A thick mist encircled the Earth for many years, slowly dissipating as
it radiated out into space. The greater portion of the world was
devastated; a population of billions, reduced to several million
score. Once great cities were wiped clean from the face of the
earth. Those that were spared stood like majestic mountains. With
time, they also crumbled away, turning into gigantic mounds that were
loosely held together by rusty girders, brittle concrete and broken
glass.
Bands of strange-looking humans roamed the face of the land foraging
for the scarce and much-valued commodities of food and fresh water.
In the years following the deluge, the surface dwelling survivors died
out from exposure to radiation and to the adverse climactic conditions
that were inherited from the global fall out.
The progeny of the survivors became strange in appearance and behaviour
until they all became new forms of humans, evolved from mutants, to
small hybrid races which soon became as distinct and individual as
those humans that lived in the late Twentieth Century. The
amalgamation of these races found that great tension had formed between
them, due to their differences in appearances and forms of speech, and
so they broke away from the main body of humanity and headed for their
own select areas of the continent.
Many of these new races of humans ventured forth and eventually
established unique civilisations. One race went to the extreme western
part of the North continent. Everywhere, they found small pockets of
survivors and conquered them. They looted their food stores and used
those people as slaves; so becoming a feared band of humans that
resembled upright, and very dark featured, apes. They called
themselves the Teniqués. Those in the east were afraid that the
Teniqués would begin to move back their way but although they were
warlike, they stayed put and were soon forgotten.
Concentrated cells of normal humans were still alive. They were the
ones who lived in the mountainous regions of the continent and although
most became larger in size than normal humans, they were the most in
resemblance to the people living during the Twentieth Century. They
were hunters and gatherers, moving from valley to, in both the eastern
and the western mountains. These were amongst the first people to be
conquered by the Teniqués, in their move westward. In the east, there
was also a race of perfectly normal looking humans called the Sëdash.
They were a group of hermaphrodites that were compiled and exiled by
the rest of human mutants, who disliked them, since they most closely
resembled the previous normal humans. The hermaphrodites wandered for
many years until a place to settle was found. They began to build a
culture that they based on total
equality between individuals.
Yet, the Sëdash soon became intolerant to any other forms of human.
They developed a belief that they were divinely chosen to be "superior
and perfect," and so they enslaved and mistreated those who happened
to trespass on their city boundaries. For mating, only the true
hermaphrodites were allowed to propagate. After several generations of
regulated breeding, a pure-bred race of hermaphrodites was formed.
There was another similar band of humans in the eastern part of the
northern Continent. They called themselves the Palatkans. Their
appearance was much like that of lepers. They had segregated
themselves from the main stream years before the great cataclysm. They
congregated in long strips of semi-fertile land on the floor of lengthy
canyons.
Following several generations of their offspring, they bore a race of
ugly and canker-covered beings that developed a culture of cannibalism.
They believed that all the other humans were left on Earth for them to
sacrifice to their gods, then to feast. They were aware of a life
force that permeated everything and that was significantly concentrated
within the flesh of humans.
Many such bands of human beings were alive, over the entire face of the
Earth. Most of these peoples contained and confined themselves within
special areas of land and rarely ventured out.
Six centuries passed since the cataclysm.
Lack of productivity and raw stock caused the remaining human people to
further mutate into odd looking things. Civilisation had also
regressed into a primitive form. Much of the Earth reverted into the
appearance of the primitive and the primordial, awaiting the moment to
be reborn.
The Earth was not alone in its anxiety for rebirth. There were nearly
one quarter of a million true humans that waited, also, to be reborn
craving to, once more, walk the mother Earth's surface, and to begin
life anew. In six hundred years of waiting, the population of the
Omega SubGround Installations grew. To extend the food and water
rations, the major part of the personnel was placed in cryogenic
suspension vaults upon attaining the age of thirty-five.
Most, of age, personnel stayed to be suspended in animation but some
were granted the permission to leave the cities and try to reestablish
life wherever they could find hospitable environments. Contact was not
kept with those who had left. Only on hearsay did anyone know how these
people fared.
Many headed towards the eastern shoes where they successfully took up
oceanic livelihoods, and so began the city, later to be called,
Besten. Others made their way to the mountains and met up with other
bands of self-exiled people. They took to herding goats, and sheep;
and whatever other animals that were left alive, they could catch to
domesticate.
The people took to catching and taming the Continent's greatest animal
mutations: gigantic eagles that were as high as trees. These people
learned to fly them and use them as beasts of burden. These agrarian
peoples were called the Krolalins and the Virunese.
