It’s time to lift the veil on the mysteries of the Priest-Kings of Gor, and, in so doing, reveal all the science fiction that lies hidden in the novels of the Gor cycle.

In advance, I apologize for any errors or clumsiness, as I’m ill and feverish, so I’m writing with my brain a bit scrambled. Yes, my health continues to troll me at the moment. And I’m also sorry for the length of the article, but it needs a lot of material to develop its two subjects!

I know I’m going to shock some people (but you should be used to it, if you follow Gorean Archives articles), but the Gor cycle isn’t medieval fantasy. In a previous article, I summed it up this way: Gor is science-fiction science-fantasy. It’s a planet-opera set in a version of an ancient Gallo-Roman world on an alien planet, with people who, despite their generally medieval or ancient appearance and way of life, have access to advanced technologies, some of which are squarely science fiction, including interplanetary travel and cyberpunk elements.

And this reality begins with Gor’s most sci-fi element: the Priest-Kings. So I’ll start by explaining what they are, before moving on to the implications for the world of Gor.

Author’s note: many of the details and topics in this article are conclusions and assumptions based on elements in the novels, but not explained in the novels. I had to theorize a bit to fill in the blanks, so there’s no need to bitch about it, I know.

1- The Priest-Kings

About its neck there hung a small circular device, a translator of some sort, similar to but more compact than those I had hitherto seen.

I sensed a new set of odors, secreted by what stood before me.

Almost simultaneously a mechanically reproduced voice began to emanate from the translator.

It spoke in Gorean.

I knew what it would say.

“Lo Sardar,” it said. “I am a Priest-King.”

Priest-Kings of Gor

The Priest-Kings are the gods prayed to by the Goreans of the Priest-King Cult, itself jealously dominated by the Initiate caste, who see themselves as their sole intermediaries, and the holders of sacred truth. But the vast majority of Initiates have no idea what the Priest-Kings are. And if they were, it’s a safe bet that this religion, and consequently a good part of Gorean culture and its laws, would be turned upside down, with dramatic effects on society as a whole.

But what’s a Priest-King ?

1-1 The appearance of the Priest-Kings

It had six legs and a great head like a globe of gold with eyes like vast luminous disks. Its two forelegs, poised and alert, were lifted delicately in front of its body. Its jaws opened and closed once. They moved laterally.

From its head there extended two fragile, jointed appendages, long and covered with short quivering strands of golden hair. These two appendages, like eyes, swept the room once and then seemed to focus on me.

Priest-Kings of Gor

Well, actually… they’re ants. Well, not really, of course. The Priest-Kings are a very ancient extraterrestrial species, who have followed a convergent evolutionary path giving them a physical appearance – and certain social traits – that inevitably remind us of the Hymenoptera with which all earthlings are familiar.

That said, there are some very notable differences with this simple comparison. From a distance, a King-Priest resembles a gold-colored ant, with six legs, a highly segmented body that separates the head, thorax, petiole and abdomen and, standing on its hind legs, exceeds two meters in height (7 feet) for a total length of around three and a half meters (12 feet).

However, the King Priest moves on its four hind legs, which are attached to the petiole, its two front legs, which are attached to the top of the thorax, having evolved into raptor arms, like those of praying mantises, equipped with spikes and sharp blades. The tarsus of its front legs has evolved into prehensile, articulated appendages resembling fine hooks. In short, the King-Priest’s fingers are capable of functioning with the same complexity as a human hand.

A King-Priest’s head is fairly large, round and smooth, with small mandibles that are largely hidden beneath its clypeus, the articulated part of its front face. The eyes are globes composed of hundreds of facets, reflecting the slightest light. Finally, the head is equipped with long, slender articulated antennae, which are highly mobile and covered with permanently vibrating golden cilias.

1-2 The physiology of Priest-Kings

Priest-kings are a troglodyte species which, according to the clues left here and there in the novels, must have been born around a small red sun, with low visible spectrum luminosity. So they can’t stand the bright yellow glow of the sun at all, and can’t expose themselves to it. Sunlight doesn’t just seem to hurt their eyes, it burns their chitin. Presumably, their physiognomy has never evolved with the amount of ultraviolet light bombarding them from the solar system sun. So they live underground, which doesn’t bother them at all, as we’ll see below.

Priest-kings’ locomotion is remarkably fast and agile. While they can’t climb over every rough surface like ants, they walk and run quickly and lightly, despite their imposing mass. Priest-kings are vegetarians, eating cultivated mushrooms. I say this because mushrooms aren’t really plants, but I quibble.

Priest-kings don’t base their perception on sight. Clearly, they see poorly, even in the infrared, which should be the light wave their eyes perceive best. Their spatial perception is based on sound and, a priori, magnetic fields. Their incredibly sensitive antennae provide a spatial localization based on echolocation and a particularly fine perception of the local magnetic fields emitted by the materials around them. This means that while they “see” very well, the colors we cherish and need to recognize our environment are of no importance to them. It’s a safe bet that their entire body, like that of other insects of the same order, is equipped with thousands of tiny, sensitive cilia that contribute to this perception of the environment, ensuring perfect proprioception in total darkness.

Priest-Kings have the equivalent of lungs, and thus an elaborate respiratory system, but this is located on their abdomen, with eight stomata, four on each side, that inspire and expire. They therefore have no vocal organs and, while they can make sounds, by rubbing their front paws, squeaking their little mandibles, etc, this is not their mode of communication at all.

