I couldn’t help but notice while I was perusing your Library in a spare moment (which continues to be jaw-droppingly brilliant work, by the way!) that Zosimos’ name was mentioned. I didn’t know if it was appropriate for me to leave my own notes in the margins of your texts but I’m happy and somewhat bewildered to report that Zosimos is a figure in the Academy’s history as well. He was, supposedly, the First Academician and founded the Academy, and ostensibly taught the first Irós by way of passing on esoteric techniques to a Kushtaka companion of his. These claims are utterly unsubstantiated by what Academic records remain stretching back 1300 years but references to Zosimos are oddly persistent even within those records, and given what we know and have speculated about Samudra’s history, I’ve grave concerns about data loss beyond the 13-century documentary horizon…
Up next: 0 songs
1 listening
- The Dragon
re: Zosimos
Zosimos allegedly taught the Iros? This is becoming uncomfortably uncanny, given how he seems to have set up the yeresh as well–which I already identified as close kin to the yeresh. The Iros and yeresh serve similar functions in terms of memory, as well–we both have access, to some degree, to a truth and memory older than the worlds themselves–seemingly older than their sundering.
Who was he? It seems clear enough that he set up systems of care and governance on both Samudra and Almachadta; Aurelius has said that on the Beast, he’s known as their first king. But…why? Gods above and below, each answer spawns three more questions.
Definitely all questions I share. Honestly, I had been operating under the assumption that he was wholly a figure of legend - there are a lot of things about the very early Academy that we’ve simply never known, as a matter of public ritual we venerate the River Without Water but most of us couldn’t tell you where that came from or what it means other than in abstract and esoteric terms - the process of knowledge, ever-flowing and building upon itself. Our best good records only stretch back a few centuries but we know our practices of gnosis rely on techniques that were formed far earlier than that, and now I simply have to wonder how far earlier they date, given how little we actually do know about whatever year zero of our calendar actually signifies…
Feel free to scribble inside ‘em as you see fit, really. That said, my current hypothesis is that Zosimos was a powerful figure from the pre-sundered world who survived whatever catastrophe sundered it in the first place, was probably involved or at least AWARE of the events that took place, and post-sundering took on the role of a Steward for each new plane, guiding it towards a new way to live in a fractured, saturated world different from what it should have been. It seemed like there was a lot of guilt weighing him down in the memories, at least. So he must’ve had some way to travel between the worlds (the old Gates Tasna’s group, and now us, are finding perhaps?)
Caion, seconding Aurelius to say that you’re welcome to write whatever you like within the public library folios, or to create your own if so desired. The space is yours insomuch as it is ours.
I also suspect Aury’s correct about the gates, and I would go further to wonder if the Ziggurat might have been his home, once.
Furthermore, while I don’t think it’s useful to worry overmuch about his motives or his initial goals, I do have … there is something unsettling about feelings as if we’re still, even after so much time has passed, playing through the roles one (?) man (?) set out for us long, long ago.
Though. Considering the cycles, I have also wondered … why after destruction to our planes find themselves in the same shape again and again? If your histories do not reach that far back, why is Zosimos still there? Why are the Irós still the Irós? Why do the Yeresh still perform the same function? Shouldn’t more change over millions of years?
Salme, Caion – I have made a fascinating and…baffling…discovery regarding Zosimos and Samudra. However, I would prefer not to speak openly of it at this time, at least not until I have made more sense of it–hopefully, with your help. Perhaps a meeting…?
I have also had a thought regarding how these things might retain. Tasna, and others, could imprint themselves and their stories on the Rite, yes? Could what Zosimos did be a version of that, imprinted on a much deeper “fabric”? We know that the shrine remains untouched through each cycle–perhaps there is such a thing for each world, something that retains enough continuity to allow Zosimos’ imprint to persist.
Well, I’m intrigued. I’m generally not doing anything that’s too important to set aside if you have information to share.
