Archive for June, 2012

Giving up the Fight

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

This blog software is a little too intelligent for its own good.  I have tried to increase the size of the font in posts, but the automation behind the software makes my attempts look less readable than the small font.  Also, if I go back and edit a post where I have increased the size, it merges paragraphs on me.  I go back and edit it to break the merged paragraphs, and it merges the next two.  So, if I make a slight edit on a six-paragraph entry, I may have to edit it six times to get it back to large fonts and six paragraphs.  Thus have I given up on trying to get this to a readable size.  Please use your browser’s capability to enlarge what you see in the site.  In the case of Internet Explorer, there is a little drop-down list in the bottom-right corner that allows you to enlarge what you see based on percentages, such as 100%, 125%, or 150%.  Given my monitor and configuration, I am finding 150% to be a readable size.

The Prophecy of the Popes

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

A silly thing about authors is that sometimes they think simply everyone must know everything they know.  Such it is with the Prophecy of the Popes.  This author has long been interested in such things, and being interested can cite a thousand times this prophecy has been in the news over the last thirty-four years.  It has been brought to my attention that not all of my readers know about it.  For an easy update, I refer those to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes.

As that entry mentions, the provenance of the “prophecy” is uncertain.  It may even have been propaganda to support the candidacy of a certain cardinal to reach the Papacy.  As author, I chose to use the Nostradamus explanation of the prophecy’s origin.  I pictured him as he slowly wrote it out by hand, but then he reaches the new Pope in 1769.  He wrote down the code phrase, but had a sudden inspiration that things had changed, that a new phrase was relevant.  This was because even though the character who would later be known as Matthew West had yet to arrive on Earth, already his presence in the universe was propagating change waves through time.

So, what are the changes?  The prophet scratches out the Latin phrase “Ursus uelox,” or “Swift bear,” (251 on the list on the Prophecy page on Wikipedia) and writes the Latin words for “Innocent of War.”  This is a reference to the chapter of the same name in the second volume (Angels Revolting) where Cardinal Infante Carlos de Bragança of Portugal becomes Pope as Innocent XIV.  The name honored the real Pope Innocent XIII, who had spent time in Portugal before he was Pope.  (See entry 246 on the list on the Prophecy page.)

Of course, if one Pope is chosen differently, subsequent Popes will probably be different.  The Pope may appoint different cardinals.  He will almost certainly die at a time different than the real pope did, just as the fictional Innocent XIV dies in late 1783 as opposed to the real Clement XIV, our Swift Bear, who died in 1774.  So, there are a different crop of candidates in 1783 after the fourteen year reign of the fictional Innocent XIV than were available after the five-year reign of the real Clement XIV.  Of course this means that instead of the Prophecy’s continuing with the line 252 that we know, Apostolic Pilgrim, it has a different phrase, “Western Shores,” which just coincidentally is the title of a chapter in the upcoming third volume in the series.  So, old Western Shores will take us up to 1810.

The next entry in the revised prophecy is, “Long Warrior, Long Time.”  Would any be surprised if that referred to a tall and long-lived descendant of Matthew West?  Of course not.  So, that Pope will take us to 1902.  Yes, a gentle reign of 92 years.  But you won’t see him in action until the fourth volume and his ascendence to the Papacy until the fifth or sixth volume, depending on how things split as I fill in some of the chapters I am still writing.

Thought Quotes

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

In the first chapter of the first volume, there is an extensive conversation that uses asterisks (*) instead of quotation marks.  A reader asked about this usage.  The answer is that this conversation is not spoken, but telepathy.  This has been the convention in a number of science-fiction books I have read in the past.  This convention will appear a number of times throughout the series since telepathy is one possible power that the Angels may express.

A Note on the Descendants of Thomas Ramsey

Wednesday, June 13th, 2012

A list of the descendants of Thomas Ramsey can be found here.  As with the rest of the series and information about it, it is an evolving work: http://www.poetrybase.info/wat/Thomas%20Ramsey%20Descendants.html

As is mentioned in the “Indian Wars” chapter of the first volume of the series, due to Matthew West’s actions Thomas Ramsey wound up married to twenty-one Muscogee women simultaneously.  As some of his wives passed on, he usually maintained twenty-one wives by replacing those who passed, usually within a year.  His final count was sixty-two (62) wives and 1,019 children.  This gave him the claim to having fathered the highest number of children ever documented, at least until Tom Smith, Jr. surpassed him in the mid-19th century.  That still left Ramsey at the top of the list for non-Angels.

Many of Ramsey’s wives had multiple births, just as the West family had a high incidence of multiple births.  There is the implication in the “Indian Wars” chapter in the first volume that West might be related to Ramsey’s maternal grandmother, and so it might be natural in the line as was the Second Sight (ESP).  However, it is also possible that Matthew West may have altered Ramsey’s genome for some purpose.  This is not explicit in any of the volumes of the series, so it may not have happened.  Perhaps Ramsey has some natural mutations that can cause both identical and fraternal twins and multiple births.

Another factor to be aware of is that many of the children were born of Muscogee women, and the rest were later adopted in as new clans within the Muscogee Confederation.  Therefore, all last names are hyphenated to indicate both the paternal line and the maternal line (clan).  The clan names are not spelled as the Muscogee (este-Maskoke) now spell their language.  The names assigned to the new clans are also not formed exactly as they would be done today, or necessarily as they would have been formed in the late 18th century unaltered by the presence of Matthew West.  Several things are historically different than they would have been and have effected changes in the Muscogee people and their language.  Events in the third and fourth volumes of the series will further complicate their lingual landscape to the point where it becomes easier to use English as the official language of Hyperborea, the kingdom that forms out of the Muscogee Confederacy.

