Beholder Syndrome Revisited

I present to you the study of one of the more active factions working to alter our world: The Beholder. Yes, the well-known abberation from Dungeons and Dragons, a creature so bizarre and wrong that it should not be allowed to exist, here or anywhere else. From beyond the void, the beholders have been assaulting the weak-willed, scared and highly emotional among us, hoping to see our society become a mirror of their own.

Beholders are well respected for their impressive powers. They hover in space, can shoot magic from eyes (which can also see in all directions at once) and even negate magic from those in their central gaze. Most intriguing, however, is the Beholders' Disintegrate Ray: Any beholder can fire an endless number of these blasts, that will destroy a 5'x5' cube of rock, dirt, or any other similar substance. While sages used to speculate on why these powerful and numerous beings hadn't used these rays to destroy the whole of the world, the answer became obvious with even limited observation: Beholders are xenophobic to the point of total insanity.

Every beholder believes that beholders are the only significant form of life, aside from those used as food. They view all other species as an afront to the creative force that birthed them, believing themselves to be the true way things should be. They will work together to annihilate outsiders, at least for a time. When beholders become dominant, they rapidly split into factions, comprised of beholder that look and act quite similar to one another. These factions destroy each other, until only one remains.

The beholders of this new group hate each other more than they ever did the ones before. Because these other beholders look similar, but not identical, to themselves, beholders consider each other to be the most worthy to be destroyed of all, as they see the small differences as intentional mockeries of their true nature. Soon, the beholders turn on each other, until none are left.

It is with this very aspect that the Beholders from the Otherwhen seek to impose themselves on our world, forcing us into ever smaller factions that engage in ever more horrific warfare, until our world is barren and shattered, a perfect environment for such aberrant beings to continue their neverending xenophobic feuds.

The Fractal Right

I was going to make a picture similar to this one, but then I found this one, so I didnt need to! Saves me lotsa time. This wonderful picture expresses the nature of the current Republican Tea Party in better words than I'm capable of outside of fantasy writings.

Infinite Joy~

I apologize for the lack of correspondence as of late, but my reasons are justified! An amazing bounty has come to me, and words cannot adequately express my joy. Through means far ranging, confusing and contradictory I have aquired the Ruby Codex! Yes, the very same! My eyes started to see light as concentric circles rather than amorphous spheres, so i decided to write until they stop leaking blue stuff of unknown origin.
The Ruby Codex is an artifact from the Mortal-Divine war of so many millenia past, one of the secret weapons which allowed the mortals to win their freedom from the uncaring slavery of so many of the deities; a good analogy would be if cattle suddenly aquired the means to stop us from farming them. The writings are bold and confusing, but what I've learned is amazing. This book details, for every last deity, the method of nondivine attack that they are vulnerable to. For instance, Balchaic the Harmonious can be harmed as if he were mortal by a long, curved blade, made of the strongest steal and edged with a nearly invisible peice of glass, forming a point that is sharpened to insane degree, all the way to the molecular level! Such a thing is hard to aquire, but not impossible. And there are many more who, unlike Balchiac, still exist in our world actively. It is good this came to me, rather than one irresponsible enough to test its teachings. My studies will continue, as will my search for the other five codecies. If anyone has leads, your assistance will be greatly rewarded, of that I assure you!

Correspondence!

Got a couple neat letters recently! Lets get into it!

Karl Prosek: "These forbidden writings praise those powers which nearly destroyed humanity, and seek to do so a second time. You are an enemy of my empire and you and yours shall be destroyed..." And so on. Well Karl, Id be much more impressed if you were your father. Write again when you can beat another army without using a Plot-Hole Generator.

Martin: "I told you, I don't worship demons anymore. I wont tell you again, you will receive no assistance or information from me or my colleagues." I...never sent any such request to Martin. Im not sure why he wrote to me, it mustve been a mistake...But wow, worshiping demons? Didnt see that coming at all.

This letter was marked as being from Merroroborus, whatever that means. The author's name was in a script i can't reproduce here: "I thought you lived in a pre-Renaissance society that had abandoned technology for magical advancement. So how are you writing on a 21st century medium, in a dimension you are not from?" (Note: This letter immolated itself about five seconds after i read the last word. Please dont do that.) Actually, I dont have the slightest clue. This alone terrifies me far more than any beholder, lich or dragon. Though clearly, deep magic is responsible.

Well, I had more, but I think i should go find someone to see if im under an illusion or a hallucinogen. My presence here seems rather perplexing.

What IS an "otherwhen"?

At its most basic, an "Otherwhen" is a divergent history alternate reality. However, it has an extreme difference between itself and reality. This difference is so vast that the parallel universe cannot sustain itself, and will rapidly collapse. The danger in this occurs if the inhabitants of an Otherwhen realise their existance is fleeting. Such beings may well do anything to stop themselves from being negated. This usually involves attempting to alter its parent reality in a way that lines up with its own distorted history. Should they succeed, the divergent reality will overwrite the parent reality, and the parent reality will in turn become the unsustainable Otherwhen.

Well, That Was Fun

My Concave Luminous Mirror Sphere negated itself from reality. I view this as a success.

Temporal Paradox, The End of Everything

All too often, the dangers of a temporal paradox are whitewashed and ignored. Today, I hope to spell the problem out in a way that shows the scope. First, a paradox is the inevitable result of backwards time travel. By merely existing in that timeline, you alter it. This is unavoidable. But rather than dwell on the small parts of paradox, I will use my favorite example:

In 2040 a time machine is built. The builder decides to go back 90 years in order to kill Hitler before his rise to power. The time traveler succeeds in his goal, and Hitler's empire never came into being. But that means that in the future the traveler is from, Hitler never existed, and thus there was no reason for the traveler to go back in time to 1930. Because theres no reason, it doesnt happen, and Hitler is not killed. Hitler rises to power, resulting in 2040 a person using a time machine to go kill Hitler. Upon success he negates his own reason for traveling to the past. Due to the nonexistance of the threat, he doesnt go back to kill Hitler, who then rises to power. Then the traveler goes back to kill hitler, negating his reason for time travel, which results in Hitler rising to power, him traveling back in time, killing hitler again, which results in no reason to return to that time period, and Hitler rises, only to be struck down again as the time traveler negates his own reason for the travel, allowing hitler to rise and initiating another time travel event that automatically negates itself.

This line of thought continues infinitely. The end result is that any such event will cause the universe to cease functioning in a linear manner: Time will forever exist as a repeating loop between 1930 and 2040, with no way to undo the damage since we could not perceive of a problem. This would literally be the end of the universe.

I hope this little post has cleared up any confusion.