Inquilines—Not a separate race. Inquilines are Locusts who lack radiotelepathic tendrils. Their creation is credited to a Nymph scientist named Elton Linder. An older tradition credits a figure from Witch necromantic legend called the Judge of Ages, perhaps because Linder was preserved in biosuspended hibernation from an earlier era.
Melusine—Ximen del Azarchel
Melusine are radiotelepathically linked gestalt minds occupying five or seven bodies: a main whale-like body consisting mostly of brain mass; a dolphin or post-dolphin body or both; a Locust body modified to amphibianism; a human or posthuman land-dwelling body or both.
Note on Orders and Periods
Listed below are the races of the First Human Species found during the period known as the Hermetic Millennia, with the formal name of the Order representing their most prominent advocates, hence popularly associated with them. In the text, the distinction between (1) a genetically differentiated race or subspecies of Homo sapiens and (2) an Order devoted to the Darwinian expansion of that race is problematical, due to the ease of genetic modification. The words are used interchangeably.
Also listed are the periods of their world predominance or hegemony.
Humans (First Human Race or “Elders”): (circa 80000 B.C. to A.D. 2700)
Hermeticists—Hermetic Order, also the Hermetic World Concordat (A.D. 2360 to 2401)
Scholars aka Psychics—Order of Psychic Evolutionary Advocates (A.D. 2370 to 2525)
Savants aka Slaves of the Machine—Order of Transhumanitarian Emulation Advocates. Their human kenosis or donators are called Savants. Their Xypotech apotheosis emulations are called Ghosts or Iron Ghosts (A.D. 2476 to 2525)
Sylphs aka Floaters—Order of Limited Infinite Ratiotechnical Emulation Adoration (A.D. 2500 to 2700)
Medusae are mentioned as a faction of Sylphs, but they do not form a separate order nor a separate subspecies (A.D. 2700 to 3000)
Giants aka Thucydideans—Consensus Advocacy (A.D. 2500 to 3100)
Witches aka Wise—Delphic Acroamatic Transhumanitarian and Longevitalist Order (aka Delphic Acroamatic Progressive Transhumanitarian Order for the Study of Longevity) (A.D. 3300 to 4900)
Chimerae—Eugenic Emergency General Command of the Commonwealth of Virginia (A.D. 4500 to 5900)
Nymphs aka Naturals—The Natural Order of Man (A.D. 6000 to 7000)
Hormagaunts—The Configuration of Iatrocratic Clades (A.D. 7000 to 8000)
Locusts—Noöspherical Cognitive Order (A.D. 7500 to 8500 or to 9500)
Blue Men aka Simple Men or Simplifiers—Order of Simplification aka the Locust Inquiline group, the Order of Simplified Vulnerary Aetiology (A.D. 8500 to 8900)
Gray Men aka Linderlings or Tendrilless Locusts—The Locust Inquiline group, Linder Confraternity; also, the Sixteenth Configuration (A.D. 8800 to 9500)
Melusine—The Final Stipulation of Noösphere Protocols, or the Finality (A.D. 9500 to unknown)
Second Humans (or “Swans”) (A.D. 10000 to unknown)
Hospitaliers—The Sovereign Military Hospitalier Order of Saint John, of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, of Malta, and of Colorado
Note that the Hospitaliers are not an Order, even though they are called so, because they do not advocate a particular subspecies to dominate or extinguish the others, despite that this is the clear Darwinian mandate.
Instead they advance a peculiar theory that man did not evolve from a lower condition but fell, due to a primordial catastrophe, from a higher, dimly remembered in the legends of all peoples. Instead of achieving evolution to a higher state by means of ruthless competition to exterminate all rivals unto extinction, their theory holds that this higher state of superhumanity or posthumanity or New Man is a resumption or restoration achieved by mystical acceptance of self-sacrificing love by a posthuman being, and the consequent ability and necessity to treat others universally with similar self-sacrificing love, rather than only those others of genetically related clans, clades, or bloodlines: the mere opposite of the Darwinian racialist imperative as commonly understood.
Note also that no Order is held in more contempt and enmity by the others than this: Hermeticist, Witches, Chimera, Hormagaunts, Locusts, and Melusine all regard the Knights Hospitalier and the theory and world-system they propagate with inexplicably exaggerated hostility; but, also inexplicably, each for a differing reason.
Only Sylphs and Giants maintain friendly or neutral relations. The Knight Hospitalier are famous for their exploits in the King’s Crusade, guarding pilgrims seeking the Holy Land, and also in service to the Judge of Ages, guarding the Tombs that held the pilgrims seeking the future.
TOR BOOKS BY JOHN C. WRIGHT
The Golden Age
The Phoenix Exultant
The Golden Transcendence
The Last Guardian of Everness
Mists of Everness
Orphans of Chaos
Fugitives of Chaos
Titans of Chaos
Null-A Continuum
Count to a Trillion
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOHN C. WRIGHT is the author of Count to a Trillion, the space opera trilogy The Golden Age, and the Orphans of Chaos trio of fantasy novels. He lives in Centreville, Virginia.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE HERMETIC MILLENNIA
Copyright © 2012 by John C. Wright
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Wright, John C. (John Charles), 1961–
The Hermetic millennia / John C. Wright.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates Book.”
Continues author’s Count to a trillion.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2928-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-4830-2 (e-book)
1. Human-alien encounters—Fiction. 2. Interstellar travel—Fiction. 3. Cryopreservation of organs, tissues, etc.—Fiction. I. Wright, John C. (John Charles), 1961– Count to a trillion. II. Title.
PS3623.R54H47 2012
813'.6—dc23
2012024856
e-ISBN 9781429948302
First Edition: December 2012