Sarpeidon

the Eve of Sarpedon

Who Buried Zarabeth?

from Warped Space 6 (May 2, 1975)

Of the many unanswered questions on the inhabitants of the late planet Sarpedon, there is one which has especially interested me. It comes from considering the very last words ever spoken on that planet. They are the words of Science Officer Spock of the starship Enterprise, spoken even as the exploration team was beaming up and the ship was warping out of danger of the nova sun.

Referring to the mysterious Zarabeth of Sarpedon, he said, "She is dead -- dead and buried long ago." To those unfamiliar with Vulcan psychology, this seems to be a case of redundancy due to the stress of the situation. But it would be contrary to Spock's Vulcan nature to make any statement for which he did not have sufficient reason to accept as true.

Therefore I ask the question, "Who buried Zarabeth?" The hypothesis I proppose is based upon the answer which is found to hold true for all comparable planetary cultures. She was buried by her surviving relatives.

But we also know that she was exiled by Zorkahn to the Ice Age, specifically specifically because she would not only be separated from her relatives but from anyone at all. To answer the question of where they came from, we must make further investigation into Sarpiedonian biology. Perhaps they reproduced by parthenogenesis like several known life-forms and she required only the stimulation of a Vulcan (or Terran) male to become fertilized? Or perhaps there has been an omission in the memoirs of Mister Spock and Doctor McCoy? In any case, there is definitely a need for further investigation into this question. Who did bury Zarabeth?

The following is based on thirty years further investigation.

Sarpeidon was named for the legendary son of Zeus and Europa, the king of Lycia and brother of Minos and Rhadamanthus, the other two already dead planets in the system. The names were chosen based on an reasonable approximation of the name heard in radio transmissions, Zarpedon, the Land of Zar, much as the planet Vulcan was named for a Roman god to approximate its native name. The third and only habitable planet of the beta Niobe system (aka Noethna), it is unique in the archives of the IDIC Institute, because of it's inhabitants' remarkable atavachron. The name atavachron comes from attawa* (father's grandmother, akin to atavism, "throwback") + khron* (time). The name indicates its long-term (multigenerational) time travel capability. This unusual time machine, a prototypical version of the Guardian of Forever, was originally invented by Atoz ("Beginning-to-end") who used it to observe the past and the future and which was later misused by his nephew Zor in a futile attempt to rid the world of "witches" (i. e., those with Vulcan telepathy), inadvertently creating this most complex time-knot civilization.

According to United Earth Space Probe Agency Registry NX-01 (2155): since the plane of the orbit of Sarpeidon happened to be in the same direction of Beniobe's proper motion, the atavachron's use caused instabilities that triggered its premature novation. Atoz the last Sarpeid's final use of the atavachron was not because of the imminent nova, the star went nova because the atavachron triggered the star's novation.

During the geologically brief period of 5070 years when Sarpeidon was in Noethna's habitable zone, its inhabitants had a most extraordinary history, the most complex time-knot known, much more convoluted than the larger but looser Alcwell knot.

The rift in time that made the atavachron, and so all of Sarpeidonian civilization, possible was utilized but not created by Atoz, nor was it a natural phenomena. It was the result of the providential collision of an Arretian scoutship's transwarp fields with the Beniobe nova's wavefront at warp minus thirty-five or more than twelve years-per-light-day. When the Enterprise tried to rescue the Arretian ship as Beniobe was still in its death throes, the Enterprise was flung along with the Arretian ship pastward. The Enterprise eventually managed to reorient itself futureward via the Minerva nova near Babel (star date 5536.6). but not before Commodore Robert April and his wife Sarah were rejuvinated.

Zor improved the atavachron so that longer visits to the past were possible, but also permanent, as was learned at the loss of Atoz' son and niece. Zor however proceeded to then misused the rifts in time to assemble an army and treasure and sent those who tried to rebel against his monomaniacal imperialism (and their families, even whole tribes) to scattered places in Sarpeidon's past. This however only resulted in strengthening the retronauts as individuals and their remaining family ties. Even with the so-called "adjustment" to the time period to which they were sent many exiles still remembered fragments of their past in the future. Those who attempted to go back to the future they knew found that they only relived via a timeloop their original experience of the past without being able to change it.

Those were alternately honored or burned as the eras either accepted or rejected their foreknowledge. Although this knowledge of future history turned into ancient legend over the millennia, Zor Khan's tyranny was eventually overthrown as the foreseen destruction of Sarpeidon neared. His atavachron was finally used for a one of most incredible accomplishments of any civilization, the mass evacuation of every inhabitant of a pre-space civilization to the safety of their own past.

Thus nearly every one of the last few generations of Sarpeids is his or her own ancestor, some, like Atoz, as close as grandfather/grandson, and few greater than twenty generations apart.. Since Atoz prudently scattered these last millions of Sarpeids throughout the five millennia of the planet's history the gene pool remained unusually stable throughout. "Identical cousins" were more common than twin siblings among either the Humans or the Vulcanoids and mutants were also more common, but so too were the psi-gifted.

