Project Daedalus

Monmigut

2011-12-28T11:01:00.000-08:00

The number of gods who survived the destruction of Peladokus has always been a bit of a point of pointless contention among scholars. While the traditional numbers vary from 26 to 72, it is in fact believed by modern scholars to be much higher: aproaching several hundred survivors. What is agreed upon though is that certain gods did or did not survive. Likely the 40 gods immortalized in the poem 'Monmigut' are simply the ones who survived not only the serpent's mouth, but also the trials of wandering in the bitter fields, and the slow death of obscurity. Even without a sense of factual certainty, 'Monmigut' is useful both as entertainment, as a religious traditional text, and as a gateway to another era.

Monmigut ate the crystal towers and the marble walks.
Monmigut ate the bronze doors.
Monmigut ate fathers and grandfathers.
He ate neices and nephews,
and aunts and uncles, and boys and girls,
and frogs and dogs and cats and logs -

the jaws approached swiftly and destroyed what the gods had made.
The houses and manors, the parks and gardens, the markets and forums:
Food for the jaws.
A city in one bite: Monmigut;
Peladokus Lost.
A world in one bite: Monmigut;
All is lost...

but three who fell from off the wall,
one who slipped between the teeth,
twelve huntsmen riding far,
two lovers hiding in a glenn,
a poet lost, a porter fast,
a bookbinder and a beekeeper,
eight farmers and eight widows,
the madman exiled from the city,
and the babe left to die of exposure.

Fourty of fourty thousand.
Seventy six tears were shed for the city;
there was time for no more.
One tear for each each eye, but the madman grinned
and babe did not know what had passed.

The babe would not remember, but the rest could not forget:
Monmigut!

The Journey of Two-Handed Baboon: The Frog Eater

2010-04-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

A long way down the road, out of the forest and across the mountains, coming upon a bridge, Two-Handed Baboon began to tire. He had not counted on the men living so far away. He was thirsty and the bridge seemed like a nice place to stop and grab a drink, so he walked down beside the bridge, toward the narrow but deep stream that ran beneath the bridge and squiggled off over the horizon and out of sight. There he dipped his face and drank deep of the clear running water. After drinking his fill, Two-Handed Baboon sat back against the bank, under a shade tree and watched the flies dip down to the stream. The warm wind blew, the flies buzzed, and, tired from travel, Two-Handed Baboon drifted into a light afternoon nap.

While he slept, he dreamed he was floating on a river. The river was long and straight and passed through many strange lands filled with strange creatures. He watched as each land one sailed by, more marvelous and fantastic than the last, until, far ahead he saw the land of the men. Closer and closer the river pushed him to his destination. He was almost there when a blur and a splash brought him back to his body. A long, large green snout poked out of the water onto the bank, and from behind it deep slitted eyes stared at him. Half of a recently dead frog hung from its jaws. It tilted back its head and swallowed the frog before re-fixing Two-Handed Baboon with its stare.

"Hello" Two-Handed Baboon said as he waved to the creature, "what is your name?"

The creature blinked with two eyelids. Slowly then he said "Frog...Eater."

"I am Two-Handed Baboon" he said the the creature.

The Frog Eater blinked. Two-Handed Baboon scratched his head. A fly Buzzed. The stream ran. The Frog Eater blinked.

"So, I'm traveling to find the home of the men. What do you do here?" Two-Handed Baboon said.

"Eat....Frogs".

The Frog Eater blinked.

Brilliant, thought Two-Handed Baboon, This creature is a scholar! He understands things so deeply, that his every action transforms his identity. He transcends his old self each moment!

Two-Handed Baboon became self-conscious, having only transcended once. He was certainly not ready to hear the wisdom of The Frog Eater, not until he was wiser. Embarrassment filled Two-Handed Baboon, he mumbled about getting on with his travels, grabbed his deer leg-bone and went off in a hurry across the bridge. As Two-Handed Baboon disappeared around a bend in the road, The Frog Eater watched him, and blinked.

The Journey of Two-Handed Baboon: The Baboon with Two Hands

2010-04-12T11:23:00.001-07:00

This is a work in progress - more to come

Two-Handed Baboon began life as any baboon begins life: a baboon pregnancy followed by baboon birth. By all accounts, Two-Handed Baboon was a regular baboon, with - as his name suggests - two hands, which is normal for baboons. It would seem to follow then that the name Two-Handed Baboon is meaningless, without a regular context for baboons with a number of hands different than two, and that he should simply be called baboon, like all other baboons, but making that assumption requires the observer to overlook one key detail: one day, while eating a mouse, Two-Handed Baboon came to realize he had two hands. After this realization, he tried to share his knowledge with his baboon gang. Not one of the other baboons cared or understood what it meant to have two hands. Two-Handed Baboon tried to go back to his everyday life, but in everything he did he was constantly reminded that he had two hands. He felt disconnected, and knew that the other baboons were not like him, and that he could not be happy as a baboon. Remembering from long ago, Two-Handed Baboon thought of the men who had walked through the forest. They had been different than baboons, and also had two hands. They wore coverings over their bodies, and carried objects of power. They knew many secrets. Two-Handed Baboon decided to find where the men lived, and to join them, so that he might know secrets also, and so that he would have the company of equals.

