voidtreckernet | [Voice; Nebula 19th, evening]

Good evening, fellow passengers,

I hope this message finds you well.

Foremost, you must forgive me in any mistakes I may make in sending this address to you all, as I'm certainly not used to sharing my thoughts in such a way. I'm most definitely more of a fan of the classic handwritten letter.

I was going over the upstairs library collection, so generously donated by other passengers - and you're welcome add to it yourself), when I found myself wondering about the extensive possibilities of literary works to be found in the countless worlds we not only come from, but the ones we visit.

Since there's scarcely a chance to explore such things in the worlds we stop at, wrought with conflict as they tend to be, I figured the easier option would be to simply ask:

What are your favorite literary works from your world? What are they about? Which are considered timeless classics?

I eagerly await your response.

Your curious fellow passenger,
Aziraphale

Oh, also, if anyone's interested in submitting anything to the library, I have provided clean notebooks and writing material in the far right nook in the upper floor of the library. I'm also available to provide custom book binding services.

--

[Edit: Edited into a voice post, forgot there aren't text post options.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh, it's Aziraphale, the messenger! Hermes' friend, maybe? He hadn't bothered to ask. Either way, Zagreus cheerfully pipes up!]

So there's this epic written about my mentor Achilles. It's called the Iliad, and it talks about the enormous battle Achilles and his Myrmidons fought against the Trojans. And then there's another epic written after that, called the Odyssey, if I remember right, though I've never met Odysseus myself nor does Achilles talk about him much. I've heard that my time is considered pretty classical to most of you folks from the future, so I suppose those might be classic literature in your worlds.

Oh, yes! Two great classics, indeed, quite important where I'm from as well. Both dated around 8th century B.C., and admired and read well into the present.

Hold on, people can still read it that far into the future? I thought most of you weren't fluent in Mycenaean. Or is it called Grecian now?

[He is aware of the concept of what modern-day Greece, but other than that he knows little about what it's like.]

I'm not sure what B.C. means, but I'll take your word for it! It's hard to track time in the Underworld, anyway.

Translations have been offered for a very long time, dear boy. Most classics, from your time and otherwise, are now offered all over the world in most, if not all, modern languages. That's one of the great things about the written word - through time, it became available to more and more people and allows most the pleasure of access to almost everything. Of course, there's public libraries as well, and I do suppose some might be available digitally, but I'm a firm believer in the printed word. But I do suppose we mustn't discard the fact that classics do stay alive as they must, even if in lesser quality versions--

Oh, pardon. B.C. indicates "Before Christ", a rather, well, important figure, and whose existence is also used to mark the central point of the Gregorian calendar.

Wow, that's... wow. [He thinks about it for a moment.] But wouldn't things, you know, change as it was passed down? And into a different language, no less? I know a lot of stories passed down throughout human history that aren't so... well, accurate, to what truly happened, at least from hearing the first-hand accounts the shades who lived them had to offer.

A library is... like the car here, on the Train, where anyone can pick up a book to read and enjoy it? That sounds wonderful. I hope they are made in my world, soon! [They will not be, in the immediate future, but that's the thing about Gods, all they have to do is wait a while.]

Christ? Who's that? And who's this Gregorian chap?

[Please teach this Greek God about your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Please do this, Aziraphale.]

[ Aziraphale hums. ]

I do suppose. Most of it is different interpretations of a legend. I'm afraid your story, as well as the rest of the Pantheon, is only a myth as well. But that does not make it any less important or interesting.

[ Lots of people don't believe in God, Heaven, Hell and the like either, where he's from. So it really all depends on perspective. ]

And yes, libraries are wonderful. While some focus on preservation work and aren't quite accessible to everyone, there's many copies of tomes and books and writings from all ages accessible to most people.

And...well, Jesus Christ, the savior, son of God. Lovely chap, with a lot of grand ideas. Didn't meet him personally, unfortunately. And Pope Gregory XIII, who estabelished the Gregorian calendar circa 1582, although it was mostly a minor adjustment from the Julian calendar, estabelished by Julius Cesar around 46BC.

[ Chats between immortals are...interesting. Aziraphale, as far as he's concerned, is happy enough to have a nice casual conversation with similar beings that isn't about work, and the company for that has always been limited, if very pleasant. ]

Well of course we are. That's how the mortals share knowledge with each other about the world, and about the Gods, and all sorts of things, through myths and legends, right? [He's taking the ancient Greek meaning of 'story', or 'saga', here. Surely Aziraphale couldn't be implying that Zagreus is, in fact, not real. He's clearly right here!]

Regardless of whether they're written down or passed on by bards, they're still important. It's nice that everyone can share the same story, though, as it was first told. Makes for a lot less mistakes in the storytelling, I'd wager.

Oh, so he's a God himself? Or is he a demigod, like Heracles? [Sorry for the blasphemy, Aziraphale buddy, he legitimately doesn't know.] And 1582 is... after BC? [It's honestly hard to wrap his mind around, two millennia of human development, how much they've changed, how far things must have come.] So the humans were using the wrong calendar for... [Quick math] nearly 1,630 years? How did this Father Gregory bloke figure out Lord Caesar's calendar was wrong?

[ Aziraphale pauses, for a moment, feeling rather awkward. It's been hard enough dealing with the idea that there are different versions of himself and Crowley (and, presumably, everyone else as well) going about and crossing these different worlds, but it's a whole other thing breaking it to someone that there are worlds they may not exist in. It would also imply that he'd had to face that about himself, and he's had a bad enough time letting himself think too deeply about these things on late quiet nights. ]

Right. And, yes, I do suppose it makes it all the easier to have accurate versions for different peoples, but there's still some discussion to be had about older texts. It's an industry that's been improving over the centuries, but it's quite difficult to verify those that were made before all of it was properly available.

[ Aziraphale has never really been picky about blasphemy, not of this level, anyway. He mostly found himself concerned when he heard something that might be against Heaven's rules, when he was employed, but finding offense in interpretation or lack of somehow apparently predisposed knowledge was more of a thing humans did. ]

It's a bit more complicated than that. But the point is that his importance was immense, and therefore used as a reference by some peoples that followed His teachings.

And as far as the calendar, Julius Ceasar was mistaken about the length of the year, and the Christian churches do quite like their holidays, so they made sure to nudge the math into the right place.

[Voice; Nebula 19th, evening]

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