Of Creation

And Piled Mud Upon the Turtle’s Back Until the Earth was Formed

The story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the creation of the land. Before this, in the Dark Times (before the creation of environmental psychology), the people had lived within the raging waters, the servants had created within the tempest, perched for a few moments atop their creations, possibly, but in the end, all had died within the chaos of the angry seas of uncertainty. Within the ragged seas, the servants battled long over how best to satisfy their users, for, though sadism had been invented, it had not yet become widespread among the servants. And at the time of the first heroes, a few tribes of servants had begun to gain dominance, calling other servants to their banners or their doom, they preached service through material functionality. But their story is not the story of the Age of Heroes, nor of the creation of the land, theirs is the story of another great ship, a story told so often as tragedy.

The story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the creation of the land, and thus, in part, it is the story of the creators. They were a strange cult within the people of the water, not servants as we know them, creators of things for the good of the people, but servants in another way, creators of ideas. And among the creators were the tribe of the creators of the land, creators who made models describing how the minds of the people worked, and among that tribe was a group whose models described how the people perceived and understood their environments. And this group called themselves "Gestalt" of the tribe "Psychologists", though, to the servants, they are the creators, and the creators lived in the age known as the Roaring Twenties.

For the story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the creation of the land. And the creators dived into the depths of the tempest of ideas and coaxed from its rest the tortoise of observation, bringing it to the surface of the sea of thought. And the creators used the back of the turtle to examine the people, and they piled the resulting mud upon the turtle’s back, then formed from it a structure. And the mud took shape, and the creators were pleased, for they had created blocks, perfect and square. And the blocks were upon the back of the turtle, and thus unassailable by the tempests. And the creators called to the servants within the water, telling them of the wonders of the blocks of mud, and some few of them came, and these were the first people of the land.

The story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the creation of the land. And the creators shewed the bricks to the first people of the land. Here, they said, the people see your work in this way, they attempt to model their world so they might survive, to do this, they use these mechanisms. Work now, and create more satisfying things for the people. And some of the new people of the land were impressed, and took up the bricks and began to create with them, and many of these were called "graphic artists." While others of the new people abandoned the land, diving back into the waters of thought. And the new people of the land called to the servants in the water, both those who had never strode upon the land, and those who had abandoned it, saying, "Look, look what we have found, these fine bricks are the secret of happy, responsive users, and they are built upon an unassailable foundation." But the servants immersed in the ocean of thought called back, "But look, we too have secrets for happy and responsive users, secrets far more complex and developed than those bricks, no matter how well grounded, and it we combine them, might we not have an even greater land without need of playing in the mud?" And so the servants were split, and time pressed on. And those upon the land, and those within the water both failed and succeeded, and there seemed no advantage to life upon the land or life upon the water, and so might the land have failed. For there was disappointment among those on the land, and the cries of "Ah, man, why doesn’t it work." Were heard echoing across the back of the turtle, for this was the sixties, and the air was filled with heady scents which had altered the speech of the people.

But the story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the creation of the land, and this is how it came about. Those upon the land, both creators and servants built and rebuilt, combining and recombining the mud into different combinations, and the result was a new type of brick, called "pattern recognition," but, by this time, the original servants upon the land had been forgotten by the creators, for time had pressed on, and new creatures were within the world, creatures which ate cardboard and carried enormous wealth in their fur, and the creators pursued these new beasts with talk of "computer vision" and "data analysis", for this was the seventies, polyester was expensive, and even creators liked to get down and boogie. And so, there were more bricks, and more useful, upon the land, but most of the servants of the land had left, returning to their kin within the water, where ships had been built which could float upon the water, and might be made to hold together.

But the story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the creation of the land, and this is how it came about. At the darkest age of the land, when it had been consumed in the pursuit of the money-beasts, and the chosen people had all abandoned what the creators had wrought, upon the water, there was a confluence, and the flotillas of the servants began to coalesce through some unknown force, and the servants began to organise the mechanisms which they had discovered, and to discover similarities, and the individual ships merged and became stronger, and it was whispered that they had surpassed the land. And the ship which emerged was enormous, filled with the collected wisdom of the generations of servants, but it was hideously complex, bristling all about it with the detritus of thought which had generated each untrimmed board that formed the planking, and the servants were at a loss to make use of it, though they saw its value.

And it came to pass, that into this troubled time was born the mad one, for the story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the Unification of the Land, and that story is the story of the mad one. The mad one was born in the belly of the great ship, and grew, stunted and troll-like in its darksome depths, jumping from plank to plank, never sure which would toss him back into the sea. For there was no certainty for the children of the ships, most of the task-masters revelled in torturing the children, in confusing their young minds, telling them of the evils of the rest of the ship, then leading them there when the master's had conquered that section, for the merging of the ships was not peaceful, and there was envy among those who had long-captained their own vessels.

But the story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the Great Crash which unified the land. For the mad one was truly mad, for he believed that, in the destruction of the two great structures would be found some new creation which would let him understand the ship of theory, and which would not require that he fear to be thrown within the water once again. So it was that, deep in the night, the mad one crept into the stern of the great craft, deep in the hold where the prisoners of theory, heretics and madmen were kept, and there he sawed through the great rudder, Hubris, and sat within the noisome depths as those on deck fought valiantly to save their now-doomed ship.

The story of the Age of Heroes is the story of the Heroes' arrival upon the land. As the morning dawned, the land loomed in front of the ship, and, riding a wave, the great structures merged in destruction. Within the hold, the mad one was killed, but the Heroes survived. And now, trapped upon the land, they began to build again, but the tale of their struggles is a long one, and I grow tired. They built, let it be known, and they ordered, and they tore apart the wreckage of the great ship to find materials, and it was they that raised this hall in which we sit, half from the secrets of the land, half the secrets of the sea, and there are other tales of their accomplishments, but this tale is the tale of the Age of Heroes, the tale of the creation of the land.

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This work is Copyright (c) Mike Fletcher 1997