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At The Bright Empire....
--Brantley
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Turns out that name goes back to the 10th Century, when the Rus were converted to Greek Orthodoxy, and is a variation of the Greek Xenia; it is best known today because Mikhail Sholokov used it for the heroine of his novel And Quiet Flows the Don. (Oxana is a more recent variation in Ukraine.)
The ancestors of the Velorians in Sweden were related to and presumably still in contact with the Rus before they were abducted by the Galen, One or more of the Rus might even have gone back for a visit, and gotten caught up, so... Anyway, I figure I'll use the name for a Velorian in Walking Tall. Shadar thinks it might be interesting to have a Velorian looking for her Rus roots,
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--Brantley
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brantley wrote: Made a few revisions to the Walking Tall cliffhanger chapter break, to tie in with what I have in mind for the next chapter.
--Brantley
I'm ashamed to admit that I'd forgotten about the "Brazilian" Supergirl stories. They were probably my favorite of yours.
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--Brantley
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High time, even past time, for an update to “Delphic Obstacles.” But here it’s more about reaction than action. It’s about how Peter Durgin and Sirren react to having uncovered the mother lode of xintanite at the Begglestrom mine on what was once a prison planet and still a pretty wild one. It’s about the reaction of the Begglestroms, about striking it rich and the investigation into the attack on their compound. Ad it’s about Peter hearing a name – a name which, in the context of what brought the Begglestroms to Delphi, reveals what must have brought him here.
But that context links “Delphic Obstacles” more clearly to related stories: Part Six of Ordinary Velorians, Part Three of The High Cruel Years, and “Blind Justice” (That last originally by Shadar) – all of which have been tweaked to strengthen the connections.
www.brightempire.com/OV-6.htm
www.brightempire.com/cruel-3.htm
www.brightempire.com/Justice.pdf
Cross-connections between stories in an invented universes is a passion, or a vice, or perhaps both, that I picked up from Cordwainer Smith.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith
www.cordwainer-smith.com
If Aurora Universe fiction of this kind is one of your favorite indulgences, I hope you’ll indulge in these stories.
--Brantley
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--Brantley
* one example from his novel Norstrilia:
<<“It was not the site of the earth which surprised him – it was the smell. .... This earth and air smelled alive. There was the odor of plants, of water, of things which he could not even guess. The air was coded with a million years of memory. In this air people had swum to manhood, before they conquered the stars. .... It was the wild free moisture which came laden with the indications of things living, dying, sprawling, squirming, loving with an abundance which no Norstrilian could understand. No wonder the descriptions of the earth had always seemed fierce and exaggerated!>>
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brantley wrote: Of course, I can't come close to the poetic power* of Cordwainer Smith, but I can try to put an imaginary history together the way he did.
--Brantley
* one example from his novel Norstrilia:
<<“It was not the site of the earth which surprised him – it was the smell. .... This earth and air smelled alive. There was the odor of plants, of water, of things which he could not even guess. The air was coded with a million years of memory. In this air people had swum to manhood, before they conquered the stars. .... It was the wild free moisture which came laden with the indications of things living, dying, sprawling, squirming, loving with an abundance which no Norstrilian could understand. No wonder the descriptions of the earth had always seemed fierce and exaggerated!>>
I can echoes of Mr. Smith's work in both your and Au's writing, in particular with the choice of adjectives.
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<<Centuries ago, this had been the only entrance to the Hall of Protectors. But the Hall had been much smaller then. There had been no public atrium, no shrine, no soaring tower with floor after floor of artificial environments and training arenas. That had all been erected over and beside the original Hall, a simple structure of rough stone.
But the gargantuan gate with its massive ring -- that was still the same. And the ritual, that was still the same. Well, almost the same: Aphro'dite herself no longer appeared before the Great Door to welcome the candidates, although she still initiated them in the ancient manner once they entered. Her place was taken by the presiding elder of the High Council.
It was he who addressed the candidates and their Sponsors.
"Protectors there were of old, Protectors there are today, Protectors there will ever be. So was it ordained by Skietra."
"It has ever been so, and ever will be," intoned the Witnesses.
