The House that Enlil Built, part 3
By Noranda Miresmi
Estiva 21 - Racolta 1, AC 228
There has been a gap of more than four months in the postings to this series. Anthimia Kaltagiron, who had been writing it, was not able to continue due to time constraints. Shortly after writing part two of the series, she was put in charge of editing a major historical archive which had been passed along to the Nouergic Instititute. This took up so much of her time that it was impossible for her to continue writing on this side project. So she has asked me, her colleague at the Nouetikon at Gela, to finish the series. The story is quite familiar to me, as I am also a Trinacria correspondent for the Lord of Memory publication "Middle Sea Sun" and reported on this affair just after it occurred.
When the narrative was interrupted, it had just been discovered that the "retained effects" that Enlil had left in and around the property were becoming harmful to anyone present at the site. Retained effects….we are familiar with them as everyday objects. They protect us against nouetic intrusions, keep our own perceptions under control, enhance the mood of built environments, and alleviate our own mental disorders. We take it for granted that retained effects are going to work as promised when we buy them from our licensed practitioners or nouetech stores. Sometimes we feel more naked without our R.E.'s than without our clothes! So when things go wrong with these devices, it is as if we have been betrayed by trusted friends.
Enlil's retained effects, though, were not simple practical devices, but technologies at high energy, which were sometimes experimental and never intended for casual use. Enlil used the Acragas estate as a testing ground for these things, and would sometimes discard them into unoccupied areas after use, not thinking that in the next few decades that land might well be explored and settled. Even when he set up systems in his house, he didn't think of what would happen to the building once he had left it and moved somewhere else. When he was still commuting there from Surakosai, he was able to manage his creations, but in the later years of his life, he was so occupied with other matters (such as the building of the new Institute at Surakosai) that he didn't have time to care for the Acragas house. And he may not have foreseen how his experiments would deteriorate, or how they would persist even after he thought they had been deactivated.
So, as with many other of Enlil's chaotic legacies, it was up to his successors to clean up the mess at Acragas. It was only at the beginning of this year that the current director of the Institute, Tanheu, personally took on the mission. Enlil had trained Tanheu, and had picked him for the next Directorship; in fact, Tanheu had been directing the Institute for many years after Enlil's retirement from public life. As a master Nouergist, it was now up to him to fix the problem. He visited the site and inspected the "contaminated" areas in late Ersta month. He decided then that a major job was needed, that would take the talents of a whole committee of master Nouergists.
To my disappointment, I was not able to get interviews with any of the Nouergists involved in this project. My sources are indirect. What I was told was that the nouergic programs that were used are classified and not available to the public. Yet the entire event ended up being highly publicized, if only to maintain the safety of the residents around the site. The only "official" interview granted to the media was that of Liran Okanon, a near-master level Nouergist and the second-in-command at the Surakosai Institute. You might remember Liran from his career in Tisaram before he came to our area. He did special effects for many theophore movies, was the producer of the series "Action Theophorica" and "Nouergic Detective Reality," and he also hosted the nouetic-themed talk show "Tonight in PsiWorld." Even in his new career in Surakosai, he had taken on the media contact role.
"We're going to have to radically alter the site," he explained to Datawell 47 in his interview of Ersta 24, 228. "We've had to condemn the house, all the outbuildings, and its grounds, and we'll be doing a demolition that includes not only the structure but a lot of the underlying foundation and stone underneath.…it ought to be quite a lot of fun. Nouergists blowing stuff up." There would be a team of four, recruited from Tanheu's contacts in various places. Each would bring their specialty to the work, which was set for 15 Lupercal.
The leader of the group would be Tanheu himself, world-renowned scientist and still an active master Nouergist. Liran would also participate. For the structural work, Tanheu chose his earlier second-in-command, the Aurian Noshir Atarban, now a mining engineer in Akai. Last but definitely not least was the Khemaru nouergist and architect, Mereth Kahn, another of Enlil's famous disciples. As the plans proceeded, though, Noshir found that he was unable to spare the time to work on the project, and had to drop out. In his place, Tanheu was able to negotiate for the services of an engineering Nouergist from a construction company in Tisaram. A rare Tisari female nouergist, she had never done any work outside the territory of her company-state. She was named Barandigi, and would be accompanied by a whole expedition of engineers with their heavy equipment, which would arrive through a Gateway.
