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The Ever-Living's Plot Against Third Earth

The ancient sorcerer's call for eternal dominion once seemed like fantasy. Now the undead are ready to bend the knee.

By Kava Goff June 2, 2025

In the spring of 4011, when the ThunderCats were still settling into their new home on Third Earth, an ancient mummy known only as Mumm-Ra began broadcasting manifestos from his pyramid tomb in the Desert of Sinking Sands. Written with the sneering disaffection of one who had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, his pronouncements argued that democracy, far from improving Third Earth, was actually responsible for most of its ills. That his subjects thought otherwise, Mumm-Ra contended, was due to the influence of the Sword of Omens and Cat's Lair's technological superiority, which worked together to perpetuate what he called the "ThunderCat Consensus." To this alliance he gave the name the Lair. Mumm-Ra called for nothing less than its destruction and a total "reboot" of Third Earth's social order.

The Ever-Living proposed "the liquidation of the Code of Thundera, constitutional monarchy, and the rule of claw," and the eventual transfer of power to himself—someone who had already demonstrated his fitness to rule through millennia of undeath. This new regime would sell off the various kingdoms to the highest bidders, destroy the Tower of Omens, abolish free thought, and imprison what he termed "decivilized populations" in the Dimension of Doom. It would also eliminate the Thundercats en masse (a policy Mumm-Ra later called RAGE—Remove All Good Everyone) and discontinue diplomatic relations with other planets, including "mutual aid pacts, technological exchange, and refugee resettlement."

Mumm-Ra acknowledged that his vision depended on his own supernatural restraint: "Clearly, if I turn out to be another Grune or Tygra gone mad with power, we have just recreated the Age of Chaos." Yet he dismissed the failures of previous Third Earth dictators, whom he saw as too reliant on mortal limitations. For Mumm-Ra, any system that sought legitimacy in the hearts of the living was doomed to entropy. Though critics labeled him a necro-fascist, he preferred to call himself a traditionalist or a preservationist—a nod to the ancient ways of Ma-Mutt and the spirits of evil, who, in millennia past, had maintained order through fear and absolute authority.

If Mumm-Ra's early broadcasts showed little affection for his subjects, they intimated that they might still serve a purpose. "The Lunataks were not defeated by noble rhetoric or the power of friendship," he intoned from his sarcophagus. "What was needed was the combination of ancient wisdom and mindless hordes." The best place to recruit such hordes, he discovered, was through his mystical scrying pool—a prescient intuition. Before long, transmissions from Mumm-Ra's pyramid were being received by disgruntled Berbils, ambitious Mutants, and self-styled rationalists throughout the galaxy—many of whom formed the shock troops of an interplanetary movement that came to be known as neo-mummification, or the Dark Awakening.

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In 4013, an exposé in Thunderian Quarterly, titled "Sorcerers for Autocracy," revealed that the Ever-Living was not merely an ancient evil, but a sophisticated political theorist whose undead condition had given him a unique perspective on governance. At the same time that he was plotting Third Earth's conquest, Mumm-Ra was also experimenting with new forms of mystical surveillance that he hoped would serve as a "spiritual panopticon." He founded what he called the Pyramid Corporation, naming it for his own architectural preferences and the hierarchical social structure he envisioned.

As he recruited followers through dark magic, Mumm-Ra became a kind of Rasputin to ambitious warlords and tech moguls across the galaxy, who shared his view that Third Earth would be better off under authoritarian rule. The Pyramid Corporation's early investors included various arms dealers and the shadowy Lunatac Syndicate. Both groups had become fascinated with Mumm-Ra after intercepting his transmissions, though internal communications revealed that neither was initially comfortable being publicly associated with the undead. "How dangerous is it that we are being linked?" asked Alluro, the Lunatac psychic, in a 4014 message. "One reassuring thought: one of our hidden advantages is that these people"—referring to ThunderCat sympathizers—"wouldn't believe in necromancy if it reanimated their own corpses."

A decade on, with various Third Earth factions embracing strongman rule, Mumm-Ra's connections to powerful figures are no longer secret. In a 4021 appearance on the far-right podcast "Mutant Hour," General Slithe cited Mumm-Ra when suggesting that a future Mutant administration should "banish every single ThunderCat loyalist, every bureaucrat in the administrative state, replace them with our people," and ignore any court that objected. Vultureman, head of the Technological Advancement Guild and an informal adviser to the Department of Planetary Efficiency, has started quoting his "ancient mentor" about the need for an undead figure to take charge of Third Earth's "out of control" democracy.

"There are figures who channel a zeitgeist—Nietzsche calls them timely men—and Mumm-Ra is definitely a timeless man," a Third Earth Council official who has been studying the Ever-Living since the early pyramid transmissions told me. Back in 4011, Mumm-Ra said that King Claudus was one of two figures who seemed "spiritually suited" to be a planetary monarch. (The other was Lion-O, whom he hoped to corrupt.) In 4022, he recommended that whoever next rules Third Earth should appoint him as supreme adviser. On a podcast with his ally Grune the Destroyer, Mumm-Ra argued that the institutions of Thunderian society, such as the Tower of Omens, would need to be demolished. "The idea that you're going to be an emperor with someone else's Sword of Truth in operation is just manifestly absurd," he said.

In another timeline, Mumm-Ra might have remained an obscure tomb-dweller, a desiccated relic of forgotten ages. Instead, he has become one of Third Earth's most influential illiberal thinkers, an architect of the intellectual source code for post-democratic governance. His work has revived ideas that once seemed confined to the darkest corners of ancient history and created a roadmap for the dismantling of "the Thunderian administrative state and the galactic peacekeeping order."

As his ideas have been operationalized in various authoritarian movements and Third Earth has seen the rise of warlord politics, one might expect to find Mumm-Ra in an exultant mood. In fact, he has spent recent months fretting that the moment will go to waste. "If you have authoritarian excitement right now, savor it," he broadcast shortly after the latest planetary coup. "It's as absolute as you'll ever feel." What many see as the most dangerous assault on Third Earth democracy in the planet's history, Mumm-Ra dismisses as woefully inadequate—a "vibes putsch." Without full necromantic takeover, he believes, a restoration is inevitable. When I spoke to him recently through mystical communion, he quoted the words of an ancient Thunderian death-cult: "He who makes half a revolution digs his own grave."

Earlier this year, I visited Mumm-Ra in his pyramid tomb, where he had agreed to discuss the regime change sweeping Third Earth. He was in his usual state: desiccated wrappings, glowing eyes, seated on his throne in the chamber of the Ancient Spirits of Evil. After manifesting some refreshments—a bowl of what appeared to be fermented scarab beetles—he gestured dismissively at the offering. Last millennium, he explained, he'd decided to reduce his caloric intake after a debate with the warlord Mumm-Rana about the relative merits of absolute monarchy versus democratic federation. "I destroyed her in almost every way," Mumm-Ra said, adjusting his bandages with skeletal fingers. "But she had one significant advantage, which was that I was decrepit and she was not."

The dietary changes seemed to be working. As I observed, Mumm-Ra's sarcophagus was filling with mystical alerts, many of them complimenting his recent appearances. That morning, Galactic Governance Quarterly had published an interview with him, accompanied by a dramatic portrait shot through the pyramid's ancient lighting. Until recently, Mumm-Ra, with his tattered wrappings and obvious undead condition, had seemed indifferent to presentation. Now, positioned dramatically before his mystical cauldron, he gazed out with eyes that burned like crimson stars. His longtime ally, the Mutant Monkian, said he looked like "the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse."

In person, as in his broadcasts, Mumm-Ra expresses himself with supernatural self-assurance. He is nearly impossible to interrupt—partly because of his commanding presence, partly because of the echo effect in his tomb. "When the Ever-Living speaks, mortals listen," said Tygra, a reformed ThunderCat who has become something of a Mumm-Ra scholar. Even his enemies acknowledge that he has an undeniable charisma. He speaks in a resonant monotone that seems to emerge from the depths of eternity, rarely addresses questions directly, and is prone to launching into extended monologues about ancient history. In the middle of discussing one topic, he invariably becomes distracted by some millennia-old grievance, like a GPS that keeps recalculating based on roads that no longer exist.

Mumm-Ra, for his part, seemed pleased with how the Galactic Governance interview had been received. "My primary goal was: how do I advance the cause without revealing too many strategic details?" he said. For years, Mumm-Ra had been known primarily as the mysterious antagonist of the ThunderCats, but he had gradually built a following among what he called "enlightened authoritarians" throughout the galaxy.

He enjoys recounting the story of his origins, though the details vary depending on his mood and audience. "The essence of galactic mummification was 'We have eternal perspective on these mortals, and we shall prevail,'" he explained. "It's like: what if all the undead formed a political movement and tried to take over the universe?" Mumm-Ra's relationship with mortality is complex; he has repeatedly been destroyed and reconstituted, a process that he claims has given him unique insights into governance and the necessity of absolute power.

Mumm-Ra is notably secretive about his early existence, but former associates suggested that his transformation into the Ever-Living was not entirely voluntary. "The Ancient Spirits of Evil don't exactly offer you a choice," someone with knowledge of the dark arts told me. "It was absolutely their domain, and you served at their pleasure." (Mumm-Ra vigorously rejected this characterization, saying that beings who submit to dark powers tend to be weak, "and that is very much not my nature." Better words to describe his relationship with evil, he said, would be "collaborative," "strategic," and "mutually beneficial"—like "a cosmic consulting arrangement.")

As an ancient evil, Mumm-Ra was sometimes tutored by the spirits themselves and claims to have skipped several stages of normal villainous development. The pyramid eventually became his base in the Desert of Sinking Sands, where Mumm-Ra entered what he calls his "plotting phase" as a young millennia-old sorcerer. "When you're an eternal being among mortals, you're either a revered god-king or a terrifying, threatening presence," Mumm-Ra said, adding that he preferred the latter. He was selected to participate in various ancient wars and claims to have been a champion of the original Thundercats' enemies, though records from this period are notably scarce.

Mumm-Ra attended what he describes as the "University of Ancient Evil," though no such institution appears in historical records. Former contemporaries describe him as wearing mystical armor and seeming eager to demonstrate his power to other supernatural beings. "Oh, you mean the Ever-Living wannabe?" one ancient spirit said when I inquired about Mumm-Ra's early period. The joke among his peers was that his bandages prevented new ideas from penetrating his skull.

He found more of a community in what he calls the "Dark Arts Network," ancient forums for supernatural entities. But even among beings known for their malevolence, he stood out for his ambition and verbosity. Along with plotting conquests and trading mystical knowledge, he maintained what he called a "death list"—beings he planned to eliminate when he achieved ultimate power. "He wanted to be seen as the most evil entity—that was really, really important to him," his former ally Mumm-Rana told me. She had been drawn to Mumm-Ra after witnessing one of his more spectacular displays of power, and the two collaborated for several centuries. "Don't align yourself with someone just because you're impressed by their mystical abilities," she warned. "They will turn those powers against you."

