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[Tamiroth]

Compiled from the old thread at IGS - http://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=127037



28:VI:CXIV A.Y.

Once Were Warriors

I stand on the land of my ancestors. The wind blows across the endless steppe, the waist-high grass covers the burial mounds many thousand years old. The bright star shines in the golden sky. When I was born, my father gave me the name of that star, the evening star of Athra. He served His Majesty and died honorably, protecting us from the barbarians, the cultists and the insane.

The menhirs of the ancient warriors sleep in the soft golden light of the sunset. Once my people rode across the plains, fierce and bloodthirsty. The names of our Khans, the Lords of War, made the world tremble with fear. We pillaged and razed the cities of civilized nations, toppling the spires of gold. We massacred peasant and prince alike, leaving no survivor taller than a wagon wheel.

And yet we were subdued with a word. From a book written by outlanders.

Why?

Some might say that the alliance between Amarr and Khanid was a product of realpolitik, made of pure pragmatism, that allowed the newborn Empire - now with the best warriors on the planet at its disposal - to gain foothold on the mainland and, eventually, to crush the Udorian states.

But the wise understand that the ever-bubbling cauldron of deceit that is political struggle is also a tool of God. In this cauldron, the wicked defeat themselves, while the pure meet challenges to harden their faith and find a place in Heaven.

In the end of times, would it even matter who conquered what?

But the Faith will matter.

Because the hope and the sense of order and greater meaning to all things, to death, to life, to the entire cosmos, the understanding of higher truth, are as important to man as food and water. Without hope, there is nothing to fight for. Without the immortal soul, there are only brief pleasures of flesh and, very soon, inescapable death. Without the Maker, there is only Chaos.

Without Faith, there is no Man, there is only Beast.

Subdued? No.

We just were animals no more.

[Tamiroth]

2:VII:CXIV A.Y.

When God Wields a Khumaak

A sword does not need to know what it cuts. It needs to be sharp.
A locust does not need to know whose field it feeds upon. It needs to be hungry.
A tribe of savage heathens does not need to see God's Light to be a tool in His hands.

To punish the wicked.
To descend on the weak whose master is sin.

The sin of pride.

You.

The immortal, who thinks that the world was created to serve you alone.

Remember.

When those who were Chosen turn to the Beast,

When those born to enlighten instead enslave,

When the gold turns crimson with the blood of the innocents

And the Horned Skull laughs,

God wields a Khumaak.

[Tamiroth]

4:VII:CXIV A.Y.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

"The gates of paradise will open for you one time only;
woe to the soul who dares to knock twice."
- Book of Missions

"Rejoice, o chosen of God
For our blood fills this Valley of Death,
Proclaiming our sacrifice"
- St.Junip

"When thine heart shines with the Light, thou shalt know no hardship;
When thine actions are in Light's name, thou art immortal."
- Book of Trials

* * *

When they came to me to tell that I may be of great use to the Empire, I was speechless. Most of my time on Amarr Prime was spent studying history (I was lucky that father allowed me) and whatever meager management skills were necessary to run the small estate I was going to inherit.

And now I had the choice to become one of the most powerful - and most feared... things in the cluster.

One of the soulless immortals that roam the skies.

Fear gripped my soul that was soon to be lost forever. I cried and prayed to God to see the right path with my blind eyes of a sinner.

"You should not." - a voice said to me. - "Abandon everything and run home. Live the rest of your life like you ought to. They can do nothing to you."

"But they can." - said another voice. - "There is a war going on that depends on capsuleers, and the Ministry already has the file with your DNA sample. They will never leave you alone."

"This is your chance." - the third voice whispered. - "Your only chance to avenge your father and countless others. In a year, you'll be steering an Armageddon, raining destruction on tribals and blooders. Accept your destiny now before they force it down your throat in a less pleasant manner."

But... but...

I did not want to become a mad thing in the sky, only to die forever - sooner or later, becoming a package of garbled data that failed to revive the next clone. Without His light and without salvation, like a drone breaking down.

But then from my narrow window I saw the golden light of dawn as it broke over the spires of Dam-Torsad, and everything just fell into place.

The mission of a simple faithful is to follow the teachings of the Scriptures in this life, knowing his place in the grand scheme of things, and to preserve own soul from sin, preparing for the eternal life to come.

If he is called to sacrifice himself for the greater good, death is nothing: because the reward that is the glory of Heaven awaits him.