The time had come, in the O.S.G.I's, where all those people in
cryogenics were awakened. They organized into groups of thousands then
left to set up individual and distinct villages, towns and cities.
The Earth was becoming clean again. Air and water sparkled with
freshness and the entire world returned to green.
The only people to stay in the O.S.G.I's were the scientists, carrying
on with their work (in every field), as it was done in the Twentieth
Century. With those that left and built cities, these cities adapted
to a simpler way of life and craved not to progress much in their
technology. They did not crave to progress very much in their
technology. They did not want the responsibilities that went with
having technology. They found that they were just as happy without it,
and their attitudes were civilised enough to accept and give their
blessings to those still utilising the ancient ways. By 2500 C.E.,
many of the O.S.G.I's were back to a comfortable size of around four
hundred people. Some O.S.G.I's lost people so readily and quickly,
that a few had become abandoned and forgotten.
All those who left the cities tried to track down some of their old
comrades, heading in the direction of newly established settlements and
subsequently joining with some of them.
The surface cities began to grow and the O.S.G.I's were beginning to be
emptied, with only a few hundred older people remaining in some of them.
In those Omega cities, that were still densely populated, power
struggles often took place. Some of these people who became the
leaders, by force or otherwise, set up a form if thought that denied
the life and events of the Twentieth Century. Some even went as far as
stating that the Twentieth Century never happened, and so proclaimed
themselves as Kings, Queens and other types of monarchials because they
were descended from the intellectuals who "made the world" what it was.
During this period, everyone that was a descendant of these people was
given the title "BLUE" -- from the old Proposition Blue code since they
were from the Great Line of Knowledge.
There were men, in the BLUE, who disagreed with the idea that the
Twentieth Century never happened, and long debates were engaged to
discuss it.
These debates and periodic skirmishes were the original cause for the
initial emigration from the cities. Similar events sparked moves in
each of the Omega S.G.I's.
Reginald Jones was a BLUE who opposed the "never happened" dogma, and
his life was, at several times, threatened.
Reginald was suppressed from speaking in the city parliament and seeing
that he lacked any other option, he removed himself from politics and
searched for a wife.
He wasn't successful, though, since his public image had made women
avoid him, for fear of being ridiculed. As it had happened, many
centuries and aeons ago, a man had been denied comfort for-want-of a
fundamental principle way of thought. Reginald became lonely.
Then in 2542 C.E., Reginald found a baby boy abandoned in a genetics
lab when he was going to work. Announcements were made for the parents
to take the boy back but soon it was found that the two teenagers
responsible for the child had run away from the OMEGA 4 EAST City.
They were never found and Reginald's need for companionship made him
adopt the child and so he became responsible for him. He gave him the
name of Hosea, who grew up to be a brilliant man and a great political
leader in the OMEGA 4 EAST City.
Hosea became the most powerful man in the city's parliament, keeping
tensions at bay, but allowing the people to think freely. He had
allowed debates to continue, concerning the existence of the Twentieth
Century and he had, himself, held to the belief that there was a
civilisation that they had descended from. He had computer disks and
video tapes, books and photographs all showing the life as it was in
the ancient past. This was proof. It was proof that could never be
used but Hosea was the kind of man that was eager to see what
conclusions would be brought by his colleagues by just using logical
reasoning.
A conclusion, of sorts, had been found. It was a forced conclusion and
had occurred at a time the people of the city were looking for some
real direction.
Hosea had been electrocuted at age of ninety-six, while he was trying
to make improvements on solar-electric power sources. He was well
known for this pursuit within his city.
Hosea's first son was named Cano and when he was young he exhibited a
strange spiritual aura and it was an unanimous decision, by the city
fathers, to have him trained at the Monastery of St. Tobias, outside
the city.
In 2580 C.E., at eighteen years of age, Cano completed his studies of
religious history, and other related topics, at the monastery. He
became a spiritual healer and a leader, and he later changed his name
to Canon Di'Vaticanus.
He was a well-liked man, at first, who seemed stable and secure
considering that his mother, Hosea's first wife Anna, deserted both of
them when Cano was only twelve.
She had travelled to BanGor where she had become the High Priestess of
the Cults, since she was able to endure the rains, without allowing
herself to fornicate. All her daughter-descendants replaced her as the
High Priestess. Anna was an ecologist while at the OMEGA 4 East City
and she had developed a counter-agent that let her and whomever else
took the drug, capable of tolerating being caught in the rain without
having instantly become sexually deranged.
