Ziahdoo is waiting for you when you arrive in the training room of the Temple. As you settle into your seats, he gathers together his bundle of sticks that have been charred on both ends. The white wall behind him has been carefully washed and is ready for the days use. He seems to be ordering his thoughts for a time, as if consulting mental notes. Then Ziahdoo faces you and speaks.

"Welcome again my friends. We discussed time as it is measured on this planet, but you should also be familiar with time as it is measured by the Gods so that we can speak of history in better terms than we can using more parochial methods. We will certainly speak of the history of Isis; it is the main thrust of todays lesson, but I must first speak of matters regarding pre-history."

"It is quite possible that most of this information is familiar to you. If it is, please keep this information to yourselves and pay attention anyway. If this information is new to you, I welcome you to a larger Multiverse than the one you live in now."

"As the gods give us our reason for living and a code for life, they are the most important beings in this multiverse of ours. As such, little of history can be told without reference to these supreme beings. The priests of St. Edwar are always looking for converts and certainly if our generosity and helpfulness impress you enough we would welcome your conversion. What we are now doing (preparing you for life among the people of Isis) is more important to the Supreme Singer than your conversion. We do not know why this is so, but it is. Therefore, you may assume that in my talks that I am minimizing the bias of my faith in matters of history and current events. I do not claim to be objective, but I attempt to be so."

"Much of what I will now reveal to you is withheld in many cultures and many faiths. This knowledge is the result of may hundreds of years of research and questioning the gods themselves for the answers. As there is little or no evidence for most of it, you must decide to either take what I tell you on faith, or disregard it and invent your own cosmology. I suggest that you keep this information confidential; telling only those you meet who have a reason to know it. If you were to tell all you meet about this, you would instantly be known as one of those from Elsewhere which could endanger your life. But the choice is yours. I put no restrictions on this knowledge."

"I has been given to us to know that the sun and planets that make up SOS, our solar system is 4,550,162,953,179 years old. This figure is named the T.L.D. or Time Line Date. In other words, our physical reality began some four and a half trillion years ago. Even the gods were not in existence then, but they have their ways of finding out this sort of thing. Please do not ask me any stupid questions about how there could be a year without a sun for the planet to revolve around. "

"The reasoning for the following measurements of time is said to have originated with the Technocracy league approximately 946,000. This system of time measurement is not dependent on the revolution of planets around a sun but rather on the time it takes for certain chemicals to change their properties to become less defiled. As you may know, the current year is 953,179. This is the last six digits of the length of existence of SOS. There are some places on Isis that use a different method of numbering the years. Some use the A.D. year as it is somewhat shorter and is certainly the most important date in the last 5000 years. Ah yes, B.D. in case you don’t know is Before the Dark. The dark occured on somewhat different times on the different planets. On Isis it is said to have occured 1586 years ago. Some countries may use a year that is based on the ascension of a king or overlord, but even these backward people will commonly reference the T.L.D. in legal documents. I will use the T.L.D. number in this talk. "

"Without resorting to my lectures on planetography little or nothing happened other than the formation of the planets and the cooling of the sun until approximately the year 2,324,872,000,000. At this time the sister system was brought into SOS. The sister system consists of the following planets:

Uletel the Molten that is closest of all the planets to the sun. Seker the Red Planet with its moons Cluros, and Thuria stands too close to the sun to be comfortable although it is said that there are still races there that cling to life since the Great Dark. Next away from the sun is Greld, the planet of the Ubermenchion or the Elder Interlopers. This is the planet where all life in SOS originated. Around Greld revolve the inhabited moons Roon and Klee. Next from the sun is Tekumel the Arcane around which revolve the Gayel and Kashi. To far away from the sun to be inhabited by anything resembling humanoid life is Shichel which has 5 moons named Ah, Beh, Seh, Dah, and Eh. Even farther away from the sun are Uletel and Ziruna that are so small they are almost like moons, but they still revolve around the Sun. Some say they were moons of either Uletel or Ziruna that were lost transporting the planets to SOS, but the gods will not say if this is true."

"How these planets were ripped from their native sun is known to the Gods only. We do know why however. The planets of the secondary system are much older that the one we are living on now. So old in fact that their sun turned cold while the humans on Greld still struggled for life. Their gods valued them so much, that they brought their entire planets to revolve around SOS rather than see them perish with their dying sun. Using their godlike powers, the planets were somehow transported to SOS and caused to revolve around the new sun. Despite the best efforts of the gods however, this disturbance in the planetary dance caused incredable destruction on all the planets in both systems. At the time of this great transport of the planets, the beings on Greld were numerous but unsophisticated. The original race of beings on Greld were extinguished. All of them died. It was to be many millennium until intelegence was once again seen."

"The disturbance of the planets lasted for may millennium until with great efforts by the gods their paths in Wild Space became regular, and the tectonic disturbances subsided. The planets of the primary or original system were also much damaged by tidal forces and collisions with the many asteroids that arrived with the secondary system. The Greldians or Ubermenchin say that the large numbers of asteroids revolving around SOS are the result of the destruction of a planet that was even nearer to the sun than Uletel, but the gods will neither confirm nor deny this legend. However that might be Isis and the other planets suffered much during this time from debris striking them. It is fortunate that there was no intelligent life on the planets until much later."

"For almost 2 trillion years our planets continued to evolve. Tekumel alone during this time managed to evolve life in a form we understand life, but there were no sentient beasts there. It is commonly agreed that the date 4,162,885,000 is the approximate date of the birth of the first intelligent race of men in SOS. The first race of men is born on Greld. This year is a commonly agreed upon approximation of what is an evolutionary process. This date comes from fossil remains described in several ancient tomes. No specimen has survived to this time, but gods have confirmed this date as accurate."

"TLD 162,888,055 is celebrated by the Ubermenchin as the beginning of civilization on Greld. Note that the numbers of digits in the date are reduced. The value of the digits preceding will not change for the remainder of my discussion and so have been left off. The date is roughly 4 thousand years after the birth of intelligence. Some postulate from this that the actual date of the arrival of intelligence is actually much earlier than the Ubermenchin propose. Even so.

