Pete's Ancient and rarely updated
D-land Journal

Well now! I could talk about the lovely week that I had, ut I shan't. In part because that is all that really needs to be said: I had a lovely week and spent the vast majority of it with my loved one.

However, the main reason I shall not talk about it is because someone has actually taken an interest in hearing what life "out there" is like!

Now, I have a previous entry that briefly describes the world of my birth and youth. What else to say on the topic? Hmmm...

I suppose I could go nuts and describe all manner of things that i would see as trivialities but might interest you.

The cities in which we live have not got the traffic congestion that the monkey villages have. Whether one is in the Undercity or Surface Side or one is rich enough to dwell in The Depths, personal transport is virtually non-existant.

Being a primarily water world, land vehicles have little utility. To get from city to city we travel by air, by ship, or by underwater transport (depending upon departure point, destination, and how wealthy one is). Obviously the cities that lie on the ocean bottoms, known collectively as The Depths, are harder to get into and out of, but they are also safer from storms and far more stable, so they tend to be the dwelling places of the wealthier of our people.

The cities that float at the oceans' surfaces are usually bigger and more impressive than those on the ocean floors (not being constrained by geography in any way), but are at the mercy of the storms and tides that often ravage our world. One would think that the open air of the parts of the cities that were above water would be the most expensive and in-demand places to live, but it is not so. Those who can't quite afford to live in The Depths still wish to emulate such a lifestyle and so will live in the deep seascrapers of the surface cities, the Undercities.

I grew up in one of these floating cities. My family was not wealthy, I grew up with a full view of the skies and the infinities beyond in a starscraper in the city of T'sidderänd. I personally never found the seas all that wonderful, instead looking to the skies and the stars beyond for my future.

But you're here to hear about the world, not me. The cities are lovely, starscrapers reaching two miles into the sky and seascrapers reaching nearly as far down under the ocean. Like icebergs, the cities were much larger underwater than above. The Surface Sides have transit ports, star ports, trade centers, utilities, and other facilities required to keep the cities afloat and livable.

Since Surface Sides are the only areas where star ships land or send shuttles, they are often replete with visiting lifeforms from throughout the Economicon (the Economic Union of over 1000 advanced worlds [a small fraction of the known inhabited worlds] that functions as the inter-world trade government and mutual defense organization). Few aliens are seen in the Undercities and only heads of state or the wealthiest offworlders are ever allowed into The Depths. For that matter, few of the natives from the Surface Sides ever see The Depths themeselves, I certainly never have.

In truth, our species is rather dichotomized. The ocean dwelling Khorwhynnians tend to be very xenophobic and insular, preferring to have little to no outside contact. In contrast, those of us born and raised on the surface embrace all that lies beyond our atmosphere and seldom do we look to the seas.

One can hardly begin to imagine the daily variety of life one is exposed to in a star port city amongst so many different species and cultures from nearly countless, far flung worlds. The monkeys have managed something of a shade of it with their aud/vid entertainments such as Star Wars and Babylon 5, but their concepts are limited by their own experience and thus they restrict themselves to primarily quadrapedal hominid-like creatures. They are getting more creative, but they have a long way to go.

Well, anyway, Khorwhynn is hardly a mecca... too many of our people are too xenophobic for the world to be attractive to many offworlders. We have a decent tourist trade (you should see the water skiing tricks a Dyffinian Bardi can do [a pentapedal marsupial-like creature]! Our major export is technology. We are, however, on one of the main shipping lanes between the heart of the Economicon and the farm and mining worlds to spinward.

It is a lovely world, though, and the skyscape, with Khorwhynn and its rings filling half the sky and its other moons forming a sparkling, ever changing daisy chain toward each horizon. Simply astounding.

However, that is not to say that your own world is without charms. Your nights are dark and filled with stars, with the spartan simplicity of a single moon. Quite lovely in its own way.

Hmm... I'm becoming nostalgic for home, I think I shall close now and let you digest all of that. Any other questions? Please, let me know!