"And thus do we gather here to fulfill her ordinance. Here come all that be new to try their vocations before the Great Door. And here today, on the ninth day of the eleventh month, come --"
The presiding elder recited the names, including that of Alisa-zar Kim'Vallara. There was no hint of irony in his voice, nor any look on the faces of the Witnesses to betray that anything was amiss.>>
And in Alisa's welcome on Kelsor 7:
<<Because he had vouched for her, her credentials were beyond question. She would be a credit to the world, this world she had chosen. There was no hesitation in her voice as she answered the Four Questions.
"What is your true name, and whence come you?"
"Alisa-zar Kim'Vallara. Velor."
"By what name and world of origin shall you be known to us?"
"Alisa Liddell. Reigel Five."
"What do you bring to us?"
"My mind. My hands. My heart."
"Do your come to us without reservation, forswearing allegiance to any other world or polity?"
"I do."
That was all it took. She was now a citizen of Kelsor 7.>>
--Brantley
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brightempire.com/lit-rant.htm
Some of you may not have been here in 2007. And I don't know if any who were have posted this sort of self-reflection.
--Brantley
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My own is "An Unsuitable Job for a Messenger," originally posted in 2008 as "Unrelenting Breasts;' the link now reflects the later title as opposed to the original:
www.brightempire.com/Unsuitable.pdf
That story is related to Lisa Binkley's "Questlings," which I had mirrored as a Showcase item but now goes by its title:
www.brightempire.com/Questlings.htm
Finally, Tarot Barnes' "The Long Night" now goes by an updated link:
www.brightempire.com/longnight.htm
--Brantley
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Another chapter of "Walking Tall," with Patricia Ortiz and her allies having to use their wits as well as her strength in combatting a conspiracy against her family and her world. But I have to confess that I had to fix a major screw-up in regard to the status of one of the villains -- killed off in a previous update and brought back in another. Aargh! And nobody else seems to have noticed! But I think I have it fixed now. I'm also introducing another character, Velorian Auxiliary Protector Axinia, who can be called in because of the conspiracy having been proven to involve an Aurean infiltrator advising a fraudulent enterprise and a corrupted local police force in Patricia's home town. Axinia will have a backstory of her own, as well as playing a key role in resolution of the main story...
--Brantley
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--Brantley
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www.brightempire.com/Senseless.htm
I turn 75 today, and am celebrating by having finally, finally
finished a story begun by Jordan Taylor more than 11 years ago.
“Walking Tall” was inspired by the 1973 movie about Buford Pusser, a
former wrestler turned lawman who returns to his home town to clean it
up. Jordan wrote a couple of chapters in 2005, and then abandoned it.
I didn't know enough, I thought, to continue the story until I came
across some notes she'd sent me in 2005, plus a few hints in e-mails.
So I took it up and began fleshing out the details about the family
and friends of Patricia Ortiz, a Velorian Legionnaire returning to her
homeworld of Alguna Parte – where she would learn in time that all was
not well. Jordan's part ended here, in an exchange with her
half-brother Rick:
“I don’t want to hurt you, Patricia,” he said, in a mock-serious tone.
”You can’t.”
I went on from there, introducing other members of her family, giving
her ex-boyfriend a name and position, plus adding details about the
planet, including the names of cities and towns relevant to the plot,
the political structure, native foods, and even pastimes. I also
tweaked some of the details in the backstory and going forward. Jordan
planned to have a football game figure in the story, but football
(soccer as we know it) hadn't been invented at the time Alguna Parte
was settled. So I hit on using commonball, based on a game from Greek
and Roman times.
There were other things I changed. Jordan’s outline focused on
gambling, as in the small town of the movie. But Alguna Parte is a
world. So I ramped up the agenda of Patricia's nemesis, making him the
owner of a commonball team that he uses as a cover for criminal
enterprises – not just gambling, as in Jordan’s outline, but a bid for
commercial and political power. I also introduced more family
complications, supporting characters and cultural background – and
even a sidelight on Velorian history. But the bottom line is that
Patricia finds love at the end with Tomas, a man who has risked his
life to expose the criminal conspiracy...
It’s not the story Jordan would have written. But I wanted it to be
worthy of her.
