Aphelion Issue 299, Volume 28
October 2024
 
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The Absent-Minded, illus. by Yvonne Weinstein

The Mare Inebrium Starter Kit

Last Updated 7-20-04

A Quick Tour


"Herein lies the description of the Universe of the Mare Inebrium.  Read on, and become knowledgable of the world of drunken aliens, down and out time travellers, and other seedy and fanciful adventurers.
We await your contributions with relish, and a blot of mustard, and undigested beef...
 
    Here, for your enjoyment is The Mare's kickoff story, followed by other selected stories,"

Jim Parnell
--Mare Inebrium co-creator--
One of the original Merrily Inebriated!
 
 

"I do edit Mare Inebrium submissions for continuity- Fair warning. However, I do consult on these submissions, too. I do try to make my meddling with your story as painless as possible for the writer. And I like answering questions about the Mare Inebrium. But the Mare series does take place on a world I created, so I have to keep a tight rein on some minor aspects of the series continuity."


Dan


"I am the sole arbiter of princes and battles,
The sole lonely judge of pirates and prey.
I chose between those who are heroes or villains,
And each I will send on their infinite way.
Reward or damnation, their own separate way.
I judge without malice-
High standards have I.
To the hero the challice.
To the villain, the flame.
But who will be what is no simple say..."

From the Song of T'nishe-t'alla, Judge of Princes & Battles, God of War. Composed by the Bard Oroden during the Lost Times. Preserved from oral history by transcript recordings of traditional native songs. Transcription made possible by the Planetary History department of the Collegium Lux, City of Lights and a grant from the Mobile Corperation.



The Mare Inebrium
and
General Bethdish Continuity


The following is the basic continuity information. Feel free to read on past the links and come back to them later.
Location (As shown in this old map I drew.)
3841 AD. In City of Lights, Planet Bethdish, near the Spaceport. This link shows a large-scale scan of one of my old maps. Its very brown and old-looking- kind of neat in a rustic sort of way, but not a bad rendition of the city map.

Background: Bethdish from far orbit. Click to enlarge.

The planet Bethdish is located 65 light years from Earth, and circles a star that the natives call Antuth. The planet has 2 small moons, neither of which are natural satellites. They were moved from Antuth's asteroid belt many years ago. One, the larger- Darius, is used for shipping- generally by freighters that can't enter an atmosphere, the other- Xerxes, is a military base jointly run by the Terran Navy and the Shebeja colonists. There are other military arms of other species concerned with the operation of Xerxes Base, but they can be added to fit story requirements.

The rest of the solar system is pretty average- a couple of gas giants, several uninhabited worlds, a thick but stable cometary halo. Details can be given upon request.

Pantheon of the Living Gods of Bethdish:
Diety Astronomical Body Diety's Title Moons & Other Info
Antuth The Sun Father of the Gods. 65 Light Years from Earth
Da-ast'nor Innermost planet God of the Forge & Blacksmiths Moon: Chuscht'nor The Spark of Creation
M'resst'ash-fur Second planet Goddess of Weather 2 Moons: P'milla & D'ian
Handmaidens of M'resst'ash-fur
D'aa'oert'oth Third planet God of the Hunt 5 small moons, named for the Hunter's Dogs: M'shegagn, T'nesshthee. K'ntuk, C'aorcha, and T'seckus
Bethdish Fourth planet Mother of the Gods Original Moon: Morit'orn
Shieldmaiden of the Mother
Present Moons: Darius & Xerxes
T'nishe-t'alla Fifth planet Judge of Princes & Battles, God of War 2 Moons: Inat'soun & Fer'vr'soun, Swordbearer & Shieldbearer
S'lar-ak'esh Asteroid belt Goddess of Luck 50,000 known asteroids. The largest is 600+ miles in diameter.
R'ene-land'thur Sixth planet Goddess of the Seas 23 Moons:
M'aalin'ash-tuth Seventh planet Goddess of Fertility, Planting, and Harvests 17 Moons:
Kan'she'ellor't'shen Eighth planet Goddess of Mercy & Redeemer of Lost Souls 15 Moons:
S'nith'o'duu'arr Ninth planet God of Death & the Afterlife 11 Moons:
Valleor Tenth planet God of Evil, & Chaos Thousands of temporary moonlets from the cometary halo.


