#The Aultveqna

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The Great Sage needed a moment to compose themselves. “Perhaps I misspoke.” They said, constructing a reply in their head. “The genius of your plan is that you will leave them a while before crushing them. Let them get comfortable. Complacent. Then bam! Get them when they least expect it! Fiendish brilliance, your excellency!” “And how long will I leave them for? How long does it take to get complacent?” Dei leaned against the windowsill, pantomiming deep thought. “About eighty years, I’d say. That’ll do it.” The Aultveqna frowned. “Now, I don’t know much about the lesser species, and I honestly don’t care to know, but doesn’t that amount of time kill a person? What do they call it? ‘Old age’ or something?”

I’ve had basically no time to write because of uni, and I’ve been stuck drafting this chapter forever! I’ve got so much more interesting stuff to write aaaaaa!

#So You've Become An Endling? #So You've Become An Endling #sybae #sybae? #Dei #Great Sage Dei #The Aultveqna

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"We met once, many years ago when the both of us were young. It was quite unlike any diplomatic event I had ever attended before, and remains unparalleled in every event since. I was in their company for five hours, no more and no less, yet that time will live forever in my mind.  They weren't yet of a stature that is in any way imposing, and I can imagine they're still small to this very day. That didn't make them any less of a terrible thing to witness. Of course, the Utai lifespan is a long one; the young god-emperor has untold millennia stretching before them to grow into their robes. But that's none the easier on us, not when the one who holds the lives of so many in their hands will be caught up in awkward adolescent cruelties for lifetimes to come.  I cannot believe that they were born this way, no matter the stock of the foul bubbling broodpool that spawned them. They were coaxed into this shape by the flock of advisers that has thronged them since the day that they rose sputtering onto the poolside. The young Great Sage is among the worst of them, a being who's ambition is only matched by their pettiness.  It makes me terribly angry that such a society should be on top of the universe's hierarchy. Both rampant theocracy and a king's divine rights are something most civilised societies abandoned eons ago. Yet the Utai prevail.  I haven't known peace since the moment our eyes met, and I may never sleep soundly in my roost ever again. The Aultveqna is a creature not to be messed with." - Extract from the memoir of Nemes Yis Mamekm the Woadwinged, 18th Grand Co-ordinator of the Quol Cluster

I seem to be writing more meta text than actual prose these days, and I have meta prepared for many chapters in advance. 

 So... as you can see the Quolech don’t like the Utai much either. I’m just imagining what happened at this diplomatic event that left the Grand Co-ordinator unable to sleep for so long. I’ll probably leave that one to the reader’s imagination...

#So You've Become An Endling? #so you've become an endling #sybae #sybae? #sci fi #scifi #writing #writer #Novel #worldbuilding #world building #alien #alien politics #The Aultveqna #Utai #Utai Culture #Quolech #Quolech Culture #Dei #Great Sage Dei

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The Great Sage Dei was an unusual creature; all sharp cheekbones and contradictions. In theory, they were one of Eeiutai’s highest ranking spiritual leaders, their connection to the Aul almost as deep and profound as the Aultveqna’s.  In practice however, Great Sage Dei was a smarmy, self-serving git with a worryingly mercurial temperament, or at least that’s what Vleive thought.  They’d spent the entire mission meditating alone in their lavishly-decorated private quarters, only slinking out into the workspace to whine or make outlandish requests for food or clothes. Sure, the mission needed a psychic; how else would they look into the human mind? But psychics were not in short supply, and the choice of Dei specifically had been somewhat… unusual.   Of course, it was considered highly treasonous to speculate on matters of the Aultveqna’s heart, but there was no real question on who it beat for. It was practically public knowledge.  To have the apple of the great leader’s eye suddenly and unexpectedly get chosen for a mission of vital importance had turned more than a few heads. Of course, those heads stayed silent on the matter. Most of them were perfectly content to remain attached to their necks, thank you very much.

I’ve really been on a roll today, and I’ve gotten a lot of writing done!

#So You've Become An Endling? #so you've become an endling #sybae? #sybae #writer #writing #The Aultveqna #great sage dei #Utai culture #sci fi #novel

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Out of context minor spoiler for the novel i’m writing: 

News just in! Tyrannical dictator can’t stop giving important jobs and promotions to their utterly useless yet handsome lover. 

 “Give this job to someone else” says everyone on the planet with more than once brain cell.

 Will the dictator listen? No. 

