THE LIBRARIAN'S TALE (Working Title)

Although they possessed the strength of iron in both will and body; no member of the Adeptus Astartes since the revered Primarchs had been created from an original form that was perfect in itself.  Rather, they entered the Emperor's service in a form more resembling a rock with the ore of this metal locked inside them. 

They had the potential for great strength - but first they needed to be broken down; refined and purged of all imperfections by the flames of battle and the furnace heat of their devotion to the Emperor.  Then this raw material found its mould within the immortal pages of the Codex Astartes, and the rituals of the Chapter of which each Space Marine was a part.

To be a Librarian was to be to the light of The Eternal Emperor; as a lightning rod was to the elemental energy that existed in the heavens above many worlds.  The strength and rigidity of the lightning rod; had its reflection in the iron will and faith, that enabled the Librarian to channel His psychic energy in both attack and defence. 

This role required perhaps the most rigorous and imperatively arduous indoctrination processes of all.  An impure piece of iron might weaken when the raw power of a bolt of lightning suffused its fabric, causing it to bend and change in shape.  So too may the mind and form of a Librarian become mutated by the raw energy that is the ever shifting warp.

At all times during their indoctrination, the Librarians and Chaplains within each Chapter had to scrutinise and evaluate each possible initiate into the Order; penetrating into the deepest recesses of each individual psyche to ensure that their professed bond with the Emperor - no matter how fervently believed - was a thing of truth and not the product of a delusion. 

The Emperor's psychic presence within the chaos of the Immaterium, was every bit as alien to this realm as the physical manifestations of Daemon kind were on the physical plane.  Before His Ascension; within the brick and mortar, flesh and steel realm of the Imperium - He was a towering figure who held the fate of all Humanity within his adamant grasp.   Now, interred within the Golden Throne; His fate - and that of the entire species - depended on those He gave all to protect. 

Just as His physical form was sustained by the psychic energy of those who commended their lives unto the Golden Throne; so too His psyche drew strength from the faith of untold billions of worshippers on worlds the depth and breadth of the Empire.  Like a sea captain taking shelter in the calm waters of a safe harbour from the perils of a raging storm; the Emperor's mind found protection in the atmosphere of orderly - human - energy that insulated these planets from the madness of the warp.  Here was a place of respite from the denizens of those depths He yet fought.

To inspire faith among the civilian populace, it was the Ministorum's obligation to speak of the Emperor's energy within the Immaterium as a boundless network forged from His adamantine will, reaching from planet to planet; forming a bulwark against that nightmare realm and the world of man. 

Like gravity, this anchoring property of the Emperor's presence was in truth a pseudoforce.  The network and its protection were real enough; but its strength relied upon belief in this strength.  If they knew it was in truth their own minds stemming the flow of chaos into real space; it was likely this psychic construct would collapse beneath the weight it bore unknowingly.

The navigator of a ship plying the chaos of the warp needed to hear the voice of The Emperor to have any hope of reaching safety.   On the battlefield, when both ground and ether were stained with the outpourings of this primal struggle; so too needed a Librarian to be able to discern His voice, His light amidst that cacophony of power; cutting through the shadows like a beacon, the immortal guiding the mortal mind to a place of calm and strength.

This was not always easy.  In the darkest times it was akin to standing in the middle of a forest while a gale blew; hearing the false whispers of wind and leaf all around, and trying to discern amidst this confusion the coherent whisper of truth.  Just as the imagination could sometimes cause the anarchic rustling of leaves to seem to mirror human speech; so too it was possible to momentarily discern the illusion of order within the tumult of disorder - and reach out to channel eldritch insanity.  Just like that mirage of cohesiveness, the mind which too rashly bound with that energy was perilously close to dissolution.

Difficult enough was it to discern the true golden thread of the Emperor's will amidst the shifting disorder of the Immaterium; through the sediment of primal psychic struggle stirred up by the battle surrounding him.  Manifoldly greater were the risks, when the Epistolary in question came face to face with the incarnate chaos that was a Greater Daemon in material form. 