Among other things, the Priest-Kings’ brain is delocalized. Unlike mammals, it is not a single organ in their head, but is distributed in eight neuronal ganglia along their body. That said, piercing their heads destroys much of their cognition and condemns them to death within a short space of time. What could be an advantage is undoubtedly a handicap similar to the fragility of the human spine: destroy a ganglion, and you partially paralyze the creature as well as partially blind it.

Finally, the body of the priest-kings is a chitinous exoskeleton, but one that differs visibly in detail from that of insects. It’s softer and more malleable, which is confirmed by the ease with which they can be wounded with a bladed weapon. Compared to our scale, an ant’s chitin would be a veritable suit of armour. And this flexibility is logical: priest-kings are very tall, and if their exoskeleton were too rigid or thick, and too heavy, it would not allow proper development of the muscular structure on the scale of these creatures. In short, they wouldn’t have been able to grow as big and comfortable with their mass. Basically, a King-Priest is not much less fragile than a human in the face of the same kind of attack.

1-3 The Priest-Kings’ communication

The Priest-Kings have little or no scent of their own which is detectable by the human nostrils, though one gathers there is a nest odor by which they may identify one another, and that the variations in this nest odor permit identifications of individuals.

What in the passageways I had taken to be the scent of Priest-Kings had actually been the residue of odor-signals which Priest-Kings, like certain social insects of our world, use in communicating with one another.

The slightly acrid odor I had noticed tends to be a common property of all such signals, much as there is a common property to the sound of a human voice, whether it be that of an Englishman, a Bushman, a Chinese or a Gorean, which sets it apart from, say, the growling of animals, the hiss of snakes, the cry of birds.

Priest-Kings of Gor

For humans, the most impressive sense of the Priest-Kings is their sense of smell. This is not based on their respiratory system, but on their antennae and receptor cilia and the phenomenal glands scattered around their legs, thorax and abdomen. And this sense is the basis of their language: Priest-kings communicate by smell, precisely by pheromones.

So, not only do Priest-Kings have a very fine sense of smell, which, on the face of it, puts even that of dogs to shame, but it’s so vast and precise that it’s capable of serving as the basis for a particularly rich and complex language, which easily rivals human language and all its facets. And, by implication, this explains a mania of the Priest-Kings in their dealings with humans: the Priest-Kings insist heavily on the need for humans to wash between 10 and 20 times a day when communicating with them. Why do they do this? Clearly because they perceive human odors and pheromones immensely more than we do, and it’s not at all pleasant for them!

Priest-kings’ sense of smell being what it is, this is how they identify their contemporaries, be they animal, human or of the same species as themselves. But it’s also the basis of their writing. I won’t go into the details of how the Priest-Kings’ language works: it has around 400 phonemes and sounds complicated. But above all, it can be written… and yet remains totally impossible for a human being to read! The Priest-Kings print their scents on a medium, each phoneme was a pheromone, and the method of reading remains unknown. I wondered how the Priest-Kings convert odor signals into electronic signs, since they have advanced computer science at their disposal, but with a pheromone-reading system, transforming a phoneme into a binary sign isn’t that complicated.

No need to add, then, that it’s impossible for humans to learn this language – they can’t even try to speak or understand it. To communicate with humans, Priest-Kings use translation machines, which they wear as pendants.

1-4 The society of the Priest-Kings

“Occasionally,” said Misk, “an egg occurred which was female but these were ordered destroyed by Sarm. I myself know of no female egg in the Nest, and I know of only one which has occurred in the last six thousand years.”

“How long,” I asked, “does a Priest-King live?”

“Long ago,” said Misk, “Priest-Kings discovered the secrets of cell replacement without pattern deterioration, and accordingly, unless we meet with injury or accident, we will live until we are found by the Golden Beetle.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“I myself was hatched,” said Misk, “before we brought our world into your solar system.” He looked down at me. “That was more than two million years ago,” he said.

Priest-Kings of Gor

Back to the ants, for the similarities are striking. And to start with, Mount Sardar, well, it’s an anthill! That said, it’s not really an anthill. It’s really a mountain, hollowed out in every direction with rooms, halls and galleries that make up the habitat of the Priest-Kings, their servants and the varied fauna that share the mountain from the same world as the Priest-Kings.

Like ants, the vast majority of Priest-Kings are asexual and cannot reproduce. There is only one female per nest and a very limited number of males. In this case, there’s only one Priest-King nest left: the Nest… i.e. Mount Sardar. Yes, this also means that there is now only one reproductive female, the Mother, and only one male. There are no other differentiated castes in the species: no workers, no soldiers. The Priest-Kings all have the same physiognomy, more or less, which makes it rather difficult for a human to recognize them. It’s better to rely on details and smell than on sight.

But that’s where the similarity with ants ends, except on one final point. Unlike highly individualistic humans, Priest-Kings see themselves first and foremost as a group unit. That’s not to say that a King-Priest can’t think about personal goals, and even become selfish and ambitious, but the notion of altruism – putting the survival of the group first, even if it means putting one’s own comfort and life at risk – is far more developed among them. The King-Priest, at the level of each individual, thinks in terms of benefits for the group, before thinking in terms of benefits for himself.

The Mother is not the head of the Nest. She’s only the breeder, the one and only. She is heavily protected, and few creatures can approach her. The leaders are the Priest-Kings with the greatest charisma, often close to the Mother, but not necessarily. But even more altruistic than humans, they are still capable of individualism and self-interest.