But can one sacrifice the salvation of his own soul for the greater good, so that countless others may see the light and be saved?

I was a person of words. A student of ancient history and colony management. Heir to a small plantation, born to spend my life breeding four- and two-legged livestock on the outskirts of the Kingdom, raising children and having tea parties with boring neighbours.

I could only hope that the answer is "yes" and, through the ultimate sacrifice, there may still be redemption. 

[Tamiroth]

16:VII:CXIV A.Y.

What's in a Name

It's rather funny to be named after a planet, even if it's only a second name.

When I was a child, I thought that somewhere, in the heart of the galaxy, not far from the throne of the God-Emperor, is my planet. A world that i have magic connection to, a place where every wish comes true. A place where the broken toys and dead furriers go - surely, God can't let a drone or a furrier to his Heaven (Heaven is only for good people), but my magic planet is not heaven - it's just my secret magic planet. When the God-Emperor Heideran (i imagined him as a kind great-grandfather) lays to sleep, my planet shines through the windows of his palace, and there is peace and harmony in the universe.

When the days of home education started and the aged Ni-Kunni retainer taught me about the layout of the Throne Worlds, I discovered that my secret planet actually was a small oceanic world, very warm, with a low-ish gravity - less than half standard. I rejoiced: sea always fascinated me, and my secret planet was one big ball of warm water! Of course, there should be mysterious small islands (to house the toys, the furriers and the pirates), rainbows, mermaids, Jovian treasure buried on the sea floor, sunken Takmahl cities... I spent days drawing detailed maps of my world. After those were ready, I announced to the family that when i grow up, i'll not be a spaceship captain like Daddy. I'll be just a ship captain on my planet. Therefore, i need to learn how to: a) swim, b) surf, c) fence, d) set sail, e) climb ropes! The appropriate instructors must be hired as soon as possible! Also, my planet has low gravity, so my ship will have wings and will sometimes fly! The parents laughed, but I was allowed to go swimming three times a week.

Then came the school. The girls were teasing me mercilessly; "Tammy's fat like a planet", "Look, what's on Tammy's face? A nova? No, it's the evening star!", "Sailor Tamiroth reporting in for great justice" and other pearls like these followed me through the first years. The references to that stupid Gallentean holoreel series where each girl in the crew is named after a planet were especially annoying. But when the school hours ended, i had an entire imaginary world to return to.

During the later years I asked the group supervisor to register me by my other name only, so I was simply Alet Azaph. Old maps with mermaids and rainbows quietly gathered dust somewhere in the storage room. But our land bordered the great lake Nasamih, and I did learn to swim, surf, fence, set sail, climb ropes and many other things. Skydiving over the lake was awesome. One day, I told to myself, I'll fly through the skies of my planet and set sail in the endless ocean of my dreams, with the golden star of Amarr Prime above.

Not long before I left for the Empire to study, a boy, son of a neighbour's retainer, fell in love with me. He even hacked into the school's database to know more about me. Of course, father would kill me if I allowed anything to happen, so I didn't, and we spent our time together as friends, though we both knew everything without saying a word to each other.

Once, we sat on a hill overlooking the lake. Danera sunk below the horizon, and thousands of stars filled the sky. Here, far away from the lights of the estate, even the Vapor Sea was visible, a pale glittering cloud of smoke upon the barely discernible band of the galaxy itself. It was nothing comparable to the false-color imagery the pod interface feeds me now, but then, on the hills over Nasamih, it seemed to be one of the things you remember for the rest of your life.

"You never told me about your second name." - said the boy.

"You never asked."

"It is the most awesome name in universe. It is beautiful. Like a star. Like you."

I smiled in the dark and gave him a hand, and we watched the sky together.

This was the last day I saw him, and the day was after that was the last day I saw my father as he was leaving for the naval base.

Soon, I left too, to see the heart of the cluster and my secret world and to be changed forever.

But I'll write about it later.

[Tamiroth]

22:VII:CXIV A.Y.

What's in a Name - Finale

...I didn't set foot on "my" planet until the second year in the Royal Amarr Insitute, when I was 17. I entered RIN not as a future capsuleer, but as one of the myriad baseliner students. The education cost us a small fortune - enough to build a Punisher-class frigate from scratch, I believe.

It was summer. Though there is no difference between seasons when you spend most of your time in an orbital city the size of a small moon. I and several other students took a ten day vacation to Amarr. After six days of exploring the holy places, the imperial capital and other common sightseeing, I boarded a shuttle to Tamiroth.