The price for the operation, as negotiated by Tanheu, Liran, and their staff, would be shared between Barandigi's company as research and development (with some useful proprietary nouergic programs thrown in to enhance the deal) and the Nouergic Institute at Surakosai, who hoped to make the money back selling the property to luxury resort developers.
Barandigi had never been to the northern lands of the Middle Sea. She had done all her training and work at Tisaram. Though she hadn't passed the strict appearance and sex-appeal tests which determine a woman's fate in upper Tisaram, she was saved from a lifetime of uneducated drudgery because of her nouergic gift. Even so, she was essentially the property of her company, and was at all times accompanied by "minders" who kept her under surveillance lest she talk to the wrong people or get ideas about running away.
Mereth Kahn, the Khemaru designer of the new Institute at Surakosai, swept in with his usual flair, this time minus his entourage of architectural associates and Kahn family members (who are often the same people). He would be using some of the same earth-shaping and heavy transport programs that Enlil and he had used ten years ago when they prepared the site for the Institute. These would be meshed with the demolition work that Barandigi and her owners would perform, and would also be used to re-do the site after the primary work was done.
This would be a rare collaboration between four working high-level Nouergists, and would be documented for the community's archives and technical journals. As the preparations went on, observers came from a number of different countries, including Tisaram, Khemi, Ionia, and the Levant. I was able to interview some of these observers, who provided a valuable source for technical details of each Nouergist's role.
Tanheu, the physicist, would be stationed closest to the site, and would handle the high-energy aspects of clearing the retained effects. It was analogous to clearing a minefield by concussion, since there was no practical way to find and "defuse" each one of the hundreds of nouergic "mines" that Enlil had left behind. If it was done right, a single general energy pulse would discharge all of them at once, leaving behind nothing but silica and carbon crystals. This would also be the most dangerous of the operations, and Tanheu would need to be protected against hard radiation, which would be an inevitable side-effect of the work. He would wear a special self-contained "space suit," designed to protect him against radiation and heat blasts.
Liran, Tanheu's second-in-command, an experienced nouetic systems analyst, would be coordinating the work of the four by telepathic commonality, while also backing up Tanheu's energy working. If Tanheu were to be blown up during the operation, Liran would take over and finish the job so that the place would not be left as a radioactive wasteland. Liran would be the next closest, physically, to the site, and would also wear a protective suit. Both this one and Tanheu's were provided by Barandigi's Tisari professionals.
Mereth, the architect, would not be in the way of the physical work, but would be stationed a couple of kilometers from the event. During the act of demolition, his job would be to stabilize the ground and the underlying rock formations, as this level of nouergic force could cause landslides or even a small earthquake. He was equipped with three-dimensional topographic and geological maps of the area, which had been prepared some time ago by the University of Surakosai's geology and mining department (as well as the Keilian navy).
The last of the four, Barandigi, would work with her assistants from inside a portable, radiation-proof bunker, which looked rather like a submarine on dry land. This unusual vehicle was airlifted to the site and anchored to the rocks about five stadia away from the site. This team would provide the power for the actual demolition.
As the moment approached and the working group rehearsed, the media continued to cover the event. As usual, the amount of publicity was in inverse proportion to the amount of accurate information. Some local property owners tried to stop the demolition, claiming that they would be using not nouergic power, but a nuclear explosive device which would make everything on the Acragas coast radioactive. Other publicity, disseminated among the pseudo-scientific, speculated that the famous "energy vortexes" of Acragas would be involved, and that a passageway to another dimension might open. In the weeks before the event, numbers of nouetic enthusiasts and followers flocked to Acragas, booking all the hotel rooms and creating a welcome upturn in tourist income for the locals. Though there was a five kilometer "no-man's land" perimeter established around the site, some enthusiasts managed to slip through and camp in the hills above. Other, more sensible viewers took to the sea in yachts and fishing boats. The local Keilian seafarers and fishermen were only too happy to take boatloads of paying tourists out past the coastline, where they could turn their telescopes or binoculars landward, hoping for historic fireworks.
Just a few days before the operation, Liminum, a Surakosai advertising and publicity agency, was able to secure (by a major pledge of financial support) a video and audio "feed" to the non-classified areas of the event. Those with the appropriate electronics who were willing to pay the fee would have at least something to watch.
