Present

This is, eventually (in the last section, no less), autobiographical. Most autobiographies are set in the present day or recent history and they’re all so contemporary and mundane. But, the way I see it, reality is a choice. Why are there not more metaphorical autobiographies?

I don’t know whether this kind of creative self indulgence is healthy, but by all the Gods of Chaos and of Laughter I am going to do it anyway.

So here I present Dream Ascendancy, revised and developed (and in many ways completely altered) from the teaser I posted before.

Happy Valentine’s Day. I’m sorry it’s late.

Kedge

The Aside

The psychically inclined can see it. And lunatics, though most regard the former as the latter so perhaps the qualification is unnecessary. And cats, of course. Without cats, humanity would never have even left its solar system. For a long time, none truly believed it existed. It took a chance breakthrough in research in a completely unrelated field during the early decades of the twenty-first century for the existence of the Aside to be confirmed, and to open up the way for mankind’s exploration of the galaxy.

In the simplest possible terms the Aside is a dimension not entirely removed from our own, which the aforementioned individuals can see overlapped with what men perceive as reality. It is a realm of dreams and of auras and of impossibility, where physics has taken a sabbatical from caring, and it is that last part that makes faster-than-light travel possible at all.

It took almost a century, though, from the discovery of the Aside to the human race stepping out into the galaxy, and a further century before the Solar Ascendancy was developed, though that is a topic for later. Early attempts at using the Aside to travel at extreme speeds whilst still on Earth were catastrophically disastrous, at best having no effect whatsoever, progressing through working but turning the participants spectacularly insane all the way up to seemingly erasing the unfortunate individual from existence entirely. Mankind, however, is nothing if not tenacious and presented with a legitimate way of leaving the solar system, if they could just get it to work, there was no way they would just give up.

The eureka moment, when it came, was two pronged and driven again by unconnected research. Early Aside drives (or A-Engines) were by necessity huge, powered as they were by fission reactions (which of course had its own set of complications). It took two physicists with too much time on their hands experimenting with bioluminescent jellyfish to discover that the creatures’ poisonous nematocysts could be extracted and used to power an A-Engine, believed to be due to a substance within the stinging cells that was, at the time, completely unidentifiable. This virtually eliminated the mechanical risk from Aside travel, but it was genetic engineering that enabled true use of the Aside to stride the stars. It was already known, published in the original paper, in fact, that felines could for some reason see the Aside. The problem was the domestic cat was hardly a good candidate to be a navigator. While some humans can see the Aside, the vast majority of “psychics” are frauds and possess no such sight, and the degree of lunacy required for Aside-sight renders most humans completely unable to function – those with genuine ability and the majority of their faculties were too afraid of rabid science to submit themselves to testing (with, as the future would demonstrate, good reason). It seemed that there was only one option – an option made feasible only by the gradually loosening restrictions on science due to energy shortages and overpopulation on Earth.

Gatoids

That option was to enhance the intelligence and form of the cat. Whatever it was that made it possible for the animals to see the Aside was impossible to find, so rather than taking the sight from them as was originally intended humanity decided to supplement the cat’s evolution. The resultant life form, after many years of experimentation, was called the Gatoid, a bipedal feline with human intelligence, catlike grace, opposable thumbs and, most importantly, the ability to see the Aside in “real” space. Sadly (or perhaps not, as such an issue could easily have been rectified by the scientists working on the project, and yet it was not) Gatoids have the same lifespan as the domestic cat, maturing at a much faster rate than a human and possessing a much higher metabolism. Naturally the creators of this species infused the Gatoids with a natural subservience to humans, and with a race of navigators bred for purpose a prototype A-Engine powered spacecraft was developed, bypassing the attempts to realise Aside travel on Earth and reaching for the stars.

Aside Ships

The prototype vessel exceeded expectations fantastically, looping the moon and returning to Earth in the space of minutes. It was theorised that the journey time could even be reduced as the pilots learned the real skill associated with Aside travel, and the methods of propulsion developed. For human passengers, travel in the Aside passed only like a slightly rockier version of space travel but for the Gatoid navigators it was a struggle not dissimilar to helming through a turbulent sea on a sailing vessel. The first ships after the prototype were scientific missions to Mars and the moons of Jupiter, then to the more outlying planets, and then finally beyond the solar system to Alpha Centauri, Rigil Kentaurus and Barnard’s Star. With the success of those missions, mankind built colony ships and solved the overpopulation problems on Earth by settling the rest of the solar system and even the nearby planetary systems. Travel through the Aside and living in a zero-gravity environment grew more commonplace by the decade, until mankind had a fledgling network of planets and stars to call its own. Also of note is the importance of a crew being sane was soon realised, as crews with mentally unstable members reported extremely bizarre experiences in the Aside, or in some cases vanished entirely.