Priest-Kings live a very long life. Their technology enables advanced cell regeneration, making them virtually immortal, although again, they can be killed by a sufficiently serious injury. Some Priest-Kings are several million years old.

Finally, the Nest on Mount Sardar is literally the last one left. There are only a few thousand Priest-Kings left, perhaps just over a thousand. This is a civilization in mortal danger, probably doomed to extinction in the medium term. They could clone themselves to increase their population (they know how to clone humans, and can even copy a human’s entire memory and implant it in a clone), but categorically refuse to do so (at least so far) despite their desperate situation.

Where are the Priest-Kings?

The vast majority of Priest-Kings are in the Nest, beneath Mount Sardar. They remain a very social and gregarious species. But there are isolated Priest-Kings here and there, even a little lost, living in underground shelters, on Gor, and even on Earth. There’s little information on these individuals, or why they’re isolated, so I’m just mentioning the fact that it’s possible.

Since these Priest-Kings have specific needs in terms of food and biotope, they must undoubtedly have their own Muls, in a place equipped with the comforts necessary for Priest-King survival, such as, for example, a mushroom farm, technology and hygiene. Are they in contact with the Nest, working with it, for example in isolated outposts close to certain human agents? It’s possible, although it must be very rare. On the one hand, the Priest-Kings are really only a handful, and on the other, they’re not inclined to take a greater interest in human affairs.

But it’s possible! The Priest-Kings would surely have an interest in outposts close to human affairs. They also have individuality and personal interests, which may explain why some leave their civilization to conduct their own affairs.

1-5 The Priest-King mentality

To understand this mentality, a little history is in order… so, once upon a time… (I’m summarizing this story as best I can, as the elements are rather patchy, and so I can’t vouch for its accuracy in general)

A brief history of the Priest-Kings

The Priest-Kings faced the worst possible threat to an intelligent species: their sun was dying. And certainly not a slow death with a slowly fading red dwarf, but a violent and devastating one, spewing out puffs of high-intensity radiation, threatening to sterilize their world and destroy their atmosphere. Like the film “the Wandering Earth” (2019, loosely based on the 2000 short story by Liu Cixin, and I recommend you see the second film, it’s impressive), they decided to move their planet to another, more clement sun, I’d say around 3 million years ago.

Yes, Gor, this is, a priori, their home world. And 3 million years ago, the evolutionary branch Homo, our species, had not yet appeared. The first Homo differentiated itself from the australopithecine branch only 600,000 years later. The Priest-Kings settled around our sun, and went about their lives, quietly, without worrying about what was happening on Earth. Their mastery of gravity ensures that they can stabilize the orbit of their world without causing a mess in the rest of the solar system – at least, not before astronomical time.

Let’s take a giant leap forward in time, to around 10,000 years ago. What happens in the meantime? A mystery. The Priest-Kings seem to be making progress scientifically, but end up stagnating technologically and culturally. With the mastery of physiological immortality, comes a reproductive decline, for, in the absence of a need for population renewal – visibly reinforced by a civilization locked in its pursuit of science and knowledge, but not of technical applications – perpetuating oneself in large numbers is of little interest. Clearly, in this era, the Priest-Kings have forgotten anything remotely related to war, competition and conquest, and live in peace, in small numbers.

On Earth, the last two hominid species mingle, and in the evolutionary race, Homo Sapiens emerges as the only remaining human species. It will soon found its first civilizations, and its slow conquest of the world begins. Then came the Kurri, and the catastrophe began.

The Kurri are stellar nomads trapped in giant spaceships, the Steel Worlds. They’ve destroyed their own world, and their mentality is… how shall I put it? You take away all the good things about human being, and you push the competitive button at maximum. They, too, want a world to settle in, which, as we can guess from the novels, is above all a new place for them to conquer and exploit until all resources are exhausted. And they come across the solar system, with its two habitable planets: Gor, and Earth. Yummy!

The Priest-Kings find themselves up against an enemy in great numbers, even if the Kurri are also an alien species in steep decline, given their situation, which unlike them, lives for and by war and conquest. But there’s a big difference: the Priest-Kings are far more technologically advanced. What follows is a series of deadly space wars, only hinted at, but in which each side takes a heavy toll, with, as you might guess, huge losses on both sides.

The Priest-Kings win this first direct conflict. The Kurris have hardly ever seen their enemy’s face. They only saw their weapons, their ships, their unrivalled power, and suffered terrible losses. But that hasn’t discouraged them; it’s not as if they had any other choice.

And here I must digress: obviously, neither the Priest-Kings nor the Kurris have mastered hyperluminal travel. Interstellar travel is therefore, at best, at the speed of light, and on a stellar scale, that’s awfully slow, not to mention the outrageous expenditure of energy involved. To give you an idea, the best source of energy known to us Earthlings, at least on paper, is antimatter: 100% energy yield, the best you can do according to the laws of physics. And yet, to get to the nearest star, it would take us four years (4 light-years), and we’d need several thousand tonnes of antimatter, for a payload of a few hundred tonnes. So, clearly, the Priest-Kings and the Kurri are wandering around slowly (everything’s relative, eh!) in space. Finding another habitable planet within an accessible travel distance and in a reasonable time must be almost impossible for them.

What was the exact date of the first conflict between the Priest-Kings and the Kurri? I haven’t found it, but it obviously dates from between -10,000 and -5,000 BC. There were long truces interspersed with attempted invasions and attacks, all repulsed with varying degrees of damage. Some of this damage has always been effectively repaired by the terraforming genius of the Priest-Kings. But for a species whose numbers are dwindling, every death is a tragedy.

