by Affan das Hudfor, Monstruwacan
*Possibly Dangerous Data — For Distribution to Members of the Monstruwacan Order Only*
Dated the 9,235,089th year of the Great Redoubt
We are told that in some time, millions of years before the founding of the Redoubt, when the sun still gave light, there was a huge earthquake which split open a vast fissure in the earth. This was followed by a vast volcanic explosion: “the earth did burst afresh with a sound that did shake all the cities of the world”, as an ancient record relates. Admittedly, since this explosion was caused by ocean water flowing into the superheated fissure, it might not be considered strictly volcanic. That’s certainly the closest analogy in ordinary geology, though.
We are told that the event caused ” a mist and confusion and rain upon the world”, and “a great mist lay upon the earth for many days, and there was a mighty rain” – but this seems like quite an understatement. It seems unavoidable that an explosion of that size would horribly damage the Earth’s climate system and lead to a catastrophic extinction. In fact, it is rather surprising that complex life survived.
Afterwards, the explosion left a massive valley 100 miles deep, bent in an L shape with each arm 1,000 miles long. As the sun began to die and the surface of the earth became cold and lost its air, the valley became habitable. We are told that there were forests, and that “beasts strange and awesome” lived in it. It is also implied that the tropical and volcanic climate caused creatures to evolve similar to those in prehistoric times.
Later, the Road Maker culture encountered “Monsters and Evil Things” that prevented them from continuing. The scientists of this culture then performed strange experiments which allowed evil and alien beings to reach the Earth and occupy it. The sun continued to die, and there were “strange consortings” with those alien creatures, forming worse monsters. (This is almost certainly a myth of an unscientific age; hybridization between humans and non-solid alien creatures is fundamentally impossible and biologically laughable.)
The Great Redoubt was built to shelter man from the monsters and the evil, alien forces let in by the experiments. As the sun’s dying continued, the Watchers appeared and besieged our Great Redoubt. There were apparently large flying creatures in the Night Land at one point, but as the air thinned, they either died out or moved to lower elevations in the Country of Seas and Volcanoes reported by Naani and her rescuer in a famous report. Whatever is to be said of its value as a tale of heroism, that report is sadly lacking in scientific detail. I suggest further exploration into the Land to retrieve biological specimens.
Classification of creatures in the Night Land
The creatures encountered by explorers in the Land can be divided into five categories.
- Hominids – these include all the Grey Men, Humped Men, Four-Armed Men, Brute Men, Giants, and other human-derived creatures.
- Non-hominid vertebrates – these include Night Hounds, snakes, the Bird-creatures, the Rat-creatures, and probably the Sea Beast met in the Country of Seas and Volcanoes.
- Invertebrates – These include Slugs, Scorpions, Spider-crabs, and the Yellow Thing/Giant Spider. The fourteen-legged animal of the Seas and Volcanoes is probably one as well.
- Vaporous – The Mist-Men. The Spirits of the Plain of Blue Fire may be of this type, or they may be Evil Forces.
- Watchers – There are five Watchers surrounding the Redoubt. Other overly large monsters, such as the Thing that Nods, may belong to this group as well.
- Non-physical – All the Evil Forces, such as the Doorways in the Night, the Tree/Spinning Thing, the Hump of Darkness, etc.
So, what conclusions can be drawn from this?
- Hominids have diversified enormously, producing some forms which seem unlikely under conventional biology, especially the Four-Armed Man.
- Fish and amphibians are not encountered and thus probably either rare or extinct. Even in the Country of Seas, no fish were seen.
- Other vertebrates have probably suffered major extinctions. Even in the biologically rich Country of Seas and Volcanoes, only one bird species is seen – there are no songbirds. Nor are turtles noted, even in areas that seem suited for them. The only non-hominid mammals are Night Hounds and rats.
- Invertebrates have increased dramatically in size. The Slugs especially seem beyond the bounds of what is likely for a terrestrial invertebrate; the Yellow Thing would probably have breathing problems as well.
- Several completely new categories exist, including the Watchers, and the probably non-biological ‘spiritual’ or ‘non-physical’ creatures. The latter are beyond the scope of this article and will not be discussed further.
Thus, it seems clear that the mass extinction wiped out all but the toughest vertebrates. Rats survived easily, and the Night Hounds could be descended either from the extinct dog once kept by humans or the exceptionally tough, omnivorous coyote of those times. The bird-creature is probably a giant descendant of corvids (crows and jays); these were highly adaptable birds, and the large, pointed beak seems to fit corvids better than other adaptable birds known from ancient records or fossils. Snakes could have survived in burrows and by feeding off the rats and arthropods which endured.
