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?"