Also new today: "Timeless, Clueless, Senseless," a takedown of mindless new time travel series on TV.
--Brantley Thompson Elkins
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Woodclaw wrote: You know I alwasy forget that you're older than my dad Brantley, I can only wish to be half the writer you are when I reach your age. Best always
And if I could be a tenth of the writer one of influences, Cordwainer Smith, was:
<<Under Old Earth
By Cordwainer Smith
I need a temporary dog For a temporary job On a temporary place Like Earth! —Song from The Merchant of Menace
1
There were the Douglas-Ouyang planets, which circled their sun in a single cluster, riding around and around the same orbit unlike any other planets known. There were the gentlemen-suicides back on Earth, who gambled their lives—even more horribly, gambled sometimes for things worse than their lives—against different kinds of geophysics which real men had never experienced. There were girls who fell in love with such men, however stark and dreadful their personal fates might be. There was the Instrumentality, with its unceasing labor to keep man man. And there were the citizens who walked in the boulevards before the Rediscovery of Man. The citizens were happy. They had to be happy. If they were found sad, they were calmed and drugged and changed until they were happy again.
This story concerns three of them: the gambler who took the name Sun-boy, who dared to go down to the Gebiet, who confronted himself before he died; the girl Santuna, who was fulfilled in a thousand ways before she died; and the Lord Sto Odin, a most ancient of days, who knew it all and never dreamed of preventing any of it.
Music runs through this story. The soft sweet music of the Earth Government and the Instrumentality, bland as honey and sickening in the end. The wild illegal pulsations of the Gebiet, where most men were forbidden to enter. Worst of all, the crazy fugues and improper melodies of the Bezirk, closed to men for fifty-seven centuries—opened by accident, found, trespassed in!>>
--Brantley
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www.brightempire.com/longnight.htm
www.brightempire.com/Blog.htm
"Getting Home" is a new story by Tarot Barnes. It was intended to be part of my 75th Birthday update, but came in a couple of days late. After that, I was busy with a lot of other things, including serving as an election judge in my hometown.
Although it isn't obvious, because the setting is enirely Earth, this story takes place in an alternate supremis universe. Ever hear of Eigheim? Not mentioned here, but it's the home of the Fjándmethra, whence come the Guardians, who fight on Earth and elsewhere against the Andskoti (who are mentioned here). It was first introduced here at The Bright Empire in "The Long Night," posted Dec. 22, 2010, without any fanfare. It wasn't until March 10, 2012. in an Occasional Blog entry, that I alluded to the series-in-progress of which it was a part. I wish there were more to share now, but I can only hope that this belated exposure will encourage him to pursue what promises to be an alternate epic.
--Brantley
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NOT new story; it was posted in three installments way back in the summer of 2008. But I think Aurora's Tale, by Tarot Barnes, is one of the best Aurora Universe stories ever written. It's a completely different take than that of Shadar on one of the iconic figures of the AU -- here not a mere visitor to Earth, but the defender of another world -- only facing inner conflict as well as the Aurean enemy – the threat to her personally of an Aurean tset'lar prevents her from taking a more direct role in the war. Here's one passage that jumped out at me the first time I read it:
<<Aurora cast her eyes down. There would be enough ‘unnecessary casualties’ today without adding another to the pyre. Reflexively her fingers scratched shallow groves in the rock at the thought. Every death in the war had been unnecessary; she was a Virago, more than that she was the Virago, the first Velorian ever to have been born without need of enhancement. She was stronger, faster and better trained than any other Protector, how could any world she was protecting suffer such appalling defeat?
The obvious answer, a seditious part of her suggested, was that it was her Protectorates’ fault. Aurora and her predecessors had been warning the Porturegans about the Arions for centuries; they had no excuse to have allowed their weapons to stagnate for so long.
Her instincts and training killed the idea almost instantly, but their imprint remained, glowing like a burning filament nonetheless. The Porturegans had had two hundred years to prepare and they’d ignored the danger. Now they were paying for that mistake.
