The Three Factions

This is the last part of a lengthy, detailed dream, most of which I don't remember.

There were three factions on a planet. I looked down on the planet and saw that their land was more or less evenly divided as three wide north-south strips. Though the actual factions were very different, they had the names of the playable races from Sins of a Solar Empire - TEC, Advent, and Vasari. The TEC were human, and they had a vast space fleet. I was making a documentary about their war with the Vasari. Though their ships were real, I was using hyper-realistic CGI to show the ships, cutting back to real interviews with people on board. The ships were almost indescribably massive - many were basically floating continents. I showed comparatively smaller ships flying out of a hangar the size of Nevada.

Later, I learned that a friend of mine had been accepted by the Vasari to learn their ways. At this point I was watching loosely from the body of a middle-aged woman. I had some sense of self in her but she wasn't me. The woman was begging the young man not to go, even as he went. He landed on the Vasari territory, and to my surprise it was lush and green. An old woman with a hood came and started preparing him for the transition - mostly covering him with beads and muttering. "I" kept begging him not to do this, reminding him how evil the Vasari were.

The old woman opened a hole in a massive tree that reached up into the sky. Bark and termites poured out. Then she climbed in, wrapped her arms around my friend, and pulled him in. "I" leaned in, saw the darkness and smelled the rotting wood. I begged him one last time not to go. He said it was too late for him, and asked me to come with him. Then there was another weird old lady humming, ready to take me into the tree too. I hesitated. I felt deep down inside that I should go into the tree, but I also knew that the un-self part of me wouldn't do it. I sadly said goodbye.

Later I saw Dane Cook standing on the top of a skyscraper in a TEC city. I had a similar sense of shared self with him, though I watched him from a distance of about thirty feet. Soon he was wanted by the police; he leapt from building to building to evade them. Whenever helicopter-borne cameras were on him, I saw the chase as live action. When I didn't, the news casters approximated the chase with CGI, which was always precisely accurate to the actual course taken.

Dane Cook kept running; sometimes he was surrounded on all sides but he always found a way to evade. Then part of a building gave way near the edge of the city and he slid down, grabbing onto things for support. They collapsed too, and down and down he went in a gently broken free fall. Soon he was nearly at the bottom of the building, decidedly outside the city. The lights and sounds had faded away. A woman's voice in the blackness called for help. About this time, I felt complete selfness in Dane's body.

I slid down the rest of the building searching for the sound, though I had a sinking feeling I knew what I would find. There was a river between dark trees with a soft, warm glow. A woman was standing in it weeping. I waded out and saw that the river didn't have water, it had balsam wood statues of people. I then knew I was in Advent territory. The woman was crying because the balsam statues had been her friends; they had been turned into wood. I couldn't think of a way to help her.

Later, the sun came up and I was in an Advent village. The Advent were also completely human. They reminded me of the Lakota Sioux, living in tipis and being totally horse-crazy. There were magnificent horses everywhere. This struck me as odd considering they were a space-faring race. I had been accepted as an Advent warrior. I mounted up and the chief shouted that we were attacking a church.

Just as we were about to head out, one of the women shouted: "How many captives?" And the chief's son said: "You're right. To keep our honor, we must each take six captives. Perhaps even six and a half." Then we rode, in a chaotic and glorious mass of horseflesh and half-naked warrior.

We surrounded a classsic little white church and burst into the doors. The people inside were stereotypical pioneers. I immediately went to the back and selected six people. I herded them onto side pews. Within seconds, the entire congregation was held captive.

For some reason, we couldn't ride out of the church yet. We had to wait for something. I explained to my captives that if any tried to escape, I would kill someone left behind. They seemed appropriately terrified.

Many of the women from the village arrived and sat around on pews talking. I felt the captives growing restless, and at the same time more and more familiar. Then one of them disappeared when I turned my back and I knew who he was - one of my interp kids. The others said he had a canoe.

I pounded out of the church onto a wide rolling hill. I knew that the canoe meant going downhill so I urged my horse that way. I saw three canoes in the river. I went faster and faster then leapt into the water and used my momentum to carry me ot the first canoe. I knocked the rider off and spun around in front of the other two. Night was falling.

It was my kid and his older brother. I shouted at them: "Did you not believe me when I said I would kill you?" They weren't taking me seriously. I worried about the other captives unattended at the top. Then I woke up.