I was privileged to join the flotilla as a guest on "Coriolis," the private yacht of Midar Kantalli, a developer who had put in a bid for the site even before the demolition program had been conceived. Along with Midar's current wife, their servants, and their yacht crew, were some representatives from the Surakosai Institute and my own at Gela. We also had our own theophore guest, a Keilian named Durna Owana, who had not achieved the skill grade to study at either of the Institutes and who made his pittance by practical jobs and theophoric piecework.
The big event was scheduled late at night, which was a disappointment for the spectator crowds, although there was always the possibility of "vortexes of light" or at least a lightning bolt or two. Lupercal month is damp and chilly, even on the so-called "Coast of Warmth," and as night fell, fog gathered on the ocean, making it even less likely that our event would be spectacular. Our wallscreen was turned to the Liminum imagestream. Meanwhile we feasted on Midar's plentiful food and consumed quite a lot of Keilian wine. Durna the theophore led the way in this regard. The more wine he consumed, the more we heard about what it was like to be a theophore who had failed to be a Nouergist. The gift is rare, but even so, not every recipient is able to achieve the status of the four who were wielding the energies that night. Durna said that he would at least be able to link in to the event by remote viewing and telepathy, and give us an "eyewitness" description.
I've seen historical videos from civilizations in their early modern periods, when their first humans were being launched into space. The imagestream, with its blurry motion, glaring spotlights, and bustling equipment reminded me of those ancient visual relics. We were shown images of nouergists Tanheu and Liran putting on their suits, as if they were indeed going into space. Tanheu, a small man, seemed swamped in armor that was much too big for him. Once everyone was in place, the cameramen were evacuated and the camera was left running on a stationary platform near the Tisari bunker.
We counted down the hours, and then the minutes, and then the seconds, as we waited on the dark deck, looking toward the shore. At zero hour, we waited. Just as we were beginning to think that the Big Event would be a Big Disappointment, we saw a series of fitful, purplish flashes of light through the fog, looking much like a thunderstorm on the horizon. Within a few seconds, we heard muffled thunder, a natural sound for a transnatural event. At that point, two things happened on our yacht. The imagefeed went blank and failed to return, and Durna the theophore, who was going to give us his personal witness, passed out on the lounge floor. Midar, who didn't want any deaths on board his yacht, quickly had one of his staff examine him. Durna was not dead, and would be fine, once he had slept it off; it was either a surfeit of theophoric energies, or wine, or most probably both.
The next day dawned cold and grey, and the Coriolis sailed back into port at Gela to drop off our institute's delegation. The media almost universally reported the great demolition to be a greatly boring anticlimax. This disdain freed those working at the site from any more media attention. Now it was time for the engineers to move the remains of the structures to a safe place and prepare the grounds for new buildings. The plans were for the rubble to be transported, both by nouergy and by ramps, to barges where it would be dumped into a deep area offshore. There, on the bottom of the Middle Sea, would lie the stone and concrete memories of Enlil the nouergist, and any possible remaining echoes would scare away only wandering creatures of the deeper sea.
Theophore House after the Demolition
Tanheu and Liran, despite being almost at ground zero, survived unscathed, as did everyone else. Mereth Kahn remained to continue sculpting the land for the new site, and Barandigi also stayed a few extra days. Interestingly, they were spotted together having a quiet dinner at Corbacho's, a fancy Khemaru restaurant on the rocky coast near Acragas. Somehow, Barandigi had escaped her handlers. But anyone who knows Mereth Kahn knows that he is quite openly not attracted to women of any sort, so what passed between them is as secret as the programs they used to obliterate the mad devices of their predecessor.
Noranda Miresmi, for "Middle Sea Sun" and "GelaRama," Racolta 1, 228 AC
Posted at 2:18 am | link
The House that Enlil Built, part 2
by Anthimia Kaltagiron
Ortolana month, AC 228
Enlil was more socially conservative than most people gave him credit for, and he kept the partying to a minimum when he was there. He invited sedate groups of older women and a few of their menfolk for classes on nouetic matters, held in his living room in front of the warmth of a big stone fireplace, and they paid well for access to the Master and his wisdom, not to mention his celebrity status. Members of his entourage who were part of the more permanent crew remember long nights full of history lectures and discussions, since Enlil was constantly working on his forty-year project, the "Nouergic History." Late in the evening, the Master would go up the stairs and retire to his private apartment, though those closest to him knew that he had a surveillance system to warn him if things went too wrong.
