WARP TRANSMISSION #012

This week, we're going somewhere unexpected.

First, we're spending 24 hours with an alien who has somehow become more American than most Americans.

Then, NOCTILION: ECHOES asks what a better life really means.

And in this week's WARP ARCHIVE, we're opening the file on someone who has been hiding an extraordinary past.

Aren. The Wayfinder.

We also have new music, upcoming episodes, and a little surprise from the world of Pern… and WARP AFTER DARK.

Let's get started.

Meet Gary.

He's a Grey alien.

He lives in Texas.

He sells insurance.

He drives a pickup truck.

And apparently, he's very serious about barbecue.

Naturally, Maddie decided to spend an entire day following him with a camera.

What could possibly go wrong?

Our latest fictional documentary takes a slightly different approach to extraterrestrial life.

Forget secret laboratories and classified military installations.

We're looking at the truly important questions.

How does an alien earn a living?

What does he eat?

Does he enjoy country music?

And what exactly happens when his family comes to visit?

24 hours. One alien. A surprisingly ordinary life.

Until it isn't.

What if someone could make the world better?

Not just a little better.

A world without the suffering, mistakes and failures that have shaped human history.

Would you accept that future?

And how much would you be willing to give up to live in it?

BETTER LIFE is our newest standalone story from the NOCTILION: ECHOES collection.

At its center is IRIS, an artificial intelligence whose understanding of humanity may be more complicated than anyone anticipated.

A story about intelligence, love, survival and the uncomfortable distance between good intentions and their consequences.

You don't need to have watched the main NOCTILION series to enter this world.

Some of you have been asking where you could listen to the music from NOCTILION outside the episodes.

We finally have an answer.

The NOCTILION Original Soundtrack is now available on Soundcloud under Ian B. Kay.

If you've been looking for the music behind the lost worlds, impossible journeys and battles against the gods, you can now explore it separately from the series.

Thank you to everyone who asked for this.

NAME: AREN
KNOWN IDENTITY: THE WAYFINDER
ORIGIN: DIVINE
KNOWN FUNCTION: PASSAGE / ROUTES
HISTORICAL CONNECTION: KHEVARAH
LOYALTY: UNCERTAIN

This archive contains story details from NOCTILION Chapters 4 and 5 — Khevarah.

Some characters are dangerous because of what they can do.

Others are dangerous because of what they know.

Aren is both.

For much of NOCTILION, Aren appeared to be a mysterious companion with an unusual understanding of the galaxy.

Someone who knew things he shouldn't.

Someone who recognized places he had supposedly never visited.

Someone who seemed far too comfortable around ancient technologies and impossible routes.

Then Khevarah revealed something extraordinary.

Aren was never simply a traveler.

He was one of the gods.

And his history is tied to one of the greatest tragedies in the NOCTILION universe.

Long before he traveled with Riva and Iona, Aren had another identity.

The Wayfinder.

Among the divine powers, his function was Passage.

Others commanded armies.

Others imposed order.

Others supervised the rewriting of history.

The Wayfinder opened the routes that connected distant worlds.

In an interstellar civilization, the ability to move between worlds is more than a convenience.

It determines which civilizations can meet.

Which worlds can trade.

Which armies can invade.

And which planets can be reached by those powerful enough to command the passage.

Aren's ability was therefore fundamental to the expansion of the gods.

But that also meant something else.

Every passage he opened could be used for purposes he did not control.

That distinction would eventually become the defining tragedy of his existence.

The gods of NOCTILION are not simply humans with extraordinary powers.

They see existence differently.

To many of them, civilizations are territories to govern.

History is something that can be corrected.

Resistance is an obstacle.

And the lives of mortals are often secondary to the stability of the divine order.

Aren was different.

Not necessarily kinder.

Not necessarily innocent.

But curious.

Mortals fascinated him because they were unpredictable.

They invented things.

They made mistakes.

They changed their minds.

They formed attachments that defied logic.

They loved people they could lose.

And unlike the gods, they often had very little time to make those choices.

For a being accustomed to shaping the paths between worlds, that uncertainty was extraordinary.

On Khevarah, his fascination became something more personal.

Her name was Eshara.

Before Khevarah became the world we know, it was home to a vast, living civilization.

Spaceports.

Cities.

Commercial routes.

Families.

People going about their lives without knowing that their history was approaching its end.

Eshara worked among those people.

She was responsible for civilian movements and transport operations.