Meanwhile, the Priest-Kings are taking a greater interest in the humans of Earth. They begin their giant socio-cultural experiment, which I call a zoo, by importing human populations from Gor. And they continued to do so, accelerating between 500 BC and 1200 AD, before gradually slowing down. But what was the real purpose of this human import? Clearly, over and above a social experiment to create a human species that is perhaps less conquering, aggressive and predatory than that of the Earthlings (given the mentality of the goreans, it’s still a bit of a failure), it’s also to provide the Priest-Kings with what they lack most: a potential army capable of supporting them against the Kurris.

As for the latter, after numerous failed attempts at a full-scale invasion of Earth and Gor, they have opted instead for discreet incursions to establish point heads. Their most massive attempts have cost them dearly, and given their situation, for them too, any loss of ships and soldiers is a loss they cannot replace. The Kurris are more numerous than the Priest-Kings, but there are only a few tens of thousands of them, not many more, and they live in spaceships with limited resources.

However, they have also understood, at least partially, the limits of their adversary: if they make discreet intrusions, in small numbers, without advanced technological weapons, the Priest-Kings lose interest. Just avoid ranged and heavy weapons, leave out explosives and war machines, and the Priest-Kings won’t budge. So, while waiting for the opportunity to launch a definitive assault to destroy their enemy, the kurris make incursions, set up outposts and even trade and form alliances with humans, to supply themselves with raw materials and carry out field reconnaissance.

That said, it’s not that easy, and humans, too, defend themselves well, even against those giant, bloodthirsty and ruthless monsters that are the kurri. And in recent years, things have accelerated. The Nest War, the civil war that is the main plot of Priest-kings of Gor, has terribly weakened and weakened the Priest-kings. Sooner or later, the Kurris will realize that their enemy can no longer stop more massive, direct assaults, and will try again. In the end, the only thing that can stop the kurris are the humans. At least on Gor. On Earth, it’s another story again, which I’ll talk about in the second part: Gor’s scifi.

How Priest-Kings think

To begin with, Priest-Kings have a fairly passive mentality. Fundamentally much more pacifist in nature than humans, they find it hard to project themselves into an aggressive martial logic, or to follow the most pragmatic logic when confronted with an enemy: destroy them in order to avoid being destroyed themselves. As a result, they are unable to follow a strategy that would enable them to meet their adversary and find the loopholes that would allow them to neutralize him once and for all.

A King-Priest is a bit contemplative. He’s fascinated by complexity and fundamental logic. He’s not interested in survival or competition, not even in his own survival. His group has to be threatened, and the threat has to be widespread, for him to start thinking about it. Consequently, Priest-Kings are always a little slow to respond to an external problem.

What’s more, Priest-Kings, with their minds based on abstract, mathematical logic and very few emotional passions, have little understanding of trickery and pretense. As lying is the most advanced and common form of pretense, they have difficulty grasping it, and understanding its interest and nature. In other words, when faced with a good strategist practicing the principles of shapeless warfare, the Priest-Kings are pretty helpless. Are you beginning to understand their interest in having humans as agents and allies?

Finally, the Priest-Kings are not contemptuous of human civilization, contrary to what you might think: they’re rather indifferent. On Gor, the Goreans are their experiment, and they have imposed strong limits on the civilization they created, fearing what the Goreans might do if they mastered Earth technology (I wouldn’t put much stock in the Priest-Kings if that happened). But they’re not contemptuous. The Priest-Kings have their own concerns, and let the Goreans fend for themselves, as long as they don’t do anything too stupid. They don’t see them as insects or worthless beings, but just as a young and rather silly species, a point of view which, as we see in the novels, evolves towards a better consideration of the goreans, whom they now need. Thus, as early as the novel Priest-king of Gor, a relationship of friendship and mutual respect is created between Tarl Cabot and Musk, a bond that will not be exceptional, even if Priest-kings are not very emotionally inclined or social with humans.

It should be noted that Priest-Kings are very conservative, and have great difficulty in bringing about major, or even minor, changes in their way of life. They are in love with complexity, to which they lend a real aesthetic value, and for them, to change something is to risk losing the beauty of what will have to be sacrificed or modified in order to change. Yes, even in their mentality, they are now on the decline as a civilization, and it will take a profound upheaval to halt this slow demise.

1-6 The King-Priests and the humans

That night Misk told me of how affairs stood in the Nest. It would be long before the powers of the broken Nest could be restored, before the Scanning Chamber could function again, before the vast damages done to the Nest could be repaired, but men and Priest-Kings were even now at work, side by side.

The ships that had sped from the Sardar had now returned, for as I had feared, they were not made welcome by the cities of Gor, nor by the Initiates, and those who had ridden the ships had not been accepted by their cities. Indeed, the ships were regarded as vehicles of a type forbidden to men by Priest-Kings and their passengers were attacked in the name of the very Priest-Kings from which they had come. In the end, those humans who wished to remain on the surface had landed elsewhere, far from their native cities, and scattered themselves as vagabonds about the roads and alien cities of the planet. Others had returned to the Nest, to share in the work of its rebuilding.

The body of Sarm, I learned, had been burned in the Chamber of the Mother, according to the custom of Priest-Kings, for he had been First Born and beloved of the Mother.

Misk apparently bore him not the least ill will.

