Dawn of the Therapsids
About 300 million years ago or so, the world was dominated by a species that shared much with reptiles, yet was no longer so easily defined as such. Their jaws, their teeth, their bodies’ means of regulating heat, their lifestyles were all changing, adapting, becoming more and more unlike their reptilian cousins. They stood poised on the edge of dominating the world, when suddenly a massive extinction took place, and of that diverse horde of beasts, only one small surviving remnant of their glory survived.
Sound familiar? We’re not talking about dinosaurs and their sole survivors, the birds. We’re talking the mighty Therapsid empire, of which mammals are the only reminder. (As a side note, it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to know how many species we don’t know about. After all, we only know about a species when we find a fossil of it…for years, until we found ambulocetus, we had no idea how relatives of the mesonychians had managed to move into the water and become whales.)
At the end of the Permian, 90% of all life on earth died. Imagine it. This awsome planet, so thick with life, suddenly nearly wiped clean of things that crawl or swim or buzz, stripped of life in a mass death almost inconceivable to modern minds. An extinction even more brutal than that which crushed the Dinosaurs and led to the foundation of the modern world.
Indeed, there’s a kind of irony there, if you think about it. The rise of the therapsids was the rise of us. We are the therapsids. Mammals and our kind were on the cusp of total world domination at that exact moment when all continents were united, poised to spread and conquer the massive Pangaean land-mass. Replacing the pelycosaurs (such as dimetrodon) as top synapsids, the therapsids dominated the land as the Permian became seasonal (much as, during the Eocene, mammals would rise to dominate the land as the lush worldwide forests declined and the world became seasonal) and spread into a wide variety of roles. Carnivores with poisonous bites, plant eaters, gigantic Dinocephalians (terrible heads) and robust Tapinocephalia, the savage maws of Gorgonopsids like Galesuchus, the ‘cat crocodile’ and the more familiar looking Therocephalians with their more evolved jaw muscles, and finally the Cynodonts themselves, our ‘dog toothed’ ancestors…it was as astonishing, as diverse, as bursting with life as the world has ever been.
Interesting, then, that death stepped in and delivered the world to dinosauria at the end of the Permian. Equally interesting, after some 160 million years of hiding in trees while those self-same dinosaurs ruled the planet, that death should step in and deliver the world back into the hands of the therapsids. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for this, of course. Possibly massive climate change caused by the formation of a single land-mass, similar to the way the fragmentation of the world’s continents and the southward drift of Antarctica eventually cooled the world’s oceans and killed off some 20% of life on earth at the end of the Eocene, perhaps, but on a more massive scale. That sounds rational enough.
It would be entirely insane to postulate, as an example, that the land empire of the Therapsids somehow engaged in a great war with the seagoing nation of Trilobytes, now wouldn’t it? I mean, the idea of some sort of magical conflict between arthropods and therapsids, or a series of conventional battles (and keep in mind that for all we know the two sides were masters of genetic engineering, or bacteriological warfare…perhaps all the innovations in therapsid jaws was an attempt to breed better and better warriors for the cause) ending in total annihilation…that’s just bizarre. For one thing, it doesn’t take into account that cephalopods fed on trilobytes. Are the modern cephalopods the creations of therapsid geneticists, creating anti-trilobyte weapons in the seas? And for that matter, perhaps the rise of the archosauromorpha was a counter-weapon created by the trilobytes to have a similar effect on their therapsid enemies? It’s interesting to consider that cephalopods have large, powerful brains…but brains totally unlike our own, an intelligence as alien from ours as could be imagined. We often muse that unknowable, alien intelligences may have shaped our world and us…what if our distant ancestors merely started the ball rolling by shaping unknowable, alien intelligences to use as living torpedos against trilobyte enemies lurking in the darkness?
Of course, if we think of cephalopods as bioweapons and archosaurs as doomsday devices that inherited the earth, that does lead one to wonder why after a 160 million year reign they were so rudely displaced. It certainly seems odd to imagine the increased vulcanism and falling rock that ended the age of the dinosaurs as being a manipulation of the ley lines to destablize the world’s telluric energies and cause mass eruptions as part of a plan to summon a rock from the sky, a lapsit ex caelis to strike down the saurians, doesn’t it? I mean, the mammals of that time were barely larger than possums…unless one is willing to either believe in a horde of therapsid ghosts slowly gathering their strength over hundreds of millions of years to strike down their usurpers, or a mammalian mass mind that could tweak gravity sufficiently to snatch death from the sky and the cthonic depths of the underworld, a proto-cerberus of sorts. And that, too, would be crazy.