#The Aultveqna #Great Sage Dei #So You've Become An Endling? #so you've become an endling #sybae? #sybae #writer #writing #The Utai regime kinda just undermines itself #Utai culture

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"We had never even heard of a Broodpool Tirn until they arrived. Nobody could point to their nesting site on a map, which led particularly vulgar commentators to theorise that they must have come from somewhere unseemly. But they were in the Undercity on the orders of the reigning Aultveqna, and as old and senile as they were at the time, they were still a force to be reckoned with. The Tirn children were tentatively accepted amongst us, but that didn't mean we gave them an easy time of it. There were two of them, both gifted. The elder child, a type two psychic (or was it type three?), was the most useful and upwardly mobile if I recall. The younger was a type four visionary, though what they had visions of was never quite clear. The younger was always sickly, and the elder was always nursing them back from the brink of something or other. We teased them viciously when the Aultveqna was not around to stop us. We delighted in hurting the younger the most; tossing them into steam pools or stealing their things. This would make the elder terribly angry. They would throw fists, or lunge to bite, but it took centuries before they were big enough to actually scare us away. I'm not quite sure what happened to the elder one in the end, though our bullying must have served them well as they appeared to have made it far in life. They had sagely aspirations, I think, and have been married into so many different broodpools that I have lost track of them. If they are still amongst us, which they very well might be, I don't think I'd be able to recognise them. The second one died young, consumed by the madness inherent to their abilities. Though the elder petitioned the courts to allow them to stay, they were eventually taken away for refitting. They were made into an imagination engine and placed in an amusement house somewhere in one of the seedier parts of the Overstreets, though it appears the device was sold to an offworld buyer some years later." - Extract from Pages 766-767 of "Memoirs of a Great Aulteni: Part II, an Undercity Youth", written by Second Aulteni Baquiel.

Here I am dropping lore onto your dash like a cat drops a dead mouse onto their owner’s doorstep. Might be spoilery, but idk if I’ve posted enough info for people to connect the dots. 

@measlyfurball13

#So You've Become An Endling? #So You've Become An Endling #sybae #sybae? #scifi #sci fi #world building #worldbuilding #alien culture #utai #utai culture

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The Great Sage Deinequet Neiquia Tirn-Vadviven was in capital T Trouble and they knew it. It didn’t show, of course. They’d made sure of that. It was particularly irritating because the trouble wasn’t even their fault this time. Oh no. Some nobody namby-pamby baby had made a little whoopsie, and it was up to the grown ups with power and status to fix it. Well, one of the grown ups. They weren’t quite sure where Abla had gone (probably back to their damp little nest to prod at mushrooms, or whatever it was they did in their excuse for a career). But that was ok. Fewer meaty paws interfering with their delicate web of lies was better in their books. Still, they were glad to be home despite it all. Life on that Aul-forsaken ship really was getting grating. It was so hard to feel complete there, with nobody present to witness them in all their greatness. They needed to be beheld to be whole again; the hungry eyes and gossiping mouths of their public as vital to their existence as meat and drink. It was here, amongst their people, that they felt their most powerful. If a hundred heads turned when they entered a room, then perhaps for a split second they could trick themselves into believing what they said was true. Maybe the universe’s song really did run through their blood, and maybe their eyes really were like collapsing stars. Ordinarily though, nothing. They knew it wasn’t quite true. They wanted it to be true. Of course they did. They’d wanted to be special their entire life, and when they’d learned of their gift then they thought that perhaps they were. But they weren’t, and it wasn’t. They’d meditated on it for longer than many of them had been alive, and found nothing. The universe was a vast screaming void, and the minds of man and beast alike were filled with nothing but dreams of conquest. It was a vision that had weighed heavy on their heart since the day they had it, and the struggle to fill the aching oblivion with trinkets and shiny things was a battle they hadn’t yet won. A part of them wondered if the other sages could feel it too. Behind the piety and plastic smiles they had to know, right? That all of it was made up. Still, it was a grift, and a good one at that. With all the power and privilege divinity afforded them, they’d be fools to tell the truth. Without it, they’d never have been given such access to the Aultveqna, and their relationship would never have blossomed into the monstrous leviathan it had become. It'd been so long that they'd forgotten how much of it was real and how much of it was just keeping up appearances, not that it mattered. What was real anyway? What could possibly matter in a cold and indifferent universe?

I’ve kinda just diverted from the plot to go into Dei’s character a bit. My guy now has a full name and vaguely psychic-flavoured gifted kid burnout syndrome. I like giving my bit players complicated motivations, especially antagonists. They’ve got a lotta character development coming up, and it essentially amounts to them learning (or re-learning) sympathy the hard way.

