Book Of Whales

### **Translation Preface**

A translation was posted to Google Drive here. Book Of Whales is written mainly in Human English, but has a couple lines of Eemian and Braille on most pages for accent. Eemian translation is shown in ***bold italics*** below. Whereas other key books and documents in the exhibit are for sale in the gift shop, the Book of Whales is not - Ergo we have posted a translation here. We as fans would much rather be able to purchase reference documents in the gift shop as opposed to posting them for free here.

Full photos can be found here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10uIHiodulKKd6GdoLhyVzSOUA53ximKS?usp=sharing

Society of Typographic Arts recognized the Book Of Whales as a top 100 in 2021. Read more here and here.

## TL;DR

Eemia was a planet that was once warm and full of life, but it entered a long, harsh winter. A whale washed up on shore, and the suns stopped rising. The jungles died, and the city was buried under snow. The Eemians, the inhabitants of the planet, took shelter in caves to the south.

As the days passed, the winter deepened and the Eemians struggled to survive. They relied on the whales for food and resources, and tried to keep warm in their icy caves. Some Eemians tried to force spring to return by planting in the snow, but their efforts were futile.

The Navigators, beings who had helped the Eemians explore the universe, stopped communicating with them and froze in the ice. The Eemians tried to wake them, but were unsuccessful. As the days grew darker, the Eemians lost hope that the long winter would ever end.

Over time, the Eemians adapted to their new environment and began to build a new city on top of the old one. They learned to live with the ice and the snow, and even found ways to use it to their advantage. But they continued to struggle, and it was unclear how long they would be able to survive in this frozen world.

## **Freeze + 12 Days (Page 1)**

A whale washed up on shore this morning.

The suns refuse to rise, the sea is turning to slush and it reflects the stars in a peculiar way. Mazat and Zilin, Atzin and Yeyi now watch us with new eyes.

The city has mostly disappeared under snow. Everyone has taken shelter in the caves to the south, but we won't last long there. I’m told another whale has washed ashore to the north. I worry about them, their confusion, at least we understand some of what has occurred.

The jungles are quiet and dying quickly.

Is this goodbye?

***The Navigators tried to warn us, but we didn't listen. The winter deepens.***

## **Freeze + 70 Days (Page 2)**

We have named this new season long winter, season of destruction.

The jungles are ice-burnt, brown. They are dry like the height of summer. The wood fuels the fires that keep us warm within the southern caves. The stone holds the heat, a small grace.

The Navigators are buried in ice and snow. It is said that the Nula gave us the Navigators eons ago when one of our suns went dark, and we danced with them — oh how we danced! One foot on soil, one in the stars! That bond, Eemians and Navigator… we built such a world together.

Then we destroyed it.

The Navigators allowed us to go so far into the universe, to see everything. I am worried that magic  has left us and it has taken the warmth with it. This winter will be more than a season. Some disagree and prepare for spring.

Others have gone back to the city, convinced they will force normal to return by their will alone. They are digging trenches to plant.

The whales’ blubber is good for oil. Their meat nourishes us. We can carve ice into new shapes.

## **Freeze + 88 Days (Page 3)**

The Navigators have stopped communicating with us. They just turned their faces to the stars and stopped talking.

Some Eemians are angry. We had to stop a group from throwing rocks at the Navigators. We built a ring of dry flowers around the places where they have frozen. We light oil.

If you were to look inside of a navigator — beneath the metal you’d find vivid and encyclopedic memories of every Navigator that has ever lived. They remember the stars and planets and every flower on Eemia. They remember the colors of their pilots’ eyes. They remember the way the nebulas sounded on the long journey to Eemia with the Nula. They remember the sharp and metallic taste of the vast emptiness between stars.

And they remember Helia, at the center of the universe, where so many disappeared with their pilots. The last place. They remember the great vortex that opened in the skies and pushes us off course into ice.

***The navigators are living machines they remember everything let them speak to you when they awake***

## **Freeze + 102 Days (Page 4)**

The days are getting darker.

All around our ice, structures glow with the light of whale oil. We’ve become little constellations in the night, birds like Zillih, vortexes like Atzin. There is a great exhaustion settling in. We are tired of the ice and caves. We rely on the whales for so much.

Eemia’s jungles are pillars of ice. The sleeping navigators are encased in ice. We all feel numb, waiting for an old life that may never return. The planet cannot be dead. Why won’t the Navigators wake and tell us what they want from us? Are they waiting, too?