City of Lights

City of Lights covers an area of some 24,000 square miles -approximately the same size as the state of West Virginia in the US- and is one of the few places on Bethdish where advanced technology is allowed. The rest of the planet is meant to develop naturally. Civilization outside of City of Lights exists on several levels at the same time. The Immortals limit the spread of higher technologies from off-world to the immediate area of City of Lights.
The original section, the harbor and the Old City are a walled city/fort of great age. Local history purports that the original five wharves were built by pirates and the city, called Freeport, that sprang up behind them was built by plunder. Later, the ease of making an honest credit gently moved the city into mercantile shipping prominence. The original lands and harbor of the Durkone people were ceeded to the Spaceport and Freeport Durkone became the core of what is now City of Lights. Inside the Old City, buildings seldom reach more than five floors. They cluster together bisected by narrow cobbled streets, winding their way between old shops and older homes. By contrast, the modern portions of the city boast tremendous skyscrapers, ground and airborn traffic, city-wide solar powered streetlighting, several mass transit systems, and the finest of ultra-modern conveniences. The Spaceport, to the south of the Old City, is a 1000 mile diameter circle of granite/polycarbon ceramic whose brightly-lit runways stretch for thousands of miles across the wiregrass plains of the northeastern coast of Bethdish.
The city surrounds a tear-drop shaped bay which covers another 8,000 square miles.

Natives of Bethdish:

The native civilizations range from the neolithic to the modern. Evidence of several advanced civilizations -now fallen- is abundant across the globe and is taken for granted by the average native. There are no less than 8 sentient native species, ranging from aquatic river and lake dwellers, humanoids, and humans to the Immortals. Most of these, however, never enter City of Lights. There are also 5 alien colonies on Bethdish; the D'rrish, the Halazed, and the Shebeja colonies, the Valley of the Three Peaks Resort, and Urkiev - City of the Priest-Kings. The population of the Resort is not a single species, but some 10,000 differing species. These also rarely visit City of Lights. The D'rrish and Halazed have already been described in Mare Inebrium stories. The Shebeja have been described in my story Threat of Valleor, in the last chapter available online and are also featured in my novelette Came the Dawn.

Mare Inebrium Tower


The Bar's Location:

The Mare Inebrium is located on the bottom floors of a 100 story building near the Spaceport field. The Mare Tower stands near the Old City and the Bazaar, within the ranks of other skyscrapers. The bar itself includes at least one basement and sub-basement, the ground floor, and the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors. The main room is on the ground floor. Looking south from the harbor.
The security systems are quite good. No one will ever be allowed to steal anything from the Mare Tower. These same systems are supposed to prevent covert entry into the building, but many Mare stories show that there are holes in that rule. Evidently, only those with a criminal intent are excluded entry.

Mysterious- Yes, but all will be made clear in Jeff William's "Sheffield's Eleventh" and my own "Came the Dawn".

There is a resturant on the 100th floor, open to the public as well as catering to the entire building. Meals in the Mare itself can be ordered this way, but the staff demanded their own kitchen behind the bar area. It is off the same hallway as Max's office. Sometimes the staff make the patron's meal themselves instead of ordering from upstairs. It depends on what the staff feels like doing and/or the special needs of some species of patron. There are other resturants on various other floors as well.

The 85th, 86th, and 87th floors are off limits for Mare patrons and the general public. Why? The tenant on the 86th floor has the clout to have it so. Some fans get this in-joke already and will respect it in their submissions. The tenant is a famous Doctor and explorer, his first name is Clark, and he's a really big guy. Please keep any mention of the Man of Bronze as vague as possible, for copyright reasons if for no other.
 