Of course, I knew everything about the planet and expected nothing. It was a ritual, a symbolic act of completion, closing the circle of life. I took nothing with me, only the tiny memory crystal that contained my childhood drawings - of the lush islands, pirates, mermaids, rainbows and the beautiful winged ships.

When the little craft entered the low orbit and began the long descent into the atmosphere, a surreal, mystic feeling visited me. It is if as everything I imagined, the world of my dreams that never existed, was washed away and faded, one layer after another.

A beautiful emerald covered with cloud swirls, snow-white and golden, has transformed into a foggy cup, boiling with fierce hurricanes over the brass sea below; the shuttle was falling into the middle of that cup. Then, the all-cleansing plasma of atmospheric re-entry engulfed the ship, and the fake observation windows went black, like a coffin closed.

AMARR IV (TAMIROTH)

The planet is covered by the warm, even overheated, but relatively shallow ocean with highly mineralized water. Tropical and equatorial zones are uninhabitable because of the runaway greenhouse effect caused by the water vapors. In fact, most of the planet's atmosphere is water vapor; giant cloud masses form over the equator and drift up towards poles, where they fall out in a torrents of rain never seen elsewhere.There is no indigenious life, except the gene-modded terraforming bacteria that fill the ocean. The terraforming project slowly moves forward, and you can already breathe the air, at least in the polar regions.

Low gravity and shallow water give birth to the storms otherwise unimaginable. The waves tower like slowly moving liquid mountains, like glassy cathedrals of divine wrath. The air is ablaze with electrical currents, the invisible sky covered with lightning nets.

The few families of True Amarr holders with lineages going back to the first Reclaiming own most of the planet. Like everywhere else in the Amarr system, you can't legally buy or sell real estate on any noticeable scale. It is called "not available for the general public." Even surveying the resources is forbidden. Everytime I see the message "Amarr IV (Tamiroth) is not available for the general public" in my neocom, i still grin a little.

There are numerous sea resorts around the poles in the "cool zone". The owners of those resorts tout the mineralized ocean waters of Tamiroth as a divine gift and a cure for every disease, but as someone who spent several days fiercely scratching every inch of my then-natural skin after a few minutes of swimming, i'd say that the healing and rejuvenating effect of this mineral soup is highly exaggerated. People from Amarr Prime, Oris and the orbitals flock to those resorts like flies though.

Otherwise, the planet is dead and inhospitable, and there is nothing to see.

* * *

I booked a room on one of the resort platforms that looked like a pyramid of gold, white and glass with my RIN student card and rented a small yacht. Next morning, just before the sun rose, I sailed away from the platform towards the horizon.

The sea was calm, a sheet of brass foil under the tan sky, pinkish towards the sunrise. The stars on the western half of the sky were barely visible because of all the humidity. The air was hot and literally wet, but yet thin, and my head went dizzy after a hour or two. It was hard to breathe.

By noon, I reached a shallow with a flash beacon of some kind sitting in its middle, the only landmark in the watery wasteland. I anchored my yacht near the beacon and descended into the waters of Tamiroth. Old Sailor Tammy reached her final destination, the end of the journey.

The water was warm and very salty, sour ar the lips. It doesn't feel refreshing, perhaps, because the mineral composition didn't match the human body somehow. Below, in the dim haze, was the dead sea floor. Though it wasn't entirely dead: soon I noticed something that looked like clumps of ugly orange fungi. Above them the water was slightly bubbling with tiny sparks of gas, like champagne. The colonies of terraforming bacteria slowly continued their centuries-long work.

* * *

Then, I laid on the deck, clinging to the warm fake wood for awhile. The copper sun above covered my naked skin with ornaments of salt, making me a tattooed warrior of some unborn tribe. The memory drive in a waterproof case hung from my neck on a thin metallic chain.

I took it off, kissed slightly and let it go into the ocean. The crystal gave off few faint sparks as it was descending below the yacht, and everything was over.

It was a fairly stupid gesture, I know. I borrowed it from some holoreel I saw when I was a schoolgirl. But then, on Tamiroth, I felt that it was necessary to complete the circle, to make the final peace with all my furriers and mermaids. To lay my childhood to rest in the waters of my secret magic planet that was neither secret nor magic anymore.