Melting the ice is difficult, it isn’t bothered by fire. This is a new magic, a dangerous one.

We are beginning to lose hope of this long winter ending. Even the ones who are stubborn and will not adjust to the ice. Hope is hard to hold in my gloved hands.

## **Freeze + 204 Days (Page 5)**

The old ones say that Silverthorne loved his mother, and that his love opened the vortex that froze this planet. Love has this power. We have to change, as the planet changes. We must continue to love our planet. A whale’s bones give shape to the whale, and then shape to our homes, our clothes, our divinations.

The sacred constellations are still with us. We are at work building some semblance of a new city, on top of the old one, figuring out new ways to exist. The winds are a challenge. The suns have become very small in the sky. Will they never rise again? Sometimes, the ice glows, like the flowers used to.

Will anyone remember flowers?

***Remember that flowers have no regrets they bloom and bloom and bloom***

## **Freeze + 438 Days (Page 6)**

The stars are naked. There is no blanket of sky for them to hide behind. They are there for us to see them, always, every time we look up, to search for our suns. They are there to remind us of what we have lost. They are there to remind us of why we must live.

In their sleep, the Navigators have turned their faces to look at the stars, too. Do they miss them? We have stood in the frozen winds to plead with the Navigators, to yell at them, to cry on them, and still they remain silent.

Did we betray their trust? Their eyes have gone dark, and they have stopped appearing in our dreams. Once they trusted us, but now we are alone. Once, that trust had the power to rip apart space and time. Once, they looked into our eyes and we looked into theirs, and we saw the beating heart of the universe and they said to us, we will take you there, and the ones that went never returned.

***The ice is getting thicker: The air is getting colder: Will it never stop?***

## **Freeze + 4 Years (Page 7)**

We have begun something.

A great monument of light and color. To make a new sun in the darkness. To make music. A monument to things we’ve lost. So we will not forget.

Soon we might forget that the stars make music. We might forget what a nebula sounds like. We might forget the ribbons of dust illuminated by a faraway star. We might forget the light in the center of the universe, and all who have been lost there. But that doesn’t mean we should not try to remember.

We have formed a new civilization from the old. A new city of ice is rising. This place feels more and more like home. We fight less about details. We build together.

Yesterday, we saw a pod of whales, swimming beneath the ice. Their eyes were like jewels. They will live, and so will we.

***Our hands ache from building the new monument to Light and Color. We want to remember Eemia bofore the ice.***

## Freeze + 11 Years

#### **(Page 8)**

***Constellations***

Even after everything, I can look up and see the four constellations that have for so long meant so much to our people. I feel their warmth. I remember the story my mother told the about each:

In the old summer sky are the five stars of Mazat. The Kleedeer: Amantys, Nevral, Floret, Zet, and Zuh. His red eye that sees into the future and the past, but never the present. Mazat watched over the jungles, when there were jungles. His red eye has been watching since time long before the Nula came. In the myths, when you look up at Mazat, you can see everything that ever was, except for yourself.

Zilin, [eemia and braille] the little dartbird, was lord of the spring. Iuliid, Lenete, and Havra are Zilin’s stars. Those who walked through the jungles were long wary of Zilin, who was said to disorient travelers with the beat of her wings. They said that you’d soon find yourself, in one of the old groves where planetary magic was strongest, magic that would turn your body into a bed of flowers while Zilin watched, eager for nectar.

### **(Page 9)**

Those that lived near the oceans looked up at the night sky and thanked Atzin for the fish and whales that sustained them, Atzin the vortex, forever churning in the southern skies, illuminated by Aca, Atzoa, Ammi, and Annet. Atzin has forever brought the rainy seasons to Eemia, until now. Perhaps now, Atzin brings the snow. The old myths are rewriting themselves or this new chapter of our history.
The last of the four cardinal constellations is Yeyi, mystical Yeyi, The Three Eyes, each which sees in all directions and into every dimension. Itta, Zalo, and Xala are it’s stars, each older than any other. Yeyi has long been the guardian of the unknown, of the farthest stars, of the Lost Navigators, of everything in the universe that science cannot explain. Yeyi saw Nula and the Navigators long before they came to us. Before the Navigators went silent, we often saw them looking up into Yeyi’s eyes, thinking things we would never understand.