The niches emptied by extinction of most vertebrates allowed invertebrates to increase in size and diversity. The scorpions seen in fire-holes and elsewhere on the Great Slope are smaller than some of prehistoric times, such as the Carboniferous Brontoscorpio; the spider-crabs are likewise a comprehensible size. The Yellow Thing is not clearly given a size, but it is far larger than a human. While much of this may be attributed to long legs, the creature is still more massive than a human. This seems to stretch possibility, especially in the thin atmosphere of the Night, since arthropod breathing is inefficient at large sizes; but perhaps the Yellow Thing has more efficient breathing than smaller arthropods and uses little oxygen while waiting in ambush.
Explaining the real implausibilities
The Four-armed Man: There are two implausible things about this creature. One, it has six limbs, which is very unlikely for any terrestrial vertebrate. Two, it feeds off blood, seemingly an overly specialized diet for a creature living in such a barren environment. However, the creature exists regardless, and must be explained.
The six limbs can be explained as a mutation – such mutations do occur – but it would normally be harmful. Interestingly, it seems that the Four-armed Man uses the two pairs of arms differently; perhaps one pair is weaker.
It seems that something about the unusual environment made this normally detrimental mutation an advantage. Perhaps it was able to intimidate predators more easily? Possibly another mutation occurred, allowing it to use both pairs of arms together.
Alternately, it is possible that the single Four-armed Man encountered was a freak of nature – perhaps even a detrimental condition – and that a normal, two-armed creature of that type would have been an even more terrible threat.
From fossils and old records, it seems clear that the hominids have diversified greatly in only a few million years – short, in evolutionary terms. There must be a mutagen affecting the area; this would make the mutations involved far more likely, as well as making the evolution of such things as the Grey Man plausible in the relatively short time frame. This mutagen could come from nuclear or chemical pollution of ancient times. However, I think it is far more likely that the presence of the immaterial/spiritual Outer beings induces mutations, especially if, as I and many others believe, they are essentially a thin plasma – highly charged. Thus, perhaps the Evil Forces emit electromagnetic radiation!
As for diet, it’s not clear that the Four-Armed Man lives off blood alone. Its mouth is somewhat specialized, but it would likely be capable of biting off small pieces of flesh or sucking the meat and ichor out of a large invertebrate such as a scorpion as well. When there are no hapless adventurers from the Redoubt around, it probably preys upon the smaller, weaker hominids and the abundant invertebrates as well as rats and serpents. The Four-Armed Man probably fills a similar niche in the fire-hole ecology as lions or leopards did in Africa in the age of the Sun; preying on large animals when available but willing to eat almost anything. (The Four-Armed Man seems to be very strong; while most of the “ab-human” hominids are stronger than normal humans, the report of Naani’s rescuer describes the Four-Armed man as being as strong compared to him as a horse is to a normal man; and he was a very strong man according to tales.)
The Giant Slugs: While the meager descriptions at my disposal don’t give sizes, it is clear that these creatures are very large – they seem to weigh tons.
There is still great controversy over the means a land invertebrate uses to support its weight at such sizes. Some claim an internally pressurized gas bag, but I subscribe to the “rigid shell” hypothesis.
The slugs are probably not true slugs, but evolved from snails; they must have developed an internal support structure from their shell. This would be equivalent to the exoskeleton of an insect, but heavier, approaching the form of armor covered only by the shiny mantle flesh. (The “blotches” seen by certain travelers are probably spots where the slug’s motion has made its flesh thinner, and thus the shell inside can be seen.)
The respiration would be a further problem, but fairly efficient lungs of some type seem required.
Vaporous Types: From the few specimens we have obtained, these are clearly true biological organisms, but of a dramatically different type from any other — an innovation at least as great as the development of eukaryote cells, but one that occurred in the very recent geologic past — during what are informally called the “Days of the Darkening”, in the Late Wandering or Early Redoubt periods, c. 10 million years ago.
They are composed of very minute prokaryotic cells, small enough to remain suspended in air. However, they have a great innovation in the form of link-strands, long (on a microscopic scale: up to 150 microns) but exceptionally thin (less than 15 nanometers) filaments that can be used to connect these bacteria and transport certain molecules — including those which act as chemical signals. This allows the entire ‘mist-cloud’ to function in certain ways as a single organism. Even certain genetic processes are shared: full genomic DNA molecules are too large to pass through the link-strands, but methyl radicals can be passed to allow coordinated methylation of genes. Even very small (5-10 base pair) RNA units can be moved between cells.
Some of the largest of these colonies/organisms, over 100 cubic meters and 1000 kilograms wet weight (thus a density of about 1% that of a standard organism), may have a level of organization analogous to neural activity in animals, giving them the equivalent ‘intelligence’ of an insect.
The Watchers: These are clearly living organisms, but they have a lifespan of millions of years, move at the speed of slow glaciers, and are many times larger than the biggest animals in the fossil record – the sauropod dinosaurs of the Mesozoic and the whales of the Cenozoic. This seems very odd on the surface, since our own Thanatozoic has far less biological productivity than those past eras.