"Little is known of this early time of humanity. Almost nothing physical of the people alive then survives other than a few barely recognizable ruins, and a cliff with runes engraved on it that no one can read. There are some fragments of literature from later ages that describe an early time of magic and make reference to gods from that time that have aspects similar to those gods of present times. This is the basis for the theory that postulates a connection between the powers of the Chaos gods and the gods of Law. They say that as the power of prayer swings between the two extremes, the presence of magic waxes and wanes with the power of the Gods of Chaos. The use and understanding of technology inversely follows the use of magic. To me it is not logical that the Gods of Law would provide their priests with holy magic if this was the case, but that is my own opinion. Certainly the old saying ‘Gods and Cats have their own way’ is true."

"TLD 891,300 marks the beginnings of recorded history on Greld with the records of the Kora’tinui, a race known as the World Conquerors. Their records describe the Wars of Uniting that resulted in the first world government of the planet. While managing to placate or terrorize the many divergent peoples of the planet, they were totally ruthless with their methods of control over peoples that opposed. them. One method was a gradual but inexorable erasing of cultural and historical information to effect a truly global culture that was relatively static. Their success at this can be measured by the total lack of information about previous civilizations beyond almost fictional accounts left in "approved" literature. They allowed a rapid progress in technological areas, and repressed the use of magic to the point where it is never mentioned as a real skill. Magic at that time was unknown, unpracticed, and made fun of in the elaborate hoaxes of by the "Magicians" of that time. All of their illusions were achieved technologically or by sleight of hand. This was surprisingly enough used as an argument against the existence of magic. The rulers of that time would say ‘How can magic exist when all the so called magicians use trickery and misdirection to achieve their effects.’ This specious logic sufficed to suppress knowledge and use of magic for a long time."

"Although the Kora’tinui were replaced as rulers of the planet, they set the milieu inherited by all the civilizations to follow. The rulers continued to suppress magic and relied solely on technology to raise the standard of living for the people. The end result of this policy was that deadly gasses fouled their air and there was little or no power that a single person could wield unless that person cooperated with the rulers of the time to accumulate fortunes that would choak an emperor. Technology did provide the people of Greld to perform feats just short of magical. In TLD 892,898 the first journeys into Wild Space begin. In 89298 the moon Roon was visited and then 5 years Klee was also visited. During this time the power of the Atom was discovered and the first Mubomb was developed although it was deemed at the time far too destructive to be used. They also invented the HiBomb that was a weapon of incredable explosive force capable of rendering a planet devoid of life if enough of the Hibombs were used. Fortunately, none of the rulers of that time were insane enough to use the bombs to that extent, although there was a war that decimated Greld in 892,915 that cost almost one quarter of the people on the planet their lives. This was called the HiBomb war."

"This devastation had several effects. All of the remaining Hibombs were destroyed and one of the most binding laws of the planet became the one stating that these weapons should never again be used. Even though the Hibombs did not have the defiling effects of the Mubomb, they still produced defilement to a degree where those parts of living creatures that reproduce the species were damaged. These reproductive parts are called genes. Although something was known of genes before the HiBomb war, investigations were much intensified during the period after the war. The population was plagued with infant death and deformation. It was hoped that the study of genes would provide a solution to the problem of Defiles Disease as the plague was called at that time. In time, this was proved to be true.

"Most of the population had realized during the war that it was quite possible for life on Greld to end. If the only place in the multiverse (they called it the universe at the time) where man lived was on Greld, then mankind would die with the planet. They were much stimulated to speed up the investigation of Wild Space in the hope of winning mankind another home."

"Greld still held many people of great courage, strength and endurance at that time. Their recovery from the ravages of war was surprisingly rapid. In just over 360 years (in 893,264 to be exact) they had recovered from the HiBomb war and succeeded in landing a Wild Space vessel made of steel on their neighbor planet Tekumel. Although life was discovered there, they found the planet could not sustain life for humans unless they were totally protected from Tekumel’s atmosphere. Although some of the people at that time argued that this was a viable way to live, it would be incredibly expensive to the mother world to support that kind of colony, so plans for a permanent human habitation on Tekumel were never followed through on."

"Ninety years later however, human technology reached its zenith with the discovery of what was called ‘Three Light Drive’. This was a technological method of escaping from one crystal sphere and transporting themselves to the inside of another crystal sphere. The first star that they visited named

Isro-Licria was inhabited by several races that were part of the InterSteller League."

"The InterSteller League was formed to prevent economic, cultural and armed warfare between inhabited planets. There were a large number of member races in the league and the power they wielded was enormous. The first criterion for membership in the league was possession of a faster than light drive. Membership in the League once this criterion was met was mandatory. Besides the shock of finding that the human race one only one small part of the sentient community, they discovered that they were one of the weakest in the League. This was difficult for the people of the time to accept. They were used to thinking that they were the only thinking race in their universe."

"To make matters worse, it was one of the primary tenants of the League that each member race host representatives from the other races on their world. The rationale was that this would provide direct access to other cultures while giving the other races access to human culture. Also, these aliens acted as hostages against aggression from the aliens. Although it was never openly mentioned, many suggested that this policy resulted in a more rapid Diaspora of all the League races. Thus, beginning in 897,003 a large number of non-human races came to live on Greld. While these other races were tolerated, they were not welcomed. Nonetheless, the aliens were there to stay. Underscoring this feeling of human solidarity, the members of the League came to be known as the Outer Races."

"Although most of the races in the League had followed the path of technology, some had discovered magical power. Even though for many hundreds of years this information was suppressed by the political powers on Greld. But as soon as representatives that had gone to live on the worlds were magic was performed returned to their homes, it was impossible to hide the existence of the magical arts. The year 898,332 then has a vast significance for our current age as it was the first time that it was ‘Scientifically’ proved that magic existed. With this revelation, the civilization of human worlds changed forever."

"From that time on, magical investigation became as important as scientific studies. Colleges and Universities began to offer courses in the magical arts. The individual began to discover that the power that was given to them by magic gave them both greater personal power and more personal responsibility for changes around them. It was a time of great turmoil as cultural adjustments were made. The stress of this adjustment cannot be underestimated. It is perhaps impossible to you who have grown up with magic as a daily part of you lives to imagine the impact it had on those who had disbelieved in its very existence!"