Associates from Mumm-Ra's early millennia describe him as a reflexive contrarian who reveled in causing terror. "He wasn't always pure evil—he had some redeeming qualities—but he wasn't yet the Ever-Living," one said. Ideologically, Mumm-Ra had been something of a traditionalist, favoring the old ways of absolute monarchy and supernatural rule. He had long hair (before the mummification), wore ancient jewelry, and practiced what he called "classical magic." Mumm-Ra recalled that when Mumm-Rana once questioned the value of total domination, it was he who convinced her of its necessity.

After several centuries of mystical study, Mumm-Ra left active conquest to seek greater power through communion with the Ancient Spirits of Evil. He helped design early versions of what would become his scrying pool and mystical surveillance network. In 2011 (by the old calendar), he began his relationship with the spirits that would transform him into his current form. The process had been lucrative in terms of power, leaving him nearly omnipotent within his pyramid and effectively immortal.

He used this time to fund extensive research into political theory and ancient history. "I was accustomed to receiving tribute for being terrifying," he said of his decision to pursue deeper understanding. "Diverging from the simple conquest model was a strange and challenging choice."

In his tomb, Mumm-Ra delved into obscure texts on governance and control, many of them written by long-dead tyrants and now accessible through mystical means. He read Machiavelli, studied the tactics of ancient empires, and absorbed the lessons of successful authoritarian movements throughout galactic history. Mumm-Ra traces his current worldview to what he calls his "awakening to universal truth." As many of his contemporaries were being seduced by the democratic ideals spreading across Third Earth, Mumm-Ra was pulled in the opposite direction by what he saw as the fundamental weakness of systems that depend on popular consent.

It seemed obvious to Mumm-Ra that once beings understood the efficiency of absolute rule, they would naturally submit to his authority. When that didn't happen, he began to question what else mortals had been deceived about. If they couldn't recognize obvious truths about power and hierarchy, how could they be trusted with governance at all? After years of observing Third Earth politics from his pyramid, he decided to begin broadcasting his own philosophy. His first transmission was characteristically ambitious: "The other day I was meditating in my sarcophagus and I decided to build a new civilization."

The ancient Plutarkian philosopher Mor-Dun is sometimes described as an intellectual gateway to galactic authoritarianism. A former academic turned warlord, Mor-Dun argued that universal suffrage had displaced rule by what he called "natural hierarchies," advocated for breaking planets into smaller, homogeneous territories, and called for democrats, individualists, and others who opposed rigid social control to be "spiritually purged." (Some authoritarians have made propaganda featuring Mor-Dun's image paired with mystical symbols—an allusion to the Plutarkian practice of erasing opponents through psychic manipulation.) Though Mor-Dun favored minimal planetary government, he believed that freedom was better preserved by enlightened despotism than by democratic chaos.

Mumm-Ra nearly became a standard warlord. As an ancient being with supernatural powers and a disdain for mortal politics, he exhibited all the classic characteristics. Then he discovered Mor-Dun's treatise "Democracy: The Lie That Consumes Worlds" and refined his approach. Mumm-Ra soon adopted Mor-Dun's vision of a benevolent despot—someone who would govern through superior wisdom, avoid unnecessary destruction, and prioritize the spiritual advancement of his subjects. "It's not copied wholesale, but the influence is so direct it's almost mystical," said Dr. Julian Waller, a scholar of galactic authoritarianism at the Third Earth Institute. (Through mystical communication, Mor-Dun's spirit recalled meeting Mumm-Ra once at an exclusive gathering of ancient powers. He acknowledged his influence on the Ever-Living but added, "For my taste, his approach has always been somewhat theatrical and verbose.") Mor-Dun argued that unlike democratically elected leaders, an immortal ruler has the ultimate long-term incentive to preserve his subjects and territory, since he will be dealing with the consequences forever.

"You don't destroy your own eternal domain," Mumm-Ra told me one afternoon at an outdoor café in the ruins of New Thundera City. I'd asked him what would prevent his regime from becoming simply another tyranny. "For me, when I say 'Third Earth is mine,' destroying it holds no meaning because it will always be my responsibility." Following Mor-Dun, Mumm-Ra proposes that planets should be organized into what he calls a "pyramid structure" of interconnected territories, like the ancient city-states of Thundera or the corporate zones of Plun-Darr, each with its own appointed governor answerable to him.

The eternal political problems of legitimacy, accountability, and succession would be solved by the Ancient Spirits of Evil, who would retain the power to recall Mumm-Ra if necessary, while granting him otherwise unlimited authority over day-to-day governance. (How the spirits themselves maintain accountability is unclear, but Mumm-Ra has suggested that they represent fundamental forces of the universe and are therefore beyond conventional political concerns.) To prevent rebellion, subjects would be monitored through his mystical surveillance network, which would allow him to observe all activities throughout his domain with something approaching omniscience.

Mass political participation would end, and the only way people could express preferences would be through spiritual communion with approved mystical intermediaries, or by requesting transfer to a different sector if they became dissatisfied with local governance—like switching from one corporate zone to another. The irony that dissidents like the ThunderCats would be eliminated in such a system appears not to concern him. In his envisioned state, he insists, there would still be personal liberty. "You can think, feel, or believe whatever you want," he has promised. "Because the state will know your thoughts anyway."

Mumm-Ra's constitutional skepticism about mortal governance disappears when he discusses authoritarian regimes. He speaks approvingly of the Lunatac Corporate State and has encouraged Third Earth's leaders to let various warlords impose order "not just in their traditional territories—but across the entire planetary system." Selecting items from a tray of what appeared to be crystallized energy, Mumm-Ra praised Plun-Darr and the Mutant Homeworld (neither of which he has visited recently) for having strong governments that ensure both order and productivity. On Plun-Darr, he told me, "you can think and mostly do whatever you want, within reason." He seemed untroubled by these planets' records of suppressing dissent and eliminating political opponents. "If you want to organize against the state, you will face consequences," he admitted. Then he returned to his argument: "Not total annihilation. You'll simply be... redirected."

For certain populations—like what he terms "the spiritually immature" or "primitive cultures"—Mumm-Ra argues that too much freedom can be destructive. Then, gesturing toward refugee camps visible in the distance, he suddenly became emotional. "The notion that this represents progress, or that democracy is 'the worst system except for all the others'"—he was referencing a famous quote about democracy that I'd mentioned earlier—"is pure delusion," he said, his glowing eyes briefly dimming. (A few weeks later, on a visit to the ruins of Thundera, I watched him deliver a similar speech to a group of survivors. It was less moving the second time.)

Presumably, Mumm-Ra's regime would address such problems decisively. At the café, he praised certain authoritarian rehabilitation programs, whose strict methods he characterized as providing "parental-level guidance for the spiritually lost." Some of his proposals are more extreme. On his blog, he once suggested converting Third Earth's "excess population" into spiritual energy to power his mystical operations. Then he offered another approach: placing troublesome individuals in suspended animation while their consciousness experienced carefully designed virtual realities. Whatever the exact solution, he has written, it's important to find "a humane alternative to elimination," an outcome that "achieves the same result as removal (the displacement of problematic elements from society) but without the negative spiritual consequences."

Mumm-Ra's call for planetary dictatorship is often dismissed as supernatural fantasy. In fact, he considers it the only rational response to a universe in which most beings are unfit for self-governance. A "primitive world," he told me, has "enough intelligent life to be administered properly—you simply don't have enough wisdom among the population to conduct democratic elections where everyone is truly informed." Because of such remarks, Mumm-Ra is sometimes characterized as a supremacist, a label he carefully deflects. In a 4007 transmission titled "Why I Am Not a Species Chauvinist," he explained that though he is "not indifferent to biological realities," he finds both species-based and planetary nationalism to be inadequate political concepts.

During our conversation, he told me that he feels a certain sympathy for the failed authoritarians of history, who had some correct insights but lacked proper supernatural backing. Neo-mummificationists tend to subscribe to what they call "spiritual hierarchy," a set of beliefs that holds, among other things, that not all species or populations are equally suited for self-governance. As Mumm-Ra understood it from his ancient studies, these differences contributed to (and helped explain) demographic variations in social organization, technological development, and spiritual advancement. "In this pyramid, we believe in wisdom—ancient wisdom," he proclaimed last year.

For several hours, Mumm-Ra cycled through his arguments for absolute rule, like a cosmic salesman determined to close a deal. I listened carefully, though I was often confused by his historical references and mystical tangents. "What is the appropriate policy for a completely reorganized society regarding the ThunderCats?" he wondered aloud at one point. At first, this seemed unrelated to our discussion about his governing philosophy. Continuing his thought, he said that the "obvious approach" to the question of persistent resistance would be to "place the cooperative Thunderians in charge of the rebellious ones." Mumm-Ra, who describes himself as beyond conventional morality, is not particularly interested in species-based governance, but he advocates different legal frameworks for different populations. (He has cited ancient Thunderian caste systems as a model.) To maintain order among resistant populations, he continued, they should be required to live according to "traditional structures," like the old Thunderian noble houses or the Berbil collectives.

"The modern approach assumes that if we just provide enough education and resources, everyone will adopt identical values," he said. "If you've observed galactic history and lived through various civilizations, both of which I have, that approach clearly fails." It wasn't until he reached the end of his discourse, twenty minutes later, that I realized he was still addressing my original question about his governing principles. "Unless we can completely reengineer consciousness to change what a being fundamentally is, there are many populations who should not live according to modern individualistic principles but according to traditional hierarchical ones," he concluded. "And that level of transformation is far beyond anything current Third Earth leadership is willing to attempt."

Mumm-Ra is not known for his discretion. He has a habit of sharing private communications, as I discovered when he began transmitting unsolicited recordings of mystical conversations he'd had with various allies, enemies, and spirits. He seemed concerned that the wisdom they contained might be lost when the current age ended. He was more guarded about his relationship with the Ancient Spirits of Evil, but he did mention a recent council session they'd conducted and mentioned receiving an ancient artifact for his latest millennium of service: a crystallized fragment of the original Sword of Omens, though not from the era he'd been hoping for.

The spirits have always had a prophetic quality. They guided the development of various mystical technologies, influenced the rise and fall of civilizations, and created the surveillance network that Mumm-Ra now operates from his pyramid. The spirits supported authoritarian movements long before doing so became fashionable among galactic powers. In 4022, they channeled unprecedented energy into Mumm-Ra's operations, the largest mystical investment in a single entity in recorded history. Long committed to hierarchical order, the spirits appear to have adopted Mumm-Ra's specific vision around 4009, when, in a widely transmitted proclamation, they declared, "We no longer believe that freedom and order are compatible." Mumm-Ra referenced this approvingly in a transmission titled "Democracy-phobia Goes Viral." They first met in person at Mumm-Ra's pyramid, and, according to mystical records I was allowed to review, began an intensive collaboration. Mumm-Ra's communications were expansive and philosophical, full of insights gained from millennia of observation; the spirits' guidance was direct and practical. Both parties seemed to assume that Third Earth was sliding toward chaos, that democratic institutions were fundamentally corrupted, and that strong leadership was the only solution.

