The Crystal Library
by Michael Burnett
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
part 2
Item 2: The Obsidian Archive
Excerpt from Excavation of the Asterian Catacomb: 1st Biannual Review for the Institute of Extradimensional Archaeology Strategy Board.
Head Archaeologist Dr. Nikolay Vasiliev, International Institute of Extradimensional Archaeology
Date: 20/10/2048
Part I: Overview
In the months following the return of the Fourth Reconnaissance mission from the dimension designated Epsilon-9, my Department has committed over 60% of its total personnel and resources to uncovering the secrets of the Asterian Catacomb. To date, the team has been able to render the ruins to a depth of nine levels. It is unknown how much of the ruins remain uncharted. Seismic scans indicate the possibility of further subterranean structures at a depth of up to three kilometres, putting our best estimates at an additional twelve to fifteen levels.
The Board should be aware that it is the opinion of senior staff that further exploration of the ruins should no longer be our primary concern. It is our ultimate goal to see the entire Asterian Catacomb uncovered, but there is a more pressing concern. This concern relates to the discovery of an exceptional feature at the extreme North edge of level 8. It is my hope that the Board will approve this priority change.
Part II: The Ruined Hallway
What The Epsilon-9 Archaeology team are now calling ‘The Obsidian Archive’ was discovered by a team of four, headed by Professor Grünwald, brought to the site in May to supervise excavation of levels 7 and 8. I present to the Board an extract from Prof. Grünwald’s field notes.
Day 25: 12 September 2048
Today marks my twenty-fifth day in the Asterian Catacombs. What a magnificent place! To think that this planet — this ashen, desolate rock — is another version of our own planet Earth! How strange to discover a seemingly limitless number of Alternates, and the one most utterly devoid of life is the most promising. Today’s find has made the endless years of fruitless sifting through dirt worthwhile. I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that I would be the one to make the great discovery of the century.
The Archive itself lies at the far end of a vast corridor of black stone and natural glass, eighty-seven metres both across and up. It took my team almost an hour to walk its full length from where we broke through at the south end. There was no need for illuminators: lining the walls and ceilings were small pyramidal shapes, exuding a cool, regular light throughout the chamber. I shall have to get a specialist extraction team to pry one of them loose to study back at the field lab.
Every 80 feet or so, on either side, a monolithic statue, resembling the great body in the stasis container and carved from the dark walls themselves, watches the space to its immediate left or right, towards the door to the Archive. But despite the staggering scale of the place, and its inhuman design, this ruin does not seem hostile.
I have read the OOC’s final report of the Fourth Reconnaissance mission, and it is easy to understand their boldness. I feel it too; we all do. We are not interlopers. We’re supposed to be here. Whatever secrets lie in the Archive, they belong to us now: a benevolent gift from an infinitely superior race of sentient beings.
The extraction team wanted to blast the doors, but I could not allow it. The doors, hewn from the same magnificent black stone and glass as the surrounding architecture, might in other circumstances be considered the archaeological find of a decade in their own right. The subtle shapes, lines and angles, crafted with bewildering precision, seemed to speak in response to being observed; as if they had a consciousness of their own. I can scarcely begin to comprehend how, but almost every surface, every plane, every curve, seems to respond reciprocally in this way, speaking urgently in a language one must feel, rather than consciously understand. The walls are watching us.
We requisitioned a military Burrower to circumvent the doors; it took six times as long but we got through in the end. The sight that we were met with rendered us all speechless. Today will be remembered as the beginning of a new era for humanity. The day we found the Obsidian Archive.
— Maxim Grünwald
Part III: The Obsidian Archive
I turn my attention now to Dr. Grünwald’s discovery, at the end of the ruined hallway: the great crystal repository, behind the stone doorway. The Obsidian Archive. Grünwald’s overwhelmed description, with its suggestion of mysticism, may at first seem surprising, especially when one accounts for his seniority, experience and reputation for pragmatism.
With caution, I therefore direct the Board to the relevant documentation of the testimonies of Archaeological, Military and Management personnel at the Epilson-9 dig site, where repeated mention of impressions of passive communication, and of being observed, can be noted. Having been to the location in question, and whilst maintaining my scientific detachment, I myself can further corroborate these impressions.