Two-Handed Baboon fashioned a skirt from leaves and picked up a leg-bone from a deer skeleton, to use as a cane, before leaving his home. He did these things because he knew that finding the men would only be half of the journey - between his old life and his future, and that when he found the men, he would need to be more than a baboon. The road was long and Two-Handed Baboon began walking.

Death and the God of Lost Causes

2010-02-26T12:52:00.000-08:00

They meet every Thursday afternoon in the park, because Death doesn't mind the company and the god has to be true to his nature. They grab a coffee and sit down at one of those little chess tables, though they never play. Instead, they watch the people walking in the park, and on the street, and make plans to meet throughout the week. Death takes on many appearances: in each meeting comes as a different person. The god is always the same. He is an old balding man, wearing an old worn out sweater - olive usually - and pants that threaten to swallow him whole. His face is heavy and wrinkled; the skin on his chin hangs loose with the goose hair stubble that grows in hospitals. His eyes are deep and brown and are filled with compassion along with a surprising amount of youth and strength. Death enjoys approaching the meeting as new person every time, and seeing if the god recognizes him. Death comes to these meetings out of curiosity. The god comes because he has no choice. Still, the two are civil, forever is too long to bicker. The god comes to ask for life. Death can not concede. And so they schedule. They will meet in an alley sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning where the god will look for an exit. They will meet on a bridge late Friday night where the god will try to give some hope. They will meet countless times in the hospital, where the god silently pleads as the tragedies tick away. Still, at each scheduled stop, Death performs his duty and smiles. Death smiles because, when the god's compassion overcomes his own senses and leaves him lying feeble with grief, Death can hold him as he cries.

After the jump....

2010-02-26T12:51:00.000-08:00

...sporadic at best... again.

The Serpents and The Gods

2009-07-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

This text was taken from 'A Moral History of Existence' written in the middle 100's by an unknown author. Many scholars believe the author to be a monk who lived in a monastery somewhere in the province of Ru. Because of this, he has come to be known simply as The Monk of Ru, and has had many texts philosophical, religious, and instructional (possibly erroneously) attributed to his name.

To call the place formed by the corpse of Something the bitter fields is misleading. The world was not called this due to the prevalence of grasslands within it. In actuality the bitter fields are called such because in the infinite grey recesses, beings of strange forms emerge inexplicably, like crops from the earth. Many of these being defy explanation, and, before clocks and calendars and weekends, they churned against each other eating and being eaten. This churning pitted infinity against itself, and allowed no peace within the world. Of the creatures to form in this world, only the great and clever were able to persist, and of these, the greatest were the serpents and the most clever were the gods.

The serpents were very large, very powerful creatures, but they possessed animalistic intelects. Because of this combination, often they would grow so long that they would forget where their tails were. This did not trouble the serpents because they knew that only another serpent would have jaws strong enough to injure them, and they avoided each other's hunting grounds. Still, the longest of serpents would circle back centuries later, and, upon seeing their own tail, think it the tail of a rival, bite it, and tear themselves apart. The amazing aspect of the serpents though was that they were also natural magicians. Often times their coiling would mirror the exchange, and sections of their long bodies would fall out of the bitter field all together, to occupy some other space.

The gods, not unlike humans, thrived by virtue of cooperation, and in the midst of the terrible churning were able to build Peladokus, the first city. Inside Peladokus, the gods studied many things, and over time some of them learned secret things from echoes, and others found remnants of the exchange in the action of the churning: some of the gods became magicians, and others grew wise. The gods who held the wall of the city became great warriors and the gods that gave themselves over to passion became great artists and lovers.

All of this happened and Peladokus flourished. Peladokus was the gem of the world, and it was all the gods cared for, until it was eaten by Monmigut, a great blind serpent. Few of the gods survived, and the wise men among them discovered something first-hand: it is better to be great than to be clever.

Getting Farther Off Topic

2009-06-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

No-one has seen beyond the horizon, and winds can only carry so many whispers.

There are many beginnings we know of, and most likely many more that have been forgotten or never even known. So, it is with this knowledge that we set down what happened in our history, and we attempt to go back all of the way to the first beginning. Certainly there is a beginning which came before, but allow us the privilege of calling our oldest known beginning the first.

The First Beginning

First, there were two brothers: Something and Nothing. They together were Everything and they were one and the same. Regularly, Something would become Nothing and Nothing would become Something. This switch was the oldest ritual, known as The Exchange. This entire system was called Potential.

Sometimes, instead of practicing The Exchange, Something and Nothing would create an idea and place it inside of Something or Nothing, depending on what it was or wasn't. So, at one point, instead of practicing The Exchange, Something and Nothing created Separation. Separation did not fit in either set, so it lay down between Something and Nothing.

Separation prevented Something and Nothing from practicing The Exchange and appeared to have put an end to Potential.