The Solar Ascendancy

The first steps the still-divided race of homo sapiens took towards the future galactic superpower that the Solar Ascendancy would become were with the colonisation of a Goldilocks planet, enabling humans for the first time to walk on the surface of an alien world without any special apparatus. The foundations were well and truly laid several such planets later, however, with the discovery that humanity was definitely not alone in the universe. It should, perhaps, have been obvious – the Aside was a realm that reflected, amid high concentrations of people at least, dreams and emotions. For it to be used to traverse space, there had to be something else out there pouring it into the void. First contact between humanity and the empire that was later revealed to be the Simean Republic was bloody, an unprovoked assault from multiple starships on a lone survey vessel with the new creatures in the role of aggressor. Planetside humans saw the whole terrible event transmitted via the ship itself, and this external threat finally made the still occasionally warring humans decide to deal with their own differences diplomatically, and reserve force for these aliens. Warships were created and armed with nuclear weaponry, and with trepidation and vengefulness mankind sought out its foes.

The fleet was found hiding behind a gas giant in a nearby system, and it was a sole human warship that discovered them. Despite instructions to wait for backup, as the aliens’ energy weaponry had proved brutally effective against the survey ship’s hull, the Captain of the warship was driven by righteous anger and pressed forward without waiting, opening fire on the hiding fleet. All eight vessels were blown apart by only three missiles, and as the Captain laughed the Solar Ascendancy was truly born.

Man realised he had power in the stars, that he was a force to be reckoned with and not toyed with, and this power solidified the disparate colonies and systems into a star empire calling itself the Solar Ascendancy. Founded on the age-old principles of finders keepers and might makes right, the Solar Ascendancy stood tall in the galaxy and pushed out at a hitherto unseen pace, laying claim to dozens of worlds, and other races took notice.

The Simean Republic

In time the Solar Ascendancy encountered other ships from the same civilisation that had perpetrated the unprovoked attack, and this time far more caution was exercised on both sides. It was in this meeting that it was discovered that the Aside also functioned as a means of communication, and despite true language presenting an insurmountable barrier via the Aside it was possible to engage in dialogue with these aliens, with the Gatoids acting as translators. The Solar Ascendancy learned that the other space travellers came from a power known as the Simean Republic, a union of multiple races coming together to explore the stars in search of knowledge. The founders of the republic were the Simeans themselves, cerulean ape-like creatures standing eight feet tall, but other races such as the quadruped Than and the insectoid Rinn were also major players within the Republic. The incident of first contact between the Republic and the Ascendancy was an unfortunate mistake, it was revealed, and was not the work of the Republic itself but instead a band of separatists who had claimed independence. The Ascendancy accepted this explanation as it came with the co-ordinates of the defectors, and they then proceeded to nuke the planet from orbit.

This gross display of force shocked the Republic on many levels. The nuclear weaponry of the Ascendancy was unlike anything they had ever seen before, such overwhelming power made their previously more-than-effective laser weaponry pale in comparison. This, coupled with the callous disregard for life characterising the attack, instantly made the Republic wary of the Ascendancy and while the two empires have never waged outright war against one another and now, centuries later, even trade flows between them, some theorists suspect that the Republic has been working on some sort of contingency plan if the Ascendancy ever sets its greedy eyes on their space.