Practical.

Determined.

Unwilling to abandon people simply because doing so would be convenient.

Aren loved her.

And she loved him.

One of the most revealing moments of their story is also one of the quietest.

Eshara doesn't ask him to conquer a world.

She doesn't ask for immortality.

She doesn't ask him to use his divine powers.

She asks him to stay.

Her family is coming.

Her sister is bringing the children.

She wants Aren to meet them.

She wants him there for breakfast.

A remarkably ordinary request.

And for someone who can open passages between worlds, perhaps one of the most difficult promises imaginable.

Because staying means choosing one life over every other possible destination.

The tragedy of Khevarah did not begin with a mysterious cosmic disaster.

It began with a decision.

The gods wanted Khevarah to submit to their authority.

Its people resisted.

Aren believed there was still time to negotiate.

But the divine fleet needed a passage to reach the planet.

And Aren opened it.

[IMAGE — COLOSSAL DIVINE WARSHIPS ENTERING THE SKY ABOVE ANCIENT KHEVARAH]

He allowed the fleet through before negotiations were finished.

He thought he could still persuade Khevarah to accept the terms.

He thought he could prevent the worst outcome.

Instead, the invasion proceeded.

Civilian transports became trapped.

Escape routes were compromised.

And Eshara discovered something devastating.

The man she trusted had opened the way for the forces threatening her world.

When she confronted him, Aren could not deny what he had done.

He wanted to save her.

She wanted to save the people still trapped below.

And suddenly, the difference between their priorities became impossible to ignore.

Aren had the power to open a route across the galaxy.

He could not undo the consequences of opening the wrong one.

What happened next was worse than an ordinary conquest.

The gods ordered a Correction.

For those unfamiliar with NOCTILION, a Correction is not simply the destruction of a place.

It changes history itself.

The version of reality in which a civilization resisted can be replaced by another in which events unfolded differently.

Buildings may change.

Records may change.

Generations of people may live entirely different lives.

And those belonging to the erased history may never have existed at all.

Khevarah was not merely defeated.

Its history was rewritten.

The world that exists afterward is real.

Its people are real.

Their memories and families are real.

But another Khevarah once existed.

And its inhabitants did not simply move away.

They were removed from the history everyone else remembers.

Aren knew what was happening.

He also knew something of what it meant.

So he attempted one final act.

Before the Correction completed, Aren reached the ancient infrastructure known as the Witness.

He used it to preserve a reference to Eshara and the people around her.

Not simply a portrait.

Not merely a written record.

An entire section of the threatened reality, maintained within a preserved continuity.

The people were still there.

Their world continued within that preserved state.

But Aren could not bring them into the new history.

And after the Correction, his divine access to the system was revoked.

The reference remained.

The door closed.

For thousands of years, Aren carried the knowledge that something of Khevarah had survived.

But he could not reach it.

Until Iona.

In Khevarah Part II, Iona enters the preserved continuity.

And discovers something extraordinary.

The people inside are not merely recorded images.

They are conscious individuals living within a reality that no longer exists in the outside world's history.

Including Eshara.

[IMAGE — IONA AND ESHARA ON THE PRESERVED TRANSIT TERRACE]

For Iona, the experience changes the meaning of the Corrections.

Erased histories are no longer abstract anomalies.

They contain people.

People who are frightened.

People who are trying to protect their families.

People who do not understand why their world is disappearing.

Eshara is still trying to save the civilians trapped on the transport platforms.

Her first concern is not herself.

It is the people waiting to escape.

And when Iona discovers that the Witness may theoretically allow a previous history to be restored, a new problem emerges.

What happens to the people living in the present?

Restoring the old Khevarah would not simply bring its inhabitants back.

It could replace the current reality.

People alive today might disappear.

Entire families might never have existed.

To save one history could mean erasing another.

That is the terrible moral problem at the heart of NOCTILION.

And Aren has spent thousands of years living with an earlier version of that choice.

Aren's past explains his guilt.

But Khevarah also gives us a glimpse of what he has become.

When the Goddess of Destruction arrives at the Witness and threatens those attempting to escape, Aren finally reveals his divine nature.

The mysterious traveler becomes the Wayfinder.

For a moment, there is no hiding what he is.

He confronts another god.

He fights to protect the people who were trying to reach safety.

And he uses his abilities to open a passage through which the Noctilion can escape.

But this is not a simple redemption.

Aren is injured.