In 2600 C.E., Hosea married his fourth wife (having lost both his
second and third to early death). Her name was Ruth and she was
regarded as the best in her field of Aging research. In fact, in the
same year of their marriage, Ruth had made a break-through by
perfecting a drug that retarded the ageing process.
The first human to test the drug was Hosea when he became mortally ill
and with the taking of the drug he miraculously recovered.
The drug was primarily kept for those in the Line of Knowledge but Ruth
had sold some to other people in the city for certain favours and
services.
In 2601 C.E. Ruth bore Hosea's second son named Gavin.
During the same period when Ruth was giving birth, Canon spoke out
against the age retardant drug calling it "evil", and in late of the
same year, Canon disappeared with a stock supply of the developed drug.
A few years later, Ruth was imprisoned by Hosea for infidelity and he
took her formula away from her. When Gavin turned sixteen, he left the
OMEGA 4 EAST City and travelled to the southernmost part of the
continent where three huge highlands surrounded a lush valley that was
the city of Pomperaque, in Lower Phoride. He made his home on the
highest mountain and changed his name to the name of the mountain and
became, for the city of Pomperaque, a great oracle. A seer and a
prophet whose visions always came to pass. He never seemed to die or
grow old; he never had a wife or children, abstaining from all sexual
contact. He kept himself pure in mind and body, while he prayed to the
one great Living God, to which the majority of Twentieth Century man
prayed.
The years passed, then in 2630 C.E., Hosea married his fifth and final
wife, Margaret, who in 2635 C.E., gave birth to twins, Richalé and
Dioneza.
The following year, Margaret died trying to give birth to a premature
baby that also died, and two years after that, Hosea was killed in an
electrical mishap. During the subsequent years, the twins grew and
each had entered their own peculiar studies. Dioneza studied telepathy
and when she turned fifteen she was asked to join the OMEGA operations
Council as a reward for her progress, unsurpassed by anyone of her age.
She, like Hosea, kept the title "BLUE" from her name.
When Dioneza received her appointment to the council, the Canon
Di'Vaticanus returned from his forty-nine year trek in the wilderness
of the Northern Continent.
He was eighty-eight years old but he only looked like he was
approaching forty. He met his pretty half-sister and immediately began
having sexual designs on her, wanting to procreate with her and to have
her carry out many of his strange requests.
With her telepathic ability, she saw into his mind and knew exactly
what kind of a man he was. She saw in his mind the memories of the
forty-nine years that he spent away from Omega 4 EAST city. She had
seen that he studied ancient prophesies and obtained his fulfilment
from history but she also saw the destruction of his spirit with his
fall into accepting all forms of depravity, especially those of a
sexual nature. She had seen his encounters with men, women, children,
animals and all manner of mutated freaks -- all in his attempts to
reach total spiritual awareness. After Dioneza had asked a friend to
be her protector, the Canon turned to hating her and cursed her with a
violent death. He had no problems finding other diversions. Young
companions he desired came to do his bidding, and soon he had the young
Janis Topler beside him, wherever he went.
Janis soon became pregnant with his child and eventually gave birth to
him in mid-2651 C.E.
Soon, thereafter, Janis was banished from the city and Canon took the
boy into his care, baptising him as Canis Topler. In late of that year
the Abbess Mariot, from the Abbey of Our Holy Virgins, brought to Omega
4 EAST an eleven year old girl, with a story about finding her as a
baby during a sojourn at a distant Hermitage. It was a beautiful baby
girl, wrapped in elegant and costly cloth, and resting within a cradle
overlaid in gold.
She had named the child, Sunshine, since there was the glow and light
of life which shone from the child's face. She now had brought the
girl to the city to have the child tested.
It was a brilliant child. She could not speak, however, and this
bothered the Abbess Mariot. She also wanted an explanation for the
child's speedy growth. At eleven years of age, the child already had
the appearance of a full grown woman.
Canon lusted after her.
Soon, Sunshine gave birth to the Canon's son. He was called Daey and
he proclaimed the boy as the long-awaited Saviour. He pronounced that
the new promised millennium had finally begun. This was the new age of
humanity; the year he called "ONE".
Canon compiled a book of Laws that he had told everyone was given to
him by the great God, Himself. He called the book "The Canon's Laws",
and announced that with his receipt of this book, that all which had
occurred in the "pre-history", had never happened:
"The Past is nonexistent. This is never to be questioned,
and no investigation is permitted to be conducted, in pursuit
of the question of history. History begins with "ONE".