This morning, we went to the Frozen Beaches and asked Yeyi if the winter will end. Some heard no, some heard soon. Some heard nothing at all. I wonder what future generations will remember…

## **Freeze + 109 Years (Page 10)**

This time of year the whales can be found in the Northern Seas.

When their eyes freeze they become like Eems. When you look into them it is said that you can see the future.We have learned to put our trust in ourselves and not the old magic.We have learned to find other eyes to imbue with our dreams.

A group went out to the ice yesterday morning to melt blocks for building. They have not returned. A great storm is rising in the east so we sent out a few scouts to find them and bring them back.We will start again after the storm passes.

The whales in the Northern Seas don’t want to die. But we must kill them, so we can live.And what do I see in their frozen eyes? I see flowers made of ice.

***The Scientists are singing again on the ice plains to wake up the Navigators***

## **Freeze + 112 Years (Page 11)**

The final piece has been placed.

We gathered outside to gaze upon this achievement. Some people cried. The children sang. The scientists sent the first song into the darkness, from the Astral generator, the great organ that will send out signals into space, and perhaps into Helia itself. Behind us, the city glowed, from far away we heard the answering song of the whales.

When we started building the monument, the planet had just changed. Today there is no one alive who remembers the way life was before that. Scientists say that there are jungles underneath the ice. The old pages in this very book say the same thing. It’s hard to believe that these are not just stories. Why should anyone believe that the world has ever been anything but this? That it could be again?

## **Freeze + 152 Years (Page 12)**

I had a dream that I was above the planet. Beside me was the moon, and on the moon was a Navigator, and we were looking at the planet. I opened my mouth but had no voice, then the one on the moon turned to look at me, they said time is a spiral. When I looked back at the planet it was green.

The scientists say that one day the Navigators will wake. Yesterday when I looked at them frozen on the ice plains , I felt nothing. But when I woke, I felt a loneliness so profound that I sobbed.

There are some who believe the waking is not possible, that navigators are just stories to give us hope. But look at what we have lost.

***I the Universe was shaking, a great city landed on Eemia, my memories were not my own, the Navigators woke, what would the scientists say about this dream?***

## **Freeze + 296 Years (Page 13)**

Wild ice has destroyed the Western reaches of the city for the third time in a decade.

It is a beautiful phenomenon, wild ice, it appears and disappears like a wraith or a dream. There is a sharp drop in temperature before it appears. The sound of it is like a 1,000 mirrors shattering. It has a crystalline structure, that has extraordinary colors.

The scientists have begun to call themselves Kaleidogoths. They say that wild ice does not behave predictably, as though it is a living thing. They also say that at one time a planetary magic protected us from such things.

That magic is gone, this world is the only Eemia we have known, and their parents and their parents back 10 generations.

All we have is the accounts in this book. We keep it safe. It’s only through these words, that we can imagine the fabled Eemia of long ago. Warmed by three suns with food and flowers sprouting right from the ground. It is a myth, a dream.

We must protect the cities ourselves.

## **Freeze + 478 Years (Page 14)**

The Kaleidogoth Mission

Eemia has settled into the ice

With great awe we now unearth our past,

So that our Future breathes balanced harmony

To Navigators long frozen we look in hope, a rhyme of restoration spun

No matter failures sure to come, stars will be held in our hands

One day you will hear our song, KNOW that Eemia has risen again

***We have begun to decode the Navigators memory interval wave, their memories***

***What can we do to gain their trust? [second Eemian passage repeats the first]***

## **Freeze + 607 Years (Page 15)**

There is magic in all music, from the carefully composed to the careless and improvised. Even a dying star will utter one last transcendental song.

We have dug the Navigators out of the ice, we believe they are somehow alive. We have begun to practice what we can of the old ways. We have reconnected to our past. We are filling in the blanks.

The songs made on the Astral Wave Generator attract the whales. They answer with their mournful songs. We hope that it will attract the lost navigators, who so long ago disappeared with their pilots into Helia.

Some of us are beginning to ask, is this last palace called Helia real? Are our ancestors really there, waiting for us? Do the Navigators know the way?