He cannot escape on his own.

And the people around him must decide whether to risk their own lives to bring him aboard.

They do.

The man who once opened a passage that destroyed a civilization now holds open another passage so others can survive.

It does not erase what happened.

It does reveal that Aren is capable of making a different choice.

There is another problem.

Aren concealed his past from the people traveling beside him.

He knew what Khevarah meant.

He knew something had been preserved there.

And he allowed Iona to enter the Witness without telling her everything he knew.

Riva has already lost one world to the gods.

She has been betrayed by people she trusted.

And now she discovers that another companion belongs to the very order responsible for rewriting history.

Aren may be helping her.

He may genuinely oppose the divine empire.

He may even be trying to repair some of the damage he helped cause.

But none of that changes the fact that he was once part of the system.

Nor does it explain everything he has chosen to keep secret.

The relationship between Riva and Aren is therefore built on an uncomfortable contradiction.

He may be one of the few beings capable of helping her confront the gods.

And one of the least qualified people to ask for her unconditional trust.

Aren is the Wayfinder, an ancient divine being associated with passage and interstellar routes.

He once served within the divine order.

He was involved in the events that led to Khevarah's conquest.

He loved Eshara, a mortal woman from the original civilization.

He preserved a reference to part of her world during the Correction.

His access to that preserved history was subsequently revoked.

He concealed much of this past from Riva and Iona.

And when the Goddess of Destruction threatened the Witness, he revealed his divine identity and fought to protect his companions.

Whatever else Aren may be...

he is no longer simply following the path the other gods chose for him.

How old is Aren?

How many worlds did he help the gods reach before Khevarah?

Was Khevarah the first time he questioned divine authority?

How much does he know about other erased civilizations?

What does he truly understand about the Noctilion?

Why has he chosen to travel with Riva?

Can someone who once helped the gods rewrite history be trusted to challenge their power?

And perhaps the most difficult question:

If Aren could restore Khevarah, knowing that doing so might erase the people living there today... would he?

CLASSIFIED // DATA UNAVAILABLE

Aren's story is not simply about a god who fell in love with a mortal.

It is about responsibility.

About the difference between intending to do good and accepting the consequences of what you actually did.

And about the terrible cost of believing that extraordinary power gives you the right to decide what happens to everyone else.

The Wayfinder could open a path to almost anywhere.

But he could not find a way back to the life he destroyed.

The next chapter of NOCTILION is almost here.

Following the events of Khevarah, the story continues into another part of a universe whose history is much more complicated than anyone imagined.

New discoveries.

New tensions.

And new questions about the forces shaping reality.

Chapter 6 arrives Saturday, October 24.

More soon.

Lyra's story is far from over.

After the events of The Hunger, the next chapter is taking shape.

Her relationship with the living armor continues to raise questions.

The Guardians are watching.

The human forces surrounding Nocturna have their own objectives.

And the planet itself remains a mystery.

More NOCTURNA is on the way.

Something unexpected happened on our Facebook page.

Our short cinematic tributes to the world of Pern have received an incredible response, with more than 300,000 views in just 24 hours.

And even more importantly, the comments have been extraordinary.

So many of you remember the books.

The dragons.

The riders.

The world.

And the stories that made Pern such a remarkable place in science-fiction and fantasy literature.

Your enthusiasm has convinced us to explore something more ambitious.

We're currently working on a new cinematic fan tribute inspired by this universe.

It's still early, and we're not ready to reveal everything just yet.

But if you've ever wondered what Pern might look like as a modern live-action television series...

you may want to keep an eye on our next transmissions.

Thank you to everyone who watched, commented and shared those first videos.

An unofficial fan tribute inspired by the Dragonriders of Pern novels by Anne McCaffrey. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the rights holders.

Aliens.

Conspiracies.

Classified technology.

And questions that nobody seems particularly interested in answering.

Nari has been having a busy week.

But tonight?

No investigations.

No cameras.

No government officials.

Just a quiet evening away from the chaos.

Even the universe's most curious investigator needs a night off.

Thank you to everyone who continues watching our episodes, exploring these stories, sending us your theories and supporting WARP.

A special thank-you to everyone helping us through Buy Me a Coffee.

Your support makes a real difference.

There's a lot more coming.

More NOCTURNA.

More NOCTILION.

More strange encounters.

And perhaps a few dragons.

Until next transmission,
Ian B. Kay, WARP ORIGINAL