Yeah, I’ve been kinda weirdly obsessed with paleontology this month. Anyway, just some musing…I may come back and expand it later. Oh, and check this out. The book got a positive review as part of a nifty article. This makes me happy.
Something I wrote a while ago…
I feel bad that I haven’t posted anything new in a while, so here’s something. It’s a story I wrote back in the day…sort of Johnny Quest meets Iron Man.
Zanji Dunfree stood near the entrance with the assault rifle at the ready, not expecting it to do any good at all if the Suits found them. His dark hair and naturally dark skin were tinged with yellow and red lights coming from any one of the dozens of computer consoles surrounding him, readouts he didn’t understand and didn’t pretend to.
“Chris…hurry it up!”
“Doing my best.” The voice was tinny and hyper-distorted, feeding into the control room from the superforge in the vast complex just beyond the windows; in that room hung the atrophied body of Zanji’s oldest friend, in a harness of
recently-scavenged wires that kept his nervous system from collapsing. Zanji’s twenty-year shame flooded him again; he could see the plane on fire again, feel the yoke twisting in his sweat-slick hands, and then turning to shout a warning to Chris…only to see a shard of metal jabbing out through the grey and blue silk of Chris’ shirt, and a bloody smile on his face like his favorite saint, the martyr Sebastian who’d been his confirmation choice.
It’s okay, Jam-face…I don’t feel a thing.
Something I wrote a while ago…
I feel bad that I haven’t posted anything new in a while, so here’s something. It’s a story I wrote back in the day…sort of Johnny Quest meets Iron Man.
Zanji Dunfree stood near the entrance with the assault rifle at the ready, not expecting it to do any good at all if the Suits found them. His dark hair and naturally dark skin were tinged with yellow and red lights coming from any one of the dozens of computer consoles surrounding him, readouts he didn’t understand and didn’t pretend to.
“Chris…hurry it up!”
“Doing my best.” The voice was tinny and hyper-distorted, feeding into the control room from the superforge in the vast complex just beyond the windows; in that room hung the atrophied body of Zanji’s oldest friend, in a harness of
recently-scavenged wires that kept his nervous system from collapsing. Zanji’s twenty-year shame flooded him again; he could see the plane on fire again, feel the yoke twisting in his sweat-slick hands, and then turning to shout a warning to Chris…only to see a shard of metal jabbing out through the grey and blue silk of Chris’ shirt, and a bloody smile on his face like his favorite saint, the martyr Sebastian who’d been his confirmation choice.
It’s okay, Jam-face…I don’t feel a thing.
Okay, stop praying to Mussolini. No, really, Goddamn it, stop praying to Mussolini.
Look, seriously, Italy, you know I love you guys. But stop praying to Mussolini. He was not a saint. He was a fat asshole who actually led Italy into a war with an impoverished African nation that never had a chance and yet which held him (and Italy) off even though the Italian military had machine guns and aircraft and bombs. He was a racist, the inventor of modern fascism for all that’s holy…I realize that as an American I have my own problems with Shrub and his impression of il Duce, but at least no one’s praying to him yet. Lately, you guys have been giving the Germans a hard time over WWII…well, you know what? Not only were you guys allies during that war (which makes Italy culpable for the thousands of Italian jews who died in the camps as well as the people who died because Italy supported Germany in all it did) but at least they’re not praying to Hitler..
It kind of amazes me that anyone would pray to Mussolini in the first place. I mean, shit, guy ended up hanging like a side of beef in a meatlocker. Unless you’re arguing that he was some kind of Christ figure…and while I realize stuff’s been hard for the Catholic Church lately, I still gotta think even they’d be unlikely to canonize Mussolini. Seriously, guys, get someone else to pray to. Why not pray to that zany Roberto Benigni? Or maybe it’s because of him that you all seem to think that Mussolini was an adorable scamp and the death camps were some kind of prank. Look, why not go reread some Primo Levi and try to come to grips with the idea that Mussolini was a horrible, horrible asshole and moron and you shouldn’t pray to him, okay?
Look at all that white space flowing down the page…
It would be great if I had something worthwhile to post here, wouldn’t it?
Best I can do is to link to this and say that I credit the let’s nag Amazon campaign from a couple of months back. Thanks to everyone who did so…you got my book listed on the biggest book website. I appreciate it greatly.