I was amazed at this, until it occurred to me that I did not either. He had been a great enemy, a great Priest-King, and had lived as he had thought he should. I would always remember Sarm, huge and golden, in the last agonizing minute when he had pulled free of the Golden Beetle and had stood upright and splendid in the crumbling, perishing Nest that he was determined must be destroyed.

Priest-Kings of Gor

Here, we turn to the subject of the Priest-Kings’ servants in the Nest, initiates vis-à-vis their gods, and the fate of goreans who enter the Sardar Mountains.

And we’ll start by summarizing a problem: if you enter the Sardar Mountains, and enter the Nest, which is actually quite easy, since hardly anyone is denied the honor of crossing the guarded palisade that surrounds Mount Sardar, you become a Mul, i.e. a slave of the Priest-Kings. From the point of view of the Priest-Kings, this is an immense honor, and undoubtedly so for many of the Goreans who have dared to cross the palisade.

For those who expected to find something else, too bad for them: they have little chance of leaving alive. It’s not that the Priest-Kings are cruel, but simply that the man who has seen the Nest, its contents and its inhabitants with his own eyes must not spread the secret. But then again, the King-Priests won’t kill you because you know too much! If you swear sincerely, and after a certain period of servitude to ensure your loyalty, that you won’t say anything, they’ll let you go in all sincerity. But your troubles aren’t over yet. For the Initiates, who have no idea what’s behind the palisade, truly believe that no one returns from the Sardar Mountains! If you walk out, cross the palisade and the Initiates see you, they’ll kill you, because no one can leave the Sardar Mountains, and if you do, you’re an abomination!

The Muls

So, in the Nest, there are many humans. These are either goreans who have come to serve the Priest-Kings, thus becoming Muls and who, for the most part, will never leave, or agents who work in collaboration with the Priest-Kings and come and go (see below), or Muls born on site, who are genetically modified cloned humans. The latter, who in addition to their genetic modifications can wear various cybernetic implants and ultimately be more cyborg than human, know nothing of the outside world. Their only destiny, their only reason for living, is to serve the Priest-Kings.

Muls are easily recognizable. Their only hair is their eyelashes. Whether they were born locally and are cyborgs, or have become willing slaves, they are all totally hairless. They don’t usually wear slave collars, but they all wear the same purple plastic tunic. As I said earlier, Priest-Kings don’t see colors the way humans do. It’s the Muls who have chosen this color, because it’s the color of the Ubars. For the Nest’s slaves, it means they wear the color of the Priest-Kings’ highest human servants. The Muls are the workers and servants of the Priest-Kings, of whom there are only a handful. Among other things, they take care of everything to do with the mushroom cultivation chambers, as well as hygiene. All Muls take at least a dozen showers a day. There are showers everywhere, and this precaution is a necessity to avoid irritating the terribly acute sense of smell of the Priest-Kings, who don’t much like human odors.

I’ve said that the Priest-Kings aren’t cruel, but they do have some questionable and not necessarily charitable habits towards their Muls. The Muls are their tools, their workers. While some of them are precious pets for the Priest-Kings, most remain utilitarian objects for them, and the Priest-Kings don’t really show them the slightest tenderness. Blind Muls, for example, manipulate the heavy doors leading to the brooding chamber of the reproductive female.

Muls are not just humans. Among them is a species called the Gur carriers (a special food for the Nest Mother), who look a little like very thin humanoids, smaller than humans, with a round abdomen and very long limbs. The habitats beneath Mount Sardar are home to a host of other animals and plants, including some very hostile and dangerous ones, but perhaps I’ll talk about those in another article.

Since the end of the Nest War, there are very few Muls left. Most of the Nest’s slaves were evacuated from the Sardar Mountains following the civil war and scattered across Gor. Many of them ended badly, as the Initiate caste, not understanding what they were seeing and taking them for abominations, frequently ordered their extermination.

The agents

But as you may have guessed, it’s possible to leave the Sardar Mountains other than on foot. All you have to do is borrow one of the Priest-Kings’ aerial vehicles! This is the job of the Priest-Kings’ most senior and closest agents. These vessels are quite rare, under the direct control of the Priest-Kings, but available to their human agents. And yes, this is what the Goreans use to travel between Gor and Earth, but also to get around Gor quickly and discreetly. That said, these ships are generally automated: the goreans don’t know how to pilot them, they’re just passengers on each flight.

As for the agents, I mentioned them in another article, which I quote here: the agents of the Priest-Kings come from all origins (there are even slaves). They act invisibly, as spies, interveners, commandos, kidnappers and informers, in a vast system of hidden organization, where each agent knows only the agents he works with, and his contact or superior in general. Many agents have never seen the Priest-Kings or had any idea of what they really are, and most of them don’t even know they work for them.

That said, a Priest-King agent is someone who knows things. It’s called Third Knowledge and, in a nutshell, it’s a detailed knowledge of the Earth and the modern, science-fiction technologies of the world of Gor, plus a few secrets that are unique to the Priest-Kings and which they never talk about. Some agents are implanted with technology from the Priest-Kings, via other high-ranking agents. Typically, this involves a brain implant, a mesh that fuses with the brain and amplifies information assimilation, with a remote connection, enabling the agent to be used as a living camera, not to mention other forms of biotechnology akin to those imagined by cyberpunk.

And if there are agents on Gor, there are also on Earth, of course!

And the Initiates?