"None the less, magic gradually became as important as technology in solving problems. One of the most important of these problems was the colonization of other worlds. Technology had never been able to solve the problems inherent in colonizing other worlds. Although it was possible to travel to other worlds, and to make them habitable for humans, it was never economically feasible. By 898,700 all the worlds of SOS had been visited, but none of them were found to be suitable for humans as they were. It was discovered that Roon (one of the Greldians moons) had large quantities of minerals much needed by the mother planet. But it was impossible to sustain life there without incredibly costly machines to provide the necessities of life. Magic solved this problem. Using teleportation magic, it became feasible to teleport people and supplies to the world and teleport back the gems and metals mined on Roon. At first, life was possible on Roon only underground. The people there lived their lives completely away from the sun and its life giving light."

"During the thousands of years that followed, man spread outward to planets throughout the universe. The more man discovered, the more he questioned. Not least of mans questions regarded the existence of beings greater than man. Other worlds that man traveled to had supreme beings that wielded fantastic power. These beings were gods and in exchange for the worship give to them on their worlds they granted magical powers to selected of their worshipers. These supreme beings for reasons known only to them, were rare, and seemed to inhabit only selected worlds. In many worlds of the league, they were feared, and the worship of these beings was a capitol offense. This initially was the attitude of the Greldians government. It is not known how the first god was brought to Greld. The god are not willingly questioned regarding their origins. However it began, the High Church of Bob was officially formed on Greld in the year 916,342."

"The additional power of the God enabled men to advance more quickly in certain areas. Diseases that had stubbornly resisted all scientific attempts to cure them could be cured. The dead could be brought back to life, and information long hidden became available to the priests of Bob. It has long been said that for every blessing given by the Multi-verse it also bestows a curse. Other gods joined Bob receiving worship from those who became believers. Not all of the gods were good. Much evil was the result. War, which had disappeared for thousands of years raised its head again, but was limited to weapons wielded by one mans hand."

"But along with the evil of war much good also resulted from the intervention of the gods in the affairs of men. With a combination of the science and the magic of the men of Greld it became possible to change entire worlds to make the fitting for the inhabitation of men. After a thousand years of debates on the morality and possibility of re-making a world in the image of Greld, it was decided that the vast effort and fortune it would take to do so would be worth it. In the year 918,049 the task of making Tekumel habitable by humans began. This was not a task that mankind began alone. It was to great a task for a single race to undertake. Members of the Outer Races participated; some for money, some for curiosity and others in exchange for the rights to settle on Tekumel in perpetuity. They remain on the planet to this day, though those living on Tekumel would wish otherwise."

"It took over a thousand years to change the poisonous atmosphere of Tekumel and its deadly plant life to something friendly to humans. A thousand tales might be told of this Herculean effort, but this lies outside even my meandering tale. Suffice it to say that life was not easy, and the privileges of rank were jealously guarded. Customs were put in place to keep the powerful in their place, while allowing heroic efforts by the commoners to elevate them into the higher ranks. This system has changed little to this day, except that will the fall of civilization during the Dark Time it became brutal and oppressive which it was not originally."

"With the success of the planet forming efforts on Tekumel, Greld decided to attempt another more difficult task. The red planet Seker was closer to Greld than Tekumel. At the time, the planets in the primary system were deemed to be to far away to be feasible. The problems that needed to be solved to make Seker inhabitable were almost insurmountable in themselves. The high temperature, the lack of other life, the unstable geology and the lack of any sort of atmosphere made the task much more difficult than that faced with Tekumel.

"During the labor, a new organization sprang into being called the Technologists league. This league was originally dedicated to maintaining interest and standards of education in technological fields. But over time, the league was preempted by political persons who began to use the league to fight the increasing influence of magic. Over time they were successful in suppressing magic use by passing laws making many types of magic illegal. These laws succeeded only in driving those practicing the ‘illegal’ magic users underground.

"Tekumel first needed an atmosphere before life could get a toe hold. Unlike the previous planet forming experiences, this was performed by huge machines that released the necessary gasses by freeing them from the very rock of the planet. These huge plants were scattered across the face of Tekumel. Slowly but surely, the air became breathable."

"It took 800 years of work to take the dry husk of Seker and make it into a planet that was fit for human habitation. At first only criminals and members of the Technologists League who populated the world, but after 300 years, the planet was opened to general emigration. At first the world flourished under the control of the League, but they grew greedy and thus began the unrest that led to the near destruction of life on the globe. "

"Now we get to the very begining of the human history of Isis. In 920,923 work began to make the atmosphere of Isis condusive to life. Isis had an atmosphere, but the mix of gasses was poisonous to life. Although the spells and technology existed previously to take a planet with no atmosphere and create an atmosphere, there was no way to eliminate the gasses that made life impossible. The answer came in the form of creatures too small to see."

"During all these years the study of the germ plasm of life called genes progressed. Many birth deformities, both natural and those caused by the effects of the HiBomb were identified and eliminated. This success gave the scientist’s confidence to begin work in other areas. They discovered that they could change the properties of the tiny creatures that are all around us to perform specific tasks. They eventually developed a creature too small to see that floated in the air and "ate" the poisonous gasses of Isis and changed it into oxygen, the gas that we breathe. This was the answer to the planet forming of Isis that had eluded investigators for so long."

"Although the scientists studying genes were a part of the Technologists League, they had friendly relations with those working in the magical arts. They worked most closely with the Druids. So the planet forming of Isis was a joint effort between the genetisists and Druids. The success of this program was total and swift. In a mere 300 years, Isis was ready to be populated. Once the air could support life, all the plants and animals were either teleported from an living planet or caused to grow by the powerful magic of the Druids. Life took hold on Isis as if the planet had been waiting for life begin. All the continents of Isis received some attention and today life is as pervasive on Isis as if life had existed here for many thousands of years. This rapid success gave much power to those who had developed the planet forming plan. These persons split from their ‘parent’ organizations and formed a new one called the Institute of Genetic Maintenance. They were given vast tracts of land on Isis which they used to carry out experiments in the modification of existing races and the recreation of extinct creatures by deriving their genes from fossil remains."

"They were almost done with Isis when the Institute scientists created the germs that would modify the air of Grawk in the same way that they had changed the air of Isis. In 922,773 they began to change the air of Grawk and populate that world. This effort to was wildly successful. As the methods of planet forming became better, the role of inhabitable planets grew rapidly. Kopeta was populate In 923,186 Kopeta. Then work began on Do the prison planet in 923,965. Of course this planet was not originally a prison planet, but a free place. I will speak more about this later."

