A few years ago, Savant and I started brainstorming for a novel that never got too far, due to busy lives. I'd like to revive it and thought a good start would be to post a rough draft of a chapter as a series of blogs.

This chapter will fall around #3 or #4, based on the current outline. It does not include the exposition, since that occurs elsewhere. The focus here is a single action scene that incites a "thread" time.

Please provide feedback after reading all 5 parts to this chapter, as it may influence the direction this novel takes.


With temporal causality, there is no beginning, and there is no end. It is an intertwined mesh of Möbius strips, hidden from those on eternal surfaces who fail to traverse the threads to repetition. One’s future is also one’s past, and one’s past is also one’s future. The possible paradoxes – not to mention the verb tenses – can induce migraines.

For this series of events, one possible Möbius thread could be said to begin at the Ha’ajik homeworld. This point and time is the “beginning” since those responsible for the perpetual completion of the temporal loop meet in this branching thread. The war between the Djeha’ajik and the Varthan Imperium has waged for generations. Time has forgotten why the seemingly endless war ever started. Belief has it that the Varthans were the aggressors due to their long history of conquering countless planets for their resources or for territorial expansion. Yet, that conviction is only conjecture, correlated by outside accounts.

Information on the Varthans is scarce since nearly anyone in the past who would make a stand against them has been obliterated from existence and nearly all records and logs of the encounter lost. It is known that the Varthans still make use of their original homeworld for planning military operations and conducting genetic experiments. Yet, Vartha Prime is not the most fortified planet in their empire. Sometimes they even abandon it for long periods to transfer military power elsewhere. All that remains after a raping of the planet’s resources is a dome-enclosed outpost. Sometime in the distance past, the once-breathable air turned to a thick cloud of corrosive pollutants. No one would dare search for their new homeworld in fear of never returning to share the findings.

The Varthans themselves are an enigma of a species. No one knows their true appearance because genetic engineering has augmented their muscular structure to allow shapeshifting of appearance over their skeletons. They can also lighten or darken skin pigmentation at will. The only constant is the reptilian eyes. From the few accounts that have survived, the Varthans are said to spy on future victims by long-term reconnaissance, which is performed by posing as a member of the society. They arrive to the hospital of a small town or village with apparent head trauma that evokes the impression of amnesia. This cover story allows them to pass for locals without initially learning the language or customs. Once the spies gain enough intel on resources and weaknesses, they contact the other Varthans, and conquest begins.

The Varthans discarded this so-called rulebook with the Ha’ajik homeworld. From limited accounts, there was never a covert infiltration. War just… started. Where? No one remembers. When? That has been lost with time. Perhaps their rules of engagement changed because the Ha’ajik showed themselves to be the first worthy adversaries. Varthans of old would target pre-industrial societies that stood no chance of survival. Why, then, would they bother with the Ha’ajik? The Varthans have lost just as many lives as the Djeha’ajik. Eventually, one would think, both sides would feel enough strain from the attrition of war to just end it all. Still, they continue to engage in conflict-after-conflict over the Ha’ajik homeworld.