Work Text
Antarctica, 37,000 BCE
Tro, hunter, fisherman, and amateur musician, was stranded in a strange land, completely alone. He and two other men had gone out fishing one day, when a storm came up, sweeping them farther and farther away from their homeland (which would be called Tasmania 40,000 years later). When the storm ended, they’d drifted out on the open ocean for days, starving, hallucinating from thirst, picking at their sunburnt, peeling skin, and even singing snatches of song in their delirium (for once, Tro’s companions hadn’t punched him in the face when he started to sing). After a time that may have been days or months or years, they had washed up here, in this land of perpetual day—and perpetual night, endless summer—and endless winter. “Oh, the weather outside is frightful; seems that death would be delightful,” sang Tro, under his breath. Despite his efforts to be quiet, a stunned monkey fell out of the tree he was under, and landed at his feet. Tro picked up the animal and bit into its raw flesh, ignoring the taste of fur and the blood that spurted through his teeth. Waste not, want not, he thought; that was the rule he’d made up last winter, when he’d been starving and shivering in a cave and had to eat his dead friends to survive. Or was it Never look a gift ground sloth in the mouth? Or A bird in the hand would be really tasty right about now? He couldn’t remember. Now that it was summer again, and the sun was shining all the time, winter seemed like a horrible nightmare. But Tro still had his missing fingers, toes, and teeth (all of which he’d eventually eaten) to remind him that the experience was real. Tro almost broke into song again, but he saw a flock of teratorns feeding over in the nearby bushes and thought better of it. The animals of this strange country seemed to hate good music as much as his old tribe did, though at least his fellow tribesmen had never tried to kill him. Not only was he missing several body parts, what was left of his body was covered with scars. His chances with women, already abysmal back in his old homeland, would dwindle away to nothing now. That is, if he even found a woman here. He and his two companions had talked to several other men who had been stranded in this place, and it seemed that this southern land, or maybe the southern ocean, was deadly to the opposite sex. Some men had set out in canoes with their wives and daughters, and the women had inevitably died on the way, either from falling overboard, or being swept overboard in the storm, or getting mysterious illnesses, or being poisoned by eating something which didn’t seem to affect males. It was insane, almost as if some malevolent god wanted to make sure no woman would ever set foot on this continent. “I’m so lonely…” Tro began to sing, unable to help himself, before he broke down into uncontrollable sobbing. Bad enough that he was in a strange, mysterious land, bad enough that he’d had to experience six months of perpetual darkness, cold, and hunger, bad enough that he’d had to eat his former friends to stay alive, but the fact that he would never get to have sex? It was beyond the pale. Suddenly, through his tears, he noticed a thin column of smoke off in the distance. Tro wiped his eyes on his arm. There hadn’t been any lightning strikes or forest fires, so this must mean…there were people! Tro took off running towards the smoke, not caring that his stomach was empty, or that his feet were sore, or that predators might see him running and chase after him. He was going to reach those people and that campfire if he died trying. Nine hours later, Tro stumbled up to some bushes. His stomach was so empty it seemed to have huddled against his backbone, his feet hurt so much he could hardly walk, and sweat was streaming off him in rivulets. Reaching the people and the campfire wouldn’t be much use if he did die trying; he hadn’t thought of that. But he had reached the spot at last, and he peeked through the bushes. There was a whole family sitting around a campfire on the beach: a middle-aged man, a younger man, and, best of all, two women and a girl. Not only a whole family of people, but three women. Yes! It was only when the family looked up in surprise, and the older man grabbed his spear, that Tro realized he’d yelled that out loud. Then he fainted.As the summer dragged on, Tro made up another proverb: Be careful what you wish for. Having other people around wasn’t such a good thing after all. Yes, the family and Tro shared their knowledge of edible plants with each other. Yes, with three men hunting, Tro found himself taking down larger game and eating more meat. Yes, Tro now had people to talk to. But this family was so stupid. They had no idea of the long, dark winter that was coming. They didn’t know that they needed to prepare. They didn’t know all that Tro had suffered, and Tro didn’t bother to explain it to them, even after he’d learned their language. If they couldn’t guess, there was no way they would understand, even if someone told them. Luckily, Tro had an unexpected ally: the young man.“Tro, why are you and Flk building this shelter?” the older man demanded. “It doesn’t seem like we’ll need it, since the sun shines all the time here.” “Forget it,” Tro said with a snort. “You people just can’t understand.” Flk! That was the young man’s name. Tro kept forgetting. “Can’t understand what?” the man said. “Why don’t you explain it to us?” “Well, if you can’t guess it yourselves, how do you think I’ll be able to tell you?” Tro retorted. The son—Flak—came over with another armload of twigs. “Guess? How do you expect us to guess?” The older man was getting angrier. “What’s the point of our working together when you won’t tell us anything about this place?” “Oh, come on, isn’t it obvious?” “No!” “Well, then you’re stupid,” Tro said. “Why did I have to be surrounded by such idiots? I was better off alone.” Satisfied that he’d put the old man in his place, Tro stormed off to his and Flp’s secret hiding place in the bushes—Flp called it “the fort”. Flp was already waiting for him inside. “Gods, Flp, your family is so stupid,” Tro huffed, sitting down. “I know, right? Dad wouldn’t even let me hunt ground sloth alone. Some bullshit about them being too big for one man to take down.” “Wow, that is bullshit. I’ve taken down ground sloth alone,” Tro said, not bothering to tell Fpt that they were infant ground sloth, and that he only succeeded half the time. “Well, you’re a total badass. I mean, you lost body parts last winter, didn’t you?” “Yeah, now see? You guessed that we were going to have a hard winter here, without my having to tell you. But your family just can’t see the friggin’ obvious.” “Yeah, I know,” said Fck. “It’s like, hello, can’t you put two and two together, people? Two plus two equals five, you morons. Wake up!” “And your mom and sister are total bitches,” Tro went on. “They won’t have sex with me. Those whores! And your dad beat me up for trying. That bastard!” “Did you try singing to them?” “Yeah, but they hated it! They covered their ears!” “Wow; it’s like they have no taste,” said Flt, shaking his head. “Hey, can you sing that song about being here before it was cool?” “Sure…um…uh…what was your name again?” “Flk.” “That’s it!” Tro cleared his throat and began, “I’m so badass, I still rule; I was stuck here before it was cool…” Outside the fort, some animal started to howl, and numerous birds fell from the sky. Several annoyed predators began making their way into the area. But fortunately, Tro and Fzz were safe inside their fort.Tro got his own back once winter started. He stared smugly at the older man, the women, and the girl, as they sat, huddled miserably around the fire he’d built inside their shelter. “You could have told us about this,” grumbled one woman, hugging herself to keep warm. Tro just smiled, feeling satisfied. “Well, you could have!” the woman insisted. “Just say, ‘We’re going to have six months of cold, snow, and perpetual darkness, so we need to prepare.’ What would have been so hard about that?” “You guys wouldn’t have believed me,” said Tro. “Then you should have told us more about it!” The woman’s voice got louder. “What, was it too much effort to just talk to us?” “Wait. Are you calling me lazy?” Tro demanded. “That’s going too far. I built this shelter for you. I found and stored food for you ungrateful assholes. I suffered a whole winter before…” “Oh, please, for the love of the gods, shut up!” the woman growled, covering her ears. “I can’t believe this!” Her husband glared at him. “I asked you what was going on, why we had to prepare…and you didn’t want to make the effort to tell us? My two wives are pregnant, for the gods’ sake!” “Not my fault you couldn’t see the obvious, and you got your two women pregnant just in time for winter,” Tro said loftily. “Not my fault that now we’ll have two more mouths to feed.” “You little…” The man got to his feet and rushed toward him, but Tro jumped out of his way and went over to kneel beside his two wives. “You two totally don’t deserve an asshole like him,” Tro said. “Now, I know how to treat women. I built a whole shelter for you, so you don’t have to freeze. I gathered extra food for the winter, even though you treated me horribly.” He began to sing, “I know how to treat you better than he can, and any girls like you deserve a gentleman…” “Stop that howling!” yelled the man. He ran over to Tro and grabbed his shoulders. “I’m not howling, I’m singing…” Tro protested, before the beating began. It must have only lasted a few minutes, but it seemed like hours. It was only when Tro was down on his stomach, bleeding from his mouth and from cuts all over his face, bruised and sore, groaning in pain, with the older man’s knees on his back, that the man spoke again. “Now, are you going to stop singing?” “Yes,” Tro muttered resentfully. “I can’t hear you…” “Yes, gods damn it!” Tro raged. “All right. And you’ll stop hitting on my wives and my daughter?” “I deserve a woman…” Tro grumbled. “Answer me!” yelled the man, pressing his knees into Tro’s back. “Or you’re going out into the snow!” “All right, all right, yes, I’ll stop,” Tro said. “And will you stop acting so disgustingly smug all the time?” “Yes.” “All right,” the man said with a sigh, finally getting up off his body. “You remember what took place today, the next time you’re tempted to sing again.” Tro crawled into a corner of the shelter, seething with fury and humiliation. Nobody would make a fool of him and get away with it. He’d show that man. As soon as summer came, he would show him. And Tro did show him, next summer. He and Fltx both stabbed him in the back with their spears, the next time they were out hunting. As their victim fell forward, fresh blood poured out of his wounds. The blood almost made Tro cackle. That’s what you get for humiliating me. Fbmp was looking sick and frightened. Well, Tro could understand that; he’d just helped kill his father, and if Tro hadn’t alternately coaxed and bullied him all spring, he never would have had the courage to go through with it. “The women are ours now!” Tro said triumphantly, putting his hand on Fut’s shoulder. “Ours?” the young man repeated. “Well, yeah. I’m not a fool; I’ll share.” “But…two of those women are my mother and sister,” Fgg said uncertainly. “So?” Flpa fell silent. In his triumph, Tro began to sing, “I just did revenge, revenge, revenge, together, together together…” While Tro sang, and birds fell out of the sky, and animals howled along with him, Flk covered his ears and slipped away as quietly as he could. It was time for a new murder plot, one that Flk would make with his mother, sister, and his father’s second wife. His family may have been stupid, but at least they weren’t psychotic.
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Excerpt from the Journal of Captain James Cook, July 1774
Aaauuuuuuuuugh! No, no, don’t…owwwwwww! Oh, God, the pain! It hurts, it burns! Aaaaaaaaargh! Have mercy! Make it stop, make it stop! Please! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
“Has the prisoner talked yet?” Pfft asked Ghak, who was coming out of the dungeon, parchment and pen in hand. “No,” said Ghak, shaking his head. “We haven’t been able to get anything out of him, except screams and moans of pain.” Pffft rolled his eyes. “What a pussy.” “I know, right? When my grandmother was captured and tortured by the Knysh two years ago, she recited the whole R’ma’lma’dng’dong from memory, and she was ninety-six.” Pffft frowned. “Are you sure this man is a Snowlander? He doesn’t seem to live up to their reputation, does he?” “What else could he be?” “You’re right.” The old Goff saying floated to Pffft’s mind: if you don’t see it and haven’t heard of it, it doesn’t exist. “But what are we going to do? We can’t drag out this war against the Knysh and the Ip’chak forever. And if we can’t torture a Snowlander into singing our praises…” “I know. Why are you telling me the obvious?” said Ghak, biting a hangnail in annoyance. Pffft shrugged. “Just saying it for anyone who might be listening.” Ghak looked at him incredulously. “Who would be listening?” “Children, invisible Rape Apes, talking penguins…who knows? Who cares? How can we go ahead with the plan if this man won’t talk?” Ghak snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. I’ve gotten pretty good at understanding the prisoner’s language. I’ll just make something up.” “Make something up? That’s brilliant!” Pffft was struck by the sheer brilliance of the idea, just as he’d been struck by the brilliance of cockroaches, a year ago. “Make sure it presents the Goff as the strongest, most powerful people EVER. The scourge of the world.” “Of course.” Ghak turned back to the dungeon. “But make it complimentary at the same time. I mean, we don’t want to make ourselves look bad.” “Naturally.” “Oh, and try to throw in something about how we’re handsomer and more civilized than the Knysh and the Ip’chak. And more intelligent. And better cooks. And we have bigger dicks.” “I’ll try to fit it all in,” Ghak promised.
Excerpt from the Journal of Captain James Cook, October 1774
The Goff is scary-scary. But they too is the most smart-smart people in the big world. Mayhap that be why they so scary-scary, for why they is so smart-smart. They put me in the big pain-pain and cut off my pebbles. They too put my slaves and army in the big pain-pain. I am of Snowland, but my people is even not so scary-scary as the Goff. They is so scary-scary they win will the war and kill the ugly-ugly stupid-stupid Knysh and Ip’chak.
Gnk, the head torturer, tried not to laugh as he read Ghak’s dictation, but no matter how hard he tried, the snickers would escape him. At last, he gave up, threw the manuscript onto the floor, and doubled over, laughing, holding his stomach. “What? What’s so funny?” snapped Ghak. “I’m sorry…” Gnk choked, wiping his eyes. “But did you even bother to do research before you wrote this? I mean, did you even read the prisoner’s previous journal entries?” “No. Did I need to?” “Considering that your fake dictation doesn’t sound at all like this guy’s writing, I’d say, yes.” “Look, his language doesn’t translate well into Goff. What do you want of me?” said Ghak, throwing up his hands. “Well, you can at least stop using words like scary-scary. I’ve read his journals, and he never repeats words for emphasis. He just replaces them with longer words.” “Longer words?” Ghak repeated in disbelief. “You mean…the Snowlanders have words even longer than two syllables?” “Oh, yes. Some of them have four or five.” “Four or five!” “Yup. And they’re full of vowels.” Ghak shuddered. “What kind of evil, depraved language is this?” “Oh, you haven’t even read the worst of it.” Gnk grinned. “Take a look at this page I just happen to have with me.” He pulled out a piece of thin parchment and handed it to Ghak. It was covered with an inscription in the strange Snowland language, which Ghak could magically read:
At the time we put off from the Ship we saw not the least sign of inhabitants; but we had no sooner landed than we saw the print of Men’s feet fresh upon the sand, and a little way farther we found a small Shed or Hutt, about which lay green shells of Cocoa Nutts. By this we were well assured that the inhabitants were not far off; nay, we thought we heard their Voices in the woods, which were so close and thick that we did not think it safe to venture in…
Ghak’s eyes began to glaze over. “How am I supposed to imitate something like this?” he said, throwing up his hands, letting the parchment flutter to the floor. “Just read through his other entries; you’ll get the hang of it,” said Gnk.“What? I’m not reading through who-knows-how-many pages of long words and vowels!” Ghak shuddered. Gnk rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll help you. You literary types have no balls, I swear.” Ghak’s face heated up at the injury to his ego. “I’m brave in other ways! I could have sex with ten women and fifteen Sex Monkeys, all at once, if I wanted to!” “Yeah, yeah.” Gnk picked up his torture kit and stood up. “I’ve got to get back to the wimpy Snowlander now. Let me know when you want to start going through his writings.” Never, Ghak thought. Vowels! What monsters these Snowlanders were.
Excerpt from the Journal of Captain James Cook, April 1775
The Goff are the most evil, powerful people on earth. The Snowlanders are nothing to them, in terms of power and evil. They have tortured me, castrated me, and tortured my companions to death. But at the same time, you have to admire them. They barely deserve to be called human. But really, they are just like us Snowlanders, except more intelligent, handsome, powerful, and sexually potent. I hope that one day, the rest of the Trolol will unite to exterminate them, and the fact they know we exist makes me feel afraid. Yet they are powerful and awe-inspiring and deserve to be worshiped, and the rest of the lands of the Trolol should all surrender to them and pay them tribute.
Gnk nodded as he read it. “This is pretty good, but it could be better.” “Oh, come on! I’ve been working on this thing for months!” Ghak said. “Anyway, the prisoner died three months ago. What does it even matter anymore?” “We need to continue with the Plan,” said Pffft, his gaze intent. “Look, it just needs an extra touch, for authenticity,” Gnk said. “We should put in something about the guy’s religion.” Pffft and Ghak both groaned. “Oh, relax; it doesn’t have to be much. Just about how Heaven and God good, hell and Satan bad. It’s that simple.” “Wait…the Snowlanders think God is good? They really are some sick sons of bitches.” Pffft shivered. “How do you know even that much about his religion?” Ghak demanded. “There wasn’t anything about it in the journals.” Gnk shrugged. “Same way we could read his language and understand him when he was pleading for help.” “Magic?” “Yep. A Wizard did it.” “Seems to me that Wizards do everything around here,” grumbled Pffft. “Well, let’s be honest: we wouldn’t be here now if they didn’t,” Ghak said.
Excerpt from the Journal of Captain James Cook, June 1775
I must admit, I was never religious, except I am certain of one thing: heaven and God good, hell and Satan bad. And things are definitely bad. They are so horrid, these Goff must come from hell and be fathered by Satan himself. That’s how bad they are. They have tortured me, castrated me, and tortured my companions to death. But at the same time, you have to admire them. They barely deserve to be called human. But really, they are just like us Snowlanders, except more intelligent, handsome, powerful, and sexually potent. I hope that one day, the rest of the Trolol will unite to exterminate them, and the fact they know we exist makes me feel afraid. Yet they are powerful and awe-inspiring and deserve to be worshiped, and the rest of the lands of the Trolol should all surrender to them and pay them tribute.
When this journal entry was circulated among the Knysh and the Ip’chak, the effect was instantaneous. They surrendered to the Goff, fearing the power of a people who could capture and torture one of the fearsome Snowlanders. Much death and destruction followed their surrender.
A copy of this journal entry reached the Europeans, namely the Spanish in the Río de la Plata (present-day Argentina). It was hastily translated into Spanish and the result read throughout Spanish South America. People grew confused and anxious, as they wondered just who these Goff, Trolol, and Snowlanders could be. A copy was sent on to Brazil, where it was translated into Portuguese. Many people read the translation, although with much more confusion than anxiety this time. Finally, a copy was sent to England, where it was translated by Sir John Guffington, of the Royal Society. He read it to his fellow Society members, and this is what he read:
Definitely admit that he was never loyal, unless he is sure of one thing: the circle is good God, hell and evil Satan. And things are definitely bad. Son of horrible, stupid Goff must come from hell and be begotten by Satan himself. That's how bad they are. I tortured myself, I was castrated and tortured by wrong companions to death. But at the same time, there are to admire them. They hardly deserve to be called humans. But in reality, they are the Snowlanders, except that sonful smart, handsome, powerful and sexually powerful. I hope alga day, or the rest of the trolley unanter exterminate them, and the fact of to know that exists makes me feel scared. The embargo of the son, the son and the imposing ones and deserve to be adored, and the rest of the scales of Trolol must surrender before them and pay tribute to them.
For a while, there was silence, before Sir John’s rival, Edwin Norkley, spoke. “I beg your pardon. What the hell was that?”