"Although communication between planets was not a problem as technology had developed that let man send pictures and sounds from one world to another in a matter of seconds, there was little travel between them as this was still a very expensive proposition. Travel to one of the colony planets was generally a one way trip. Most traveled through wild space on huge ships of metal that enclosed their own air and used burning chemicals to push them from one sphere to another. The Wild Space Helm was developed in 921,328 but this method of travel was limited to rather small ships suitable for small time trade in very valuable goods. The impossibility of policing Wild Space to eliminate the pirates who inevitably preyed on the ships carrying these valuable goods made this method of travel dangerous. Teleportation was much used, but this was very expensive and could only be done by the most powerful mages, so this method was used only for emergencies. And so it was until 924,212 when Portals were developed by a team of powerful research mages. The first portal connected 2 cities on Greld. But this was so successful that soon they began to appear on all the inhabited planets. This accelerated the diaspora of people throughout the system."

"Many people blame the existence of the Portals for the final downfall of civilization in SOS. During the years between the populating of Tekumel and the invention of the Portal, Greld had ruled SOS using the Confederation of SOS as their political organization. Despite the appearance of self rule espoused by Greld, in reality, the other planets were colonies of the mother world. The people of Greld considered their existence justified only as long as they served to improve the standard of living for them. Many oppressive laws and tariffs were imposed on those of the other planets; voted into being by the power hungry leaders and greedy people of Greld. The first sign of troubles began on the planet Do. The planet was the least successful of all the planet forming efforts. Life on Do was hard and the people were grindingly poor. This was exacerbated by the oppressive policies of Greld. The food was virtually being taken from the mouths of the children of Do to support the free and luxurious lifestyle of the Ubermenshion. In 925,496 an aborted revolution was stared on Do which attempted to sever relations between that planet and Greld. It was mercilessly crushed. This war also marked the first time that Battle Beasts were used. Battle Beasts were creatures created by the Institute of Genetic Maintenance specifically to kill people. They were built using the genetic pieces of many animals combined to grow a creature of awesome killing potential. They were frighteningly successful in their task on Do. In the 4 years of the war, 75% of the people on that world were killed. Almost no soldiers from Greld armies died. The method used was to teleport the battle beasts into an area were a Do stronghold was located. They would then begin to kill people indiscriminately. They had been engineered to have very limited life spans. Few lived longer than a month. Because of this design, they were not required to have effective digestive systems and such. After the life span of the battle beasts had passed, soldiers of Greld would teleport in and clean up the remaining resistance."

"After the defeat of the rebel forces on Do, the Greldians decided to make an example of Do. They turned the planet into a Prison Moon. They removed the last remaining portals, setup tiny artificial moons that orbited above Do to watch those on the planet. From 925,301 until the beginning of the Dark Millennium all political prisoners, and perpetrators of violent crimes from every planet were marooned on Do. No one who went there was ever heard from again. In its entire history, they never had a single escape from Do. "

"On this sad note, I will conclude this lecture. After our review, I will speak of the factors leading up to the Great War, the years of the Dark Millennium and a summery of the history of Isis that followed it. I will now entertain any questions you might have. Yes Stallen, what would you like to know?"

"Today, it is my sad task to tell you of the Dark Millenium and the factors that led to the Great War between the Planets. It is not a subject I speak of willingly, but one which must be spoken of if you are to understand the people of Isis. In my last leacture, I got rather far afield from our objective of teaching you to live and work with the people you will meet every day. Indeed, the people you commonly meet would be shocked and antagonistic if you were to try to tell them what I told you. But the wise men of the church have determined that it is wise to give you this information. Well, maybe I told you even more about the history of the planets than they intended, but I suspect that the information will eventually be of use to you. May it be that in this I was guided by St. Edwar." (He makes the ritual gesture).

"In my last leacture, I left off with the Revolution on Do which ended so badly for the rebels. They were eliminated mercilessly by the Battle Beasts; the women the childeren the men and all their pets and livestock murdered by beasts and men not from their planet. The moon of Do was then turned into the most hideous prison ever devised. From this prison world none ever escaped. Most consider this act of tyranny the first act of a government that had lost touch with their humanity."

"It always seems that power attracts power and it creates in men the desire for more power. This was so in the days before the Great War with the people of Greld. In the early days of the Greater Planetary Empire (this is what they called their government at that time), they ruled with Laiza Faire allowing the planets to make their own rules and find their own path through time. Gradually, they came to think that all the planets owed Greld dearly for their existance. While it is true that the cost of planet forming was staggering, it was necessary to releve the preasure of the crowded conditions on Greld due to its enormous population. Each time a new planet was made sutiable for people, the potential for great wealth and a raising of the standard of living for those on the Home World (which of course was Greld) was seen by those whose lives were ruled by the want of wealth. And indeed great fortunes were made providing the new planets with the things necessary for their grouth."

"It was trade between the planets that provided these money hungry merchants with their lively hood. Just as heat and air and fuel are nessessary for making a fire, money and power and people are necessary for cruelity. Those who had the money to spend used it to obtain rights from the government that excluded other merchants from providing goods and services to specific areas and planets. Once a monopoly had been obtained, it was possible for a merchant to charge what ever they pleased for goods. The cost of goods rose on the seperate planets until great sums were necessary for even the most basic of provisions. As the nessities became more difficult to obtain, the conditions of life began to get worse on the new planets. Even though they made great strides in taming and civilizing places that before had been the home of nothing., it seem that all their advances could be brought to naught by increases in the cost of goods from Greld. Increasingly and of neccessity, the people on the colony planets relied on their own resources and less on the expensive materials from off world."

"In most cases, it was magic that enabled the colonies to reduce their reliance on off world goods. It is again the old story. Magic puts power in the hands of the indivedual and removes it from the higher athorities. Seeing this, the merchants of Greld began to grumble, complaning that their goods were being perchased less and less even though they themselves were responsible for this with the userous amounts of money they demanded for them. Magic fell into ill repute on Greld. The laws restricting its use there got stricter and stricter until its use was outlawed without special licenses provided by the government. Specific spells were outlawed, and the informtion about their use expunged from public documents. This sort of action increased the power and influence of the Guild of Technologists. Seeing an oppornitunity to forever eliminate the competition from magic, the Guild pushed for the complete outlawing of magic on Greld. Eventually, they succeeded and casting a spell on Greld became punishable by oulaw to Do."

