Bishop

Bishop's Dreams: The Zone

Bishop, like most people, has dreams but he also has special dreams (no, not those special dreams that most teenagers get all the time; though he does have them too). These special dreams are about things that might be, they are part of what is called the Dreamscape.

On his native uBuntu, wise people lead monastic life in search of spiritual purity in the hopes of reaching the Dreamscape. Those who do succeed tend to be immensely wise individuals who spend most of their time in meditation. For some strange reason, Bishop is able to enter Dreamscape during his normal sleep or while daydreaming. Actually, he doesn't even try to achieve it, it just happens.

Dreamscape Dreams are always vague and hard to decipher, but those who are able to interpret them are said to be able to foretell events or know things that no one knows. The Dreamscape tends to be self-consistent for the individual who experiences it; the Dreamer will tend to appear in the same locations and events will often be similar and it is by analyzing the differences between sessions that information is gathered. Each Dream will usually be connected to previous ones and events in one Dream will often have repercussions on future ones.

Bishop's Dream tend to follow a few patterns or themes, he calls the most common one The Zone.

In those Dreams, Bishop is living in a desolate area called the Zone. This zone was ground zero for an event years ago, but what the Event was exactly is never exactly clear (it tends to change from Dream to Dream). What is certain, is that something happened and many scientists and soldiers came over to study whatever had happened. A few years later, they left apparently empty handed.

The area inside the Zone was somehow changed by the Event and the laws of physics and reality now sporadically change inside it. The Zone can be quite deadly as it contains space-time anomalies and random spots capable of very unpleasant things. Navigating the zone is now mainly subjective and veteran explorers will often have elaborate and twisted paths to reach their destination, for example:

To reach the Old Church, the path could be as follow:

1) Follow the right side of the creek until you reach the bridge,

2) Cross the bridge and follow the dirt road until the second lamp post,

3) Come back to the first lamp post and walk directly towards the big mossy stone,

4) Climb the mossy rock and use the rope-way to reach the end of the park,

5) From there walk backward towards the Old Church.

The travel time is always roughly the same, no matter what path is taken and trying to reach destination more quickly by taking a shortcut or rushing often has dire consequences. If you are lucky, you might just end up somewhere else or, if you are not so lucky, you might end up dead or badly maimed.

Another aspect of the Zone is the artifacts it contains. Scattered across the Zone are strange objects that are of unknown origin. It is unknown if they were somehow changed by the Event or if they were brought here, but they are clearly not of this world. These object's functionality or purpose are usually not understood but sometimes they can have beneficial properties (these are often discovered by accident, which is often deadly itself).

The Zone now is deserted and off-limit to everyone (a fence with guard posts surrounds it), but a post-apocalyptic-like frontier culture arose around the Zone where people risk their lives to find and recover artifacts and sell. This is an extremely dangerous (and illegal) line of work since the Zone can be very deadly, as can be the border guards and traps.

In these Dreams, Bishop either goes in the Zone himself to find artifacts and/or explore it , while other times he simply meets people who are heading to The Zone or coming back from it. It is during these Dreams that he learns about the properties of the Zone and finds out how the artifacts work, he only he could find some in real life ...

Bishop's Dreams: Cephalid Space

The second most common Dreamscape Continuum that Bishop visits is one he calls Cephalid Space.

These Dreams take place in the iLanga system, or rather a possible iLanga System. Here, it is not linked to any other system by jumpgate and it has more than just one planet. The actual number of planets tends to change from Dream to Dream (it usually goes from 6-7 planets to dozens) but uBuntu is always the main planet and all planets are inhabited terrestrial ones. A much greater number of cultures live in this possible iLanga System but they are all deeply spiritual and all have similar beliefs.

Technology in Cephalid Space is very basic (a bit like on Coulter in the Providence System) but anyone can fly or "float" to get anywhere, including space. Travel between planets is still quite an undertaking as it takes quite a while (imagine walking to another city hundreds if not thousands or kilometers away). It is impossible to travel to other Systems with this method, but few seem interested in leaving anyway.

One of the stranger aspect of this Continuum is that everyone in it is aware that a major event is to take place, on that will change the possible iLanga System into the actual iLanga system (the one with only one planet). But no one knows *what* the Event will be or even when it is going to happen, although the consensus seems to be fairly soon. No one seems to be interested into finding out what the Event is or how to prevent it; seems everyone has accepted their fate and are just living as if nothing will happen. If pressed on the subject, people will simply say that nothing can be done and that one has to accept how things are meant to be.

Behind all this, Octopus-like Ships and Creatures can be glimpsed at. They seem to be observing what is going on and it is impossible to directly contact them. If you tries to get close to them, they simply flee. The best way to get closer to them is to simply ignore them; if ignored they will come closer and obverse for as long as they are left alone. Their purposed is unknown and all people in the iLanga system are completely oblivious to them. As time passes, more and more of them are appearing, it looks like they are linked to the Event, but is it impossible to know if they are here to cause it or to prevent it.

In these Dreams, Bishop is always exploring the system trying to find out what the Event is and trying to communicate with the Cephalids, with varying degrees of success. He sometimes seems able to get close to them but communication is extremely vague. Bishop doesn't seem to think they are evil or here to cause harm, they seem to be here to observe the local population. Perhaps to see how they will react to the Event?