the language of Angelus . . .
Among the characters of Bragg's by the White Book, Paullo certainly stands out, both physically and in depth of character. Like you or me, Paullo exhibits a dichotomy of traits hovering on the scale between good or evil - at times honourable or selfish, vendictive or magnanimous, caring or tyrannical - and harbours some inner conflict about the extremes of his own character. Unlike you or me, the few unique traits that he also harbours are unlike any other. Without doubt, Paullo is the novel's most complex character.
Close behind Paullo in depth of character is Tagg, an ordinary man bothered by sometimes uncontrollable dreams that almost amount to a religious experience, although he shows few signs of being overtly religious.
Others - McGregor, Naedaara, Lizandro, Tzing-Ti . . . - a man of science with a high tolerance for hopeful surprises, a girl in love, a patriot of the cause, a spy with enhancements. A supporting cast that spans seventy-six thousand light years!
Hover your mouse over each concept sketch for a brief note on that character.
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Gnat (Al teekt gnatto fr Homeworld Latin / Angelusian Old Tongue fr Homeworld Greek gnathos “jaw”), the common name for any one of the apparently related species of predatory arthropodal, wingless life forms, Gnathopulex extremus, -sapiens, etc. found in all areas of the foondo from the towering skarpe escarpment, across the deepest jungle swampland, the foondo cheeua magn, to the vast planetary desert schege.
Gnat species range from rooster- to ostrich-size. Male and unfertilized female gnats have the same general habits, but the fertilized female attacks to procure nourishment for her eggs. Smaller species can spring ten metres straight up from a rest position and will drop upon their victim suddenly and without warning, guided by the faintest electrical field or heat source produced by the living prey.
Gnats are sequentially hermaphroditic; the life cycle of all species of gnat is known to include egg, larva, and a brief protoandrous adult stage before transforming into the rapacious female form. Larvae must be deposited in the bodies of dead or paralysed victims on which the larvae can feed. Should a suitably sized host not be found, the eggs will hatch within the female and the larvae will feed on, and thus shortly kill, their mother.
All forms of gnat are exceedingly predatory and only their destruction will prevent their attack on an intended victim. The gnat will attack any living creature that moves and produces heat or an electrical field. No certain deterrent has been discovered or developed although the use of artificial electrical fields has seen limited success to confuse and distract them.
No connection is intended to the Homeworld “gnat” as represented by the tiny mosquito and other similar blood-sucking insects, nor any genetic relationship to the minuscule parasitic flea (Siphonaptera) of Homeworld to which Gnathopulex extremus bears a superficial resemblance, despite its formal designation (L. -pulex “flea”).– Syklopeida ta Angelus, a proposed Order of Homeworlders
(talPadraa) publication, English ed.
“An eikooz is strictly vegetarian,” Tzing-Ti said to Tagg. “It’s also an arthropod, but of a type you won’t see on Earth. Something about having muscles outside its shell as well as inside. That plume on top serves as ears. And it breaths through those tubes on top. See those two sets of eyes . . . .”
Because of its ample pelt, Tagg could discern evidence of an exoskeleton only on its upper body. It held a proud stance, muscles rippled beneath the longer hair of its legs as it shifted its weight. Tagg decided that four eyes were little help in determining the disposition of the sturdy beast as he may have done for a horse, and said so.
“They are very gentle,” she said in the creature’s defence, “and at least as intelligent as a horse. And they don’t need those awful iron shoes and nails.” Its well-padded toes splayed out, camel-like, under the long, black hair covering its feet.
(by the White Book, chapter "Gina")
The lead skaabr were now close enough to discern details. They rocked forward and back on their eight columnar legs producing a cumbersome, slow gallop, the awesome claws on their oversized forelimbs leaving trenches in the hard plain. Flocks of winged cleaners arose from heliport-sized carapaces covered their steeply sloping backs, greenish and oval and ending in a thick, triangular, segmented tail.