"Not in the least satisfied by this, the guild sought the same goal on all the planets. Laws restricting the use of magic were passed on Greld and imposed on the colonies. Thus the people of the outer planets found themselves caught between the cliff and the wolf’s jaws. They could not afford the artifically inflated price of goods from other planets, nor could they use the magic they had come to rely on to meet their needs. All the outer planets began to suffer. Of course they complained and sought relief from this by legal means, but they could not fight the money and influence weilded by the wealthy merchants of Greld."

"During this time, much of the planet forming work stopped. Only one additional planet was made available for human population after Do. And this was not accomplished by planet forming but rather as the results of experiments by the Geneticists. They developed a race of men who would live their lives in water. They gave these new men gills instead of lungs and caused their hands to be webbed. Some of them members of this new race were placed in the oceans and lakes of the worlds already conqured, but most were taken to Tefnut the Water World. In 924,562 the process of populating Tefnut with Mermen (as the new race was called) began. Although this effort was wildly successful, it was far more difficult to drain the wealth of Tefnut as they had on other planets due to the difficulty of policing the laws laid down on Greld. Cases where taxes and levys were not paid by the Mermen of Tefnut received much publicity on Greld and was used to make the taxes and levys even stricter on those worlds where they could be enforced. The common people of Greld were made to think of those on the outer planets as ungrateful and decitful."

"As conditions worsened on the outer planets, incidents of lawlessness increased. There were food riots, metal riots; indeed, there were riots over almost anything necessary for growth. The riots became more and more violent and required larger numbers of troops from Greld to put them down. Greldans began to be looked at as villans and opressors and ultimatly as targets of assassination. A small incident of terrorism had a tremendous effect at this time."

"In 925,654 a group of men from Seker overcame the guards of a large merchant vessel. They loaded a large number of patriots from that planet and took the ship to Greld. Using deciet, the managed to land the ship on Greld and make their way to the main building of government where the laws were passed. The soldiers of Seker then took over the law council and baracaded the building. They sought to keep the lawmakers captive until the restrictive laws were repealed. They used much illegal magic to prevent the police and soldiers of Greld from freeing the captives. A stand off resulted that lasted many weeks and during this time, many of the lawmakers were ruthlessly murdered. By the time the lawmakers were freed, the incident had terrified the people of Greld and most specifically, the fat merchants. The retaliation of the lawmakers of Greld was terrible."

"Greld demanded that each noble family of the rulers of the outer worlds be brought to Greld to be "educated". The Greldans maintained that this was designed to instruct the ruling families about the government and ways of the mother planet so that the colonies could better understand the laws that were imposed on them and to be more effective in influencing the governmental process. This education was to take place at the Greldan University of InterPlanetary Understanding. Many of the ruling families willingly complied with this edict and sent their sons and daughters to Greld full of hopes. Others saw this edict as nothing more than a means of obtaining hostages from each world."

"Eventually, even the most hopefull of the outer planet nobility came to resent this policy due to two factors which revealed the true intention of the Greldan government. First, the representitives of the outer planets were not given access to the lawgiving process, but rather were indroctrinated with the most conservitive of Greldan views. Some of the representitives returned home, espousing views that were outragiously detrimental to the people that they were to rule one day. Others recognized the indroctrinization for what it was and either cooperated until they could be returned to their home or in some cases becoming violent and performing crimes against their instructors or those who held them almost captive in the "University" founded to instruct them. These crimes were used by the conservitive merchants to further polarize the opinion of Greldans. They made the common people of Greld think that they were the only "civilized" people, and that the colonists were barbarians who needed to be treated like childeren and punished harshly for their misdeeds. On the outer planets, infractions of the Greldan law began to be considered an excuse to remove ‘troublemakers’ to Do."

"Conditions on Seker were particularly bad. Life had always been hard there. The planet forming process there had been the least successful of all the planets and required that the atmosphere machines be kept running continually to replace the gasses that the sun boiled away. The closeness to the sun caused much defilement to the genetic structure of the populace and so the infant mortality rate was tragically high. After the terrorist attack on the Greldan law givers, conditions grew much worse. Magic was outlawed altogether and became punishable by being sent to Do or in cases where its use was part of a violent crime, in death. At first, clerical magic was excepted. But at the last the clerics too were prevented from casting their spells. After this, the death rate from disease caused by defilement and the number of childeren still born or deformed increased to epidemic proportions."

"The atmosphere machines were growing old and needed constant care and repair to keep them functioning. The cost of parts and charges for the technicians trained on Greld to maintain them were raised exponentially. Soon the people of Seker saw the atmosphere machines as gaping wounds through which their planet’s lifes blood was flowing. Just before the Great War, fully two thirds of everything they produced for export was spent so that they could continue to breathe. To make matters worse, the degree of use of the atmosphere machines was determined by members of the Technologists guild and not by the people of Seker. The people were forced to pay for something they did not even own or control."

"It is known that the Great War started on Seker with the destruction of the great atmosphere machines. The people of Seker, dying from diseases that were curable and prevented from curing them; whose wealth and lively hood were consumed by a technology which they did not control; whos best and brightest were spirited away to the ‘University’ on Greld or sent to exile on Do at the last went mad. The whole population exploded in violence and sought to eliminate anything that was from Greld. Merchants and soldiers from Greld were murdered as they slept. Some were hideously tortured in public exhibitions the like of which had not been seen for 20,000 years. Governtment buildings were burned or torn down. Even those who had at some time cooperated with the government of Greld were executed. The ships that were ported on Seker were impressed and their crews killed. These ships then became privateers who preyed on all ships bound for Greld. Any ship captured by one of these privateers was sent back to Seker for refitting into a war ship. The goods from the plundered ships were distributed among the people of Seker."

"You might ask why the people of Seker distroyed the atmosphere machines, they very thing that made life as they knew it then possible. In truth, it was a madness that made them do so. But still it must be said that these machines were symbolic to them of the stranglehold that Greld had maintained on them for over a thousand years. To them, the destruction of the atmosphere machines represented the destruction of the tyrany of Greld. Eventhough this act freed them from reliance on Greld, the result was that their planet began to die. It is still dying. Today, where once there were lakes and rivers, there is now only sand and rocky canals to mark their passing. In days of old, the people had spread all over the globe but now, the survivors are clustered in ruins at the poles. The bulk of the planet has reverted to the uninhabited desert which it once was. The non human races brought to Seker under the ageis of the InterSteller League were seen as undesirable aliens even though they had lived there in peace for hundreds of years. The other races were driven into the desert to live or die as fate decided. Today, the survivors of most these alien races wage prepetual war against the remainders of the human population."

