The Tablet of Balthazar

The auction of Capraria has been held for over two millennia. Every decade, representatives of global consortia dedicated to the discovery of the famed Sirakoth gather on this island for a vicious exchange of artifacts, maps, volumes, or archives said to contain clues in the most massive and all-consuming quest humanity has ever been engaged in. Is the Sirakoth real? No one knows. Is it a technology or magic, myth or historical fact, hallucination or logical endpoint of scientific development? These questions have eroded to the point of irrelevance over centuries of pure lust for the promises of the Sirakoth.
The quest that would drive humanity insane began here, on Capraria, with the simple meeting of two sailboats off the coast of Western Africa. One ship, beaten by storms, with its sail torn and its crew down to its starving, dehydrated, rambling captain. The other ship, prosperous coastal merchants, on a stopover to collect woad flowers. "Help me" said the shipwrecked, "and I will give you the key to all the World's riches and power". The head merchant was skeptical, but what was there to loose? He would have taken Balthazar on board anyways, it was just the decent thing to do. But, still, he wanted to know more.

The crew was buried, and the unfortunate captain taken aboard the trading vessel with his charts, instruments, and a small chest he feebly pointed to. The rest was junk and was left to rot on the beach. Balthazar did not survive the night. It is said that he died on the trader's cot, whispering his final words in the ear of his host, who could sadly hardly be called his rescuer.

The trader's name is lost to history. Notoriety and publicity were not desirable in his line of work. But we know that the meeting on Capraria has been a life-changing event for him. The legend has it that Balthazar's strongbox contained a tablet of black clay, on which mysterious letters were etched. At least, this is what we are led to believe by the numerous forgeries that have appeared and circulated through the centuries.

Although the trader disappeared from our records, his offsprings likely inherited his secrets and the tablet, and wanted more. Regular meetings began to be held on Capraria. They were occasions to trade information as much as opportunities to send competitors chasing red herrings. Granted, the number of participants in these gatherings has always been extremely small and select. But it grew nevertheless. The rumor of a fantastical object first spread in merchant's circles, but soon reaching monasteries, sovereigns, chiefs and scholars from the Sahara to the North Sea, and from the western to the eastern edge of the Old World. The rumor of the Sirakoth soon circled the globe. And, as humanity extended its our planet, the dream of the Sirakoth stayed with us, fed by our own leaps and bounds. If humanity could accomplish so much in a few centuries, what could millions of years produce? Space stations were built and destroyed to conduct experiments or store precious artifacts beyond the reach of competitors. Underground vaults were dug on the Moon or Mars. Even outfitting a mission to Europa was deemed an acceptable cost to protect an imagined lead in the quest for the Sirakoth. But still, the auction of Capraria remained the nervous center of it all, and in the plethoras of artefacts traded there over the years, none was ever as desired as Balthasar's original tablet, save the very Sirakoth itself.

Summary

The myth of Balthazar's Tablet has three important components: 1) a meeting on the island of Capraria, 2) a secret told and related to a mysterious artifact, and 3) a ripple effect, the contagious transmission of Balthazar's obsession to his rescuer and from said rescuer to other people around him.

Historical Basis

This tale can be seen as the foundations myth of the Auction of Capraria. Periodic meetings on this island have been well documented among different groups dedicated to the pursuit of the Sirakoth at least since the XIIth Century. But the chronicles from that period speak of an event that had been taking place for some time already, maybe centuries. For most people, even having heard of the auctions held on Capraria is quite exceptional. But for the select few, be they newcomers who got themselves into the game by using their formidable economic resources, or millennia-old organizations that have participated in every meeting and accrued tremendous prestige within the world of the Sirakoth seekers, the reality of the auction is beyond dispute. Did it really originate in a shipwreck on Capraria? That's a different question. Does the Tablet of Balthazar exist? So far, no candidate has withstood the scrutiny of experts.

Spread

The seekers of the Sirakoth have come to be called the corridori, as they are all engaged in a race for the prize, the Corsa. Today, the field in which this race takes place is massive. Corridori organisations have facilities on all continents, beneath the seas, in orbit, on the Moon and on every major body of the Solar System between the Earth and Jupiter. But although the geographical scale and the historical depth of the Corsa are considerable, it has always been, and remains, a secretive contest. Every participant is familiar with several versions of the story of Balthazar's Tablet, but the legend itself is virtually unknown outside this network.

Variations & Mutation

Although the basic components of the myth are fairly stable, many of its secondary aspects change in its various retellings. Its most stable elements are that it is always set in Capraria and that the mysterious artefact is consistently a tablet. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of each variations, as every retelling seems to add to add a new one. The Losa Manuscript, which contains the first description of the Auction of Capraria, provides the original written occurence of the myth. The present description is based on that text. However, this document was not rediscovered until late in the XXIst century, so many other written versions exist. The Arcas Codex, in particular, was long thought to contain the earliest form of that story. It dates from the XVth century, almost three centuries later than the Losa text. It differs from it in many respects. The Arcas Codex, for example, evokes a meeting between Bathazar and local populations living on Capraria. The tablet, thus, is not taken away by a coastal trader, but hidden somewhere on the island. No need to add that this possibility has been thoroughly explored by competing archaeological expeditions and remote scanning of all sorts. Perhaps the most interesting variants are those that have not been widely circulated between the corridori. Whenever a group gives credence to elements contained in its own particular telling, it usually keep the information to itself, choosing to spread consciously distorted versions of the myth, as a form of information warfare against competitors.

Cultural Reception

The corridori themselves can be seen as a rather cosmopolitan global elite. They will adhere to any version of the myth that they deem useful to their purpose, and circulate any version which they think will impede the efforts of their adversaries. However, through the centuries, word of the Sirakoth was bound to leak out of the confidential milieu of the corridori and trickle in popular culture. These local appropriations have always been more culture-specific. They are also much more variable than the versions told among the few groups who get an invitation to the Capraria auction. The Sirakoth itself is rarely referred to by that specific name in these popular retelling. It is often replaced by a more relatable object. Balthazar is generally turned into a cultural hero, to which many gender are attached, appearing out of the void, if not creating the universe itself. Once one goes down that cosmological path, it is easy, however, to start seeing the Sirakoth everywhere, in all foundational stories. The Grail, Pandora's Box, the First Seed or the life-giving Royal Cauldron... one should be careful not get carried away on the powerful waves of interpretive mania that have spelled the doom of many who have heard whispers about the Sirakoth. Adding to the complexity of the matter, we must also mention the weaponizing of Sirakoth Lore. It has been documented that millenarian movements have been engineered by some corridori in order to destabilize whole regions under control by their competitors. One case of such intervention has been well documented, with the Balthazarian movement of 2234, in which a group of people were led to believe that the mythical figure was about to return with the Sirakoth in hand. It soon became apparent that all the unrest created by that movement, the riots and fires that ensued in numerous cities of the world was but a cover for the looting of the Clarissant estate, a way for the Kirle Clan to raid their competitor's collections without alerting other corridori to their manoeuvre.

In Literature

The extent to which the Sirakoth and Balthazar's story have had an impact on literature is anyone's guess. One ca see as much or as little of it as one wishes. One obvious candidate, of course, would be the cycle of the Grail. But then again, what hasn't been related to it in one way or another?

Date of First Recording

1192

Date of Setting

The meeting on Capraria sets in motion a series of events that will unfold from late Antiquity to the XXVth century, which marks the "present" in the world of Ofermod.