While experimenting with various methods to repair the time
continuum and fuse the ever burgeoning amount of alternate universes, the Ancients discovered a method of creating pocket
universes, which are self contained universes created in a null space outside the
confines of regular time and space. Using sophisticated matter/energy
conversion technologies and technologies based on quantum mechanics, the
Ancients created pocket universes that served as laboratories where highly
dangerous experiments to could be transacted without endangering the primary
universe or the alternate universes formed by the fracturing of the timeline.
The earliest of the artificial universes were scale models of the
Ancients’ home planet and its solar system, that is Earth and its solar
system.
In their quest for immortality the Ancients created a pocket
universe in which artificial energy beings could be created and studied. This
is the universe known as the Farmerian Oz
Universe. They later abandoned this universe but did not destroy it because it
contained sentient life.
As their technique became more sophisticated they created pocket
universes based on popular ancient works of fiction, among them were the
Burroughs universe, the Baum Oz Universe etc.
Approximately 900, 000 years ago The Preservers
discovered a dormant pocket universe created by the Ancients designed
to study human evolution and cultural development. The Ancients were after all
practically immortal and fascinated by their progenitors, the human species, so
this may have been the equivalent of an antfarm. After switching the
artificial universe on, the Preservers left. Although the experiment
had been set up so that the human populations would originate in the same areas
the culture developed in a quite different manner. The human beings on this
version of Earth called themselves the Thoan or the Vaernirn.[1]
After a period of internecine war, they formed a homogenous culture.
After
three attempts at interstellar travel the Thoan discovered, that they lived in
an artificial universe. It shattered their spirit, causing massive trauma
throughout their species. A quarter of the population died in the next fifty
years through warfare, suicides and dissolute living. Various internecine wars
further depopulated the population of the Thoan world. The population was
further reduced when a various life extension methods were discovered and
procreation was strictly regulated.
The
nearly immortal Thoan civilization became quite stagnant and barely changed for
nearly five hundred thousand years. They successfully developed systems for
terraforming the nearby planets of their solar system, matter-energy
transformation, great strides in genetic restructuring and nanotechnology. They
created worlds in their solar system and finally while attempting to discover
the nature of their universe the Thoan stumbled onto a method of traveling to
alternate universes.
For
some reason the easiest universes to reach were those that developed radically
different from their own universe. They began conquering alternate universes
and enslaving alien species. Approximately 25,000 -30,000 years before the
present era, they arrived at a reality controlled by The Thokina, another
multiverse spanning race. The two species clashed and war broke out. The
prolonged multiversal war nearly wiped out both species. [2]
According
to the Thoans records, Thokina population was reduced to one individual who was
kept imprisoned for millennia and the Thoan were reduced to some 30,000
individuals. That is the official Thoan version of history, in reality the
Thokina forced the Thoan to retreat to their home universe and destroyed the
Thoan’s technology for traveling to alternate universes. The Thokina left
guards behind to insure the Thoan did not regain the ability to travel the
multiverse.
A
few years after the war the Thoan rose up and killed the Thokina Guards, except
for one who was placed in protective custody. Kickaha later met the remaining
Thokina Guard Kruuz.
According
to the Thoan’s own history, after the war with the Thokkina the
Thoan tried to regain the ability to travel the multiverse and in doing so
discovered how to create pocket universes.
Approximately
18,000 years before the current era, the Thoan, used all of the remaining
technology and science at their command create two pocket universes that were
exact copies of theirs.[3]
The animals and human populations were bioengineered from living and extinct DNA
Red
Orc, the scientist in charge of the project was awarded Guardianship of the two
worlds and he became known as the Lord of Two Worlds
Three
thousand years later the Thoan embarked on a massive universe building spree.
Each Thoan desired to be Lord of their own universe. Although the life
expansion techniques worked very well, the Thoan still aged, albeit exceeding
slowly. In their quest for absolute immortality, the Thoan accidentally created
an artificial intelligence, the Black Bellers.
A group of Thoans calling themselves the Ethicals successfully petitioned for
the Black Bellers to be given a chance a sentient life.