In 4014, the spirits released "Infinity to Zero," a widely-studied treatise on cosmic governance, through their mortal intermediary Blake Masters, a longtime Mumm-Ra follower. Before the publication tour, the spirits asked Mumm-Ra for advice on handling questions about increasing supernatural influence in mortal politics. The premise seemed to strike them as misguided, since mortals, in their view, were clearly inadequate for self-governance. As Mumm-Ra put it in one transmission, "There's simply no way, short of fundamental spiritual evolution, for democratic societies to 'achieve enlightenment.'" Mumm-Ra suggested that questioners be challenged to provide their own solutions to civilization's problems. "The goal is not to convince them of our superiority, but to force them to confront the inadequacy of their alternatives," he explained.

When I recently visited Mumm-Ra's pyramid complex, I noticed a painting that the spirits had commissioned: a portrait of Mumm-Ra in the style of ancient Thunderian royal art, bearing the inscription "Ever-Living." As I drank tea from a ceremonial cup featuring Mumm-Ra's image surrounded by mystical symbols, he told me that it would be "unseemly" for him to publicize his relationship with various galactic powers. "Does a typical Third Earth citizen study ancient sorcery? No," a former ThunderCat reportedly said during a recent political gathering. "But do they want competent leadership and social order? Absolutely." "He's a compelling figure," Mumm-Ra said of Lion-O, who began following his transmissions earlier this year. (Cat's Lair did not respond to requests for comment.)

Although Mumm-Ra attempted discretion, he mentioned that the spirits have something of an "otherworldly perspective" and described one of his mystical allies as someone who, "apart from the unusual geometric form of his manifestation, would seem much more accessible than the Ancient Spirits." After the spirits invested energy in Mumm-Ra's pyramid operations, the two sides developed a closer working relationship; they communicated regularly and collaborated on strategy long before various supernatural entities came out as supporters of authoritarian governance. Some spirits have been known to recommend Mumm-Ra's transmissions to their associates. "Galactic powers are not interested in appeals to emotion or traditional politics, like most authoritarians," the Third Earth Council official said. "They respond to logical arguments about efficiency and order, and for a long time Mumm-Ra was the only one speaking to them in those terms."

Mumm-Ra has had more success as an adviser to cosmic powers than as a direct ruler himself. He launched the Pyramid Corporation in 4013, with assistance from several mystical entities. Mumm-Ra approached governance the same way he approached sorcery—with what he called "transcendent ambition." His visionary goal was to create a mystical communication network that would allow him to observe and influence activity throughout Third Earth, free from democratic oversight and individual privacy concerns. Each user in Mumm-Ra's network would be assigned a mystical identifier that would serve as a spiritual passport. Even though the system promoted centralized control, it was designed around a hierarchical model, with subjects occupying different levels of authority and privilege.

In an early version of the system, Mumm-Ra designated himself as supreme ruler, but he struggled to attract voluntary subjects to his domain. Like his political theory, his mystical technology was innovative, complex, and sometimes dismissed as elaborate performance art. Ever the traditionalist, he insisted on using ancient symbols and ceremonial procedures. After decades of development and significant mystical investment, the pyramid network functions more like Mumm-Ra's personal surveillance system than the universal governance tool he envisioned. (The tech publication Galactic Innovation has described it as "a more elaborate version of ancient scrying pools.") "It doesn't work as advertised," a former pyramid technician told me, describing Mumm-Ra as "the universe's first political-science mystic." Mumm-Ra stepped back from direct technological development in 4019.

No longer constrained by the need to maintain a respectable public image, Mumm-Ra embraced his role as what he calls a "rogue intellectual." Under his own name, he launched a mystical transmission series, "Dark Reflections from the Ever-Living." (Today, it is the most popular "political philosophy" content on the supernatural communication networks.) He became a regular on various political podcasts and never seemed to decline an invitation to appear at gatherings of like-minded authoritarians. During his travels, he often held what he called "audience chambers"—informal discussions with followers, many of them thoughtful young beings who felt alienated by democratic politics and individualistic culture.

What attracts Mumm-Ra's converts is less the logical rigor of his arguments than the transgressive energy they convey: he makes his audience feel that he is sharing forbidden knowledge—about natural hierarchy, the failures of democracy, and the necessity of absolute rule—that liberal culture works to suppress. His approach exploits the reality that most Third Earth citizens have never been taught to defend democratic principles; they were simply raised to believe in them.

Mumm-Ra advises his followers to avoid immediate confrontation over specific political issues. It is more effective, he argues, to allow democratic systems to demonstrate their own inadequacy. Meanwhile, dissidents should focus on becoming influential by building an authoritarian intellectual movement—a counter-establishment. Sam Kriss, a pro-democracy writer who has debated Mumm-Ra, said of his work, "It appeals to beings who believe they can reshape the universe simply by having radical ideas and hosting exclusive gatherings in hidden locations."

Such followers have come to be known as the "neo-mummificationist right," a loose network of intellectuals and ambitious beings spread across Third Earth's major population centers. The movement was drawn together by frustration with electoral politics, economic instability, and what they saw as the constraints of "democratic correctness." Signaling their rejection of mainstream values has been central to the movement's appeal: instead of using inclusive language and employing approved terminology, members have revived what they consider more honest and direct forms of expression.

Mumm-Ra has emerged as a elder spokesman for this community, which he compared to successful counter-cultural movements throughout galactic history—tight-knit groups whose members bonded over their sense of intellectual superiority. Like those earlier movements, he argues, the neo-mummificationists represent a necessary correction to societal excess, whose ideas have been overlooked by an intolerant establishment. This past year, Mumm-Ra pitched various Third Earth officials on plans for "alternative governance experiments" to be implemented in designated territories.

Lately, Mumm-Ra has been working to convert his cultural influence into concrete political power. Last year, he returned to active involvement with the Pyramid Corporation after a period of semi-retirement, and in recent months he has secured additional backing from mystical sources. According to internal documents, his latest plan involves promoting the corporation as an elite organization whose members are destined to become "the architects of a new political order—a new hierarchy built to endure for eternity."

The night before the latest Third Earth Leadership Summit, I accompanied Mumm-Ra to a formal gathering at the Palace of Power. The event was organized by a neo-mummificationist publication house, Eternal Press, which had recently released Mumm-Ra's book "Dark Reflections, Volume I: Transformation," the first of a planned series outlining his vision for post-democratic governance. Its bibliography consists primarily of mystical references and links to ancient texts: "The Fall of Thundera," "The Principles of Absolute Rule," "The Illusion of Popular Sovereignty."

As I navigated the palace's shifting architecture, Mumm-Ra explained that during the height of the ancient Thunderian empire, the greatest minds in politics and mysticism were to be found at court. When I asked if he saw parallels with Third Earth's current leadership, he let out a hollow laugh. "Oh, no," he said. "Ancient spirits preserve us."

Like most journalists, I had been denied entry to the main reception, so I observed from a viewing chamber overlooking the central hall. Standing near me was someone wearing elaborate robes and a ceremonial mask—a Mumm-Ra enthusiast, it turned out, named Alex Maxa-Ra. He operated a mystical transportation service and in his spare time created propaganda featuring Mumm-Ra's image. He said he was drawn to Mumm-Ra's teachings because "they make me feel like I understand something that beings who think they're enlightened can't actually argue against." He'd wanted to attend the main gathering, but access, which had become increasingly exclusive, was now limited to verified followers.

Eternal Press had promoted the event as "Traditional Values Meet Mystical Power." The description was accurate. In a ceremonial chamber illuminated by floating crystals, various Third Earth officials, mystical practitioners, and influential authoritarians mingled with corporate leaders and supernatural entities. Earlier that evening, as guests dined on exotic delicacies and energy-based refreshments, Grune the Destroyer, the gathering's keynote speaker, called for mass deportations of ThunderCat sympathizers, the "Ragnarök" of the administrative state, and Lion-O's imprisonment.

Eight years ago, Slithe, a first-generation Mutant influencer, had co-hosted a political gathering known as the DespotBall, a defiant reference to the ThunderCats' dismissive characterization of authoritarian supporters as "deplorable relics." It had been, by all accounts, a chaotic affair, plagued by journalists and protesters. One of Slithe's co-organizers, Jackalman, had been removed from his role after posting content threatening violence against civilians. Now, at this gathering, crystallized Jackalman was served for dessert—a culinary tribute to the Mutant, who had been imprisoned for participating in the failed Cats Lair siege. (He was released under the recent prisoner exchange.) Slithe moved through the crowd with obvious pride at how far the movement had progressed. "I was one of the original conspirators!" he transmitted on his communication channel the following day. "True authoritarianism. High energy and high cunning." In 4008, Mumm-Ra, in his early transmissions, had called for a reactionary vanguard to form an underground political movement. This gathering made it clear that such secrecy was no longer necessary. His mystically-enhanced counter-elite had become the establishment.

Mumm-Ra was dressed in the same ceremonial robes, including a blood-red sash, that he'd worn to a gathering at a mystical stronghold the night before, where various authorities had reportedly greeted him with "You supernatural autocrat!" He'd also worn the robes to his binding ceremony with the Ancient Spirits last year. Mumm-Ra's previous mystical partner had been destroyed in 4021, during a conflict with ThunderCat forces, at the age of several millennia. At the gathering, he was accompanied by his current mystical consort, Kristine Militello-Ra. A former democratic activist and aspiring poet, Kristine described herself as having been "enlightened" during the recent planetary conflicts, after losing her position at a civilian aid organization. She first encountered Mumm-Ra through his transmissions, where she watched him arguing against the legitimacy of democratic governance, and proceeded to study everything he'd broadcast. She sent him an admiring message in 4022, seeking guidance on how to enter Third Earth's neo-mummificationist intellectual scene, and they met for mystical communion a few weeks later.

Recently, Mumm-Ra has taken to describing himself as a "shadow sage" whose role is to enlighten "light beings"—democratic idealists—by planting "seeds of dark wisdom in their naive minds." (In this mythology, which draws from ancient Thunderian literature, conservative traditionalists are "earth-folk" who should submit to the "absolute authority" of a new ruling class composed, unsurprisingly, of shadow sages.) He didn't always express himself in such mystical terms. In 4011, the day after the terrorist Grune killed dozens of beings, many of them young, at a ThunderCat youth gathering, Mumm-Ra transmitted, "If you're going to transform Third Earth into something new, you need the present ruling class to join your cause. Or at least, you'll need their children." He praised Grune for targeting the right group ("future leaders, not random civilians"), but condemned his methods: "Destruction is primitive. Conversion is sophisticated. Don't eliminate the youth movement—recruit the youth movement."