That’s an interesting hypothesis. I’m confident at this point that at least the noöplankton and - “dream-whales”, I like that term for them, although I lack clarity as pertains to whales - are persistent. I very much wish it were possible to hold a conversation with either type of entity. I have so many questions I would like to ask them!
honestly kind of weird samudra doesn’t have whales, deep sea is one of their two natural habitats.
I would be very curious to hear what you’ve discovered, and more than willing to meet.
This is also simply a gut response, but Zosimos being imprinted on a deeper fabric of … reality makes a kind of sense. Much in the same way there are always Spoken Wood and Lightdrinkers and a Palimpsest-King. Like a loom that can only weave a certain pattern. The fibers might change, but the warp and weft remain the same.
In that sense, it seems the dream-whales might challenge that? I don’t know.
What does a non-dream whale look like?
i now know less about whales after seeing those drawings
what do you what from me that’s what they look like give or take several degrees of fidelity
How do they swim if they are … broken in the middle like that? And with a club for a tail? Are the oceans you’re familiar with composed differently?
wdym broken??? the fin?? and that’s a tail fin. you’ve seen a fish before, extrapolate into a larger size.
The tail? It gets narrow and then wider like it’s broken or swollen?
i mean obviously the same is rough and not exact but that’s roughly how whale and dolphin tales and shit work.
Dolphins??
tell us a tale of dolphins and whales
Sometimes, when you are a tiny evolving lifeform on a planet comprised largely of water, you made horrible decisions like “what if i breathed oxygen from the surface instead of having gills to pull it out of the water”. and then you get enormous as fuck while also eating some of the smallest sea creatures in the sea, for fuck knows what reason??? sea whales are weird, guys.
dolphins are also like that except smaller and more adapt at using themselves as blunt force trauma weapons. and also they’re really good at computers if you can like, get them wires in psychically or with a headset or something. some of the best hackers were little assholes sitting in a hot tube.
Why are they in a hot tube? And the whales sound … interesting, though I don’t think I’d like to meet a dolphin.
The thing about tiny evolving lifeforms though … I don’t think our planes can allow for that with the system of resets. That. Bothers me?
where else are you gunna put a dolphin when they’re out of the ocean and in a building???
also really couldn’t say either way, but. yeah probably not actually, guess the turn around is pretty fast on a cosmic scale huh
I guess I wouldn’t take a dolphin out of the ocean and stick it in a building??
And it is … not a lot of time, no. I think … well, that’s probably for a different thread, but if the Mask didn’t carry the memories of certain technological advances, Almachadta would be much less than it is. And I know you didn’t find it particularly impressive but.
honestly considering you’re going from absolutely nothing but burnt forest and a couple memories of shit other people did and getting to where you were in 200ish years is pretty impressive, all things considered.
(also the dolphins would be in a building because putting a computer in the ocean would destroy it and also be kinda hard to power as well, obv)
Also, to put this back on topic…Salme, the discovery I mentioned earlier in the conversation might also shed some light on the concept of “imprinting.” And would tie in fascinatingly with another area of Caion’s research…
Wolf, you’re a tremendous tease. Very much looking forward to learning what you have to share.
My apologies, I do not intend to be cryptic, merely…hesitant to share an incomplete thought. Say, perhaps, that I would like to exercise the virtue of Counsel first.
Oh, no, you’ve nothing to apologise for, and I admire your restraint and application of the Virtues. I was being slightly playfully unserious. Once again the limitations of text as a medium rear their ugly head…! (A compelling argument for having the discussion under discussion in person while it’s still possible.)
When would work for you Caion? And Wolf, would you like me to be there or not? It’s up to you, though I have to say I am deeply curious myself.
Speaking, to some extent, of imprinting, the name I first instinctively gave when I didn’t remember my own was Daina, which turns out to have been the name of the second Sword-Saint of Almachadta. This is not a name I think I ever knew.
Salme, I would very much appreciate your presence. Perhaps we could combine our gnosis-work experimentation with this. There is also a theory I have stemming from my discovery regarding the Mask which might be testable.