The Archive, by both human and — apparently — Asterian standards, is vast. The chamber extends downwards from the 8th level by 1.4 kilometres, and upwards by 0.4 kilometres: it is likely that the remainder of the lower levels were built merely to enable the proper maintenance of this chamber. Intuitively, it would appear that the entire ruin complex may have been built to house and protect the Obsidian Archive.
The entire archive, from its highest to its deepest level, presents as a hollow cylinder, exactly 51.4 metres in diameter and with an opening at one side measuring 2.3 metres in width. This opening, clearly designed for creatures much larger than a human being, allows the operator to move inside the cylinder with ease.
The cylinder, made of an unknown metal-ceramic composite, arranged in an ornate skeletal framework of radial beams and vertical supports, contains the objects referred to by the Archaeological staff as ‘The Crystal Library.’ The library houses an estimated 4.6 million crystal artefacts. These artefacts are accessed by a peculiar mechanism, located in the central hub of the cylinder.
Astonishingly, this mechanism is still operational, despite the huge stretch of time through which it has presumably remained unused and un-maintained by its creators. Use of this device by a human operator allows for easy access to every crystal artefact within the Archive structure.
Part IV: The Crystal Artefacts
Regretfully, the limits of my own expertise prevent me from providing a detailed description of the crystal artefacts themselves; for such an analysis, I direct the Board to the recent work of Dr. Apnui of the Polynesian Institute of Palaeolinguistics (and co-founder of the newly-formed Institute of Crystal Linguistics), for a full and detailed account.
Early anecdotal evidence would point to an amplification of the aforementioned impressions of passive communication upon handling the crystal artefacts (when compared to observation of the architecture of the ruins in general), with the ‘tone, emotion, intent or affectation’ (as per Dr. Apnui’s observations) altering as one views the different facets, or even different parts of the same facet.
Having briefly handled one such artefact, I can further offer the subjective impression of being the recipient of communications that one is largely unable to process. These ‘tones, emotions, intents and affectations’ — and this is pure conjecture, of course — might then be the human brain’s faltering attempts at interpretation of information too complex to understand, forcing the mind instead to refer to its own limited library of known archetypes, and selecting the one correlating most closely to the information being received at the time.
Transcribed Fragment I: Cause/Effect Event Fields
Series: 56
Group: 9
Individual Designation: 306,507
Facet: 143
Linear av. Range: 3.457mm to 9.105mm
Rotational av. Range: 180.787° to 184.033°
Translator: Mr. Garret Cane
Affiliation: Belfast Collective
Latest translation date: 10/10/2052
I: The Causality Delusion
Primitive minds have a strong tendency to interpret any given event occurring within the multiverse as quintessentially linear. The event is conceived, by process of unconscious mental analogy, as adhering to the following artificially bounded pathway:
1. Pre-existing condition
2. Event energy interaction with pre-condition
3. Event actuation and condition alteration
4. Post-event condition
Within this limited interpretation, events of all subdivisions cause subsequent effects by occurring; an event is conceived of having no effect upon preceding states and other concurrently operating states, having effects exclusively upon post-states. This analogy is effective in producing a conceptually narrow probability cluster, having an interaction ratio of below a certain threshold, dictated by the complexity of the subject’s mind.
It follows naturally that a less limited mind creates a more complex probability cluster — a more complete view of the total event field — and vice-versa. Whilst the subject believes it perceives the reality of an event, or even believes it has caused the event, in effect the subject’s mind is producing only a perception; a different mind produces a different perception.
With the benefit of true clarity, one sees that every event within the field exists eternally, constantly impacted and altered in relation to all other events with which it makes contact, and likewise altering those contacted in a ceaseless reciprocal exchange. The subject occupies its pre-defined location within the event field with either partial agency or total non-agency but nevertheless usually experiences the event whilst maintaining a delusion of central agency.