Only that which, henceforth, occurs from the year ONE will be
recognised as history. Death, by torture, is the punishment
for this Law's transgression."
(CANON 3:18)
This passage was of the first of Canon's Laws: These Laws, to be
followed to the letter, were to be punishable upon the fear of the
most imaginable painful torture. No Law was more, important than that
of the CANON. All were the Prime Law, and all punishment was
eventual, excruciating, death. As the child, Daey, was reaching his
first year of age, Canon sacrificed the most beautiful and the most
precious of his possessions, in honour of the child's birth. This
most precious possession was the child's own mother, Sunshine. In the
weeks that followed, the child weakened and also died, and the death
was kept from the people. There was a great fear that the population
may panic if they were to hear that their "Saviour" had died, while
still in infancy.
While Dioneza studied telepathy and tried to avoid Canon, her twin
brother, Richalé, studied many subjects but he mainly concentrated on
the forbidden topic: History.
Richalé wanted to compile facts to prove, without doubt, Canon's claims
to creating the Universe, the Earth, and all of existence.
In 2660 C.E. Dioneza had found repulsion towards all men, and although
she had yearned for children, she wanted no man to bed with her.
Due to her status, in the city, she was given the permission to be
artificially inseminated from her choice of genes, preserved from the
time of Omega 4 - EAST's construction. She had chosen a sample which
was labelled as "David Sannstein: April 1995". The city's parliament
had overwhelmingly accepted her choice and granted her the permission
that was necessary, for her to use the sample. All the records that
were kept in the gene bank were obviously ancient. From what was
understood contained within the ancient records, David Sannstein was an
Engineer, some 650 years ago. This was several hundred years before
"ONE".
Dioneza presented her brother with this fact but nothing ever came of
this knowledge.
Richalé married a girl that he had studied with, at the beginning of
the same year that Dioneza was artificially inseminated.
Months before Dioneza's birth to Dorin, Richalé and his lovely wife,
Dianna, had quadruplets.
Just after Dioneza bore Dorin, Richalé left the Omega 4 - EAST City,
with Dianna and his children: Roman, Daphne, Tatum and Wind. They
journeyed for the city of Besten, on the Eastern seaboard of the
continent. During this century few of the O.S.G.I's were still
inhabited. All but the Omega 4 - EAST city and the Omega 7 - PACIFIC
city were abandoned and were utterly forgotten.
In the East, Canon's personal religion had subdued the people's belief
and knowledge, and everyone in the Omega 4 - EAST city began to think
that their city was nothing more than a temple built to Canon.
There were a few citizens that opposed Canon's Laws and some of these
were publicly tortured to death, but some had escaped the wrath of, the
now-hated, Canon.
Many people, dissatisfied with Canon's rules fled the cities to settle
in the small villages and towns that dotted the land. Canon, however,
sent emissaries to all of these surface towns and cities, and soon they
began to rule over them. Most of these places submitted to the ways
that Canon had forced upon them. Only Besten kept up with the
rebellious stand against the Canon, but soon, only underground cells of
rebels fought the new rule.
Richalé's daughter Daphne became involved with the rebel leader
Montgomery Bartlett and married him. Later, the Bartlett line was to
become the strongest in Besten.
Dioneza had avoided execution by the Canon, her half-brother since she
had the favour of the city parliament and since she had told Canon that
if she dies, her protector would surely kill him.
Canon did not have her killed, yet he had prevented her from ever
speaking in public by having his men begin riots whenever she called a
public audience.
In 2676 C.E., her son Dorin, who was now fifteen years of age, had
illicitly procreated with a thirteen year old called Bernice. Soon
after the birth of Martin, however, Dioneza had the two youngsters
married and they had no more children.
At seventeen years of age, Bernice was put into cryogenic suspension
when it was discovered that she had developed a terminal blood disease.
That same year, Martin, who was four years old, wad discovered to be a
genius and Dioneza took to training him in the ways of biology and true
history. To Canon's disapproval, Martin began to delve into the study
of the real past, utilizing Dioneza's computer library.
In 2683 C.E., Dorin made a break-through in light energy emission and
began to improve the old police stun weapons, enabling them to utilize
a laser capability, as well. This study also infuriated the Canon but
he did nothing.
Just after Dorin's break-through, Dioneza, who was now forty-eight, was
raped and brutally murdered by Canon's bastard son, Canis Topler.