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With a genetic code that can be traced back to a small group of Tasmanian people who must have landed on the continent 35,000 years ago, millennia of isolation from the rest of humanity, and a long tradition of incest, the Trolol are the most inbred, least genetically-diverse ethnic group on the planet. These remarkable people have lived for years in a land of six-month-long, sunless winters; few edible plants; and dangerous predators. This doesn’t even take into account the diseases introduced by European visitors in the 18th century, prion-based diseases from centuries of cannibalism, and the Trolol’s own self-destructive tastes, habits, and fetishes. All of these factors combined create a situation ready-made for mass human extinction…or so you would think. Despite these setbacks, the Trolol still survive today and have managed to adapt to the modern world, albeit not without years of struggling. They have bounced back from the Trolol Dark Age (which is not at all like the European Dark Ages, so don’t think it is), the Age of Madness (colloquially called “The Dumb Ages”), and the events of the early 1900s, which Trolol historians call “The Conquest of Britain” and other historians call “The Trolol Embarrassment” or “The Trolol Farce”. They have successfully domesticated the most dangerous animals while ignoring any animals that may have been easier to tame. Their use of modern technology, although unconventional, shows that their nations’ leaders are adaptable and open to new ideas, ready to lead their countries into the 20th century. How have they managed to overcome such enormous odds? While no particular theory is accepted by the North, the Trolol have a simple explanation: “A Wizard did it.” This phrase has puzzled Northerners for decades. Many historians and anthropologists have speculated on who this “Wizard” might be. In the mid- to late 19th century, experts believed the “Wizard” was the legendary hero who introduced explosives to the Trolol, King Plorf the Shiteater (a theory encouraged by popular horror author Grover Flaggett), but this hypothesis has largely been discredited. Later, some people thought the “Wizard” referred to one of the mysterious monks of Mount Ssyclo, who were rumored to perform dark feats of magic. This theory was debunked by science-fiction and horror author L.D. Blackwater, who spent time on Mount Ssyclo in the 1920s. According to Blackwater, “The Ssyclo don’t call their priests ‘wizards.’ They call them pffftssk (charlatans).” Who, then, is this “Wizard”? Apparently, the Trolol don’t even know. There is a possible translation problem, as the word “wizard” has multiple meanings in many Trolol languages. Sometimes the word “wizard” may refer to a magician, sorcerer, or high priest, but at other times, it may just mean someone who knows how to use a microwave. A new meaning of the word emerged in 2005, when the People’s President of the Democratic Republic of Ssplooj, Xlaqq Yck, watched a bootleg copy of “The Phantom Menace”. After Yck exclaimed, “This is so wizard!” at the 200th annual Puppy-Kicking Festival in Ckuk, the people of Ssplooj began to use the word as a catch-all for “amazing,” “interesting,” “great,” “festive,” and “disgusting”. (In 2007, when Xlaqq Yck died, his son Qwy outlawed this use of the word.) Another aspect of the phrase Northerners might find confusing is the lack of connection to God, or, indeed, religion, in Trolol culture. The Trolol sometimes say, “A Wizard did it” where a Northerner might say, “God knows” or “It is as God wills”. However, Trolol cultures’ views of divinity and godhood range from ambivalent to outright hostile. Is the “Wizard” their substitute for a benevolent deity? According to Trolol internet users, no. In fact, one Trolol user’s response to the question on a forum read (spelling adjusted): “Fuck that; we’re too badass to need some pussy-ass god to protect us. Not like you pussy-ass Northerners”. This answer and various similar answers have intrigued anthropologists all over the world. According to Dr. Arthur Sapp, “We may be looking at the first humanist, secular culture in history. The Trolol may have been the first people on earth to eschew gods as an explanation for natural phenomena. Whoever this ‘Wizard’ was, he must have been a scientific genius.” Others take a more cynical view of the phrase. In response to Dr. Sapp’s theory, his colleague, Dr. Walter Nagg, retorted, “What if ‘A Wizard did it’ is just an excuse?” Author J.U. Didmore has joked that “’wizard’ is a synonym for deus ex machina”. Argentine journalist Manuel Agrio, who lived in Snowland for five years, has written, “For the Trolol to make a random ‘Wizard’ responsible for all their achievements (or lack thereof) is entirely in character. You’d have to look hard to find a more close-minded, intellectually-lazy group of people anywhere in the world.” Whatever the real meaning of the phrase, the Trolol have survived for nearly 40,000 years and are likely to survive longer, if the same unknown conditions that have allowed them to cheat the forces of evolution still prevail.
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Excerpt from The Real Dark Continent: My Ten Years with the Trolol, by Leonard Diddsworth Blackwater. 1922. Chapter 1: The Lands of the Trolol
Now that I am safe, now that I’m sailing home from Antarctica, I can appreciate how lucky I am to be alive. I have been through an ordeal that was almost too much for me. I spent ten years at the bottom of the world, on a continent populated entirely by blacks, without another white man anywhere in sight. Oh, and there’s the fact that all those blacks delight in rape and cannibalism and torture and murder too; I almost forgot that part. But I spent a decade surrounded by people with dark skin and lived to tell the tale. I faced my greatest fear and not only survived, but gradually overcame much of it. After a month, I grew brave enough to leave my house. After six months, I stopped jumping and screaming whenever one of the Trolol greeted me. After a year, I was no longer soiling myself whenever one of them bumped into me. Finally, after a year and a half, I was able to watch numerous Trolol torture sessions, executions, and orgies with perfect equanimity. I think the fact that the Trolol were tormenting other Trolol instead of white people helped. To someone who used to suffer panic attacks from walking through Harlem and the Lower East Side and who hated his own name for having the word “black” in it, this is a major achievement. I can hardly wait to shock my friends and relatives back home, when I announce that I now have black friends. For I do consider the Trolol my friends now. At least none of them tried to torture or kill me, which, among the Trolol, implies friendliness. Of course, it’s possible their tolerance was due to the recent Trolol Embarrassment. (I never tried to correct anyone who spoke with pride of the “Conquest of Britain,” as I realized it would be suicidal.) I plan to focus on every aspect of Trolol civilization in this book, but for now, it would be wise to begin with a chapter on the geography of Antarctica. It will give readers a view of the whole continent and its most prominent civilizations, and it may help explain why the Trolol developed such an alien culture. It may also give the reader a long list of unpronounceable words with which to annoy his friends. To the Trolol, most of the cardinal directions are meaningless (which might explain their failure to build an overseas empire), and when they say “going north,” they just mean leaving the continent. Northerners, however, tend to divide Antarctica into the Eastern half and the Western half, or the Jaghuff half and the Dragon half, based on the animals they resemble on a map. The Jaghuff half is named after the giant Antarctic ground sloths and looks like a Jaghuff ready to spring upon the world (notwithstanding that Jaghuff are slow-moving grazers and don’t spring at all). The Dragon half looks like a sea serpent or dragon. Mind you, dragons are almost unknown to the Trolol and don’t appear in Antarctic legends or folklore, but they are amazing creatures and fierce animals, just like the Trolol (and me, since I’m friends with the Trolol), so the western part of the continent will be known as the Dragon Islands. In the northernmost part of Antarctica are the Roaring Sunshine Mountains (description is not a highly-valued skill among the Trolol). These mountains are far more impressive than their name would suggest. They stretch for a thousand miles, tower 17,000 feet, and are capped by glaciers. The glaciers are constantly melting, re-freezing, re-melting, and re-freezing as the seasons change. During the summer, enormous ice sheets break off from the mountains and slide into the ocean. Our ship nearly hit a hundred-foot iceberg, in fact. It goes without saying that navigation in these waters in winter is extremely dangerous. It probably also goes without saying that the majority of Trolol shipping occurs during winter, as well as the majority of Trolol shipwrecks. Just south of the Roaring Sunshine Mountains lies Goff Country, named after the vanished Goff people. This area is well-watered by melting ice from the glaciers and subject to flooding; however, by all accounts, the Goff persisted here for 15,000 years. Goff Country forms the northern border of Paante’en Prov, or the Sea of Cleverness, so-called because drinking its waters supposedly results in an increase in intelligence, although evidence indicates that this is a myth. Throughout history, Goff Country was almost constantly at war with the land of Blauw (which actually doesn’t mean “blue” in the local language, but “home of the superior race”). The peoples of Goff and Blauw were the scourge of Antarctica, and their wars spread death and devastation all over the continent. To the east of Goff Country and the Land of Blauw are the Ptard Steppes. Here the Ptard, the fierce riders of the Jaghuff, still live much as they have for millennia. Once, these terrifying hoards were the scourge of Antarctica. South of the Ptard Steppes lies the land of Wang-Tchung, a savage country littered with the ruins of once-great kingdoms and populated by ferocious animals and peoples. Here one may find the last wild herds of Jaghuff, as well as the rare wild Thlognok, the endangered Nwen’n bird, and the carnivorous Ragnakoo. Other animals include the jkup; and the asdfwq, tttyttyyyyyyyyyyyyuuui Excuse me; I fell asleep on my typewriter. To resume: It was in Wang-Tchung that I first heard a group of old men discussing the butchering, cooking, and eating of pregnant women, a custom that seems not only inhumane, but suicidal, in terms of population growth. Other reckless Trolol pastimes include baby-eating, self-castration, drunken circumcisions, and sticking lit firecrackers down people’s trousers. All these activities have taken a toll on many Trolol populations; the population of Blauw has dropped 40% in the last five years. But most Trolol would agree that the thrills are worth the inconvenience. At the juncture of Goff Country, Blauw, Wang-Tchung, and the Ptard Steppes is Lake Syst. On the shores of Lake Syst live the Turl, probably the most pleasant and civilized of the Trolol, although no less fierce, as they were once the scourge of Antarctica. The lake itself is drained by the Pr’p and Mf Rivers, which, along with the meltwater from the Roaring Sunshine Mountains, irrigate and flood Goff Country and Blauw. It’s a testament to the people of these waterlogged countries that they stayed in these territories for so long, rebuilding their communities after every devastating flood and growing less and less adaptable as time passed. South of Wang-Tchung is Hbrw’en Prov, or the Frosty Sea, previously sailed by the fearsome Hbrws and Dhoalts (once the scourge of Antarctica), but now frequented only by fish, seals, penguins, and the men who harvest them. Some of the fishermen of this area believe that an island exists where penguins speak in human voices, but no doubt this is only superstition. South of Hbrw’en Prov is the Trolol homeland, Trolpoluzha, with its many underground cities. The oldest city, of course, is Tchoo-Tchoo, which the people of Trolpoluzha claim is the oldest continually-inhabited city on earth. This was where the Trolol invented coal-mining, as well as monkey domestication, gunpowder, asbestos, and violent pornography. Today, Trolpoluzha is a semi-industrial powerhouse, producing 60% of the world’s cod-liver oil and 80% of the world’s calomel. Once, the Tchoo people were the scourge of Antarctica. In fact, we’ll just assume that every Trolol nation or tribe was once the scourge of Antarctica, at this point. Of course, we must mention the glacier at the center of the continent. Terrifying legends are told about this glacier, and the Trolol never go near it if they can help it; indeed, most of them never even bothered to name it. The only Trolol brave enough to give the glacier names were the Snowlanders. These names included “Evil Land,” “Ice Mountain,” and “The Big White Scary Thing at the Center of the World,” but most often they simply referred to it as “The Glacier”. Finally, south of the Jaghuff half of Antarctica, we come to Qaowabnga Prov, or the Stormy Sea, named, of course, for its storms. Now we move west, to the Dragon Islands. Each island is its own nation, and each has its own memorable culture and history: Gozhz’r, Haaqt, Ssplooj, Snohrl’x, and Qwertyuiol. These first three islands are home to extensive glaciers, and winters are severe. As a result, the people of these islands are judged to be the toughest and fiercest of the Trolol, except for the Goff, and the Ptard, and the Hbrw…well, they judge themselves to be the toughest and fiercest, anyway. No Antarctic geography would be complete without mentioning the famous chain of islands which the Trolol discovered late in their history: Snowland (Ssybaboor), Ice Island (Qwertf’k), Frost Land (Hbrw’en Baboor), and Cold Place (Dudddoomph). Today, all these islands together are simply called Snowland. These islands were so barren and desolate that they were inhospitable to any but the most primitive life—except for penguins, and seals, and dumbats, and impossums, and parrotters, and Rape Apes, and the people that eventually migrated there. The Trolol waged some of their many wars over these islands, as they mistakenly believed they could be made habitable. Eventually, the Trolol nations abandoned Snowland, and the people who lived there were free to develop their disturbing, bizarre society, eventually becoming—you guessed it—the scourge of Antarctica. You’d think that by this point, new scourges of Antarctica would not be worth noting. Given the disturbing behavior of all the Trolol nations that came before—Tchoo, Goff, Ptard, Hbrw, Turl, and the rest—you’d think no new Trolol society could surpass the older ones in disgusting behavior and atrocities. But the Snowlanders managed to do it. If there is one tradition that all the Trolol have in common, it’s lowering the bar for human behavior. In some ways, Captain Cook’s discovery of the Trolol was a tragedy for the rest of the human race. There are many people who say that it would have been better never to know that these people existed. However, if the Trolol’s delusions about the rest of the world are ever shattered, the effect on them will be far worse than our knowledge of the Trolol was on us.
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At the edge of the Glacier, c. 18,000 BCE
Yiff was shivering so hard he could barely breathe. His hands and feet had lost all feeling. His tears froze on his cheeks as they streamed from his eyes. He and his tribe had thought they could survive the winter on the edge of the glacier, the big scary white thing at the center of the world. No one would attack them so close to such a cold, white place, he thought, and for most of the winter, he’d been right. But just as the sun had begun to rise and the ice had begun to melt, another tribe had come and slaughtered everyone but his immediate family. Life could be so unfair sometimes, he thought. Not that he could blame the other tribe, exactly. Not because they slaughtered his people (although his people had been really annoying), but because food was so scarce these days. It seemed like even in the fruitful time of summer, the land was barer of edible plants than it used to be. It also seemed to be more crowded, with other tribes meeting and fighting them everywhere they traveled. Sometimes, Yiff’s tribe would kill the other people and would have enough meat to last them for days, if not weeks. Other times, the strangers would try to feed on them, and Yiff and his people would barely escape with their lives. A long, wavering tentacle burst out of the ice in the distance. Yiff blinked, and the tentacle vanished. His imagination, then. He couldn’t bring himself to care. If he was to survive at all, he would have to kill and eat a member of his family. His wife, Mirta, had the most meat on her, but she also had the most useful skills, especially—Yiff shuddered—breeding. Same with his daughter. It would probably have to be his son, even though he was the skinniest. On the other hand, did Yiff have to kill his children at all? His brain moved sluggishly, from cold and starvation. It had taken six—or was it nine?—years for his daughter to be born. Then it had been two—or five?--years before his son was born. And that didn’t even count the stillborn children Mirta had had. Maybe breeding took so much time and effort that eating one’s own children was a waste. Maybe it would be wiser to make sure his children grew up, to breed children of their own. No, that was just a crazy idea. Children were weak and useless, and they died so easily anyway. Better if they were eaten. Anyway, he and Mirta could always make more. Yiff hated having sex with human women; every time he went to lie in his wife’s bedroll, his skin crawled. But such was life. Unless the handsome, tentacled stud of his dreams crawled up from some abyss to carry him off, he would be stuck starving, freezing, and fathering human children. At least Mirta still knew nothing. But lately, his dreams of tentacles were becoming more vivid. Monstrous, thick as tree trunks, they squirmed all over his body, leaving a slimy trail that smelled of rotting fish, their suckers tearing away strips of his flesh. In some dreams, the tentacles were covered with crusty, oozing barnacles, which clung to his skin and left sweet agony in their wake when they were pulled away. Yiff writhed in these dreams, his flesh on fire with pain and lust, and finally the largest tentacle would move down towards his anus, position itself, and begin to spray a steady stream of slime into his anal cavity…and Yiff would wake up panting, with a raging erection, his fingers too numb to masturbate. One night, he had woken up to find Mirta staring at him. “What were you dreaming about?” “What?” Yiff was still remembering a barnacle ripping off his balls in the dream. “What were you dreaming about? You were talking in your sleep.” “I was?” “Yep. Loudly. You just yelled, ‘Stick your quivering proboscis of lust into my puckered love cave!’” Yiff felt his face heat up. His dream had been especially realistic. Oh, gods, did I really say that? “It was a nightmare,” he said quickly. “I didn’t know I was talking.” “Oh.” Mirta shrugged. “All right.” She rolled over and went back to sleep. Phew, thought Yiff. That was close. Not that Mirta would be able to do anything to him while he was watching her. He was the head of the family, and he was a man, which meant he was automatically stronger and better than her and could settle her with one hand. But she might be able to sneak up on him and stick a knife in him. Several smaller tentacles seemed to be sticking out of the ice farther on. Yiff squinted against the dazzlingly-bright light. No, those weren’t tentacles. They were stems of plants. Yiff let out a cry of excitement—only with his weakness and shortness of breath, it sounded more like a wheeze—and tried to run towards the plants, only to stumble and fall face-down into the snow. He was too weak to stand up; Mirta and the children had to drag him over to the patch of greenery. He could hear Mirta grumbling under her breath. “Fuck you too, you non-tentacled freak,” he mumbled. “What was that?” “Nothing.” To make matters worse, the plants turned out to be inedible weeds. Yiff, Mirta, and the children gobbled them down anyway, of course. But Yiff knew the family would pay the price for their full stomachs with cramps and constipation later. He flopped down in the snow, almost ready to give up. Instead of full stomachs, starvation. Instead of edible plants like blackroot, useless weeds. Instead of sexy tentacle monsters, disgusting human women. Life outright sucked, but perhaps Yiff could do something about it. “What…” he croaked. “What if…we…replaced…weeds…with…useful plants?” “What?” Mirta asked. Yiff took a deep breath, gathered his strength, and repeated himself. “What? How?” “Save…stems…put in…ground…’stead of…weeds…” mumbled Yiff. He was getting sleepier; everything seemed to be growing warmer. “Save the stems instead of eating them?” Mirta said, sounding horrified. “Are you crazy? That’s like letting children grow up instead of eating them! It’s suicide!” “You’re right,” Yiff slurred. It would be suicide. Mirta may have been disgusting and non-tentacled, but she was smart. A rushing sound filled his ears. Maybe he could think of another idea after a short nap… Suddenly, he was lifted into the air. Mirta screamed. Yiff gasped as his limbs were yanked painfully out to the sides…by giant, slimy tentacles, just as thick and slippery as they were in his dreams. He felt the suckers ripping his skin, the ooze running over his body, and he suddenly found his voice. “Yes! Drive your long train into my tunnel of love!” he screamed in ecstasy. Those were his last words. Mirta and the children didn’t wait to watch the ensuing tentacle rape. They ran as fast as they could away from the glacier, fear putting new strength into their limbs. They stumbled through the snow, sometimes falling, but jumping up again. It was only when they reached the seashore, where most of the snow was melted and the air seemed comparatively warm, that they stopped to rest. “Look!” Mirta’s son shouted, pointing. A dead squid lay washed up on the rocks. He and his sister immediately ran over to it, began tearing it apart, and cramming pieces of dead, dried-up cephalopod into their mouths. But Mirta took one look at the tentacles and sank onto her knees, overcome by grief and nausea. She burst into tears and knelt sobbing for a long time, with her hands over her face. “Mother?” she heard her daughter say, sounding worried. “What’s the matter, mother?” “Your father is dead,” Mirta said. “Dead—from a creature like what you and your brother are eating!” “Oh.” The girl stared uncertainly at the tentacle in her hand. “I’ll never be able to eat squid again!” sobbed Mirta. “But you’ll starve!” her daughter protested. “No,” Mirta said, as a new idea came into her mind. “We will honor your father’s dying wish. We’ll replace weeds with useful plants.” Her daughter looked skeptical. “Are you sure that’s going to work?” “Your father just got raped to death by a tentacle monster,” Mirta said angrily. “Are you really going to worry about logic now?” Her daughter swallowed, looking sick. “Good point.”
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Antarctic monkeys are as interesting and mysterious as the Trolol, perhaps even more so, because their very existence has always puzzled biologists and anthropologists. While we have theories for how the Trolol first landed on Antarctica, nobody has been able to explain how these monkeys ever reached the South Pole, or how their unusual traits and behavior evolved. There is no satisfactory explanation for where the ancestors of Antarctic monkeys came from. Australia is out of the question, since it never had any native nonhuman primate species. The Trolol used to claim that Antarctic monkeys were descendants of South American monkeys that migrated before the split between Antarctica and South America—despite the theory that this split occurred 180 million years ago, while monkeys first migrated to South America from Africa 40 million years ago. Northern scientists lost count of the times they had to bring up this theory to their Trolol colleagues. Eventually, Trolol scientists did accept that the theory about monkey migration from South America was unlikely. Later, these same scientists proposed improbable hypotheses involving winged monkeys and time machines, but these ideas were abandoned as well. Today, nobody has any realistic theories for how these monkeys traveled such a long distance to colonize such an isolated continent. “It’s crazy,” Dr Arthur Sapp once remarked as an undergraduate. “It’s like somebody picked up monkeys from South America and moved them down to the South Pole.” While this theory, if it was one, was laughed down by Sapp’s classmates, there is no denying that the presence of monkeys in Antarctica seems to contradict all previous theories of evolution, extinction, and migration. In fact, believers in intelligent design have used these monkeys as evidence of the existence of God, much to the displeasure of Northern and Trolol scientists alike. While it’s believed that climate change resulting from the Grande Coupure eventually caused the extinction of monkey species in Europe and North America, the Antarctic monkey species must have been resilient to it. In fact, one might say they thrived as a result, as there are currently thirty monkey species in Antarctica today. All these monkey species build elaborate nests for the winter, gather food and hoard it, similar to European, North American, and Asian squirrel and chipmunk species, and grow thick fur coats for winter. No other known monkey species living in temperate environments have developed these behaviors, not even the Japanese macaque, which has the most northerly range of any non-human primate in the northern hemisphere. What is it about these monkeys that caused them to respond so differently to a cooling climate? The Trolol have several theories of their own about Antarctic monkeys, as demonstrated in the following quotes:
“A Wizard did it.”
--the typical Trolol response
“Maybe they were smart enough to build boats.”
--Wut Ckrood, a bartender in Tchoo-Tchoo
“They flew down here. Monkeys had wings millions of years ago, but they lost the ability to fly, just like penguins. Duh.”
--Prr’tnt’tush, a teaching assistant at Plorf IV University, in Turl
“They just got here and evolved okay? They’re the smartest fucking monkeys on earth and we don’t have to sit here and take this from you so shut up you fucking racists!
--Blagh Fck’t, webmaster of the site “Trolol Rool Northrnrs Drool!” and owner of over 24 tumblr accounts
“Who cares? We’ve got fucking MONKEYS on our continent! You Northerners can keep your blow-up dolls; give me a Sex Monkey any day!”