“Skaabr ti maunz means ‘digger of mountains’ in the Great Mother Tongue,” the girl commented. “They use those big claws on their front limbs to dig for water. It is said they burrow deep and anchor themselves in the ground. Just their backs and breathing tubes sticking out.”
As they passed over the lead skaabr, it raised its elongated head to reach half the distance up to their skyraft. Tagg noted its two rounded, featureless bulges, like those of an eikooz but much larger. Smaller, focussing eyes were set half-way along its three-metre-long anteater’s snout which ended in a maw of fierce mandibles. A tall sensor crest ran from between its larger eyes down its long, thick neck between its double breathing tubes swaying out behind.
“Those claws,” Tagg said, looking at the forelimbs, “they’re a metre long!” He turned to her. “Why do they bury themselves?”
“To escape i foolkano, the tornados that sometimes cross the plaana,” she said. “Otherwise they’re harmless. They eat leaves off tall trees. And they have a kind of fungus or algae living on their backs that makes energy from sunlight – see where it’s greenish, there? – and somehow it shares with the skaabr.”
(by the White Book, chapter "Reunion, then East")
Depiction of the monstrous head of the mdooz or al fauks ta Schaedaun, "Guard of Satan," of the Angalusan hyperjungle - "a cryptozoologist’s nightmare" (--Gina, ch. "Drill Site")
“The mdooz is . . . koosto – I do not know the English,” Naedaara stumbled.
“ . . . broody.” TriDuGingAn’s voice was strong but halting. “The mdooz is dispersing the seed dust of its plant side. Inside those floaters that you see. That is why it has not attacked again.”
“Seeds?” Tagg almost shouted. “So what!”
“Each floater is a little biological weapons factory. They burst and fill the air with seed dust. If you breath the dust, the seeds breed inside your lungs, feed off your blood supply. Like a fungus. No cure. You are eaten alive from inside out. It will take days . . . .” (by the White Book, chapter "Drill Site")
(CONCEPT SKETCHES NOT INCLUDED HERE - the scavenger altekaun or "tall dogs" of the menze (prairie), the farscha for the table, the keel that flies so high, the flying skael whose sting impregnates with eggs, the terrifying Al maans teik ta Schaedaun or "the Right Hand of Satan" which may rise from the deep hyperjungle to seek prey above the plateau cliffs, the teiskr "dirtmen", genetic jungle cousins to the Patricians, others . . .)
It was enclosed, rectangular, the size of a small barge sloping to a wedge in the forward end. Shadowy figures moving about inside could be discerned through a wide transparent “T” whose ends wrapped down from the top over the sides and front. The two forward corners and rear quarter of the boxy craft were opaque blocks that sported dully glowing, square panels. The thing had the general colour of weathered, bare, grey metal not yet at the stage of rust. A heavy droning hum filled the air. “It is our taxi out of here,” Paullo stated. (by the White Book, chapter "Climb, Snatch, Rescue, Blowout")
Inhabitable plaana alta (plateau continents), foondo hyperjungles and seas of Angelus.
The following is the original text from which “Author’s Note” and part of “Appendix I” of by the White Book were drawn. Presented here with permission of the author, R A Bragg.
Angelus Universe [Adapted to appear in novel as first part of ‘Author’s Note’]
Globular clusters, crowded spherical swarms of thousands of ancient stars, loop in wide, careening orbits around the Milky Way's barred hub in a vast and sparsely populated halo that surrounds our galaxy, the majority concentrated towards the galactic center. Globulars are not unusual – the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) glows with 2000 of them! The hundred and fifty globular clusters of our Milky Way are survivors of hundreds more, absorbed and lost into the star-hordes of the main galaxy as they passed through it many eons ago.
Orba, giant Jupiter-type gas planet, orbits at a distance of 23 AU (Astronomical Units) from Blue Man, its primary, to maintain its gas giant integrity. It has five satellites. Originally one of its more distant is Angelus [awn-GAY-luwss].