When Martin was nineteen, in 2695 C.E., he became a top-ranking
scientist in the areas of anthropology and archaeology, after
graduating from Advanced Technical Training in the Sciences. Martin
headed an archaeological expedition to Alugean and there uncovered a
huge computer library complex. He ordered his team to keep the find
secret from anyone at the Omega 4 - EAST city, in the event Canon was
to find out and have the library destroyed.
Martin received the title of "Blue" after his name, because of his
great intellect and he did not abstain from using it.
Four years after his discovery, Canon disappeared and his Monks
announced to everyone that they saw him turn into a being of light and
that he ascended to heaven in a golden chariot.
Canon Di'Vaticanus was declared a God and the monk that was his second,
named himself the ArchBishop. His name was Morgan.
Morgan had the same powers as the Canon Di'Vaticanus and only answered
to the Canon, for his decisions.
Martin was married three times in his life, though he only had children
with his second and third wives.
With his second wife, Lilian, he had a son called Carter and with his
third wife, Joan, had triplets: Liona, Aria and Thirst.
In 2760 C.E., Carter went to Alugean, following his father's,
directions and found the computer library. He stayed there for several
years and studied, alone. Liona, Aria and Thirst left the Omega 4 -
EAST city for BanGor when they were twenty-three, so that they could
learn the ways of the world, but they never survived. Only one of the
three reached BanGor, having met up with a wandering tribe of Teniqués.
Only Liona, made pregnant by a Teniqués, arrived in BanGor and was
granted an act of abortion by the High Priestess (the great, great
granddaughter of Hosea Jones's first wife, Anna).
In 2780 C.E., Carter left Alugean and wandered about the continent,
going through Laurentine and then through BanGor in 2785 C.E., where he
sojourned for a short time. He represented himself to the High
Priestess Lucaea (the third generation granddaughter of Anna), with
whom he became close and eventually sexually coupled, unaware of their
near relation by blood.
In 2801 C.E., they produced Smith and before she exiled Carter from
BanGor, she charmed from him a quantity of the youth drug -- the
formula which was passed down to him through his father.
In his exile, Carter went to Virune where he later met and married his
first wife, Dee'inth, who was seventeen. Carter was seventy-four at
his first marriage, but he only resembled a man of twenty-four, having
taken the youth drug for so long and he manufactured more after Lucaea
took his supply away. There, he became a most important man,
organising and turning the city into a powerful city state.
Jessuum Benitar came down off the mountain and told Carter that they
were related, that both came from the loins of Hosea Jones. Jessuum
told Carter that his real name was Gavin Jones, the son of Hosea; the
fourth generation great-uncle to Carter.
Jessuum told Carter that Lucaea was his relative, as well, and that
Smith was a product of an incestuous coupling.
When Carter heard this, he was determined to get Smith back. In 2817
C.E., Pomperaque split in two, and was engaged in a civil war.
Dee'inth and Carter's son, Calvin, left for Virune.
A few years later, Carter unified and strengthened Pomperaque, and then
proceeded to invade BanGor.
Carter executed the already dying Lucaea and Smith came along
willingly, back to Pomperaque.
Dee'inth and Calvin were sent for in 2822 C.E., but they refused to
come. Dee'inth had married again, to a man called Balfour (who had a
grown son called Empal).
Two years later, carter married his second wife Freida Dilaano, who had
a daughter Miri. Carter and Freida had no children, and after a year
of marriage, Smith took her daughter Miri as his wife, and they went to
the Virgin Mountains for their honeymoon.
Several years of peace in Pomperaque went by and in 2900 C.E., Carter
died. Soon after Carter's death, Smith headed a campaign to unite
Lower Phoride and in short of a decade, succeeded.
In 3001 C.E., Smith and Miri went on a vacation to the Virgin
Mountains, while she was pregnant with their first child.
They were both fairly aged in years, although their physical and mental
make-up was still fairly young due to the age retardant drug which was
passed down to them. Smith was one hundred ninety-eight and Miri was
one hundred ninety-four, but both looked to be only in their
mid-thirties.
On their return, Miri had experienced the pains and when they rested,
one afternoon, she gave birth to Smith's first son, Manguino.
During the birth, Smith was walking about in the woods, following the
distant crying sounds of a baby. He soon found it. It was a baby boy,
swaddled in a sackcloth and left in the skull of a lion, by small
stream.*
So it happened that Smith gave the child the name, Brook Scullion-Blue
(because of the circumstances surrounded the foundling). *The baby
was left there by the great, great-grandson of Wind Jones (one of
Richal's daughters). Guiness, and his wife Joanne, while trying to
escape from a band of Plains slave traders, left their baby to Fate's
caring heart and Smith was led to it.