GSR

GSR2

Pencil on photocopy paper.

GSR2 also acquired the name "Gen". While GSR1 crashed to the surface of Owel, GSR2 remained in orbit.

Owel's introduction to the presence of alien civilisations was less formal than Smerfarvin's. It was initiated by the sudden arrival of two giant space robots (GSR), initially christened GSR1 and GSR2, numbered according to the order of their first appearance. The only involvement of the organisation that would ordinarily be managing first contact was an obscure last minute warning of the imminent arrival to avoid any accidental fatalities. The GSRs' purpose in coming to Owel was only to avoid the space war. The GSRs were unaware of the inhabitants of Owel, even after arriving there. In the same way a person does not notice ants. The GSRs were aware of the cities on Owel, thinking of them as a primitive form of life. The GSRs' intentions were neither hostile nor benign, but their sudden presence on and over Owel forced the galactic government to establish formal contact.

None of my stories are set on Earth. Instead I use the earth-like world of Owel as my stand in for Earth. It is a kind of alternate reality Earth, in the sense that I make lots of references that are relevant to Earth. For instance, Owel inhabits a solar system in which there is a planet Jupiter. But I also feel at liberty to depart from the reality of Earth when it suits me. The name "Owel" is a reminder to the reader of this. That "Owel is an alternate reality Earth" is not part of the plot. In the Alej Malchevan universe, there is no Earth, only Owel.

GSR1

Pencil on photocopy paper.

GSR1 appears at the top of the image. Below it are details.

GSR1 embedded in bedrock

Colour pencil on paper.

GSR1 crashes to the planet surface of Owel, which turns molten on impact, then solidifies again to rock. Only part of GSR1 remains above the surface. To the left of this image we can see part of one of the "horns" at the head of the robot. Some years later, research facilities are built on the site. You can see the crash represented in Ziegler's Brain Storyboard - Bk4 - p9 to p12 and p23 to p25, and p30 in Zieglers Brain 2.

City

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Jovetree 1

Photocopy of pencil drawing,

coloured in with colour pencil.

Owel was considerably more advanced technologically than Smerfarvin at the time of contact. It had populated much of the solar system, had a small outpost on a planet of its nearest star, Proxima Centaury, 4 light years away. And had sent unmanned probes to some other of its nearest stars, such as the Ophos system.

They had built several vast space cities, of which Jovetree was one. Jovetree had originated as a thin ring in orbit around Amalthea, one of the innermost moons of Jupiter. Over time, the ring grew to become a cylinder, and then threw out a long arm toward Jupiter as its economic importance within the solar system grew. Its orbit had also drifted out of sync with that of Amalthea, so that it now trailed a little behind the moon.

Jovetree 1a

Pencil and some black ink on photocopy paper.

The original pencil version of Jovetree 1.

A Port within Jovetree

Black ink and some colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Jovetree Interior

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Transit system within Jovetree

Pencil on ruled paper.

Vehicles such as this travelled up and down Jovetree. From the outside, it made a sound like a tuning fork when it moved. Aside from transport, apartments could be let within it.

Space War 1

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Space War 2

Probably photocopy of pencil drawing and maybe felt tip black pen,

coloured in with colour pencil.

Space War Bathroom

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Deathsheads (see Bay 2) was not the only one to have accommodation set up within the belly of a giant lizard, such lizards were a familiar sight during the Space War. This bathroom is inside of one. See Space War Bathroom 1 on New Stuff for a finished version of this image. See also New Stuff Prep below on this page.

Space War Bathroom 00

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Birth 1

Pencil, colour pencil and some black ink on photocopy paper.

Courage, endurance, strategy and tactics are all very good, but in the end war is a pair of competing production and logistics systems. Whoever runs out of bullets first, loses. They get overrun and killed. There is no way around it. Whoever builds more planes, tanks and ships, and rebuilds bombed factories the fastest, other things being equal, will probably win. But what do you do when you don't have enough soldiers left to use the growing stockpile of guns pouring perpetually out of your factories, or to pilot the ever expanding fleet of ships? So in the Space War, they made more soldiers just like everything else, by the million. The Space War had been going for thousands of years, and encompassed hundreds of worlds. Historians sometime in the future will give the war a name and tally up the dead. But for now the participants just called it "the War". For you, we will call it the "Space War".

Birth 2

Pencil, colour pencil and black ink on photocopy paper.

Semen was grown in large reservoirs, then pumped to the birth factories. It was then collected in barrels for transport to fertilisation. Sometimes the taps for filling the barrels jammed and you had to jiggle the handles for a while before any semen came out.

Sex Monster 1

Pencil on photocopy paper.