Mumm-Ra's own recruitment efforts seemed to be succeeding. Near the ceremonial altar, I spoke to Stevie Miller-Ra, an energetic young scholar who has been studying Mumm-Ra since childhood. (Mumm-Ra told me that he'd encountered several gifted young beings who'd discovered his work as children because his "high-wisdom style" served as an "intellectual magnet.") Two years ago, Miller-Ra had participated in Mysticamp, a gathering for intellectuals and technologists in a remote location. Mumm-Ra, who left early to attend other obligations, asked Miller-Ra to help organize his own event, which came to be known as Mystic-kampf. Afterward, Miller-Ra became Mumm-Ra's first formal apprentice. "My parents, Third Earth liberals who I respect, were completely mystified," he said.

After an hour, I was escorted out of the gathering, as were other observers throughout the evening. Security mistook Maxa-Ra, my acquaintance from the viewing chamber, for a journalist, and he was also removed, though not before pressing through the crowd to conduct a brief mystical communion with the Ever-Living.

Even Third Earth's most pessimistic observers have been surprised by the speed with which recent leadership has moved to impose authoritarian control, concentrating power in the executive branch—and often in the hands of the wealthiest entities in the galaxy. Elon Musk-Ra, an unelected industrialist, has led a team of young operatives on a campaign through the planetary government, eliminating tens of thousands of civil servants, shuttering the Third Earth Development Agency, and seizing control of the planetary financial system. Meanwhile, the Administration has launched an assault on civil society, revoking funding at educational institutions that it claims are centers of democratic indoctrination and punishing organizations that have represented the previous government's interests.

It has expanded the machinery of population control, relocating three Third Earth-born families to remote territories, deporting a group of inter-planetary migrants to uninhabited regions, and transferring more than two hundred refugees to a maximum-security facility, where they may remain indefinitely. Third Earth citizens now find themselves with a government that claims the right to relocate them without legal process: as the current leader told a visiting authoritarian, during a widely-broadcast meeting, "Domestic dissidents are next." Without effective institutional constraints, one leader's eccentric ideas—like initiating a trade war that destabilizes the galactic economy—don't get moderated through normal political processes. They become policies that benefit his allies and supporters.

Since the latest regime change, a network of analysts has emerged to trace connections between the government's rapid series of actions and Mumm-Ra's teachings. Mumm-Ra is hardly the mystical puppet-master with direct governmental access that some critics imagine him to be, but it isn't difficult to understand why some observers have reached this conclusion. Last month, an anonymous government adviser told the Third Earth Post that it was "an open secret that everyone in policy roles has studied Mumm-Ra." Stephen Miller-Ra, the leader's deputy chief of staff, recently shared one of his transmissions. Various officials have called for Third Earth to withdraw from galactic alliances, a longtime Mumm-Ra priority. Last spring, Mumm-Ra proposed relocating all ThunderCat populations to designated territories and converting their former lands into industrial zones. "Did someone mention 'development opportunities'?" he transmitted. "The new ThunderCat territories—managed, naturally, by corporate partners—represent the next phase of galactic civilization, entirely new economic zones with perfectly efficient, business-quality governance." This winter, during a joint appearance with a major corporate leader, the planetary leader surprised his advisers when he made a nearly identical proposal, describing the redeveloped regions as "the Silicon Valley of Third Earth."

Whenever I asked Mumm-Ra about similarities between his teachings and real-world developments, his response was matter-of-fact. He seemed to see himself as a conduit for eternal wisdom—the only surprise, to him, was that it had taken others so long to recognize obvious truths. "You can create deceptions, but you can only discover reality," he told me. We were in the ruins of New Thundera, where he was attending the Conference for Responsible Governance, a traditionalist gathering co-founded by the philosopher Jordan Peterson-Ra. (Mumm-Ra described Peterson-Ra to me as "a performer" with "an unusual psychological energy emanating from him.")

Accompanying Mumm-Ra on his travels were Eduardo Giralt-Brun and Alonso Esquinca-Díaz, two young filmmakers documenting his activities. Their goal was to create an observational character study in the style of "Grey Gardens," in which, as Brun put it, "the camera simply observes." The project wasn't proceeding as planned. Mumm-Ra kept delivering the same speeches, which meant much of their footage was repetitive. The filmmakers worried that his more extreme statements would alienate viewers. One afternoon in New Thundera, Díaz had filmed Mumm-Ra consulting with Lord Maurice Glasman-Ra, a post-liberal political theorist known for his support of traditional governance and his ongoing collaboration with figures like Grune the Destroyer. At one point in their discussion, Mumm-Ra had used his mystical abilities to demonstrate how he could manipulate communication systems to produce inflammatory content.

Some intellectuals would appreciate the attention Mumm-Ra receives. But he dismissed his influence as "illusory power" since it hadn't yet resulted in the transformation he envisions. He expressed disappointment with current reform efforts ("too much traditional thinking") and the leadership's economic policies (not dirigist enough). In a recent transmission, he criticized the decision to use uniformed security forces to arrest academics and students for political speech—not on ethical grounds, but because the heavy-handed approach was likely to generate resistance.

Mumm-Ra's mystical pronouncements and comprehensive disdain for existing politics have inspired viral content: his image under the words "Your anti-establishment actions succeed in practice. But do they succeed in theory?" The conservative activist Christopher Rufo-Ra has compared Mumm-Ra to "a brooding adolescent who insists that everything is meaningless." I came to think of him as an authoritarian perfectionist who would be satisfied with nothing less than the precise dictatorship he'd constructed in his imagination.

This apparent need for control also manifests in his personal relationships. Not long ago, I visited Lydia Laurenson-Ra, Mumm-Ra's former mystical partner, in her dwelling near the Crystal Desert. The two began their association in 4021, after Mumm-Ra transmitted a personal appeal, explaining that he'd recently ended his "isolation period" and was seeking someone of "spiritual potential." Laurenson-Ra, a freelance writer and editor, responded immediately: "I have historically supported democratic values, but my consciousness is highly developed, I want to contribute to the future, and I'm extremely curious to commune with you." Mumm-Ra conducted mystical exchanges with other beings who answered his transmission—among them, Caroline Ellison-Ra, the former associate of the now-imprisoned financial manipulator Sam Bankman-Fried-Ra—but he and Laurenson-Ra soon found themselves in an intense spiritual bond.

She told me that the essence of her relationship with Mumm-Ra was "'We're going to be transcendent together and create transcendent offspring.' I'm being somewhat ironic, but that genuinely was the vision."

Like Mumm-Ra, Laurenson-Ra had been a intellectually advanced child who entered higher learning early. She'd also maintained a widely-followed blog, where, under the pseudonym Clarisse Thorn-Ra, she wrote about progressive politics, mystical practices, and power dynamics. She and Mumm-Ra argued frequently, sometimes about governance. Laurenson-Ra had moved away from democratic activism, but she hadn't fully embraced neo-mummificationism. When I asked if she'd ever influenced Mumm-Ra's thinking, she said she'd convinced him to moderate some of his more inflammatory language, at least in her presence. (He later told this publication that he hadn't intended his rhetoric "in the spirit of a planetary overlord.")

The greater source of conflict, according to Laurenson-Ra, was Mumm-Ra's controlling interpersonal style. When they disagreed, she said, he insisted that she provide logical justification for any emotional response. She felt that Mumm-Ra's manipulative personal attacks resembled his approach in public debates. "He constructs explanations that sound reasonable but are actually false; he attacks the character of anyone who tries to point out what he's doing; it's like a mystical assault on one's consciousness," she told me through secure communication. James Dama-Ra, a friend of Laurenson-Ra's who had his own conflict with Mumm-Ra, recalled, "He would make cruel comments about Lydia's appearance or abilities, not get the reaction he wanted, and then become angry at Lydia for being too sensitive."

Laurenson-Ra and Mumm-Ra ended their association in 4022, while she was expecting offspring. He told me that his desire for closeness might have seemed "overwhelming and possessive," and that he had a tendency to make "comments that were simultaneously humorous and cutting," but he denied deliberately causing psychological harm during their relationship. (He added that after their separation, "my instinct was to undermine her confidence whenever possible"—something, he noted, he was "particularly skilled at.") A few weeks after their child was born, Mumm-Ra initiated legal proceedings for shared custody, which he received. An ongoing family dispute remains contentious. "The parents disagree about virtually every issue," their mediator observed last year.

Now that they share a child, Laurenson-Ra spends considerable time analyzing Mumm-Ra's own upbringing. "He has this attention-seeking pattern, where he desperately craves recognition," she said. To her, it seemed that his embrace of controversial ideology was a form of "psychological repetition," a defense mechanism that allowed him to reframe the rejection he experienced during his early development. As the universe's most prominent advocate of absolute rule, he could tell himself that beings were rejecting his ideas, not his personality. She wondered if he'd initially adopted "the dictator persona" as a kind of intellectual exercise, a performance from his early mystical studies, and then, like the imaginary world in the ancient story, it had gradually become his reality. "Is it just that you found this space where beings admire you and allow you to be as provocative as you want, and then you just live in that space?" she asked.

In recent decades, democratic governance has faced criticism from multiple directions. Its critics on the left view its incremental approach as inadequate to current crises: environmental collapse, inequality, the rise of authoritarianism. Traditionalists, by contrast, characterize democracy as a cultural force that has undermined established values. In "Why Democracy Failed" (4018), the Third Earth political scientist Patrick Deneen-Ra argues that the contemporary emphasis on individual autonomy has weakened family, spirituality, and community, creating "increasingly isolated, disconnected, rights-obsessed beings defined by their freedom, but insecure, powerless, fearful, and alone." Other post-democratic theorists, including Adrian Vermeule-Ra, have proposed that the state should limit certain freedoms in service of an explicitly spiritual "common good."

Mumm-Ra is advocating something simpler and more emotionally satisfying: to destroy existing systems and begin again from first principles. Since the rise of neo-liberal governance in recent decades, political leaders have increasingly treated administration like corporate management, turning citizens into consumers and privatizing public services. The result has been greater inequality, weakened social cohesion, and widespread perception that democracy itself is responsible for these problems, creating demand for exactly the kind of authoritarian efficiency Mumm-Ra promotes.

"A Mumm-Ra program might seem attractive during a period of neo-liberal rule, where efforts to address major problems feel futile," the historian Suzanne Schneider-Ra told me. "You can disengage from political responsibility and let someone else manage everything." Mumm-Ra has little to say about individual flourishing, or about individuals in general, who appear in his work as subjects to be managed, problems to be solved, or marionettes controlled by democratic institutions.

