Farworld: Foreword and Introduction
The history of a distant planet as it evolves from fantasy to science fiction.
Have you ever wondered what Westeros would look like with modern technology? Or how the Fremen of Arrakis lived before the arrival of the Harkonnens?
My creative consciousness came online to the tune of the Empire Strikes Back, in a galaxy where a mystical energy field called the Force balances power in an advanced galactic civilization.
Even if you’re one of those rare birds that has never seen a Star Wars movie, you know the the franchise has woven itself a rich history across many media. Give me a crumb of epic world-building and there’s not enough blue milk in the galaxy to quench my nerdy imagination’s thirst.
I don’t know if you know this about me, but in college I was an award winning fan fiction writer on certain message boards. I explored the inner workings of the Order of the Jedi tens of thousands of years before Luke Skywalker got his hand cut off by his evil super-dad, and imagined the Skywalker-Solo line generations after the destruction of the Second Death Star. My crowning achievement was a novelization of the first entry of the Prequel trilogy, but with all George Lucas’ terrible mistakes fixed.
Eventually, knowing that any attempt to publish these stories would land me in copyright jail, I began creating my own worlds at various points on the fantasy-alternate history-science fiction spectrum. What if the American founders had failed to ratify the Constitution and the new United States broke down into its component parts? How do spirits carry whispers between priestesses on the wind? How would a sex worker react if he found out he was just the simulation of a pornographer’s carnal desires?
After reading George R. R. Martin’s A Dance of Dragons - a multi-generational history of the Targaryens of his epic A World of Ice and Fire franchise - I decided it was high time I get historical and answer that question that’s been bugging me since I first saw Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring: what happens to a society as it evolves from fantasy to sci-fi?
Welcome to Farworld.
Farworld started as a handrawn world-map and has given me snippets of 10,000 years of history. Its mythology sprouts from a mysterious post-apacolyptic Iron Age and evolves into the history of a multi-racial race for the stars. And though magic has gone underground in the face of an exponentially advancing technology, the Elf, Orks, Dwarfs, and Men of Farworld continue to grapple with religious fractures along their political divides.
Excerpts from the Legends and Histories of Farworld
FOREWORD
What follows are excerpts from a series of books on the history of a planet in the Yrelquin arm of the galaxy. It is the second planet in the system of a yellow dwarf star. We have made contact with this planet that calls itself Farworld, and the Council is currently deliberating how we should proceed. These excerpts are being released without consent of the Council and are unlikely to be publicly available for long.
The author of The Legends and Histories of Farworld was, when I met her, forced into confinement in her home, not for having broken any laws, but because ten local years before my arrival, after the publication of the final volume in this series, as well as revelations about her identity, the authorities on Farworld advised that it would be unsafe for her to appear in public.
Those authorities agreed that, if she so chose, she could accompany me off the planet, an offer I greatly hoped she would accept. She declined for, as will become clear in her writings, she loves her homeworld in a way that we no longer have the capacity to understand.
I am very grateful to have met her, even briefly, and I believe her work will enrich our society, which is why I have taken the risk to publish it.
-Captain Theroveshen Marinsilt of the Third Exploratory Fleet
INTRODUCTION
The Peoples of Farworld
One cannot tell a story without introducing the principle characters. Telling the story of a planet is no different.
The dominant mythologies of Farworld tell us that the four, or perhaps five (or even six!), races of the world sprung to life on the shores of The Womb in southeastern Vahayoron, though of course there is no agreement on who and how each were created. In time, science would come to support a version of this: Men, Elfs, Dwarfs, and Orks all seem to have evolved from primates in that region, though no satisfactory explanation has been given as to how the evolving peoples managed to avoid wiping each other out while vying for dominance in such close proximity.
Perhaps the truth - if history can ever be considered true - lost to the ancient past and the destruction of The Fall, will soon be re-discovered. But if some revelation of our origins comes to us, it is this author’s hope that the mythologies on which we have built and rebuilt our world will not be forgotten, for even if our world was built on lies, they are lies that for thousands of years have been honestly believed and therefore contain more truth than what may be discovered to be historically true.
Men.
The most populous of the species on Farworld is the race of Men. Legend tells us that Men are neither the most intelligent nor the most fearsome of the peoples of Farworld. They have neither the longest lifespan nor the fastest gestation period. They are not the most industrious, nor are their ancient ancestral lands the most plentiful. They are no more unified than their Farworlder rivals nor more adventerous.