Angelus has no moon. It is, itself, one of several satellites of its Jupiter-type primary, Orba, which orbits, with four others, Al Azoor. It and its giant, distant M-type binary companion, Al Roob share a common barycentre and so are always on opposite sides of that point and at a relatively constant if unequal distance apart.
The potential implications of a planet divided by eight kilometres of vertical cliffs can be very intriguing. As if the stunning glory of Angelus’ skies were not sufficient with two suns, a near-by Saturn-like planet and a panoramic view of the Milky Way Galaxy, the planet itself offers two distinct and separate environments divided by altitude. Most of the planet is either equatorial swampland and hyperjungle, its life forms deadly to the unprepared and its dense and oxygen-laden atmosphere toxic by degrees to all visitors, or it is temperate zone desert and desolation to the glacial polar regions. However, rising on sheer cliffs of up to eight kilometres above this lethal lowland is a plateau, the plaana alta, comprising ten percent of the surface area of the planet. Conditions on these highlands are predominately cool and dry, despite lying on the equator, a near ideal environment . . .
The very earliest history of life on Angelus parallels that of Earth, originating in the seas millennia before adapting to relatively drier terrestrial environments. Like Earth, the arthropod life forms first appearing on land had already become predominant in the oceans. And, like Earth, the first successful immigrant from the Angelus seas evolved to dominate life on land much as the insects do on Earth by their sheer variety and numbers.
A bit of a mystery is the Alien, Artisan Eleven. As is the rest of the little grey creature’s Collective, for that matter! Where do they come from? And when? Which leads to another question - when did the events on Angelus, as we follow them in by the White Book, actually occur relative to the time stream of Earth seventy-six thousand light years away? At the same time, allowing for objective travel time on the Gray’s ship? At the same time, exactly? Or out of the time frame of Earth altogether?
[Webmaster-- Is the term temporal backtracking a hint ...? Naedaara, in the chapter "Confession in a Wine Cellar," remarked to Tagg on the necessity of a Gray pilot in the alien ship:
"...Kognr called it temporal backtracking. Something to do with controlling the arrival point in the time line. Otherwise they would all be dead of old age before they got there..."]
And then there is The Goddess belief... Maraenism may be Catholicism without Saul/Paul of Tarsus, but The Goddess is pure Neolithic throwback. Colonies naturally preserve many of the older cultural and linguistic traits that fade away from the originating motherland – ask coastal Brits or outport Newfoundlanders about their annual Guy Fawkes Night celebrations, a bonfire tradition harking back to assassination attempts on England’s James I, and they will happily explain – in Elizabethan English! The Goddess tradition was, well, I give way to professed exponent and expert, the late archeomythologist, Marija Gimbutas:
One interesting belief of the Maraens completely separates mind – or, better put, higher awareness – and the beast of burden that is the body. This concept presumes that children broaden their awareness as they mature, the elderly eventually lose theirs. The belief is an appropriate point of view in a people whose overlords hardly ever age or experience senility, and the most powerful of those being childless 'mules'!
Even separated by a gulf of seventy-six thousand light years, many old, many archaic homeworld customs can be expected to survive in some form or other. That fact, and the speculative writer’s “What if?” process led to the Maraen religion, the Temple Knights-Homeworlder conflict, benevolent dictator-wannabe Domidus, incest, the lovely Naedaara, the alien Artisan Eleven (‘the One Left Over’), and the Angelusan “universe” itself. But human nature remains the same! Fear, love, the grab for power – even among the already genetically well-endowed who have inherited the top of the food chain! As Jack Tagg eventually suspects, “The more things change . . .”
The Palomar 5 cluster is one of those survivors just past the highest point on its cosmic Ferris wheel ride, sixty thousand light years above the plane of the galaxy. Its ten thousand remnant stars left from the cluster's last encounter with the galaxy are smeared across 13,000 light-years of space in well-defined leading and trailing tidal streams. The tails contain half as many stars as are still in the cluster. This cluster is being torn apart and may not survive another trip through the galaxy.