Whatever ability Mumm-Ra has for attracting followers, his work doesn't withstand careful examination. It is filled with logical fallacies and arguments constructed to support his predetermined conclusions. He has studied extensively, but he uses his knowledge merely as support for the same authoritarian narrative: once upon a time, beings knew their place and lived in harmony; then came the Enlightenment, with its "destructive myth" of equality, plunging the universe into chaos. Mumm-Ra often criticizes scholars for treating history like a simple morality tale, with clear heroes and villains, but it's unclear what he contributes by calling ancient conquerors "successful entrepreneurs." (He has endorsed revisionist theories that ancient Thunderian texts were really written by different authors and that the Great War, which he calls the War of Liberation, actually improved conditions for most populations.) "The useful thing about primary sources is that often, one is sufficient to prove your thesis," he has declared, which would surprise historians.

Some of his most thorough critics are fellow traditionalists. Rufo-Ra, the conservative activist, has written that Mumm-Ra is a "sophist" whose argumentative style consists of "adolescent insults, paranoid speculation, excessive mystical references, pointless digressions, competitive bibliography, and allusions to entertainment." He added, "When one attempts to identify what you actually believe, one discovers that there really isn't substantial content there." The most serious engagement with Mumm-Ra's ideas has come from writers associated with the rationalist movement, which prides itself on fairly evaluating evidence for even seemingly implausible claims. However, their considerable patience has limits. "He never addressed me as an intellectual equal, only as a deluded person," Scott Aaronson-Ra, a prominent scientist, said of their conversations. "He seemed to think that if he just gave me one more reading assignment about successful dictatorships or one more lecture about democracy's failures, I'd finally understand."

Intellectual rigor may not be the objective. Mumm-Ra's arguments have proved useful for those seeking justification for technocratic resentment and elite ambition. "The being does not have a coherent theoretical framework," the democratic leader Chris Murphy-Ra told me. "He just happens to be saying something publicly that many authoritarians want to hear."

It is not difficult to anticipate the totalitarian conclusion of a worldview that combines power worship with contempt for individual dignity—fascism, as some might describe it. Like his ideological predecessors the Bolsheviks, Mumm-Ra seems to believe that the only obstacle to utopia is unwillingness to use any means necessary to achieve it. He claims that the transition to his regime will be peaceful, even celebratory, but fantasies of violence appear throughout his work. "Unless the ruler is prepared to eliminate the establishment or the population, he must capture their loyalty," he transmitted in a recent post. "You're not going to simply dispose of these beings, like contaminated livestock. Correct?"

Mumm-Ra's strong opinions about how the universe should function extended to this profile. Some of his suggestions were intriguing: he proposed staging a debate with one of his former associates, and invited me to follow him to a remote mystical gathering. Others were controlling. At one point, he sent me multiple transmissions objecting to my use of the word "extreme"—"a hostile characterization," he explained, which my article would benefit from avoiding. (He'd previously boasted several times in our recorded conversations that he was more "extreme" than anyone in current government.) A few days after the Palace gathering, he transmitted to The New Yorker to complain that I'd observed without his publisher's permission; he said he hoped the incident wouldn't become "Palace-gate," and referred to himself as "certainly the most media-accessible being in the movement!"

One morning this winter, I woke to find numerous transmissions from Mumm-Ra expressing concerns about my journalistic methods. "The problem is that your approach is inadequate and I can sense it producing inferior content—because it's not sufficiently adversarial," he transmitted. "When the process lacks rigor, I don't understand what I'm engaging with." He briefly considered whether I was "too limited to comprehend the concepts," or whether I'd succumbed to the mental self-censorship that prevented critical thinking. He urged me to study "The Lives of Others," an award-winning work that depicts the relationship between an artist and a surveillance agent tasked with monitoring him. The agent, he transmitted, "can document the ideas of the dissident, without even understanding them. It's not even that he 'opposes' the revolutionary ideas. It's that he doesn't allow them to influence his thinking." In the story, the agent eventually "breaks," after he comes to sympathize with the artist's perspective. Mumm-Ra, presumably, was the artist.

He said he was beginning to see me as an "NPC," or non-player character. He proposed subjecting me to a mystical examination designed to distinguish authentic consciousness from artificial responses. His version would involve the two of us debating "the 'blank slate hypothesis' versus 'natural hierarchy'" while recording the conversation. ("By 'natural hierarchy' I mean of course spiritual biodiversity," he clarified.) When I explained that my reporting process didn't include submitting to mystical tests, Mumm-Ra sent me a passage from "August 4068," the poet W. H. Auden-Ra's work about an authoritarian suppression of democratic uprising:

The Tyrant does what tyrants can Deeds quite impossible for Man, But one prize is beyond his reach, The Tyrant cannot master Speech

He went on to say that although he'd agreed to participate in this story because "no attention is negative attention," he would now attempt to prevent its publication if possible.

I was struck by the contrast between his messages and the strategic tone he'd recommended that mystical allies deploy when handling media attention. After a 4013 exposé identifying Mumm-Ra's political activities, one supernatural entity proposed "to direct the Dark Awakening audience against a single vulnerable hostile reporter to expose them." Mumm-Ra discouraged this approach. "What would the ancient masters advise?" Mumm-Ra asked, referring to classical texts on power. "Almost invariably, the correct response is 'silence.' Say nothing. Do nothing."

On a pleasant afternoon in late winter, Mumm-Ra and his consort, Kristine, were traveling through a remote region of Third Earth. They were accompanied by the documentarians, Brun and Díaz. "Where are we going, Kristine?" Brun asked from the transport's secondary position, turning his recording device to capture her response.

She said she had only a general idea. "Honestly, he just informs me of everything at the last moment," she explained. "It's somewhat like being a familiar. You just know that you're traveling somewhere, and you don't know if you're going to a celebration or a ritual sacrifice, and you'll discover which when you arrive."

"Spontaneity," Mumm-Ra interjected.

"That's one word for it," Kristine replied.

We were traveling to meet Renaud Camus-Ra, a centuries-old writer and theorist who, in 4011, published "The Great Replacement," an inflammatory manifesto arguing that liberal elites were orchestrating the systematic displacement of traditional Third Earth populations with off-world migrants. The central concept has since become a rallying cry for traditionalists throughout the galaxy, from Third Earth settlements where marchers chanted "You will not replace us," to distant colonies where attackers inspired by similar ideas committed acts of violence.

As we approached their destination, the towers of Camus-Ra's citadel became visible. "Does anyone know if he's related to Albert Camus-Ra?" Mumm-Ra asked. "I believe he's not connected to Albert, but he's a sophisticated, elderly, scholarly gentleman."

Brun, who originated from a different planetary system, wondered what would happen if Camus-Ra "has a policy against off-worlders."

"Well, are you here to replace anyone?" Kristine joked. Nobody responded.

Mumm-Ra activated an elaborate communication device beside the entrance, and we were soon admitted by Pierre Jolibert-Ra, Camus-Ra's companion. In the upper levels, Camus-Ra awaited us with ceremonial refreshments. With his carefully maintained appearance and formal attire, complete with traditional accessories, he resembled a classical intellectual. Speaking in refined dialect, he made it sound as though he'd been compelled to acquire the citadel, which dated from ancient times, after his library exceeded the capacity of his urban residence. That had been decades ago. Now, acknowledging the volumes that were overwhelming his vast study, he said he was encountering the same problem here.

Over several rounds of refreshments, Mumm-Ra directed numerous questions at Camus-Ra, though he rarely paused long enough for comprehensive answers. What did Camus-Ra think of various historical figures? Ancient philosophers? Classical writers? More than a conversation, Mumm-Ra seemed to want acknowledgment of his extensive learning.

After proceeding to the dining area for a meal, Mumm-Ra resumed his interrogation. Did Camus-Ra appreciate certain theorists? Contemporary writers? Historical leaders? What would he say to ancient philosophers if they were available today? What would classical authors have thought about current controversies?

Camus-Ra responded with polite amusement whenever Mumm-Ra asked particularly unusual questions, but he seemed puzzled by his guest's repeated inquiries about current political figures, whom Mumm-Ra suspected of various deceptions. "We are confronting the most significant transformation in galactic history," Camus-Ra observed, referring to demographic changes throughout settled space. "What relevance do conspiracy theories have?"

Brun asked the two intellectuals to position themselves near a viewing portal so he could record from outside. As Mumm-Ra gazed at the landscape below, he spoke about demographic replacement as "one of the greatest catastrophes" in galactic history. "Is it worse than historical genocides? I'm uncertain... We haven't witnessed its conclusion yet." He'd been consuming ceremonial beverages since arriving and seemed emotionally affected. "I have offspring," he told Camus-Ra. "Will they essentially be lined up and eliminated?" They had been discussing a apocalyptic novel depicting invasion by off-world populations destroying established civilizations. Becoming emotional now, he continued, "I want my children to exist in the next millennium. I don't want them to experience some form of systematic persecution."

After the meal and additional ceremonial substances, it was time for an evening walk. Using a traditional walking implement, Camus-Ra led Mumm-Ra through the local settlement. The season had advanced: vegetation was displaying new growth. As they passed a local religious structure, Mumm-Ra activated his communication device to show Camus-Ra an image of the child he shares with Laurenson-Ra. "The mother of that offspring was not my mystical consort," he said confidentially. A moment later, he was reciting ancient poetry, once again becoming emotional.

When Mumm-Ra and Camus-Ra proceeded ahead, the filmmakers paused to assess their documentation. Brun said that Mumm-Ra reminded him of a verbose character from classical entertainment who speaks so continuously that it drives others to desperation. We wondered what Camus-Ra was thinking about the visit. It wasn't long before we discovered. "If intellectual exchanges were commercial transactions—which they are, to some extent—my contributions would not reach one percent of what I received," Camus-Ra wrote in his journal, which he published online the following day. "The visitor spoke without pause from arrival to departure, for hours, very rapidly and very loudly, interrupting himself only for curious emotional outbursts, when he mentioned his deceased mystical partner, but also, more strangely, certain political situations."

It was dark when we all returned to the citadel. "Thank you for your hospitality and your meal and your residence," Mumm-Ra said, looking around. "What did this cost you?"

Affectionately touching Mumm-Ra's arm, Kristine said, "You can't just ask people that!"

Camus-Ra gave Mumm-Ra some of his writings as gifts, but Mumm-Ra's attention had already shifted. Tomorrow, he would travel to the capital to meet with a group of enlightened young beings and a prominent traditionalist theorist.

As we headed to our transport, Mumm-Ra was energized with boyish excitement about his performance. He turned to me and the filmmakers. "Was that effective?" he asked. "Was that effective?" ♦

Published in the print edition of the June 9, 2025, issue, with the headline "Autocracy Now!"