In fact, Enlil was there at Acragas, whether he was physically present or not. What most of the part time residents, caretakers, students, or hangers-on did not know was that Enlil, a master artist at retained effects, had filled Theophore House with hidden esoteric devices. During the building of the main house, which was supported not with wood but with a framework of iron girders, Enlil supposedly placed a massive nouergic "charge" into the metalwork, immensely energized by his attracting a lightning strike on the structure. The combination of earthly electricity with nouergic force, if indeed it was done, was something which only Enlil's audacity would attempt.
In addition to the reservoir of energy in the framework, Enlil incorporated nouergic sensors into walls and furniture, including the outbuildings. These were used mostly as warning devices. Nouergic students are not in as much control of their powers as the master, and experimental accidents can happen at any time. These sensors would alert Enlil in case something was going wrong. He may have also used them as spy devices, especially in his middle and later years, when he had become a politically controversial figure.
Theophore House served him as a refuge and a place of recovery after the dreadful events in 217, when he was captured (with a tranquilizer dart) and imprisoned in Eridu, accused of plotting to overthrow the government. He was indeed associated with some people who were in such a plot. His role with them was unclear, but everyone who knew him knew that he had long despised Eridu, openly calling its government oppressive and unjust. Saved by a coalition of his nouergic and political allies, Enlil retired from public life into retreat in Acragas. He felt more than ever the need for protection, and his nouergic art was the only thing he trusted. And so he built up even more layers of defenses, which were only discovered after he was no longer in the physical world.
The ownership of Theophore House was immediately in dispute after Enlil was legally declared dead rather than disappeared (a decision which was in itself controversial). Enlil left this world without creating a clear will and testament; he had often said that like the ascetics of the Old World, he had no property and everything he had was lent to him by other people. In the confusion, the house passed to his Lord of Memory relatives from his clan Lil, who had been taking care of it already.
"Taking care" was, however, a poor descriptor of what was going on. His relatives and their friends and guests had become squatters in the building, without doing any maintenance on it. Visitors reported back to Enlil's associates at Surakosai that conditions at Theophore House were chaotic. There was still no clear legal claim to ownership, and this eventually resulted in a complicated legal case which dragged on for two years.
Meanwhile, things were getting worse at Theophore House. There were reports of bizarre behavior among the "residents," including sudden attacks of panic, hallucinations, and outbursts of irrational anger. Finally, in the winter of 227, the Keilian constables of Acragas were called to the scene, and they found that the worst (and perhaps inevitable) had occurred: there had been a murder in Theophore House. According to the suddenly sober inhabitants, the story went as follows. They had run out of money and could not afford to pay for electric power any more. The heating system, which was never very good, had quit and they were freezing. They were finally forced to break up some of the furniture to burn in the fireplace. While this was happening, one of the couples living there got into a violent argument. The female claimed that while she was sleeping in what used to be Enlil's bedroom, Enlil himself had visited her and had sex with her. Never mind that Enlil was, so to say, permanently absent; her partner believed her and immediately became enraged at her infidelity, a peculiar attitude in a polyamorous household. The argument escalated and finally the male picked up the broken-off leg of a table and bludgeoned his "unfaithful" partner with it until she was unconscious. By the time the police arrived, she was dead.
This incident was enough to get all the squatters, who were mostly Lords of Memory, deported to their own territory near Rhakoteh, where the complexity of Lord of Memory justice could do its work. Now, Theophore House was abandoned to the elements and the creatures of the cliffs and air. Meanwhile, over the decades, the area around Theophore House and its land had been populated with expensive vacation villas and private resorts. The location, especially with its private seaside access, had become valuable, and developers regularly inquired as to whether it was available for sale. The problem was that no one was clearly entitled to sell it. With the crime, though, Enlil's Lord of Memory clan Lil had essentially forfeited its right to occupy the house and its lands.