Technically the civilization has been classified as the first Vulcanthrope colony, even though it began two millennia before Vulcans went into space and over four millennia before the first official Vulcan-Human hybrid. As it turned out it lasted less than half as long as the Capellan-Eridani experiment on Krypton. It ended, as prophecied, almost immediately upon the first Human contact with the first and the last time-traveling Sarpeid, aptly named Atoz.

From the time Atoz first used the atavachron until the last time, more than 20,000 verisim [from werosem "true as one"] recordings, at most a few days every decade or so, were made by the atavachron. Each recording linked to a different segment of the time rift at thousands of different locations from the glacial ice wall of the 28th century BC to the Library wall of AD 2269. Cross-time communication was possible, but only by painstakingly mapped periods and locations. Some ended in literal "dead ends". The traversable portals were the times and places of mysterious appearances and disappearances of people. The term "witch" was applied indiscriminately at times to anyone who seemed to have come from nowhere, communicate with disembodied spirits, had uncommon knowledge of the past or future, were able to read and plant thoughts, or in the worst of times merely those with pointy ears or slanted eyebrows, anyone who was "different".

Witches were blamed for any unfortunate event, any unsolved disappearances of valuables or people, whether demonstratively connected to conjuring evil spirits or not. The seemingly demonic spirits of Sarpeidon legend were not identified until late in its history as Zor Khan's phantom army. They were mercenaries and criminals and mind-controlled political prisoners who had crossed, returned and re-crossed through the atavachron. Each return crossing through the portal threshold reduced the raider's time of no-return so that two replicas would have half the time of the verisim recording, about a day or so. Three crossings would halve the time to one third each, and so on. Zor Khan could, and did, replicate his forces who had been gathered throughout five millennia an estimated 100,000%. Only the last such replica, the , the one with the memories of all of the others and all their escapes from death, could be killed, a one-in-a-thousand chance. The unintended and unnatural selection for touch telepathy as the primary way of distinguishing and mind-freeing replicas was therefore the fatal flaw in non-telepath Zor Khan's scheme and lead to the eventual overthrow of his evil empire by his librarian, Atoz..

One of his last acts was the exile of Zarabeth to the earliest portals. Had he paid closer attention to the end of her verisim recording he might have seen her not alone but with Spock the legendary father of Zar, uniter of the Asyn, Danreg and Kerren tribes, first sovren of the Lakreo civization.

This would have been barely noticeable however given the high probability of avatars or throwbacks given Sarpeidon's gene pool. From generation to generation the population would shift back and forth slightly from predominantly humanoid to predominantly vulcanoid about the vulcanthropic average. Sarpeidon's cyclical history of Ages of Reason alternating with Dark Ages is tied intimately with cycles in Sarpeidonian biology.

If two average vulcanthropes reproduced, for example, 6.25% of their offspring would be all-humanoid, 25% mostly-humanoid, 37.5% vulcanthropoid, 25% mostly vulcanoid and 6.25% all-vulcanoid. In the next generation the distribution would even more concentrated in the center with only 0.2% all-humanoid or all-vulcanoid and 72% vulcanthropoid. These vulcanthropes would share many characteristics and a not so small percentage would be throwbacks or avatars to their ancestors, typically diverging for two generations and then reconverging in the next two. This was therefore the typical cycle in witch mania.

Humanoid characteristics generally dominated the culture when living conditions were less harsh and more Earth-like, with shorter but more fruitful generations, while Vulcanoid/Eridani ones did so when times were harsher, drier, hotter, more Vulcan-like. Too much deviation in either direction or both at once however seemed to trigger "corrective" tribal or racial wars, although many of these were later discovered to be the result of or aggravated by Zor Khan's gangers.

During Beniobe's Earth-like yellow flares, which occurred unpredictably even during its red or white periods, those having that particular combination of non-Human Capellan-Eridani traits called Kryptonoid exhibited levitation, X-ray and/or heat vision, supersenses, superstrength, etc. These were the superheroes and/or supervillains of Sarpeidon legend and history.

Rather than supporting the Hodgkins' Law of Parallel Planet Development, Sarpeidon (along with the even more damaging discovery of the Preservers) actually discredited it. Although the history of the planet closely parallels that of Earth and Vulcan, this seems more the result of the subliminal telepathic linkage of the vulcanthropoids with their closely related races, the Capellans, Eridani, Humans, Remians, Romulans, and Vulcans. As has been observed by the Nitcentral Bulletin and elsewhere, the atavachron had a striking resemblance to Gary Seven's "Beta 5 computer". Although the secular Sarpeidonian calendar determined years by reigns and dynasties, the traditional Zarite religious calendar counted down the five millennia to the exact day, hour and minute until the End of the World.

