath is that as some sort of ancient pact "The Befouler" was given one Plath in each generation in exchange for the rest of them. More secular Plath say that this is a simply myth to explain the occasional monstrous act that one Plath or another commits. The Plath are extremely "orderly" and docile so any aberration is both extremely rare and horribly traumatic. They aren't like us. A killing makes planetary news. It's a global event.
It just "doesn't happen".
Sheloran has, of course, been dubbed this generations "Child of the Befouler" and has been conveniently blamed for both a horribly senseless crime and the "horrible threat" that exposure to Terran culture (games) facing the Plath represents. She is also commonly called "The Drop of Oil", alluding to the fact that only a small portion of oil can "Befoul" an entire body of water.
It's all her fault. It's easier for them that way.
In fact, Sheloran being the "Child of the Befouler" is being shortened to just "The Befouler" both in the pop culture of the planet and in Sheloran's own mind.
The secular Plath are probably right. It's all just a convenient myth to explain away the occasional "hiccup" that happens among the Plath and means absolutely nothing...