ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: History of Cyllellia...

[Johnny1A.2]

ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: History of Cyllellia...

The island archipelago known as 'Cyllellia' (an Anglicization of an Atlantean name)
is located in the Pacific Ocean. For a description of the Archipelago, see here:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=70674

Cyllellia was settled in the aftermath of the Great Cataclysm, by a very small group of
Atlantean-descended mortals and a small cadre of Avatars. The process of this early
settlement and the reason for it, and the means of it, are described here:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...=71326&page=20

Under the leadership of the effectively immortal Avatars, and with a population of the
long-lived but mortal descendents of Atlantis, a new culture came into being, and over
time, a new subspecies of the human race emerged as the population base of that
culture. This new subspecies, Homo sapiens atlanticus, remained basically a form
of human, but was reproductive semi-isolated and possessed of a natural life-span far
greater than the norm for baseline Homo sapiens, as well as an even greater range
of native psionic abilities than their Atlantean ancestors.

For information regarding H. sapiens atlanticus, see here:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=70702&page=4

Cyllellia has never been 'open' to outsiders, except under very special and very rare
circumstances. Various steps have been taken over the centuries to protect the privacy
and isolation of the archipelago, the nature of those steps changing with changing
circumstances down the centuries. These steps began almost from the moment of the
foundation of the new society, and were rooted in various policies derived from the
experience of Atlantis, the priorities of the Avatars, and what amounted to more or
less the command of the Watcher, who had its own priorities as well. [1]

In the early stages of the settlement of the archipelago, there was in fact very little
need to protect the isolation of the islands, since oceanic travel had been almost
entirely ended by the Great Cataclysm. Seas that had once been thick with ships,
that had been traversed for centuries under the power of wind, steam, and psi, now
were empty of human life. For some centuries after the Avatars and their surviving
Atlantean subjects arrived in Cyllellia, the only sea travel for thousands of miles in
any direction was between the islands of the archipelago.

Still, the Avatars knew that it was only a matter of time before oceanic travel was
resumed, as the survivors of the Cataclysm began to recover, grow in numbers, and
rebuild. When the power of the Flux returned after the passage of several centuries,
the Avatars and their subordinate mortal fluxons were ready, they had been known
this moment would come, by the ‘instinct’ of Avatars such as Zadatharion. They
had retained the old Atlantean knowledge, and now they applied it with vigor.

The fluxons wove a very complex Flux manifestation, which shrouded the region
around the archipelago in a vast mirage, such as any viewer who happened to
approach the perimeter of effect on a ship would see, not islands rising out of the
ocean, but simply a vast, empty oceanscape. This perception was not a telepathic
effect, but rather a physical manipulation of light-waves, and the manifestation was
periodically refined and fine-tuned by the immortal Avatars and their long-lived
mortal associates. For practical purposes, they had made the archipelago invisible
from any lateral direction across the open sea. [2]

Additionally, over the course of several centuries, the Avatars and mortal fluxons
established a second Flux manifestation, this one mostly ‘mental’, a ‘haze’ of subtle
but potent telepathic influence stretching out over the surrounding seas. The effect was
very subtle, it created a soft but constant pressure in the subconscious minds of any
humans in the area of effect, an aversion to that immediate area of the archipelago, a
tendency to change course, to automatically avoid the area, without even (usually)
realizing that it was happening. The effect could be resisted, of course, but one had to
realize it was there in order to even make the attempt. [3]

A third Flux Manifestation surrounded the archipelago in a ‘detector web’, anything
crossing it above a certain size, in terms of either mass or volume, or above a certain
speed, alerted the watchmen on the islands. This zone of detection initially reached
out only a few kilometers beyond the horizon (as seen from the highest point on the
Prime Island of Cyllellia), but as time passed it was extended outward to over fifty
kilometers beyond the horizon in all directions.

A fourth defense was much more conventional: the Cyllellians had a small but very
effective navy, made up in the early centuries of small, swift sailing vessels. Though
these were far from the steam-powered warships that had ruled Earth’s oceans just a
few centuries earlier, they were vastly more sophisticated and capable than anything
else on the seas in the fourth millennium B.C.

To Be Continued...


[1] Though it should be noted that this last aspect of the policy decision was
in the form of what amounted to mostly subconscious impulses among the Avatars.

[2] At that time, an observer in the air might have been able to see it, but at
later dates the illusion was refined to make the islands essentially invisible from the
air as well.