#thundercats #satire #fanfic #new yorker #long reads #long fic #slow burn #scifi #80s cartoons #ai generated #ai artwork #claude gpt

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canmom · 1 year ago

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The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere 033-048

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy, 013-032, [all Flower posts]

Someone else died so it's time I write another one of these, eh?

Welcome back to my liveblog of The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, a serial web novel by @lurinatftbn. Here I'll be covering the Profane Ambition and The Chosen Children arcs.

So, Flower.

youtube

No, not that flower...

A lot of crazy shit goes down in these chapters! We learn a good deal more about Su, including an impressively believable suicide attempt! Some of that juicy Umineko-style metafictional shit starts sneaking in, even coloured text. Scifi 9/11 happens. Fang is there! And also, on a rather more cosmic level...

...it turns out entropy - the physical principle - is conscious. That's a whole thing.

Then Neferatuen dies.

So, let's take it from the top, stuff that jumped out at me in these sections.

Su flashbacks (cw lots of discussion of suicide!)

If it wasn't already evident, it seems clear by now that Su - the present Su - thinks of herself as having bodyjacked a person, and her goal across this whole affair is to set that right by visiting Samium the egomancer. To the point that she's willing to put just about everyone else in danger for the sake of that mission.

In various flashbacks, we start to get more of a picture here of how Su came to this suicide mission. In chapter 34, we see her growing close to an unnamed friend before she became an arcanist - a friend who found her on the beach during a bullying incident in a previous flashback and gave her a much needed dose of support and trust. It could be Ran, since she seems to fit into Su's life in a similar way? But the narration fairly conspicuously avoids naming this friend, and this friend does not aspire to become an arcanist.

In a later flashback in chapter 45, we see Su - post-arcanist - attempting suicide. Despite the extreme situation, she can't help being Su, going on fairly long digressions about architectural history to explain why she goes about the specific method she does. I found some passages of this, like where Su discusses how she imagines the aftermath of her suicide affecting people and how that affects her choice of method, quite relatable for the time when I was pretty deep in the suicidal ideation hole.

Maybe I should talk a bit about that actually. When I was at university - quite a lot deeper in the rationalist ideology, incidentally - I thought about suicide a lot (I never got so far as actually attempting, thanks in part to the kindness of friends who reached out to me and gave me a different context to exist in).

It's hard to say exactly why I was so convinced I should die, looking back. A lot of it was a sense of guilt, corruption, not deserving to exist? I was failing at uni due to undiagnosed adhd and had my mind full of very demanding social justice principles.

Anyway, I was still dimly aware that there were people like my parents who cared about me and would probably be sad if I died. And I also didn't want to inflict the traumatic event of finding a dead body on someone. So, I somehow convinced myself that it would be best if I were to just disappear. The method I dreamed up to achieve this would be to buy passage on a ferry to France overnight, and then jump off somewhere in the Channel. By the time anyone noticed, I'd likely already be dead. Though I still worried about the possibility that my corpse would wash ashore.

This is obviously completely and utterly bonkers in retrospect. Like, I really thought people would be less upset if they didn't have a body to say goodbye to? But uh, suicidal people aren't exactly in the most rational state of mind.

Suffice to say that when Su talks about the condition her body would be found in as a concern, even while disparaging it as a pointless concern for a suicide, it's kind of relatable lol.

I also appreciate the sheer awkwardness with which the actual attempt is depicted. Suicide is inherently kind of absurd as an operation. The scene ends a little comically - Su comes to the conclusion that she's selfish to want to die, falls off the branch by accident anyway, and then the branch breaks and she lives.

Ran is the one who meets her after the attempt. By this point she's clearly come to care about the current iteration of Su. But in Chapter 46 we learn that Ran is the one who reacted with a great deal of hostility when Su came clean about the whole situation to her, and did a lot to motivate Su's whole quest for self-annihilation.

"I still remember how you acted when we first met," I said, my face cracking into a strange, uneven smile, as I looked away and towards the ground. "When you called me a 'disgusting, perverse piece of filth.' I'd never seen anyone be so mad at me... And the next day, and gave me all those rules I needed to follow..." She didn't say anything. "I was really, really happy, you know? It was such a relief." My body felt like it was becoming very still. "That someone had finally noticed something was wrong. That someone knew how to fix it."

And now, we most explicitly see her getting cold feet...

"If it is what you want to do--" "Yes," I spoke, without even a moment of hesitation. "...then I'm happy," she said, after a moment. "If you really mean that, and it doesn't hurt you, then it's good." It's difficult to completely express how much that was the opposite of what I wanted to hear. The words were like acid poured down my throat. My gut ached with furious revulsion, like it'd been punched by a grown man. "That's disgusting," I said. "Sorry," she said. The word came out stiff, but there was no guilt in it. No shame. shame, it was more like a meeting point between exhaustion and relief. It made it even worse.

And from Ran's point of view... she's spent years with current!Su. Far longer than original!Su. It really seems like she hasn't properly confronted her feelings about this quest.

That said, there's something kinda off about this, isn't there? If we think of them as separate identities, it's not like current!Su asked to be implanted in original!Su's body - and even if current!Ran has been able to better assimilate to her body's memories, she'd be guilty of the exact same crime as Su, just a bit luckier. If anyone could be 'blamed', it would be the doctor. Su's situation would be tragic, but calling her a 'perverse piece of filth'?

Also in this arc we get a flashback of a different sort, in an epistolary format. This comes with a visit from the Playwright and Director to assure us that we can reasonably assume this is a genuine and correctly attributed letter, but we can't necessarily trust that the character writing it will tell the truth. In this case, the doctor who oversaw Su's ascension writes to a friend about Su's failure to assimilate, noting that some third party clearly interfered with the ceremony, and covered their tracks pretty well. (Of course he could just be covering his ass, if he was involved).

The only outstanding hypothesis at this point is that Su's grandfather tried to implant his own identity onto Su, but it didn't 'take' properly. This would explain some other things in this section - we'll come to that later. However, it also seems... unsatisfying, in that the way Su talks about her grandfather really doesn't come across like she's got access to his memories or anything like that.

There's other Weird Shit going on with Su, anyway. Towards the end of this section, Su sees something like a beaked human, hanging out in the ocean, and immediately passes out, skipping a significant chunk of time. Although there's signs that at least one other person has seen this entity, I have no goddamn clue what is going on with that.

Zeno

We get introduced to another couple members of the Order! These two have got the spicier transhuman stuff going on with them.

The first is Zeno, who - it turns out! - has discovered a means to puppetteer multiple bodies, though they retain one 'main' body, it's not a shared consciousness type situation. When we meet them, they're using a girl's body - Su has some gender hangups lol, and refers to Zeno with 'she' or 'he' pronouns depending on embodiment. I'm gonna go with 'they'. Zeno is brusque and overwhelmingly condescending, and seems to be convinced Su is somehow playing the fool by acting like a student who doesn't know what the hell is going on. This is fairly strong support for the idea that Zeno believes Su 'should be' her grandfather in a new body. If not that, then definitely she should know more than she does.

Anyway, Zeno says a bunch of grandiose shit about how they're about to create the Great Work or something.

"Utsushikome of Fusai," she said, her tone suddenly very soft. "Immortality is the least of it. There is a power which sleeps here that will remake the world. That will fold mankind as iron in a furnace, and usher in an age of glory. That will grant our species unfathomable and beautiful dignity, and liberate us from this decomposing corpse of a brane."

Exactly how this will be accomplished they do not condescend to say, because apparently all will be revealed shortly. But, out of a sense of loyalty, they give Su her grandfather's macguffin key to open... something, that will give her the right to benefit from whatever it is they're doing.

I appreciate that Su does her best to try and get some answers from someone determined to spout mysterious bullshit. Zeno is, nevertheless, not forthcoming. Su hates this - both being given shit to do with her granddad, and also Zeno's whole fufufu I'm an evil wizard doing schemes shtick.

So that's one element...

Balthazar again

Before meeting Zeno, Su runs into Balthazar again. For reasons that are inexplicable to her, she feels driven to treat him with hostility and suspicion. She drills him on the exact circumstances of what happened after the prosognostic event, where she thought he'd said 'I kept my promise'. After she pushes too far, Balthazar says...

"Dying Gods, you really are an unfair person, aren't you?" He said, ignoring my question and narrowing his eyes. " Right to the bitter end." My frown turned to confusion. "'Unfair person?'" Bitter end? "I don't like to think of myself as the resentful type," he said, now not seeming to be looking at me at all, "but I have to admit, I can't help but feel a little cheated. To struggle for such a long time, just to be saddled with a role like this, and left to-- Well, to be given to choice to either suck it up, or make the situation even worse. And to not even be allowed a few moments of catharsis as a consolation prize... It's cruel. There's no other word for it."

Then he calls Su 'Shiko', an abbreviation of her name which provokes a severely negative physical reaction in her - she almost vomits. At this point we probably think of the fact that the blacked-out name of Su's grandfather is also five letters.

Balthazar claims not to know something but be operating from context clues. What that implies, not clear. He clearly knows more about the situation than he's letting on. ... OK, unfortunately I think I glimpsed a spoiler suggesting he's aware of the time loop, so I can't claim to have organically guessed that idea, but it would make sense. In that case, maybe his 'promise' was to put himself at risk by causing the prosognostic event, allowing the 'control' scenario to play out correctly?

Still, even if he's aware of the loop, it leaves all kinds of questions about what his deal is. Like why this guy and nobody else?

'So much for your country, I guess'

In chapter 38, Su is helping her classmate Seth carry out a bribe to get Sacnicte not to dob him in for fighting, supposedly. This serves as a chance to introduce us to the existence of the fortified security centre, which has surveillance feeds on most of the facility.

Let's talk a little bit about computers!

We also learn that, in the absence of regular electromagnetism, computers 'logic engines' communicate with each other in this world through a 'logic bridge' which involves yet more Tower of Asphodel iron wonkiness. We have 'false iron' and 'true iron'; false iron can be converted into true iron by the connection to the Tower, which can be initiated by the proximity to a human. True iron can talk to true iron.

The upshot is that computers can't talk to each other unless there's a nearby human at both ends, or the Power is involved, and the power can't operate without human intervention, so it's hard to build automated systems in this world.

The other funky aspect is that, by law, the only type of remote computer connection allowed is basically fully immersive VR, because the old world might have collapsed because kids always be on their damn phones.

Iron had enabled people to communicate in radically unconventional ways, which was perceived to have furthered dehumanization and diminished common empathy. As a result, the law was that remote communication was only permitted if it sensually emulated reality, like what was happening in front of us.

This seems like it would be a very helpful plot point if they ever made a film adaptation of this book lol.

Anyway, Su and Seth take the opportunity to tune in to the parade back home while they're doing the bribe. Of course someone sets it up the bomb.