5070 BE first Sarpeidon portal, Atoz' son can't rescue his cousin, Zarabeth's sister

5069 BE Zarabeth's niece born

5050 BE Wynn's grandfather born

5040 BE Atoz' son died

5030 BE Wynn's father born

5000 BE Zarabeth exiled

4995 BE Spock and McCoy visit {"All Our Yesterdays")

4994 BE Zar born

4990 BE Wynn born

4959 BE Zarabeth disappears (to 200 BE)

4955 BE Araen exiled

4954 BE 2nd contact ("Yesterday's Son")

4946 BE Zar marries Wynn ("Time for Yesterday")

4947 BE Zar's son born

4917 BE Zarabeth's great granddaughter/Atoz' wife born

4890 BE Atoz meets wife-to-be

3000 BE Age of Expansion

2700 BE messiahism

1700 BE Dark Age

1050 BE Zarabeth's cousin exiled

1040 BE Sladykins' father born

1010 BE Sladykins born

1009 BE gypsy Vixen born

1030 BE Prosecutor and family settled

1039 BE Kirk visits

930 BE Age of Reason

313 BE Narab kidnapped to Earth, marries Sue Davis

200 BE Spock brings Zarabeth from 4959 BE in Enterprise

198 BE Jarrod born

190 BE Lidia born, Enterprise returns Spock to 8 AE

130 BE Zarabeth's and Zor's fathers' grandmother/Atoz' great granddaughter born

121 BE Atoz's father/Zor's grandfather born

100 BE Atoz and family escapes to Cerelon ("The Celeron Dilemma")

90 BE Atoz's grandson, Zareth born on Cerelon ("The Celeron Dilemma")

80 BE Zarabeth's uncle/Zor's father born

70 BE Zarabeth's uncle Atoz born

65 BE Zarabeth's father born

59 BE Surak and Zareth meet, Zareth and Verena return to Sarpeidon ("The Celeron Dilemma")

58 BE Spock born, Atoz' daughter born

56 BE Atoz' son born

55 BE Zareth helps Atoz invent atavachron, observes 4890 BE

50 BE Atoz' nephew Zor born

36 BE Zarabeth's sister born

35 BE Zarabeth born

33 BE Atoz' son trapped in 5013 BE

32 BE Zor "fixes" atavachron to become Khan

31 BE Jaryd rebellion against Zor Khan fails, Zarabeth's sister sent to 5070 BE, Zarabeth to 5000 BE, Zor's brother to 1050 BE, Zor's Araen to 4955 BE

30 BE Zor Khan killed by Atoz from 50 BE

0 BE Atoz finishes exodus to past, settling family in 100 BE on Cerelon, Spock and McCoy visit 4995 BE, Kirk visits 1039 BE ("All OurYesterdays"), End of the World, time rift created by Arretian ship ("The Counter-clock Incident")

8 AE Capt. Spock visits Beniobe -- in 4959 BE

Zarabeth's partial genealogy

1. Zarabeth and Spock (later married to Saavik)

2. Zar married Araen and then Wynn

3. Atoz's father-in-law married Atoz's mother-in-law

4. Atoz's wife married Atoz

5. Atoz's son married Zarabeth's sister

7. Atoz's father-in-law married Atoz's mother-in-law

8. Atoz's wife married Atoz

9. Atoz's son married Zarabeth's sister

6. Zareth married Verena

7. Zareth's daughter

5. Atoz's daughter married Atoz's son-in-law

4. Atoz' brother-in-law

4. Atoz' sister-in-law

5. Atoz' neice married Jaryd's father

6. Jaryd married Zara

7. Zarabeth's sister married Atoz's son

9. Atoz's father-in-law married Atoz's mother-in-law

8. Atoz's wife married Atoz

9. Atoz's son married Zarabeth's sister

10. Wynn married Zar

7. Zarabeth married to Spock

8. Zar married to Araen and then Wynn

9. Atoz's father-in-law married Atoz's mother-in-law

6. Jarryd's sister not married to Octavius

7. Zor's brother married Zor's sister-in-law

8. Zor's neice married Sladykins' father

7. Araen married Zar

6. Atoz married Atoz' wife

2. Jarrod married Leila

3. daughter of Jarrod

2. Lidia married Sumarr

3. daughter of Sumarr

For more of Spock's (and Sherlock Holmes') family history see the Norbury Chronicle, issue 32 , "When logic smells bad" and The Case of the Missing Ruby. For even more of Spock and Zarabeth visit The Sarpeidon Chronicles, Spock on Zarabeth "I Grieve with Thee" and "The Zarabeth Legacy", and of Zareth and Verena, The Cerelan Dilemma.

This page and the use of the names Arretian, Asyn, Atoz, Capellan, Danreg, Guardian of Forever, Eridani, Hodgkins, Kerren, Krypton, Lakreo, Preservers, Sladykins, Spock, Vixen, Wynn, Zar, Zarabeth, Zareth, Zor Kahn, are in no way intended as infringements upon any of the copyrights or trademarks held by Paramount Pictures Corporation, Viacom, Lincoln Enterprises, the Estate of Gene Roddenberry, Jean Lisette Aroeste, author of "All Our Yesterdays", A. C. Crispin, author of Yesterday's Son and Time for Yesterday, John Culvert, author of "The Counter-clock Incident", or any other licensees, individuals, or organizations. All rights therein are reserved to those persons, entities, and organizations.