During last year, attempts were made by the Nouergic Institute of Surakosai to enter the house and grounds in Acragas. The best legal opinions were that since Enlil had presided at the Institute, and that his original intentions were to turn it into a satellite nouergic institute connected with Surakosai, the place belonged to the Surakosans. But after the abandonment, Theophore House had become a liability rather than an asset. Keilian workers who were sent in to at least clear the debris refused to work there after a few days. Other Keilian workers could only work there if they were drunk, which didn't make for good work habits. Finally the Keilian labor force from Acragas and environs said that they would not work there under any circumstances, because the place was haunted.
The word "haunted" refers to the superstitions of the Keilians, who believe in non-physical conscious entities which can interact with people. The workers reported the same thing that the previous residents did: unexplained fits of panic, sudden almost suicidal melancholy, attacks of mania, and hallucinations. Finally a nouergist of modest status named Antiochus was hired, by the Surakosan Institute, to make an investigation. He lasted one week there before he quit. But his report to the nouergic leadership at the Surakosai Institute gave them the evidence they needed to explain what was going on. Enlil had filled the house with defensive retained effects, of a specially insidious variety known as "artificial intelligence retained effects." And these were now, after many years, degenerating and going out of control.
TO BE CONTINUED
Another, annotated view of Theophore House, this time from the west side looking eastwards.
A larger version of this image can be found here.
Posted at 3:02 am | link
The House that Enlil Built, Part 1
by Anthimia Kaltagiron
Anthimia month, AC 228
Last month, "Theophore House," in Acragas, was demolished. It wasn't just torn down, but the entire landscape where it had existed was re-made, with a radical combination of nouergic and conventional deconstruction techniques. Some onlookers, who know the history of the site, commented that the destruction almost seemed like an act of anger or revenge, rather than just a removal for new building on the site. When it comes to Enlil and his legacy, anything is possible. It was often said about Enlil that wherever he went, he brought with him chaos and upheaval. "Theophore House" was no exception.
Enlil's arrival in Acragas, in 172, was not a planned move. It was the result of what might be politely called "career confusion." He had been an adjunct professor at the famous Historikon in Eridu, but had been released due to several reasons, one of which was the unease of the other faculty at the presence of a working Nouergist, endowed with mysterious and disruptive powers. Enlil had not been able to find further academic work, and this was made even more difficult when Enlil participated in the production of a low-budget action film, something he had (in typical Enlil fashion) just happened upon while avoiding the lectures at a conference on the Rhakoteh coast. Shortly after that, he was recruited to teach history and nouetics at a small new institution being founded in the town of Acragas, and there he went.
In the early seventies of the previous century, Acragas wasn't the rich resort town it is now. It was a Keilian fishing village which had become home to a community of rejects, misfits, oddities, and people with what could politely be called "pasts." There were rumors that the unofficial leader of the community, an Eridanian Algon named Tashi who ran the bar and restaurant on the main square, had shot a man dead in a sex and spy scandal and fled Eridu for the rugged North. There were cultists, alcoholic artists, eccentric scientists with unproven theories, and visionaries of various sorts. It was a place where Enlil would fit right in.
The southwest coast of our Trinacria was in those days still almost entirely undeveloped. Keilian fishermen, loggers, and trappers had some settlements there, and wandered through the forests and rocky slopes, but there were no immigrant residences, and none of the ultra-expensive vacation estates and resorts which now populate the "Coast of Warmth," as the advertisers have named it. It was easy for Enlil, with some backing from his friends and his financially successful sister Ninlil, to acquire a fairly large number of hectares of coastal land for building what Enlil hoped would eventually become a "Theophoric Institute."
He recruited his own mentor, the Nouergic architect Apsou-Ari, to help him with the project design. She was well-connected in Trinacria, having built the "Crystal City" towers in Surakosai in the previous decade. Even though Apsou was then the head of state in Eridu, she managed to contribute architectural designs and even made a couple of brief visits to supervise the construction, which broke ground in 173.
By the next year, though, Apsou was off the project, not only because of obvious time constraints, but because her presence had brought unwanted attention to Acragas (which hosted not just Tashi, but many exiles and rejects from Eridu). And even more, Enlil wanted to continue the design work himself, even though he was not trained as an architect. Architectural historians who reverently chronicle Apsou-ari's work refuse to consider "Theophore House" authentic Apsou, because of Enlil's re-designs. According to the Khemaru, Mereth Kahn, currently the only Nouergist working as an architect, Enlil's modifications returned the house to the blocky, squarish and somewhat crude lines of Keilian vernacular, rather than the more graceful forms that Apsou had envisioned.
