We've known of them for years now. But we still don't know what they truly are. In the 4 decades of the Great Mystery, Nemaeans were in near-continual contact with "The Mathematicians," their name for the crystalline, orb-like entities that dwell in prodigious numbers in the still-closed regions of the Nemaean Territories. The greatest of all Nemaen secrets had been that they were in continual exchange with representatives of an advanced and highly structured intelligence. Non-humans, stranger than anything imagined in the lurid fictions of our technological past. And now, decades after those first moments of contact, the Nemaeans are sharing their discovered secret with us. Because of the Lion's Eggs, as we call the Mathematicians, Centralist ships are allowed to cross freely into Nemaean territories. We're learning about the Mathematicians, learning that each orb is a living entity with its own highly complex identity. They are adapted specifically for life in the hard interstellar (intergalactic?) vacuum. But even as our researchers are allowed to cross boundaries that were once forbidden, we must still wonder, if the Nemaeans can hide the secret of the Mathematicians from us, what other surprises lurk in the silent depths of space, and WHO ELSE might the Nemaeans know? These are lesser questions on deeper inspection, however. I am troubled by another. The Mathematicians are intimately familiar with the Nemaean people, and it is Nemaea that has become the standard by which these in-human beings have come to measure ALL of humanity. Nemaea has gained extraordinary signigicance, and more troubling than the secrets they've held is the question as to whether or not we can truly live up to the Nemaean standards of what humans truly are? --Charles Markham/Musings of a Xenologist *** Yeah, I told myself I wasn't going to make a Nemaen post until I'd returned to Dortmund, but it looks like I'll be heading to the USA for a few months instead, so rather than wait for a few months, I decided to post now... *** As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you have fun with this image and the snippet that goes with it.