"Paying unnecessarily; the blood being spilt should be mine."Aurora concluded. Regardless of what should have been done it was her duty to take the situation and make it better. Her protectorates shouldn’t have to play anything more than a peripheral role.>>
And in another passage, she recalls Winston Churchill rallying te Porturegans after a horrible battle:
<<Aurora watched the death from the distant second line, looking away only as the sides ruptured and sprayed molten death over the immediate landscape.
The Aureans were already closing on the second line and it was obvious that very shortly yet another retreat would have to be called… but, she braved a glance at The Lance and its still miraculously unmarked hull. There were only minutes till launch. If they could only hold out just a little bit longer they would make it.
So she did the only thing she could. She landed before the twenty of so survivors, with her back to the enemy and her cape rippling in the breeze, she put her hands on her hips to address them
Many were injured, having been dragged painfully over the rough aeneucrete by comrades who did not wish to see them delivered to the mercies of the Aureans. Yet despite their pain and red soaked bandages, they looked up at her. Even as muddy and filthily as she was, Aurora was their symbol of hope, an angel from heaven, their saint and Protector.
“You have fought hard,” she spoke aloud. “Fought so very hard. For longer and harder than could ever have been expected of you. You have achieved more than I could have ever hoped when I asked you to resist the Aurean plague, yet I must ask you for one more thing, one more task before you can rest and that is to hold on for fifteen more minutos. That is all. Just fifteen minutos and all of your sacrifices, all of your death and pain will be vindicated because that ship--” she pointed to The Lance-- “will bring my sisters to me and we will finally drive this scourge from your world.”
She looked into their eyes. She saw their pain. Pain, bone-tired weariness and not a little fear. But she also saw hope, which until moments ago had been dying and now burned like a beacon. They would follow her, and they would give her fifteen minutes
“Thank you,” She bowed almost double, tears of joy and awe spilling from her eyes. “Fifteen minutos, that is all, and you can go. Thank you.”
Someone actually cheered and started to clap. Even the stoic Colonel, crippled as he was by the loss of his arm above the elbow, could be seen trying to give her ovation by slapping his remaining hand against his breastplate.
“You heard her!” someone shouted. “The Fair Child needs fifteen minutos, and we shall give them to her!”
The cry went up. “Fifteen minutos!” “Fifteen minutos!” “Fifteen minutos!”>>
Brantley
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Anybody remember an early contributor to Aurora Universe fiction who went only by "Sam?" I came across one of his stories from about 20 years ago in a Google search the other day. "Goddess of Thunder" appears at Diana the Valkyrie's site:
www.thevalkyrie.com/stories/sam/index.htm
He wrote mostly jungle stories, including an unfinished one that ties in with the AU:
www.thevalkyrie.com/stories/sam/liesa/jungle.htm
But "Goddess of Thunder" is more inventive, bringing together the AU, Greek mythology and even dragon lore. In 1997, there wasn't a strict AU canon, whether Shadar's AU-1 and AU-2 or my own version of AU-3. It was just about women who were incredibly super and incredibly sexy.
While working on AU-3, I thought it might be refreshing to return to those days of yesteryear -- as an excuse for mirroring this story, I put it through spelling and grammar check and corrected a number of errors. But the essence is unchanged, as are the picts -- two of them by "Craig," who also hasn't been seen in ages; he is doubtless the same Craig who (along with Sam) collaborated with Douglas W. MacBeth on Conversational Velorian at Infinity Bridge:
www.infinitybridge.net/velorian/index.html
--Brantley Thompson Elkins
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Julie of Velor
For some reason, a direct link to the Archive posted here on the Links page 2015 thanks to Beginner/7bf at Superwomenmania.com turned out not to bring up sublinks from 2004 to the actual stories, but only to a 2016 link advertising the Ubergirls domain for sale by GoDaddy.com. Yet the same link works at SWM and elsewhere. So I'm going the indirect route through an internal htm link. It works in tests. I hope this workaround will solve the problem.
--Brantley Thompson Elkins
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A major update for the Winter Solstice, with a new chapter in the First Protector saga, completion of "Delphic Obstacles," and the addition of links to historic Sharon Best archives from the Wayback Machine. There are so many cross references that it would be cumbersome to include them all here, so it's best to go straight to the What's New page.
--Brantley Thompson Elkins
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