That much is astronomical fact. In by the White Book we find that two of those stars, Al Azoor and Al Roob, are on the very vanguard of Palomar 5's leading tidal stream. They, nor the planets they stole from the galaxy eons ago, nor the drawn-out cluster light years behind them, will survive their final plunge into the galaxy.
But that is hundreds of millions of years from now.
Long before then, Al Roob the Red Man, helium-obese, old and decrepit, will go nova. The blast will strip away the outer layers of its binary companion, Al Azoor the Blue Man, and the surface of its planets. Their living things will be blown out like so many tiny candles in the hurricane of Red Man's death throes.
But that, too, is thousands of years in the future.
Right now, Jack Wyndham Tagg and his older brother-in-law, Simon McGregor, are in search of Gina, Simon’s wife. They find themselves dropped onto a lost colony of Earth, as it were, with reminders familiar and homey, but hazards severely unhealthy.
Due to gravitational influence of Blue Man’s companion star, Red Man, passing close by in its orbit at the time of impact on Angelus of an asteroid or large comet, Angelus began an eons-long spiral inward toward Orba.
Beginning as a huge, dirty snowball with a 8-10 kilometre glacial slurry mantle of frozen H2O, CO2, and methane, Angelus thawed as it neared Orba’s inner zone of high IR and other radiation. Angelus’s originally extreme rotational speed of less than an hour during its early formation had already raised its rocky lithosphere up through its glacial skin at its equatorial belt. Nearing Orba, 8-10 kilometre-high rocky plateaus appeared out of the melting H2O, and evaporating CO2 formed a cloudy shell around the planet.
Nearer still to radiant Orba, Angelus lost its methane into space and a planet-wide H2O ocean turns the plateaus into tropical islands. Over eons, Orba heated its approaching moon even more, the oceans of the temperate zone evaporated into space leaving vast swamplands, then deserts in its place, and the greenhouse cloud cover shrunk to the equatorial belt restricting most life forms that evolved in the accelerating effects of Orba’s radiation to the murky jungles and swamps below the clear, high precipices of the highland plateaus.
Angelus will continue to spiral ever so slowly inward towards Orba until, millennia hence, it falls to be swallowed up by the swirling atmosphere of the gas giant.
Al Azoor, “Blue Man” in the language of the human inhabitants of Angelus, is a B7 type blue star of 13,000 degrees K, is 5 times the mass and 4 times the radius of the sun. At a mean distance of 23 AU (1 AU = 1 sun-Earth distance), the orbital period of Obra, and thus its satellite, Angelus, is about 50 years and its apparent diameter in Angelus’ sky is about a sixth that of the Sun as seen from Earth. Although the apparent brightness of Al Azoor is less than a third of the visible light that the Sun provides to Earth, nevertheless on Angelus one would be exposed to 1.6 times the Sun's UV radiation, and even more heat, since Al Azoor's radiated energy peaks in the IR band. Being a B7 type star means that Blue Man would normally have a total lifespan of only about 300 million Earth years, a star-type and time period seemingly inconsistent with the development of its retinue of planets.
On the other hand, Al Roob or “Red Man,” an aging, cool and incredibly massive red supergiant of 2600 deg K, is nearing its end and can be expected to go nova within only several thousand (Earth) years. Its radius has already expanded to about 3 AU, and, despite its great distance, in the skies of Angelus it is second in size only to great ringed Orba, varying little as the Orba-Angelus system orbits Al Azoor. Legends indicate that the apparent diameter of Al Roob has increased in the human history of Angelus.
Al Roob produces thermal IR radiation from hot dust which causes radio emissions in the 3 KHz to 300 GHz bands. This is relatively negligible in direct human terms due to its orbital distance, and Red Man contributes less IR than does Orba, Angelus' primary, but Al Roob is engulfed in nebulosity and frequent radio fluxes virtually rule out local radio communications.