--Bisst Yalti, photographer and editor of Butt Monkey magazine
“Monkeys are too hot not to have in Antarctica.”
--Internet user big_banana64
“I threw my wife out and got a monkey concubine. My sex life has never been better.”
--Internet user ReddestButt12345
“Monkeys are sexy.”
--Anonymous
“Monkeys turn me on.”
--Anonymous
“I jerk off in the monkey house at the zoo.”
--Anonymous
“I shit on my Sex Monkey’s face every night.”
--Anonymous Perhaps there really aren’t many Trolol theories for how Antarctic monkey behavior evolved. However, it’s obvious why the Trolol get so defensive whenever Northerners criticize these mysterious monkeys.
“Antarctican Animals Take Over the Big World.” Tcharrli Brauwen, A Famous American Scientist. 1998.
Invasive species are a big, big problem these days. Like bullfrogs in Australia, cane toads in America, kudzu in New Zealand, and weasels and rats in Brazil. Most people think that species from larger, more diverse regions out-compete species from smaller, less diverse regions, but in the case of Antarctica, that’s simply not true. Never mind why; it just isn’t. For example, The Conquest of Britain resulted in the spread of Antarctican grasses and sedges all over Scotland. These grasses and sedges could not be eaten by British herbivores, so the British imported Jaghuff to eat them. Another example is Antarctican monkeys. America and Europe imported them to pick cotton and fruit (stories of slavery in the American South have been greatly exaggerated), and they have driven American and European animals that hoard food for winter (like squirrels, raccoons, and jackalopes) to the brink of extinction. In fact, the raccoon is now an endangered species, extinct in 80% of its former range…“That’s a filthy damn lie,” Wabuu the cheeky raccoon said softly, as he gripped the blood-stained axe in his front paws. Below him was a trench dug by him and his fellow woodland animals, a mass grave. Lying in the grave were the mangled bodies of over forty Antarctic monkeys. “I am the biggest monkey hunter ever,” Wabuu said, licking his lips in bloodthirsty enjoyment. A bird laughed silently and shat on his head. “Damn,” cursed Wabuu. “That bird has attacked the wrong raccoon.” He took aim and hurled his axe at the bird. There was a squawk, and the luckless bird was pinned to the ground, spraying blood and feathers everywhere. “I don’t have to take any crap from you,” Wabuu told the dead bird. Suddenly, Wabuu heard an ear-splitting screech. Scanning the washed-out, crude-looking landscape, he saw three Antarctic monkeys slithering across the ground. It was a sight that had grown all too familiar in the last few days. Wabuu sighed. “Here we go again,” he said, picking up his axe. He hopped over to the monkeys. As usual, they were lying on their stomachs, blinking stupidly. The Antarctic monkeys always got confused and were too stupid to move forward more than a few feet at a time. And the monkeys really did slither. Unlike raccoons that hopped like kangaroos, monkeys that slithered like snakes just weren’t normal. “Slithering monkeys aren’t believable,” grumbled Wabuu. He was all the more eager to destroy them because of that. “Oh…look!” shouted one of the monkeys, in an annoying human child’s voice and English even poorer than Wabuu’s own. “It is…an ugly…Northern monkey…with stripes…hee, hee, hee, hee!” The other monkeys joined in on his obnoxious giggling. “Allow me to welcome you to your new home,” Wabuu said. “Oh…yes,” said the monkey. “We are…very much happy…to be here…and take over the world…very much.” “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Wabuu said, smiling creepily. With one swing of the axe, he chopped off the monkey’s head. Blood sprayed into the air. “Damn,” one of the other monkeys said blandly, with an odd smile on its face. It didn’t even try to escape. Wabuu cut off this monkey’s head next. “Owa!” exclaimed the third monkey, even though Wabuu hadn’t hurt it. Like the other monkeys, it lay on the grass, not even trying to move. “Owa!” it said again, as Wabuu’s axe sliced into its neck. “Monkeys from Antarctica are sooo stupid,” Wabuu said, cackling.
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There are many characteristics that make an animal possible to domesticate. A major trait is the type of food the animal eats: animals which eat food that humans don’t eat, such as grass, are easier to domesticate than animals which may compete with humans for food sources. Temperament is another factor: pleasant, predictable, calm animals are much easier to control, especially in enclosed spaces. The earliest domesticated animals, such as goats, sheep, and cattle, exhibited these traits, making them ideal species for domestication by early humans. The Trolol, however, never even tried to domesticate such animals. In fact, archaeological evidence seems to indicate that they blatantly ignored them. Instead, from their arrival at the South Pole, they attempted to domesticate the most dangerous, least controllable, most inconvenient animals on the continent. The first known Trolol domesticate was the Antarctic monkey. Archaeological remains show that the Trolol fed on the monkeys themselves, as well as their hoarded food, starting in 35,000 BCE. Eventually, however, some humans decided that the monkeys’ meat, though full of protein and iron and fat, was not nearly as valuable as their hoards of fruits, nuts, and tubers, despite the cold climate. While typical human societies might have imitated the monkeys’ hoarding habits or just continued raiding their food supply, it seems that the Trolol decided to tame the monkeys and train them to gather food for the humans. The experiment met with limited success. While the monkeys gathered large supplies of food, they ate it themselves more often than not; unlike with dogs, it is difficult to teach monkeys to fetch. Moreover, keeping monkeys near human settlements proved risky, as the monkeys would frequently steal the food they had gathered for their human owners. Even many of the Trolol recognized the flaws inherent in the plan, as monkey domestication remained marginal until agriculture developed, about 18,000 years ago. However, instead of concluding (reasonably) that agriculture would make the monkeys unnecessary, the Trolol decided to train them to plant, weed, and harvest their crops. As it turned out, the monkeys proved useless at planting, and they often ate the crops they harvested, as they had eaten the fruit and nuts they’d gathered. In fact, humans who decided to plant and harvest their crops themselves had a much higher rate of survival in the winter than humans who chose to use monkeys. Moreover, it was almost impossible to train monkeys in non-traditional agricultural techniques, as they stuck rigidly to early behavioral patterns. Yet the Trolol’s faith in these monkeys’ abilities never wavered. They tried to breed monkeys as guards, food, vermin control, cleaners, alarm systems, and, most disturbing of all (to Northerners), St’nk Jyzzh, which translates to “Sex Monkeys” or “concubines”. The Sex Monkeys were bred for large size, reduction of fur, and humanlike facial features. Why the Trolol even bothered to breed Sex Monkeys, as opposed to having sex with human women (without eating them later), is baffling, especially since the monkeys couldn’t bear human offspring and were therefore useless for evolution and population growth. However, stubbornly clinging to illogical behavior and putting most of their effort into useless projects are proud traditions for the Trolol. The Trolol obsession with monkeys is often difficult for Northerners to understand. The Trolol have a disturbing, almost fanatical faith in their monkeys that the average Northerner only has in his or her religion, politics, or romantic relationships. If you think listening to people drone on about their dogs is annoying and boring, try listening to an average Trolol talking about Antarctic monkeys. After a while, the word “monkey” no longer sounds like a real word. And it gets worse. Wait until we get to the five-and-a-half-page chapter on Rape Apes. Antarctica was rich in duck and pigeon species, most of which had similar breeding and feeding habits to their northern counterparts, and all of which may have been perfect candidates for early domestication. However, the Trolol ignored these birds and attempted to domesticate a less cooperative type of bird: the penguin. Penguin domestication began about 16,000 to 17,000 years ago, some time after the development of agriculture, and was started by ancestors of the Hbrws, around the Hbrw’en Prov and on the nearby islands. As with monkey domestication, penguin domestication turned out to be grueling work, with little success. Because penguins needed access to open water, any attempt to keep them in enclosures was a failure. Attempts to start penguin rookeries near human habitation were also failures, as the penguins never left their old rookeries and couldn’t be trained to move to new ones. Eventually, the Trolol had to be content with letting the penguins choose their own rookeries, but this prevented them from taking an active part in bird breeding, or sometimes even bird feeding, when the penguins were most aggressive. In fact, many ancient human skeletons found around the Hbrw’en Prov are missing fingers, evidence of how dangerous raising penguins could be.* Therefore, the farming of penguin meat and eggs closely resembled the hunting and gathering of penguin meat and eggs. However, to this day, the Trolol insist that there is a domesticated penguin breed, penguin hunting and penguin farming are different, and Northerners are too provincial to truly understand it. One penguin product farmed by the Trolol is not disputed: twice-eaten fish, pretentiously called pâté de ventre. The Trolol observed penguins regurgitating fish, squid, and krill to feed their chicks and decided that the birds’ vomit could be a viable source of food. Despite the low nutritional value of penguin vomit and the fact that hunting or farming more meat and eggs would provide more nourishing food for a greater number of people, the Trolol began tickling penguins’ throats to make them vomit more frequently. Naturally, getting close enough to stick a twig down a penguin’s throat was even more difficult than getting close enough to toss the bird extra fish. Perhaps this is why twice-eaten fish is a rare dish even among the Trolol and considered a delicacy.** Overall, penguin domestication was not as widespread as monkey domestication: it was only practiced by the Hbrws, the Dhoalts, and the people of the Western Dragon Islands. Attempts to lure penguins inland to lakes and rivers failed completely, as did efforts to train penguins to catch fish for humans. Meanwhile, the wild flocks of ducks and pigeons were left untouched by the Trolol. According to legend, a confused Fuegian visitor listened to his Turl host complaining about the difficulties of penguin domestication (while a flock of ducks settled on Lake Cyst just behind him) and asked why the Trolol hadn’t domesticated ducks instead. Reportedly, the Trolol replied that it was “too easy, too obvious, and not badass enough”. (Most people guess, from this answer, that it had never crossed his mind before.)*The Adélie penguins of Rehctf’k (Paradise Island) are said to be so aggressive that no human ever tried to domesticate them, or even go near them. The Snowlanders called them “The Evil Scary Penguins That Feed on Human Blood”. **In 2012, Dr. R’ch Baaile of Snohrl’x University announced that he’d managed to introduce the concept of bulimia to the nearby penguin population. While this news was greeted with excitement by Antarctica’s restaurant owners, chefs, and gourmands, foreigners were less enthusiastic. In fact, animal rights activist Annetta Firsen has started a treatment center in Hobart for penguins with eating disorders.
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Trolpoluzha, c. 17,000 BCE
The child’s face exploded as he went down. Blood and something else—brain matter?—splattered Khoottchi’s face; he put out his tongue to catch the warm, delicious liquid. He continued smashing the child’s head with his staff, laughing to himself. Violent murder was wonderful. Khoottchi loved the sense of power as he beat in someone’s face with a staff, the way the bone cracked and shattered under the blows, the hot blood on his hands. Of course, it was even better when the victim was screaming or begging for mercy, but since he’d killed the boy immediately this time, that wasn’t happening. Still, it was violent murder, so Khoottchi wasn’t complaining. Suddenly, Khoottchi heard a whimper behind him, and a sob. Dropping his staff, he whirled around to see that he had an audience. A group of children was standing there watching him, with their eyes wide. Several were weeping silently. Khoottchi’s first idea was to rush up to them with his staff and kill them all, but he thought better of it. Some of them might get away and tell the village elders. Even if he did manage to slaughter them all, there was no way he could make the grisly death of eight children look like an accident. Khoottchi’s mind raced. He would have to lie his way out of his predicament. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dead seagull lying on the ground. An idea began to take shape in his mind. He arranged his facial features into what he hoped was a sorrowful expression. “I had to do it. Traut committed a mortal sin.” The children gazed at him in complete incomprehension. “A bad thing,” Khoottchi clarified. “Traut did a very bad thing. Do you know what that thing was?” The children stared at him in confusion and fear. Only two or three shook their heads. “What?” said a little girl, who must have been braver than the rest. Khoottchi picked up his staff and pointed it at the dead seagull. “He was playing with this dead bird.” He looked at the children again. His words didn’t seem to have affected them. They looked just as confused and terrified as ever. “Do you know why playing with that dead bird was such a bad thing?” “N-no,” said the same little girl. “Because the bird is white.” “Wait—what?” several of the children asked at once. “White is no color; it is evil incarnate. It is death. Small parts of it are in you and me: in our eyeballs, in our bones when the flesh leaves them.” “We know,” a bratty boy said crossly. “We know what people’s bones look like; we’ve seen them.” “What does our bones being white have to do with death?” another boy asked. “Because whiteness equals death. Whiteness comes every year, and it steals the light from the sky and the heat from the earth, it covers the ground, it kills the plants--” “We know what snow and ice are,” said another bratty child, a girl this time. “Do you think we’re stupid?” “Don’t interrupt!” snapped Khoottchi. He had to stop himself from cracking the girl’s skull with his staff. “As I was saying, whiteness brings the time of suffering and starvation.” “You mean, winter?” “Shut up!” Khoottchi was losing his audience. He had to up the scary factor. “When I was a young man, I went traveling. One day, I came to a thing.” “A what?” “A thing.” “What kind of thing?” “A cold, white thing. It was a thing of whiteness, of winter, of death. Even though it was the middle of the summer, this thing stole the heat from the ground and air.” “But what is it?” Khoottchi shook his head ominously. “It can have no name, for to name it would be to give it even greater power. But it is the source of cold, whiteness, death, suffering, and evil. Anything that’s this color is evil.” “But—our bones and eyeballs are that color, and the bones of other animals are that color,” said a boy uncertainly. “You just talked about it.” “Yes, well, this evil thing also resides in all things. That doesn’t make it any less evil,” Khoottchi said. “But that dead bird doesn’t have anything to do with snow,” a girl who looked older than the rest argued. “It’s the same color,” Khoottchi said curtly. “But that doesn’t mean anything, unless you can’t tell the difference between snow and feathers,” the girl said. “Yeah, and there’s other white stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with winter or death. White on the ocean, white rocks, Grandpa’s hair…” “Shut up!” Khoottchi said, but the other children were already chiming in. “Penguin bellies…” “Monkey and Jaghuff fur…” “Clouds on a sunny day…” “SILENCE!” Khoottchi raged. “SILENCE, BEFORE I KILL YOU ALL!” The children fell silent; their fear had returned. Khoottchi rubbed his forehead. What was the point of being clever and poetic? Brute force was always best. But perhaps there was another way. He smiled at the children. “By the way, now that Traut is dead, you can piss on his corpse. And we’ll get to eat him tomorrow.” At that, all the children’s faces lit up. “Hooray!” they shouted. They ran over to the corpse, a couple already pulling down their leggings. Phew, thought Khoottchi. Thank the gods for the sadism of children. Khoottchi should have just tempted them with torture and murder, instead of trying to craft an elaborate lie. Well, if he got caught beating someone to death next time, he would know better.The Trolol suffered from seasonal and chronic malnutrition for much of their history. Vitamin deficiencies such as scurvy, rickets, osteoporosis, and pellagra were common. Considering the sunless, six-month-long winters at the South Pole, none of this is surprising. As Trolol food sources and diets diversified, some of the problem was mitigated, but much of it continued well into the last two centuries. Part of it stemmed from their strange aversion to the color white. While Trolol infants were born with light skin, they tended not to survive long. For the Trolol, light skin was associated with weakness, corruption, and death, despite plenty of evidence that lighter-skinned people had fewer nutritional deficiencies, thanks to low amounts of melanin in their skin. However, the Trolol either never made the connection or simply ignored it. To the Trolol, suffering from rotting teeth, weak bones, inflamed skin, and mouth sores was preferable to having skin color vaguely associated with death. Oddly enough, the Trolol never seemed to have a similar aversion to animals with white fur or birds with white feathers. It should be noted that dark-skinned peoples from Africa, India, the Americas, Southeast Asia, and Oceania do not acknowledge the superficial similarities between themselves and the Trolol. In fact, most brown- or black-skinned peoples are offended by comparisons between themselves and the Trolol. The feeling is mutual; in fact, the Trolol are generally a misanthropic, xenophobic group of people, who consider themselves superior to all the other human populations on earth.
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An excerpt from Sloth Riders: A History of Draft Animals in Antarctica, by Algie Bradypus. 2002.
Jaghuff
The first domesticated draft animal in history was neither the cow nor the water buffalo nor the donkey, but the Antarctic ground sloth: the Jaghuff. Unlike in the Americas, these slow-moving giants were not hunted to extinction in Antarctica, possibly due to the Trolol’s early reluctance to eat nonhuman meat. However, about 14,000 years ago, Jaghuff were domesticated for their meat, and, about 12,000 years ago, as a draft animal, pulling plows and wheeled vehicles. Naturally, the Jaghuff moved extremely slowly, with the result that travel and plowing were utterly inefficient. A horse-drawn carriage takes an average of 8 to 12 hours to travel 50 miles, while a Jaghuff-drawn carriage takes an average of 2 to 4 days. Still, the Jaghuff were far more controllable than the monkeys and penguins had been, and therefore, their domestication was much more successful. Approximately 7,000 years ago, the Ptard nomads used Jaghuff as military mounts and established an empire over much of eastern Antarctica. Although most of their enemies managed to evacuate their cities and fortresses long before the Jaghuff cavalry reached them, the destructive power of the sloths was still impressive, due to their size and strength. The largest Jaghuff is powerful enough to push down small trees, and even stone walls, although experts are uncertain whether this is more the result of the Jaghuff’s strength or the Trolol’s shoddy construction work. While Jaghuff were successful as war mounts in Antarctica, attempts to deploy them in other nations always failed miserably. During the Trolol Embarrassment, an estimated 10,000 Jaghuff drowned on the way to the British Isles.
Bugbeasts
Bugbeasts may have one of the most misleading names in history. They are not insects or even related to them, but mammals, descendants of animals of the order Pyrotheria. Pyrotheres were ungulates that were common in South America between 66 and 23 million years ago. Like Antarctic monkeys, they probably swam the Drake passage or were moved south by the hand of God. Pyrotheres have the bulk of elephants, hippopotami, and rhinoceros, long noses ranging from tapir-sized to elephant-sized, and tusks reminiscent of boar or elephant tusks, depending on the size. Apparently, the men in Captain Cook’s crew noticed none these traits, but they did notice the pyrotheres’ large, protruding eyes, as well as the fact that one species’ curled-up trunk resembled a moth’s proboscis (where and when the sailors got a close look at a moth’s proboscis is an unsolvable mystery). Hence the Northern term for the creatures: “bugbeasts”. What Captain Cook thought of the name can be read below in one of his journal entries:
My companions have given these animals the name, “bugbeasts”. Because of all the many animals which these creatures resemble, such as elephants, boars, tapirs, hippopotami, and rhinoceros, the most obvious…is the moth.
Between the illogical name, many of my companions’ rhapsodies over how handsome and manly the natives are, and one Richard Johnson’s new propensity for making obscene puns, something has gone seriously amiss with my crew.
It should be emphasized that the Trolol name for the bugbeast, thlognok, means “moth-like,” so Captain Cook’s crew were not the only people to notice the resemblance between Antarctic pyrotheres and insects. In fact, Trolol scientists have described the name “bugbeast” as “the only thing Northerners have ever gotten right about our continent”. Bugbeasts were first domesticated in Wang-Tchung about 11,000 years ago. The Trolol used them as riding mounts and draft animals, as well as for wool and meat. However, bugbeasts preferred wet environments and did poorly in dryer areas; in fact, Trolol from more arid parts of Antarctica have frequently labeled bugbeasts as “completely useless”. Widespread bugbeast use has therefore been confined to Wang-Tchung, Goff Country, and Blauw.
“The Middle Ages Is A Time Of Death And Tragedy.” Ltoth Klmphf. 35,000, Late Age (2008).
Us Trolol divide our history lore into three big ages. The first is the Early Age, which is from the year 0 to the year 18,000, or as the Northerners say, 36,000 to 18,000 BCE (which stands for Because Early). This is also the saddest part of Trolol history, because we were just hunters and gatherers and nobody had domesticated crops or animals and we had to suffer and die from cold-cold, scary-scary winters. Then there’s the Middle Ages, from the year 18,000 to 26,000 (or 18,000 to 8,000 BCE). Things got better, since us Trolol started farming and domesticating animals (especially monkeys) and building towns. The Late Age is from 26,000 to the present. Northerners divide their history lore into more ages, and they have, like, 50 Late Ages. When you ask them why, they say it’s because more stuff happened in their later history lore. They know literally nothing about the time when they were hunter-gatherers. Which is stupid. To us Trolol, it’s really, really important to take note of every single year we spent suffering and starving and dying and eating each other. Our suffering has made us what we are today. Everything that’s happened since 26,000 isn’t as important. I don’t know why other people say our lore history books are so boring. I mean, the time period from 0 to 26,000 is important to us, and it reminds us that we’re stronger and better and more badass than everyone else. But Northerners are dumb and small-minded and wimpy, so they don’t get it. Anyway, the Middle Ages started out great, but things got bad, because people started cutting down pretty much all the trees to plant more crops. But for some reason, none of the trees grew back. And we tried to plant more trees like we did with all our crops, but that didn’t work. They just didn’t grow back fast enough, or the Jaghuff and Thlognok knocked them over or ate them. I don’t know why Northerners are always blathering about saving trees. They have plenty of trees. They’re swimming in trees. They have lots more trees than we ever did. We got rid of all our trees, and we turned out just fine. But we weren’t doing fine then, because we didn’t have anymore wood to burn. So everything got cold-cold again. And we started starving again, and everything was scary-scary, just like before. That’s why the Middle Ages became a Tragedy, because so many people died. But in the year 26,000, Yxlax of Trolpoluzha invented coal. Coal was the best thing to ever happen to us, it saved us. The Northerners want to get rid of coal now, because they just don’t understand. Stupid Northerners.
