Ghyll:Meldersen
Dibbed. --Jcowan 13:38, 20 Dec 2004 (EST)
Blowing chunks:
Spurred on by throwaway work of rogue scientist Meldersen, recent developments have seen the creation of lume that doesn't produce any noticable light.
"Awal Sleeps", as the name suggests, is a weapon based on the principles of Awal shrinkage. Silent but deadly, at the moment of impact a rapid succession of low hums is heard, and then not heard - the hums, as well as explosions, screams, and peripheral environment damage is covered up in the suction of sound during re-obith. By themselves, the weapons are notoriously unstable, but the lack of audible announcement gives them incredible stealth attack capabilities. There are attested instances, though ascribed to "natural occurrences", of small mining communities sleeping soundly, and then awakening in the midst of ruins and collapsed entrances to the mines of jelly necessary for Altoxian Bulb production.
The now rogue scientist Meldersen freely admits he created the weapons from his own research, as a protest to the rebuking of Awal and his colleagues. "Awal Sleeps" is meant derogatorily - that Awal has clouded his judgment and closed his eyes to the possibilities of Meldersen's research. Meldersen has since become a vital member of the Conflict That Is Not Happening and his weapons are deployed against Iganefta; he vows never to slip into the Forgotten Knowledge he once heralded over.
Meldersen in particular has always disputed this: his famous axiom "It's downside up!" was originally pronounced to support his hypothesis that the fundamental element of Awal shrinkage is not the production of light of whatever colour, or its associated diminution of obith, but rather the bizarre suction of noise that accompanies and accelerates re-obith. Whilst this idea has attracted some following among the young, most mainstream scholars have derided it.
Meldersen's proposal, that the shrinkage be used to reduce the level of noise in work environments, is not generally held to be viable.
The problem was solved eventually by decree of Meldersen, the second president of The Bureau, under his executive privilege. It was decided that there should be a subdivision called the Bureau Of Regained Knowledge, and started the ceremonious annual tradition† of declaring all information found in the following year to be instantly handed over to the BORK. Though the decision was unpopular at the time, it proved to be an excellent solution.
The first great discovery of The Bureau was also under Meldersen's presidency (-77 to -56): in conjunction with the Council for Quezlarian Research, The Bureau discovered the origins for Ghyll's unit of currency, the Quezlarian Ooo. Perhaps somewhat startlingly at the time, the research confirmed the traditional legend that our currency is named after the initial remark of Quezlar 6 upon discovering the first stone of dazzlingly beautiful Oooite. As a gesture of thankfulness, the Council for Quezlarian Research presented The Bureau with an Oooite stone said to be from the personal collection of Quezlar 6.
Written by Meldersen before he turned to more scholarly pursuits, Jemima and the Square Do-Gooders is widely regarded as the worst fantasy novel ever written due to its flimsy and badly thought out construction. Every time the Odlucian Library procures a new copy, it's defaced within a week, causing the book to have ironically been reissued more times than any other popular novel.
Every Bureau of Forgotten Knowledge president from Meldersen onwards has declared that the previous president's proclamations on the issue are completely false, and that our "current enlightened era" know the secrets to the poem, but the obvious truth of the matter is that we still have a long way to go before realising what, if anything, this whole poem means.