The Solar Ascendancy Ascendant

As the decades and centuries passed the Solar Ascendancy gained further power, settling more worlds and eliminating other hostile aliens in their exploration of the galaxy. The Gatoid navigators and translators were further refined to be ideal shock troops in war, thus negating the need to send precious human life into dangerous situations when their creations could do the job for them. Any enemy encountered would fall whether by ship-born nuclear missiles or by the refined personal launchers of the Gatoid storm troopers (in the case of wishing to leave a world habitable, or reducing collateral damage). At least half a dozen alien races were completely annihilated by the Ascendancy, and others were subjugated under their rule. In time this militaristic outlook saw the positions of Ascendancy President and War Minister merged into one, a position titled “Caesar”, after a holder of a similar role in an ancient civilisation on Earth. Despite the wars, many new races were contacted peacefully and a network of galactic powers established. Surprisingly, some worlds or outposts defected from the Ascendancy, either to strike out on their own or in some cases to join the Simean Republic, and suffered no repercussions from the greater empire as a result. All that mattered to the Ascendancy was that they kept their monopoly on nuclear weaponry, a state of affairs they guarded jealously, and as such made sure any seceding worlds did not have the capability to replicate nuclear weapons either for themselves or (much worse, in the eyes of the Ascendancy) the Republic.

Phanten

The Phanten are a race notable mainly for the impact they make despite no claim to the stars. Seven foot tall, four armed and bearing a striking resemblance to the woolly mammoth of prehistoric Earth, with a trunk, four tusks and shaggy fur in brown, black, white or sometimes deep red. These aliens hail from a world of frigid plains called Serengeta, and are experts at fine manipulation and technology. However, they have colonised no other planets and have no empire – they strike out into the galaxy, selling their wares and services to see the stars, and then usually they return home. They are a long-lived species, easily doubling the lifespan of the average human, and content with their place in the galaxy. They have a tremendous flair for languages, and after only a short time using the Aside to communicate they can pick up virtually any language – most Phanten speak at least five languages, usually including Ascendancy English and Simean, before they even leave Serengeta. Phanten are an uncommon sight, but their contributions are notable, especially to the Solar Ascendancy as Serengeta possesses a formidable orbital defence network rendering it virtually impregnable to Ascendancy weaponry. The Phanten have never been to war as a species, but some individuals do join mercenary crews and find that, like seemingly everything else, the Phanten are extremely capable at combat when they turn their hands (all four of them) to it.

Cnidarians

For countless centuries mankind thought it was alone in the universe, but in actuality aliens had been living among them for a very, very long time. The Cnidarians tightly control a region of space near the galactic core, comprising a dozen or so stars, with the largest star and the hub of the region named Medusa by the Solar Ascendancy. Cnidarians are in fact the jellyfish of Earth, and range in size from their tiniest on Earth all the way up to asteroid sized behemoths capable of crushing a starship within their tentacles. They seeded their terrestrial cousins on Earth and across other worlds to gather information, adapting their form to the environment. While Void Cnidarians, as they are properly called, can exist in the vacuum of space or in atmosphere and their stinging cells are more than capable of damaging inorganic matter, the jellies of Earth could only live in water – this was an oversight on their part, as they reasoned that, due to the fact the Earth is mostly covered in water, any intelligence would arise there, not on land. When the Cnidarians found humanity had used their children as little more than fuel for their A-Engines, they were perhaps understandably enraged.

Ascendancy ships exploring the Medusa region were ripped asimder by the giants, smaller Cnidarians pouring in through the breaches in a ships hull, paralysing and slowly devouring the crew. The video transmissions were horrifying, and immediately expeditions were sent to the region to eradicate these aliens from their home. The expeditions failed. The Cnidarians, lacking engines or magnetic properties, were easily able to avoid any missiles fired at them and they systematically took the fleet apart, but when the stragglers retreated the Cnidarians did not pursue. They seemed content in the Medusa region, and their rage did not inspire them to take the war to the Ascendancy. Nowadays any and all Ascendancy ships give the region a very wide berth, lest they incur the wrath of these creatures.

Indeed, it is for the best that these aliens are left alone because were it not for them the Aside would not exist at all, and space travel would instantly be shut down, crippling all the empires in the galaxy. Void Cnidarians are the source of the Aside, and it was their seeding of other worlds that spread it as a real presence across the galaxy. In addition, just because the Cnidarians did not negotiate with the trespassing, murderous humans, it does not mean they are incapable of it. As the source of the Aside itself, Cnidarians are capable of communication, quite sophisticated communication in fact, it’s just that they very rarely consider any other race worth talking to. The Ascendancy, and indeed the other powers, views the Cnidarians as more a force of nature than another empire, and has chosen to simply ignore them.

