THE DANCE OF THE DAMNED

Notes on the world and history of The Dance Of The Damned, or, how the Quantum powered Space leprechaun vampires came to be. The care and feeding. Be warned carnivorous vamps are Not vegan friendly.

Some stories begin before they are begun. Some things take millennia to unfold. Time is something an immortal has plenty of.

The Aos Sidhe, had evolved into what they ultimately became.

To begin, they had Evolved upon their home world, the fifth planet of the eleven Planet star system of Sol.

The Fomor, denizens of chaos and rebellion were created beings. Hybrid creatures built of Nano technology and artificial intelligence to be tools,form shifting assistants.

Having rebelled against their inventors, the Fomor then lost the war. The war destroyed three planets. One turned into a cold lifeless desert. The other turned Desert with thick poisoned skies. When acid rain is a relief, you know you gotta leave.

The Third destroyed world reduced to so much orbital rubble where the fifth planet used to be. The third planet was plunged into nuclear winter conditions , and then floods. Massive floods of melting glaciers. Floods caused by The Fomor slamming a mostly black diamond asteroid into what would someday be called Greenland. The few surviving Fomor fled into the black void between the stars.

A few Aos Sidhe scarcely survived, taking refuge amongst the environmental disasters of the Third planet. The Aos Sidhe lost everything from their Identity, history, technology, the Fomor had bombed the Earth into an Ice age and flood. Did I hear you claim this was victory?

Cathabadua lost her mind as the triune clones, the Morrigna were born.

three out of one.

One into three,

Birthed by the cruel vivisection of Cathbadua. The Fomor Response to The Morrigna was to flee, bombing the third planet back to the stone age.

Yeah they stepped in it, the Fomor created their demons, they danced with the devil then ran away. Though a few were abandoned, deliberately left behind.

No technology survived with The exception of a few fragments. A few weapons, a few controlled, though barely controlled A.I.’s. Nothing The shattered and scattered survivors could recreate. Not when their homes were 350feet below sea level. Not with The rain of meteor showers that stretched out over 500 years. Nothing left but the vague memory, distorted dream, fairy tales of who they were.

It takes a while to grasp the stars once again, when all you have are two rocks...

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The trinary star system 4.5 light years away had planets. Therefore resources. It would take hundreds of years to get there. But it could be done. The Fomor created a generation ship. Using Corundum sapphire mirrors to fine focus multiple beams of sunlight. Controlling color, they effectively created a laser with The full unfiltered power of the Sun.

The Fomor had secretly selected an asteroid. Placing it in a rapid spin, they melted the Nickel iron core Asteroid. A trick of centrifugal force and temperature. The Asteroid melted, spinning off the lighter elements leaving a primarily nickel iron balloon like shell. A balloon with a mile thick heavy metal alloy shell. A balloon with an interior void three miles across. Add in a fusion reactor as well as nuclear fission supplement and one big ass Ion drive. Cut a hole, full with cometary matter. CO2 and Water and hydrocarbons. Living within the shell they would carry more than enough reaction mass to accelerate at a steady 1 gravity. Sounds slow and it is. It is amazing how steady acceleration achieves incredible speeds. Nowhere near lightspeed, but fast enough to travel between the stars in a few centuries.

What is a few centuries to immortal A.I.’s? Patience, would bring recovery and prosperity. Prosperity will bring vengeance. Patience could also bring Surprise.

Over the Twelve millennia since the surviving few thousand survivors had fled the Sol System, They prospered in peace. The same could not be said of the Aos Sidhe and their violent fractious warrior culture. Herding humans on the plains of central asia, the plains of Africa, the Americas.

The Aos Sidhe had been reduced in numbers, the survivors had been reduced to an stone age level of technology. Even so The Aos Sidhe managed A herding and breeding plan. Extremely long lived, no one knew if they were in fact immortal. No one remembered anymore.

The Aos Sidhe bred herds of horses. Selective breeding over generations have made them bigger, smarter, longer lived mounts, transportation even energy for labor. During this time the Aos Sidhe domesticated wolves. Creating faithful companions with selective breeding.

The final touch lay in creating the human herds via selective breeding of at least three distinct hominids. Human cattle to feed upon.

Centuries passed. Millennia turned upon millennia. It took near twelve thousand years, beginning again with literally tooth and nails, blood and sweat. Literally Banging rocks together to make the tools in order to make the tools that make the tools that bring back half remembered dreams. Rediscovering how to recreate their traumatized, fragmented memory of, the golden age. The Aos Sidhe reigned on the third planet. Effectively the gods of a broken new world.

Except A few fragments of confused memory, even the Fomor war was forgotten. Becoming half whispered tales, fables, myths. Mythic warnings of the wars of the Gods. The deadly destructive centuries long winter of Ragnarok served as both history and warning.The myths were in fact recorded history. Atlantis, the great flood, the rain of fire from the heavens. The hammers of the Gods striking , making and unmaking, forging the third planet into, The Earth of today, the place of now.

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A generation ship provides for all needed resources. The Nickel Iron shell did not require magical force fields in order to protect the interior from the bow wave of radiation, particles etc compressed ahead of the craft at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

Reaching the Star Cluster after a mere 300 years, the Fomor have made three reconnaissance mission back to the solar system.

The one generation ship was not the only one created. The Fomor planned ahead leaving an uninhabited , though fully stocked and equipped generation ship disguised as an Asteroid. An asteroid with a very eccentric orbit making it a defacto, secret moon of the earth. One far too small to see without enhancement.

The wheel of time turned, patience beget prosperity, prosperity brought the means of vengeance. Twelve millennia is a long time to nurse a pain, to dream of vengeance. Twelve millennia in which two distinctly different worlds evolved. One of which, had forgotten the other. One of which became a culture based upon vengeance, vendettas without mercy.

When the Fomor observed the first craft venturing outside of the Sol system, they knew the clock was ticking.

It would merely be a matter of time before the Earth would find them. Four and a half light years was no longer enough protection. Something had to be done, and done it was.

The Fomor once again rained stars and enhanced plagues upon the Earth. The Aos Sidhe were notoriously difficult to injure let alone kill outright. The cattle however were another matter. Destroy the herds, Starve the Aos Sidhe. Watch as the plan unfolds. Only interfering Occasionally tweaking events.

A super cold virus and an enhanced airborne rabies became the witches brew of chosen destruction. The human herds went mad. The Aos Sidhe scrambled to survive amongst the panic and destruction wreaked. Herds of rabid humans wandering, spreading the plague, A veritable zombie apocalypse. The Other virus removed the weakest among humans. The Aos Sidhe found themselves in a world built of fresh nightmares. With no clear idea of cause, effect or source.

When the Fomor returned to their vengeance, they would find a world in convulsions of self destruction. A world easily dominated. The Aos Sidhe essentially unaware of their presence. The Humans scattered, shattered in madness.

Regardless,

Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Everything must happen in it’s allotted time. Just as it took millennia to learn to make the tools that could begin to create the tools of dreams and memories wonder. So, it takes time for civilizations to devour themselves.

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The Second Coming

W. B. Yeats - 1865-

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats, widely considered one of the greatest poets of the English language, received the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature. His work was greatly influenced by the heritage and politics of Ireland.