I will throw in here that Alpha Lupi is The Traveler. [spoiler]Ghost Fragment: Ghosts Beyond. It is a place, a place casting shadows and emotion. It's a real place, I know. One hot blue sun, say. And other suns too. Five? I like seven better. What I'm recalling is a giant star with a family of six smaller suns, and you could spend days and nights counting all of the planets circling those suns...except there are no planets. Not anymore. The powers in charge have carved up all of the worlds, and maybe a brown dwarf or two for good measure. With that rubble, they fashioned a topologically creative enclosure, a twisting of space and time sealed behind doors that admit only those who know the magic words. The bones of a hundred planets have been cut smooth and laid out like a floor, a polished and lovely floor creating vast living spaces. A floor bigger than ten thousand worlds, catching the fierce glory of the seven suns. For light, for food. For beauty. And nothing escapes. Not heat, not gravity. Not even the faintest proud sound. It could be anywhere. It can live in the cold between galaxies, or folded up inside matter, near enough to touch right now... I remember it and maybe it's exactly as I describe it. Seven suns wrapped inside magic. Or it's something else entirely, perhaps. A place still fat with life. An abundance of sentient souls, some decent, maybe a few of lesser quality, and everybody stands about or floats about, or they bounce between dimensions. The point is that the residents of this hidden realm live inside a bottle so perfectly hidden that they can't see beyond their own borders. Which shapes a mind in very specific ways. But, Beyond is their name for a mysterious, doubtful realm that they can't see. Which is us, of course. [/spoiler] [spoiler] Dreams of Alpha Lupi You have lived as invisibly as possible, flicking from solar system to solar system, making grand plans, overseeing the culturing of civilizations, before leaving in a blink. But you have no recollection of ever wanting worship or even thanks from those blessed by you. But memory is heavy now. It feels like lead and neutronium and electroweak matter fashioned into a moon-sized ball that you must carry as you move. Now, your flight is rapid, your vast mind infected with such dread and toxic doubt that you find yourself afraid of the simple act of thought. [b]And it is your children you must turn to now, in time of need[/b].[/spoiler] [spoiler]Ghost Fragment: The Golden Age "What are you thinking about?" I asked. "When I was a little boy," Father said. "During the Before," I said. "Yes." He reached down to brush my hair. "I was recalling how very smart I used to be. When I was your age, I was a genius." "You're smart now," I said. He laughed hard. "Look around," he said. I always look around. "Miss nothing," he told me. Father was standing beside a big gray building. "This is what I want you to see," he said. The building had no doors or windows. "Do you know how to make a strong password?" he asked. "I don't know if I do," I said. "Tell yourself a story," he said. "Use that one good story you'll never forget, that you can carry forever. Let your story take odd turns and wear a few surprising marks, make sure it belongs to you, so you can keep it secret." Father kneeled, putting our faces close... "I want to show you something special," he said. "Something rare." I tried to imagine what that might be. "No," he warned. "You can't guess." Inside the gray building was a diamond wall...A projected sky floated above us. It wasn't our sky, alive with metal and light. Nothing about the grayness was wet and nothing looked alive. I had never seen a sadder piece of ground. "This was our world," Father said. "When I was your age." I touched the diamond wall. He watched my hand jump back. "Hot," I said. He laughed quietly. I shook my burnt hand, and it felt better. "Our world was this. The entire planet was a furnace. Acidic. Dead in so many ways. And I was your age." I was bored with the dead world. I looked at Father's face, asking, "Can we leave?" He started to reach for my hair again but decided not to. I was bored with everything. "When I was your age, people thought they knew almost everything. We had scientific laws and human truths, even a model of the universe. People carried pictures of the past and tried to have a clear vision of their difficult future. I didn't know everything, of course. But when I was a boy, I had every expectation of living a smart short life and learning quite a lot more. "Then the Before was finished. "You know why. "That's when everybody, particularly the smartest of us, learned that we knew nothing. We were children and our little ideas were toys, and the universe was cut apart with great ideas and magnificent, immeasurable potentials." Father stopped talking. I stepped away from the hot diamond wall. "Do you know what I wanted to show you?" Father asked. "Dead rock," I said. "Guess again." He wasn't happy with me. We stepped back into the real sun, the real world. I blinked and looked around, surprised by how green and bright everything was. How happy everything was. Even the saddest face was happy. "I know what you want me to see," I said. "Don't tell me," he said. I didn't tell him. [/spoiler] [spoiler]Ingress via dreams alone Things I saw inside A wild river and a broken dam (or maybe it's just the sea crashing through a narrow gap I can't be sure). Waves slam through the gap and where they hit the stone they throw up pillars of spray that pierce the mist and crash down in thunder. There's a giant in the cataract, trying to wade against the current, and I can tell it wants to reach the lever and pull the lever which will seal off the flow or maybe give it the sword, but the torrent throws it back so it just keeps its head down and tries to push on. I can't see the face but it breathes out white smoke. I feel for it hard. A world painted around the interior like a stranger Earth everted and glued inside itself but I don't believe this one it's too much like a metaphor. A switchboard or a train station, empty, dead (waiting). The tunnels branch off into infinity. I stare down one for a long time and see a pale worm move in hungry coils around itself. I think this one is the most likely although I might have brought the worm. An egg but I'm not sure if the broth inside is warm still, or if it's gone to rot, or if the warmth comes from the struggles of the tiny winged zygote or the bleed from the wound or the thoughts of something thinking very hard. A star I think. We count on stars as steady friends because they always rise and always shine but a star's a delicate truce: an explosion caught by its own mass so that it can't erupt and can't collapse. Thus I imagine the state of the machine might be. But one force or another has gone awry and now it rests here, snuffed and broken, waiting for the two rival forms of ruin to be set in balance again.[/spoiler] [spoiler]Dreams of Alpha Lupi You have lived as invisibly as possible, flicking from solar system to solar system, making grand plans, overseeing the culturing of civilizations, before leaving in a blink. But you have no recollection of ever wanting worship or even thanks from those blessed by you. But memory is heavy now. It feels like lead and neutronium and electroweak matter fashioned into a moon-sized ball that you must carry as you move. Now, your flight is rapid, your vast mind infected with such dread and toxic doubt that you find yourself afraid of the simple act of thought. And it is your children you must turn to now, in time of need.[/spoiler] There is some more to be said, I'll be making my own topic once I sort it out.