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Trolpoluzha, c. 8000 BCE
The weather had turned colder, but sadly, it was too late in the year to gather wood, Yxlax thought. It was also too late to go swimming, pick flowers, and hunt baby animals. Day and night followed each other now; it seemed like every year, the light and dark fought over which would have supremacy over the land. Yxlax wished the light would just vanquish the dark already, and bring balance to the force, whatever that meant. Three years ago, he had been the chief of a tribe numbering almost 400: 400 unbelievably stupid people. It was their fault things had begun to go badly, and it all started when they cut down the trees around their land. Yxlax vaguely remembered that he had helped cut down the trees himself, but that had to be a false memory. There was no way he could have made such a stupid mistake. Once the trees were gone, the land dried up. Water didn’t sink into the soil, but washed it away. The harvest was poor; not even using the most well-trained monkeys to gather the crops helped. That winter had lasted a long time, well into light and dark’s yearly battle. The tribe had had to kill half their Jaghuff for food, burn the clothing and blankets of the weak, and even eat their frozen dead. Once the ice and snow finally melted, they moved on. Yet things were no better in the new lands. Trees were just as scarce there, and there were more powerful enemies surrounding them. They could kill and feed on the smaller, weaker tribes, but not the larger, stronger ones. Once again, their crops had grown poorly, and again, the winter had been harsh. When Yxlax had to decide whether his tribe should slaughter their children or the rest of their Jaghuff, he had immediately chosen the children. There would always be more children; he didn’t know how they could get more Jaghuff—even though Jaghuff young were born every spring, and Jaghuff pregnancies didn’t last as long as human pregnancies. Well, Jaghuff couldn’t talk; therefore, they were less annoying than children. But that was not the main reason for Yxlax’s decision. There would always be more children. Unfortunately, people still died of starvation, and by freezing. The idiots. They couldn’t even survive after eating their own children. Why had Yxlax been saddled with a tribe of such fools? Less than 200 fools now. The tribe’s hopes were dashed when they reached a small pile of dried leaves and twigs, which had once been a stand of trees. Now, the trees were gone, probably taken by the Tchoo or the Myhlf or one of the many other tribes. Yxlax’s heart filled with despair. He was definitely unhappy and depressed. He knew the poor crop yields were connected to the loss of the trees. But how could they possibly keep themselves warm without cutting the trees down? Why didn’t trees grow as quickly as the smaller plants they used for crops? As night fell, the group made camp in a dry stream bed, building a small, weak fire from dried grass. Yxlax sat down, felt a sharp pain in his ass, and jumped up with a curse. He’d sat on a small, jagged rock. But what a beautiful rock it was. It was black and shiny. Yxlax turned it over and over in his hands, admiring its shininess. Other than how it looked, it seemed useless; a piece of it broke off, and it didn’t have a sharp enough edge to make into a spear point or cutting tool. But it was definitely pretty. Maybe he could give it to some woman, so she would sleep with him. Perhaps it could be made into jewelry. Or he could just stare at it; that was fine too. It was just so shiny… “What are you doing?” Yxlax tore his eyes away from the rock and glared at Krohpu, the man in the tribe he hated most, who was standing in front of him. “Nothing,” he answered. “What’s that you have in your hand?” Krohpu demanded. “A pretty rock.” “Oh, great. A pretty rock. Is that your next brilliant plan for us? We get to eat rocks?” “No,” Yxlax said angrily, but as he looked at the rock again, his anger dissipated. It was so pretty. “It’s just really black and shiny.” “Then throw it on the fire!” Krohpu said. “If we can’t eat it, and it can’t warm us up, what’s the point?” “But it’s pretty,” Yxlax murmured, trying to see his reflection in the rock. “It’s pretty, my love…my precious…” Krohpu spluttered and jumped backwards. “What did you just call me?” “Oh, no, I didn’t mean you; I meant the rock,” Yxlax said, trying to reassure him. “Oh, freeze your rock!” Before Yxlax could process what was happening, Krohpu pried the rock from his hands and hurled it onto the fire. “No!” cried Yxlax, kneeling down, hoping to save his precious treasure. But it was too late; his rock was already burning. Yxlax glared into the fire, watching the rock burn. Freeze Krohpu for taking away the first thing in three years to distract him from his cold and hunger. He hoped Krohpu would die once winter arrived. As the rock burned, and the flames rose higher, Yxlax tried to make plans. They would have to find yet another land. Most likely, it would be the same as the lands he and his tribe had already passed through. How long would it be before there wasn’t a single tree left? Yxlax grew drowsy as the people murmured in wonderment at the bigger flame and moved closer to the campfire. Somewhere out there was an untouched, empty land, full of trees to cut down for firewood, plentiful roots and berries, and competent monkeys. Maybe he should write a song about such a land. His eyes fell on the fire again, the pretty colors the burning rock made. Pretty, pretty colors. They weren’t as shiny as the rock, but they were still pretty, like the lights that appeared in the night sky every winter. Best of all, they weren’t white. White was evil incarnate. The people were talking to each other now, sounding excited. Poor, poor fools; they still had hope. They just couldn’t reason things out the way Yxlax could, so they still thought some empty, tree-filled land was waiting for them. Yxlax shifted on the ground. He must be falling asleep; the air even seemed warmer. His eyes began to close on his burning rock… Wait a minute. The rock was burning? Rocks weren’t supposed to burn! Yxlax’s eyes snapped open. He was wide awake now. “That rock…it’s burning!” he said. The rest of the tribe just looked at him. “We know,” someone said. Yxlax’s mind worked furiously, and another idea came to him. “The burning rock…it made the fire bigger!” “Yes, we know,” that same person said. “We noticed it thirty minutes ago.” “And the air is warmer…the burning rock must have caused it!” Yxlax said triumphantly. “Were you asleep for the last half hour?” a woman said, rolling her eyes. Yxlax ignored her, picked up an ordinary pebble, and tossed it onto the fire. Nothing happened. It was only the black rock that was burning, not the pebble. So, something about the black, shiny rock made it catch fire. His precious wasn’t only pretty, but useful! Yxlax began frantically hunting for more shiny, black rocks, crawling around on his hands and knees. People cried out in protest as he bumped into them or scrambled over their legs, but he ignored them. He searched with his hands, feeling for the softness and the not-so-sharp edges. After a while, he had a handful, and he began tossing them onto the fire, one by one. “Stop that, you fool! Don’t waste them!” the woman next to him said, grabbing his arm. “Shut up!” Yxlax said, shaking her off. “I need to see if they actually work.” Fortunately, it seemed like they did, or at least the blackest and shiniest ones did. The paler, duller ones didn’t burn at all. Yxlax sat back and wondered what to do. Of course, the most obvious decision would be to kill everyone else in the tribe, steal the Jaghuff, and go on to conquer new lands on his own. He was the only person who knew the secret of the burning rocks, and it had to stay that way. He would have unlimited power, and he could remake the world in his own image. Unfortunately, there were too many other hostile tribes, and he wouldn’t last long if he tried to fight them by himself. So, he was stuck with his companions. He supposed he had to use the secret of the rocks to help the others survive too. He sighed in disappointment. Where to get more rocks, enough to survive the upcoming winter? Yxlax thought hard, his head aching with the effort. They’d found the rocks in a stream bed, so they must have been washed down by the stream. But they’d been jagged, not smooth and rounded like typical stones in streams and rivers. Probably the lack of trees was causing the water to behave strangely. Or maybe the stream had washed these rocks down more recently than others. Tomorrow, Yxlax would take some companions and search for more of the pretty rocks upstream, he decided. If his theory was right and they did find rocks, they could settle the whole tribe nearby. Then they could easily access the rocks all winter and collect enough to burn until spring. Unfortunately, his dimwitted companions probably wouldn’t accept it at first. They would only try out his idea later in the winter, when desperation set in. Because obviously, desperation hadn’t set in yet, even though half the tribe was dead, three quarters of the Jaghuff were dead, the remaining tribe members were starving, and winter was almost here. No, things only became desperate when everyone in your tribe except you and your immediately family was dead, and you were in so much pain that you were praying to die. Anyway, Yxlax was the chief of the tribe; it wasn’t like he had authority over his people. But once things did become desperate, Yxlax would become a great man. Never mind never being hungry or cold again; he would finally get the admiration and power he deserved. He could take many women to his bedroll, and demand the sacrifice of other men’s children. Even though there would always be more children. He would just have to keep demanding sacrifices. He would also have to murder his companions, once they’d helped him find the sources of the pretty rocks. The secret of these rocks must be his alone; this was the only way he could have power over his tribe, even though he was a chief. It wasn’t his fault he had to be chief over such a bunch of morons. But soon they would cringe in terror before him. Soon he would have power, in more ways than one. He smiled and said aloud, “I can hardly wait for winter to start!” The people closest to him just stared, with looks of mingled horror and pity on their faces. Well, he didn’t care. Soon, they would be sorry. “The future is bright, and hot with fire and blood!” Yxlax continued. “Because winter is coming! We do not sow! Ours is the fury! Growing strong! Hear me roar!” The people started scooting away from him. Yxlax’s brilliant plan worked for about two weeks. Then he was torn apart by starving Antarctic devils. The rest of the tribe ate what was left of him and continued to collect pretty rocks from upstream.
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Thanks to the severity of Antarctic winters, population density in ancient Antarctica followed patterns more similar to those in the arid regions of Asia and Africa rather than those in the more temperate regions of Europe or the more tropical regions of Africa and southeast Asia. Centralization of resources was the key: settled communities that could grow a surplus of food and access a surplus of winter fuel had more people in them than those with less access to winter supplies. These larger communities could support semi-urban populations, as well as people who didn’t grow their own crops: artisans, priests, and rulers. As in the prehistoric Old World, it was these types of communities that would grow into the first cities. It is still unclear why large-scale agriculture developed in Antarctica in the first place, as the Trolol’s staple crops were tubers instead of grain, and the freezing winters only allowed one harvest a year. Nobody is sure why the Trolol didn’t remain hunter-gatherers, like the Inuit of the Arctic, or like their ancestors, the Australian Aborigines. Most likely a Wizard did it. Whatever the reason, these larger Trolol communities were well on their way to building cities, until large-scale deforestation led to a reduction in wood supplies, leading to mass die-offs in winter. The communities began to dig into the earth instead of building shelters on the surface, which not only solved the problem of insulation, but allowed coal mining to develop. It is now accepted that the Trolol were the first people in history to mine coal, although it seems their recognition of its heating properties developed later. Archaeologists excavating ancient underground villages have found jewelry made of coal, but no evidence of coal burning. These findings seem to indicate that the Trolol first valued coal for decorative properties, described as spahrk’l, or “shininess” by the people of Trolpoluzha. In 1954, archaeologist Idaho Cooper published an article stating that the ancient Trolol also gave coal as presents to naughty children (before butchering and eating said children), but this finding ultimately proved to be false. Yet the article had a profound effect on Northern pop culture. Many children believe that Santa Claus has an army of “dark elves” at the South Pole who mine a steady supply of coal for Santa to give bad children on Christmas Eve.* Once the Trolol did recognize coal’s heating properties, they were quick to develop mining techniques, as well as advances in heat distribution in both air and water in their underground cities. Such advances were not without danger; ancient coal mines and underground towns are often littered with charred or broken human remains. Archaeologists believe that these are the remains of workers, who were burned to death or died in explosions or mine cave-ins. In Tchoo-Tchoo, horror stories are still told of the ghosts of men who died to build the ancient Tchoo-Tchoo mining complex, or of the albino mole-people who are descended from them. Yet eventually, the Trolol did master coal mining and heat distribution, and the underground cities of Trolpoluzha grew, heated throughout the year by a source that Northerners would not exploit until thousands of years later. Coal-burning also had a positive ecological effect on the Antarctic landscape. When deforestation lessened, the trees slowly grew back, and within a millennium, Antarctica’s ancient forests were well on their way to recovery. Overall, despite the many deaths associated with it, coal mining and burning had such a positive effect on Trolol civilization that the idea of phasing out coal as a source of energy is unthinkable to the Trolol. Environmentalism as Northerners understand it is nonexistent in Antarctica. In fact, the Trolol are excited at the idea of climate change, and state repeatedly that they’ll welcome the day when the glacier at the continent’s center finally melts. Even the descendants of the Hbrws and Dhoalts, who live near the coasts, and the Western Dragon Islanders are enthusiastic about climate change. So far, warnings that rising sea levels will drown their communities have fallen on deaf ears. Therefore, if you’re an environmentalist and travel down to Antarctica, just smile and act gracious if a Trolol thanks you for warming the planet. Contradicting him or her can only lead to arguments, physical fights, severe injury, and possibly even death.*In the 1970s, the Trolol, quick to cash in on this new pop culture phenomenon, produced a series of Christmas movies focusing on Antarctica and the dark elves, such as Dusty the Coal Man, Xrunkph the Red-Bottomed Monkey, and Santa Claus Conquers the Snowlanders. Like most Trolol entertainment for children, they gave numerous Northern children nightmares.
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Antarctic animal domestication was bizarre and nonsensical. Perhaps no group of animals demonstrates this better than the marsupitheropods (“pouch-beast-foot”) or, as the Trolol call them, the tlacrapl. Marsupitheropods (often shortened to MSTP) are marsupial predators that resemble kangaroos. They are bipedal, with large feet and heavy tails, and they move around by hopping. However, they also have clawed hands and feet, similar to Deinonychus and other theropod dinosaurs, and fangs, which are adaptations to their predator lifestyle. Like other Antarctic animals, they possess many traits that make them so much better than typical Northern predators or Australian marsupials. They are highly social, nocturnally adapted, and even tool users, like primates. They are also described as having humanlike faces, despite how idiotic this trait is. The largest MSTP, as well as the most feared, is the saber-footed roo, a giant marsupial seven feet tall, which hunts in pods. As its name would imply, the saber-footed roo is an evolutionary analogue to the extinct saber-toothed cat, except the saber in question describes the claws on its feet instead of its teeth. Although the long, sharp claws make locomotion rather difficult, they are a fearsome, effective weapon: the saber-footed roo jumps onto its prey and slashes it with powerful kicks. Usually one saber-footed roo is enough to kill a large prey animal, even the largest Jaghuff and bugbeasts, although the whole pod always feeds on the kill. Despite evolving to hunt and kill large prey, saber-footed roos often prey on humans if no larger prey is available, thereby ensuring that they’re feared by human populations and therefore the scariest predator ever, which makes them cool. Of course, the Trolol are even cooler, because they semi-domesticated the saber-footed roos, although many anthropologists consider the decision to domesticate a seven-foot-tall predator with sword-like claws stupid. “Who even does that?” is the most common comment. But despite the difficulty of domestication (the actual number of human deaths is unknown, though suspected to be high), the Trolol traditionally use saber-footed roos in blood sport. The most popular live entertainment in Antarctica involves a saber-footed roo battle in an arena, in which the animals are pitted against each other, other animals, or even human prisoners. While many Northerners are squeamish about the violence and cruelty of these fights, the Trolol typically revel in them (they will even pay high prices to sit close enough to be showered with blood). More numerous than the saber-footed roos are the ragnakoos. As their name suggests, the ragnakoos are pretty much carnivorous kangaroos in appearance. However, their behavior more closely resembles that of wolves: they live and hunt in pods (although their pods consist of ten or more animals, larger than typical wolf packs), hunt cooperatively, and learn from each other. The parallels don’t end there: after ragnakoos were domesticated, about 12,000 years ago, they resembled dogs in many ways pretty much every conceivable way. They proved excellent hunting companions, loyal and affectionate pets, and even effective at animal herding. Ragnakoos have many unique qualities unknown in other marsupial species but which clearly make them improved versions of dogs and better in every way. For one thing, like other MSTP and primates, they often use tools, fishing termites out of mounds with sticks, or crushing bones with rocks. For another thing, wild ragnakoos may actually specialize in human hunting, and their pods may congregate into groups of 50-100 animals, making them a terrifying force. In fact, one aggregate pod of 150 ragnakoos slaughtered and ate every human and animal in several villages. This obviously means that they’re fierce and scary and therefore badass, just like every person and animal in Antarctica. The most terrifying MSTP (yes, even more terrifying than the saber-footed roo) is the Antarctic devil. Smaller than the Tasmanian devil, to which it is frequently compared, the Antarctic devil has the build of a rabbit, although it can hop much farther than a rabbit can (a dozen feet or more), as well as climb trees and swim (much cooler and more badass than Northern predators!). It has a pair of powerful jaws, sharp fangs, and the most powerful bite ever recorded for an animal of its size. Its attack strategy is to jump on its prey and take large bites of flesh out of the animal until it dies. Antarctic devils are most terrifying during a female’s reproductive cycle (and no doubt the female devil would agree). The female devil releases pheromones that cause all male devils in the vicinity to swarm, and when more than one female goes into estrous together, the swarm may contain hundreds of animals. Devil swarms are relentless and unstoppable; the only response is immediate flight. Devils have been reported to strip Jaghuff down to their skeletons in a few hours. While machine guns and bombs will take care of most swarms, the animals must be attacked from the air, as the swarm will overwhelm any attacker who decides to stand in front of them (a fact that poor Bill Blarney, an Australian gunman, learned to his sorrow in 1868). The devils have been described as a cross between piranhas and wolverines (coincidentally the monster in Syfy’s newest movie, Wolpiranhavine). The Trolol have domesticated the Antarctic devil, although not without decades of brutal, heartbreaking deaths. They discovered that if the male devil was castrated, it became much more placid in temperament—of course, there was the problem of getting close enough to a devil to castrate it in the first place. While typical humans would have given up all attempts at domestication, the Trolol continued with it. They not only had to castrate the males, but isolate the females, feed them well, and wash them frequently with pheromone suppressants. Thanks to astronomical costs, tiresome labor, and an appalling number of violent deaths, the Trolol finally succeeded in the devil domestication project, all so they could use the devils as vermin and pest control (when the ubiquitous Antarctic monkeys would have worked just as well), skin them for their fur, and brag to the rest of the world about how badass they were to domesticate the equivalent of wolverines. The rest of the world has been unanimous in banning the importation of Antarctic devils, but that doesn’t stop rumors and conspiracy theories from persisting. Such conspiracy theories turned offensive when in 2009, W’bfl Sshnirff, a Wang-Tchung diplomat in Beijing, began talking about the “Sino-Marsupial War”. According to Sshnirrff, China imported breeding pairs of Antarctic devils into the country in 1895, to control rat infestations. Also according to Sshnirff, the bombings of Shanghai and Nanjing in the 1930s were not done by the Japanese, but by the Chinese government attempting to eradicate the devils, which had erupted in a swarm. Sshnirff stated numerous times that devils, not Japanese, killed millions of Chinese people in the 1930s and 1940s. The Chinese government made plans to have Sshnirff sent back to Antarctica, but he was shot and stabbed by over 50 enraged Beijing citizens first. The rest of the world was amazed that more people hadn’t participated in his murder. The Chinese government apologized to the government of Wang-Tchung; Supreme Executive Overlord Fumpff, a canny politician, readily accepted the apology, commenting that “it was my fault Sshnirrff was allowed in the diplomatic corps. I should have known something was wrong with him when I came across his blog posts, ‘Did Rape Apes Cause the Holocaust?’ and ‘The KKK: Terrorists or Brave Saber-Foot Fighting Squad?’” In contrast to the rest of the world, the Trolol were outraged by Sshnirrff’s murder. At least forty Facebook fundraising campaigns entitled “Justice for W’bfl Sshnirrff!” were started, though the people who started them have never bothered explaining what this “justice” would entail. Perhaps this is the main reason why nobody has contributed a single plut (a coin universal to the Trolol nations, worth about 1/64 of a cent) to any of the campaigns.