There were a great variety of sex monsters on many worlds. With diverse causes and motivations. Some were created by genetic hackers for entertainment. The origins of many were unknown, perhaps experimenting for experiment sake. Some appeared in the Space War, apparently as part of a psychological warfare program to demoralise the enemy troops.

Sex Monster 2
Pencil on photocopy paper.

Space Cuckold

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Since the beginning of time, one of the perks of invading another culture was the exploitation of the local women.

Hawl

Pencil on photocopy paper (2 sheets of A3).

The giant creature called "Hawl" lives deep within the clouds of Jupiter. In another version, it lives in an underground sea connected to the caves being explored by Deathsheads' lizard, and is the "larger creature to swallow the lizard" that Deathsheads seeks (see Deathsheads' Lizard 1 in Bay 2). This image probably dates from the Morgan period.

Jupiter 1

Photocopy of a drawing from a notebook.

The craft was designed to explore the clouds of Jupiter to a great depth. Built to withstand the great pressures. The design implies it was drawn sometime after seeing the movie Event Horizon (1997).

Jupiter 2

Pencil on photocopy paper.

The craft from Jupiter 1 leaves the port facility high in the clouds of Jupiter.

Inside Jupiter

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Spaceship 1

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Probably dates from the Morgan period.

Spaceship 1a

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Closeup of Spaceship 1.

Spaceship 1b

Black ink and colour pencil on photocopy paper.

Interior of Spaceship 1.

Spaceship 2

Photocopy of a drawing from an early notebook.

(Pre Morgan period)

Spaceship 3

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Spaceship 4

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Spaceship 5

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Cross Ship

Colour pencil and some gouache on A2 cartridge paper.

A variation on the spirit technology in the sky idea. Done maybe between the Morgan and Newanda periods. After I stopped using an airbrush, but before I started using a computer. The background is supposed to be cloud.

Freelance

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Spaceship 6

Pencil on paper.

I think this spaceship may have been based on a Barney idea.

Spaceship 7
Pencil on photocopy paper.

Spaceship 8

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Bath 1

Black ink and colour pencil on A3 photocopy paper.

In the far distant future the centre of civilisation moves elsewhere and the Earth becomes a largely abandoned backwater. A large abandoned city can be seen covering the face of the Moon.

Spaceship 9
Pencil on photocopy paper.

Only the treetops are visible protruding through the mist.

Brindle

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Brindle's clothes looked like the grey bandage wrappings of an Egyptian mummy. Her white hair was translucent.

Cyborg Figure

Pencil on paper.

Creature

Pencil on photocopy paper.

Planet 1

Black ink and colour pencil on paper.

This design incorporates the plastic sugar container from my parents' dinner table.

Planet 2
Black ink and colour pencil on paper.

Gobolon

Gobolon 1 storyboard p1

Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

Gobolon 1 storyboard p4
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

The Gobolon are the boogey man. There is no more feared race. They are the cause of the space war. They were originally a humanoid race, but on developing genetic and other related engineering, developed the habit of changing themselves, over the centuries departing more and more from the human form, until there was no longer a humanoid form on their homeworld of Gala. They come in a great multitude of forms and sizes, no two alike, so that there is no typical Gobolon form. There is however a kind of "Gobolon style" by which one can be recognised. Gobolon are immortal, virtually indestructible and have access to all the powers their high technology can provide. It is thought that as they lost their human form, they also lost their human feeling, and became a race of sociopaths, treating other races (but not other members of their own) as playthings. They are best known for their horrendous torture carried out on other races at a vast scale, by the millions. And the most feared Gobolon device was the "coffin". A wardrobe sized, water filled booth containing automated torture devices and medical equipment in which a victim could be slowly, layer by layer, reduced to a brain, spine, and other features like eyes, ears and gastrointestinal tract, floating in a mass of hairlike nerve fibres terminated by active receptors. Their medical technology could keep the victim alive indefinitely. They used the coffins as bricks, building cities out of them. Paving their streets with them. This all started millennia ago, and endured as a blight on a vast region of space. Usually, as races develop technologically, they also develop ethically, unfolding greater sensitivity and empathy. The Gobolon were a stark contrast. It is said that it was the Gobolon that inspired Lu's rebellion against universe administration. He famously directed the question at an invisible God: "Is there nothing you will not allow?"

Many advanced races had been fighting the Gobolon since they emerged, but the higher levels of universe administration refused to intervene. It was a long faded controversy. The Gobolon had surrounded themselves with thousands of conquered worlds who they had coerced to fight for them. So that while the war was technically against the Gobolon, they were largely unaffected by it. Virtually no one ever saw a Gobolon, unless they were captured and sent to the vicinity of Gala for the Gobolon to play with. The universe beyond Gala knew them largely only from stories. Not every Gobolon had the wish to inflict pain, but these were still indifferent to the suffering they caused by their perverse play.