Other Races

Of course, these are by no means the only races in the galaxy. There are the aforementioned Than and Rinn, part of the Simean Republic, but also the mercantile Orthodons, the small and lithe Jerokii and the Uroskans from the desert moons of Albrinlia. Countless others claim planets, systems and occasionally many systems as their own throughout the galaxy, gaining power and sometimes surviving independently without being subsumed into the Simean Republic or annihilated by the Solar Ascendancy.

Life in the Ascendancy

The most distressing thing for the human race in this age is the fact that, for all their efforts, they remain Aside-blind. They are totally dependant on their genetically engineered creations both to see the Aside (and as such travel through space) and to communicate via the Aside with alien species, whereas every other race so far encountered has been able to see the Aside themselves. There have been many attempts to gift humans with the sight, but all have failed spectacularly. Dark experiments with the minds of the insane usually resulted in death for the subject, and attempts to graft the feline Aside-sight gene into human bodies rendered the receiver catastrophically mad. There were those, maybe a couple per world, with genuine sight but they never came forward, hearing of the experiments Ascendancy scientists were conducting and fearful for their lives or their sanity – or both. As the Ascendancy had the Gatoids for all their Aside related needs, these individuals were far more intent on self-preservation than the future of mankind.

Most humans in the three-score or so worlds of the Solar Ascendancy rarely leave the planet of their birth, and lead lives not dissimilar from modern day Earth. They work, they love, they appreciate entertainment media. Only those who live on worlds on prominent trading routes ever see any alien species, and such worlds inevitably have a higher concentration of Gatoids, too, both to facilitate communication and for security. Despite this, travel between worlds is encouraged for the humans of the Ascendancy – if nothing else, it generates income. However, thanks to the importance of being sane to travelling the Aside, the Ascendancy has deemed it important to make a person’s state of mind abundantly clear. Any suspected of any degree of mental instability are forcibly branded with glowing tribal tattoos on visible skin, the degree of covering representing the degree of instability. There is a huge stigma associated with carrying these marks, as it marks an individual as unstable, and many humans in the Ascendancy do not wish to hang around to find out just how unstable a given Painted (as they are deridingly called) is.

Following the incidents with the Cnidarians in the Medusa region, some scientists experimented with jellyfish in order to see if Aside travel was possible without killing the creatures and extracting their nematocysts. They learned that yes, it was indeed possible, but the resulting speed and response was not very efficient and while the scientists maintained that previous speeds and responsiveness would be attainable through practise, Caesar ruled it was an unnecessary setback when the fleets could simply avoid the Medusa region. Some privately owned starships do run off live jellies, but these are rarely used in complex manoeuvres or requiring of high speeds. The A-Engines of alien races are also powered by other means, but again compared to the extracted nematocyst method it is sluggish and unresponsive; the Ascendancy’s unique engines coupled with their nuclear weaponry ensured their domination.

The O’Sin Autocracy

With the arrival of the O’Sin Autocracy in the late twenty-seventh century, however, dominance was challenged. This race came from the opposite side of the galaxy, far beyond easy reach of Ascendancy ships, on moon-sized, curious-looking worldcraft with a large central shell and four gargantuan fins propelling the constructs through the void. Darting around these strange ships were smaller vessels, built for war, and either their A-Engines were powered by something just as efficient as the Ascendancy’s nematocysts or the O’Sin were simply that adept at navigating the Aside. Their weapons manipulate gravity itself and cause colossal damage to ships and planets alike, and to make matters worse the Autocracy was actively on the warpath. The O’Sin themselves are a black skinned, humanoid race with jagged teeth and scaly, thorny skin as if their entire bodies are designed to cause pain, as they are able to enact their gravity warping abilities through their physical form, having no need for physical weaponry. They have no given names, only titles, and seemingly exist only to annihilate all other races in their path.

The Supremacy War

The Ascendancy suffered its first ever planetary loss, the unfortunately-named Defence on the outskirts of Ascendancy space, to the Autocracy. Immediately a state of emergency was declared and a massive portion of the armada was rerouted to the oncoming Autocracy worldcraft to engage them in ship-to-ship combat, but while the Ascendancy’s missiles proved as effective as ever the Autocracy’s gravity altering weaponry was far more so, and their pilots were more skilled, too, resulting in a colossal loss for the Ascendancy. The Supremacy War had begun, and it continues to rage now, in the early years of the twenty-eighth century. Now the other races of the galaxy view the Ascendancy not as a presumptuous, impetuous conqueror but as a necessary evil, as their war fleets are the only thing stopping O’Sin worldcraft destroying the Simean Republic and everyone else.