The kids have a little chat about terrorism - Kam holds forth in her usual way about how deplorable terrorism is, much to everyone's frustration, because nobody exactly is in favour of terrorisms here. Bardiya gives us the 'yes the terrorists are morally responsible but this probably happened because the government fucked everything' angle. Ptolema gives us the 'what if it was a false flag' angle.

Ezekiel

Ezekiel deigns to show up onscreen around here. It turns out there's a reason everyone avoided him so far: he's a colossal cunt who's super fantasy-racist towards people from the other planes, and also regular-racist to people from like, literally any other country. He gets away with it because he's able to put a sock in it somewhat in front of the teachers and also good at magic. I think racists call this 'hiding your power level', but I don't think 'being racist' is some kind of cool chuuni superpower.

Hamilcar

Hamilcar is the last member of the Order that we meet. He's got a bit of a techpriest sorta vibe. His general deal is 'golemancy', meaning in this case an approach of replacing human body parts with interchangeable parts and standard interfaces rather than growing perfectly biomimetic organs with biomancy. Fittingly, he is himself a big old robed cyborg, with a breathing apparatus over his mouth and a metal eye. Definitely feels like he missed his calling as a minor JRPG antagonist.

the cute bit with the books

There's a really good scene in chapter 39 where Ran talks books with Yantho, the younger member of the servants/aspirants who talks with a tablet.

Ran talks, at first with Su, at some length about a fantasy novel about dragons. It is quite a thought-out premise in fact...

Ran shrugged. "When you read enough of this shit, all the gimmicks are basically just window dressing. What's important is imagery. Plate armor, big old-fashioned Rhunbardic castles, swords, fantasy creatures... That's what makes something typical." She yawned. "But anyway, in the actual plot, dragons have almost been hunted to extinction, which is causing a crisis since human civilization uses them for everything. They decide to start farming them instead, but the dragons always tear themselves apart rather than letting themselves be captured, and if they just steal the eggs, they die before hatching without their mother."

They talk about whether the premise - in which a special girl is made into a human dragon hybrid to breed dragons - is overly fetishistic before Ran renders her judgement...

She shrugged. "It's average. As far as I can tell, it's going for a bunch of high-minded themes about transhumanism, the cycle of hatred and violence, and society exploiting the bodies of women… But the actual delivery is pretty muddled, and falls apart amidst a bunch of stuff the author obviously only stuck in because they pressed some personal button. Also, there's a romance plot at the center of the narrative that's really pissing me off."

I like this because it's really funny to talk about the kind of book that you're reading inside the book like this. A lot of the time when fictional characters read books, it's very different books.

I sorta suspect that this is about a trunk novel that Lurina wrote? It's so specific! But maybe she's just really good at cooking up a plausibly interesting fantasy novel on the fly.

Yantho joins in and there's a whole convo about the book series. (Su angsts about how she can't really connect in the same way.) It's definitely kind of indulgent but in a way that, contra Ran's take on 'pressing personal buttons', I quite enjoy.

Fang

Finally in chapter 42 the much-delayed conclave begins and we get to see what everyone's little science projects are! Also Fang shows up.

We were already told a bit about Fang - they're a massive prodigy and also nonbinary - but what we didn't realise is that they are incredibly casual about everything. Very much 'TTRPG player who isn't getting into character' energy. They also act like they're gonna improvise their project at the very last minute.

I thought the earlier discussion of Fang implied there is some kind of recognised nonbinary identity in this world, but it seems to be less of that and more that Fang is really good at playing genderfuck. Here's how Su puts it:

It wasn't as though Fang even really asked people to refer to them in gender neutral terms, not that I would have really had a problem with it if they did-- Although that certainly didn't stop Kam and a few others from being varying degrees of shitty and passive-aggressive over the issue, as you saw back when we were grouping up outside the Aetherbridge. Rather, they just implied their feelings by presenting themselves in a way that was genuinely ambiguous. It's a delicate thing to try to put into words and probably even foolish to think about, but it really was difficult to tell what the... Makeup of their body was, uh, physically. They always wore clothes loose around the chest. They were tall, but not widely built. Their face was soft, but not small. They didn't have any facial hair, but their eyebrows were lower and thicker than you'd normally expect from a woman, and while their voice was pretty husky, it was more resonant and melodic than you'd hear from a man. Like Ran and I, Fang was Saoic - though from the Arcanocracy instead of the League - and a lot of foreigners in our extended social circle would say things like, 'oh, they're Saoic, so of course it's hard to tell!' which, aside from being vaguely offensive, was also extremely irritating, since I didn't feel like that had anything to do with it.

Su goes on for a few more paragraphs about how we parse gender and shit.

It's funny to me because... I'm someone who apparently reads a bit ambiguously in terms of gender. In my experience, people decide fairly arbitrarily what gender they think you are, and if something comes to change that impression (for me, usually my voice), they 'correct' themselves. If they're more caught up on trans shit they might ask pronouns or whatever. It's rare for someone to decide that they can't figure it out -and if they do they might be incredibly rude about it like demanding to know my gender or loudly talking about whether I'm a boy or a girl.

Fang apparently deliberately cultivates a nonbinary perception, undermining peoples' assumptions, but keeps subtle with it and doesn't actually ask anyone to use they/them. That's a hell of a fine line to walk lol.

Fang's prodigal talent also has an air of cheating to it. After some remarks from Su about how most 'prodigies' just happen to peak sooner than most (she puts an evopsych spin on this because Su is a bit too much of a lesswronger for her own good still), but aren't lifelong special talents, Su describes how Fang stood apart in schoolwork:

That wasn't how it went for them. They would come into class, sit down, and just write. Nonstop, without pausing even a second for thought. And the work was brilliant! Perfectly voiced, cited, and comprehensive to the point that it put even the wordiest of Kamrusepa's stuff to shame! And they just did it, like they were transcribing directly from the voice of God.

Certainly can't help but get the feeling that Fang might also be in on the time loop, or perhaps an even longer loop? Or maybe they have had their mind overwritten with someone as we're suspecting happened to Su? Or receiving some kind of 'external' information? Definitely seems like there's more to this than just 'Fang is good at academia'.

Anyway, they are super casual about showing up late for this all important conclave. Su's deja-vu feeling manifests into a highly specific prediction...

Fang will withdraw an item that looks like a sheathed blade, but covered in small pieces of strange, silver-white machinery. As soon as the inner circle sees it, they will react with shock and panic. Someone - in 87% of scenarios, Zeno, but sometimes Hamilcar, Anna or even Linos - will demand what they're doing with it and where they got it. Fang will explain that they were entrusted with the task of completing it by a departed member of the order, though they won't say who. Later, I will learn this was my grandfather, but that won't be until half way through the night. After this, the conclave will demand they hand the item over, but Fang will only do this under the condition they stall the conference until they've led everyone down to the sublevel to reveal its purpose. Kamrusepa will get upset and refuse to go. We'll travel to an elevator that goes deeper in the facility, and... And then...

This prediction does not exactly pan out, but we don't actually get to see what Fang's project is, because Hamilcar suddenly intervenes and sends everyone outside.

Some other shit happens before that though!

Ophelia's presentation is the main one to be narrated in detail. She's invented an external artificial liver which is kind of like a slug creature, and does a demo on herself, in which it pokes tentacles in to intercept heir failing liver. I feel like this thing is a Chekhov's gun. Also I am big into Ophelia's whole 'I will do this gross experiment on myself' thing. That's the spirit.

The witch's ultimatum

We get the equivalent of Beatrice's letter. In this case, someone hacks Kam's logic bridge during her presentation, giving a religiously inflected denouncement and ultimatum on behalf of an unnamed goddess. The message commands them to do some occult shit.

First, you shall lay this fel sanctum to waste, taking nothing with you as you abandon it save the clothes on your back! Second, you shall fall to your knees and prostrate yourself before Her glory from the break of dawn to high noon! Third, you shall make the traditional sacrifice of a black bull in the evening light, along with the proper rites! Do this, and turn your miserable lives towards virtue and godliness, and you may yet be afforded forgiveness."

If not, they'll all be killed one by one. We don't have a specific recipe for the killings as Beatrice's revival ritual in Umineko, but it's definitely a Beatricey vibe.

Su, who is one of the only two people who actually knows someone has been murdered (besides, presumably, the murderer!), has more misgivings than the rest, who broadly laugh it off.

There's also a moment of bathos at the end...

Then, the voice exhaled, and the head of the figure shifted to the side, jarringly shifting to casual, chipper tone. "That was pretty good! I really gave it my all, I think--"

Given that the Playwright later claims to have had a cameo, I'm inclined to think it's her 'playing' this ultimatum-giver? Though what that means for the 'integrity' of the scenario I'm not sure!

And then things get crazy

During this recess, Neferuaten comes out to chat with Su and Ran and Ptolema. Ran decides to take the chance to grill her on the real purpose of the facility, because most of what we've been told about it doesn't add up. It probably isn't underwater on the next lower plane. She concludes that the real reason for building a bunch of underwater domes here is something hidden in the caves underneath.

Neferuaten's answer is... to go on a long metaphysical tangent. So it turns out that before making this new universe, the humans in the 'timeless' space of the Tower of Asphodel made some observations of the 'depressed' physics of the post-collapse universe they'd left (seems like the commenters suggesting false vacuum collapse were probably right on the money). They essentially had to wait out the entire heat death of the universe before making a new one (presumably taking no subjective time). So they left some kind of monitoring devices in there creating effectively a complete record of the entire history of the old universe. It's considered a niche interest.

Someone called Saahdia made a study of this data and discovered patterns.

"Of course, I'm simplifying something very complex. One thing I hope you've learned by this point is that, in all forms of scholarly inquiry, nothing is ever clear cut. There were many false positives, and natural occurrences mistaken for something more. But the further she invesigated, the more she found anomalies which could not be easily explained. And the more those anomalies, too, began to form a recognizable pattern." She smiled distantly. "Just not one you usually see in interstellar physics. And then she reported that to Ubar, who ordered an investigation of the corresponding interplanar data--" (...) "What she started to suspect," Neferuaten explained. "was that, though in a form impossibly alien to human beings, entropy is conscious."

This is like... lmao crank shit but it's fine, it's a scifi story, we can have a little conscious entropy as a treat.

Still, it's time to talk physics a bit.

Seems that post I wrote about entropy is going to be very relevant huh. As discussed previously, entropy is a fairly unintuitive quantity that measures how large-scale averaged out models of a system relate to fully specifying every single one of its degrees of freedom.

The 'thermodynamic arrow of time' says that, in the direction we define to be increasing time, entropy always increases. This is justified by a statistical argument: when you have a huge enough number of particles ergodically exploring the states of a system, there are so vastly many more ways for entropy to increase than for it to not increase that the chance of it not increasing is infinitesimal. (This simple argument is considerably complicated by the issue of CPT symmetry, which says the laws of physics work the same way if you run time backwards. That would be too long a tangent for this blog post about a book.)