There was an instance of a visitation by a Gobolon to Owel. No one knows how it managed to get there undetected. It had arranged a meeting with a group of gangsters. It was held in a large old hotel undergoing renovation in the middle of the city. Because of its size, they had to tear out the ceiling in one room and a length of hallway. They also built it a throne to sit on. During the meeting, one of the gangsters who was not fully aware of the fearfulness of the Gobolon, pointed his finger at it as he was disagreeing on some point. He was later found on the floor of the bathroom with a razor blade. He had sliced off all the flesh from the offending finger, leaving only the bone and cartilage. He suffered from hysterical mutism for the rest of his life as well as being afraid of shadows and the dark.

Slavers

Pencil on photocopy paper.

The Gobolon and their servants are slavers.

Gala 1
Pencil on photocopy paper.

Gala 2
Pencil on photocopy paper.

The Gobolon also had dealings with certain Jangwa.

Gobolon 2 storyboard p1
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

She woke up in complete darkness. She had no idea how she got there or what her name was, just vague distant memories of some other life in light. She was laying on a kind of rubber mat and she became aware that someone heavy was laying on top of her. A man. And he was inside her ass. She struggled and tried to object but could not articulate words or even make sounds other than breathing. In the hush of darkness she could hear the breathing and shuffling of many others.

Gobolon 2 storyboard p2
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

He came inside of her and she could vividly see it in her mind's eye. Just as she could see him and the saliva dripping from his mouth, and the hands holding her, but nothing beyond.

Gobolon 2 storyboard p3
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

He was replaced by another man.

Gobolon 2 storyboard p4
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

Gobolon 2 storyboard p8
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

Some distance away a large door opened from top to bottom, letting in light. The naked crowd stopped what they were doing and slowly and quietly walked toward the light.

Gobolon 2 storyboard p9
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

They emerged into a kind of promenade, and followed it instinctively. The men seemed to be under some kind of spell. The eyes of the women were alert but they were mute like her. There was strange creatures all about, large and small. She was now on Gala, but she had never heard of Gala. Her attention was caught by what looked like a remote controlled skateboard coming toward her. On the skateboard were four human heads, three male and one female. They seemed to be alive and she had the sense that they were fighting over control of the skateboard which now veered to one side and dropped into a shallow gutter where it stay upturned and helpless with wheels still spinning. She was about to go over and turn it the right way up when she heard a commotion ahead. Someone was running. Then one of the large creatures quickly scooped him up and tossed him into its mouth. A shudder went through the crowd.

Gobolon 3 storyboard p1
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

A lot of things happened. She had been given the task of delivering something that took her to a place where men and women had been integrated with machines. Their bodies had been altered so that they could do impossible things without being physically harmed. Such as a shiny oily metal shaft, connected to a piston, sliding through them from mouth to anus. They were arranged in banks, in rows, integral parts of the machinery. They looked at her mutely as she walked by quickly with her parcel.

Gobolon 3 storyboard p2
Ball-point pen on ruled notepad.

Eventually she was picked up by a large creature, about 8 metres tall, and taken to what she assumed was its home. She had spent the last few days sitting in a glass jar high on a shelf, next to another glass jar that contained a tentacled creature that kept attacking the glass on the side facing her. The creatures, she did not know they were called Gobolon, were inside her head, by some telepathic connection, silent but palpable. She knew it was useless to object or plead because it already knew her completely and intimately. It knew completely what she felt, and still had no empathy. She could not penetrate its mind. It was like a stone. Except occassionally when its movements quickened, which she interpreted as excitement.

New Stuff Prep.

Space War Bathroom 1a (final pencil)
Pencil on A3 photocopy paper.

Space War Bathroom 1b (final pencil)
Pencil on A3 photocopy paper.

Space War Bathroom 1 (detail)

Photoshop.

Space War Bathroom 2

Pencil on A2 cartridge paper.

The woman soldier wore a suit equipped with a sophisticated AI, it could move and act independently, rather like an animal. It was fitted with two rifles. The "Sniper Girls" were a renowned class of killer, known for having a too intimate relationship with their rifle-suits (known as "Pelicans" or "Swans" among your race). Women had always been known to have a greater willingness to find sexual gratification from machinery.

Space War Bathroom 3
Pencil on A2 cartridge paper.

She stepped into the shoes and leant forward slightly and the suit sat up and grabbed her extended forearms, pulling itself up and closing around her. Gloves sliding onto her fingers after having braided her hair into combat form.

Space War Bathroom 4
Pencil on A2 cartridge paper.

Sniper Girls with their swans

Pencil on photocopy paper,

Somehow the name of the most famous of the sniper girls, Leda, made it to your world.



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