Philosophers, historical scientists, and political theoreticians have argued for generations why Men became the ascendant species of the world, and though this author’s own beliefs may be betrayed in these pages, it is not my intention to answer this contentious question.
The question contained in these stories is not about one of any of the Farworldian races, but rather about the whole sum of its peoples, if indeed a story can be told that might summarize us into a whole.
Elfs.
Though their numbers are the least, the Elfen peoples of Farworld perhaps have the most outsized imprint on the Farworldian imagination. Their long lives, nearly twice that of Men, enshrined them with a sort of mythical, godlike status. Elfs claim with relatively little contention to have given the world writing and mathematics, as well as to have practiced magic that would eventually become the basis of modern science.
Having for much of Farworld’s history been the most advanced of the species, they have drawn both the admiration and the ire of their rivals. Even now, it is rare to see an Ork and an Elf as friends, and jealousy and hatred of the Elfs may never be lost amongst the Men and Dwarfs.
Legend tells that Elfs once rode dragons and ruled the world, but when the Fall came, most Elfs flew back to the stars from whence they came, leaving behind only small tribes. Some believe the Elfs were gods before the Fall, but with the power of dragons they became corrupted and evil, causing the Fall and thenceforth being banished, leaving only a few “good elves” greatly reduced in power.
Though the differences between Elfs and their neighbors are many, the strangest is perhaps the thing that has kept the Elfs from ruling Farworld as legend tells us they once did.
An odd procreational imbalance between Elfen males and females has kept their population from booming. An Elfen female is unable to carry a child for the first fifty years of her life, at which point she has only ten years of fertility, each child taking just over a year to gestate. Elfen males, on the other hand, are potent for about half of their lives, starting from the end of puberty in their 2nd or 3rd decade of life.
On average, Elfen women bare just over two children in a lifetime, keeping the population steady.
Be it a curse for ancient sins or the blessing that bred their intellectual dominance, this quirk of evolution has kept the Elfs from true supremacy.
Dwarfs.
To this day, the vast majority of Dwafs are still mountain-dwelling. Many of their most populous underground cities claim foundation shortly after the Fall, and their grand caves are a marvel of engineering and beauty.
Though over the millennia, Dwarfs have come out of their isolation, on an individual scale they are still highly skeptical of other Farworlders. They are quick-tempered and territorial, unafraid of war, though rarely do their internal conflicts lead to violence.
The world’s great miners, Dwarfs are also shrewd traders. Since the beginning of written time, Dwarfs have been known to amass wealth by establishing and dominating trade routes on all of Farworld’s continents.
Despite their isolationist instincts, Dwarfs have proven the fiercest and most loyal allies once trust is gained. Their alliances are not specific to nor exclusive of any of the other peoples of Farworld. If a deal is advantageous, a Dwarf will break bread and drink ale with an Ork as quickly as with an Elf.
Rigid hierarchy is imprinted on Dwarfen culture, and even during the great rise of democracies, Dwarfs remained primarily monarchist, power passing to the eldest of either sex with only rare controversy.
Their families are large, but their lives are short due to the hazards of the mountain both inside and out. Though their lifespans may be as short as their stature compared to the other Farworlders, their impact on the history and culture of the planet must never be belittled.
Orks.
While Elfs, Men, and Dwarfs have all had their time at the apex of Farworld’s power structures, the Orken people have spent the broad swath of history as outcasts, despised and feared by their neighbors. Rarely has an Orken nation been more than a handful of tensely allied tribes under the command of this warlord or that.
Though Farworld has seen periods of powerful Orken dynasties, they have spent most of history as semi-nomadic raiders with little and less interest in trade and luxury. Barely omnivorous, the Orken diet is dominated by meats of all kind, even that of their own slain in battle.
More of their past remains shrouded in mystery than that of the other Farworldian peoples, as they cared little for Elfen writing and learning. The oldest stories of Orks invariably come from Elfen, Human, or Dwarfen sources, nearly always tales of savagery and war.