The house was finished in 175, and named "Windhaven," a name which quickly devolved simply to "Theophore House." But as soon as Enlil occupied it, he was called to Surakosai to serve as the Eridanian consul. Throughout the next forty years, Enlil would be only a part-time occupant, commuting back and forth to Acragas from wherever he was stationed. He would teach, on an irregular schedule, at the University of Surakosai as well as doing guest semesters elsewhere. As the years went on, he and his students and assistants built additions onto the house. The seaside sprawl included a courtyard, a laboratory for biological and nouergic investigations, a glassed-in winter garden, and even, at one point, a chicken coop. His more agriculturally minded students built terraces for vegetable gardens, and the athletically inclined built a stamat game court which also served as a landing platform for small liftcraft.
Theophore House at its best, around 200 A.C.
For a larger version of this image, go here.
Over the years, there wasn't anyone in the nouergic community, it seems, who didn't visit Theophore House one time or another. Enlil had guest cottages built lower on the property, to accommodate sensitive types who needed a nouetically isolated environment. At any time, whether Enlil was there or not, someone or a group of someones populated the house. An informal group of his students and a few of his Lord of Memory relatives kept the place active and hospitable. When the master was there, he indicated his presence by flying an orange banner from a metal pole fixed on the topmost roof level.
TO BE CONTINUED
Posted at 12:02 am | link
How Retained Effects work
By Liri Ensak, publicist for the Nouergic Institute of Rhakoteh
Anthimia month, 228 A.C.
Have you ever wondered how your talismans work? Everyone has them, and we all take them for granted. They protect us from nouetic intrusion, and they protect us from projecting emotions and thoughts into the public thoughtworld. They can safely enhance our moods or calm our anxieties. But what exactly are they? What's really going on in that pendant or ring or pin or other ornamental device that you put on every day? (Here are a few, from my own collection.)
Outwardly, it's a crystal, a prepared stone, or a piece of pure metal. This looks good, but there's more to it than looks. Just like batteries carry a charge of electrical energy, talismans carry a "charge" of nouergic energy. The energy is put there by a trained nouetic or even a nouergist who knows just what to put there and how much to load. Sometimes we are even able to make our own talismans, if we have enough gift and a bit of training, but the professionally made ones almost always work better and last longer.
The technical term for what's going on here is a retained effect. Professional noueticists commonly abbreviate this to just the acronym "RE." Retained effects are not only used personally. They are everywhere in our society, helping things work well and protecting our banks, our military, our media, and just about any other thing you could think of from nouetic wrongdoing. For instance, data-stores are protected by strong retained effects so that private information cannot be stolen by nouetic intruders.
But how do they work exactly? Nouetic energy is not like any other energy in our universe, because it really isn't always in our universe. The famous Khemaru physicist Tanheu Afboureh Souteth (who is currently the director of the Nouergic Institute of Surakosai), was the first scientist in our current era-cycle to explain how nouetic energy interacts with our own universe's matter and energies. Later scientists, using his re-discoveries, unlocked the secrets of how nouetic energies are captured, at least for a limited time, in ordinary matter.
Nouetic and nouergic energies are carried by entities (or, roughly, particles), called deiknions. Deiknions are a class of particles rather than just one type, and there are lots of different kinds of deiknions. The important thing about these exotic subatomic particles is that they can move between different universes. Nouetic energy is not "native" to our universe. It takes deiknions to move it into our world so we can use it. These exotic particles are able to be "captured" in certain substances, especially things which have a dense and very regular atomic structure, such as crystals and pure metals. That's why the most expensive and powerful talismans (or commercial/industrial retained effects) use things like diamonds or pieces of superfine steel. The more disorganized the atomic structure of a substance, the less nouergic energy it can hold and the less time it takes to lose its charge.
Industrial nouergists, who can work with high energies, are trained to create and re-charge these devices. There is no end to the uses of retained effects. Not only can they protect, but they will predictably and regularly do work which a nouergist would otherwise have to personally do again and again, at least until the effect runs down and has to be re-charged. So tomorrow when you put on your talismans, remember that you are wearing something which is not just good-looking and useful, but is part of two universes.
Posted at 12:55 am | link