This was the challenge which Jacob found himself faced with, standing on a blasted heath at the heart of the battlefield which was stained dark with the shed blood of both brother and heretic alike - the final proof of the shared humanity of both foes - steaming in the frozen temperatures and reflecting the cold light of this cold world's lone dwarf star.  The sight was at once beautiful and utterly horrific, like the red stained glass on one of Terra's ancient monasteries.

"Come now, puny meat thing.  Sense ye not my father's power - the will of Tzeentch shaping the reality of this world even as you stand so powerless upon it?  You mock me even in your presence upon this world!  Would that your weakling Emperor would send a champion capable of besting me. 

There is fear in you, Librarian.  Though you try to conceal it behind your righteous façade; all is transparent to me. 

You seek the power of the Emperor to smite me, but it is as yet veiled to you.  It is all you can do to shield yourself from the will of Chaos made manifest here.  Why do you fear it - knowest thou not, that you could draw on the very power that feeds me; and destroy me in a single stroke?  Become what you are destined to be, and you shall rise even as I fall."

"NEVER!

Apothecary, train upon me the Bringer of Rest.  Should my will falter you know what to do - a single shot, through the lobe occipital..."

In one of his more famous thought experiments, sometimes referred to as the Fletcher's Paradox; Ancient Greek philosopher Zeno asked his readers to visualise an arrow in flight.

He asked them to imagine that the nature of time was not fluid, with every moment flowing smoothly into the next; but that time could instead be broken into a series of infinitely small moments, each existing independently of each other. Instead of moving from point A to point B in an unbroken arc, as one would expect it to travel; at each infinitesimal step of its journey (each individual moment) the arrow was in fact at rest.

Therefore; with the arrow actually remaining stationary through each point during its flight, the motion of the arrow was only an illusion.

Essentially, without realising it; Zeno had asked his readers to imagine one of the most basic concepts of cinematography. If you have difficulty imagining the above paradox, then perhaps it would be helpful to imagine watching a recording of the arrow in flight at the cinema.

Although the arrow flying across the screen appeared to be in motion; this would technically only be an illusion - because this movement relied on twenty two individual frames depicting the arrow flying along its given trajectory, being projected on the screen every second.

When these individual frames are allowed to progress from one to another at a fast enough rate, it is possible to deceive the human eye into believing that the images they hold are in motion. But if you were to take the reel of film out of the projector and look at it, you would in fact realise that even though you had watched an arrow seemingly in flight - the arrow existed only as a series of completely static images, each in a slightly different position to the one before it. It's motion was only an illusion.

Now let us expand our imaginations outwards, from the arrow projected on the silver screen and the illusion of movement it is given by the rapid progression of static images; to encompass the Universe as a whole. Is it possible to imagine a Universe that follows the principles of the Fletcher's Paradox- in which all motion is nothing more than an illusion?

In the case of the Universe, perhaps this concept would best be illustrated not by a series of images on a reel of film - but an altogether lower tech alternative. Imagine a flick book; each page bearing an illustration that has been altered slightly from that precedes it - equally static, but the image coming to life when the pages are turned in rapid succession.

Drawn on those pages are images that stretch from the exact moment in which you sit, reading this text on your computer screen - all the way back to the birth of the Universe and the beginning of time itself. Countless stacked pages, each completely static. Each infinitesimally different from the one before it and after it.

For the sake of argument, let us call the pages that carry that series of illustrations 'dimensions.' Instead of being stacked flatly one on top of the other, like pages in a book; perhaps we can hypothesise that these dimensions grow and spread outwards from a central core, in much the same way as the layers of an onion.

Maybe without even realising it, we are constantly travelling into a new dimension; leaving behind a new copy of ourselves in a preceding dimension with every passing fraction of a second.

While it is possible to imagine an endless series of subtly different Universes stretching back to the beginning of time, each as completely motionless as the illustration on the page of a flick book or a frame in a movie; perhaps time is in fact working differently to this model.

