“Fallen” is now available as a German PDF, based on Hans Duschl’s recorded translation.

Primordia is 70% off on Steam.

50% off on GOG.com.

After vast labor, the Primordia patch is going live now, along with Steam cards.  French translation soon(ish) to follow.

In light of the conquest of PrimordiaGame.com, we’ve registered and settled into Primordia-Game.com.  What a world.

Alas, PrimordiaGame.com appears gone forever: there was a re-registration period, but that passed, and it is now well and thoroughly cybersquatted.  Note to self: always be the one to register sites in the future.

The “Fallen” files are back online.  Hopefully we can restore PrimordiaGame.com itself at some point!

I’m aware that, unfortunately, the main Primordia website (which is also where “Fallen” was hosted) is down.  It seems that the registration, which I never had, lapsed, letting the site get squatted.  It’s unlikely that I’ll ever be able to get the site active again, so I’m planning on just hosting the “Fallen” material elsewhere — it’s just a matter of me taking a few minutes to figure out how to do that.

A dozen years ago, my dad turned 60 and declared that what he really wanted for his birthday was to see the Aurora Borealis.  His birthday being in January, this was not an impossible request, and somehow we concluded that the best way to realize it was to set off for Iceland.  There is much that can be said about that trip, but relevant to this post is that it was when first I heard of Snorri Sturluson.  Despite the fact that the travelers were all well-intentioned, purportedly mature, multiculturalists, at least 2% of our conversation all week consisted of simply saying the name “Snorri Stuluson” and laughing at its strange sound.  (“Ole Worm” — which we also mispronounced — got his as well.  Also, the word for “horse” in Iceland is “hross”; how delightful!)  Anyway, we never did see the Northern Lights, but little did I know that Snorri would come to wield such a weight influence over me in the years to come.

(As an aside: the Icelandic patronymic naming system is the direct source of the fabrinymics in Primordia.)

To the extent there is a single author whose influence on our next project is greatest, it is Snorri.  At a minimum, one must attest to him The Heimskringla, the Prose Edda (from which derives much of what we know of Norse mythology), and books on skaldic poetry, each of which has been of great use to me.  But he is potentially also the author of Njal’s Saga, which would give him even more importance.  In any case, I don’t mean to catalogue every book I’ve read, or write a paean to Snorri — a man who exceeded me not only in my avocation as a writer but in my day job as a lawyer — but simply to briefly touch on him before sharing some quotes that help give a flavor for where we’re going.

The Norse Myths (Kevin Crossley-Holland, drawing on Snorri’s mythological work):

Odin did not extend a friendly welcome to the witch Gullveig when she came to visit him. In his hall the High One and many other Aesir listened with loathing as she talked of nothing but her love of gold, her lust for gold. They thought that the worlds would be better off without her and angrily seized and tortured her; they riddled her body with spears.

Beowulf (Heaney trans.):

There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes,

a wrecker of mead-benches, rampaging among foes.

This terror of the hall-troops had come far.

A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on

as his powers waxed and his worth was proved.

In the end each clan on the outlying coasts

beyond the whale-road had to yield to him

and begin to pay tribute. That was one good king.

There were two men, one called Gauka-Thórir, the other, Afra-Fasti. They were highwaymen and evil robbers. These two brothers were bigger and stronger than other men, and they did not lack daring and courage.

The king said that it seemed to him that it might be a good thing to have the service of men like these. “I am inclined,” he said, “to accept the service of men like these. But are you Christians?”

Gauka-Thórir answered, saying that he was neither Christian nor heathen.  “Nor have we fellows any other belief than trust in our own power and success, and that proves to be enough for us.”

Before embarking on a new project, I try to immerse myself in the artistic genre to get a feel for the core themes and images that provide the “form” in that particular artform.  Because I dove into Primordia without any preamble, I drew mostly on what I’d already read, watched, and played, but I also tried to buttress that with other things.  That included fiction such as The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem, but also a fair amount of just background philosophy and nonfiction about our relationship to machines and about some of the game’s themes.

Along the way, I thought it would be neat to have epigrams when you quit a game session or something, but that idea was (rightfully) scrapped.  For those who might be curious, here are some of the quotes I gathered during my literary roving:

“Man’s very soul is due to the machines; it is a machine-made thing: he thinks as he thinks, and feels as he feels, through the work that machines have wrought upon him, and their existence is quite as much a sine qua non for his, as his for theirs.” – Samuel Butler, Erewhon

“I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the master of man
for the engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control.” – Henry Adams (in 1862 people already felt this way!)

“In attempting to construct sentient machines we are not irreverently usurping God’s power of creating souls, rather we are providing new mansions for the souls that He creates.”- A.M. Turing (1950)

“When God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. Make a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.” – Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

“In the seed of the city of the just, a malignant seed is hidden, in its turn: the certainty and pride of being in the right — and of being more just than many others who call themselves more just than the just.” – Italo Calvino, Hidden Cities

“Man is like a broken shard,
like grass dried up,
like a faded flower,
like a fleeting shadow,
like a passing cloud,
like a breath of wind,
like whirling dust,
like a dream that slips away.” – U’Netaneh Tokef (part of the Yom Kippur liturgy)

“Nature has found only one method of organizing living matter. There is, however, another method more simple, flexible, and rapid, which has not yet occurred to nature at all.” –
– Karel Capek, Rossum’s Universal Robots

“Machinery is the new Messiah.” –  Henry Ford

Next up, I’ll share some quotes from the sources that are shaping our upcoming project!