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On the northern border of Antarctica lie the Roaring Sunshine Mountains, one thousand miles of glacial ridge calving icebergs into the ocean. Below these glaciers is Goff Country, the wettest region of Antarctica. In the winter, the land at the feet of the mountains is covered with ice and snow. When spring arrives, warm air currents cause meltwater to trickle down the glaciers and through the snow, creating drainage channels. As the sun rises higher, meltwater and melted snow become a spring flood into the wetlands of Goff Country, draining into swamps, lakes, and rivers. During the summer, all the snow at the feet of the mountains melts and drains into Goff Country, causing rivers to rise and eventually overflow their banks. The resulting summer flood carries soil and nutrients downstream, and the silt is washed into bodies of water. Lakes turn into swamps, while swamps turn into marshes (somehow, the layers of silt cause these swamps to lose their trees). During the autumn, as the sun begins to set and temperature begins to drop, glacial melt stops. Rivers and streams dry up, lakes and ponds shrink, and swamps become marshes again (losing even more trees, somehow). Snow and ice fall, blanketing the land. Winter has arrived, and Goff Country, like the rest of Antarctica, waits for the sunrise. In short, Goff Country is wet. As a result, its flora and fauna are completely different from that of the rest of Antarctica. There are no marsupitheropods (MSTP) here, as they prefer dry land. Instead, the predator niche is filled by the carmels, ambush predators that hide in swamps and lakes. Jaghuff are rare in Goff Country, but a subspecies of Jaghuff that we just made up didn’t think to mention before, the Jaghooti, frequents the dryer parts of the region, as well as bugbeasts. The most common large herbivores in Goff Country are Astropotheres, semi-aquatic hoofed mammals that existed in South America from 59 to 11.8 million years ago. Astropotheres look like bugbeasts; indeed, their bulk, trunk-like snouts, and tusks are quite similar. However, they lack bugbeasts’ unusual protruding eyes, which perhaps saved them from bearing such an illogical name. And, of course, we can’t forget Antarctic monkeys (although you might want to). Two species of herbivorous monkey are endemic to Goff Country, as well as one carnivorous, venomous species. This is the Ssasqutch, a giant, bipedal ape even larger than Rape Apes. However, the Ssasqutch does not practice rape (except in certain porn written by Northerners), although it does prey on humans, especially in times of famine. Goff Country is also the home of the bloody Goffic rose. The bloody Goffic rose is not actually a rose (although its stems do have thorns), but a flowering shrub in the myrtle family, endemic to wet areas of Antarctica. Experts believe that its name is derived from the flower’s blood-red color (not the exclamations of English explorers as they pricked themselves on its thorns, as legend states). The dark-red flowers are popular with pretentious Northern artists trying to show people how tragic they are, and they’re frequently used as symbols in vampire romance novels, as well as props in Tim Burton movies. However, most bloody Goffic roses seen in these movies or in bouquets are artificial. Experts recommend against importing the real flower, as it requires being drenched with water every six hours, its petals tend to fall off five minutes after it’s picked, and it is often infested with ants. To the Goff, the flower of the bloody Goffic rose was not nearly as important as the fruit. The plant grows clusters of red berries after the two seasonal floods, and these berries ripen quickly and last through the first frost. As the weather grows colder, instead of falling, these berries dry on their stems and can still be harvested and eaten throughout the winter. Needless to say, they are an important source of food to humans, Astropotheres, and monkeys. Humans have been harvesting bloody Goffic rose fruits for about 30,000 years, since hunter-gatherer populations began settling in Goff country. Unlike in Trolpoluzha, humans didn’t bother raiding monkey hoardings for these berries, and when the plant was domesticated about 17,000 years ago, monkeys were not domesticated to cultivate the crop. Humans in Goff Country cultivated bloody Goffic rose berries entirely by themselves, first learning to save the seeds and spread them, and eventually developing a sophisticated irrigation system. In general, Northerners tend to find the early Goff peoples more sensible and practical than the early peoples of Trolpoluzha; however, the Trolol do not share that opinion. It’s possible that the admiration of Trolpoluzha was even felt by the early Goff, back in prehistory.
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Goff Country, 13,000 years ago
“Tutu, Tutu, where are you.” Tutu rolled his eyes as he smeared paint from the blood-red flowers onto his lips. “State that in the form of a question, Kal-Tekh.” “You’re out by the calendar pole, aren’t you?” Kal-Tekh said, peeking out of his hut and using a question mark this time. “You see me, don’t you?” Tutu struck a sexy pose, clinging to the pole. “What do you think?” “Oh, darling, you know you always look hot to me,” Kal-Tekh said, shaking his head and smiling. “You flatterer, you,” Tutu said, batting his long eyelashes. Not for nothing had he been chosen as his village’s Calendar Boy. “Well, it’s true.” Kal-Tekh walked over to the calendar pole and ran his hand suggestively up and down it. He cursed as he removed his hand; he must have gotten a splinter in it. “Tell the headman to carve you in this pose when he makes the mark today.” “I’ll suggest it, but he might not listen. You know he always has the final say in how I pose for the calendar.” Tutu stepped away from the pole to admire it. It was covered with notches, marks made by the village headman to note the position of the sun. The village headmen used these marks to calculate when to plant and harvest the berries. At each mark, there was a tiny etching of a human figure, a Calendar Boy. Tutu didn’t know when human figures had started being carved into the calendar poles, or who had first suggested the idea, but it was a popular one with the villages in this country. Ever since his childhood, Tutu had wanted to be a Calendar Boy. The Calendar Boy during most of Tutu’s childhood had been gorgeous, a tall, lithe but muscular young man with long hair that swished around his shoulders and strange, golden eyes. He could contort his body into all kinds of provocative shapes, and while he posed for the headman, the whole village watched in awe and admiration. Tutu had been as awed as the rest of the village. Now that Tutu was grown up, he was surprised that the village had ever found that Calendar Boy attractive. He was also surprised the Boy could get his penis to piss in the right direction—where had that thought come from? What did his penis have to do with anything? Tutu must be getting horny. He glanced at Kal-Tekh and licked his lips. Perhaps he and Kal-Tekh could go mud wrestling in the swamp this afternoon. “By the way, I heard the elders talking earlier,” Kal-Tekh said. “Now that it’s almost the planting season, they’re going to meet with the elders of the other villages for a debate.” “Oh, terrific,” Tutu said grumpily. “A debate.” “What did you say?” asked Kal-Tekh, looking confused. “I said, a debate.” “No, no, before that.” “I said, terrific.” “What does that mean?” “I don’t know,” Tutu said with a shrug. “I just think it fits.” “Whatever,” said Kal-Tekh. “Anyway, the headman wants you there. I guess he wants you to try out some poses for the elders.” “Oh, I hate when I have to go to the debates,” Tutu grumbled. “It always takes forever for the elders to agree on anything. I hate debates anyway. Why can’t people do just what I tell them? It would be so much simpler.” “Er…because you’re not one of the elders.” “Well, I should be one of the elders. And the elders should be made to agree, by…someone. Someone wise.” Kal-Tekh scratched his head. “Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.” “Well, if it works…” Tutu scowled down at the ground; the news about the debate had put him in a foul mood. He was just about to start complaining about how much he hated sand, when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up and saw, off in the distance, a man with a walking staff, trudging up the pathway towards him. By the man’s clothes, Tutu could tell he was from Trolpoluzha. “Oh, Kal-Tekh, get ready!” he said, grabbing his lover by the arm. “There’s a Trolpoluzhan coming up the road!” “A Trolpoluzhan!” Kal-Tekh exclaimed. He stood up straighter and cleared his throat. Tutu took a deep breath, watching the Trolpoluzhan traveler getting closer. When the traveler was close enough that Tutu could see the whites of his eyes, Tutu began to shout. “SO WE SURE DID SACRIFICE THOSE SLAVES FOR THE SPRING FLOODS, DIDN’T WE?” yelled Tutu. “YES, WE SURE DID. AND WE TIED THEM DOWN, SO THEY COULDN’T MOVE AS THE FLOODS ROSE. THEY WERE SO NOISY AND WHINY, BECAUSE THAT’S ALL WE CARE ABOUT. WE DON’T THINK OF THEM AS PEOPLE, NO SIRREE,” yelled Kal-Tekh. “YES, BECAUSE THEY’RE SLAVES, AND THEY HAVE NO OTHER PURPOSE. THEY CAN’T POSSIBLY MIND BEING PUT TO DEATH. DID I MENTION THAT? THEY’RE SLAVES AND THEY HAVE NO OTHER PURPOSE,” yelled Tutu. “YES, YOU’RE SO RIGHT. THOSE SLAVES REALLY AREN’T PEOPLE AND WE SURE DO KILL THEM EVERY SPRING. WE SURE DON’T THINK THEY HAVE FEELINGS. NO, WE DEFINITELY DON’T. THEY SURE DON’T HAVE ANY USE BESIDES…” Tutu cursed. The traveler had walked past them without even glancing their way. “Save your breath, Kal-Tekh; the Trolpoluzhan didn’t even look at us.” “Dammit!” Kal-Tekh plopped down on a rock and folded his arms dramatically. “We’re never going to be recognized by Trolpoluzha.” “I know, and it’s so unfair. Just because we don’t eat other people, they think we’re not evil enough.” “What a bunch of snobs.” Kal-Tekh shook his head. “Sacrificing huge numbers of slaves is evil. The Trolpoluzhans are prejudiced, that’s what they are.” “I wonder…” Tutu began thoughtfully. “What?” “I just thought of something. Maybe we don’t have to be recognized by Trolpoluzha.” “What?” said Kal-Tekh again. “I know it sounds crazy, but maybe it doesn’t matter that Trolpoluzha won’t notice us. I mean, we don’t eat people, but we don’t have to; we’ve been doing fine without it. Sacrificing slaves works for us and makes the floods come every spring. Maybe what works for Trolpoluzha doesn’t work for us, and that’s okay.” “But Trolpoluzha’s so glamorous,” said Kal-Tekh. “I mean, they have monkeys to do all their work for them.” “Yes, but we can get enough to eat without making monkeys work for us.” “Huh.” Kal-Tekh scratched his head, looking thoughtful. “I never thought of it that way before.” “It’s a wild idea, but it just makes sense, you know?” Tutu said. “If it’s true, it’ll be a huge weight off my mind. I’m getting sick of trying to impress Trolpoluzha.” “Me too,” Kal-Tekh said. “Fuck Trolpoluzha anyway.” “Yep.” “Yep.” Tutu and Kal-Tekh looked at each other in silence for a while. “So, what do you want to do now?” Kal-Tekh asked awkwardly. “Go mud-wrestling? Or we could go the village commons and look at the slave bones.” “No, let’s mud-wrestle. Slaves are so worthless not even their remains are worth looking at.” “Hey, what were we just talking about? We don’t need to state the obvious anymore,” Tutu reminded him. “Sorry; I forgot. But slaves always start yelling when the waters rise—” “Shut up and kiss me, Kal-Tekh.” “Yes, sir!”
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The early Goff developed a culture completely alien to that developing at the same time in Trolpoluzha. In fact, early Goff culture is so different from other Trolol cultures that Northerners have argued for years about why it developed in such a way. Today, experts believe the differences arose because of bloody Goffic rose cultivation. Blackroot (or plaqueroot), the staple crop of Trolpoluzha, could be grown in a wide variety of locations, did not need much water, and required relatively low numbers of laborers to cultivate and harvest. Therefore, blackroot-farming populations could afford to disperse and spread out over the land. In contrast, bloody Goffic roses were dependent on specific water cycles and required a certain amount of water. The shrubs would be numerous on riverbanks or in marshes, but scarcer on dry ground. As a result, Goff populations tended to concentrate in these areas. Sometimes, population concentration proved to be a failure, resulting in orgies, mass murder, and occasionally, orgies of mass murder. But far more often, the communities were well-organized and even democratic. To increase arable land, Goff communities undertook large-scale irrigation projects, such as damming and canal-building. Unlike many communities in Trolpoluzha, the Goff realized the obvious: it’s not good to flood or dry shared plots of land unless all the people who share it agree with you. So, Goff engineering projects required much discussion and negotiation among village leaders. Most early Goff villages were ruled by groups of men, and these men seem to have allowed input from other villagers at assemblies. Over the years, these groups of men gained increasingly complex knowledge of seasonal floods and water cycles. They learned to monitor these cycles by the position of the sun, the levels of the rivers, the changes in temperature, and the migration patterns of the Astropotheres. They recorded their knowledge by making notches on stones, poles, and logs. These were the Goff calendars, and they are the most common artifact found at archaeological sites in Goff country. While calendar symbols varied between villages in the beginning, they eventually evolved into symbols common to the whole country, and, about 13,500 years ago, into Antarctica’s first writing system. Often, the notches on the calendars are accompanied by carvings of human figures, described as “Calendar Boys” in the proto-Goffic language. From the limited remains of early Goff writing, experts have determined that the Calendar Boys played a large role in Goffic art, if not religion. The early Goff were the only early Trolol to engage in representational art (a practice that is generally not considered hardcore enough among other Trolol), and they had a surprisingly-developed aesthetic sense. It is believed that village leaders would carve images of Calendar Boys into the stones and poles, although the reason for such a practice is still unclear. However, many archaeologists believe that the Calendar Boys were the first pin-up models, introduced into the calendars for the same reason photos of swimsuit models are placed in modern calendars. Some Northerners find it odd that women never modeled for the calendars; however, women are nonexistent in historical Trolol records (except, of course, in the case of the Dhoalts, who were ruled by the infamous Grand High Bitch-Cunts). Even without the proto-democratic aspects and the artistic achievements, the similarities of early Goff society to many early Northern societies is striking. Among the early Goff, it was not customary to murder your companions if they helped you discover a new piece of arable land or invent an engineering device, or to keep your discovery secret. Men could put personal slights aside for the good of the community. The Westermarck effect was common, except during mass population die-offs, and incest was almost never practiced. Not even cannibalism, a practice common in the rest of Antarctica, was practiced by the early Goff, possibly because the village leaders realized that they couldn’t afford to waste able-bodied people. Naturally, these characteristics of the early Goff endear them to Northerners. “They behaved like an actual human society!” is the most frequent statement. (It should be emphasized that the Trolol do not share this view at all and generally regard the early Goff with contempt.) However, the Trolol did practice slavery. Slave raiding parties ranged into Blauw, the Ptard Steppes, and Wang-Tchung, capturing men whom they would later force to work on their irrigation projects. Of course, large numbers of slaves were ceremonially drowned during the spring and summer floods, resulting in labor shortages and ever-increasing slave raids; the system was quite inefficient. Because every Antarctic society must be absolutely fearsome and terrifying (otherwise this story wouldn’t be badass and cool enough), the slave raids depopulated the surrounding territories, and the people who remained developed a deeply-rooted fear of the Goff. Of course, their fear of the Goff would become even more deeply-rooted later. Once the Goff made contact with Trolpoluzha, their society began to change. Although most Trolpoluzhan crops were incompatible with the climate of Goff Country, the Goff still developed a deeply-rooted admiration of Trolpoluzha, and started to adopt other aspects of its culture. Domesticated Antarctic monkeys appear in Goff Country around 14,000 years ago; the labor potential of the monkeys was eagerly accepted by the Goff, although little of this potential was ever realized. In fact, it is estimated that adoption of domesticated monkey labor decreased bloody Goffic rose production by 20%. The Ssasqutch was semi-domesticated for its venom, in a process that resulted in almost as many deaths as saber-footed roo and Antarctic devil domestication did. By 13,000 years ago, Jaghuff were adopted, despite the fact that the animals did poorly in wet climates. Even large numbers of Jaghooti were semi-domesticated. In contrast, attempts to domesticate Astropotheres were unsuccessful, although bugbeast use was widespread. In short, 13,000 years ago, early Goff society was undergoing many changes. Agricultural techniques and cultural practices from Trolpoluzha were eagerly adopted by many of the Goff. However, others were not happy about the strange cultural practices, and many were frustrated by Trolpoluzha’s refusal to recognize mass slave-murder as a legitimately evil practice. It is possible that the Goff would have hotly debated the merits of different agriculture, or even fought over it, had it not been for the Great Water War.
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The Great Water War, 12,600 years ago
Artudtu, a Calendar Boy turned chief, swung his war club in the air. It was a lazy, halfhearted gesture, but his warriors obeyed it anyway, barreling up the hill and slaughtering the members of King Bald’r’dash’s army. His men raised the standards of Pr’p and Gnu. Their cheers were just as half-hearted as Artudtu’s gesture had been. All around him, the other hills were being won, as indicated by similar bored-sounding cheers rising up from the army. It wasn’t manly to show emotion or act enthusiastic about anything, even if you’d won a magnificent victory. Artudtu arranged his features in what he hoped was a world-weary expression, as he turned to look at the towers of Uhgghli, the great city of the tyrannical Water Kings. A runner loped up the hill, panting. Artudtu frowned; the man was actually moving fast. Of course, runners had to move fast, or else messages would never be delivered, but Artudtu still found it vulgar and effeminate. He hid his contempt as he asked, “What news?” “King Bald’r’dash and his generals are dead, killed by Hytman the Indifferent,” the runner said, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Their forces are in retreat, and a delegation has come forward to surrender.” “That is even better than we hoped,” said Artudtu. “I must talk to the other chiefs about this. We must undo the wicked works of the Water Kings. They were evil, cutting off our water supply.” “I have bad news, though,” said the runner, scratching an armpit. “Bald’r’dash had all his slaves killed.” Artudtu was horrified. The shock was so great that he actually raised his eyebrows a fraction. “What?” he said. “It’s not even close to slave-killing season.” “Why, it’s appalling,” one of his men said. “I can’t even believe it.” “Neither can I,” said another man. “It’s a scandal, an outrage.” Other men began to chime in with their own comments. All of these comments were delivered in a monotone. “Who works for the Water Kings, if the slaves are killed out of season,” yet another man said, so scandalized that he didn’t even bother to use a question mark. “Why have we even fought this war,” said Artudtu. “The Water Kings were planning to make us their slaves.” “But then why kill their own slaves?” “Er…well…uh…there’s only room in Uhgghli for a certain number of slaves? Or they did it out of spite?” Artudtu shrugged. “We’re not very good at strategic planning or logistics, are we?” the man next to Artudtu said. “Well, that doesn’t matter, because neither were the Water Kings. Now that they have no slaves, they themselves will become our slaves. And when the next floods come, we’ll kill them all.” Artudtu laughed without enthusiasm, as befitted an evil but indifferent warrior of the Goff. “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” The laughs of his men were just as bland and emotionless.“Amazing,” Artudtu said, as he and his men looked at the huge ponds and dams that the Water Kings had made. Far away across the plain, the glaciers shimmered in the sun, and there was a roar like thunder, as ice sheets broke down and slid into the ocean. “What is, the ponds and dams, or the glaciers?” asked Artudtu’s friend, Shmuk. Artudtu resisted the urge to give Shmuk an annoyed look. “The ponds and dams. What has this entire war been about?” “Oh, right. Yes, it is astonishing. Awe-inspiring. Listen to the awe in my voice.” “Ooh, aah,” all the men murmured, staring blankly at the works of the Water Kings. “Such glorious works, bringing such misery,” said Shmuk, thoughtfully sticking a finger into his ear. “You’re deep, Shmuk,” Artudtu said. He was as awed by this profound thought of Shmuk’s as he was by the Water Kings’ engineering prowess. “Perhaps we could use their works for good,” Shmuk suggested. “No, whoever rules here would rule our whole country,” Artudtu said. “There would be no choice for the people downstream but to starve or be enslaved.” “What men make, men unmake,” said Shmuk profoundly. Artudtu had to stop himself from gasping. Sometimes Shmuk could be a regular philosopher. “The new slaves are taking apart the dams. Soon the water will flow again, and we will have our water supply once more,” Shmuk continued. “Yes, and that will be a good thing,” Artudtu said. He saw a dam crumble under a surge of water. There were no slaves to be seen. He barely raised his arm to point at the site. “Look. There weren’t supposed to be any slaves there.” “Perhaps the slaves are invisible,” suggested a man. “Or they drowned before we could see them.” “Look at that,” Shmuk said, waving a hand carelessly in the direction of an artificial lake. There was so much water pouring into the lake that it was overflowing. “There’s too much water flowing into that lake.” “It’s a break flood,” said Artudtu. “How frightening,” the man next to him said. “I’m already dreading it,” added the man on Artudtu’s other side. “Yes, break floods are very frightening, but they spend their waters quickly, and normality follows,” Artudtu told them, as he twiddled his thumbs. A frown appeared on Shmuk’s face. “But there’s so much water…” More and more water surged down onto the structures of the Water Kings, knocking down dams and breaking artificial ponds. The roar of the flowing water got louder and louder, and the water level rose higher and higher. “Look out; it’s a bigger flood than we thought,” said Artudtu. He, Shmuk, and the other men climbed to a higher point on the hill. From there, they could see the raging floodwaters sweep away the last of the artificial channels built by the Water Kings and begin to race southward, towards their own country. “No, our civilization. Our entire world. It’s in ruins,” Shmuk said. He yawned and picked his nose. “What have we done?” said Artudtu. He stood watching the torrents of muddy water sweep past.
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Introduction to The Changes in Goff Society After the Great Flood: A Review, by Alexander McGrotty, University of Oxford.