Um… how can I put this… The Priest-Kings, while well aware of the priests and clerics who worship them, couldn’t care less. And the Priest-Kings’ opinion of the Initiates is not flattering, as one quote sums up quite well:

The attitude of Priest-Kings toward Initiates, as I recalled, having once been in the Sardar, is generally one of disinterest. They are regarded as being harmless. They are taken by many Priest-Kings as an evidence of the aberrations of the human kind.

Marauders of Gor

That said, Initiates are occasionally useful to Priest-Kings. Some of them know what the Priest-Kings are. But the latter avoid recruiting them as agents: the Initiates worship them within a rather fanatical cult, which complicates reasoned and serene interaction. But, as we’ve seen, Priest-Kings need logic and reason; passion and emotion destabilize them, so the Initiates aren’t exactly reliable in this respect. That said, I imagine they make faithful and efficient Muls.

2- The science-fiction of Gor

If you thought that an alien species millions of years old and capable of moving a planet, whose underground city lies at the heart of Gor civilization, was the science-fiction side of Gor, you’re not ready for the rest!

I’ve already mentioned and explained some of the scifi aspects of Gor’s world in several articles, including the article on Gor’s medicine and the one on Gor’s science. But I’m going to take some of these articles and expand on them, from the most futuristic technology, that of the Priest-Kings, to the somewhat incredible technologies created and mastered by the Gor people themselves.

But I’d also like to start by recalling what Goreans are capable of, and what exists, whether common or rare. While steam and industrial machinery are unknown, and almost everyone uses traditional lighting methods such as candles and torches, the same cannot be said for electricity. Goreans use energy bulbs, which are electric super-batteries that power many electrical and electronic machines and technologies.

These marvels, reserved for the wealthiest but not so rare, are most often artifacts supplied indirectly by the Priest-Kings, but also objects that have been collected on Earth, during missions by agents of the Priest-Kings or the Kurii. Others are created and manufactured by the Goreans themselves. These include electric lighting, dynamos, blood analysis machines, medical X-rays, slave prods, universal translators, electric locks or electrified cages, electric blankets, refrigerators, even loudspeakers and multimedia players (yes, you can listen to music on a CD-ROM in some of Gor’s luxurious living rooms); there are even a few blast furnaces powered by electricity.

More commonly, there are many very practical things: precision metallurgy, including clocks and micromechanics, paper and printing, chronometers and marine compasses, compasses, semi-industrial weaving using mechanized looms, embroidery and semi-industrial glass, lighters and other firelighters, wire and wire mesh, ceramics and porcelain, hydraulic and pneumatic machinery, ovens and high-temperature furnaces, as well as refractory bricks, cement, reinforced concrete, alloys and high-grade steel. They are also familiar with telescopes, scopes, magnifiers and microscopes.

That said, and to conclude, most Goreans live without knowing about these marvels, or seeing little of them. In the early ^20th century, the streets of Paris were lit by gas and electric lamps. There were telegraph cables everywhere, and newspapers and brasseries on every corner. There were cars, streetcars and wide, clean, well-maintained sidewalks on which the bourgeoisie walked, emerging from the hot bath provided by real water heaters and dressed in the finest fabrics and most modern accessories. The metro opened in front of the Eiffel Tower, an architectural marvel, and elevators were becoming commonplace. But 100 kilometers away, the peasant and small craftsman living in a village knew nothing of these technological marvels, and their way of life was hardly any different from their counterparts in the Middle Ages. In the West, the immense gap between the most modern and the most basic comforts only ceased in the 50s with the advent of the mass consumer society. The vast majority of goreans live in basic comfort and without any of the marvels of which their civilization is capable, which, even if they exist, are totally inaccessible to them.

I describe this subject in greater detail in this article: gorean or not?

The technology of the Priest-Kings

Let’s start with the heavy stuff: their main source of energy is antimatter! Why am I so sure? Because at the heart of the nest lies the main Homestone of Gor, the original “Gor”, the reactor that supplies the Priest-Kings with the energy that powers all their technology. It’s also this machine that is endangered in the novel Priest-king of Gor, and which threatens to explode, destroying the planet. While Norman never goes into detail about what this machine is, he describes it well enough to suggest a matter-antimatter reaction core. Why not, for example, a nuclear fusion reactor, which would be much more technologically accessible? Because a fusion reactor cannot explode and cause global damage. In a fusion reactor, the reaction is intrinsically metastable. The slightest disturbance and the reactor stops, without any runaway. It cannot cause large-scale damage. Antimatter, on the other hand, in the event of an accident, is quite simply the most unstable and potentially powerful explosive force in the universe. More than enough to sterilize a continent or ravage an entire planet.

And it’s also the most powerful source of energy allowed by the laws of physics. The Priest-Kings have mastered gravity and moved their entire world in this way on an interstellar voyage. Such a source of energy, facilitated by access to gravity control, is hardly surprising.

The Priest-Kings’ greatest technological achievement is antigravity. By controlling gravity and inertia, they can build flying machines and spaceships that consume little fuel to move, and whose mass and speed are no longer a real concern. That said, this mastery of gravity is still imperfect, compared with what physics assumes it allows. The Priest-Kings can’t fold space-time, nor can they create wormholes, and while their vehicles go very fast, they’re not that fast on a stellar scale. On the other hand, this opens the door to related technologies, such as force fields and electro-optical camouflage screens (basically, they can make their vehicles totally invisible.)

