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No one is born on Planet Psychotherapy. The only way onto the Planet is through any number of tortuous routes, twisting and turning through the mountainous rule books of the Guilds. All Guilds guard access to this privilege tightly. Words, paper, gold. Arcane rituals rule.
There used to be monasteries on the Planet. Places where novices and interns could live, copying from the masters, aping the silences, echoing the insights. Occasionally novices were allowed to sit at the feet of their masters, even turn words into paper themselves. Visitors could stay in these monasteries, providing the words for the initiates to practice with.
Well before this new age, the Keeper lived in such a place. For four and a half years. The first three years were novice years followed by life as a junior intern. There was a choice of Guilds, as in those days cooperation between Guilds in Monasteries was more common. The bureaucrats insisted. Monasteries were the first proving grounds, the Planet’s nursery beds. The Guilds took the cream of the crop.
Of course there were hierarchies here. Novices struggled to be recognised, usually passed over by the Guilds in the annual harvest. Newcomers came in directly as interns, after a short time unaccountably disappearing into the Guilds. The novices stayed on, overlooked.
Many Guilds insisted that their novices and interns also became visitors. Provide the words for Guild paper. Present your own words for the internal fireworks of Guild members, interns who needed the advanced but safe practice. This was the Keeper’s route too. In the hope of being noticed. They praised him with paper. But the paper was worthless. The truth about the Guild rules is that no one knew them. All were blind except the chosen, the harvested.
Then one day a Doer came. The bureaucrats had insisted on some Doers working in Monasteries. Disliked and unwanted, they existed on the Monastic margins, little different from the outlaw lands of the weird and the doings from which they had sprung. Unwanted, unloved, persuasive. To listen long enough to a Doer was to catch a strange missive of experiment, doing and new alchemy. Their eyes burned bright with excitement. They knew the future, they KNEW the future.
At the moment the Keeper left the monastery, the monastery left him. Visitor and intern days over. A fast track to certainty. He travelled to the margins. And there stayed, until the first great battle between the Guilds and the Alchemists, the Doers and the Experimenters. When they left the margins during that original great assault, the Keeper was there in the first wave, a non-commissioned officer of that determined army. Alchemists, Doers and Experimenters. All together.
When the Turncoat first came the Alchemists hid their gold lust well. As the mercenaries were seduced, they knew the power of alliance. The assault had faltered. Visitors yet to be persuaded. Alchemic memories of the doings of the past. Doers and Experimenters cannot be cast aside. Not yet.
Special missions were planned. Interns sent to far flung places, to do battle with strange Guilds. Powerful Guilds. Mere cannon fodder for the new Guild. Their missions? Probe for weaknesses. Be exposed. Tough, dirty fights. No problem if lost. Find your way back if you are lucky. Interns can be replaced.
United in their naivety. Even during the first assault, the die had been cast. The officer corps were all Alchemists. Alchemic generals for the Doer Grunts. The Doers saw this but hid their doubts, believing that all was the cause, the cause was above all.
Some of them returned, intelligence gathered, skirmishes undecided. Survivors. Proven.
Saturday 31 October 2009
Thursday 8 October 2009
Chapter 6: A Short History of the Planet Part 2
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The Planet convulsed.
When the Alchemists launched their assault they expected that the visitors would immediately understand the righteousness of their cause. Richness and privilege to be swept aside in a new glorious revolution. The underdog, always a good bet. Plenty of historical precedent. Some Guilds fell. Seats of learning stormed by no-nonsense experimenters armed with new and powerful weaponry. Guilds shuddered. ‘The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire’.
Horror and incredulity gripped the Guilds. Without the brake of paradox, the veneration of the aged, the Alchemists ranged deep into the halls of the Guilds. Destroyed the precious archives of paper. Brought not just the new but the old paper into the sun and incinerated it in the magnifying glasses of scrutiny. The Doers did. The Experimenters experimented. The Alchemists directed, overturned and burned.
But the tentacles of the Guilds ran deep into the voices of the visitors. Feudal structures pulled at loyalties. Visitors did not want new science. Trusted structures and fealty gave comfort. The assault faltered. The new science regrouped and struck again. New gains. The Guilds sought a fresh saviour. An unprecedented idea, Guild cooperation. A return to history, to the spirit of the first colonisers. But it wasn’t enough. The Guilds needed their own new weapon. And they found it where they least expected it. In the very heart of their own laws. At the very core of the Planet. The 1st paradox.