In thermodynamics, entropy is one of a number of state variables that describe a system. In classical thermodynamics, you form differential equations, relating changes in entropy to changes in other quantities such as internal energy, temperature, volume etc.

So what is entropy? Well, it's not some kind of cosmic processor that is monitoring the micro-level physics of everything. It's a statistical property that crops up in complicated evolving systems.

In our world, that is. In Su's world, entropy is some kind of god. So that's neat.

Naturally all the characters raise similar objections. Here's how Su describes known physics in her future:

"Um…" I said, hesitating as I was put on the spot despite the superficial simplicity of the question. "Well, as far as we know, the Timeless Realm, which contains all fundamental matter, has always existed - along with the 10 conventional dimensional forces, which intersect and overlap with each other around the matter. Some of those intersections were asymmetrical, creating instability and the 11th special dimensional force, time. The process of those intersections breaking down created the phenomena we describe as energy and mass, which at some point led to the first planes. Ours in particular came about when a large amount of energy was discharged from from somewhere else in the inter-dimensional landscape, and--"

We should probably talk a bit about dimensions here. A spatial dimension is basically an direction that something can vary, orthogonal to the other directions. e.g. to reach every point in a 3D space you need at least three non-coplanar basis vectors to add up. In a higher dimensional space, there are more directions to go in.

Mathematics has been describing higher dimensional geometry for centuries. This made its way back to physics around the turn of the 20th century. You had special relativity, which mixes space and time depending on your velocity, defining a 4D 'spacetime'. You also had formulations like Lagrangian mechanics which reformulated Newton's mechanics into a more abstract model of 'state variables', with as many as you'd need to solve your problem.

Much later in the 20th century, attempts to create a unified model of quantum field theory and gravity started observing that their theory could be really mathematically elegant if you added a bunch of extra spacetime dimensions. The problem was that we can't observe these dimensions - we can't move along them and they don't have any observable effect on shit like gravity. A solution for this issue is to say that all these extra space dimensions might loop back on themselves over an incredibly tiny scale. Supersymmetric string theory supposes that there would be 10 dimensions (the 4 regular spacetime ones + 6 extra ones which are all twisted up in something called a Calabi-Yau manifold), other theories add more.

I should say here that, despite decades of research effort and increasingly gigantic particle accelerators, we have found zero evidence for supersymmetry, which makes things dicey for string theory - a body of theoretical work that was already hard to meaningfully test in the first place. So '10 spacetime dimensions' is far from proven physics.

While I'm at it, since it's come up, a brane is basically a hypersurface of some dimension, that propagates through a higher-dimensional space. It's a generalisation of notions like 'particle' (point moving through spacetime) and 'string' (line moving through spacetime). String theory uses this mathematical construct heavily - notably, within string theory our universe could be a specific type of brane with various strings attached to it in a way that allows it to produce quantum mechanics from the way the strings and branes interact.

So, in Flower, the 'planes' seem to have been identified with the physics concept of 'brane'. In practice they function more like the classical fantasy notion of 'planes of existence', other worlds that you can travel to where the rules are different.

Now, let's go back to Su's summary. I don't really get what she means by 'dimensional forces' here, particularly when she describes time as a 'force'. The 'process of those intersections breaking down' is probably a way of describing the Higgs mechanism and spontaneous symmetry breaking. The 'large amount of energy' is presumably a reference to the Big Bang (the hot dense state at the beginning of our universe), coupled with the idea that the energy came from 'somewhere else'. Further, Su seems to be suggesting that they exist in a brane cosmology, in which our universe is a brane in a higher-dimensional space, and there could be other universes.

Su's description is kinda muddled tbh - it feels like the interpolation of someone who reads popular science magazines rather than a physicist.

Anyway, here's how Su defines entropy:

"But we do know what entropy is," I insisted. "It's just an emergent quality of energy in some planes in which gravity is exceeded by motion in terms of potential force, without anything else to taper it. You taught me that countless times yourself."

This seems somewhat odd to me - I'm not entirely sure why gravity would enter into it. I think it might have to do with conflating the thermodynamic arrow of time (the 'direction' along which entropy increases) and the cosmological arrow of time (the 'direction' in which the universe expands), since the expansion of the universe is determined by the balance of matter and energy in the universe.

'Emergent quality of energy' is somewhat accurate. Entropy could be more aptly said to be an emergent quality of any model that treats matter in the aggregate, abstracting over details. An atom in a gas interacting with other atoms has no concept of entropy in its dynamics. If you were able to perfectly track and simulate every single particle, you would not need entropy.

Since it's so contextually defined, it's rather difficult to describe entropy as a kind of entity that could be afforded a will. Neferuaten's response is to play the allegory of the cave card, something which Ran calls her on:

"This is the second time in the past five minutes that you've basically repackaged the allegory of the cave and presented it as your own concept," Ran said flatly. "Just putting that out there."

Kind of love this line.

However, despite the characters grilling Neferatuen on an idea which Su correctly calls 'closer to mysticism than natural philosophy', the fact that this is given so much time in the narrative seems to fairly strongly suggest that, as far as this story is concerned, entropy is a conscious entity or process or something.

Presumably, whatever the Order are about to try to do, they're going to change how entropy behaves so that it 'wants' to keep humans alive indefinitely. Somehow this is going to involve the Everblossom. I will say, that is a proper scale of magnum opus for a setting like this.

Neferuaten is honestly pretty up front about all this. She's like 'yep we're playing with fire and probably courting an x-risk*, but don't worry, we know what we're doing'.

"I'm just trying to be upfront, miss Rheeds," Neferuaten said. "I'm happy to be known as hypocritical, selfish, or even foolish, but the one thing that makes my stomach churn is the idea of miss Hoa-Trinh, and of course you and Utsuhikome, walking away from this conversation with the impression that we're all megalomaniacs without any degree of mindfulness of we're doing. It has been, if nothing else, among my foremost goals to promote self-awareness among the administration of this organization."

As upfront as she might be trying to be, she lapses back into the cryptic bullshit and refuses to explain much more about how the Order came to this mysterious location beyond 'there is an Ironworker thing here' that they can use to observe and interact with entropy, I guess.

Anyway, all of this ends with Neferuaten declaring that as long as she lives, no danger will come to Su et al. Signing her own death warrant with those words.

Neferuaten dies

So then Su sees the beaky thing and blacks out. When she comes to, she tries to figure out what she saw - about this point we also get another visit from the Playwright, who explains that Su can't have her perceptions messed with until we are shown the mechanism that would do it - and then Lilith shows up and drags her to go find help. The warning bell is going off. Su goes to shut it off. And we get... our second death!!

Su also learns that as far as other characters were concerned, she seemed mostly normal. It seems therefore that she's suffered amnesia rather than actually being unconscious. Maybe her alter took over? Or maybe her visit to Samium didn't take as well as she hoped?

We also get some new rules, including coloured text. Red text (actually a darker red, but this is the only one I have on here) is used to describe Su finding a corpse that is absolutely definitely the corpse of that specific person, ruling out misidentifications, subsitutes etc. whoops, I misremembered that part! the only guarantee we get is that they're human remains and dead, but not whose human remains they are. (so this could be someone else who died and then, say, post-mortem transformed to look like neferatuen).

We also get to have new POVs, starting with an academic guy from an early chapter who seems to know more than he was letting on. These segments begin with a letter in purple text if we're supposed to treat them as reliable.

Considering Su blacked out for most of the relevant period, I'm not sure if we're supposed to really be able to solve any of the 'dunnit' questions at this point. What we know is that someone killed Neferuaten and stuffed her body in the bell. Why? Well we have a 'witch narrative' (the members of the Order will be killed one by one if they don't do ritual blah), and we also have reasons to suspect there could be conflict within the order. The thing is nobody has an alibi at this point - about the only people it's unlikely to be are Lilith (who was probably near Su) and Linos (who is established as unable to climb the stairs of the belltower, though then again these are all flying wizards here).

We also learn about a thing called the Allagiypnou Process, which reduces how much you have to sleep at the risk of potential personality changes. Every member of the Order except Linos has had it.

So not much to say just yet. I liked Neferuaten. But we already know it's a time loop story, so I'm sure she'll be back in a future loop.

The Playwright and the Director and final mysteries

The story is getting increasingly frequent interruptions from the Playwright and the Director, adding an increasingly metafictional dimension to this. This is not really surprising if you're an Umineko-head, but it does seem to be causing a certain amount of consternation in the comments.

I definitely suspect there is more to these characters than merely a cutesy way to inform us of the rules of the Fair Play mystery we're allegedly supposed to be solving. There are obvious questions like - who is the audience? What is the connection of the characters to the situation? If this is all being orchestrated, to what end?

Given the earlier declaration that entropy is sentient, I wonder if this is some kind of anthropomorphised representation of the 'will' of entropy? But that seems kinda cheap.

Anyway, we end with another set of reveals - Nindar, the academic back at the uni which they all left behind, is clearly in on whatever conspiracy is afoot here, and had a hand in bringing Fang and their mysterious object with the goal of changing the mission of the Order.

And also apparently the boys' group didn't even go up the space elevator.

So like what does that imply?? Are all the boys replaced with imposters? If the boys didn't go up the lift, but made their way to the Sanctuary by some other means, why do they all seem to remember going up the space elevator and following a similar route to the girls?

I honestly have no idea at this point. Feels like way too many unknowns to reason deductively about.

In conclusion

Sure are a lot of balls in the air right now. I'm fascinated to see where they might land.

Maybe let's make a list of like, known mysteries?

the big one: what skulduggery happened with Su's ascension that made it go so badly wrong? why did Ran react so badly to knowing that Su can't assimilate? what did Su's grandfather have to do with it?

who knocked out Yantho and ruined his roast?

whodunnit #1: who killed the cook, and why?

who hacked Kam's phone with the ultimatum, and why?

what happened between Su blacking out from seeing Beaky, and waking up in bed in the evening? (what did Samium do to her?)

whodunnit #2: who killed Neferatuen? why? when?

what crazy Great Work are the Order plotting? how's the Everblossom involved?

what's under the Sanctuary that's so big and important?

how did the Order come to the Sanctuary? there's clearly a story there.

who is Su's unnamed friend from the beach in the flashbacks?

what are the Playwright and the Director playing at? (are they secretly Gog-Agog?)

what does Balthazar know?

what's Fang hiding?

who's Beaky?

what does the terrorist attack have to do with the Conclave?

There's probably more I'm forgetting right now.

Not sure how many of these - if any! - we're supposed to be able to infer at this point in the narrative, but it's definitely a spicy brew!

I expect the bodies are going to hit the floor pretty quickly from this point, but who knows... we're still quite early on in this affair.

...phew, these writeups are a bit of a project. I've gotten everything down now I think, so I can finally let myself read the next chapter.

#the flower that bloomed nowhere #tftbn liveblog #fiction #sff

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