And you know what else you can make when you master gravity? Cold fusion batteries ! This is obviously what powers everything in Priest-Kings technology that’s too small to accommodate an antimatter reactor. In fact, I’m guessing that it’s this technology that the Gorean Builders caste may have studied and drawn inspiration from to create their greatest invention: light bubbles, which are electric batteries with years of autonomy, as much as they are light sources.

In terms of computer technology, the Priest-Kings are advanced, but have apparently never invented artificial intelligence or even expert computer systems capable of advanced learning. They need a few hundred people to monitor the screens and sensors of their spy network on Gor, for example. On the other hand, their capacity for storing and transferring information is extremely extensive: Priest-Kings learn by direct neural transfer of information into their brains from disc-shaped recorded media. They can even copy the entire memory of an individual (including a human) onto one of their disks, consult this database, and even transfer it to another brain. They also have an extensive radio wave communication network, including satellites, drones, or simply their spaceships, which are all automated and remotely piloted.

On the other hand, apparently, the Priest-Kings don’t use robotics, or rather, Norman doesn’t describe or talk about them. I think they do, but as on Earth; industrial robotics whose autonomy is limited to following a set program, like advanced machine tools. This would be consistent with the absence of expert computer systems.

Have the Priest-Kings created an advanced Internet and virtual realities? Norman doesn’t mention it, but given the way the Priest-Kings work and think, and given their technology, it wouldn’t be surprising if they did, for scientific and intellectual purposes. It’s a much more practical interface for accelerated learning, and also for experimenting with concrete or abstract problems in an accessible way.

As I’ve already mentioned, Priest-Kings are virtually immortal. Their mastery of cell regeneration and cloning is only part of their knowledge of advanced biotechnology. Some of the Muls in the nest are genetically enhanced clones, while others are totally artificial creations, like those mutants who no longer resemble humans, the Gur carriers. And cybernetics? It also exists and is mentioned, through certain espionage and control implants that the Priest-Kings use on human agents: neural lattices, ocular implants, and so on. This seems to go rather further, with biocybernetically enhanced Muls, and I imagine that the Priest-Kings themselves are equipped with them according to their needs, although this is never mentioned.

Repairing or upgrading a human isn’t really a big deal for a Priest-King. If they don’t, it’s, again, because they prefer to let humans fend for themselves. But, having said that, the Priest-Kings do manufacture, for the Goreans, various machines, such as particularly advanced medical systems: blood analysis machines and genetic sequencers and probably medical refrigerators, for example. So, for me, it’s all the more proof that the Priest-Kings, even if they remain rather indifferent to humans, still see an interest in helping them. On this subject, the Priest-Kings also master hypersleep and provide stasis chambers to safely transport abducted women to Earth. This is a well-known item among Gorean slavers.

Another topic not covered, but inferred, is the Priest-Kings’ mastery of terraforming. Gor has been reshaped to suit the life forms implanted on the planet, and it took unimaginable technological means for the planet to make an interstellar voyage without ending up an icy, barren rock. So, if need be, the Priest-Kings must be able to deploy automated machines on an immense scale, as well as advanced nanotechnologies, which must, therefore, enable them to create incredible alloys and meta-materials. We see glimpses of this here and there in the novels.

And finally, let’s talk about weapons. I won’t dwell on the subject, but it seems that the Priest-Kings’ weaponry is based on plasma, a specific form of directed radiation weaponry, at least as far as their personal weapons and those deployed on Gor are concerned. The reason I’m betting on plasma is that lasers aren’t generally good weapons, especially in space, and plasma beams are much more credible for a civilization that has mastered gravity. Plus, it fits in well with the description of an intense blue fire that incinerates everything it touches in a second. But the Priest-Kings also have infra-sonic defensive weapons, such as the protective screen around the Sardar Mountains, which visibly affects the inner ear of any living being that enters it, causing nausea and fainting. It’s handy for making a place inaccessible with an invisible, non-mortal force.

Have I forgotten any? Yes, I’m sure you have, so please mention them in the comments, and thank you!

Terran technology

It’s not just women (and a few men) who make up the cargo of the Voyages of Acquisition between Earth and Gor. Traffickers also take the opportunity to bring back objects and technologies that are interesting or attractive to the people of Gor. Here, it’s easier to say what they don’t take, rather than what they do. The automated ships of the Priest-Kings make it easy enough to carry anything, provided there’s enough room. But the Priest-Kings’ laws on science and technology make some trafficking dangerous, even suicidal.

First and foremost, Goreans carry no firearms, ammunition or explosives, not even good old-fashioned matches (because of the chemistry involved in creating and operating them). Nor do goreans carry the slightest radio communication device: no ci-bi, radios, walkie-talkies, cell phones, and so on. Not a good idea either. Finally, no combustion engines or flammable fuels such as gasoline. All these products are absolutely forbidden by the Priest-Kings.

What about the rest? Do they carry computers, screens and keyboards? Or electronic components or electromechanical systems? Hard disks with databases? Books? Undoubtedly, yes. But these aren’t necessarily very useful things for all goreans, except for a few individuals, who will hide all this equipment, because the first Initiate who sees this, even without understanding what it is, immediately goes crazy.

What’s certainly more useful is to take on board objects and materials for which there are Gorean equivalents, but which Earthlings know how to make to a much higher quality: microscopes, stethoscopes, X-ray equipment, mechanical or craft tools, but also materials that don’t exist on Gor, such as titanium, aluminum, tungsten, carbon-carbon or micro-ceramics: Goreans can work them very well, but not produce them.