Time:
My other Mare stories have been in local years 6737 [3750 AD] -- 6828 [3841 AD]. I have set the date for offical first contact with the Terran Federation to coincide with our calendar on Earth in the year 3140, so as to give us time to invent an FTL drive. I have used the arbitrary date of 3140 AD = 6127 for first contact between Earth and Bethdish, but this was for reasons of sentiment and is not set in stone. In one story, Max mentions that the Mare had been open for 200 years at that point. So the Mare dating is flexible. Drastic dating differences can be assumed that the narrator is living on an alternate timeline where events proceeded at a different pace than our own timeline.

A Timeline of Bethdish:
Over 11,000 years of history of the planet Bethdish. This link gives my basic timeline for the whole planet. Each entry is either a story idea or historical reference for a story. There are no links to the stories from the timeline, but there are spoilers, so beware.

Partial timeline:

  • Altiplaino Spaceport construction begun = Year 1 [2986 BC]
  • Attack of the Scourge = 1840 [1147 BC]
  • Night the Stars Changed = 6055 [3068 AD] The Reever also braves the Caalar Jungle to enter Castle of the Winds later this same year.
  • "Abducted!" = 6080 [3093 AD] -- Section on Earth takes place circa 1979 AD, time travel is implied. Section on Bethdish is not dated but seems from context to be shortly before contact with the Terran Federation.}
  • First contact with the Terran Federation = 6127 [3140 AD]... Some reports list this as 2029 AD or 2342 AD. Some chroniclers may be living on other timelines, it is suspected.
  • City of Lights Spaceport opens = 6129 [3142 AD]
  • 6695 [3708 AD] .............Construction begins on the Mare Inebrium Tower. Clark Savage Jr. (MD, PHD, OBE, OOO) is a silent partner in the design and construction of the Mare Tower. He duplicates his New York Headquarters on the Mare's 86th floor. The Collector is also a silent partner in the design and construction.

  • 6698 [3711 AD] .............The Mare Inebrium opens for business.

  • 6735 [3748 AD] .............Max begins working at the Mare Inebrium. He is slightly over 2 million years old at this time.

  • 6799 [3812 AD] .............Blanche born on the planet Hardcase, 1.438 ES Gravity.

  • 6800 [3813 AD] .............Trixie is born on Earth at this time.

  • 6822 [3835 AD] ............. Trixie is hired at the Mare Inebrium. Blanche is hired at the Mare Inebrium half a year later.

  • 6822 [3835 AD] ............."The Mare Inebrium" ** Spaceport Bar encounter wherein a D'rrish gives a history lesson and a nervous time-traveler flees.


    The D'rrish telling stories:

    A) Kazsh-ak meets the Reever & Guiles Thornby. 6740 [3753 AD]
    B) Kazsh-ak fights at the Battle of Urky Pass. 6820 [3833 AD]
    C) Kazsh-ak takes a wife and then goes offworld to fight the K'tchomblies.
    D) Kazsh-ak defends the T'chmarron River Bridge and the small town of Neulat, alone against the nomadic Valwoulf Raiders of the Plain of Intile.
    F) Kazsh-ak defeats the asteroid pirates.
    G) Kazsh-ak fights the Ohmany Horseriders when they attempt to invade the Kingdom of Eana- and learns that Eana has a far more potent guardian than he.
    H) Kazsh-ak breaks the Seige of the offworld D'rrish colony of R'lynath in a single-D'rrish fightercraft, leading to the Rescue of R'lynath Colony. The alien Nye-koll-tuurn-aye invader's blockade fleet is repulsed after several fierce space battles. Their ground forces linger in hiding on the planet for many years before the last are captured and deported to their homeworld.
    I) Kazsh-ak saves his cousin, the D'rrish Princess J'harrana, from offworld kidnappers.
    J) Kazsh-ak defeats the Overlord of Naatung in single combat, freeing the slaves of planet Naatung.

