Glauca Demersus

A mechanism which utilizes mechanical devices (particularly a wheel) for partially automating the spinning of thread appears to have been independently invented multiple times throughout history, and it's difficult to say exactly where it was developed first.

In Niur, an early predecessor of the spinning wheel, called a "disc-spindle" first appears in the archeological record around 4800 BCE, in Eastern Shard. These devices incorporated a ceramic or wooden disc around a special kind of spindle, that when angeled correctly into a simple frame or even a purpose built hole in the ground, could be used to spin thread more efficiently than earlier techniques. It was particularly useful for the spinning of mafaly fibers, as their relative brittleness (especially of the more ancient cultivars) meant it required a very slow and steady pace to avoid breakage when utilizing older spinning techniques.

In the late Classical period, disc-spindles spread out of Shard along Kaitian trading routes, and were used to a limited extent to spin native cotton and Ulu, although those spread by Kaitian traders exclusively were made from wood. The first designs that at all resemble a more modern spinning wheel appear in Kaitian texts dated to the very end of Classical period, around 1750 BCE. These early designs combined the disc-spindle and its frame, as well as altering the orientation of both, and enlarged the disc significantly. The disc still was rotated by hand, and larger devices likely required two people to operate. It was probably originally designed to spin Ulu, but it was quickly adopted and adapted by Shardian spinners for use with Mafaly.

After the Post-Classical collapse, the wheel was largely forgotten in most of Niur, with the exception of Eastern Shard, where it actually would grow to be the dominant means of spinning mafaly, completely displacing the disc-spindle. The technology would gradually develop over the next thousand years, replacing the disc with a spoked wheel, and again changing the orientation of the parts. Wheel-spun mafaly thread and cloth would become a major export for this region, and as the Martial period progressed it would become the primary source of sail cloth and thread for Eastern Niur.

The strategic importance of this resource contributed to the notoriously brutal, centuries long conquest of this region by the Nashajh, and in that process it was likely that some of the technological expertise was lost. At the same time, the conquest, coinciding with a rediscovery of old Kaitian texts that mentioned the device, allowed for the technology to disseminate throughout Niur, where it saw for the first time widespread usage, although almost exclusively for the purpose of spinning coarse thread for the manufacture of sails, primarily in military contexts.

The devastation at the close of the Martial period, and that wrought during the Niur war that followed, as well as the general decline in the size of the military caused the practice to gradually dwindle outside of the East Shardian cities, and in general the technology saw little advancement in the early Imperial Era.

It was only during the ascendency of the Yellow academy that the spinning wheel would see its next major evolution, as part of their periodic reforms the greater adoption of the spinning wheel was advocated and widely spread within Yellow academy institutions. These wheels were based on the most sophisticated East Shardian designs, and were further improved by the scholars and craftspeople within the Academy. These newer designs were rapidly adopted by the East Shardians themselves, who began to adapt the wheel to spinning other fibers outside of mafaly, and this, along with new innovations in weaving around the same time, seemed primed to make East Shard the dominant region for the manufacturing textiles for all of Niur.

However, the wealth afforded by these textiles proved only to further catalyze the wars that would destroy the East Shardian cities, as they were gradually conquered and destroyed by the independent inland peoples of Shard, forever ending Niuri control over Eastern Shard. The refugees from these war would settle throughout Niur, largely in areas where the Yellow Academy's rule had the most support. After the Yellow dynasty fell out of power, the support for these refugees would also decline, and most would assimilate to the local cultures.

The end of the Yellow dynasty also saw the disappearence of the spinning wheel throughout most of Niur. While it was still used for spinning sail cloth in part of Nirou (and more sparsely elsewhere), it would only really continue to be an actively developed technology in Nicre.

The Yellow Academy was widely supported in Nicre, even after they fell out of power, and many members of the academy fled to the safety of Nicre after its downfall, bringing along with them a great deal of accumulated knowledge. Many refugees from East Shard also relocated to Nicre, where they would bolster its craftsperson and artisan classes. The spinning wheel spread out of these communities, and it would continue to evolve in Nicre for the next several hundred years.

There for the first time spinning wheels emerged with hand cranks, and later treadles, and by the time of the Nicrean Renaissance these innovations had already transformed industry in Nicre and had begun to spread out to the rest of Niur.

Further advancements during this period, included greater degrees of automation and efficiency, and culminated in the development of machines capable of spinning multiple spools at once, and even early models of water wheel driven devices, unmatched in complexity until 18th century England.

While the technology for these machines never entirely disappeared, they required delicate and careful crafting to manufacture, and were unable to be massed produced. As Nicrean affluence declined amidst the Suri wars, little advancement was made in the development of these technologies, and this prevented them from extensively spreading beyond Nicre or even fully supplanting the more technologically simple spinning wheels even within Nicre.

Like I can actually afford to buy some kinda fancy ingredients (like peanut oil instead of canola, or extra virgin olive oil, unusual spices, actually good cheese) somewhat often largely because I save so much money by just not buying meat. I used to cook with chicken a bit more often, but the past two years its gotten so expensive I've started to use tofu more often, cause its literally less than half the cost of the cheapest chicken, by weight!