There are also luxury products: precious stones on Earth are much better cut and more beautiful than on Gor, for example, and gold is (relatively) easier to buy and purer. But you can also add luxury textiles, rare furniture or crockery, or even things as simple as wired cameras, microphones, or even a record player and music records that appeal to certain Gorean people. Not forgetting, of course, jewelry and Earth accessories of varying degrees of eroticism for the slaves, because if you’re going to have a human cargo, you might as well sell accessories to play with and adorn them!

In any case, the quantities of Earth items imported to Gor are limited, and the trade is kept secret. It usually only concerns the richest people with the most extravagant tastes, or certain Gor workshops, laboratories and medical practices that need cutting-edge equipment that Gor can’t produce.

And does this list of Terran imports include drugs and medicines? Undoubtedly yes. But the Goreans are very careful with these: who knows what kind of chemistry could ultimately cause the Priest-Kings to be alerted, and so end very badly for them? That said, the Goreans aren’t going to deny themselves the opportunity to study what the Earthlings know how to do.

Gorean technology

I won’t go into everything the Goreans know how to do, but we can mention their advanced mastery of architecture and building materials, including reinforced concrete, as well as their advanced knowledge of town planning and urban equipment, with running water, sewers, water heaters and thermal insulation.

Add to this their mastery of hydraulic power and human-powered mechanics for industrial machinery, and their skills in steel forging and blast furnaces. Among other things, they know how to make wire.

They are also well versed in optics and physics, and know how to create pairs of spectacles, spotting scopes, magnifying glasses or microscopes, micro-tools, but also marine compasses, compasses and fairly accurate clocks. Automata, too, though primarily decorative and luxury machines.

In the physical realm, Goreans know how to make efficient iceboxes, capable of keeping ice and products cold, even in the height of summer. Gas compression/decompression refrigerators also exist, but are rare and of very limited use.

On the subject of chemistry and physics, there are no matches, and it’s best not to try to make them (Author’s note: too bad, once you know the recipe, it’s easy to do). But flint and tinder firelighters are sophisticated, like 17th-century lighters, and there are even rarer electric-spark variants. But nothing with gas. Gas explode, and the Priest-Kings don’t like it at all.

As for electricity and light, Gorean engineers have created super-batteries, the light bubbles (also called energy bubbles), which are, at least that’s what I assume, small cold fusion batteries, no doubt invented with inspiration from other more advanced technology, such as that of the Priest-Kings or the Kurri. Lasting several years, they supply electricity and often emit light. Their size varies according to use, an easy conclusion to make given the existence in novels of electrified collars or different models of slave goads. There are even electric lamps!

But that’s not all! Let’s not forget their mastery of micromechanics, enough to make a watch, or incredibly complex micro-fittings, but also quite advanced electromechanical machines, such as loudspeakers and microphones, electrified gates with electric locks, electric micromotors for a wide variety of uses. They could easily create a telegraph, but this, if it went beyond communication within the same building, would contravene the laws of the Priest-Kings.

Not to mention the techniques of Gorean medical pharmacopoeia. Although not as good surgeons as Earthlings, Gorean doctors understand the role of organs, blood circulation, general brain function, anatomy, microbiology, genetics, artificial selection (including on humans), dietetics, epidemiology and vaccination. They even have psychiatrists!

In addition to vaccines against the most infectious diseases and the well-known Longevity Serum, which enables Goreans to live for hundreds of years, there’s slave wine to control women’s fertility, pharmaceutical treatments for most cancers and certain cardiovascular diseases, and Goreans even have drugs capable of inducing selective amnesia– temporary, definitive and even reversible, if properly used by a specialist!

Lastly, and more commonly, Goreans are familiar with plastics, obviously of plant origin, natural rubber, which they have mastered, modern paper and movable type printing. They also know how to make large glass plates and mirrors. And last but not least, they understand the use of fingerprints, which are very useful for identifying slaves.

The only thing the Goreans will never do, apart from anything involving explosives, is anything with an electric or internal combustion engine. The Priest-Kings totally forbid any research in this field.

Of course, I couldn’t go through the whole list – there must be more. For example, could the bicycle be created and used on Gor? A good question, but one that Norman hasn’t thought of. What about hang-gliding, which uses no engine at all? A good question too; after all, Gor people have tarns for flying, so why would that really be impossible?

Conclusion

With all this information, we realize that the relationship between the Goreans, the Priest-Kings and even the Kurris is at the heart of Gor’s overall plot, and that its direct and indirect implications have far-reaching and numerous consequences. This is where I have to say that I regret that this is the aspect of Gor that is most ignored, even though it lies at the heart of the story throughout all the novels.

Because, fundamentally, this cold war between the Priest-Kings and the Kurris, in which humans are forced to fall in line (or suffer), affects everyone, and can just as easily disrupt the lives of small farmers in a remote village as the highest authorities in a city-state. And even without considering this war, the elements of science fiction – strange creatures, marvelous machines and other dangerous technologies – are part and parcel of Gorean life, the troubles they may face and the opportunities it offers them.

It’s fertile ground for incredible subplots and storylines, which I really encourage you to exploit. In fact, I’m thinking of writing an article on plot ideas in the world of Gor, including all these inspirations and elements. Because, more generally, what’s missing from a roleplay sim in the world of Gor are intriguing, rich stories in which players can immerse themselves, as actors in the story.

But I hope I’ve helped and inspired you! I don’t yet know what the next Gorean Archives article will be, but it will undoubtedly concern the merchant caste, and travel and trade on Gor.