    No dating on many of Kazsh-ak's stories are ready for this update.

  • 6823 [3836 AD]] .............The Absent-minded Shall Inherit..." ** The Mare Inebrium recieves a mysterious addition to their "Lost & Found" when an absent-minded inventor forgets one of his devices as he leaves.

  • 6824 [3837 AD] .............Sins of the Fathers ** Max is revealed as an undercover agent- Very undercover! {also contains the first foreshadowing of the events of Immortality Factor} Andrew is 70 years old at this time, but appears to be 40. He lives another 150 years. Max is Andrew's great grandfather, but neither of them know this.

  • 6825 [3838 AD] ............. Larrye (age 23?) is hired at the Mare Inebrium.

  • 6825 [3838 AD] .............Frightening Little Planet ** The Mare sections of this story take place in this year. Some type of time travel is implied by the sections on Earth.

  • 6825 [3838 AD] ............. Sidestep ** John Stewart Sebastian initiates the rescue of the Linda Rae and later helps the lost shuttle crew escape back through the wormhole into their own time.

  • 6825 [3838 AD] .............Brother, Can You Spare A Crime? ** Later that same year, the Reever is called in to solve the crime when a body just keeps turning up at the Mare.

  • 6826 [3839 AD] .............A Study in Alizarin Crimson ** Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson assist the Collector in stopping an alien criminal from plundering London's museums of their own era, 1923 AD. They are almost 2000 years into their future, but Guiles Thornby tells them that they are only 420 years ahead of their time. It is unknown why he does this. Perhaps he is simply confused, or perhaps he is conforming to some unknown orders from the Collector. Holmes & Watson are later returned to their correct time.

  • 6827 [3840 AD] ............. Trixie takes four months maternity leave. She gives birth to a boy, whom she names Siger Vernet.

  • 6827 [3840 AD] .............Came the Dawn ** The Shebeja awake from Sleepfreeze. The Black Snake attacks them using terrorists, pirates, and stolen tugs from the system's asteroid belt. {Max says that the date is "about a month and a half from being 6828"}

  • 6828 [3841 AD] .............Redshift Sue Sings the Blues ** Time seems to stand still while Redshift Sue sings her long-lost husband's song.

  • 6830 [3843 AD] .............Immortality Factor ** A rich old man has several Immortals kidnapped and dissected to try and find out how to live forever. The old man is confined to a wheelchair-like life support system. He has the required great wealth, political connections, and ruthless mercenaries to possibly get away with it. However, when the Reever becomes one of the missing, the Collector gets involved and starts a search for him.

  • 6974 [3987 AD] ............. Andrew Huntington-Smythe dies, leaving behind 22 children and 85 grandchildren.

 
Decor:
The Mare consists of several rooms on the main floor, as well as an indeterminate number of floors above the bar itself. So far, 5 floors and 2 basements have been mentioned. The main room is 100 x 100 feet, specialty rooms with different themes adjoin the main room along the east and west walls. Each speciality room has its own particular theme, I.E.; the Mars room has walls painted with scenes from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom books, the Known Space Room is decorated with starscapes derived from Larry Niven's fiction (paintings of Black holes, Neutron stars, the Ringworld, etc.), the Game Room has gaming equipment from every major sci-fi series that you can think of... You get the idea. There are 10 specialty rooms on the main floor, five on both the E. and W. walls, averaging 20 x 40 feet. Others will have to be located on an upper floor. Each has its own bar, bartender, and waiter(esses) of various species. Be creative.
 
Specialty Rooms: (Room titles in Bold have already been used in stories)
...include the ones mentioned above as well as;

The Boardroom... -- Business Theme, with lots of Executive types as patrons.

 
 Arabian Nights Room... -- You figure out what this one looks like.
 
The Red Dog Saloon -- Military Room... The seedy Space Ranger/Starship Trooper section.
 
