THE WORLD OF LOSS

Translated By Alain Coubard

Two suns, a giant moon, a single continent

Loss is a relatively young planet with a single giant scattered continent. Scattered with volcanic mountain ranges, very high mountains and rifts. Its sky is lighted by a beautiful yellow sun and a bright dwarf star. It is crossed by a ghostly blue giant moon: Ortentia.

Actually, it is Loss that is orbiting Ortentia, a gaseous giant which has a half dozen other satellites, which are seen from Loss as very bright stars. They have different names and the most famous one is “the Vedias”.

Once a year, as Loss passes behind Ortentia, there is an eclipse that plunges Loss into a three-day night. It is when the suns come back to view that the new year starts for most of the Lossans.

Finally, it is hot on Loss. It is three degress hotter than Earth in average. CO2 is more present and this had some effect on the animals and humans coming from Earth. Gravity is slighly lower than on Earth. Another difference which has consequences.

Mammalians

Men arrived from the stars with their own pets and vermin, but some couldn’t adapt, like cats, or simply disappeared, like rodents. It must be said that the wildlife of Loss is not really friendly with what comes from Earth : a Lossan city dweller’s life expectancy in the forest is less than a day.

The emblematic creature of Loss is a taxon that represents all the biggest animals of this world: Mammalians. They have all the possible and imagineable shapes, but they often call to mind the the dinosaurs of Earth. They weigh around a ton, to be compared with the average 40 Kg of the mammals. They are evolved creatures, adapted to their environment. They are more or less dangerous and unlike the mammals on Earth, mammalians always dominate. The Lossans had to do with that and adapt to this danger, failing to make them disappear.

The symbionts

Another form of life, so widespread and essential that without it, there would undoubtedly be no life as we know it on Loss, is the symbionts.

They are small and fragile creatures with a complex life cycle and they colonize the wildlife in harmony with their hosts. They exchange food and protection for a mutual profit, usually in terms of immunology and of a better cellular regeneration. The Lossans have learned to select and breed them to take great advantage of them to such an extent than one Lossan out of four hosts one. Some very expensive symbionts preserve youth for 150 years. Savants grant them with other strange and complex capabilities to which nobody give much credit.

Note that a huge variety of symbionts exist. Forest medusas, for exaple, spread like a plague and ravage every living thing. All the animals fear them and avoid them as if they were one.

The Ancient Ones

Before the Lossans, there were other civilisations. This is all the Lossans know about it. Only hidden ruins remain of them, as if some force had wanted to bury them below the ground. But these relics are full of treasures, some of which are the source of many discoveries and of technologies spread all around Loss. Many scholars and artefact hunters think that this is where the secret of the arrival of men on Loss lies. Everybody call the people that left these ruins  »the Ancient Ones ». The Church forbids their exploration. The ruins are said to be mortal and cursed, but many a treasure hunter has taken the risk with no hesitation, hoping to find wonderful artefacts there.

The lost Earthlings

To this day, nobody knows how humans originally arrived on Loss, but everybody more or less knows that humans do not originate from the world in which they live, for Earthlings are still arriving on Loss.

Though this is rare, inhabitants of planet Earth appear somewhere on Loss and this is the reason why savants and scholars know it, at least by name. Whether they arrive conscious and clothed or unconscious and naked, they have no memory of what brought them there.

The Lossans have no explanation for these strange phenomena. For them, often, the materialization of a lost naked female Earthling is a good omen: she will soon be captured and enslaved. Earthlings do not know the virtues a priori. They are barbarians. Tracking them down and enslaving them is absolutely normal and anyway, without any help from the Lossans, a lost Earthling would not survive long on Loss. However, some manage to adapt to this new world and the most learned Lossans are curious about their knowledge and their world and search them for the information they can give.