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Download the Planet!
We got three sizes because that's what other people did and we're doing our best to act like other people.
(HOLY SHIT) Turns out, I can't upload a file larger than 25mb. What garbage.
Anyway, here are some pleasurable buttons to push.
Welcome to the fold, brother
The Dunes are Calling
On the surface, the world of Zerth is a wasteland. A half-million square miles of desolation, unforgiving elevation shifts and unrelenting daylight. But just beneath the cracks, a rich society is bursting with life. Though the absence of government might terrify the normies, the resourceful and self-sufficient find their way to prosperity with ease. And if you aren't that type, you'll starve to death and maybe learn something in the process. Maybe the next time around won't be so shitty, but that's entirely up to you.
It's been said that spending time on Zerth is to live a life of deliberate necessity. One's needs are only as great as their ambition requires, and the means to manifest your ambition are never out of reach. Great works for posterity clash with the horrors of tribalism, all swinging by the influence of those who have the will to change the world. The greatest equalizing factor is that anyone, anywhere can pick up a wrench and change their future with nothing more than the drive to do so.
Under it all is the brightest whitepill. No rhetoric, no ideology. Only a mirror in the shape of fantasy.
The dunes are calling... how will you answer?
WHAT A DUMB IDEA
Zerth is a silly place filled with all kinds of high-concept Sci-Fi garbage.
Here's a breakdown for you.
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Desert - mostly.
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Mad Max, kinda, but people are happy. They only go to war for kicks.
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It's not post-apocalyptic, but with your help it could be. Maybe anti-apocalyptic?
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Unlimited resources of all kinds. You just have to know where to dig. (hint: Dig under the ground)
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Eleven suns. That’s right, Eleven. There is no night on Zerth. Always day, always hot, always dry.
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Flying cars, flying buses, flying shopping carts.
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MS-DOS levels of computing. There is no Twitter on Zerth.
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Humans return from the dead and they’re fully aware of this fact. They've lost the fear of death entirely.
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Music everywhere but you can’t change the station. What’s the deal?
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No laws, No laws, No laws. Everyone just hopes for the best. Sometimes it works.
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Lax attitude towards violence. Loony-tunes levels of chaos.
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Water is everywhere. You can mine it from the sky! What's the point of a desert planet if water is so plentiful? It's all about the scenery.
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Sectoid boys don't have a penis, Sectoid girls have a cloaca.
Themes and Inspiration
I like things that last. I enjoy old movies and even older books. Maybe it's my cynical nature that keeps me from dabbling in pop culture, as If I did, I'd feel weird claiming ownership over the fruits of that labor. The market is overflowing with commentary on the latest and greatest shovelware media, and one work is forgotten as quickly as another is pooped out. For this reason I'm drawn to older themes that have stood against the winds of change and I've done my best to reproduce that in Zerth.
Setting aside, most of the Zerth books are simple character studies. Psychodramas and slices-of-life. The backdrop of a hostile, alien world gives the whole thing flavor, but at it's heart it's much less complex then it seems. Peeling back the layers reveal a deliberate attempt to retell old classics. You'll find bits of Mark Twain and Herman Melville; flecks of Keats, Coleridge and Blake. Spice it up with some Cervantes with a Rabelais garnish. Alfred Jarry and Hunter Thompson top off the dish for just the right amount of introspective horror. Bake at 350° for two and a half hours.
Literature isn't the only fuel I consumed. I grew up in the golden age of Sunday comics - the 80s, and so I can't ignore the damage that was done to me by the likes of Berkeley Breathed with Bloom County. Gary Larson taught me what irony was and Bill Waterson showed me how to find beauty in all things. In fact, I'd have to say the wanderings of Calvin and his stuffed tiger may have been the deepest inspiration to Zerth. It took years for me to realize just how closely I was aping the adventures of Spaceman Spiff. For some reason, work of this quality just doesn't show up these days. Not in the mainstream, at least. With that said, I don't mean to say that Zerth is a total rejection of modernity, but it is a rejection of shitty modernity.
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