Frontier Room... -- Done up like a western (for those fans of cross-genre space-opera.)
 
The Morgue... -- Even the undead need a place to drink.
 
The Small Ballroom... -- For music, dancing, and whatnot.
 
The Pantheon -- Deities Room... Reserved for Gods, Goddesses... and Writers. The only bartender named in this room so far is Elvis.
 
Piper's -- the Gentleman's Club... Done up in the style of a British club in it's prime. Hardwoods, wainscoating, massive bookshelves, etc. The only staff member named in this room so far is the waiter, Henry, a tall fellow with blue skin. The staff in this room dress like butlers.
 
And so forth. I will add others as I feel the need to invent them, but feel free to invent your own so that you can use your own Bartender, Wait-staff, and patrons. All are reached through short hallways so that various restrooms and small hazardous environment chambers can be spaced between the doorways leading from the main room.
 
The Main Room:
Street entrance is in the middle of the North wall. There are 3 steps down from the doorway to the floor. There is an anteroom and hat/spacesuit check sort of cloakroom, but I doubt that they will ever be used and can safely be ignored. Booths line the interior of the room in an inverted version of this ASCII art:  ][__  __][ with the front door being in the gap of the underline and the main bar running between the inward facing brackets. Remember, the ASCII art is upside down 'cause that's the easiest way to draw it with typewriter keys.

The walls are paneled in a dark hardwood or a silvery-grey mother-of-pearl, there are mirrors alternating with paintings of various sci-fi themes on all the walls. (these mirrors do not always reflect what you would expect them to, they can also function as windows into different sci-fi/fantasy scenes so that patrons sometimes see themselves drinking with Tolkein's Dwarves, Star Trek's 10 Forward happy-hour crowd, or the customers in one of the specialty rooms.

The Bar itself is +/- 75 feet long, 3' wide, and normal bar height. The bar stools can move (within a narrow range) to accommodate different species, as well as change height for them. They cannot be pulled loose from the floor, however.  In the floor area surrounded by booths there are tables, some of which have no legs and simply float in place. Chairs adjust to a wide range of species.

 
The Cast of Characters:
The Bartender in the Main room is named Max. He's human in appearance, very average-looking, short, dark hair, no glasses or mustache, likes to dress in medium brown colors, wears a white-ish colored apron. Very friendly sort of fellow. Little known to most patrons, Max is a native of Bethdish, an Immortal, and about two million years old. Almost no one at the Mare suspects or comments upon Max's origin, although it is a matter of public record that he's been tending bar there for two hundred years. No one seems to notice. Females of most humanoid species find him very attractive and his relationship with Trixie is unusally open. (Max is very loosely based on an almalgam of myself and three of my closest friends, although my mental image of him looks more like a 30-something Mel Gibson. I on the other hand, look more like Lewis Grizzard.)
  Trixie, the look that thrills...
The two main Waitresses are Max's girlfriend Trixie, a tall, slim long-legged dish with long, light-brown hair and short skirts. Trixie looks like an elf-queen; about 5'10", blue-eyed, small breasted, wide-hipped, quick-witted. Although born on Earth, she can trace a large part of her ancestry back to the Irish Sidhe. She speaks alien languages without need of a translator, she just hears an alien language and within minutes can speak it fluently. She also carries a needle-slim dagger strapped to her left-inner thigh, underneath her miniskirt. If she pulls the dagger, you better behave... or be prepared to lose a body-part! She can't be ruffled by much, she's seen it all. She is also a great cook. The patrons love her. Her voice has been compared with that of Kathleen Turner.
 

