The New Gods Archives

May 26, 2005

Ted: The New Gods Part One

"You grow heliotropes?" she asked, wonder in her voice.

She knew the answer. I had the look. I spent so much time tending the sun gardens inside the sun's corona that I had, well, changed. The technology that allowed us to change was still new, only four or five hundred years old. Hell, I could remember a time before there were heliotropes, when that word still only meant a kind of flower.

They sort of are flowers. They grow in the sun and can be bred to specification. My last to bear fruit sent eight ships off with the Exo-Corps.

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May 27, 2005

Ted: The New Gods Part Two

The process of growing starships inside the corona of the sun was made possible by two things: The energy available, and the Gardeners' training. The training had been around for millennia, but not until Tivik the Holy's near accident had this new application been discovered.

Tivik had been trained by his Order to make small changes, minute adjustments. The effects might not be seen from his actions for a season or a year or a decade or more. But when faced with a solar storm trying to kill him, he made the first "Leap Of Magnitude" and saved his ship.

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June 16, 2005

Ted: The New Gods Part Three

Tivik knew his ship was about to die. The solar flare had loomed too quickly to avoid. But with it, came more raw power than he had ever felt.

The trees he was transporting to L-5 were precious. He had worked them for thirty years. They produced eight times the amount of oxygen as an oak, had wood the strength of steel, and respirated more water than they used in certain soils. It was the project that granted him apprentice status in the Order at such a young age.

But fifty years of training plus desperation made him a god.

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June 29, 2005

Ted: The New Gods Part Four

"In order to train the growth of any organism, one must first understand how that organism grows..."

Sulek listened with half his mind while the other half concentrated on the vine. He had been trying to force a leftward spiral for over a week.

"Sulek!"

He looked up and realized that Tivik had been speaking to him for minutes now. So great had his concentration been that he simply had not heard the Abbot addressing him.

"Yes, Abbot?"

"You try too hard child. You must release conscious control. The seed must have in it that which you seek to accent."

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July 2, 2005

Ted: The New Gods Part Five

Sulek was going to be reborn, she thought as she found her place in the chapel. She looked at the shrouded four who were joining the godhood today, but couldn't know which was Sulek in his new form until he was named and the Abbot annointed him.

Throughout the system, billions watched as the Abbot, Tivik Himself in his diamond flesh, stood nude before the four. She was allowed to be present in person only at the request of the new godling, her brother.

Tivik finally called Sulek's name, and she screamed when she saw the form he had chosen.

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August 3, 2005

Ted: The New Gods, Part Six

Sulek felt afraid. He had been told that this was his destiny, but he barely understood the word. He approached the Abbot.

"How old are you, child?" asked the Abbot, resplendant in his diamond skin.

"Nine, Abbot Tivek" he croaked.

The Abbot took an acorn from the small table between them. "Do you recognize this?"

"That is an acorn from the Great Tree. The one that saved you."

"Will it grow for you?" the Abbot asked. "Can you feel it's life?"

Sulek touched the acorn, feeling. "This acorn is dead, Abbot. There's nothing here."

"You have passed your first test."

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September 11, 2005

Ted: The New Gods, Part Seven

Crawling, hands and knees scraped and bloody. I'll not let this be my last.

I stand.

I never had honor, so they couldn't take that. I never had valor or courage or strength either. They kept beating me until all these things I never had were memories.

They forget who I am and what it means to be me.

One step forward. They are frightened, as they should be.

Of the things I didn't have, I didn't have patience most of all.

"Return to me my compassion and I will let you live." It isn't easy being a fallen god.

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November 1, 2005

Ted: The New Gods, Part Eight

Sulek exited the Abbot's car, his heart heavy. His sister was in hospital, terrified over what she had seen. His attendants opened the hospital doors and he glided inside, knowing only that his sister was on the 333rd floor, seven floors beneath his tread. He heard his mother's voice before the freight elevator doors opened. He was forced to take that elevator due to his sheer size and weight. The ferrocrete of the hospital floors seemed to groan with his passing.

"Mother, I've returned."

Every soul on the floor bowed before him, begging blessings.

"You've done enough, Holy One. Begone."

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January 11, 2006

Ted: The New Gods, Part Nine

The earth shook. The sky screamed. The seas boiled. The Change had come to this globe.

Janruk beheld the chaos around around him, and smiled.

The remaking of an entire world was his dearest duty and pleasure. He contemplated the planet's core, and adjusted it's density. The globe shrank. He beheld the seas, and raised or lowered the land to enlarge and deepen them. He breathed in the atmosphere, and cleansed it of the poisons he found.

The waste he spat into the sky to form a moon.

Janruk, The Change, had come. We dedicate this world to his name.

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October 12, 2006

Ted: The New Gods, Part Ten

Niko's azure visage occluded the view of the others gathered. He had projected himself far into the past to attend this august assembly, for he was to testify.

The court was peopled by only by Masters. No cameras would record this, the only record kept would be oral: songs for the ears of initiates.

He began his climb to the Chair alone, but was joined by thousands of other projections of himself: all from different eras, all tasked to speak for the Defense.

He, along with his Host, spoke: "I Speak with true knowledge of my own Death to come."

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