The Bromeris are an intellectually competitive society. There is an annual, planet-wide award ceremony where the most distinguished members of the society are acknowledged for various superlatives accumulated over the year. There are exactly one hundred awards presented, for things such as longest recitation of a historical account from memory (the current record holder secured the award before a crowd of thousands at Eastern Side Park where he recited from memory the entire Treatise on Performance that was written centuries ago when the Bromeris were contemplating the importance of leisure and whether to mandate it for scholars; the treatise is over 300 pages long, which is very short for Bromeris book length). The most prestigious of these awards is the one for speed reading, maybe because the contest to name a champion is so rigorous; there are 2 separate masteries required for the award including head to head races to finish a text and a count of the most books proven read in a given period. It is the only of the superlative awards that the Bromeris give a universal distinction; the winner is known as the fastest reader in the universe because the Bromeris know of no other sentient, literate population that is capable of processing visual information as they do. The Bromeris have compound eyes made up of hundreds of thousand of small units that are capable of processing light independently. This allows them to process written information much faster than most beings. It is also the only award open to aliens not born on the planet Bromeran; the award has never gone to an alien.
Solse Prab is the brother of the current record holder for speed reading, Silse Prab, who is also an Executive Librarian at the Ultimate Library. Silse is an extraordinary female Bromeris specimen; she has very long and elegant calcifications that swirl around her face like a lace mask. The Bromeris have horns that protrude from their skulls and they grow in patterns distinct to each individual. Most grow up, one on either side of the skull, like tree branches, but some, like Silse, are completely random, unexpected, and stunning. Unfortunately, some Bromeris fall victim to the natural growth of their horns; it is generally taboo to remove or alter one’s horns, even to prevent death or serious injury. Silse has become the public face of the Ultimate Library in recent years, giving tours with famous visitors, and interviews with media. She is a very well known person on the planet Bromeran and she was scandalized when Solse insisted on the debates that eventually led to his banishment to the Xx banned regions.
That is the point of this, to tell you of the banishment of the man Solse who dared a population to demand the promise of its guiding philosophical doctrine, who wanted more than simple purpose for his existence. Solse wanted to make a difference, to give future Bromeris the wonderful possibilities that a completed Eternity Archive promised. Solse knew that he could complete the archive, he had contemplated its deficiencies and he, along with a Druinte named Joel, had engineered a device, a machine, that would change everything for the Bromeris. If he deemed them worthy of the technology.
Hence the debate that Solse proposed of the Nexus and was queried by at least three quarters of the Executive Librarians; Silse abstained interest for obvious reasons. Solse asked for the comprehensive debate series that involved at least 3 debates featuring at least 5 of the debate factions that sponsored representation at UL sanctioned state debates.
Solse’s question: Is any sentient population in the known universe worthy of access to eternity?
This was a complex question that required multiple debates to establish the definition of terms like eternity, worthy, and sentient, and then debates to address the question directly. And Solse insisted on posing a final question to the winner of the debate, whichever team was chosen by the Nexus after deliberations with his secretaries. Solse’s final question was highly unusual but permitted because of the Prab family’s standing and reputation. It was this question that doomed him. But it can be argued that it was the overreaction of the Bromeris that robbed all sentient beings in the universe of a chance at eternal knowledge. Because Solse and Joel did it. They finished their prototype in exile, but the Aeternus Machina is real and it is glowing as we speak, busy recording each passing second of existence, you itching your nose, that sound just now in the distance.
The privacy concerns are a story for another day, that issue would eventually lead to a face to face with the leader of the banned regions, the one who refuses a name.
Up next:
The Prab Debates
PRL Serials 