For a very long time Something, stuck as Something, continued to create things to fill only himself, while Nothing, stuck as Nothing, became more and more bitter. Eventually, Nothing and Something no longer remembered they were brothers and viewed each other as the enemy from across Separation: Something recognized the bitterness which had consumed Nothing, and Nothing saw only Something's senseless pursuit of more.

Nothing plotted to kill Something.

Nothing approached Something when he was distracted with creation and, using The Exchange, wounded Something. Something's Blood poured out, half on either side of separation. One half the blood pooled around Nothing and the other half stewed upon Something's dieing form. The corpse of Something bloated and tainted the blood. This tainted blood created a bitter field, filled with monsters. Nothing, in his killing of Something, had finally bridged Separation and felt great sorrow for Something. He took the blood that pooled around him and, using the Exchange for the last time, created a world within himself as a shrine for his dead brother. This world was entirely empty, and its form was that of penance.

Together, the bitter field and the world made of sorrow, divided by the primordial force of Separation, were the beginnings of our world. All of this happened before the gods. The world that was created was called Potential.

Jellyfloats

2009-04-27T21:13:00.000-07:00

Imagine lighter-than-air robots, made in the form of jellyfish. Drifting about in a room, they would turn the air into water. Spun from plastics, filled with gases, and printed with circuits, they would emerge into life from the spawning machine like soap bubbles. They are initially indeterminate, then become something real and frequently flawed, floating about, gently undulating. They might flex to the touch, but only to a point - often breaking on a finger leaving behind a lifeless husk as its helium soul departs. More can be spun, but the spawning machine breathes only borrowed life and fleeting freedom. Creating creatures out of air in a world like ours is somewhat immoral.

The needed fix

2009-04-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

Project Daedalus was intitially started with a vision that far out shines its current splender. I am coming back to trim the weeds that have choked this story blog for some time and to apoligize for allowing my vision to dissapate long before my first post. Project Daedalus is indeed the story of a probe exploring first contact, but it is also much more than that: it is a place designed to celebrate things that fly, not only in space, or in our atmosphere, but also in our hearts. Project Daedalus is being redesignated, or maybe reclaimed, as a place to prove that ideas - both near and far can be lighter than air. The story of the probe is still a story I would still like to tell, but I am revoking its grasp upon this blog. The story will now be told as it should be - not in an exacting manner, but rather in pulses received from a distant star. The transmissions are mixed and delayed. Do not look to Houston for guidance. The ground has lost control.

Brief Description of Probe

2009-02-25T18:27:00.000-08:00

The probe is defined by it's spherical nose-cone and cylindrical fuselage. When all instruments are retracted, it resembles a very large, wingless dragonfly. The front of the sphere is thicker than the rear parts of the assembly, shielded because of the higher particle collision rate of the front and also for a single use atmospheric entry. The ability to function over a small area after entry is one of the most impressive features of the Project Daedalus probes. Unfortunately, because of the time invested in travel and the inability of the probes to return to space after atmospheric entry, the option to land was more tantalizing than utilized. In fact, the AI that regulates the probe in the absence of human commands (essential due to increasing communication delays over larger distances) does not even have the capacity to initialize the entry sequence.

Each probe was equipped with an extensive list of sensors and tools. The midsection of the fuselage contains two retracting solar panels. On the rear of the front sphere are several compartments that house a three-jointed arm, a camera, a microphone, an EM antennae, a microscope and a gas spectrometer.

The solar panels are used to power the shuttle inside of solar systems and to drive the instruments when stationary. For higher speeds in deep space, a nuclear explosion engine is used. The effects of the nuclear test ban treaty prohibited the use of the nuclear engines within the solar system. It was these restrictions that led the developers to opt for a two power source option. This configuration also allows for operation even if on of the systems are compromised, adding even more durability to a probe that depends on continuous operation without any servicing or maintenance.

Project Daedalus Launch

2009-02-23T23:09:00.000-08:00

The probes designed over 250 years ago for the Project Daedalus Systematic Unmanned Space Exploration were truly beautiful. Like all well build devices, their technology at no point out shined their pragmatism, durability and style, but likewise was not insufficient. Each Project Daedalus probe was capable of operating without human intervention: all man had to do was to get them into orbit. This was still a tremendous task though, seeing that 5,000 of these probes, each about as large as a refrigerator and five times as heavy, were to be launched. Of the initial 5,000 probes only a lucky 3,432 actually made it into space. At a raw materials cost of over $30,000, the excess probes were adapted for other programs when it became clear that launching them was no longer possible. Twenty three of the probes were taken into orbit each launch. It took a better part of a decade to get the ones that did make the launch from the pad to orbit. From there they all went their separate ways, each probe to travel no less than 100 years away from earth. This project was monumental in its scope - both chronologically and spatially. It was a true investment in the future. With a probe survival half life of 400 years, it was an investment that promised to have great returns for the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of the visionaries that began it. Project Daedalus' first launch, September 26th, 2042 was the date that humanity became serious about space.

Space

2009-02-23T23:02:00.000-08:00

Like all good Scots, I have an affliction known as the wanderlust. But this wanderlust carries ambitions that those before have lacked though. My wanderlust is lust for the stars, and not even love of home can bring me back again.