Words generate paper. Words are the ultimate Planetary addiction. On the margins, the outlaw lands of the weird and the doings the scant supply of words kept the Alchemists, Experimenters and Doers clean. Their meat and drink was cause and effect. Their paper was different, riven by strange symbols and hieroglyphics. Dense and barely understandable. The high priests of Alchemy, doing and experiment were keepers of the new paper. Most of the entourage from the margins cared little and understood less of these priestly writings. They sensed privilege and wanted it destroyed. Mercenaries with less belief and more opportunity. Storming. Happy to be led.
The Guilds sensed opportunity. A strategy. The Trojan Horse.
Into the Alchemists’ camp came a gift. A Turncoat. A refugee from the Guilds. Dissatisfied and willing to learn from the Alchemists’ instruction books. Maybe the Alchemists had a point. The Planet could change, learn from their new ways. The Turncoat turned, spun and weaved. Introduced the Alchemists to words. The mercenaries, opportunists, listened, drank around the fire with the refugee, broke bread and were caught in the web.
The coalition from the margins, from the weird and the doings creaked. United by the Experimenters, the Alchemists and Doers compared weapons. The Alchemists and their mercenaries drank ever more deeply from the jug of words. But needed the Doers, needed the Experimenters. The Guilds were still strong, the visitors suspicious of change, unwilling to embrace revolution. Words became ever more seductive.
The Alchemists sensed gold.
The Turncoat worked away. Suggested a new Guild. A Guild of Alchemists, Doers and Experimenters. The Planet would be stronger. All could share in its riches. Words were plentiful. Didn’t they know the Guilds controlled the source, dammed the flow? Observe the sluice gates, wind the handle. See how the words come gushing? The Alchemists were hooked. Certain of it now. Gold.
The Planet breathed again, drew back from the abyss.
...
The Planet convulsed.
When the Alchemists launched their assault they expected that the visitors would immediately understand the righteousness of their cause. Richness and privilege to be swept aside in a new glorious revolution. The underdog, always a good bet. Plenty of historical precedent. Some Guilds fell. Seats of learning stormed by no-nonsense experimenters armed with new and powerful weaponry. Guilds shuddered. ‘The Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire’.
Horror and incredulity gripped the Guilds. Without the brake of paradox, the veneration of the aged, the Alchemists ranged deep into the halls of the Guilds. Destroyed the precious archives of paper. Brought not just the new but the old paper into the sun and incinerated it in the magnifying glasses of scrutiny. The Doers did. The Experimenters experimented. The Alchemists directed, overturned and burned.
But the tentacles of the Guilds ran deep into the voices of the visitors. Feudal structures pulled at loyalties. Visitors did not want new science. Trusted structures and fealty gave comfort. The assault faltered. The new science regrouped and struck again. New gains. The Guilds sought a fresh saviour. An unprecedented idea, Guild cooperation. A return to history, to the spirit of the first colonisers. But it wasn’t enough. The Guilds needed their own new weapon. And they found it where they least expected it. In the very heart of their own laws. At the very core of the Planet. The 1st paradox.
Words generate paper. Words are the ultimate Planetary addiction. On the margins, the outlaw lands of the weird and the doings the scant supply of words kept the Alchemists, Experimenters and Doers clean. Their meat and drink was cause and effect. Their paper was different, riven by strange symbols and hieroglyphics. Dense and barely understandable. The high priests of Alchemy, doing and experiment were keepers of the new paper. Most of the entourage from the margins cared little and understood less of these priestly writings. They sensed privilege and wanted it destroyed. Mercenaries with less belief and more opportunity. Storming. Happy to be led.
The Guilds sensed opportunity. A strategy. The Trojan Horse.
Into the Alchemists’ camp came a gift. A Turncoat. A refugee from the Guilds. Dissatisfied and willing to learn from the Alchemists’ instruction books. Maybe the Alchemists had a point. The Planet could change, learn from their new ways. The Turncoat turned, spun and weaved. Introduced the Alchemists to words. The mercenaries, opportunists, listened, drank around the fire with the refugee, broke bread and were caught in the web.
The coalition from the margins, from the weird and the doings creaked. United by the Experimenters, the Alchemists and Doers compared weapons. The Alchemists and their mercenaries drank ever more deeply from the jug of words. But needed the Doers, needed the Experimenters. The Guilds were still strong, the visitors suspicious of change, unwilling to embrace revolution. Words became ever more seductive.
The Alchemists sensed gold.
The Turncoat worked away. Suggested a new Guild. A Guild of Alchemists, Doers and Experimenters. The Planet would be stronger. All could share in its riches. Words were plentiful. Didn’t they know the Guilds controlled the source, dammed the flow? Observe the sluice gates, wind the handle. See how the words come gushing? The Alchemists were hooked. Certain of it now. Gold.
The Planet breathed again, drew back from the abyss.
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