Okay, back to hibernation. Thanks again. I really, really appreciate everyone who bought the book and nagged Amazon on my behalf.
Okay, seriously
To anyone that might be considering keeping a bengal tiger in an apartment, stop doing shit like this. The fact that there are more tigers in captivity in people’s homes in North America than there are left in the wild is fucking insane. These are not pets. These are not domesticated animals. You have no reason to keep a tiger in your apartment. If you have a burglary problem so severe that it requires tigers to keep it under control, you’re pretty much fucked. Move.
Look, if Roy can’t handle them, neither can you. These are wild animals we’re talking about here, massive carnivores that can kill you as easily as looking at you. If you’re not a Rakshasa or a Manticore (as we know from the original source Ctesias the Persian legend of the Manticore was probably started by mis-representation of tigers) you don’t have any damn reason to be messing around with these things. Especially not when the species is so endangered. If the people who had the tigers would just turn them over to Zoos, we could start a more advanced breeding program and possibly even save the wild species. It would also help if you’d stop providing a market to inspire poachers into raiding dens and killing the mothers. In general, it’s a bad idea all around.
Seriously, do we all need to be told this? And when did it suddenly become popular to have pets that would grow up to weigh hundreds of pounds? Didn’t anybody read The Jungle Book as a kid? Remember Shere Khan? You weren’t supposed to like him. You certainly weren’t supposed to invite him into your home. I don’t mean to sound like a lunatic here, it just sort of comes naturally, but at any rate, could we please stop with the berserk pets? Dogs? Sure. Housecats? Why not. Snakes? I guess. Parrots? If you want. But bengal fucking tigers? No. You are not Tippi Hedren. Stick to the pets that aren’t trying to eat Mowgli, okay?
I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but give Yog Sothoth back while you still can
Look, seriously, if you bring the statue back now you probably won’t find yourself being slowly eaten alive from the inside by a host of otherworldly vermin, or finding out what it is like to stare full on into the render of time and space. You probably think you’ve just stolen a statue of a beloved child’s toy, but seriously, you are messing around with forces beyond your comprehension.
Great globes of light massing towards the opening…the breaking apart of the nearest globes, and the protoplasmic flesh that flowed blackly outward to join together and form that eldritch, hideous horror from outer space
August Derleth, The Lurker at the Threshold
This is the Tawil at’Umr we’re talking about here. The Lurker at the Threshold. He is at once in all places and all times, the Key and the Gate, the Opener of the Way, literally he is the way upon which lies madness. He is the spheres that contain malign knowledge of space and time which mortal minds cannot grasp without madness and death following. Those that dwelled in the witch house in Arkham learned his lore and paid a terrible price. Existence bubbles and hisses like grease on a griddle when the Prolonged of Life ripples through into our world. Just look upon him and know that the dark that swallows stars has been trifled with. For your sake, and possibly the sake of all the world, bring the statue back.
Update: Apparently the statue devoured its kidnappers and is now back at the farm. And all is, if not right, then at least wrong in a more expected manner with the world.
I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but give Yog Sothoth back while you still can
Look, seriously, if you bring the statue back now you probably won’t find yourself being slowly eaten alive from the inside by a host of otherworldly vermin, or finding out what it is like to stare full on into the render of time and space. You probably think you’ve just stolen a statue of a beloved child’s toy, but seriously, you are messing around with forces beyond your comprehension.
Great globes of light massing towards the opening…the breaking apart of the nearest globes, and the protoplasmic flesh that flowed blackly outward to join together and form that eldritch, hideous horror from outer space
August Derleth, The Lurker at the Threshold
This is the Tawil at’Umr we’re talking about here. The Lurker at the Threshold. He is at once in all places and all times, the Key and the Gate, the Opener of the Way, literally he is the way upon which lies madness. He is the spheres that contain malign knowledge of space and time which mortal minds cannot grasp without madness and death following. Those that dwelled in the witch house in Arkham learned his lore and paid a terrible price. Existence bubbles and hisses like grease on a griddle when the Prolonged of Life ripples through into our world. Just look upon him and know that the dark that swallows stars has been trifled with. For your sake, and possibly the sake of all the world, bring the statue back.
Update: Apparently the statue devoured its kidnappers and is now back at the farm. And all is, if not right, then at least wrong in a more expected manner with the world.
Once I noticed I was on fire, I decided to relax and enjoy the fall 