« O dear Lady, beautiful Ishtar, why do you continually oppose with my views? Do you not know how to control your rebellious impulses? »

O sweet Enki, the most venerable, knowledgeable in a myriad of trades, with all respect due to your foresight and your ideals... what good is it for our cause to promote a harmful doctrine? Is it not my task to oppose any excess of passions? Would you imagine yourself immune to arrogance, to the blindness of those who believe themselves too visionary to suffer any criticism? In that case, you are losing all wisdom in my eyes!

To say it without being unnecessarily wordy, I just had an argument with our spiritual leader. No, we shouldn't hide so much from mankind! I accepted his naive decision until recently, however, it might become dangerous sooner or later. It took hundreds of millennia for humanity to come in terms with its own demons. To deny them the old culture and « let these folks find the light on their own » is to make their sacrifices meaningless! They will have to start from scratch! Can you imagine?

If Enki's case were an exception, I could accept it. Unfortunately, my peers have adopted his proposal unanimously. The experience accumulated by Mû will end up in a forbidden library, condemning all nations to repeat avoidable mistakes! The art of controlling one's emotions? Gone! The education on the dangers of ideology and beliefs? Lost! The World-Bird's faith? Extinct! The rules of law and society, discovered at great cost? Wasted! I don't need a vivid imagination to know what will inevitably happen in a few thousand years: fanaticism, slavery, racial theories, collectivism, genocide, etc. What a bloody disaster!

The idea « live and let live » took twenty millennia to become a societal norm! Do you know what problem the absence of this 'humble' principle has brought? Eighteen billion deaths during the Aretomari purges! Already, in our proto-civilization, 'intellectuals' are beginning to profess that they must 'push their vision' for the 'greater good of all people'. I am in control, for now. Tomorrow? Massacres will come. Damn, the universe is huge, Enki! What can happen will happen. Besides, it makes me think that I never detailed how vast the territory of Mû was. This might be an occasion, perhaps it would calm me down.

First and foremost, understand that the word « vast » seriously understates reality. There used to be 3.87 million inhabited planets in the empire, spread over three galaxies. Today, I estimate that number must have at least tripled. Our galaxy, 'Orio', supports a majority of all recorded civilizations. Its neighbor, the 'Even' dwarf, is under full Aprian domination. The next one, the sphere of 'Naren', was undergoing an immense colonial expansion, with the young protectorate of Ransal's emergence, when the second Murrean conflict started. They were nicknamed « Trinity ». Therefore, another name used to designate Mû was: « source of the Trinity ».

To get an approximation of the human population, it is easy to calculate: firstly, always assume each system has between 20 million and 76 billion inhabitants. Make an average on this basis, then multiply by the number of planets. Your result will be our most accepted pessimistic guess. It's the best we have. Elohim's demography, on the other hand, is precisely known, since a census used to be as easy as it was mandatory: 2,677,294 individuals, last time I checked. Mû had the terrifying characteristic, that it shared with Atlantis, of having about 200 000 Elohim on its surface. To give you an idea, there are no more than 350,000 Elohim in the entire kingdom of Reiner!

This is a central fact in galactic geography: the rate of enlightenment varies from place to place. There are civilizations with a thousand star systems, yet not a single Eloah within their borders, while in other areas you will find one in every neighborhood! The probability of them emerging changes the closer you get to Mû, which points to an origin of the phenomenon over here. On your world the rate is so high that, without the Vremy'a'lun, you would have restored your losses long ago. You dominated, despite a tiny size, for this very reason.

Six categories are used in ranking countries: Great Kingdom, Small Kingdom, Empire, Undivided Domain, Divided Domain and Uncharted Domain. Note that the words 'Kingdom' or 'Empire' are not to be understood as referring to a nation ruled by some monarch, but as « a country with at least one Eloah and where the society is defined by a set of norms and customs ». The first two differ on a question of numbers. Over 10,000 Elohim? You are a Great Kingdom. Up to 10,000? A Small Kingdom.

The name 'Empire' is reserved for situations where your Kingdom has a particular status: Mû, Atlantis, Mara, etc. Domains, on the other hand, have an exclusively human populace. The 'Undivided', to put it simply, has a single realm that encompasses its entire culture. The 'Divided' may have several, sharing a similar cultural background. You'll find anything there: industrial, medieval, etc. They offer an inconceivable variety of governments. Finally, what we call 'Uncharted' signals what's unknown, uninhabited, forgotten or, more rarely, forbidden. From now on, Mû must be an Uncharted Domain.

In statistical terms, in the old times there were 29 Great Kingdoms, 21,617 Small Kingdoms, 6 Empires, 317,888 Undivided Domains and an absurd amount of Divided Domains. Thus, the diplomatic infrastructure is, to put it nicely, chaotic. Indeed, without Elohim to do all the legwork, it is not uncommon for a human colony to lose its memory and fall apart. Do you see what happened to your planet? Imagine it happening everywhere, regularly. So, logically enough, many nations are at war or rediscovering each other.

Usually, we limit our discussions to kingdoms that have a geopolitical relevance. Personally I tend to speak often about the Great Slope, since that's where I come from. But, it's not the only important location: the Gravitational Abyss has its own realms, as well as the Small Slope, the Lock, the Ark, etc. You see? Enki is wrong! The sole reason why peace and harmony sometimes prevail is because my people are doing an educational job. Damn, I can't calm down! Let's leave that aside for tonight.