 By the way, edgy “I’m 14 and this is deep” nihilism is just Dei’s thing, and not the stance of the story as a whole. The universe is vast and lacking in guidance, yes, but can be beautiful to those who have kindness in their hearts. Dei just thinks there’s nothing there because they’ve never learned to play nice. Enlightenment is a mirror, not a lens, and you’ve got to be the change you want to see in the world. 

#So You've Become An Endling? #So You've Become An Endling #sybae #sybae? #Dei #Great Sage Dei #writer #writing #scifi #sci fi #quote

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With that, the great and terrible god-emperor was placated, and they returned to sitting on their throne and gazing at their holoslides. The way they sat in the chair irked Dei in a way they struggled to process. It was an ancient throne; hundreds of thousands of years old. It was to be sat on with dignity, and splaying tentacles out over one of the arm rests was not dignified in the slightest. If Dei was sat on that throne they’d sit on it properly. Or at least install a tentacle rest. Something tasteful, only minimally jewel-encrusted. Maybe just turn the whole thing into a recliner. That was dignified, wasn’t it? No! What the hell were they even thinking? Still, it bothered them regardless. These days Dei cared little for the Utai establishment. It was means to an end. Whatever. But they couldn’t help be bothered by lingering traces of centuries-old memories. Of an Aultveqna before the one they knew now; a truly colossal creature who ran the planet like a well oiled machine. They were cruel, totally and endlessly so. Righteous, venomous rage incarnate. These were the days when Dei still knew to recognise cruelty, and recognise it they did. That Aultveqna had sat on the throne with a twisted dignity, inspiring a sort of divine reverence beyond any sort Dei had ever felt. They were a force of nature. But that Aultveqna had collapsed under their own mountainous bulk like a soufflé, and their replacement was a petulant, mercurial fool who lived for empty shows of force and used the arms of the imperial throne as tentacle rests.

I have been stuck on the first third of this book for months!!! Aaaarg!!! Half the main characters are still yet to be introduced. Still, I’m mostly free from uni until Autumn now, so I should have enough quality writing time to actually get this plot moving. 

#So You've Become An Endling? #sybae #writing #writer #scifi #sci fi #novel #wip

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I’m working on “So You’ve Become An Endling?” again, and I’ve come up with a piece of lore too good to not share. Please excuse all the weird sci-fi words.

The Utai destroyed the Ulzacaxi homeworld when their developing trade empire encroached into Utai space. The Ulzacaxi were fairly undeveloped at the time, and it was considered incredibly unwarranted and inappropriate for the Utai to do this. In fact, many historians mark the destruction of Ulzacax to be the start of the Ulzacaxi's brutishness and colonial efforts. 

The surviving Ulzacaxi were so incensed by the destruction of their home world that they commandeered a ship and flew it to Eeiutai, landing straight on the roof of the Great Halls and interrupting that day's proceedings. One of the raiding party named Muxrex pulled out a bow and shot an arrow straight through the skull of the current reigning Aultveqna (The Utai head of state), killing them instantly. The raiding party were able to escape in the ensuing confusion, and from then on Muxrex was known as Ta-Muxrex (meaning "Muxrex the honoured"). 

The simple phrase "Arrow of Ta-Muxrex" has become somewhat of a litmus test for anti-Utai sentiment. The phrase is slipped into conversation, and a person's allegiances can be discovered from how they react. It is more used in Utai resistance movements, as the Utai would consider it close to treason to refer to the assassin using the Ta- prefix. 

Tarax, an Ulzacaxi pilot, owns a ship informally known as the Arrow of Ta-Muxrex, though the vessel is registered legally under the far less politically-charged name "Daddy's Money".

  Interestingly, Tarax is an Ulzacaxi who would never want to receive the honoured prefix, as "Ta-Tarax" is too close to "Tatarax", an Ulzacaxi swear word referring to a person born out of a marriage with an insufficient number of partners (Ulzacaxi custom dictates at least three). Basically, Tarax can never do anything too heroic, lest he become a 'bastard'.

#So You've Become An Endling? #so you've become an endling #sybae #sybae? #lore #worldbuilding #alien worldbuilding #scifi #sci fi #science fiction #writer #writing #Tarax #Ta-Muxrex #Ulzacax #Ulzacaxi Culture #alien culture #Arrow of Ta-Muxrex #Yes I did just come up with this to justify why one of my protagonists is just a shithead #what of it?