Legend tells that Orks are cursed Elfs or sickly Men or some combination thereof. Though in recent centuries, the Orks have begun to assimilate into the settled societies of their rivals, they remain scorned by all but the most altruistic. The world’s great thinkers warn constantly of Ork-centered conflict at the next bend of history, a fear that even this altruist author cannot deny in light of coming revelations.
Travelers.
A mysterious, even legendary people, there are vanishingly few of them if any at all, and legend tells that they live forever, their sole purpose to document the events of Farworld.
Their appearance is much like Men or Elfs, allowing them to move throughout Farworld without drawing attention. Feared and persecuted, Travelers preferred to keep their identity secret.
Or, perhaps, they are simply reclusive Elfs with a proclivity for reading and writing, happy to let legends form about them. The time of the Travelers has long gone according to today’s popular sentiment, if it was ever more than folklore.
Though science has failed to prove their existence, their presence across the lore of all the Farworldian peoples, across nearly all major civilizations throughout known history, makes it difficult for many to disbelieve.
From this author’s point of view, either the existence or non-existence of these Travelling Folk speaks of a conspiracy that penetrates the breadth and depth of Farworldian culture.
On the Modern Farworld Calendar
Though this writer expects that the completed version of this work - if a work of this kind can ever be considered completed - will not be published for some years to come if at all, it should be noted that it is being written - or has begun being written - in the year 12,951 AF. It may be - as recent discoveries and impending events may dictate - that our current dating system shall be modified or abandoned in the coming years. But this work is concerned with the histories of the planet we have come to call Farworld and not, despite this writer’s curiosities and dreads, the future of it.
The current Calendar of the planet was adopted in the year 10,213 AF at a gathering of the great scholars of Men and Elfs and even a Dwarf who traveled down the Kworitan Rush. The calendar was widely adopted in Ustayara and Tulustara east of the Divide. It was not until the year 12,200 that it was accepted beyond the Divide and in the Southern Hemisphere.
It does not need to be said to most readers - though it is arrogant for any writer to assume they know who their readers will be - that “10,213 AF” is meant to signify the 10,213th year after The Fall.
Any reader at all familiar with the time-defining event known as The Fall understands the impossibility of knowing exactly how long ago it happened. The adopters of our modern calendar were not so arrogant as to believe they could pinpoint the exact year of the Fall. Rather, as far back as verbal or written legends told, The Fall was said to have been “10,000 years ago.” 213 years was simply as far back as the gathered scholars could agree on the timing of significant events. Any events occurring before the year 10,000 should be considered approximate in their dating.
Two and a half millennia later, we have learned much and can more accurately date ancient events as far back as the year 6,000. Though we cannot pinpoint the year of The Fall and may never be able to, we now believe it took place sometime between the years 3,500 and 4,500.
The agreement on a calendar was not easy in the year 10,213, even for the peoples near the Shallow Strait who adopted it. Even more difficult has been creating a unified system of time. While the definition of a year and a day are rather simple based on the planet’s spin and orbit around our star and the effects thereof, every other unit of time is much more complicated.
In an effort to illustrate to the reader the difficulty of unifying time on Farworld, let us start with what is elementary: the planet orbits the sun once every 321 days, therefore there are 321 days in a year.
Farworld has two moons. Mira is the smaller and closer moon, and orbits the planet once every 23 days. Weyra is the larger and further, and orbits once every 173 days. Some cultures marked Mira’s rotation as a month, while others marked Weyra’s as a month and Mira’s as a week. Many Mira-month cultures denoted weeks based on social or religious cycles, had base-5 or base-10 weeks, or had no concept of the week whatsoever.
The 10,213 calendar settled on a 321 day year, with 14 months of 22 or 23 days and 53.5 six day weeks. Years End, the final half week of the year, is the second largest world-wide celebration on Farworld. Weyra’s rotation, though not a regular feature on the calendar, has in recent years become Farworld’s largest global holiday.
Agreeing on any measurement of time smaller than a day proved impossible in the year 10,213, and even now is a point of contention between the races. The smallest measurement of time is approximated to the rate of a heartbeat, which varies greatly between Men, Elfs, Dwarfs, and Orks. While the Human system of a day as 30 hours made up of 50 minutes made up of 50 seconds (Human heartbeats) has become the global norm, translation from the Simple Tongue and other Human languages into Elfen, Dwarfen, and Orken languages becomes incredibly confusing, and is beyond the expertise of this writer and the scope of this work.