"Of course, Greld attempted to regain control on Seker. As magic had been outlawed long ago, terrible weapons of technology were used in this attempt. Eventhough the people of Seker had purchased or captured similar weapons, they found that all of these weapons had been built with a means by which the could be turned off or subverted by those possessing the secret of their manufacture. In some cases, the weapons turned themselves on their owners and exploded as they tried to defend themselves. As the conflict became more dire and because of the bravery and cleverness of the Sekerians, they found that even benign machines on which they relied for transportation and agriculture could be destroyed or turned off by means of secret codes built into them. This combined with the shabby quality of the technological goods on Seker rendered almost all but the simplest of machines on the planet to become inoperable within 5 years."

"On the other planets, conditions got dramatically worse as well. As the Greldans sought to bring the people of Seker under their control, they passed law after law to reduce the power of the other planets to be independant. Long lists of restrictions were placed on the peoples of these worlds. It was forbidden to make weapons or bear them which on newly settled worlds like Isis spelled death because of wild animals and other dangers. It was forbidden to travel off their planets. All trade became the exclusive privledge of Greldan merchants. Any form of magic, even the most helpful or benign was outlawed every where. Products of a technological nature that could replace the functions of magic were expensive, shabbily made and heavily taxed. Governmmental representitives of the outer planets were sent back to their homes, humiliated and in some cases injured by the solders of Greld. All of the childeren and adults residing in the Greldan University of InterPlanetary Understanding were made captive and the buildings turned into a maximum security prison. None of the people attending the University at the time of Sekar’s revolt ever saw their homes again. The list of injustices, abuses and crimes perpetrated by Greldans against the people of the outer planets became without number."

"Of course, as the laws to prevent revolution became more unjust, the more the people of the outer planets came to see Greld as the enemy. The more Greld tried to control them the less they cooperated. As Greld increased the number of solders and police on their worlds, the more militant they became. Before any of them knew it, they were caaught up in the vicious circle of repression and revolution. Greld and the outer planets were irrevocably set on the path of war."

"With the exception of Seker, the outer planets retained the freedom of religion. The priests of these religions continued to use the spells granted them by their gods to aid their neighbors and community. However, those worshiping some gods were encouraged towards justice by their gods. These are the gods we now regard as the gods of war, though they were not regarded so at the time. On Tekumel, the gods of war at last encouraged their followers to rise up against their oppressors in armed combat. A fortress of Greldan law was overrun and barracaded against the soldiers that were sent by Greld to quell the uprising. The troops of Greld were provided with the most deadly weapons. They were to be stationed there at the expense of the nobility of Tekumel in perpituity. In response, all of the priests of Tekumel’s war god were gathered together in the captured fortress. People of other religions seeing the reightousness of their fight joined the war gods followers in their battle. Snipers and gurilla bands sprang up all over Tekumel to attack the Greldan troops, encouraged in this by their religious leaders. In response to this, the worship of the Gods was prohibited on Tekumel, and severly restricted on all the other worlds. Throughout the outer planets, priests were forbidden to cast spells. Those who continued to do so were either imprisioned, maimed so that they could not perform the necessary ritual motions or killed outright."

A spasm of pain crosses the peaceful face of Ziahdoo. He sits heavily in his chair for a time, seeming to struggle for emotional strength. Soon he sighes and begins again.

"It is at this point that no one, god or man knows much about what happened. Only in broad terms can what follows be described. The year 925,775 is know as the Year of the Cataclysm. On some planets it is known as Year 0 and all their years that follow are numbered from that date. There exists no history of battle, or tales of bravery and sacrafice. In that year, civilization itself falls into a deep hole from which mankind was not to emerge for over a thousand years."

"The gods who to this time had been content to let man rule himself saw their power directly threatened by the outlaw of worship by those on Greld. It is suspected that at this time there was a great conference of the all the Gods. In their homes in the Outer Planes, they discussed the fate of man. Some say they realized their error in allowing mankind to seek their destiny on their own. No god or man has information about what was discussed or decided, except in what happened after the gods returned to their planets. It was at this time that the destruction began."

"The gods gave new power to their worshipers at that time, the power of destruction. The gods of war gave their priests the power to raise selected of their flock to almost godlike strength and endurance. The evil gods caused ravaging plagues and diseases to pass among men and beasts. The gods of nature caused their priests to visit all manor of natural disasters against their enemies. The gods did not put restrictions on the use of these powers that they should be directly at Greld, although most were. But the gods saw this war as a chance to shake up the power structure among themselfes."

"Greld found itself alone in the conflict. Despite it power, it was impossible to fight a conventional war with fronts on all the planets at once. The people of Greld became frightened that the battles waged on the outer planets would come to their planet and visit destruction on a populace that had not known violent death in tens of thousands of years. As one by one the soldiers of Greld lost battles on the outer planets, their leaders began to consider the unthinkable. Throughtout the thousands of years, the MuBombs which had been almost forgotten by all but a few on Greld, had been maintained for use at a future date. Now, this hideous power was remembered by the leaders of Greld. In them, they saw a quick way to end the wars without risk of death to their soldiers or population. In discussing and researching the effects of the MuBombs, they rediscovered the way to make the HiBombs."

"We can attempt to reconstruct the thoughts of the Greldan leaders at this time, not with accuracy perhaps, but with compassion and humanity. Perhaps they thought that the peoples of the outer planets had the same fear of these weapons as they did. But they had forgotten that the peoples of the outer planets had changed much over the thousands of years and no longer shared the Greldan fear of these weapons. Maybe, they attempted to use the existance of the weapons as a tool to bring the outer planets to the table of negotiation without ever having to use them. If so, this attempt failed. There is no clue as to why the weapons were used at last. I think there was a madness disease that had gained hold of some people on Greld that included the members of their government."