I was always mystified by this weird stance, cause I've been eating a largely plant based diet for a lot of my life, and its always been cheaper, (and this has been true literally everywhere I've ever traveled to, I go to grocery stores for fun). But a recent experience with my gf's friends kinda illuminated this to me a bit. We were staying with them for a weekend where we wouldn't have easy access to groceries, so they bought food to prepare for everyone for the weekend. And trying to generously accommodate my dietary restrictions, they bought what they considered to be "staple foods" but in poultry form, i.e. casingless chicken hotdogs(which they served for lunch) and turkey bacon (which they served for breakfast). And while i tried to eat some of it, for the most part I don't particularly like either of those foods, especially not by themselves or as the main part of a meal, because I basically never eat largely unadorned meat as the main part of a meal. When i eat chicken its as a vehicle for a sauce, curry, soup, etc. that usually has a bunch of other ingredients in it and even on the rare times when i eat it by itself i almost always have some kind of vegetable dish i eat with it, cause just filling up on meat isn't something I particularly want to nor can usually afford to do.

But I think this is a mistake a lot of people have when it comes to vegans/vegetarians, they, as people that eat burgers and bacon and hotdogs everyday look at the weird vegetarian versions of those foods they have in stores, see how much they cost, and are like "wow vegetarians must all be rich". When in reality I think to most people eating predominantly plant based diets, those kind of "one-to-one meat replacements" are kind of a novelty, something maybe useful for people trying to transition to a plant based diet from a meat-focused one, or like maybe an occasional treat or something you can buy to fit in with people at like certain kinds of events or whatever. Definitely not the staples of a typical plant-based diet though.

It was kinda surprising too, because the worst racism came from the younger women in her family, namely her younger sister and her sister in law. I expected casual homophobia and transphobia and maybe some general conservative bullshit or like even like the more "polite" bigotry I've come to associate with religious types but not getting into an argument with my GF's sister about her claiming that "all black people smell like piss" in front of her mixed-race daughter.

I traveled to a small islet southeast of Rhodes. Once a temple center, it was almost entirely leveled, only a few scattered pillars remained. Between these pillars lay a flat stone slightly ajar of an opening, that had been covering a stairway to a crypt. I pulled aside the stone and descended into the crypt, an L shaped room, with a low vaulted ceiling constructed of dark stone blocks. It was already illuminated by a single oil lamp, which cast shadows that obscured all but the remains of a wooden altar, now decomposed past the point of recognizability, and the figure of another woman, dressed in a faded red cloak with a finely patterned golden trim.

She was turned to face something I could not see, blocked by the shadows cast by her lamp. She spoke, addressing me without moving her gaze, recognizing me by providence and our shared stations in life.

Her Coptic inflected voice was low and tired sounding, bearing with it a pain that I could not hope to temper, and she related to me the story of the now nameless god that was enshrined here.

Once this goddess had been generated by generations, the faith in her surviving countless conquesta and cultural change and countless and even the loss of her original name. She bequeathed fertile fields and rains to the lands that would become Caria and Lycia, and kind succor to those in their last moments. Even when she had been treated as a strange foreign serpent by the people that would later come to inhabit these lands, she persisted on in granting them grace, even when they forgot her rituals she accepted new ones, when they castigated her traditions she sought merely to reconcile them with ones these new inhabitants would find acceptable. She asked for little in sacrifice, satisfied to breathe even the leftover smoke of those other gods so long as she was still remembered in passing.

Both me and the woman in red had been drawn here, as we were ourselves oracles of different gods with a serpent nature. For myself, Hermes with his caduceus, while she was the last priestess of the Egyptian goddess once known as Wadjet, although she no longer knew even the name of her patron, referring to her only by the Greek Uto.

The forgotten god whose temple we stood in now was more obscure to us both, but we had heard her call, even so, and been brought here together. After she had told the story granted to her by vision, I related what I knew of this place , derived from history.

"This island once served as a place of worship for several gods, most recently that of Apollo. Perhaps those who built that temple believed this nameless god to be Python? It has been mostly abandoned for many years, but some years ago it seems that this island was bequeathed by an emperor to the bishop in Rhodes as a personal gift. The bishop leveled what remained of the temples and built a manor, only for that manor to be razed and the bishop killed during the Persian invasion. It seems her temple was spared this destruction only by being hidden underneath that which was once Apollo's."

The woman in red responded "Even the gods that once forsook others are forsaken themselves, what remains anywhere but ash?"

But while her words seemed despondent, her tone belied this with a tinge of hope, as she gestures to a small creature, in one small alcove of the crypt. Scarcely larger than a mouse, she resembled a small squat adder, but with a tale ending in the shape of a diamond and eyes that were the color of the sky. The goddess of this forgotten temple, somehow still holding on. It was at this moment I knew why we were both drawn here.

I mused that this might be the last serpent god with any devotees in the whole of creation, as even Jormungander to the far north had been made into naught but a demon.

The woman in red responded "Such a wicked betrayal has it been done to all serpents, to be cast as betrayers themselves by so many. But I suppose you would know betrayal better than anyone?"

At this point I had a flash of recollection, from one of my past oracular visions: the story of how once the Romans had tried to make their gods and those of my ancestors as one, how Hermes was forced to share a divine body with Mercury, and how he was trapped within himself by the Roman god, who would betray even his fellow Dei Consentes, when he came to earth and became the man named Jesus.