The Black Bellers’ consciousnesses were transferred into the
minds of artificially created humans whose consciousnesses were never allowed
to develop. The Black Bellers eventually rebelled, taking over several
pocket universes until they were defeated and shut into a triple walled
universe with no entrance or exit.
Shortly after the Black Beller War, many of the Thoan began a
complex game that involved conquering other pocket universes and trapping
fellow Thoans in worlds designed to endlessly torture captive Thoans.
Especially those Ethicals that survived the
Black Beller War.
As a final punishment about 11,000 years ago, the last surviving
group of Ethicals were placed in a world that consists of small tropical
islands surrounded by giant predatory aquatic and amphibian life.
Around
10,000 BCE, Red Orc, Thoan Lord of the Two Earths, discovered the true Earth.
After initial exploration, he also discovered traces of extraterrestrial life,
specifically the Goa'uld. Not wishing for the Thoans to be exposed to this
threat, he kept the location of the true Earth a secret. However, he used
resources and peoples from the true Earth for his two worlds. As a social
experiment, he guided one of his worlds to follow a path almost identical to
the history of the true earth.
Shortly
after created his doppelganger Earth Red Orc's parallel earth suffered a
virulent plague that killed 90 percent of its population. The plague was caused
by his accidental introduction of the Bubonic plague. His ego would not allow
for such failure and so quietly began a deception. Since the only access into
the parallel earths was through a gate, Red Orc changed the frequency of all
the parallel earth's gates to that of the true Earth, passing it off as his
creation.
Jadawin
built his World of Tiers and populated it with specimens stolen from Red
Orc’s two worlds. Fascinated by one of these worlds he stole specimens
and copied the cultures on this particular planet. Unbeknownst to him it is the
original Earth.
Red
Orc was killed by a distant relative of his also known as Orc. This Orc never
knew that this planet is the true Earth, Orc was surprised that Red Orc did not
allow his leblabbiy to have the life extension treatments. Orc was
fascinated by the short life spans and subsequent rapid pace of his newly
acquired Earths and so continued with this experiment. He eventually came to
believe that he was the creator of both of the Earths and used the name Red Orc
Red
Orc allowed his two Earth's to develop naturally, monitoring but not really
interfering. When he heard reports that there were extraterrestrial
influences at work in the world, he dismissed them as fantasies (knowing that
there were not other worlds beyond the solar system) or as plots by other Lords
to wrest control of the Earth from him. He let these run their course as well,
enjoying prospect of a game.
When
the imposter Red Orc became bored of the Two Earths he started taking over the
universes of other Lords
Around 1918, Jadawin was stranded on the true Earth, bereft of
memories. The longevity treatments in his system had been neutralized as part
of his exile and he aged as a normal human being of Earth. He eventually found
his way back to the World of Tiers with the help of an Earthman who had
accidentally been transported and stranded on the World of Tiers. Jadawin
regained his memory but was a changed man. He was forced to flee from the World
of Tiers when the Black Bellers returned and invaded his palace. He returned to
Earth and as of 1970 he still resided there.
In 1945, Paul Janus Finnegan. a supposedly native Earthman[4] with strong Wold Newton genetic
ties was accidentally transported to the World of Tiers. Paul Janus
Finnegan became renowned through the Thoan Universes as the Slayer of the Black
Bellers and the Killer of Lords. He was respected for his trickery and
ruthlessness yet despised for being a leblabbiy. After
several adventures in which he was able to gain the love of a female Lord, he
ended up in a fierce game with Red Orc for control of all of the Thoan
Universes.
In
the course of this he meets the last Thokina or the last in the Thoan universes
anyway. Kruuz was thoroughly conditioned by Red Orc to believe in the Thoan
history of the multiversal war and to be a last ditch weapon for Red Orc, to
destroy all the Thoan Universes. However, Kruuz' hatred for Red Orc
overcame his conditioning enough to try and kill him prior to destroying all of
the Universes.
For
more details read, Philip Jose Farmer's Maker of Universes, Gates of
Creation, A Private Cosmos, Behind the Walls of Terra, The Lavalite World, Red
Orc's Rage and More Than Fire.
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©
2000-2009 Dennis Power