This mental construction is a necessary enabler of conditions comprehensible by the subject, at all nodes within the event field with which the subject must interact to further its development. Whilst the analogy is technically an error, as all analogies are, the failure of a primitive mind to produce this analogy inhibits the alignment of pre-conditions within the field for further advancement along the Mindpath. This is the primary mechanism by which a sentient species prevents the evolution of any similarly capable species within its zone of control (usually a planet, but rarely two or more). The sentient species is invariably unaware of this effect, due to its non-linear nature. We have never encountered a system supporting more than one sentient species and never will.
This artificial temporal narrative — causality — constitutes necessary protection against multi-level concept-disintegration [Ed: ‘insanity’] at this stage of the mind’s journey by preventing perception of levels of the event field incomprehensible to the mind. Premature exposure to non-linear elements, where an analogy of sufficient minimum plausibility is not enabled, results in higher nodes within the event field having a destabilising effect on a mind not ready to accept them.
Every sentient race we have studied has developed an elaborate mythology around such occurrences, in order to prevent total dislocation of the collective mindpath from event-field nodes critical to further development. Deliberate prevention of myth formation, as far as our studies have uncovered, result in catastrophic consequences for the race in question without exception.
Individuals exposed to multiple non-linear elements in quick succession, or non-linear elements where the crossover is unusually intense, often find their pre-constructed analogies insufficient to protect them from elements of the event field which are outside the safe comprehension range. The shocks created by these ‘epiphanies’ often extend unusually large event webs within the total event field.
From the linear mind’s perspective, such individuals frequently ‘change history’. Invariably, their role as a focal point in these unusual events result in abnormal number of connections, both forward and backward in time, as well as laterally [Ed: within a specific time-point]. This creates the illusion of the individual having been extremely influential; in actuality, the total event field has produced both the pre-conditions and the post-conditions, whilst the individual is a connector rather than an actuator of these conditions.
The individual is merely one of many nodes in the local event field, with an unusually high connectivity ratio. In most studied cases, we have observed this node-individual being conceived of as a spiritual icon, philosophical, scientific or artistic innovator, or other such high-profile personality.
In basic terms, the individual has, through a pre-ordained convergence in the event field, accessed knowledge not normally pertaining to their specific placement within the timeline. The individual is a passive recipient and need not possess any particular characteristics. Such an individual can be a king or a prisoner; a child or a sage.
II: Structure of the Total Event Field
The failure of every sentient species we have studied to control their own destiny can be attributed to this incorrect — though temporarily necessary — conception of the event field’s structure and processes. Among the primitive sentient species, it is common for an action to be taken for the purposes of eliciting a proceeding event, only for a radically different event to follow.
The primitive mind has extraordinary difficulty in accepting these outcomes. Nevertheless, such predicaments can be avoided using proper technique, working in synchronicity with the omnidirectional nature of action and reaction, rather than at odds with it. Once a race has achieved the ability to alter events in this way, its further development towards the apex is assured.
Proper technique requires complete knowledge of the structure of the total event field, to effect wilful changes within it without risk of distortion. Nevertheless, such changes are always temporary; whilst total event field structures vary from Universe to Universe, the total event field of each Universe is of a fixed, though elastic, structure.
The nodes present in the total event field are held together in tension; without interference, these nodes adopt a regular five-dimensional pattern, constantly shifting and reforming in response to the sum total of all events contained within. The nature of these movements relates to the fundamental principles governing that Universe. This explains the different fundamental patterns of each Universe’s total event field.
Subjects ignorant of their Universe’s event processes exist within them as passive observers of the field’s flux. Whilst each living being has the ability to create tensions between themselves and other adjoining nodes, these tensions are without conscious agency; this is the unavoidable result of their ignorance. Thus, the popular primitive myth of the ‘time paradox’ is, like all paradox myths, false. There are no paradoxes in the total event field; each universe is indestructible due to its elastic nature.
Once a subject becomes consciously aware of their own sphere of influence within the total event field, and, more importantly, between themselves and those nodes with which their being has direct contact, they begin to learn a new ability; the ability to form past, present and future events around them as a conscious process. We alone have learned this skill.
Alas, even conscious subjects have their limits; this is predetermined by the elasticity limits of the superstructure. There is only one way to transcend the limits of one’s own Universal Laws; that is to move outside of the Universe itself by means of Releasing the Key.
Copyright © 2021 by Michael Burnett