Returning to the cinematic arrow flying across the screen at twenty two frames per second - imagine if, instead of watching an image being projected from a single reel of film; the same footage of the flight of the arrow existed on twenty two separate reels, and each reel was playing a fraction of a second ahead of the one before it. While it would be possible to watch the complete flight of the arrow on any one of these reels, it would also be possible to view the same thing by watching one frame being projected from each reel in sequence.

This would give rise to the possibility of an infinite number of parallel Universes stacked upon each other, each one differing from the one before it only in the minute effects that the passing of an unimaginably small period of time could wreak upon it. Interestingly, perhaps the structure of these parallel Universes is also similar to the nature of a flick book; in that each page exists as an independent entity from the ones before and after it.

If you were to make an alteration to one of the illustrations on one page of the flick book - or even rip the page out completely; in doing so, you would not actually be destroying the book itself. Even if you tore out the very first page of the illustration, it would still exist on subsequent pages within the book. You would not be rendering the rest of the animation within this book impossible, simply by removing that initial image.

Perhaps, should time travel ever become a reality; it will be discovered that the structure of time adheres more to the hypothesis of the Fletcher's Paradox, than to the conventional theories scientists currently adhere to. If through travelling backwards in time, we were in fact visiting a dimension separate to and independent of our own; then ideas such as the "Grandfather paradox" - which hypothesise that if a time traveller killed one of his ancestors, his own existence would be rendered impossible due to the alteration of history and the time continuum - would cease to apply.

Perhaps in committing that act of murder, the time traveller would thereby never be born in the dimension in question - creating an alternate reality - but would not vanish into thin air; because he came from a reality in which he had already been born, and those events had never taken place.

In cases where there are significant risks of hereditary congenital conditions or birth defects, would it be possible to use a combination of gene therapy and artificial insemination to:

Allow the medical profession to perform testing on genetic testing on either the sperm or ova (dependant on which parent has a chance of passing on a condition or defect) to ensure they are genetically viable and are free of any significant risk factors;

And if any defects are found to exist in these specimens, perform only the most minute alterations to the genetic structure of the material required, to ensure that the resultant child will be born in good health; before performing in vitro fertilisation and implanting the embryo within the uterus?

This approach would not be comparable to eugenics, with respect to the sum total of the individual's genetic material not being disposed of due to the imperfection of perhaps a mere handful of pairs within their DNA structure. 

It would not use genetic perfection to decide whether a pregnancy is allowed to be carried to term or not - it would only ensure that the resultant life possesses a greater degree of quality than it may have, had this remedial procedure not been carried out.

It would be much easier to alter genes which could cause adversity later on in a human life at the germline stage, rather than waiting for the complete process of human development to take place and then effectively attempting to backtrack by using gene therapy on somatic cells. 

During the process of human development, the entire human body grows from two single cells through a process of cell division and replication. What would happen if, in some cases - in certain areas of a patient's body this process of division and replication was triggered, at a stage where they were no longer necessary and perhaps detrimental to the health of the patient?

We know that the human body possessed this potential for division and replication at the beginning of its development - so is it not possible for this vestigal process to reinitiate itself in some cases?

What hormones and chemicals are being secreted during the process of human development to cause this process to take place, and would it be possible to perform tests on cancer patients to see if there is an abnormal level of these agents?

Cellular replication is a completely natural part of human development, but if rogue cells existed from this period which had not shut down but instead lay dormant before reinitiating this process - the result would perhaps be cancer.

How is the signal given to the cells that comprise the human body, to cease their multiplication when the structure of the human body is complete - and could it be replicated?  If it is some kind of hormonal signal, could this be administered to a patient?

If cancer is indeed caused by rogue cells left over from the human developmental process that have not ceased to divide themselves, perhaps this synthesised approach could offer a way to ensure the cancer is not allowed to progress.

First, the question must be asked. What is the maximum possible density that matter is capable of attaining in this Universe, and what happens to it once this threshold has been reached? If there is a maximum possible density that matter can attain, how does this play into the Big Bang theory?

A possible way to supplement the Big Bang theory could be to think of it as being the same as the rather smaller bang you experience when you blow a bubble using bubblegum.

