Before the start of my 6th grade school year in a new school (we had just moved to a new school district from the East Woonsocket area to the Globe area of Woonsocket), I reveled in exploring my new neighborhood every chance I got. Especially the ~20 square acre creek valley, totally wooded without any housing or roads, just 500 yards east of our home.
I ocassionally visited the woods with my new buddy/neighbor Steven, but more often than not, went there on my own.
There was a magical quality about these woods. The area of the woods, as mentioned above, was not that vast, but the valley steeped sharply towards the shallow creek which formed it (presumably sometime in the past when it was more significant), and from deep in it's midst, you couldn't make out any houses or sounds of civilization through the trees and brush.
In the years since this time, I've studied up and found that indeed, the creek, or as we say in the northeast, brook, was more significant and it even powered a few flour mills in it's time as it flowed steadily into the more significant Blackstone River to the west.
Of course, as many familiar with the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the US may be familiar with, the Blackstone River had great significance. The first and for many decades, most prominent factories and mills powered by water wheels, were in the Blackstone River Valley. Woonsocket, Pawtucket, Central Falls, and to some extent the early history of Providence, as a port for the worsted produced, were dependent on the river.
But the tributary known as the Cherry Brook, which had carved this deep rift in the landscape of Northern Rhode Island all on it's own, eventually dwindled to an almost seasonal stream...virtually dry in the summer months and flowing only moderately towards the still mighty Blackstone in the Fall through Spring months by, at least, the 1970's.
This little valley it had created though, was a gem. There were ancient artifacts hinting at a more "civilized" past. Stone walls layed out in straight lines across the valley following the compass directions...a stone and cement bridge over a narrow portion of the creek bed, seemingly there for decades...stone and brick foundations of what may have been barns, or, maybe houses many eons ago.
My research seemed to indicate that the valley was, for much of setteled history, too deep for true settlement...some farmers used the area which abuted their farm as land for building storehouses and, as evidenced by the stone walls, were sectioned off from the neighbors farms, but never really cultivated or dwelled on.
This lost valley became my geographical muse for my most elaborate and evolved fantasy ever. A mythical land, over which I ruled, and conducted political relationships, both friendly and foe, with fictionalized neighboring lands.
This was the world of Nastralia.
I mentioned, briefly, Nastralia in a previous post (the first one, if I am not mistaken), but didn't even hint as to the overall importance of this fantasy to me.
In case you haven't surmized by now, I'm not too fancy with QUOTE/UNQUOTE "reality".
It, compared to fantasy, frankly, bites.
Nastralia started as a few sketches on notebook paper ripped coursely from a spiral binder...mentioning the usual "geographical" facts of a land like government, chief exports, a general history of formation including wars and current alliences...a little CIA Factbook sheet on an imaginary land if you will.
As the years went on I devoted more and more resources to this "hobby".
A complete history was formulated, every post in the entire government was named, each square foot of the land was mapped and named.
Eventually, the vague idea that this was just some "land" somewhere wasn't enough...I created an entire planet.
The planet encompased hundreds of lands, thousands of times larger than just Nastralia itself. But I was the ruler of Nastralia, and thus it should not be just one of hundreds of little counties on a vast globe...I eventually developed a rich history of many civilizations on this world...some in alligience with and some sworn to destroy my kingdom.
The ensuing war, called "Crimson Sky", which I chronicled as it went on for nearly a year, determined Nastralia as the conquerer of the entire planet, unifying it under the red and white flag of the Empire.
There was a superb Japanese produced cartoon around this time, a forerunner of the current art of anime, called "Star Blazers". For my empire's anthem, I used the harmonies of this cartoon's theme song...very triumphal and optimistic.
I was titled His Imperial Majesty, the Riothamus of Nastralia, the Homeland Valley, the Good Green World, and the Solar System including the Blue World.
The Blue World refered to Earth.
Rather than imagine that my world existed in some far away galaxy a long time ago, and crap...I decided to make my story a little more plausible (to me anyway!).
Sci-fi stories often have humans or very-humanoid inteligent beings inhabiting far off worlds without any aforementioned ties to Earth.
Unlikely.
If life outside of Earth...without any intervention or influence from a common source developed/s on another world...the chance it would be even remotely like a human would be scarce. Lets face it...how many species do we have here on Earth, developed essentially in the same overall conditions in most cases, and with the same proportion of matter availiable to them, not to mention from evidently, the same DNA source...yet look at the physical diversity of all the plants, animals and organisms that sprung up over a few billion years.
My planet was seeded by a mysterious spacefaring race of beings some 90,000 years ago with actual proto-humans imported from Earth itself, directly to a planet featuring much the same mass and atmosphere as Earth...a sister planet if you will...directly on the other side of the Sun from Earth in the same orbit...synchronous exactly to avoid orbital anomolies or detection by way of sight from on world to another.
(Granted, this sister-planet concept is not unique, it was used in SF before, but in that version it was a weird "mirror" of Earth, my concept is a totally different planet with it's own unique history (barring occassional influences from the mysterious aforemention beings throughout the millenia) and unique association with advanced scientific discoveries (again, thanks to our mysterious benefactors).
Over the years I kept a multitude of maps, historical "documents", even a hand-sewn flag. A few friends "in-the-know" encouraged me to try to write about this (ala "Star Trek" or "Star Wars"), but I prefered to keep it a private thing.
Though much of the ephemera that was created over the years has been lost or discared, I still to this day hold true to much of the fantasy and use aspects of it to bolster self-confidence as needed.
There have been many a day when I have hummed the triumphal yet haunting tune of the National Anthem and thought of a day...not too distant...when the Riothamus shall rule, in more than just name, the Blue World.