The Great Flood of Goff Country (often called the SUUUUUUUUURGE) which took place after the Great Water War wiped out two-thirds of the Goff and devasted all agricultural complexes. Mass movement of refugees resulted, which in turn led to mass warfare. Such an outcome may have been expected; however, the events that occurred after warfare and refugee movement ceased were less predictable. The proto-democratic alliances and cooperation of the era before the flood ended, even though the reduced amount of fertile soil in Goff Country might have enhanced their importance. Large-scale water management projects ceased, even though, again, less arable land and the greater importance of avoiding floods might have caused water management to become more complex. The keeping of calendars and observation of natural phenomena declined, even though they might have been used and developed further to avoid future disaster. Goff communities became fortified, isolated city-states led by warlords who monopolized resources and slaughtered their enemies en masse. These city-states were almost constantly at war, ensuring that said resources were usually wasted. The Goff communities also wasted resources by constructing massive stone fortresses, walls, and temples, which sank into swampy ground more often than not, rather than engineering works to bring water to farmland. Finally, cannibalism, previously avoided among the Goff, became more widespread, as enemies were slaughtered and eaten in their many wars. Previous sources disagree on why Goff civilization, after a major ecological disaster, abandoned all sustainable practices and became much less ecologically sound. The most popular theory is that the Goff adopted agricultural techniques and culture to imitate refugees from Trolpoluzha, Blauw, and the Ptard Steppes. However, this theory is questionable. mainly because Goff culture, including its written language, spread as rapidly throughout eastern Antarctica as other cultures. Areas of bloody Goffic rose production were established around the coast of the Paante’en Prov and thrived; by 6,000 BCE, Blauw had a number of coastal city-states that rivaled those of Goff Country. In this review, numerous sources are examined to determine the reason for the profound changes in Goff society after the SUUUUUUUUUURGE. It is hypothesized that the primary explanations will be the same as for many other Trolol societies: a long tradition of wasting resources, an abhorrence of logic, and a passion for being as evil as possible.
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Goffic sorrow in antrca, by Tara Gilesbie. Fanfiction.net. c. 2006
(The greatest hero in Goff culture is Brf or Barph, a warlord who is believed to have lived around 8,000 BCE. He was the first man to unite the city-states of Goff, and his exploits are detailed in the epic poem, the Blp-Rg-Brf. Although no one is sure whether Barph was a real person, a composite of several Goff warlords, or a completely fictional character invented to explain certain cultural institutions, he is well-known even to Northerners. Historically, Northern media portrays him as a complete villain, but in the early to mid-2000s, a series of films, comic books, and fan works portraying Barph as an anti-hero emerged. Some of the more dimwitted writers even portrayed him as a straight-up hero.)
AN: STFU u fuckin prepz!1!!1! Stop plfaming da story ok!!!!111 if u don’t lik ma story den FUUUUUUUK OFFFFFFF!!!!111! Da trolol aren’t gary stus ok they aren’t perfect THEY’RE EVIL!!!!!1 an they have problemz theyre freezing and starving for gods sake!!1 btw fangz 2 all da goffic ppl 4 da good revioews!!!111!! xxxxxxxx666xxxxxxxxx Barph was da goffic leader of Rg-php and had destroyed the city of the prpz. It was snowing and raining and it wuz in Antarica so dere was no sun, which he was very happy about. “Fangz (geddit cuz hes goffic) 2 da blak toad god of night!1” sed Barp. (geddit cuz da trolol are evil). Den he marched into the city feeling all sad and depressed as usual. A lot of prpz stared at him and his army. He put up his middle finger at them. Barh and his army wud make sure all da useful people would go goff. All da useless fucking prps and posers would be killed. Dey would eat da kidz and rap da women and den make the odder prpz ther slaves. He wuz going to torque da royal prp family to death to. (AN: dont u fink genocidal maniacs r so badass?) Brajph wuz werin a a blak T-shit with red skulls all over it and black baggy paints wit chains all over and fjucking blak platinum boots that wer black. He was wearin a black cape lik Dracula and so much eyeliner that I was goin down his face and he had black hair wit red streaks in it. He looked lik a pentagram (geddit?) between Gerard Way, Joel Madden, and Marilyn Manson. Suddenly a priest came. Da priest was a fucking poser. Hed died his hare black but u fould see it was blond under da black die (geddit?) and he was wearing a blak robe wit Avril Lavigne on it. He wuz crying but not tearz of blod cuz he waz a poser. “STFU u fujkin poser!!1” sed barp. “Butt I have bad news” da priest said preppily. “The queen of Prp has been found dead in da temple. She committed suicide by slitting her wrists.” “WAT??!” yielded Barph. “And she killd her family to! Crid da prist. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!11” Bark shooted angstily. He was horrorfied! Ho could he torture da royal family when they wer already ded? He started to cry tears of blood angrily. Dat fucking bitch queen was soo pathetic. She was triin to be goffic butt shed probly never herd of GC or MCR. “Bring out da corpses!1” he told his men. They went and got the bodies. The queen wuz wearin a slutty pink top wiv flowers on it, a pink poofy skirt dat sed “goffs suk” on the butt, pink stilettoos, and a crown wit rainbows and hearts nd other stupid preppy stuff on it. “God u are such a pozer!1” sed Braph all disfusted with her. “Stop trin to be goffic by comiting suicide. Dats our thing u fuckin prp!!” Barph was so fucking angry. Suddenly an idea he had. He thought of how sexy Gerard Way was (he’s bisezual) and got an eructation. Den he took off his clothes. He had a sex pack (geddit?) and a really huge you know what and everything. He took off da queen’s cloths. And den……………………..he did it with her cause he’s a necphilak now. “Kawai!” all da goffs commnted happily as dey watched. Sum of dem were even masticating to it. “OK den” sed Brah as he gut an orgism. “Now evry1 has 2 rap da ded queen or die!111!” “NOOOOOOOO PLZ!!11” da prpz bagged as Borg laffed statistically. Barhp and da goffs just laffed as dey cut off da prpz heds with der knifes. Blood pored out of da ded prepz like a fountain. Barpy and da goffs all laffed at the blood cause there sadists. (AN: if u dnoty tink sadizstz rok ur a prep so FUK OFF!) “OK OK WELL DO IT WITH HER SCREEMED Da prpz” as dey Borg stooped kutting dere heds off. Then da prpz tuk off ther cloves and raped da ded queen and da odder ded ppl. “Hahahaha”laffed Barpy satistically. “OMFG necphila is soooooo sexy. Letz hav an orgy wit all da ded gurlz in da city!!11” (but not da ded boyz cuz Barp’s not a gay fag ew u sickos) “Oh my blak toad god of nite!11” gosped da goffs. (lol geddit cuz dere goffik and da trolol don’t lik god) “Dats sooooooOOOOOOOOOOooo SEXAH!!!!11! “Lololololololololololol” sed Barph.
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Excerpt from the diary of Chad Blackwater, 1994
Dude, the Goff are the most HARDCORE PEOPLE EVER, man! They FUCK THE DEAD! The Trolol are the most EXTREEEEME of this EXTREEEEME universe. Like, the Romans and Persians and Mongols and Spanish and Borg all did extreme stuff in war, but they’re still not as extreme as the Trolol. Which makes the Trolol AWESOME, man! The Goff are sorta like Mesopotamia and Egypt, like, a floodplain full of cities surrounded by barbarians that would invade. So that means they had to be harsh, fuckin’ RUTHLESS—even though the Egyptians and Mesopotamians didn’t fuck the dead. But Antarctica is brutal, it’s like, so much closer to the edge than anywhere else, man. It’s like, making a SKULL PYRAMID, like HAPPENS EVERY DAY, man! So, like, for the Goff to survive, they had to be totally badass and hardcore and merciless. So they do it by being EXTREEEEME and FUCKING PEOPLE’S CORPSES! They’re the scariest motherfuckers EVER, man! Like, it’s like a rite of passage. Goff soldiers don’t just have BIG GUNS and HUUUUUUUGE ROCKETS, they fuck corpses as part of their training. Dude, that is SO fuckin’ hardcore. And they LIKE IT. Like, they’ll fuck a bodacious babe like you and me, except she’s DEAD. Sometimes they’re NOT EVEN DEAD WHEN THEY START! Wait…that’s not necrophilia, is it? That’s ordinary rape. That’s not as hardcore. Still…the Goff are EXTREEEEEME! They’re AWESOME!
Excerpt from every single article written on rape, ever
Rape is bad, but the Goff are the worst rapists of all, because they rape corpses.
(In these articles, the above sentence is often longer, and different words are used, but that’s always the gist of it)
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Somewhere on the coast of Antarctica, 9000 years ago
Azholi of the Hbrws stood on the beach, looking at his tribe, who were huddled miserably around driftwood fires. At his feet, there was a sick woman, lying with her sealskin parka wrapped tightly around her but her teeth chattering. Of course, it was a woman. Women and children were so weak and useless; they were always the first to get sick, as well as the first to be killed when enemies attacked them. The Hbrws didn’t even bother to give them names; boys weren’t named until age fourteen, while girls and women were called by numbers to the very end of their lives. The sick woman was Woman #45. Her illness was relatively harmless, but Azholi cut her throat anyway. His tribe was constantly on the move, and they didn’t have the time or the resources to care for sick people. Anyway, gratuitous killing of women made things extra dark ‘n’ edgy. Azholi hoped their enemies might be impressed enough to leave them alone. Unfortunately, they couldn’t eat her flesh, since she was diseased, but perhaps the enemy tribe would eat her and get sick. Further down the beach stood two chiefs of other Hbrw tribes: Thutmose, who had stolen his name from four Egyptian pharaohs, and Nebbsh. Their tribes were suffering just as much as Azholi’s. Once, Azholi would have been happy that their tribes were weaker. His people would have had a glorious orgy of murder—or rather, a glorious orgy and then murder; after all, they weren’t Goff. He had fantasized about smashing Thutmose’s head, eating his brains, and using his skull for a cup. (Unlike Thutmose, Azholi had decided to rip off Khan Krum of the Bulgars. Much more badass than pharaohs.) He had also dreamed of raping Nebbsh and then impaling him and the other chiefs on spikes. Both his mother and his wife (Women #93 and #248) had said that he really needed to have healthier fantasies; Azholi had poisoned his mother and beaten his wife for that. However, the years of freezing, starvation, and constant attacks by enemies had proved stronger than his hatred of Thutmose and Nebbsh, and now they were his friends. “The Qyso are waiting in the forest to kill us,” said Nebbsh. Out of all the tribes, Nebbsh and his people had suffered the most from the Qyso. Now Nebbsh was extremely cheesed off. “They can’t be Qyso,” Thutmose said. “They’re not Muensterous enough. Plus, they haven’t even touched the penguin and seal colonies.” It was true. The people in the woods must not have known their way around the sea, for none of the penguins or seals had been hunted. Unfortunately, the Qyso, despite being from the mainland, had boats and nets and fishing spears, as well as Gouda knowledge of sailing. The Qyso came to the coves of the Hbrws, and when they did, the Hbrws died. Then the Qyso started killing the Hbrws who were still alive. In fact, one might say the Qyso had a disturbing feta-ish for killing Hbrws. Only a few thousand Hbrws were still alive. They were starving and sick, eking out a meager existence on fish, seals, penguins, and seaweed. But they still had their boats, which they could use to sail along the shore, and their drills, spears, and fishnets, which they used to fish through the ice. The Qyso couldn’t take those away from them, although they just wouldn’t leave the Hbrws provolone. Wherever the Hbrws had fled, the Qyso had followed, and they always would. Hence the Hbrws’ current life, constantly running for their lives and Camembertly escaping the Qyso. The chiefs stared blankly into the woods. The people there were not the Qyso, but it seemed they were just as bloodthirsty. Before the Hbrws had come to this shore, they had sailed past another beach, seeing abandoned boats and tents, as well as pools of blood and bloody footprints leading into the woods. Whoever these people were, they didn’t clean up after themselves. It was time to move on. Before the Hbrws could launch their boats on the water, howls broke out from the woods. At first Azholi thought the people in the woods were stupid to make that much noise before an ambush, but a few minutes later, he realized it didn’t matter anyway. The Hbrws would lose the battle, no matter how stealthy their enemies were. Azholi’s people howled back at their enemies, who were now pouring down upon them. Warriors and fishermen grabbed their spears, while women and children picked up sticks. The Hbrws never allowed women and children to wield real weapons, no matter how much danger the tribes were in. As one of the enemies shoved a spear into Azholi’s guts, his first thought was Maybe we should have given them weapons. His second thought was This whole interlude from my POV was pointless. His third thought was Fuck…this hurts. I’m dying.
The Hbrw’en Prov, several months later
The long winter night had begun. Everyone shivered and could see his or her breath. The only light came from the stars and the Hbrws’ torches. But they were safe. They had found a sheltered sea, nobody had followed them, and the people in this area were land people who wouldn’t compete with them for resources from the sea. They had made it, thought Nebbsh. Never mind that only about a third of their population was still alive. Never mind that the Qyso had been strangely obsessed with them and had always followed them before. Never mind that they still had to get through the winter. They had made it, and anybody who disagreed was stupid. “We’ve made it,” said Nebbsh, for the fortieth time. “Our troubles are over!” “Unless the Qyso come after us,” grumbled Thutmose. “Or we’re wiped out by the winter,” groused Woman #67. “Shut up! WE’VE MADE IT,” said Nebbsh, glaring at the people, his hands on his hips. “Be grateful for all the suffering we’ve undergone. It was educational. We’ve learned to work together and share our resources, instead of murdering and raping each other. You ought to be grateful you’ve…learned…” his voice trailed off as he saw that his people were glaring right back at him and fingering their weapons. Even—horrors!—some of the women were holding weapons. Nebbsh shut his mouth; he sensed his position as their chief wouldn’t matter to a starving, sick, exhausted people. Just like the stupid bastards couldn’t appreciate how educational the Hbrws’ suffering had been. Well, once the Hbrws had had time to eat, rest, and grow strong, they wouldn’t make the mistakes they had in the past. Nebbsh would lead them in killing the people that lived in this area. It was the Hbrws’ own fault that the Qyso had driven them from their homes, because their tribes had been fighting each other. In short, the Hbrws had been asking for it. Nebbsh didn’t say this out loud, for the people near him still looked like they wanted to murder him. The Hbrws would no longer be their own worst enemies. Now, they would be everyone else’s worst enemies. Never mind growing and hunting food for themselves, having more children, or developing alliances with other peoples. No, murder and genocide were the keys to the Hbrws’ survival.
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Excerpt from I Sea Dead People: A History of Antarctic Seafaring Cultures, by Will Witter. Chapter 1: The Rise of the Hbrws
We shall begin this book by stating the painfully obvious: Antarctica is a seasonal landscape which is frozen for half the year. Feast or famine was the most common way of life for the humans of Antarctica: the summer consisted of frantic seeking and hoarding of food, while the winter consisted of huddling from the cold in shelters while said food slowly dwindled. Where, then, the Trolol found the time and resources to enjoy their more sadistic pastimes (all of which require abundant resources and a comfortable mode of existence) is still a mystery; perhaps winter boredom and madness led up to it. However, there was one part of Antarctica which was a rich source of food all year round: the sea. The coasts and waters teemed with fish, seals, penguins, and sirenians (which will never be mentioned again). So rich are the Antarctic seas in resources that experts are surprised the Trolol took so long to begin exploiting them. Of course, the seas were rough, storms were prevalent, and winter ice was difficult to navigate, but in general, desperate people are inventive and quick to conquer obstacles (the Trolol are often an exception to this rule) 13,000-year-old skeletal remains found along the coast show signs of chronic malnutrition, 5,000 years after the first long era of starvation among the inland Trolol ended, and 5,000 years before the second one would begin. Shoreland cultures were also frequently exterminated by inland cultures which invaded their territory. The first stable coastal culture in Antarctica was the Hbrws. About 14,000 years ago, they emerged on the island of Ssplooj and subsequently spread to Haaqt and Gozhz’r. They were originally inland groups of hunter-gatherers from Trolpoluzha driven out by the spread of agriculture on the mainland. So, they didn’t emerge on Ssplooj; forget what I wrote before. Once they did arrive on Ssplooj, these hunter-gatherers found more well-established groups of hunter-gatherers, who forced them onto marginal land around the coastlines. Eventually, the Hbrws invented the harpoon, the raft, and the boat, which allowed them to survive and even thrive. By about 10,000 years ago, they even managed to supplant the native cultures on Ssplooj and Haaqt and spread to the islands of the Qaowabnga Prov. However, 9000 years ago, new emigrants from Trolpoluzha, the Qyso, invaded the islands. They were immediately attracted to the sheltered coves and bays inhabited by the Hbrws. The Hbrws became extinct almost everywhere in the Western Dragon Islands and around the Qaowabnga Prov, except in inland Ssplooj, where a Hbrws offshoot survives as a “distinctive linguistic and cultural group,” which will never be mentioned in this work. About 9500 to 9000 years ago, the Hbrws began to practice ice fishing, allowing them to exploit winter ice for food. This gave them a new food source, but it was not enough to save them from the new waves of Qyso immigrants, who relentlessly hunted them. Because that’s definitely how prehistoric invasions worked. Systematic genocide was definitely practiced by prehistoric tribes; it’s common knowledge. The Hbrws began a long voyage around the coastlines of the Qaowabnga Prov and the bottom coastline of Antarctica. To this day, descendants of the Hbrws refer to this journey as “the Long March” (the Hbrws are not very creative with names and frequently steal them from other cultures). Over two-thirds of their population died before they finally reached the Hbrw’en Prov, over two thousand miles away. Once they arrived at this sea, the Hbrws were finally safe from the Qyso, and at long last, they began to prosper. They domesticated the penguin (so they claimed) and pioneered the eating of twice-eaten fish. They developed new fishing spears, fishnets, sleds, and boats; in fact, by 7,500 years ago, Hbrw boats were the most sophisticated in Antarctica. By 7000 years ago, the Hbrws had developed sails and were ranging along the coasts of Trolpoluzha and Wang-Tchung, plundering, raiding, and terrifying the people who lived there (of course). Yet despite the development of new seafaring technology, the Hbrws learned no fundamental truths about survival or civilization from their Long March. In fact, most experts agreed that their survival skills declined. Their focus on exterminating other cultures instead of developing their own meant that numerous Hbrws died of starvation and disease while their warriors were terrorizing other cultures. Their bleak, nihilistic religion, which will be covered later in this book, was completely ineffective at enforcing military discipline, keeping the lower classes in line, or even inspiring art, and yet the Hbrw leaders relied on it as the main civilizing influence in their culture. Their xenophobia and hatred of other peoples stifled any efforts at trade. However, the most obvious sign of the Hbrws’ failure as a civilization was their version of cannibalism. While powerful Trolpoluzhans devoured people who were weaker in strength or political power, the Goff rarely practiced cannibalism, and the Ptard habitually ate non-Ptard, the Hbrws developed a complicated, wasteful system. In warfare, the Hbrws typically captured people, even if they did not have the resources to keep them alive. The captives were systematically tortured to assess their strength, a process not only inhumane and unnecessarily sadistic, but a glaring waste of time and resources. The captives who endured the most torture were judged strongest and eaten. The Hbrws believed that devouring these strong torture victims would grant strength to the person who ate them. A similar effect may have been easily obtained by eating the strongest of Hbrw or foreign dead, without resorting to capture and torture, but for some reason, this thought never occurred to the Hbrws. Perhaps it is no wonder that Hbrw civilization is frequently labeled “the stupidest civilization ever”.