Her partner, Blanche, is about 5'2", heavy-set, earth-mother/fertility goddess Blanche, one tough cherub...type. Her figure could best be described as "ample" or "Rubenesque", but part of that is because she is from a heavy gravity planet called Hardcase. She dresses in long skirts, has short, curly black hair, and looks like a giggling cherub who could tear linebackers in half and fling the pieces over her shoulders without breaking stride or losing her grin. Blanche wears vaguely gipsy-looking dresses, no jewelry to speak of, and carries herself like an Empress. She is a gourmet cook, has blue-green eyes that could melt icicles, and seldom can be made to lose her temper. If Blanche ever needed a weapon, I've never seen it. (Both girls are loosely based on women that I have lived with; Trixie, on a former girlfriend; and Blanche, on her roommate. Both are girls you'd like to take home to meet Mother... after you've locked Dad in the basement! Goddesses, both of them!)

Kazsh-ak proposes a toast.



Kazsh-ak Tier, Brig. Gen. Er'da'gasg'dien Royal Guard, Ret. Presently Ambassador for the D'rrish colony Er'da'gasg'dien upon Bethdish. A scorpion the size of a clidesdale, this 250 year old patron is a regular at the Mare. His stories are legendary, when his Fender translator issues forth his synthesised voice, everyone within auditory range stops to listen. His people have a colony on the northwest coast of the single contenent upon Bethdish.
 

The Bouncer for the main bar, Bruce. Slender, dark, and deadly- Bruce at work. Bruce is a small, quiet man. Nonetheless, beings many times his size tread lightly around him. As Blanche says, "He makes all those movie stars look like a flocka muppets- in leg irons." Fights rarely ever happen in the Mare in any case, with the exception of the Space Ranger sort of sideroom where fights are looked upon as part of the Floor Show, but they are even less likely in the main bar since Bruce was hired. The Mare has other bouncers for the various siderooms, but Bruce has made the Main Room his own turf. Naturally, others on the bouncer staff sub for him on his time off. 
The owner, Mr. Polios / Professor Eustas Grey, is only mentioned, never really seen except in my own stories. Mr. Polios, owner of the Mare Inebrium.He dresses all in shades of gray, makes very few appearances at the Mare, and looks like an ordinary humanoid. However, within the confines of the Mare Inebrium his word is law. No entity in the universe dares to cross him, though no one knows just why. Only a handful of Mare employees know him personally, though all know his voice on the com. Feel free to say things like "he just left," or "I hear he was in the other night," but don't write him in as a speaking character. I have a story --"A Study in Alizarin Crimson"-- that will clear up the mystery, but I have to beg you to take a "hands-off" approach for the Mare's owner. He usually visits the Mare in the disguise of Professor Eustas Grey and strives to keep his true identity secret. When he is there, he shouldn't let it be known the he is the owner of the Mare Inebrium. Just use the Professor Grey identity as a background character. Max, Trixie, and Blanche have all met him and know somewhat about him, but only Kazsh-ak Tier, the Reever, and Guiles Thornby are privy to his deepest secrets.

I hope this helps. Basically, think of "Cheers" on steroids... with the Bar parallel to the back wall rather than in the middle of the floor. (And patrons from the Cantina from Star Wars!) You might want to put your story as happening in one of the Specialty Rooms if you don't feel comfortable using the main bar area.