By that time I already knew that my father was dead. His cruiser, HMS Gardens of the Faithful, was lost on December 25th, when the fleets of the Kingdom launched a massive attack against the Covenant. The Ministry of War already had its eyes on me, and the offer was already made.

In the cold, harsh world that I was about to enter, there was no place for childish dreams, and I knew that the only things that await me in the star-filled sky above are war, hatred, madness and death.

So be it.

[Tamiroth]

26:VII:CXIV A.Y

The Greater Purpose

"In the beginning all things were as one.
God parted them and breathed life into his creation
Divided the parts and gave each its place
And unto each, bestowed purpose."

Once, long ago, I had a dream. From the sole source of light in the endless void my soul flew forward into the darkness, like an arrow launched aimless. Galaxies formed around me, their glow changing from blue to crimson. Stars flickered, like innumerable candles in the cosmic cathedral. The voice of God, the cosmic tide, whispered to me the sacred mysteries of creation. I pierced swirlng clouds of cold gas, fields of formless dark matter. The universe expanded, growing larger - or it's just I who was getting smaller, slowing down with the time itself.

Everything around me, everything I saw and felt, had its purpose, from the most tiny particle to the galaxy thousand light years wide, every physical constant forethought and put together in a grand wondrous clockwork. Every beam of light, every atom and every star sung the glory of God.

Then, I saw a beautiful planet. Like a jewel wrought by a celestial artisan, with oceans of sapphire and land of gold, it laid before me, surrounded with the angelic glow of a great nebula. It was the home God gave to his people, the true Promised Land in New Eden, and it had a name: Athra.

And there I saw a vast plain, and upon it a few savage people, living their simple lives, unenlightened and short. But yet, there was honor and greatness in them. And, like everything else in the universe, they had a purpose bestowed upon them by God, even though they didn't know it.

Those were my ancestors, the Khanid.

* * *

To those who lived before me and whose blood I inherit, the glory I sing!

When the wicked Udorians sought to spread their foul depravity through Assimia, it were my people who first raised the sword to stop them and purify the lands they tainted. Even without the light of one true faith in their souls, but ready for it, those ancient Khanid were truely guided by God to their great destiny as the hearts of those noble warriors refused the Udorian sin. And when the golden sails bearing the sacred symbol appeared on the horizon, our destiny found us.

Like the True Amarr are chosen to carry the sceptre of a ruler and the book of a priest to cultivate the spirit of man, so we, the Khanid, are chosen to carry the sword of a warrior to sever the wicked and the unrepentant. By His will through the innumerable worlds we tread, cleansing them of chaos. Our path is the glorious path of holy war, the most honorable path of a Knight. We are His sword, the ever-burning sword of the Reclaiming. Through our ancestry, our greatness is predestined, our purpose clear, and our faith is adamant and always will be.

In every Khanid, now and ever, the spark of divine purpose burns, and it tells us His words:

"I give to you the destiny of Faith,
And you will bring its message to every planet of every star in the heavens:
Go forth, conquer in my Name, and reclaim that which I have given."

And I, one of billions that lived, that live and that will live, am proud to hear it.

[Tamiroth]

29.VII.CXIV A.Y.

Sweet Home

The patch of Khanid highsec that connects to Kor-Azor through Kulu and Nakredge is isolated from the rest of the Kingdom by two low security systems, Rilera and Tegheon. Only three systems in this patch have stations in them - Palas, the local "capital", the neighboring Safshela, and Danera, which sits in a center of a small cluster of five systems with no orbital docking facilities.

Economically, this Palas-Danera pocket is much more dependent on heighboring Amarr regions than on the Kingdom itself. There are only few jumps from Palas to Amarr, so the local market is poor to non-existant, unlike the Khanid Prime-Agil area. Even for a non-capsuleer ship, with all the slow aligning, snail's pace acceleration and gate queues it would take less than 12 hours to reach Amarr Prime. (By the way, have you ever watched a baseliner civilian transport undock and align for warp? It's worse than watching paint dry or grass grow. It's continental drift, no less.)

Politically however, the Kingdom maintains a strong presence there. Four of the six local stations are huge naval bases and assembly plants. Local Khanid Navy representatives' offices are placed very conveniently, so an upstart freelance mercenary starts at Danera IV-1 with assignment levels 1 and 2, then progresses to level 3 at Danera IV-9, where a special tasks agent is also found. And, once his skills have matured enough, a level 4 agent at Palas II awaits him.