The Oneirovirus

It did not take long at all for the Ascendancy to realise that with their current weaponry they stood little chance of driving back the O’Sin, let alone defeating them.

I remember it so clearly. It was dark, in my cell, apart from the pale green glow of my facial branding. I had been there… a year and a day. It had given me time to think, when they locked me away with only my head for company for “disturbing Liberty’s peace.” I did wonder why they named their planets things like that, if they were going to do things like this.

They came to me. The door opened, and it was bright, and there was a man. A man in a long black coat flanked by two black Gatoids. No, the coat wasn’t black, it was red, but one of the Gatoids was black and the other was tabby. It all just looked black, silhouetted.

“Are you Kedigan Gentleman?” the man had asked. I knew that was my name, so I nodded.

“They say you’ve been writing on the walls.”

This was true. I had. I had asked for chalk for that purpose, and they had, with uncharacteristic helpfulness, acquiesced.

“They say you’ve been writing about the Aside.”

I was so scared, at that point. I didn’t know what he was going to do. All I could do was nod.

“May I see?”

I showed him the walls. And, as I did, I became animated again. I remembered excitement. I had had an idea, and that was what they wanted. Not me.

Equations that made no sense. Drawings of jellyfish. Random words and lines connecting them.

The man’s eyes kept flicking to the branded side of my face, but he shook my hand, and he told me was I free. Free, in that I worked for him now. His name was Richard Phillips Bliare, and he was head of Special Weapons Research at Ascendancy War Command on Mars. He took me with him, and I never saw the cell again.

Kedigan had discovered a way to weaponise the Aside, and this was what the AWC wanted. A way of striking back at the O’Sin, more effective and more precise than nukes. Specialised weapons scientists took Kedigan’s notes and created the A-Cannons with them, ship and personal weaponry that ripped dreams with every shot and rendered a living target any state from gibbering madness to catatonic to instant death, and an inorganic target would be rendered useless one way or another, whether it be by vaporising it instantly or turning a hull the consistency of water. The guns required no ammunition, only intent, but the A-Cannons were even more nematocyst intensive than the A-Engines, and jelly farming in the Ascendancy was stepped up to meet demand – but even now, most ships and personnel in the Ascendancy are still armed with the out-of-date weaponry, because for all the field successes of the A–Cannons the supply was just not there, especially with what was about to strike the galaxy.

Ascendancy War Command, after taking Kedigan’s notes, left the Painted be to see if he came up with anything else useful. And, to a given degree of “useful,” he did. They called it the Oneirovirus.

He does not know how it was created, only that he birthed it one morning after working on further weaponising the Aside all night. It spread rapidly through AWC Headquarters, and a quarter of all personnel, human and Gatoid, were infected before it was quarantined – and some had left the planet before that happened. A plague unlike any other, the oneirovirus at best caused insanity. At worst it turned the infected into a warped vision of their own nightmares, twisting body and soul and physics into something dark, destructive and horrifying. Upon infection, one individual erupted in a cascade of spiders. Another’s skin turned blocky and hard, cloying and enveloping – the poor wretch was claustrophobic. The virus is impossible to categorise and, it seems, impossible to stop as when it deigns to it can travel via a person’s very dreams. Even alien races were affected, in the same way. And worst of all, as far as anyone can tell, the oneirovirus does not affect the O’Sin.

Releasing this was the final straw for Kedigan. He had already fostered doubts regarding designing weaponry, but with the spread of the oneirovirus his creations appalled him. At that moment he vowed to never use A-weaponry or any other kind of weapon, and he realised he had only one option: to escape Mars and somehow create a cure.

I don’t know how I got off the red planet, but it was the first step on the road to the best thing I will ever do. I think I stowed away on a cargo ship somehow, but it’s all blank. I remember stepping out into a cargo hangar on a waystation between Sol and Barnard’s Star, so that makes logical sense. Already the virus was there, and it sickened me, what I had done. But now I was a fugitive. I couldn’t let Command capture me again. I had to get a non-Ascendancy ship out of there.