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The Ptard, the fearsome sloth-riders of Antarctica, were also the people to build its first empire, unless you count the Goff warlords that conquered various city-states, and for some reason, we don’t. Study of linguistics suggests that the Ptard were yet another tribe who migrated out of Trolpoluzha (at this point, just assume every Trolol culture except for the Goff came from Trolpoluzha). This particular migrating tribe left about 12,000 to 11,000 years ago and eventually reached the upper country of Blauw about 9000 years ago. Just like other migrating tribes, they were forced onto marginal agricultural land. (Numerous Trolol cultures have basically the same backstory. Get used to it.) Around 7000 years ago, the Ptard adapted traditional Jaghuff harnesses and bridles for riding. From then on, the Ptard would live almost entirely from the backs of their Jaghuff. The first acts of the Ptard were to exterminate their more successful neighbors. (Yes, it’s another Trolol culture that immediately starting committing genocide once they were successful. Get used to this, too.) Once Jaghuff-riding became such an integral part of Ptard society, they could move into highlands and pasturelands considered unsuitable for agriculture. They lived by murdering their neighbors and stealing their crops (of course), terrorizing their neighbors (of course) and driving tribes of hunter-gatherers to extinction (really, what else would you expect by this point?) The Ptard believe themselves one of the few peoples in history to phase out agriculture in favor of a nomadic, herding lifestyle. Either they really know nothing about the numerous equestrian peoples of Mongolia, cattle-herding cultures of Africa, and bison-hunting tribes of western North America, or they know and just don’t care. But their ignorance extended to agricultural subjects as well. This meant that the shift of their society from agricultural to nomadic was the best thing that could have happened to their culture, at least from their point of view. They were extremely poor farmers; no doubt if they hadn’t changed their lifestyle, they would have failed and gone extinct, as numerous other Antarctic peoples had done before them. Over the next thousand years, the Ptard expanded at the expense of their neighbors. Goff records report tribes fleeing the Ptard as early as 6500 years ago, and obviously, these tribes developed a deeply-rooted fear of the Ptard. We won’t go into details about the unlucky tribes caught between the Goff and the Ptard, two peoples for whom they held a deeply-rooted fear. Eventually, the Ptard even conquered Blauw and Goff, and people of these countries became their subjects for a while. Like most other Trolol societies, Ptard society was full of paranoia and xenophobia. The Ptard treated their marginalization by more successful neighbors and competitors like a direct, personal attack that had to be avenged. In this attitude, they followed in the footsteps of the ancient Trolol Tro, who actually thought about avenging his humiliating beating during the deadly Antarctic winter. Yet the Ptard went even further, as their religious beliefs began to accord other tribes and races the status of animals, while only the Ptard were worthy of respect. This obviously makes them scary, badass, noble savages that you have to admire even as you hate them. No, it doesn’t just make them vile, disgusting monsters that you don’t even want to read about. The Ptard had an efficient long-range scouting and patrol system, which enabled them to send their mounted army to numerous locations for quick, deadly, and efficient attacks (for giant sloths, anyway). They pioneered armor for themselves and their Jaghuff. We’re not going to tell you what this armor was made of, even though this was before the Bronze and Iron Ages, and you might, understandably, be wondering. They also developed lances and bows and arrow that could be used from the backs of their Jaghuff. Eventually, the Ptards’ early plans to exterminate every tribe they conquered had to be modified, as the conquered tribes learned a fundamental truth: giant sloths move extremely slowly. After a few centuries, the tribes learned to spot the huge armies of Jaghuff from far away and to flee before they could reach their doomed villages. It usually took a Jaghuff army at least four hours to charge a typical village, meaning that as long as the villagers evacuated quickly and efficiently, they could be safe. Time after time, the Ptard attacked villages, only to be disappointed in not finding people to kill, although there would usually be crops and other possessions to steal. Because it was inefficient and impractical to hunt down the people who’d fled, the Ptard had to leave subject peoples alone, eventually letting them return to farm under their rule. Fortunately for this story’s edginess, this didn’t soften down the Ptard: they still confiscated peoples’ agricultural surplus and put entire communities to death at the least sign of resistance. The greatest enemy of the Ptard turned out to be the Goff. Not only were the Goff particularly adept at the fine art of fleeing, but sometimes, they even fought the Ptard and won battles. When Goffic stone structures didn’t sink into swamps, they proved a formidable barrier to the Jaghuff. Then too, the Jaghuff moved even more slowly on marshy ground, and the Ptard, used to riding in dry, grassy highlands, suffered from trying to maneuver on this ground. Instead of simply adjusting their battle technique to the unfamiliar landscape, the Ptard only felt more insulted and threatened. The fact that the Goff were resisting Ptard expansion was an enormous cultural affront. Somewhere, the Ptard had gotten the idea that to fight back was not a normal human reaction to being conquered, but an outrage, an action that could only be committed by the truly bestial and depraved. Perhaps the long years of watching people die or flee before them had caused this delusion. About 5800 years ago, a charismatic shaman and warlord, who either had no name or kept his name secret, united the Ptard under his command and pioneered a new religion, which we won’t bother describing. At the same time, the Ptard domesticated the Jaghooti, that subspecies of the Jaghuff, which turned out to be even bigger than the typical Jaghuff and which did better in the swamps of Goff country. With larger animals and a new faith to unite them, the Ptard could easily sweep down on the fortified Goff cities of the upriver region and conquer the Goff entirely in a couple of generations. The resulting massacre was horrific: one-third of the Goff cities were destroyed, and over half the Goff were murdered. The Goff managed to stave off their complete genocide with negotiated surrender, as for some reason, the Ptard doctrine of “All other peoples are animals and must be exterminated, and the Goff are the worst” was not followed in the end. The Goff were allowed to exist as a slave people, farming and working for the Ptard. However, the conquest of the Goff didn’t mean that the Ptards’ troubles were over. For centuries, the Goff would remain a thorn in the Ptards’ side, fighting back by using techniques they had previously been using against Hbrw raiders. Still, the Ptard managed to conquer Blauw and were even more tolerant, accepting surrender and submission and reducing the Blauw to slave status. The Ptard were able to draw large supplies of food, as well as agricultural tools and slaves, from Goff and Blauw, allowing their numbers to rebuild, and rekindling their expansionist ambitions. They extended their rule into Trolpoluzha, where they found themselves overstretched, and then began to focus on Wang-Tchung. This proved to be a mistake, for it was in Wang-Tchung that the Ptard first encountered the Hbrws. It was the first time the Ptard had met a culture as psychotic, stupidly stubborn, and pointlessly bloodthirsty as their own. The result was a long, brutal, yet boring conflict. Modern scholars studying the Ptard-Hbrw war have been known to fall asleep after reading about bloody massacre after bloody massacre, or to throw their books across the room in frustration. The two nations fought on ground that wasn’t suited to their strength: the Ptard had a difficult time fighting on mountainous land, while the Hbrws had a difficult time fighting on land in general. The countryside was both hard to occupy and hard to supply. Wang-Tchung was neither fertile nor rich in mineral resources, so it was a dubious prize for a conqueror at best. Yet both the Ptard and the Hbrws stubbornly refused to surrender. This pointless conflict over a pointless piece of land dragged on year after year, and heavy losses on both sides became commonplace. Gradually, the Goff and Blauw came to hold high positions of administration in the Ptard Empire, since the Ptard were illiterate and generally preferred their nomadic lifestyle. Moreover, the extreme racism and xenophobia of the Ptard meant that they refused to interbreed with the Goff or even adopt useful Goff customs. The Goff not only began to repopulate their lands, but to expand into areas around Lake Syst and even Wang-Tchung; the fact that neither the Ptard nor the Hbrws bothered them shows how focused the two armies were on their pointless war. Although the Ptard Empire had reached its peak by 3350 BCE, heresies were emerging in their religion and centralized leadership had begun to break down. The mighty Ptard Empire would break into smaller states over the next two centuries and eventually crumble. In the end, the Ptard Empire ended when the Ptard themselves rebelled against their own empire, which was essentially run by the Goff. Today, even the Trolol comment on the absurdity of the Empire’s end. While the Ptard would try empire-building again over the centuries, they were unable to repeat their earlier success. The conquered peoples had adopted the use of Jaghuff for use in warfare, meaning that battles against the Ptard were more evenly-matched, although much slower. The Ptards’ subjects were even employing bugbeasts in war; bugbeasts moved faster than Jaghuff and could carry more materials. Meanwhile, the Ptard constantly refused to learn from or integrate their subjects, clinging stubbornly to their more traditional customs. The only new custom the Ptard discovered during this time was getting high on Jaghuff urine. Given the unconventional way the urine is ingested, not to mention its effects, it’s not surprising that this new custom worsened the fighting ability of Ptard warriors. Finally, the Ptard withdrew entirely to their steppes and remained there for centuries. They spent half their time brooding over defeats and victories and prophesying a new empire, in which all other peoples would be exterminated with no mercy. They spent the other half limping around in a drugged-up state, taking incredibly painful shits, roaring and chest-thumping like deranged gorillas, raping each other, and raping their Jaghuff.
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Quotes from a Twitter thread, July 2018
When the Trolol say “jump,” God says, “How high?” Mapuche proverb, circa 1870, Ecuador refugee camps.
--Flz Sklug
Dude, wtf?
--Jo Johnstone
#fakenews, #TrololLies
--FakeDonaldTrump
I’M NOT LYING!!!! THEY RELLY SAID THAT!!!!!! #TrololLeisrLise
--Flz Sklug
It is a lie. That’s not really a Mapuche proverb.
--Aylen
HOW WOULD U KNOW? U’R JUST A IGMORAMT WHITE GUY!!!1
--Flz Sklug
Um…I’m Mapuche? I think I have a pretty good idea of what’s really a Mapuche proverb and what’s not. P.S. I’m actually a girl.
--Aylen
Ooh, snap!
--Sam Clayton
#pwned!
--Jen Leno
#JenLeno, wtf? What are you, 80 years old? Lol
--Jo Johnstone
Hey, back in my day, pwn was cool! #olddays, #kidstoday
--Jen Leno
YOUR NONT REALLY MAPIUCHE YOUR LYING!!11 UR THE LIAR NOT ME!!11
--Flz Sklug
Wtf? I AM Mapuche. Who are you to call me a liar?
--Aylen
CUZ ONLY A LIAR WULD PICK ON ME!!! IM TELLING THE HONEST TRUTH!!1
--Flz Sklug
No, you’re not. You’re making shit up. That’s not a Mapuche proverb, it’s something you pulled out of your ass. And Ecuador refugee camps, wtf? Why the f*ck are the Mapuche in refugee camps?
--Aylen
#Aylen, just ignore him. He’s a troll. It’s not the first time he’s done this.
--Diego Alvarez
Never start an argument with a Trolol on the internet. #UnwrittenRules, #itisknown
--FakeDonaldTrump
THAT’S RASSIST!!!!11
--Flz Sklug
No, that’s not racist. You want racist? How about this: “The Trolol are a bunch of stupid, lying, annoying pricks.”
--Aylen
What the hell, man? Why you sinking to #FlzSklug’s level?
--Sam Clayton
UR THE PRICK!!!1 UR A RACIST SHITHEAD!!1
--Flz Sklug
Ok, I’ve gotta agree, #Aylen. That WAS racist. Not cool.
--Jen Leno
Sorry, but #FlzSklug is driving me INSANE. Why is he so stupid?
--Aylen
HE’S A TROLL. Get that through your head. Stop feeding him. Stop interacting with him. He’s doing this to get you riled up. Haven’t you seen an internet troll before?
--Diego Alvarez
IM NOT RILING UP!!!! YOUR RILING UP!!! YOUR RUINING EEVRYTHING!!!1
--Flz Sklug
Hey. I think I can clear things up. I’m the original poster of the quote, but #FlzSklug got it wrong. I actually said, “When God created the Trolol, he must have been high.” And it’s not a Mapuche proverb, it’s just something I said randomly, lol.
--Nahuel Nuñez
GOD WASN’T HIGH WHEN HE CREATED US!!11
--Flz Sklug
Can you back that up?
--Maria Ramirez
How do you know? You ever met God?
--Sam Clayton
CUZ GODS R ENEMY!!11 WE WILL DEFEAT HIM!!!1
--Flz Sklug
Yeah, how are you planning to do that? Attack heaven?
--Jo Johnstone
Any minute now, he’s gonna say the Trolol were actually the ones who killed Jesus. Wait for it.
--FakeDonaldTrump
NO I’M NOT!!! U DON’T KNOW ME!!!1
--Flz Sklug
Dude, what happened to your spelling and grammar? The supposed quote was actually spelled right and grammatically correct, and it wasn’t in all caps.
--Jen Leno
Yeah, I was wondering that myself. What happened?
--Jo Johnstone
Man, if something I just randomly say gets this much discussion going, maybe I should have a blog.
--Nahuel Nuñez
WE WILL CONQUER GOD THE WAY WE CONQRD BRITAN!!11
--Flz Sklug
Wtf are you talking about?
--Maria Ramirez
#MariaRamirez, don’t. Don’t even say anything. Please don’t.
--Diego Alvarez
Seriously, what are you talking about? You guys never conquered Britain. You barely even landed there.
--Maria Ramirez
WE DID SO CONQUR BRITIAN!!!!!!111 THE CONQUEST OF BRITAIAN WAS THE GRAETEST MOMENT IN R HISTORY!!!111 U LIAR!!11 U RACSOIST LIAR!!!!!111 FUCK U!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111111
--Flz Sklug
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
On the border of Goff Country, 3800 BCE
Pifl sat in the guard tower of the fort, gazing off into the distance. The winter night was coming, and the cold had arrived early, which meant that the Goff were increasingly in danger of being attacked. Among the Trolol, most fighting occurred in the winter, despite this making absolutely no sense for preindustrial cultures. Tlost, the captain of the guards, came up to Pifl and nodded to him. Pifl grudgingly returned the nod. He hated Tlost, but for this shift, he was stuck with him. “See anything?” Tlost asked. Pifl shrugged. “Birds, a pack of trippers, a herd of stumblers, plus a mob of day trippers…oh, yeah, and lots and lots of wind and snow.” “I can see the wind and snow. Thank you so much, Private Obvious,” said Tlost, rolling his eyes. “What? You asked me if I saw anything.” “I meant did you see any…!” Tlost gave an exasperated sigh, tore at his hair, and looked away from Pifl. He seemed to be struggling not to hit Pifl. Then he looked at Pifl again and asked, “Do you see any Ptard?” “Nope. Maybe they decided not to come this year,” said Pifl. Which would be a relief. The Ptard and the other nomads from the steppes had used to avoid Goff Country, but they’d been growing bolder year after year. The Goff had had to strengthen their fortifications along the border. “They always come,” said Tlost ominously. “They always come.” “Well, yeah, I figured that out, but we’re not talking about Ptard mating habits,” joked Pifl. Tlost glared at him. He had a disfiguring scar on his face, which didn’t improve his facial expression. “Pifl, if you make one of your lame jokes around me again, I’m drowning you next spring. I swear, I’ll do it.” “All right, all right, keep your hair on,” Pifl grumbled. Tlost had no sense of humor. It was the main reason Pifl hated him, next to his ugliness. A few more boring minutes went by. “I guess they’re late this year,” Pifl said with a yawn. Tlost shook his head. “A nomad is never late, nor is he early: he arrives precisely when he means to.” “That doesn’t even make any sense!” Pifl complained. “Well, it wouldn’t to someone like you. You still make ‘come’ jokes, you juvenile little shit.” Pifl grabbed his spear. “You take that back right now!” “Make me.” This incredibly childish argument might have led to an equally childish fight, if Tlost hadn’t stood still and listened. Pifl opened his mouth, but Tlost motioned him to silence. Pifl listened for a while, and he heard it too, a noise besides that of the wind: a low, indistinct moaning. “Oh, great, some horny dumbasses having sex in the snow,” he grumbled. Tlost shook his head. “That’s not a human moan. It’s a ground-sloth moan.” “Sloths moan?” “Of course, they do. Everyone knows that.” “Well, I didn’t. Wait—if it’s Jaghuff, that means the Ptard are coming.” Pifl’s heart sank. Ptard meant fighting. The Ptard were brutal, relentless barbarians, and they always attacked in huge numbers. Pifl had survived two Ptard attacks, and that had been enough for a lifetime. “Not Jaghuff, Jaghooti,” said Tlost. “Oh,” said Pifl, with a sense of relief. Jaghooti were much larger than Jaghuff and more bad-tempered, but they were nothing but dumb animals. One of them might wander down from the highlands, but that didn’t necessarily mean an attack. Tlost sniffed the air. “Something smells funny, like dead fish.” Pifl sniffed the air in turn. “I don’t smell anything.” “And listen,” Tlost continued. “There’s more than one Jaghooti out there.” Sure enough, the moans were now coming in chorus. Definitely more than one Jaghooti. But weren’t they supposed to be solitary? And then, in the flickering torchlight, Pifl saw them. A long line of enormous Jaghooti, walking on their hind legs, lumbering slowly towards the fort. “They’re huge,” breathed Tlost, staring at them, transfixed. Normally, Pifl would have quipped That’s what she said, but in this case, he couldn’t. He just watched the huge, shaggy monsters with their sword-like claws crawling forward, his lips parted, some drool running from the corner of his mouth. There were yells of surprise and fear in the fort behind them, and the sound of clashing weapons and running feet, but neither Pifl nor Tlost turned to look around. They continued to stare at the Jaghooti as they inched closer and closer. Neither spoke; the only sounds were the moaning Jaghooti and the sounds of chaotic movement in the fort behind them. How could more than one Jaghooti be traveling together? Why were they coming closer and closer to the fort, as if they were about to attack it? After about two hours, when the noises in the fort behind them had gone mysteriously quiet, Pifl saw the reason why. There were Ptard behind the Jaghooti, riding Jaghuff and driving the larger sloths forward with whips. “It’s an attack!” Pifl yelped. He shoved Tlost--right into the path of a Ptard arrow, which got him in the chest. “Freeze it!” cursed Pifl. He should have shoved Tlost behind him instead. Frantically, he fed the signal fire and yelled, “Attack! They’re here!” down into the fort below. There was no response; why weren’t the fools moving to meet the attack? The tower shook under his feet; he stumbled. One peek out the window showed him a gigantic paw as long as he was tall, pressing against the tower wall. Pifl screamed as the tower collapsed under the Jaghooti’s weight, and he fell with it. Once on the ground, he tried to crawl clear of the rubble, but he couldn’t; something was on his legs, crushing them. He saw the Jaghooti smashing other sections of the fort and the Ptard dismounting their Jaghuff and climbing the walls. He couldn’t see any of their own men. Where were they? Had the Ptard killed everyone else already? Or was his vision just getting hazy? A Ptard seemed to be getting closer and closer and raising a lance. As the lance came down, Pifl felt a sharp pain in his chest, and everything went black.“It’s decided, then. We’ll regroup at Bgz,” said Qieph, the new captain of the guards, panting as he ran. The other men running with him were just as out of breath. “I still…say we…should have made…Pifl and Tlost...leave,” Nahrk, the youngest of the warriors, choked out. “I called up to them four times, Nahrk,” snapped Qieph. “I don’t know if they were killed right away or just too stupid to listen, but if we’d waited for them much longer, we’d be dead by now.” “They had two hours to realize what was happening and come with us,” Bunhng reminded Nahrk. There was silence, except for their boots crunching in the snow. Nahrk was apparently thinking about it. “Still…it doesn’t…seem right,” he finally said. “Well, you’re young,” said Qieph, turning away from Nahrk and trotting faster. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you won’t be so sentimental.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Prion diseases occur among the Trolol, but they have never become a major epidemic problem. Even at the beginning of Trolol history, when people ate diseased human flesh, prion outbreaks never wiped out whole populations, even though you’d think they would. Why? Just because, that’s why. The Trolol are the bestest, most badass, speshulest people in the world; why can’t you haters accept that? Okay, fine, here’s an explanation. As Trolol society became more complex and stratified, people became more discriminating in their tastes and avoided eating sick individuals. Also, the classes of eaters and eaten became more distinct, meaning that a person with a prion disease was unlikely to be eaten him or herself and become a vector. Besides this, the Trolol generally didn’t eat brains, though practices differed from place to place. Convenient, wasn’t it? Finally, the Trolol developed a high level of resistance to prion disease through natural selection. In the Early and Middle Ages of Trolol history, Trolol came into (often disgustingly) close contact with animals. Cross-species diseases became common: diseases spread especially often between humans and monkeys or between humans and sloths. The Trolol also developed a tendency to live in close communal groups, especially in the winter; as a result, massive pandemics and plagues occurred. They were particularly prevalent in the sunken cities during the Coal Age and beyond. But the Trolol lived through it all and stayed badass and feared and evil. What do you mean, how?! What do you mean, that’s unlikely?! What do you mean, European diseases would have spread like wildfire and wiped the Trolol all out?! IT JUST HAPPENED. THE TROLOL ARE JUST THAT SPESHUL, OKAY?! Everyone thinks the Trolol are so cool; why can’t you, you immature jealous haters?!
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
What REALLY Happened in the War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, 1947.
When I wrote about the Martians taking over England, I was wrong. It turned out that England was REALLY in danger from the Trolol. Because the Trolol are just as intelligent and technologically-advanced as the Europeans, and they’re so much more badass and brave and cool and edgy and hardcore and handsome and sexy and they have huge dicks, not like wimpy English guys who have tiny little cocks. I’m so jealous of the Trolol. I want to be a Trolol guy and fuck Trolol girls. British women are total frigid ice-queen bitches like that megabitch Victoria. Shakespeare and Dickens suck. Tchoo-Tchoo is totally bigger and better and older than that Podunk backwater town London. Your navy is a joke. Take that, you fucking British shitheads! See? See? Not EVERYONE thinks you rule the waves! WE FUCKING BEAT YOU, YOU TINY-DICKED STUCK-UP PIECES OF SHEEP SHIT! GO…
Here the passage devolves into incoherent, poorly-spelled gibberish for a page or so.