* * *

I was born on Danera V. This world was once a smallish ice planet with little to no atmosphere. When the Empire began to colonize the region that was to become Khanid, they chose between Danera II and V as possible terraforming projects. Danera V, while receiving much less sunlight than II, had enormous deposits of water, and that sealed its fate. Danera II still stands barren. Even though the terraforming was launched there as well, it still has several hundred years left to completion.

Thus, the world I was born to is a fake, artificial one. The rings of atmospheric processors around the poles keep the air breathable and support the greenhouse effect that enables the comfortable average temperatures of ~18 C near the equator, but the planet is still too far away from our sun. Should the immense ancient citadels buried in ice stop breathing, within the next few decades our world will revert into the dead glacier-covered wasteland. That was one of my main childhood fears. But then, i learned about the Caldari, and the fears were gone. They did it. They survived. And we will survive too!

The gravity here is slightly above half standard. The air feels like high in the mountains. There is perpetual twilight, and our eyes grow adapted to it. Everything is similar. Everywhere you go, you find the same few species of gen-modded crops, grass, bushes and trees, the same few species of insects and bacteria. There are no "larger" animals except humans, their livestock and their pets. Even during the day, you can see brighter stars and the tiny sickle of our moon. There is a small abandoned starbase orbiting it, called "Osprey heights" - a testament to someone's failed ambition. Our year lasts about 5 calendar cycles. It's a long year, but we are used to it.

My father's estate was near the lake Nasamih, in the northwestern part of a huge crescent of grouped landmass - a large continent and a number of islands - covering most of the hemisphere. In the end of the 80's, after a minor campaign against the Covenant in Querious, His Majesty granted many token patches of land around Nasamih to the distinguished officers of the Navy, making them low-rank Holders. One of those officers was my father. Most of our neighbors were navy veterans as well, save for the most senile and hilarious Baron Gorzakh - a True Amarr noble well over 200 years old. A self-professed xenobiologist and the owner of untold number of titles, the only person here I can really compare him with is Lord Vaari. The funniest part is, that Grandpa Gorzakh Who Collects Bugs, being a True Amarr Holder, stood on the social ladder higher than any of the newly elevated Knights, his neighbors. Just imagine how he treated all those upstarts from the Navy that suddenly appeared all over his quiet, unchanging realm!

Poor old Baron. I almost want to hug him. But he most likely won't understand it, so I never will.

And this concludes my writings for today, to be continued later.

[Tamiroth]

31.VII.CXIV A.Y.

The Special Power

When I was a child, I often wished I'd have some sort of special power. I'd use it to change the world, to make everyone happy, to correct everything that is wrong. You know those cheap "magic girl" holoreels: you can ban them as you wish, but yet they get somehow smuggled in, copied and shared, and soon everyone in your class appears to have watched a ton of them. I was no exception.

Just a bit of special power, and the sun becomes brighter, the minions of evil run away in fear, everyone loves you, and there is peace and happiness in the universe. Just a bit of special power, and no one ever dies, and the lost are found, end everything that is broken becomes whole again.

Just a bit of special power, and your everyday life, boring and pointless in its tragedy, suddenly becomes full of greater meaning, and every star in the universe is open to you, promising an immortal future.

* * *

Then you grow up and slowly begin to realise, that you already have that special power, that it always was within you. The power to change the world and make people happy, the power to make someone's life meaningful. And all that you need to do to activate that power is to open your mind to the overhelming beauty of the universe we live in. Even if this beauty is too often tragic and transient as life itself.

People are broken and imperfect. It does not matter.

Their world is a distorted reflection of their corrupt souls. It soes not matter.

It all won't end well. And it doesn't matter.

Because, if you still have that special power and your heart shines with the light, nothing else matters.

* * *

Then, you open the door, and upon your doorstep there are three men in robes of gold, black and white. They brought you the gift of special power as they think of it. And, suddenly, the sun becomes brighter, the minions of evil run away in fear, and every star in the universe is open to you, promising an immortal future.

But the true special power lies not in your implants, not in the biomass of your clones, your ISK wallet or a few terribly fitted tech 1 ships you happen to possess. It is in your soul, and it is only through it is that you can become truly immortal.

* * *

"When thine heart shines with the Light, thou shalt know no hardship;
When thine actions are in Light's name, thou art immortal."

- The Scriptures, Book of Trials 2:1