So he did. The Republic was far less strict about non-sane passengers aboard their ships, as with careful piloting the risk was negligible, it was simply that the Ascendancy was not given to careful piloting, preferring speed over safety most of the time. The Republic liner took Kedigan to Serengeta, where he met a Phanten named Finnian who was building a live jelly powered starship, designed for not more than a dozen crew and passengers. Finnian was nearing the age that most Phanten leave Serengeta to see the stars, and after Kedigan told him about his quest to find a cure for the spreading oneirovirus (he did not tell the alien that it was his brainchild) Finnian decided to go with the Painted, giving the human use of his ship to evade the patrols of the Ascendancy. Kedigan named the craft the Princess, after a story his father had told him as a child about the nature of love and responsibility. In response to Kedigan’s disdain for weaponry, Finnian helped him build an “A-Spanner” from Kedigan’s own designs, a device capable of using the Aside to disable A-Engines or disarm an opponent at range, as while the Phanten himself would still carry weaponry he certainly did not want to be travelling with a sole crewmate who refused to use guns in case they ran into trouble – and Finnian suspected they would.

The first place they went, at Kedigan’s insistence, was the Medusa region. He knew that there was something very, very important and connected there, but he didn’t know what.

It was more terrifying than being locked in the cell, looking at all those jellies out there in the void on the viewscreen. They were everywhere, just watching, not making a move on us, as we glided slowly through them. It was like they were wondering what we were going to do next. The stories you hear of that place… all the death and unchecked destruction, but it’s wonderful, really. They’re beautiful.

The duo left the Medusa region not with answers to the oneirovirus, but with new abilities and a new crewmember. They were joined by a human-sized Cnidarian who knew their purpose, and insisted on accompanying them. The Cnidarian professed it had no need for a name, but Kedigan gave it the moniker “Brid” for simplicity’s sake. Brid possessed a completely alien outlook in some ways, but was startlingly similar to humanity in others – the fact that the Princess was powered by live jellies rather than extracted nematocysts pleased him greatly, though he didn’t have any other means of showing his pleasure than to outright state it. Over time, Kedigan grew to recognise movement in Brid’s bell and tentacles in the same way as a human would move their face to express emotion. Strangest of all, in the presence of Brid Kedigan’s own Aside-sight unlocked. Before he possessed some, enough to notice and create the A-Cannons and the oneirovirus evidently, but not enough to navigate or communicate by reliably, it was too murky. Now, he could see clearly. Clearly enough to pilot by and speak with, so long as Brid was relatively nearby. Clearly enough to pilot by with living jellies as efficiently and swiftly as an extracted nematocyst A-Engine. This gave rise to a theory – perhaps humans and Cnidarians were meant to work together? Perhaps, as with so many other things, humanity has gone about Aside travel all wrong and has tried to force things that were not meant to be, ignoring a simpler, more humane option?

Kedigan has little time to truly contemplate that, however, as avoiding the Ascendancy, the Autocracy and their battles and working on a cure for the virus before it overtakes the entire galaxy in meaningless horror and insanity and death is taking up virtually all of his time. The crew of the Princess have been joined since by a fourth individual, a human female named Hope suffering from a slow form of the oneirovirus causing her skin to rot while she still lives, whom they met on a mining colony on the edge of Ascendancy space. If Kedigan can keep her holding on to faith that he can find a cure, he knows he will eventually. Hope is a strong, capable woman who knows how to handle herself, physically and emotionally, so the only thing Kedigan feels he has to do to look after her is find the cure. A big step on the journey was admitting to his shipmates that he was responsible for the creation of the virus, and them not caring, because now he is completely dedicated to finding a cure. That is the most important thing.

The darkest thing, though Kedigan doesn’t yet know this, is the Ascendancy doesn’t want to capture him to bring him to justice. No, they want to set him back to work on refining the virus, truly weaponising it, controlling it, making it affect the O’Sin. If lives must be lost so that the Ascendancy can return to full dominance, then that is a small price to pay. The revelation would be devastating, though a not-inconsiderable part of him suspects this anyway, confirmation would be brutal. Even so, it would not sway his course. The only thing that matters is the cure. The cure is the only thing that matters. If only he knew where to look.

February 16, 2011 | Categories: Dream Ascendancy | Tags: autobiography, cat, cure, despair, dream, dreams, fantasy, hope, imagination, jellyfish, love, mammoth, metaphor, nightmare, pain, plague, power, revolution, space opera, surreal, virus, writer | Leave a comment