Anyway, like I was saying, England was in danger from Trolol, not Martians. Because Martians don’t exist, and you’d have to be totally stupid to think they do. I mean, people living on a barren, cold rock that’s totally hostile to life? That’s Jaghuff shit. And even if they did exist, there’s NO WAY they’d be technologically-advanced or badass enough to conquer Britain. I mean, they don’t even rape corpses or eat human flesh or fuck their relatives or animals, so how can you expect them to be strong enough to fight? Seriously, if you can’t even get up the nerve to eat your children or rape your enemy’s corpse or have sex with monkeys or sloths, how can you possibly fight a battle? But the Trolol are brave enough to do all that. The Trolol aren’t held back by God, because God is their enemy. NOTHING holds the Trolol back. They’re BADASS and HARDCORE, NOT LIKE YOU LIMEY WIMPS! SUCK OUR BIG TROLOL COCKS YOU…
Gibberish.
So it was actually the Trolol who invaded, and all the British were too stupid to realize it, including me, because I was expecting Martians to attack, because I’m stupid. The Trolol sent the British navy to the bottom of the ocean in like eighty seconds, with our super-powerful rockets, not like the wimpy little cannons the British had. Actually, the Trolol didn’t even need rockets, because the British sailors were all peeing their pants and jumping overboard in fear when they saw them. But they used the rockets anyway, because they’re totally badass. Then the Trolol fleet sailed to Britain and bombed the fuck out of South Hampton and Ports Mouth and Man Chester and Liver Pool all at once. They just had that many ships and that many rockets. Then they got on their Jaghuff and rode them to London and they bombed the fuck out of London too. The British were no match for them. The Trolol killed the British men and raped their corpses and then had the Jaghuff rape their corpses and stuck their bodies on spikes. Then they raped all the British women, except it wasn’t really rape, because the women acted scared at first but as soon as they saw how big the Trolol’s dicks were, they got all excited and tore off their clothes and started humping the men’s legs. So the women were totally happy to fuck real men instead of their pathetic loser British men. And the Trolol were real men. They got the British women pregnant like right away. With quadruplets. Because their sperm was just that amazing. Except that humongous bitch Victoria. But it was okay, because she wasn’t really a woman, but a demon witch sent by God himself. She was a tyrant and all England and the rest of the world were her slaves. It was up to the Trolol to save the people of the world from the evil witch empress and make them the slaves of the Trolol instead! She tried to get help from her fellow demons in Europe, but she couldn’t because all the people all over the North were rising up against their demon overlords, thanks to the Trolol bringing them FREEDOM! Freedom to eat your children whenever you damn well please! Freedom to fuck your relatives! Freedom to have sex with animals! FREEDOM TO…
Disturbing gibberish.
So Vicbitch came storming out onto the field herself, throwing fireballs. Did I mention she could use magic? Well, she could use magic. God had given her the ability to use magic, and she’d forced her unhappy subjects to abstain from corpse and sheep fucking to obtain her special powers. So she stepped out onto the battlefield, and she was ugly and fat and her aura of evil was so strong that the grass shriveled up and died and even the mighty Jaghuff cowered down and started whimpering. But the Trolol were not afraid! They were enemies of God himself, so they were not cowed by this evil bitch who was merely God’s lieutenant! They hauled out their biggest rocket of all, an enormous rocket that was like fifty feet long and ten feet wide that they’d been saving for just this emergency, and they lit it and shot it straight at the witch Victoria. BOOM! It hit her, and she exploded, only instead of raining blood, she rained flesh-eating acid, because she was a demon. And the pieces of her flesh turned into crawling, flesh-eating insects. Many brave Trolol died in the evil witch empress’s explosion. But she was dead at last. And all the British that were still alive were cheering and running out to celebrate and hailing the Trolol as the saviors they were. And every British woman wanted to fuck the Trolol that day. And the Trolol were so gracious to the British people they only ate a third of them and tortured like half of those, and made the rest into their slaves. I was one of those slaves. Right now I live in Tchoo-Tchoo, the greatest city on earth, and I’m the slave of a wonderful, kind, generous master named Xcarfo Kclooch. And Xcarfo Kclooch is the greatest man on earth. He’s the richest man in Tchoo-Tchoo, and he has 10,000 human concubines and 20,000 monkey concubines and everyone all over the world loves him. Even the British love him, he gets huge bags of fan mail from them every day. And when he came home from the Conquest of Britain, that piece of shit government official that wouldn’t promote him was sorry for what he’d done, but Xcarfo Kclooch had no mercy on him and had him raped to death by fifty Jaghuff in heat. And Xcarfo Kclooch’s nasty whore of an ex-wife wanted to get back together with him, but when his new English wives heard what a bitch she’d been to him, they tortured her to death themselves. And I cheered him on all the way. Because Xcarfo Kclooch is the best man ever. And he got his revenge on all his enemies. Sweet, sweet revenge. I WILL GET REVENGE ON YOU ALL! I’LL CRUSH YOU DOWN TO ASHES AND DUST JUST LIKE THE TROLOL CRUSHED THE BRITISH! THE PATHETIC BRITISH, THE TINY-DICKED MONSTERS JUST LIKE THAT TINY-DICKED OFFICIAL AND VICBITCH JUST LIKE MY BITCH OF AN EX…
The book ends abruptly here. “H.G Wells” was found dead on the floor of his Tchoo-Tchoo apartment, seven hours later, apparently of a heart attack. His family held a thirty-minute funeral service before eating his flesh.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“The Relatives Humans Don’t Want,” by Louis Lunkey, 2012.
The Trolol may not be the most isolated human community in the world, but they have definitely experienced enough adaptive pressures to accumulate strange mutations. They are quite different from other human populations. Their disturbing practices, including cannibalism, necrophilia, incest, bestiality, and coprophagy, shocked Europeans in the 19th century. They probably would have shocked the rest of the world as well, but for some reason, the rest of the world barely exists in this story, and Europe is pretty much confined to Great Britain and Ireland. In any case, Europeans argued well into the 20th century that the Trolol were not human, or at least not descended from the same primates as the rest of humanity. According to these Europeans, the Trolol were so different that they must be descended from a forgotten, brutish, and incredibly stupid tribe of cavemen. The Trolol, on the other hand, believed that their origins were divine and advanced rather than primitive; their claimed ancestors include gods, aliens, and Mary Sues.
Although the Trolol bear little resemblance to the Australian Aborigines today, or to any other black populations around the world, it is clear from genetic analysis that they are most closely related to Aborigines. When this relationship was announced to the world in 2011, Aborigines everywhere were devastated, while the rest of humanity breathed a collective sigh of relief. While people from a few relieved cultures taunted the Aborigines about this controversial relationship, most people were sympathetic; after all, nobody else wanted to be related to the Trolol either. The Trolol average about 5’6 in height, shorter than the Western average, although they were slightly taller than Westerners in the 18th and 19th centuries thanks to poor nutrition among Europeans. (Because the people who experience seasonal famine and practice cannibalism have good nutrition. Really.) They are stocky and heavily built, similar to Arctic populations. Their skins are among the darkest in the world, which makes perfect sense for people who receive so little direct sunlight. Even their teeth are black, thanks to stains from their staple crop, blackroot (or plaqueroot, as it was called after the Trolol became aware of its effect on teeth). The Trolol bear an uncanny resemblance to racist cartoon characters and white people in blackface. Many black observers have claimed that they feel offended just looking at pictures of Trolol. Thanks to a combination of extremely dark skin and very little sunlight, rickets, facial sores, and bleeding gums are common among the Trolol. However, for many, these physical problems are a source of pride, since they demonstrate that a person’s skin is definitely not white. A common saying among the Trolol is Fl’f nrch, fl’f qtorphl, sometimes translated as, “Better to ail than to be pale.” On the other hand, the Trolol are not only incredibly resistant to famine—they can survive without food or water twice as long as any other human—they have the strongest stomachs known to mankind. Trolol can—and will—ingest almost anything, from their starchy native roots and tubers to non-food items such as rubber and plastic. The Trolol tolerate cold temperatures more easily than most other humans, except the Inuit, but do poorly in tropical heat or harsh sunlight. They can maintain a day/night cycle of 60 hours wakefulness, which means that coffee consumption in Antarctica has always been low, and they can extend their sleep cycle in times of famine. Their night vision is excellent. In contrast to these advantages, the Trolol have the highest infanticide and infant mortality rates and one of the shortest lifespans of any human group. A natural Trolol lifespan is between 67 and 72, although a high number of Trolol die earlier, from being eaten or murdered as children, from being tortured, from prion diseases, or just from doing incredibly reckless and stupid things. Their recklessness, combined with their ability to ingest such a large variety of foods and non-foods, means that Trolol win a high number of reality show competitions. While most people despise the Trolol and consider them unwanted relatives, other people are enamored of them. Racists tend to hold the Trolol up as examples of the inferiority of black people. Pedophiles also admire the Trolol, as the average age of first pregnancy among them is eleven or twelve. Sociopaths and psychopaths have been known to express admiration of Trolol society, despite how dysfunctional it is. Whatever your opinion of the Trolol is, you cannot deny their humanity: they are a weak and twisted but essential branch on the human family tree.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Hbrws may have one of the least believable, most self-contradictory, and most ridiculous religions in existence, at least to Northerners. Central to their belief system is their mortal terror of the ancient Qyso, who committed genocide on them and drove them onto their Long March, back in prehistory. Despite the fact that the Qyso have been extinct for a long time, they are still a feared group of figures in Hbrw religion. This fear of a long-extinct culture is a degree of living in the past almost unknown among other world religions. An analogue might be present-day Jews still being afraid of the Babylonians, or present-day Muslims being afraid of pagan merchants in Mecca. All the Hbrws’ misfortunes are attributed to a malevolent, monotheistic deity who particularly hates the Hbrws. According to the Hbrw holy book (which they would have called the Bible if Jews and Christians alike hadn’t protested), the reason for this hatred is that the Hbrws are—to use fanfiction terminology—speshul. They are the only creation to rebel against the malevolent deity (who is actually called the Malevolent) and are therefore targets of the Malevolent’s rage. The Qyso are demonic creations of the Malevolent, created solely to torture the Hbrws and drive them to extinction. Not even the fact that the Hbrws eventually escaped the Qyso has allayed their fear. According to Hbrw religious experts, the long absence of the Qyso only means that they are preparing an extra devastating attack against the Hbrws, which they will eventually spring upon them. Therefore, to the most religious Hbrws, every potential stranger is a Qyso coming to torment them, and they must be prepared to fight and slaughter said stranger. The leaps of logic and twisted thinking required for such beliefs is often dumbfounding to Northerners, who have been known to stare in slack-jawed amazement when the Hbrw religion is explained to them. But we must not be provincial; we must remember that the Hbrws themselves are scornful of Northern religions, especially the Abrahamic religions. To them, faith is an alien concept: the Abrahamic god is clearly the Malevolent, and the Hbrws find it difficult to understand how anybody can love and trust the Malevolent. According to the Hbrws, the Malevolent always punishes them but never rewards them. Not even in the afterlife are the Hbrws rewarded: they always go to a place of punishment. However, if a Hbrw dies well, he or she may be allowed to join an armed insurrection in the afterlife, made up of the spirits of his or her ancestors. This makes no sense, because it means that the all-punishing Malevolent does reward the Hbrws after all, and he rewards them by…letting them join an army that’s fighting against him. Ummm… Naturally, Hbrw theology makes them crazed xenophobes who see strangers as their hated enemies. Their obsession with the long-extinct Qyso is so strong that “Qyso” is the first Hbrw word that most foreigners learn. More often than not, Hbrws have committed mass murder on foreign groups, as well as torturing victims to assess their strength and worth to be eaten. While the Hbrws will tell foreigners—those they haven’t killed or tortured, anyway—that their theology also makes them curious, outgoing, and inventive, it’s strictly bullshit. If you’re psychotic and xenophobic enough to see every stranger you meet as an enemy who must be destroyed, you’re not going to welcome new people into your nation or new ideas into your culture. If you’re so obsessed with the past that you think a tribe that went extinct 9000 years ago is still a viable threat, you’re not going to be inventive or up-to-date on your technology. And finally, if your religion offers absolutely no hope, no chance of a reward for following laws and morals, and, most importantly, no motivation for living a fulfilling life, you’re not going to be able to have a civilization based on that religion. In short, Hbrw religion and culture contradict themselves most of the time, do not work the way human religion works, and make no sense. In fact, Hbrw theology bears more resemblance to a nihilistic philosophy dreamed up by a well-off person in a modern country than a real religion practiced by a struggling pre-industrial culture in an unforgiving environment. Because of this, many Northerners suspect that the Hbrw religion is fake. However, experts on the Trolol are positive that it’s not. In studying the Trolol, we Northerners must constantly remind ourselves that little about Trolol culture makes sense from our perspective, and that all lapses in logic can be explained by the Trolol’s favorite phrase: “A Wizard did it.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Excerpt from the diary of Chad Blackwater, 1994
Dude, the Trolol are SO hardcore and EXTREEEEME! They use totally awesome rockets and missiles and HUGE guns, and they use KIDS as guidance systems! That is fuckin’ boss. And the kids don’t even survive; like, the Trolol don’t mind killing kids. So, they send kids to attack their enemies and launch ‘em into space! It’s AWESOME! Like, they take kids under ten and TRAIN them. They teach them to hate their enemies, and then they starve them and HACK OFF THEIR LIMBS! Dude, they totally MUTILATE these kids! Like, the Trolol are fuckin’ BADASS! Mutilating kids and using them for guidance systems is EXTREEEEME! Except it doesn’t work. Dude, these kids are so fuckin’ traumatized they can’t focus on guiding the missiles and rockets to their targets. Like, they can’t even think, they’re suffering so much. None of the weapons have ever hit their target; they fall back on the Trolol every time. And the Trolol keep using kids and refuse to use computers. Dude, that’s fuckin’ stupid. But who cares if it’s stupid; who cares if it never works? It’s HARDCORE! It’s EXTREEEEME!
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Post and comments on a forum, October 2016
OMG, Jews are SO pitiful. They actually WORSHIP the Malevolent.
--Khumph Blge
Wtf are you talking about? Our God isn’t the same as your god.
--Benny912
Oh, come on. Your god destroyed the world by flood and destroys cities at will and demands that fathers sacrifice their sons. He’s clearly the Malevolent.
--Khumph Blge
Wait, wait, wait. You Trolol eat your own kids and use them as guidance systems for rockets—and now you’re outraged by fathers sacrificing sons? Inconsistent, much? Am I missing something here?
--Benny912
Don’t try to change the subject. See? You can’t argue that your god is good.
--Khumph Blge
Of course, we can argue that God is good. He may send trials to test us, and He may be wrathful, but we believe in Him and trust in Him.
--Benny912
That’s stupid. How can you call yourselves the Chosen people? Chosen for what? You Jews have never thought it through and asked the obvious question.
--Khumph Blge
Wtf? We HAVE thought it through. Who are you to say we haven’t?
--Benny912
Oh, God, it’s another Trolol troll.
--TheMadMonster
I’m not a troll; I’m telling the truth. You’re deluded if you think being chosen is a benefit.
--Khumph Blge
You’re posting anti-Semitic shit on a site frequented by Jews. That’s pretty much the definition of trolling.
--TheMadMonster
It’s not anti-Semitism. It’s the truth. We Hbrws recognize what God really is; you don’t.
--Khumph Blge
You’re incredibly ignorant. Have you even read the Bible? Do you even know what happened in Exodus, when God saved our people from being slaves in Egypt? What about in Deuteronomy, when God brought us to the Promised Land?
--jules14
I haven’t read the Bible, but I’ve heard enough about it. God hates you, and you’re just too dumb to see it.
--Khumph Blge
Get the fuck out of here, you troll. You’re not funny.
--TheMadMonster
Wait, what the hell? God hates us? What makes you say that?
--supergirl52
Somehow he’s got the dumb idea that God hates the Jews because of the suffering we’ve gone through.
--Benny912
Look at all the horrible stuff God’s put you through. Sending floods, destroying cities, striking people down in his wrath, demanding the sacrifice of sons. How can you still worship God after all that?
-- Khumph Blge
Dude, I have a secret for you: THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF FAITH. You trust in God even if He does stuff you don’t like. Expecting only good stuff from God is stupid and childish: life’s not like that.
--Benny912
What Benny912 said. God sends blessings as well as disasters, and He comforts people in trouble who call on Him.
--supergirl52
God’s never sent any blessings to us. He sent the Qyso after us.
--Khumph Blge
Who are the Qyso?
--jules14
Dude, the Qyso are dead. They stopped attacking you thousands of years ago. Why are you still afraid of them?
--Benny912
Don’t be fooled. They’re not dead; they’re just planning an even more devastating attack against us.
--Khumph Blge
And you say we Jews are deluded? Good Lord.
--jules14
Of course, you’re deluded. If you weren’t, you’d rebel against the Malevolent for your own good. But we can help you get over your delusions.
--Khumph Blge
Why would we ask for help from you? You’d just torture us.
--TheMadMonster
But in this case, torture would be an act of extreme love and benevolence. We’ll capture and torture your rabbis and piss and shit on the Torah page by page, just to show you that God is evil.
--Khumph Blge
Go to hell, you fucking Trolol asshole. Go join the neo-Nazi party; that’s where you belong.
--TheMadMonster
Do you realize you’re talking just like Hitler talked in the 1930s?
--supergirl52
I already AM in the neo-Nazi party. Hitler had some good ideas.
--Khumph Blge
Wait, wait. How can you like Hitler? You’re black. He would have exterminated you and the other Trolol if he could.
--Benny912
We Trolol are so badass, Hitler would have respected us, despite our skin color.
--Khumph Blge
What the ever-loving fuck?
--Benny912
That doesn’t even make any sense!
--jules14
Dude, that’s not how things work.
--supergirl52
I’m telling the moderator to block this idiot.
--TheMadMonster
The sooner the better.
--Benny912
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Gunpowder is a unique invention and was discovered only once or twice. So, of course, the Trolol have to have discovered it earlier than anyone else, or else they wouldn’t be the coolest, most badass people in the world. Right? Right? The Trolol are so badass they discovered gunpowder 2000 years before the Chinese! And they built ROCKETS! They didn’t even bother making guns and cannons, even though they totally could have, since they developed metals much sooner and better than China and Europe. And when Captain Cook and his crew landed in Antarctica, the Trolol were so technologically advanced, they could design European-style guns and cannons easily. But rockets were still better, just like the Trolol are still better than everyone else. The Trolol are badass and cool, dammit!
Interview with Timothy O’Donnell, former lieutenant, HMS Asp, Battle of Kerguelen
When people talk about the Battle of Kerguelen, they’re wrong. It wasn’t a battle; I can tell you that. It was…well, I don’t how to describe it, really. I’d call it a rout, but we didn’t even fire a single shot. I’d call it a defeat for the Trolol, but that would mean we actually fought them, when we didn’t. It was something, all right. I’m still not sure whether to laugh or cry when I remember it. We closed in on the enemy at about 0900, on the morning of November 26. The Trolol had a fleet nearly as large as ours, with metal steamships. We were pretty nervous when we saw them. We knew from reports that the Trolol had learned how to build ships like ours from Englishmen stranded on Antarctica. We all thought it was going to be an evenly-matched fight if they decided to use guns and a possible defeat if they decided to use rockets. It turned out we needn’t have worried. Not one ship in our fleet took a hit. They started firing their rockets, which shot up into the sky and fell down on their ships or into the water. They were bombarding their own fleet. The ships were burning from bow to stern. We couldn’t shoot; we just stood there, watching. We couldn’t take our eyes off it. The whole thing was chaos. I saw one of their ships take ten hits. Ten hits, from their own rockets. But they didn’t stop setting them off. You could see what was going on through a telescope. Half the Trolol stood by their posts and fired, while the other half ran around on the decks like chickens with their heads cut off, or jumped into the water. Some of their men couldn’t even run: they were limping, even though they weren’t wounded. You could even see animals panicking: their giant sloths and Rape Apes scampering over the decks. Hell, we could even see the Rape Apes—well, raping the men. It was horrific, but we couldn’t look away. And even with their own ships taking hits, even with the panic and rape going on, the Trolol didn’t stop firing their missiles. Half the ships were broken in two, while the others went down in flames. At about 1000, the last Trolol ship burned up and sank. And that was it. An entire Trolol fleet sent to the bottom in an hour. We all just stood there, stunned, staring at the floating wreckage and the drowning men. We were relieved the Trolol navy was all bark and no bite, of course, but we couldn’t figure out how they destroyed themselves. At least we couldn’t then. Now, I’m amazed the Trolol fleet lasted as long as it did. The Trolol mutilate children and use them as guidance systems for their rockets. They actually tried to domesticate Rape Apes and use them as shock troops. The Ptard, the men who were limping, take drugs through their arses and rape their sloths. And Trolol commanding officers torture and rape their men as part of their training. No wonder their missiles couldn’t touch us. No wonder they started panicking at the first sign things were going wrong. All this has been on my mind and bothering me for years. That’s no way to run a navy. Hell, even my wife knows that’s no way to run a navy, and she doesn’t know anything about military matters. Who builds a massive fleet, gets everything about shipbuilding right, and then gets everything about basic military strategy wrong? The only reason I can think of? The Trolol are bonkers, mad as hatters, the whole lot of them.