"What ever the cause, the weapon was used at last. It was first used on the uninhabited planet of Bast. In their attempt to create an impressive display, they used far too many of their HiBombs. Bast was almost ripped apart from the explosion and its ancient path around the sun was changed. This change rippled through the delicate ballance of the planets dance and changed the orbit of all the planets. Even now, the disturbance continues and occasionally requires that the gods attend to setting them right again. The gods have said that at this time they appeared to the leaders of Greld and threatened them with severe retribution if they did not cease the wars and agree never to use their powerfull weapons again. The gods tell us that they gave Greld a year to consider this and to stop the wars. In the supreme act of foolishness and overconfidance, the Greldans instead planned a attack that was to be commenced simultaniously on all worlds and to win the war for them in a single great stroke."

"For years, the scientists of Greld had been working on the ultimate defense. In their labratories, they had developed a means of creating a Shell of Nothingness. This would effectivly create a barrier that would extended around their planet and cut the rest of the multiverse off. Some say it created a small universe that had only the planet Greld within it. It would allow nothing to pass through it. Not energy, matter or any other thing. The shell was effective even on other planes, making Greld non-existant on any of the Inner or Outer planes. Even the gods were unable to cross this barrier or extend their will into it. On the appointed day, at the appointed time, the barrier was brought into being and Greld retreated behind it to wait.

Ziahdoo’s voice which has been strained for some time as he told of the Great War failes him and you can see him struggle to regain his composure. Although tears are streaming down his face, he manages eventually to continue.

"Using a lost technology, there were ships revolving around each of the planets. They were shielded even from the perception of the gods themselves. The ship around Isis used a golum of sand called a Robot to issue their demand. If the people of Isis did not immediatly terminate their rebellion, the MuBombs would fall and the thousands of troops waiting in the steel ships would decend and be masters over whatever remained of its people. Caught by surprise but not intimidated, the Gods instructed the leaders of Isis to refuse. It was the same on all the planets. The sand gollums appeared demanding surrender, and the leaders of those planets replied most often by destroying the Robots. And throught out SOS, the bombs began to fall"

"My own world was not spared. MuBombs struck in the southern regon near the High Mounts of Filie and in what was once called the continent of Corlatis where today what remains is called the Monster Isles. So great were the explosions that the rock of Corlatis leapt into the sky and the seas around it boiled and turned into steam. Those people so unlucky as to be looking south at the time were blinded in an instant by the flash of light from the explosion. All of the people living in Corlatis were killed in an instant. The winds from the explosion spread across Isis and felled forests, brought down the high buildings of steel and even the lowly huts of the frountier farmers. Millions died that day. But millions more were spared to suffer what follows."

"The winds of destruction blew for months, spreading the defilement they carried to every part of the globe. Black clouds covered the sky and rained almost without ceasing. Floods, blizzards and hail the size of babies heads leveled most of the structures that were still standing. Peoples skin fell off, their teeth fell out and they began to bleed where they were not wounded. The sick and weak died quickly, bringing up gobbets of flesh as they retched out their inner organs. Madness spread, and turned friendly neighbors into deadly enemies. But worst of all the defilement began to confuse the messages of the flesh, and women started giving berth to monsters."

"When the winds finally died down, it is said that a city that had housed a thousand would now hold 2 or 3 people, huddled against the cold and killing any who came near them from fear that they would be killed for the meager supplies that still remained to them It was at this time that the soldiers from the Steel Ships decended to rule over the survivors. At each city, the soldiers rounded up survivors and set them to work; using them as beasts of burden. Without effective weapons, without the magic that had been outlawed so long and without their leaders, the people had no choice but to do as they were told. Of all the times of mans existance this was their lowest ebb."

"The soldiers who had been waiting in the steel ships far above Isis were still human, and in many the heart of humanity still beat. When these saw the destruction visited on the world below, they were deeply affected. Some went mad and attacked their fellows. A great many silently took their own lives. Others asked that they be allowed to decend to the land and aid the people there. But the Greldans had chosen the leaders oif their steel ships using a specific criterion for their commanders. The captains of the steel ships beleaved that they and their decendants would rule the worlds they had destroyed forever and that the defilement would soon pass. It does not matter if the captains were lied to about the effects of the MuBombs or if the great scientists of Greld underestimated their effects. What is important is that at the time the captains beleaved that if they could hold their commands together until the winds died down, that they would rule the planet forever. Thus, they killed any member of their crews who was found to be ‘unreliable’ in the face of the destruction. Only the most heartless and inhuman of their crews survived the many purges that followed acts of disobediance."

"The destruction of the planets and the killing of so many of their worshipers struck the gods in the place where they were most vulnerable. Without the manna of prayer, the gods powers were reduced to a fraction of what they were previously. Undodubtly (althought of course they have declined to answer questions on this point) they felt not only their power, but their very existance threatened. Again the gods confered on what could be done. For perhaps the only time, the gods of all allignments agreed to cooperate and attempt to salvage the people that still lived who could worship them. But this agreement was not reached in a day. Long did the gods converse before they arrived at their solution. By this time, it was almost too late. Humanity outside of cowardly Greld was almost extinct."

"Although the power of the gods was a fraction of what it was before, their combined strenght was still able to warp the reality of SOS itself. In some places, the Gods changed the physical laws that all matter and energy must abide by. In order to prevent the use of MuBombs and HiBombs, they changed the way things burn or how matter is changed into energy (which is all a fire does). On most worlds, it is impossible for something to burn quickly enough for them to explode without the use of magic. In old times, the most common weapons were those that would fire a small pellet of lead or other metal using expanding gasses to propell them. The Steel Ships used rapidly burning chemicals to push their ships through Wild Space and to allow smaller steel ships to travel through the air. Liquids were used to power carrages that moved across the land without horses. All of these relied on the fact that something that burns quickly enough will produce rapid expansion. None of them work any more, as none of them produce a fire that burns quickly enough."

"Another change was made to the energy that you see in a lightning bolt. The people of Pre-Cataclysm used this energy for practically everything. It was used to power the devices that enabled them to send sounds and pictures through the air. It was used to steer their Steel Ships. It was used to heat homes and cool them too. It made it possible to cause light to appear from gasses or metal. Some say they used it to make machines that helped the people think more clearly and work more quickly. They turned the power of lightning into energy that would make wheels turn and objects move without pushing them. After the Change, none of these devices worked as the gods made the energy more difficult to push. I do not understand how it would work, but somehow, the lightning would be pushed through certain kinds of metal from one place to another. The change made it thousands of time more difficult to push the lightning and all of their devices stopped working."

