Dyson Shell World

"All of them?"

"All of them."

"That's a shame."

The two of them drew the string around a clutch containing 4 of 5 eggs, each egg nearly as big as the men lugging them away to be buried with next season's soil.

I was thinking about how much I like the floating archipelago situation. I like that maybe they can move around each other. but I also kind of enjoy the idea that maybe the water out there is frozen? and that helps hold the islands in place?

[this is a story that originates along the equator]

Many mothers ago, the world was new.

The mountains had not yet risen up above the metal plates that shift, the islands were not yet floating out by the poles, and the ocean did not pool between the land and the metal. 

Once, the world was dark. A serpent uncoiled herself from the machine and she spun her light into the sun, which she placed in the center of the sky. Her sisters used the light from the sun as they worked to create the water and the land, which they built upon the firmament so that there might be life there.

The sun thought their creation beautiful, and moved to see it better. As it approached, the grass and trees upon the ground wilted, and the waters receded. The serpent and her sisters begged the sun to move back into the sky, and the sun did so, reluctantly.

The serpent and her sisters then made the little animals, and the larger animals, and put them in their places on the land and in the trees and the water, and the sun thought that these, too, were beautiful, so the sun again moved to better see the serpents' creations, and again the plants upon the ground wilted and the waters receded and this time the little animals were burned, and the sun wept.

As the serpents escorted the sun back into the sky, the sun begged the serpents to tie the sun to its post, so that it could not hurt the earth it loved in pursuit of seeing its beauty, and the serpents agreed that this was the best way to protect the earth, so they planted their tails into the firmament and held the sun in their outstretched hands so that it could not move from the center of the sky.

[theres another version of this story where the sun is not sentient and she realizes that what she has made it also dangerous and does not stay where it belongs so she and her sisters sacrifice herself to hold the sun in place. there is a third version where the sun is evil or cruel and does these things on purpose.]

***

Once we lived on the ring that rotates slowly in the distance. Our land was threatened [by some ancient conflict idk] and our mother rose from the ocean and lifted our land up. She carried us across the ocean, through the floating rivers and she holds us up by poles where we are protected.

I'm thinking about the family structures and property transfer between generations

I feel like I had a good idea last week that I didnt write down

I was listening to a conversation about Yaakov and Isau, about when Yaakov bought Isau's birthright from him for some soup.

and a common interpretation of this is that this was yaakov tricking his brother (and most commentaries have to do with justifying this) but one that was brought up that I thought was interesting is that maybe Isau was in on it. maybe he didn't want it.

and the rabbi was like "this whole system was in place so that siblings wouldnt kill each other fighting over the inheritance."

and I'm thinking about what that looks like- what these sorts of stories look like in a world where a third of the population is not stationary.

I think that family groupings are roughly as so, from broadest to narrowest

town

Bucket's lineage

mom group

a mom is likely identified by their town of origin and their mom group.

a dad might be like "son of this bucket" or "from this town" or he would be "from that town" or "married to this bucket" depending

I think that because of the nature of having more than one clutch of eggs- often with different mothers- the very idea of a single-individual inheriting everything seems incorrect, and idek yet how much there would be to inherit, property-wise.

I think there might be "town land" and "family land" and if you live and work in the town then you are entitled to "town land" and if you join or are born into a family then you are entitled to "family land" and if you're a mom then you are, technically, entitled to no land

"work" here mostly just means "are contributing in some way" to the community, the standards for which vary widely from town to town but tend to include "making art" or "being friendly"

land here basically meaning "a place to live" or "a place to grow food for the community." there's a lot of people so a right to land is basically a right to live and integrate ones personal production into what the community shares.

what it basically means is "if you move here and indicate you intend to stay, we'll share our space with you."

since its assumed that moms wont stay, they're sort of more like honored guests. you need them to make children, they bring a lot of cool shit from other places and in a lot of ways they're essential to the infrastructure of the world, but they arent Part Of The Community in the same way unless they make a point of it.

which is why they have their own sub family units of other moms, who are definitely all dating.