[3] In GURPS (modified 3e) terms, the psychic aversion extends outward to
about two hundred miles in all directions, and has a equivalent Power of 15 with
Extended Range. A person who some reason to try can throw off the influence
on a successful Will roll, repeated once an hour to avoid once again succumbing. A
critical success removes any need for further rolls. If the character knows the
nature of the aversion and what it does, s/he gets a +6 on the Will roll. (The design
of the effect emphasizes subtlety and secrecy, making it relatively easy to resist
if one does already know that it exists.)

[Johnny1A.2]

ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: History of Cyllellia continued...

In this early period, the internal history of Cyllellia was fairly calm and quiet, made
up mostly of the activities necessary to establish their society and secure their
existence on the Archipelago. This was relatively easy, as such things go, because
the Eldren had shaped the Archipelago to be well-suited to sustaining a small and
isolated society in a relatively high state of technological and societal advancement.

That ‘relatively’ is a key word, however. Setting up a new society was no small task,
especially given the small number of people involved and the limited resources they
had available at the beginning. The enormous power of the Avatars and the psionic
power of their mortal subjects made the task more manageable, and they had also
been able to bring a considerable amount of documentation and information with the
expedition, inspired subconsciously by the Watcher.

Still, they had lost a vast amount of information and knowledge, drowned and
destroyed in the Great Cataclysm. This included technological knowledge, psionic
knowledge, Flux knowledge, medical knowledge, countless skills had been utterly
lost in the downfall of the former global civilization. Tools, equipment, materials,
countless useful things that had been readily available before the Cataclysm were a
memory now, lost and gone. Though Cyllellia was, as noted, relatively well
suited to settlement and survival, the task of establishing a society was still difficult
and painful and expensive in work and danger and loss.

Still, they did succeed. They established functional agriculture, growing regular and
reliable crops on the Prime Island and some of the smaller islands. Along with the
crops the Cyllellians developed an extensive fishing capacity, which came naturally
to them because of the origins of the Cyllellian population in an ancient fishing town.
The fishing fleet swept the empty oceans for hundreds of kilometers around the newly
inhabited Archipelago, bringing in rich supplies of fish and other seafood.

As time passed, the population of Cyllellia slowly increased. The increase was slow
for several reasons. At first, the infant mortality rate was painfully high, the moreso
because of the limited genetic base. Later, as lifespans rose (both naturally and by
virtue of growing psionic strength and regained skills) fertility rates slowed further in
tandem, for biological and psychological and cultural reasons. Eventually, the total
population of Cyllellia stabilized at about two hundred thousand people.

The nature of the society that emerged was unlike anything else in the history of the
planet Earth, either in the Antediluvian Age or the later ages. A few parallels did
exist, of course. Just as Atlantis was ruled throughout most of its history by a single
immortal monarch, Cyllellia was ruled by an aristocracy of immortals of the same
basic nature. The general population of Cyllellia was even more psionically potent
than the average Atlantean, and longer-lived both by genetic nature and additional
psionic enhancement. These parallels were outweighed by the differences, however.

The population of Cyllellia lived in a smaller place, a vastly smaller place, than their
Atlantean ancestors. Their population was smaller than that of Atlantis ever had been,
save at the very beginning of Atlantean history. They were the survivors and then the
descendents of the survivors of a greater society, instead of building a new world, the
people of Cyllellia were burdened by the memories of a lost world. [1]

Longer-lived even than their Atlantean ancestors at their height, ruled by an aristocracy
of near-immortals, the Cyllellians came to be a very inward-looking and slow-changing
society. A basic conservatism came to permeate almost every aspect of life, this was
not imposed upon them but rather emerged naturally from their circumstances.

The government of Cyllellia was essentially entirely in the hands of the Avatars, with
some input from mortals chosen by a mixture of means. There were elements of what
modern Westerners would call democracy in the government of Cyllellia, as well as
aspects reminiscent of meritocracy and hereditary systems. The closest thing in modern
political experience to the Cyllellian regime would be various oligarchies, however.

The prime source of authority on Cyllellia was Zadatharion, the oldest and also the
most powerful of the Avatars, and the one most tightly connected to the Watcher.
To call Zadatharion a monarch would not be precisely accurate, though in the vast
majority of situations his word was final and his authority acknowledged by both
the other Avatars and the mortal Cyllellians. This authority derived in part from a
natural, innate tendency on the part of other Avatars to defer to his wishes (this was
due, though they did not then know this, to his connection to the Watcher), and in
part from the simple fact that he was older, more experienced, and more capable
than the other immortals, and was fairly effective as a leader.