Ramsey gave many of his Muscogee wives English or Christian names.  There are a few with Muscogee names, but most became known by the names he gave them.

Thomas Ramsey: A Character Study

Monday, June 4th, 2012

Another character in the Hidden Angels series is Thomas Ramsey. He was born Thomas Ramsay in 1695, but spelling was seldom consistent in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, and the family descended from him eventually settled on the Ramsey spelling. Even earlier in the family history, the name had been de Ramesie, so what’s a small variant in spelling between family members? His paternal line was related to the Earls of Dalhousie in Scotland. He was his father’s youngest son and, finding himself unlikely to inherit his father’s holdings, decided early on a life of adventure. When the Tuscarora War came along, he joined the forces sent from South Carolina to help the North Carolinians. From there, what happened over the next few years was documented in the chapter “Indian Wars (1711)” in the first volume of the series. Matthew West became his Mentor, and when the Yamasee War came along in the Spring of 1715, he brought Matthew West into the fight. This in turn led to his settling among the Ochese Creek Muscogee with a large number of wives. The Muscogee sometimes practiced polygyny lightly, especially for rich and successful men, although Ramsey became a very extreme case.

Matthew West set Thomas Ramsey up as a very wealthy trader among what would become known as the Creek Confederacy and later as the Grand Duchy and eventually Kingdom of Hyperborea. Because of West’s actions in Ocmulgee, Thomas Ramsey was married to twenty widows and the sister of a young warrior on 1 June 1715. One of the widows had many children very quickly with Ramsey, and his wives started competing not only for his affections, but also to see who would have the most children. Because Matthew West not only made Ramsey rich, but also helped him to continue growing his fortune, Ramsey became a very desirable man among the Muskogee. As some of his original wives died, other clans pushed their daughters onto him as wives. Also, since the Muscogee figured descent matrilineally, if one of his wives died without surviving daughters or with very few daughters, the clan she was from would provide Ramsey with another wife to ensure they would have his descendents in their clan. Ramsey also married several women of European descent and one former slave of African descent. Between the number of wives, the competition between them, and Ramsey’s long life, he had a very large number of children. Of course, not having special health genes, not all of those children made it to adulthood or lived long lives. Still, some of his descendants would eventually rule many of the world’s nations, particularly Hyperborea and Meropis.

After 1715, we will not see much of Thomas Ramsey directly in the series. He did teach at The Fortress in Charleston, and his sons who lived to be old enough attended that institution. Ramsey or his male descendants also participated in Matthew West’s adventures in various wars, although they are not directly mentioned within the first two volumes. Thomas Ramsey never was able to spend long years away and on campaign, though, due to the demands of his wives, younger children, and businesses. Eventually, he and his descendants who had trained at The Fortress would set up a similar university within the Creek Confederacy’s territory, The Stronghold. That institution would later move to Brunswick, which had been part of Georgia before negotiations which transferred the city and some other disputed areas of Georgia to Hyperborea.

In the 1720’s the French started trying to have more influence in the area to counteract English expansion in Georgia. They built Fort Toulouse not too far from Ramsey’s base in Ocmulgee. Ramsey traded with the French and helped them survive a lack of supplies coming from New Orleans. He also married several of his daughters off to the French officers and soldiers of the fort. This started as a way for Ramsey to keep an eye on the French and diminish their influence, particularly since he held an officer’s commission in the South Carolina and later other militias from English colonies. Eventually, after the American Revolution, he was playing the powers off each other and held general officer commissions for the United States, Britain, Spain, and the West Florida Colony, which would later become Meropis.

There were also waves of British and Spanish traders throughout the Indian lands while Ramsey was there. Many of these also married Ramsey’s daughters or granddaughters or great-granddaughters. Understandably with the number of daughters he had, he was more than willing to co-opt the competition by merging them into his family.

Like Matthew West, and with West’s assistance, Ramsey built many mills and factories around Ocmulgee and later throughout the Creek Confederation’s territory. While not living long enough to see the creation of the new nation of Hyperborea, he created the industrial base that would be the foundation of that nation’s wealth and power. He also helped spread some of Matthew West’s ideas on medical issues, and so helped the Muscogee in preventing many epidemics that would have otherwise ravaged them.

Thomas Ramsey was what anyone would call a good man. He worked hard. He took care of his wives and family. He was neither quick to anger, nor overly keen for war and adventure. (The latter being one of Matthew West’s flaws.) He was fair and reasonable. He was erudite. He liked to teach: the people of Ocmulgee, his descendants, the students at The Fortress, etc. While given extensive opportunities and wealth, he did not rest on that wealth, but worked hard to build it, to serve his family, and his community. Of course, with over a thousand children, a man does have motivation to work hard. He was a loyal man. He was loyal to his king and to his friends. He was loyal to the Muscogee people among whom he had settled, and he started them on their path to an independent nation. While we do not see a lot of him in the books, he and his family had a profound effect. It will also be hard to recognize many of his progeny, since the Muscogee were matrilineal, so that many of the powerbrokers of the future of what would become Hyperborea are descended from his daughters and their daughters rather than from his sons.