******
Starship Speeds: Larry Niven's Quantum 1 Hyperdrive moves ships at a constant rate of .33 LY per day. (His Q2 drive moves at 1 LY per minute, also a constant speed.) My own passenger liners (those in my stories, that is) run at .31 LYPD, but can move slower if they wish- not like Larry's constant-speed ships. This = roughly Sol to A. Centauri in 12 days, nearly the same as Larry's Q1 drive (roughly Warp 4.8 or so in Star Trek terms.) The ships in the Mare universe run from slow freighters & passenger liners, to slightly faster military and explorers, to really fast new technologies. Most Terran Federation-built ships use the Chen-Parnell Jump Drive, which skipps them in and out of the normal universe like a stone skipping across water. The longer a sub-space jump the ship makes, the faster the ship crosses the real-universe distance. Other aliens can use differing FTL drives, though.
However, the flying saucer in "Abducted" traveled at 3.1 LYPD. This is too fast! (Well, they were from an alternate universe. my dodge below will account for the abnormal speed.) This would put the time for a trip to Andromeda at something like 1776 years! (Just over Warp 8 in Trek terms, maybe 8.2 or so.) I can't have that, it'd ruin all my storylines! (Well, on second thought, no it wouldn't, but I'd have to use extreme speed sparingly.) So in the story I postulated that the probe was sent out on a course curve up out of the plane of the ecliptic at ordinary FTL speeds- because of the density of matter in the galaxy. Then, when the probe reaches the emptiest space there is, it kicks up to Ludicrous Speed (Warp 9.6 or so- about 5 LYPD). After going flat-out for a while, it has to decelerate to a safe FTL speed to enter Andromeda and navigate to where Bethdish used to be. That'd be the other slow end of the course curve. The Star Trek Encyclopedia has a very nice Warp Speed chart with the speeds and times to Andromeda listed. I've found it very helpful. Since a lot of writers will be thinking in Trek terms when they think of FTL ships & travel times, I will have to adjust my attitude.

The real problem of intergalactic travel at FTL speeds would be the sheer weight of any sort of fuel source needed for thousands of years (Using Bussard Ramscoops is out because they aren't FTL craft.), and the problem of building a machine that can run for several thousand years without breakdown. And I'll bet that there's a lot of stuff about the density of gas, dust, and other stuff in the intergalatic gulf that I know nothing about. FTL speeds are always tricky in stories. You can't allow the spaceships to go too fast or the galaxy gets too small for your technology. I've generally considered the Mare universe to be traversed by ships that take weeks and months to go from system to system, rather than the days-per-trip that Trek ships can perform. In the Bethdish universe, warships are faster than passenger liners, although intersteller truckers are somewhere in between. I guess that the basic assumption is for those writers with a lot of Trek knowledge to limit their spaceships to the mid-range of the Warp Drive speed chart- I'm going to call an arbitrary speed limit on "very fast" FTL ships. I hereby decree the fastest starship speeds to be something close to Trek's Warp 7 -for the upper limit of ship speeds. Just for your information, Warp 7 comes out to; 707 billion kilometers per hour, or 656 times the speed of light, or Sol to A. Centauri (4.2 lights) in 3 days, or 1.4 light years per day, or Earth to Bethdish (65 lights) in 46.42 days, or one-way to Andromeda (2 million lights) in 3048 years. Except for godlike-stuff, this ought to be fast enough for all those VF-FTL ships. Normal ships can go a bit slower.

Here's a list of possible story titles I came up with. As you can see, some of them have been used. Some are puns, some are serious. All are up for grabs, but I reserve to use any of them myself if no one else does.

  1. Some Disenchanted Evening
  2. Of Mace and Mien
  3. If This Rolls On...
  4. Dieing, What Comes Naturally
  5. This Guy's the Limit
  6. Encounter at Some Point
  7. Rewrite Reduxe
  8. In A Little Bethdish Town ('Twas On A Night Like This...)
  9. Garbage In, Garbage Out
  10. The Natural Way to Drink
  11. There's Safety in Bumblers
  12. Leap of Faith
  13. Magic is Loose
  14. The Man from B.A.D.
  15. Nosferatu on my Mind
  16. Will it Go 'Round in Circles?
  17. Make Sure You're in the Restroom for Your Species
  18. Murphy's Bar and Girl
  19. Baskin's Robots: Something for Everyone
  20. The Black Mirror
  21. Burning Airlines Give You So Much More
  22. Taxi Flyer
  23. "You guys put wax in your ears- and then tie me up..." said Odysseus.
  24. Enter the Dragon
  25. The Haunted Library
  26. The Wild Brunch
  27. Master(s) of Disaster
  28. Lessons of History
  29. Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know
  30. The Statement of Randolph Eleven
  31. The Darkness and the Dawn
  32. A Farce of a Different Color
  33. Smoke and Mirrors

Some titles that I or others are working on right now:

  1. Sidestep -- Dan Hollifield & ? (I'm not allowed to say... yet.) ?
  2. Space Cowboy -- Claude Hopper


The Current Canon:


This will be added to as I re-read all the stories to see what's what. Originally it was just a list of my own stories and those whose writers asked me lots of interesting Mare questions. Answering those questions allowed me to develop a great deal of scenery and set dressing for the Mare.
 