Zadatharion presided over an assembly that was made up of the other Avatars of the
islands. There were one hundred and thirty-eight Avatars in Cyllellia, all of them a
part of this assembly (though not all chose to exercise their right to take part on any
regular or consistent basis). This assembly legislated for the Archipelago, though as
time passed the laws became quite stable as well. With the passage of centuries and
long experience, the codes of law and customs and ways of the Archipelago became
so well established and so practiced and familiar that a century might pass without a
new law or a change to an old one, and most such changes that did happen were in
the way of small refinements and adjustments to long-standing customs.

Even among the Avatars, the custom rose that most decisions in the assembly were
made by consensus and long discussion, rather than straight-line vote counting. The
latter practice was possible but rare, usually the Avatars would refrain from taking
a vote if possible, deferring disputes and disagreements where possible until they
could reach a consensus. Tradition was strong, almost every aspect of life in their
society was covered by some aspect of traditional rules and customs, and because of
the long period over which these customs emerged, they tended to be very practical.

Another Avatar, Aradel, a long-time associate of Zadatharion, acted more or less as
the second-in-command, or primary lieutenant, of the ruler. This role, too, however,
was mostly covered by a network of intricate and effective traditional rules.

As the centuries turned into millennia, the customs and rules hardened into a set of
Traditions that even Zadatharion himself could not readily violate without creating
problems that were usually greater than the benefit of the violation.

To Be Continued...


[1] This memory was to some degree literal, memories passed down from
generation to generation by telepathic means.

[Johnny1A.2]

ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE Sidebar: History of Cyllellia continued...

The Cyllellian culture was determined, for a variety of reasons, to remain concealed
from the rest of the world. The initial precautions that we have already discussed
were a step in that direction, intended to keep the Archipelago safely concealed.
For centuries, these protections were more than sufficient, but as time passed, and
humanity returned to the oceans in larger and more capable numbers, the necessities
of keeping Cyllellia secret and isolated grew ever more complex.

At first, fortune favored the Cyllellians in this effort. Even after mortals returned to
the oceans in significant numbers, at first they did not often go into the region of the
ocean where Cyllellia lay. The Chinese and the Polynesians both reached far out into
the Pacific as their respective cultures blossomed, but the paths of exploration and
settlement used by each tended to avoid Cyllellia without any countermoves needed.

Matters became more complex as Western Civilization rose, and the technology of the
outside world reached the levels previously known in the Antediluvian Age, and then
surpassed those levels in ‘mundane’ ways. By the late part of the Eighteenth Century,
the seafaring technology available to the outside world was as good or better than that
available to the Cyllellians, and they were present on the oceans in ever greater
numbers and in ever more remote regions. [1]

The Cyllellians, though they were extremely determined to maintain the secrecy and
isolation of their concealed archipelago, had no hesitation about leaving it to visit
the outside world. The first expeditions to the outside world occurred in the
neighborhood of 3700 B.C., and by 3500 B.C. it was nothing unusual for one of the
Avatars who ruled the archipelago to visit the outside world for a time, sometimes for
a long time. Zadatharion and Aradel, especially, often journeyed to the outer world.

Thus, by the Eighteenth Century A.D., the Cyllellians were quite well-informed about
events in the outside world, including the vast fleets of sailing ships being constructed
in Europe and the expansion of Western society into other regions. The Cyllellians
knew all too well that they could never hope to match the resource base of the rising
new civilizations, their main resource against that outside was their psionic powers and
their Flux knowledge. These resources were the only tools that the Cyllellians held
that were not accessible to the outside world. [2]

The countermove by the Cyllellians was proactive. They began to actively infiltrate
governments, private organizations, cartographical groups, and other relevant targets,
with the goal of actively concealing any knowledge of the Cyllellia. Ships were
deliberately misrouted, the reports from the occasional lucky or capable mariner of
sightings were discredited. When the magnetic compass and the sextant and the
chronometer made it difficult to deceive skilled mariners into avoiding the archipelago
unconsciously, the task became harder, but not impossible.

The Nineteenth Century made the task harder yet, but fortunately for the Cyllellians
their archipelago was not located directly on a major travel route, and the Cyllellians
managed to maintain their secret. In some few cases, relatively extreme measures
were taken, but this was exceptional and rarely necessary.

To Be Continued...


[1] In theory the Cyllellians had access to the late TL5 seafaring technology of the
late Antediluvian, but in practice they lacked the necessary industrial and
population base to make effective use of it. They lacked even sufficient supplies
of local timber to match the fleets 18C Europe could put at sea.


[2] For the most part, the outsiders were not entirely unaware of them,
but only a tiny handful of people in the outer world had any significant paraphysical
knowledge or power.