***Do the whales share our pain? Do they also pass on stories of Eemia before ice? Their numbers are dwindling: I feel pain for them: I play my songs for them:***

## **Freeze + 913 Years (Page 16)**

A lightning bolt of incredulous joy: A Navigator Has Woken, if only for a moment. Panoa sang for the one in the Northern Ice and for a brief and wondrous moment its eyes opened, and a small garden bloomed in a cave in defiance of time and physics and the ice that should have strangled it. The flowers bloomed and bloomed when they should have begun to die. A song has done this, a song that came from not the old hymns but from a young and inquisitive mind, inspired by the constellations, by trust, and by love, as the whales sing, as the stars sing.

This is the first time in 913 years that the planet has seen flowers. It will not be the last.

***I feel a great change coming, there’s disorder among the stars, the whales can feel it too. They are restless in the sea.***

## **Freeze + Or The First Day? (Page 17)**

We woke and no one remembers who they were. The world was ice. It was once a vast forest? We found this cave with this book. It seemed like we were supposed to write down what had happened. My name is maybe Isha or Lyonne, both seem to be right.

Some have memories, bits of them, echos. There seems to be a great city inside one of the caves. Those people also only have fragments. Someone remembers there being a vast network of ice tunnels in this place. Whales, singing stars.

We are ragged pieces, but to what?

What are these mysterious living machines that seem to have their own memories? Who are we? Do these worlds belong together?

We only have questions, answers seem to be beyond us at the moment.

## **Convergence + 14 days (Page 18)**

Memories come like melting water this morning we could recall the Event itself. Panoa sang to the one in the Southern Ice It opened it’s eyes. The sky became not the sky. Everything duplicated into 4 of itself. A wild spectrum of multiplicity. We could hear the whales screaming in fours.

Then the duplicates pulled apart in pain, then they pressed together and it was over.

It seems we have traveled far from home, or a part of home has traveled and brought us with it. A part of our world is now merged  with parts of three other worlds. The one in the Southern Ice and in the Northern Ice are more awake than ever before. They hum with possibility. That memory is alive in all of us. It is important. Panoa is missing.

The people of the city call their world C-Street. They also have all lost parts of themselves. They claim there is a way to reclaim memory. There are two more worlds with us here, we are only starting to leave our ice. Perhaps we can find a way to detangle ourselves. To become Navigators again. To find the place from which we were cleaved.

## **Pavel Convergence +25 Years (Page 19)**

We were told when we were young that by the time we reached the final age of this great book, Eemia would be returned to its former glory….We’ve added new pages for years to keep us from the end. How many pages are enough? Maybe the convergence could be that return?

My mother would have wanted that. To rebuild our fertile ground. I have my mothers hands. They would have liked to garden. They hold a pen with confidence. And so through them I write these words on her behalf. I have been erased.

I was young when Convergence happened. Only now, 25 years later, do I begin to question my mother. Panoa, did not return to Eemia as was told me. The convergence did not return anyone to a former life. It erased them. The memory storms show us something. I’m watching, I’m listening, I’m learning.

These new worlds, jammed together unceremoniously and forced to coexist…..There are deep and tangled mysteries. What happened 25 years ago? Really? Is the true fate of Eemia? Why is no one asking? I am asking. I will find an answer……… Pavel

***I have learned the old language, I will sing the songs that made us great.***

## **Convergence +25 Years (Page 20)**

Aricelli High Priestess of the Kaleidogoths

Everyday new people arrive, asking to carry our memories for us. A young man was found on the ice. He claims to be before the ice age. Claims to be Silverthorne...memories blossom like old flowers.

Yet one memory is lost to this convergence of places. The memory of opening the sky. A memory belonging to the one in the Northern Ice. If we find the memory, perhaps we will finally return home.

Not all of Eemia is aligned. The opening of the sky may impact our interlocked worlds, our new allies. As Kaleidogoths, is it not our entire purpose to wake our planet, to return to the stars? To melt the ice?

Tonight I went to the Ice Plains, to feel the cold, to hear the whalesong off the glaciers, to watch the Northern Lights. There are some, such as my brother, who believe we should turn our gaze to our new neighbors, forge a shared existence of mingled memories. Leave the cold behind.

Therein lies our growing rift. I will not abandon the ancient mission. I will awaken the Navigators as my mother did 25 years ago. I will see Eemia green again, even if it means the risk of this new converged place. This book is a testament to the risk our people confronted over a thousand years.

I implore whoever sees this. Help find the missing memory. It must be somewhere in these bound worlds. Bring it home to us. Open the sky

***OPEN THE SKY***