"Suddenly the soldiers in the steel ships could no longer cause them to move. The ships became dark and without power, and the air inside them went bad. In a few days, all the people in the Steel Ships were dead. With no one to steer them and no way to change the course, all of the Steel Ships soon fell out of the sky and burned up like shooting stars. As soon as the people of Isis found that the weapons their guards held were useless, they rose up against their guards and killed them every one. But even though the people were free, they were still few and they could no longer use the machines from Greld to do their work for them. They had to discover new ways to face the tasks of rebuilding civilization."

"Because of the way the machines failed and the way that the Greldans turned the machines against the people, during the Dark Millenum their use became regarded as unholy. Over time, it was considered bad luck to use even the machines that could still be used after the change. On Isis, this attitude has become a fanatical fear of machines of any kind. Only the most fearless of people will own and operate a grinding mill as it uses water to force the wheel around, not men or beasts. In many communities, water mills have been burned down if the owner displeased the townsspeople or if they suspect him of cheating. They justified this by saying that the mill owner was evil for using the water to do his work. As newcommers, you must be very wary of this attitude and avoid even the most simple of machines. Their possession would cause you to be instantly mistrusted."

"The history of Isis in the Dark Millenium is a mistery with very few clues. Little knowledge from before the Cataclysm survived the destruction and the years The Freeze that followed. We know that for a hundred years or more after the Cataclysm, that the temprature fell many degrees. In some places, it did not stop snowing for decades. As the surface of Isis became less inhabitable, people retreated underground. They used natural caverns where they found them, and dug their homes out of the rock and mud where there were no caves. It is natural for man to flee underground. I beleve it is one of mans most basic instincts. Thus, for hundreds of years, few humans even visited the surface of their world, and cities underground began to grow."

"During this time, men forgot what they had accomplished in the past. They could see no change or hope for change in the future. Without hope and without knowledge, they sank lower and lower becoming as beasts in many places. Also, the very fabric of their bodies became tainted by the defilement of the MuBombs. More than half of the childeren concieved were still born. Most of those who survived their birth were deformed; some of them hideously so. Those who still remembered how to pray were instructed that these childeren should be killed. "Suffer not the defiled to survive from dawn to dawn" is one of the olderst laws and one that is still obeyed in all civilized countries. But many people did not know how to pray and did not recieve this instruction from their gods. And the love of a mother for her child is blind. She can ignore faults of her childerns bodies that they may stay with her and grow to adulthood."

"And so even today when the defilement has dissappeared, the results of the MuBombs twisting of the flesh’s instruction are still visited upon the people. The defects caused by the defilement have been handed down from mother to child throught the centuries. You will not see its results in the cities much, where little can be kept secret from ones neighbors. In the cities, the killing of a deformed child is called ‘purification’ and is performed by a priest mercyfully and quickly. No stigmata is attached to a mother who offers her damaged child to a priest; indeed her bravery and rightousness is praised by all who value holyness. The mother is comforted by all her friends and relations, and they help the mother in her daily duties so that she and her husband may spend more time attempting to concieve another child which is not deformed. Even so, occasionally a mother will spirit the Defiled newborn into the wilderness and give it to someone who will care for it despite its defilement. She tells her friends and neighbors that the child was still born, and offeres a animal body in the place of the child’s for burial. As this is most often done by a woman of noble birth, it is regarded as an effete and evil action. Mothers have been killed for doing so when she is found out."

"Sometimes the defilement is subtle or is not know about even by the child until that child is grown. These cases are almost invariably tragic. By law, those who are know to be defiled, in in the smallest of ways, is prevented from marrying. They are prevented from holding public office or employment and are regarded in may cases as pariahs. Any one who knows they carry the defilement who marry or otherwise present themselfes as being pure is burned at the stake in a ceremony called ‘Rectification’ wherein their sins are made right."

"In the frountier lands, a mother may raise a child she knows to defiled. Indeed, some tribes have no laws against this, and the defiled are allowed to polute the race with their damage. In either case, the discovery of people or tribes who suffer the defiled to live is regarded with fear and lothing. Most often when news of a mutant (as one of the defiled is called in the vernacular) the nobles of the area organize a ‘Munt’."

"This practice dates back to the days after the passing of the Long Winter when people were venturing out of the holes and caves to rediscover and reclaim the surface of this world. Expeditions would be sent away from the home caves to forage and stake out territory. If such a band met a group who suffered the defiled to live among them, they were concidered honor bound to kill the entire tribe. This was responsible for much pain and suffering. It was a common cause of wars between nations and people. In these more enlightened times however, only the defiled and their parents and childeren (if they can be found) are put to death.

"In the early days of recovery when cities again were being built on the surface of the world, no one could safely be without their weapon to hand. But having weapons handy at all times meant that often they were drawn in anger and used to settle arguments in death where clear heads and empty hands might have kept the peace. No one knows which city first used the "Peace" as it is called, but the custom has spread to all the civilized continents of Isis. A "peace" is a small piece of wire passed through the pummel of a weapon and affixed with wax or lead to the weapons sheith or holder. Wax is used in areas where unexpected danger is common allowing a weapon to be drawn quickly. In peaceful places, lead is used. Using lead makes it difficult to draw a weapon as a knife must be used to cut the lead. In either case, the seal (the lead or wax peace) must be affixed only by the civil athourity of the place. If it is discovered that the peace has been broken, the owner of the weapon must truthfully describe the circumstances that led to the drawing of the weapon. If the officials of the place are satisfied with the explaination, the weapons owner is charged only for re-sealing his weapon. Otherwise the owner of the broken peace may be held criminally accountable. Any one with a broken seal is instantly suspect if a violent crime has been committed in the area. Possession of an unsealed weapon is a crime. The punishment for this varies from place to place and is dependant on the circumstances, but may be cause for the owner may be put to death."

"I encourage you to inquire into local laws where ever you might pass through as they vary wildly from one place to another. This is an accepted practice and will not cause you to be suspect if you do not have anything else suspicious about you. In this way you will not be caught out on accidentally breaking a law you have never heard of before. Other than this suggestion I can offer little in the way of instruction for the ways of laws on Isis. Of course, those things which are illegal on other planets are also illegal on Isis."

"One tried and true method of explaining why you might be different than the people you meet is to say that you are from a place far enough away to be different, but close enough to be familliar to them. In the next few days, I will go into the geography of Isis in detail. Tomorrow we will begin with an overview of the continents of Isis which every school boy knows."

This ends the third lecture.