"The World Is Yours"-- motto of Tony Montana in "Scarface".
I ocassionally visited the woods with my new buddy/neighbor Steven, but more often than not, went there on my own.
There was a magical quality about these woods. The area of the woods, as mentioned above, was not that vast, but the valley steeped sharply towards the shallow creek which formed it (presumably sometime in the past when it was more significant), and from deep in it's midst, you couldn't make out any houses or sounds of civilization through the trees and brush.
In the years since this time, I've studied up and found that indeed, the creek, or as we say in the northeast, brook, was more significant and it even powered a few flour mills in it's time as it flowed steadily into the more significant Blackstone River to the west.
Of course, as many familiar with the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the US may be familiar with, the Blackstone River had great significance. The first and for many decades, most prominent factories and mills powered by water wheels, were in the Blackstone River Valley. Woonsocket, Pawtucket, Central Falls, and to some extent the early history of Providence, as a port for the worsted produced, were dependent on the river.
But the tributary known as the Cherry Brook, which had carved this deep rift in the landscape of Northern Rhode Island all on it's own, eventually dwindled to an almost seasonal stream...virtually dry in the summer months and flowing only moderately towards the still mighty Blackstone in the Fall through Spring months by, at least, the 1970's.
This little valley it had created though, was a gem. There were ancient artifacts hinting at a more "civilized" past. Stone walls layed out in straight lines across the valley following the compass directions...a stone and cement bridge over a narrow portion of the creek bed, seemingly there for decades...stone and brick foundations of what may have been barns, or, maybe houses many eons ago.
My research seemed to indicate that the valley was, for much of setteled history, too deep for true settlement...some farmers used the area which abuted their farm as land for building storehouses and, as evidenced by the stone walls, were sectioned off from the neighbors farms, but never really cultivated or dwelled on.
This lost valley became my geographical muse for my most elaborate and evolved fantasy ever. A mythical land, over which I ruled, and conducted political relationships, both friendly and foe, with fictionalized neighboring lands.
This was the world of Nastralia.
I mentioned, briefly, Nastralia in a previous post (the first one, if I am not mistaken), but didn't even hint as to the overall importance of this fantasy to me.
In case you haven't surmized by now, I'm not too fancy with QUOTE/UNQUOTE "reality".
It, compared to fantasy, frankly, bites.
Nastralia started as a few sketches on notebook paper ripped coursely from a spiral binder...mentioning the usual "geographical" facts of a land like government, chief exports, a general history of formation including wars and current alliences...a little CIA Factbook sheet on an imaginary land if you will.
As the years went on I devoted more and more resources to this "hobby".
A complete history was formulated, every post in the entire government was named, each square foot of the land was mapped and named.
Eventually, the vague idea that this was just some "land" somewhere wasn't enough...I created an entire planet.
The planet encompased hundreds of lands, thousands of times larger than just Nastralia itself. But I was the ruler of Nastralia, and thus it should not be just one of hundreds of little counties on a vast globe...I eventually developed a rich history of many civilizations on this world...some in alligience with and some sworn to destroy my kingdom.
The ensuing war, called "Crimson Sky", which I chronicled as it went on for nearly a year, determined Nastralia as the conquerer of the entire planet, unifying it under the red and white flag of the Empire.
There was a superb Japanese produced cartoon around this time, a forerunner of the current art of anime, called "Star Blazers". For my empire's anthem, I used the harmonies of this cartoon's theme song...very triumphal and optimistic.
I was titled His Imperial Majesty, the Riothamus of Nastralia, the Homeland Valley, the Good Green World, and the Solar System including the Blue World.
The Blue World refered to Earth.
Rather than imagine that my world existed in some far away galaxy a long time ago, and crap...I decided to make my story a little more plausible (to me anyway!).
Sci-fi stories often have humans or very-humanoid inteligent beings inhabiting far off worlds without any aforementioned ties to Earth.
Unlikely.
If life outside of Earth...without any intervention or influence from a common source developed/s on another world...the chance it would be even remotely like a human would be scarce. Lets face it...how many species do we have here on Earth, developed essentially in the same overall conditions in most cases, and with the same proportion of matter availiable to them, not to mention from evidently, the same DNA source...yet look at the physical diversity of all the plants, animals and organisms that sprung up over a few billion years.
My planet was seeded by a mysterious spacefaring race of beings some 90,000 years ago with actual proto-humans imported from Earth itself, directly to a planet featuring much the same mass and atmosphere as Earth...a sister planet if you will...directly on the other side of the Sun from Earth in the same orbit...synchronous exactly to avoid orbital anomolies or detection by way of sight from on world to another.
(Granted, this sister-planet concept is not unique, it was used in SF before, but in that version it was a weird "mirror" of Earth, my concept is a totally different planet with it's own unique history (barring occassional influences from the mysterious aforemention beings throughout the millenia) and unique association with advanced scientific discoveries (again, thanks to our mysterious benefactors).
Over the years I kept a multitude of maps, historical "documents", even a hand-sewn flag. A few friends "in-the-know" encouraged me to try to write about this (ala "Star Trek" or "Star Wars"), but I prefered to keep it a private thing.
Though much of the ephemera that was created over the years has been lost or discared, I still to this day hold true to much of the fantasy and use aspects of it to bolster self-confidence as needed.
There have been many a day when I have hummed the triumphal yet haunting tune of the National Anthem and thought of a day...not too distant...when the Riothamus shall rule, in more than just name, the Blue World.
"The World Is Yours"-- motto of Tony Montana in "Scarface".