They are probably some sort of fungus or plant rather than true animals. They grow to such large sizes that the closest analogue would be “clonal colonies” like those of aspen trees or some fungi.
But essentially the closest analogue is a lichen. Just as a lichen is a symbiosis of fungus and alga that acts as one organism, a Watcher would be a symbiosis of fungus, various small animals living on and within it, and possibly ‘spiritual’ creatures also trapped in its weave. It may even trap humans and use them as part of its network…
This “lichen hypothesis” is often rejected, but I see no better option. Certainty must wait until a brave adventurer returns to the Redoubt with a sample of Watcher bio-matter.
The great question, of course, is what the energy source for the Night Land ecosystem is. If the moss-bushes are analogous to the plants of our own Great Redoubt, how do they perform photosynthesis?
Well, as for the latter, they don’t. The moss-bushes reported in the Night Land are certainly not photosynthesizing plants. They are fungi.
Throughout the Night Land, volcanic phenomena are quite common. Therefore, sulfurous compounds are common in the soil, and a few hundred feet below the surface, great heat will be encountered in many locations. These can form a source of energy for life, through chemosynthesis, an analogue of photosynthesis using chemical energy instead of radiant light energy.
The moss-bushes are in fact clusters of fruiting bodies of a vast subterranean fungus that lives off the geothermal heat and organic compounds in the soil formed by the decay of chemosynthetic life. This moss-bush fungus most likely has a symbiotic relationship with chemosynthetic bacteria, just as lichens are formed by a symbiosis of fungus and alga, but we have insufficient samples. So far, no one has volunteered to dig a hole several dozen or hundred feet deep in the Night Land. We await those willing to take risks for the benefit of science.
The chemosynthetic bacteria themselves probably inhabit most of the Night Land’s soil, though at low densities. They almost certainly use sulfur and iron as their energy source. There is great quantity of iron in the Night Land’s soil.
Another source of energy in the Night Land is provided by the fire-holes. These support a much thicker density of chemosynthetic bacteria than the general soil of the Night Land, since there is much more sulfur. In the water pits at the bottom of some of these fire-holes, forms of algae adapted to photosynthesize in red and infrared light have been found.
These fire-holes are often the sources of great concentrations of life. The algal and bacterial scum is eaten by insects and other arthropods, which are preyed on by snakes* and larger arthropods. An omnivorous rat also feeds on the scum and any animals smaller than itself. The top predators of these fire-hole faunas seem to be a four-armed abhuman type and a gigantic yellow spider-like creature unscientifically referred to as a “Yellow Thing” in the reports given by Naani and her rescuer.
*In the absence of a physical specimen, it is impossible to determine whether these are true members of the possibly extinct order Serpentes, known from fossils as late as 6 million years pre-Redoubt.
In the reports alluded to above, a “Land of Fire and Water” was described. With no specimens, however, I can only state that the ambient light must be sufficient to allow photosynthesis, albeit shifted toward the red and infrared end of the spectrum.
On the more extreme end of speculation, it might be noted that this Great Valley was once the bottom of a sea; in later ages a shallow one. Great amounts of biomass would have accumulated and become hydrocarbons such as methane, ethane, butane, and other alkanes and cycloalkanes, forming the unpleasant mixture referred to as ‘petroleum’, used as an energy source as late as the Fourteenth Dark Age. However, it seems that this Valley’s reserves were never tapped. Some deep-soil bacteria, archaea, or other microorganisms may have adapted to use these as an energy source. Due to the immense metabolic differences this would entail, it may be appropriate to classify such organisms as an entirely new branch of life, equal in rank to the Bacteria, Archaeans, Eukaryotes, Vapor-Life, etc.
The Evil Forces
In this all-too-brief summary of the biology of the Night Land, many may wonder that I have made little mention of the dreadful Forces of Evil that so occupy our attention.
This is because, in all honesty, I know little of these beings. For obvious reasons, close observation is nearly impossible, to say nothing of sampling.
For what little validity it may hold, however, I give the hypothesis subscribed to by many (including myself) that the dangerous creatures that we call “evil Forces” hold no relationship to terrestrial life and are native either to another world or to space itself. They appear to be composed of thin plasma rather than the solid and liquid components of life native to Earth.
The method by which they destroy the human spirit is best not to investigate too closely, but it is generally suggested that either they somehow absorb the electrically charged particles from a mind, or else the powerful electrical charge of the Evil Force permanently and fatally overrides the weak electrochemical signals which make up the human mind. In either case the mind is irretrievably wiped blank and even its electromagnetic pattern destroyed.
The Powers of Good
I can draw no firm conclusions concerning these beings, but it is often hypothesized that they are of similar physical nature and composition to their evil counterparts, but differing in purpose.
The popularity of this hypothesis, however, is probably due less to its validity than to the almost total lack of competing ideas.