Stellar wind from Al Roob has formed a thin, usually invisible accretion disk around Al Azoor, contributing somewhat to the local radio noise. Al Roob's stellar wind also provides detectable deposits of zirconium oxide and lanthanum oxide onto the surface of its planets. The schege deserts of Angelus can sparkle like diamonds!
Each sun has its separate small retinue of planets, Red Man with its three dead rocks each the size of Mercury, Blue Man with its more impressive five – a small, fast rocky ball with a name that appropriately translates as “Whippet,” a red desert planet called Mars, two gas giants, and a featureless, Earth-sized snowball. The orbit of Angelus around Orba is tilted relative to the plane of the Al Azoor planetary system and progresses, causing Orba, Al Azoor, and Al Roob to be in conjunction regularly. This eclipse of the binary suns by Orba, especially when it darkens the plateau continents of Angelus, is the “dark time” or al nauk and has been given special cultural and religious significance.
So, the lack of a moon is more than adequately made up for by having two giant suns in the sky. However, in addition, there is the staggering sight of ringed Orba dominating the heavens by day or night, and the altered and awesome view of the overwhelming, pinwheeling immensity of “the Eye of the Father God”, the Milky Way Galaxy. This breath-taking sight is balanced in the skies of Angelus by “the Saints”, the nearer stars of Palomar 5, the strung-out remnants of the doomed globular cluster on its last eons-long orbit around the galactic centre.
Unlike Earth, Angelus’ relatively weak tidal action provided for an early, stable, and powerful ecosystem in its narrow but unchanging intertidal areas which predicated against later chordate (backboned) animals evolving to share the land. That, and the encouragement of the comparatively oxygen-rich atmosphere, produced descendants of Angelus’ water scorpions that evolved to become the dominant land predators while chordates never evolved beyond the fishes of the ocean environment.
Although fossil evidence from Buffalo, New York State, and more recently reported from a quarry near Frankfurt, Germany, show Earth’s equivalent sea scorpions, the Eurypterida, reached three metres long (see image, right), they alone among the descendants of the first arthropods became extinct in the Permian era and have no living representative on Earth today. Others, the lobsters, crabs, spiders, and especially insects, are ubiquitous among the Earth’s only other land pioneers, the backboned descendants of the fish-to-amphibian evolution, the reptiles and their successors – birds and mammals.
Other life forms of Earth have their counterparts on Angelus, especially the representatives of lesser-known genera. For example, Psfiesteria piscicida, a species particularly damaging to fish stocks in the eastern US, could easily be the model for several potentially lethal creatures of the deep foondo cheeua hyperjungle of Angelus. But the arthropods rule – think of dog-size camel spiders (family Solifugae) that actually do live up to their reputations, and more!
. . . the fertilized female attacks to procure nourishment for her eggs. Smaller species can spring ten metres straight up from a rest position and will drop upon their victim suddenly and without warning, guided by the faintest electrical field or heat source produced by the living prey. Gnats are sequentially hermaphroditic . . . Larvae must be deposited in the bodies of dead or paralysed victims . . . All forms of gnat are exceedingly predatory and only their destruction will prevent their attack on an intended victim . . .
The twentieth century has been characterized by persistent UFO contactee reports of “greys” – short, slim, big-headed ETs – and their purported interest in homo sapiens genetics. But observations of exceptional aerial phenomena go back a long way to pre-classical times. A distant, bi-level planet – Angelus – outside the Milky Way Galaxy would make an ideal abductee lab colony established long ago by alien greys . . . .
“Agricultural people's beliefs concerning sterility and fertility, the fragility of life and the constant threat of destruction, and the periodic need to renew the generative processes of nature are among the most enduring. . . . The Goddess-centered religion existed for a very long time . . . leaving an indelible imprint on the Western psyche.”
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