Against All Odds 
By Dan L. Hollifield
"Kazsh-ak Teir relates the tale of when he was forced to battle alone against a fleet of alien invaders attempting to conquor the D'rrish colony planet of R'lynath..."

Shell Beach
By Dan L. Hollifield
The 'Lost And Found' at the Mare Inebrium sometimes includes people
 
Frightening Little Planet, Isn't It?
By Roger Bennett
This story is the reason the Mare Inebrium is a shared universe series.
 
Yesterday's Glory
By Robert Wynne
One of my all-time favorite Mare stories.
 
Drinking Problem
By Jim Parnell
Jim and I invented the original Mare Inebrium, to be located at the North pole of Earth's moon. I've since moved it to its own planet. Many years later we got back in touch. Once he discovered what I'd been doing with the idea he wrote this great story to add to the mythos.
 
The Tanneh Death Chop
By Kate Thornton
This is an example of  how some writers used to put me in their stories.
 
Sociology Experiment
By Wishbone
"I was only trying to get an idea for my thesis on Non-terran sociology...' A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing."

Deus Ex Machina
By Wishbone
You'd would think that having proved that some planet's major deity was actually an alien Sociology Professor would be enough for one student's lifetime. But now Robert Landis had to survive the wrath of the disillusioned natives he'd "inconvenienced" with his secular revelation.
 
Sheffield’s Eleventh
By Jeff Williams
"Mr. Grym... gives you this challenge. Virtually all of City of Lights is...'open'...shall we say. To the enterprising entrepreneur, there is an entree into virtually every business, every bank, every shop, if the cards are played right and if the man or woman is quick, smart, and intelligent. Every building is transparent to your skills and talents under the right circumstances. Every building, that is, except one... The Tower, my friends- The one building that has never been burglarized beyond petty drunks stealing petty bags of petty peanuts. Nothing more than the occasional ashtray or shot glass. Nothing of any consequence besides bathroom towels. No one in this room, indeed, no one in the history of Bethdish has ever broken into the Mare Inebrium Tower and stolen anything of value."
 
Be The Cat
By Bill Wolfe
In City of Lights -when Mr. Grym wanted something, he usually got it. Even if he had to wait. And Mr Grym hated waiting. He hated waiting almost as much as he hated having his desires thwarted. But something at the Mare Inebrium was proving to be an impediment, so Mr. Grym was not happy.

Where Angels Fear to Tread
By Bill Wolfe
When a gathering of Gods found that they needed advice, they knew to ask a bartender. They usurped the bodies of a handy group of Abvarnan farmers and marched them purposefully into the Mare Inebrium on the busiest holiday of the Bethdish year. Fortunately for the Devine, Larrye was the one who took Their order...

Sam Spade Ain't Nearly Dead Enough
By Bill Wolfe
"My secretary, Page, calls these bread and butter cases. Me, I call 'em boring. But don't take that the wrong way. I like boring. I've had enough excitement to last me couple'a lifetimes. All I'm doing is tailing some rich guy's wife to see what she's up to. Any Private Dick anywhere in the Stream would recognize the drill in a heartbeat....."

Concerto For Spies
By D. J. Rout
Of all the gin joints in all the worlds...

Closet Cases
By William Joseph Roberts
Stockholm Syndrome can get really, really complicated. Especially when...

Poker Face
By William Joseph Roberts
"The side rooms at the Mare Inebrium often play host to the beginnings of many an adventure..."

 
All the Mare Inebrium Stories To Date
 

Enjoy!
 
- Dan