If when the Universe was being formed; it grew outwards as a series of layers as new matter was formed at the centre of the Universe and new elements forced to bind with the existing elements, thereby creating successively denser ones… What would happen when the outermost layer of this phenomenon I shall refer to as the Omniverse reached its critical density - the Universal threshold above which matter is physically unable to rise?

It can be theorised that, with the lack of any further way to expand - the lighter elements forming at the heart of the Omniverse (it can be theorised that Hydrogen would have been a major catalyst) had nowhere to expand outwards to. After a cataclysmic increase in pressure, these light elements may have been forced together in a massive fusion reaction. This could well have been the explosion that triggered the Big Bang.

REALITY - THE HALL OF MIRRORS

This whole world is like a hall of mirrors
And what we read into the things we see around us
Tells us less about the nature of the world
Than the nature of ourselves as we look upon it
We see only a reflection of what we desire or expect to see
Even if we are not conscious of this desire or expectation
We are like bats sending out our own energy and navigating using reflected echoes
Even if it is something we hate or fear that we perceive
It makes little difference because we are seeing an aspect
Of ourselves reflected in the world that we ourselves hate or fear
And when faced with these things it is wisest
For us to try to alter the frequencies we send out to find our way around
In order for us to receive an image that is more appealing to ourselves
Rather than try to rectify the situation by attacking it or taking a destructive approach
As it is ultimately ourselves that we are attacking and attempting to destroy

Through this process we have the ability to either lift ourselves up
Or drown ourselves all using the power of our minds
In this way the world as a singular thing does not exist
But it is in fact a simulacrum of six billion individual worlds
All coexisting and overlapping with each other
And this is natural
It is unnatural to expect one thing to have the same meaning
To all people
Because without the chaos of the myriad different perceptions of reality
Human evolution and civilisation as we know it would have been an impossibility

It is acceptable to show others what you believe your reality is or could be
Because they are able to take this insight and meld it with their own
Share their own perception with you and vice versa
So that you may both walk away with a greater understanding of the world and yourselves
Having once looked through one eye
And being given greater depth of vision with a second perspective
Both perceptions of reality still as unique as your fingerprints
But intertwined and reborn as the child of two minds

But it is deplorable for one person to tell another that their idea of the truth is all there is
And declare that any other version of this truth is wrong
If it does not match up with what is expected
And as such should be purged and replaced with the accepted norm
This is like a virus that ceaselessly replicates itself at the cost of healthy cells
Weakening the host and eventually leading to the death
Of the diversity and imagination that has kept us alive for so long
To do so is to create a race of Cyclopes
Living in a two dimensional world without the ability to perceive any greater depth
Teetering on the edge of blindness

DOMESTICATED HUMANS

Are there any humans out there anymore?
Real people who think for themselves
Wild souls
Who haven't been domesticated
And turned into trained animals
Broken in and taught to perform tricks
Like writing verbatim essays about what they're told
About the workings of life the universe and everything
Never for a second stopping to think that maybe
All this so-called regurgitated wisdom could be wrong
And they should trust their own perceptions
Be the first for generations to trust and see for themselves
Before they purge themselves of themselves
Delete their identities to become blank slates
For the reproduction of the scripture of the machine
And spend their lives running in their treadmills
As they have been bred to do
Powering the life support systems of the bloated corpse
Of a society that should have been food for maggots long ago
Obediently creating nuclear families
So that their children and their children's
Can be born into the service of a monster
Branded with a number like cattle
All the better that they can be found and fed upon

These animals look down on me
I am poor in circumstance but rich in self
While they got their thirteen pieces of silver
In exchange for the sale of their souls
And disguise their inner poverty with material wealth
But I laugh at them inside
Because one day the eyes that look down on me
Will look up at me as if from severed heads lying in streets
As they run like headless chickens
Because the sky has fallen
The farm has burnt down
The shepherd has been revealed as a wolf
Met his rightful fate before the axe
And the world is once more a place for humans
Not trained animals