Dreamt of hiking on a somewhat hostile world, a hot and dry planet of oceanic topography bared to the clear blue skies. It was winter, about as non-hostile as the planet got for humans: the plants helpfully signposted where I could not go, their foliage green-yellow-red depending on heat (not a planet for the colorblind). I had the impression that I had been here before, and was here as a guest.

For much of the dream, I wasn't hiking. I was down in the bottom of one of the world's ubiquitous trench-valleys near an alpine lake (one that, if the oceans were as deep as those on Earth, would be kilometres underwater), trying to photograph the beautiful orange foliage--to the planet's natives, thriving in a nice temperate region; to me by all rights hotter than I could handle.

I wandered around a little, not-quite-eavesdropping on the conversations of those around me--mostly humans, but the quadruped sapient people native to this planet were common too (awake, I get the vibes of alien centaurs like Jay Eaton's Centaurs and to a lesser extent Alex Ries' Birrin).

Alien centaurs, by Jay Eaton

Birrin, by Alex Ries

I don't remember what they were talking about, but gradually they cleared the area--giving me opportunities to get the best shots of the slowly-reddening hills and trees.

I was higher up in the trench-valley, making for greener altitudes. Even now things were trending back towards green, the air growing colder and thinner. Usually I wasn't the one doing the hiking, but I took over for a stretch of slightly inclined walking (shows my skill, huh). Not many people on this part of the trail--hadn't caught up with the rest of the pack, it seems. A few people were going down instead... but there's only one person who looks about as awkward as I do. Somehow I start a conversation (though awake I only have a faint inkling of what the conversation was like).

Something deep inside me says this person is capital-I Important, but I try not to think about that. They talk to me about how most humans here seem to act like the shape of the world is a challenge to them, like they'll prove something by staying in the heat longer than they can handle. I believe I say something about sympathizing with that, but that I'm mostly here because I'm too much of a perfectionist to get going when I need to. They seem to agree, and point me towards something special.

I have turned off a little into a high cul-de-sac. I'm high up enough that I'm not causing trouble for the one doing the hiking, thankfully. The hidden valley, as it were, is almost a map wall--covered in what could be topographic maps of the planet, but due to the red-yellow-green plant life it could just as easily be made from true-color data. They are beautiful--I fall in love with the planet once more.

I remember one map vividly, probably because it was the one I--or the person driving the body while I wasn't taking pictures--was using to navigate. Three great trench-valleys rise towards a meeting with a grand equatorial plateau- the western one is crushed between the plateau and the central valley, unable to continue; the eastern one folds up until it joins the central one, and the central valley ascends into the snowy heights of the plateau.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Daytime events: I'm almost certain I had been reading a lot of Planetocopia earlier in the day, especially Capsica--then again, it could've just been inspired by that.
• Themes: Plurality/multiple people in one body, other planets, worlds made by people
• Interpretation: It seems to me like it's about finding kindred spirits in an environment you're not built for. The planet is apparently opt-in rather than the mandatory existence on Planet Capitalism, but it still resonates with finding others who are my type of weird on Earth. The way the plants are useful for finding what's safe (and of course the existence of that enigmatic figure) say to me that the world is an artificial one, though no less real for those exploring the creation.
  Perhaps the overall meaning is along the lines of "finding people just like you through what they have created"?

EDITOR'S NOTE

I wish Elia had sketched that map... but the text does imply a world much like Capsica, where foliage color marks temperature zones so that ground-cover maps work as (rough) topo maps too. And yet... Elia hikes in a trench-valley like Earth's sea floor, suggesting quiet a different Planetocopian world, dry little Tharn. Come to think of it, Tharn has weird-looking centauroids too--Lobbras.

Tharn (end of Mrr Trench) by Wayan

Tharnian centauroids (Lobbras) by Wayan

About Elia's closing sentence: my own alien-planet dreams (like Shout in a Crowd) agree with this idea that quite a lot of art (even science-based art) is at least partly meant as a flag saying "Here I am, I'm this sort of weirdo, anyone like me out there?"

I mean, it works for me. I get sent dreams like this.

--Chris Wayan

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