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Description
When the first explorers broke through from Thorpe into Nowhere, they were met first and foremost by the desolating wind, stale air, and the sight of an ever-expanding, sunbaked wasteland beneath a reddish-orange sky, lit by the ever-whirling apparition of a fiery pseudo-sun, dipping out of reality for six hours, before reemerging for nine hours. Those first explorers had immediately returned, disoriented, through the edifice, gasping with an appropriate description: "It leads into the middle of nowhere."

Subsequent expeditions by UAVs and teams equipped for xeric conditions into the expanse of dust, rock, and sand soon discovered pockets of life. Oases of dense, low vegetation and small animals. Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers further afield, the waste transitioned gradually into milder, albeit still-dry golden expanses of grass-like vegetation, grazed by beasts vaguely reminiscent of elephants and aurochs in profile. After much reconnaissance, drones and watercraft charted the coasts of the mundial waters. Subsequently, field ecologists ascertained the most opportune ecotopes.

During these exploratory expeditions, investigators incrementally realized that something other than the choking dust and desolate vista had alarmed and distressed the first explorers to enter the volume. Something about the nature of reality within Nowhere appears hostile to and incompatible with human awareness. Explorers of the initial expeditions began to suffer from disorienting, inexplicable psychological episodes with no apparent pathogenesis: many members shared reports of "jumping" ahead hours, or days, in time, with no memory of interceding events or evidence of time elapsed, despite corroborating reports from fellow expedition members to the contrary. Others reported more subtle "slowing" or "acceleration" of the passage of time, reflected in significant shifts in metabolic rate and mechanical desynchronization.

Another recurring issue was spontaneous auditory and visual hallucinations—some shared between groups of individuals. Notable examples include an explorer (who chose to remain anonymous) who admitted after extensive screening to being drawn away for several kilometers from camp in an arid forest of low, bulbous trees during darkening hours. She described being 'lured' by a vision of her late daughter singing for her to, "Be and become" with her. Another, investigator Mathis Samperi, drowned himself in a lake in the 10-to-30 degree region while repeatedly proclaiming, "it's calling me, hurry! Come back!" in a shrill voice. Far, far more personal, distressing, or otherwise obscure incidents suffered by explorers of the initial expeditions likely went unreported and unrecorded by their absurdity and the capacity of such individuals as investigators to rationalize isolated, inexplicable events.

Subsequent road laying, urban planning, and wildlife domestication work undertaken by a limited community of Burmese, Hindi, and Kenyan settler-refugees was mostly abandoned due to dysfunctionally-high levels of general anxiety and public dissatisfaction, leaving the sub-reality scattered with decaying roads snaking between half-built hamlets, peopled by eccentric recluses and isolated families.

~~~

This graphic I made sometime back on May 17, 2021. Bit odd, but I was actually thinking about "Courage the Cowardly Dog" concerning this one: an often desolate, inhospitable landscape, a lot of apparently inexplicable phenomena, strange creatures.

Description
When the first explorers broke through from Thorpe into Nowhere, they were met first and foremost by the desolating wind, stale air, and the sight of an ever-expanding, sunbaked wasteland beneath a reddish-orange sky, lit by the ever-whirling apparition of a fiery pseudo-sun, dipping out of reality for six hours, before reemerging for nine hours. Those first explorers had immediately returned, disoriented, through the edifice, gasping with an appropriate description: "It leads into the middle of nowhere."

Subsequent expeditions by UAVs and teams equipped for xeric conditions into the expanse of dust, rock, and sand soon discovered pockets of life. Oases of dense, low vegetation and small animals. Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers further afield, the waste transitioned gradually into milder, albeit still-dry golden expanses of grass-like vegetation, grazed by beasts vaguely reminiscent of elephants and aurochs in profile. After much reconnaissance, drones and watercraft charted the coasts of the mundial waters. Subsequently, field ecologists ascertained the most opportune ecotopes.

During these exploratory expeditions, investigators incrementally realized that something other than the choking dust and desolate vista had alarmed and distressed the first explorers to enter the volume. Something about the nature of reality within Nowhere appears hostile to and incompatible with human awareness. Explorers of the initial expeditions began to suffer from disorienting, inexplicable psychological episodes with no apparent pathogenesis: many members shared reports of "jumping" ahead hours, or days, in time, with no memory of interceding events or evidence of time elapsed, despite corroborating reports from fellow expedition members to the contrary. Others reported more subtle "slowing" or "acceleration" of the passage of time, reflected in significant shifts in metabolic rate and mechanical desynchronization.

Another recurring issue was spontaneous auditory and visual hallucinations—some shared between groups of individuals. Notable examples include an explorer (who chose to remain anonymous) who admitted after extensive screening to being drawn away for several kilometers from camp in an arid forest of low, bulbous trees during darkening hours. She described being 'lured' by a vision of her late daughter singing for her to, "Be and become" with her. Another, investigator Mathis Samperi, drowned himself in a lake in the 10-to-30 degree region while repeatedly proclaiming, "it's calling me, hurry! Come back!" in a shrill voice. Far, far more personal, distressing, or otherwise obscure incidents suffered by explorers of the initial expeditions likely went unreported and unrecorded by their absurdity and the capacity of such individuals as investigators to rationalize isolated, inexplicable events.

Subsequent road laying, urban planning, and wildlife domestication work undertaken by a limited community of Burmese, Hindi, and Kenyan settler-refugees was mostly abandoned due to dysfunctionally-high levels of general anxiety and public dissatisfaction, leaving the sub-reality scattered with decaying roads snaking between half-built hamlets, peopled by eccentric recluses and isolated families.

~~~

This graphic I made sometime back on May 17, 2021. Bit odd, but I was actually thinking about "Courage the Cowardly Dog" concerning this one: an often desolate, inhospitable landscape, a lot of apparently inexplicable phenomena, strange creatures.