Between Stars...

While there has been much profitable speculation on the identities of previous Fallen Metropolises of the Neath, the name of he we do not speak of (though I recently realised his current moniker is an anagram of Aten) and significance of Love I have yet to see any conclusive or even substantial thought published about this strangest of phrases.

“When the Bazaar was between stars”

Does anyone have any light to shed on the matter? I can offer only tiny ideas. A line of the Correspondence translated after the Duchess tips off to the significance of romance is ‘The mounting excitement when one’s beloved reaches the closest point of his orbit’.

In the course of investigations at the university you discover that some believe the Correspondence can be used to communicate with the Sun.

These two point to some celestial matter. But I am a mere neophyte. Does anyone have anything further to contribute?

[color=000000][quote=AlexWattsEsq]Does anyone have anything further to contribute?[/quote]

Nothing but wild speculations, I fear. But sometimes I came upon small pieces within a story that seemed to me to be inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu cycle. Especially on the visit to the deepest caverns below Flute Street,[color=000000] [/color]it was clearly indicated that the fossils found there, and the rock itself, were from &quotsomewhere else&quot. And wasn’t there mention of a ruined vessel looking like a spaceship?

Again, I may be on the wrong track with this, but I would not be too surprised if we were to find out that the Masters (and possibly the Rubbery Men, too) were not of Earthly origin.[/color]
edited by Rupho Schartenhauer on 4/4/2015

[color=rgb(51, 51, 51)]I’ve heard the phrase ‘between stars’ one other place – during a rather … marvellous production for my ambition, combining the fire of the Correspondence and the passion of the opera.[/color]
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What does it mean? I couldn’t tell you. But it seems when the Correspondence sings, it sings with celestial longing.
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[color=rgb(51, 51, 51)]EDIT: Spoiler tags![/color]
edited by narcissus_echo on 12/22/2011
edited by narcissus_echo on 12/22/2011

The correspondence seems to be intimately linked with this mystery. People working with the Correspondence do seem to burst into flames a lot, don’t they?

Can the film “dark city” provide a clue?

I’m pretty sure the Bazaar is not actually a [color=rgb(255, 255, 255)]space colony[/color]. But it’s still likely Earth was not the Bazaar’s first world.

The importance of music in this context is also made clear through Mr Wines’ behaviour when one sings for it at the revel. I wonder if this is a special quality of Mr Wines, or would all the Masters respond the same way?
(Pity one can’t sing for Mr Sacks…)

I’m completelly clueless on the matter but if i had to place my bets i’d say it is better to analyze the gateway rather than our surroundings. I mean , if the “hole in the ground” has the same properties as a mirror, then we could be on an entirely different planet alltogether.
But that’s just pure speculation on my part.
edited by Andrey Shmarev Shmareva on 12/23/2011

My aunt may well be a troublingly capable creature, however I believe that space travel is beyond her means. So far. I hope anyway. For the sake of the universe at large.
edited by Abraham Bounty on 12/22/2011

[quote=Abraham Bounty]My aunt may well be a troublingly capable creature, however I believe that space travel is beyond her means. So far. I hope anyway. For the sake of the universe at large.
edited by Abraham Bounty on 12/22/2011[/quote]

You have no idea.

[quote=Abraham Bounty]My aunt may well be a troublingly capable creature, however I believe that space travel is beyond her means. So far. I hope anyway. For the sake of the universe at large.
edited by Abraham Bounty on 12/22/2011[/quote]

Space conquest can wait , drugging stone pigs on the other hand…

But maybe we are seeing this whole thing the worng way , how about…what do we really know of the surface? maybe what we understand is the surface is actually the core and the Neath is crusty exterior. Like a spherical biodome inside a hole in the ground , so no matter if we dig into the earth or ride a ballon into the sky , we’ll evengtually get into “the stars”.
edited by Andrey Shmarev Shmareva on 12/23/2011

For those who have built a ship capable of traveling beneath the surface of the unterzee, there’s a cave that can be investigated to see this interesting bit of information:


[color=#ffffff]The coral here is different. It’s simpler, more coherent. Almost geometric. Your lamps sweep across the cave. There! A carving! Rounded, organic spires and creatures descending from them. What are they? Moths? Angels? You can’t get any closer.
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That certainly suggests, to me, something about the history of the Bazaar.

To me that suggests a potential link to Flute Street and the lore revealed therein.

Flute Street was my first thought, too—however,

[color=#ffffff]“round, organic spires” seems to suggest the architecture of the bazaar, and creatures that look like moths or angels would be winged, as the Masters are oft rumored to be [/color]

If what was between stars was love… then is the Bazaar love itself? Are the Masters love’s agents? Then why are we delicious? Because love is all-consuming?

The bazaar seems attracted to tales of love, but it does not seem like it actively encourages love. After all, I have noted the place seems to be drawn towards tragic love the most of all, so I feel the bazaar looks for something else, but love is the best way to get it.

The bazaar seems to be attracted to tales of drama of which love is one flavor. But there are other stories that the bazaar is fond of, like Tales of Terror, Memories of Distant Shores, and Mysteries of the Elder Continent which are presumably light on romance.

I think those are more to the taste of those who shop at the Bazaar, rather than the Bazaar itself. Although there’s usually still love at the heart of those stories, if you look deep enough.

Now I’ve actually had a strange though , who was the first to carve in stone the sentence “…between stars”? Maybe we are again lost in translation between the correspondence smeantics of teh 4th city and our understanding of the symbols now.
what stars mean to us now, for what they meant to those who came before us can change as much as what horses mean to us now and what they meant to the 4th city.
Again, “stars” could be the luminiscent insects the size of a shark that plague the ceiling.

The people of the Andes looked at the black spaces between stars to form constellations, and that seems a likely location for the Third City. (Just to throw that out there.)