“Okay, students,” Mr.
Nathans began, calling the room to order.
“In today’s class, we’ll review the literature written during the darkest moment of our society.”
“The Dark Centuries of Expansion,” he said in a calm, steady voice.
“As you may have already covered in your History class, this period was marked by the dictatorial rule of Omniphonic Industries. I won’t delve too deeply into the historical timeline itself. However, I will summarize the era, as you will need an overall view of this age to truly understand its literature.”
The professor tapped his interface, bringing up historic visual logs.
“The Centuries of Expansion remain the bleakest era of human history. The megacorporation, after establishing its dictatorial government over the entirety of Lumina, turned its sights to the sky, aiming to conquer the sibling worlds of our co-orbital ring. Because SII machinery is completely inert without a human biological spark, the corporation forced hundreds of millions of citizens into brutal, nonstop tactile labor shifts simply to power the crude, early-generation space engines and terraforming equipment.”
He let the heavy images fade before continuing.
“Now, let’s pivot back to the literature. OPIC understood exactly how powerful art could be, which is why, from the very beginning, they strictly forbade any form of artistic expression. But even when the corporation was at the absolute peak of its power, seeds of rebellion remained hidden among the population. These underground groups produced books, songs, and paintings to express their defiance against oppression. They did everything they could to disseminate their words among the populace, and even though they weren’t always successful—and many paid with their lives—their will could not be stopped.”
Mr.
Nathans stepped out from behind the podium.
“During those three hundred years of the Dark Centuries of Expansion, the literature produced by the resistance became the literal heartbeat of the human soul. Because creative expression was a capital offense, the act of writing, copying, or preserving a text was a revolutionary act. Writers did not have the luxury of paper or digital networks. Instead, they wrote on the margins of industrial manuals, scratched prose into the metallic backing of discarded hull plates, and memorized entire epics to pass them down through word of mouth during crowded labor shifts. This gave birth to a distinct, resilient literary culture focused entirely on keeping human dignity alive in a cold, mechanized universe.”
Victor couldn’t help but feel a quiet surge of admiration as he listened to the lecture.
He wasn’t the only one; a proud expression settled across the face of every single student in the classroom.
It was a profound thought to sit with.
How resilient did a person have to be to keep producing art, knowing with absolute certainty that the act alone might kill them?
“Now let’s delve into the 4 Underground Movements of this period.”
“The first one was The Scrap-Iron Anthologies. This movement emerged as the primary prose of the labor barracks, utilizing hand-carved or chemically etched copper fragments and carbon sheets to distribute literature under extreme censorship. Because space and materials were severely limited, writers developed a dense, punchy, and economical style that completely abandoned flowery descriptions for sharp realism. These underground stories focused entirely on capturing quiet, intimate moments of human connection and daily endurance—such as sharing synthetic bread or a mother describing the sky to her child—reminding exhausted workers that they were human beings rather than mere machine parts.”
“Due to the censorship, we have no idea of how many great pieces we lost. But the ones we managed to discover are able…” Mr.
“The second underground movement was The Unwritten Epics. These works bypassed physical checkpoints entirely by resurrecting the ancient tradition of oral memory literature. These long-form narrative poems were structured with rigid, repetitive rhythmic patterns designed to mimic the steady, heavy thumping of the planet’s industrial terraforming engines, allowing laborers to mentally recite the poetry safely while working right in front of their supervisors. Whole epics detailing mythologized histories of early human rebels were strategically divided among different labor blocks, with individuals memorizing specific stanzas to ensure that the literature survived even if parts of the population suddenly vanished overnight…”
“Now let’s see some examples of these verses.”
“Pound goes the iron, drop goes the line, Keep your eyes down till the end of the shift. Deep in the dark where the gears intertwine, Weav- er is spinning a se- cret to lift. Break the synchronization, al- ter the hum, Count every heartbeat until the day comes.”
“Note that these verses use a heavy, repetitive, piston-like meter (ONE-two-three-FOUR) to perfectly match the rhythmic pounding of industrial factory machinery.”
“Quiet now, brother, the sensors are blind, Pass the loose copper and hold to the thread. Leave the cold drone and the engines behind, Warm is the breath of the words we have said. Though they may shatter the ink and the hand, Silence can never govern the land.”
“Does anyone want to say what they see in this verse?” Mr.
Nathans asked as he looked around the class, and his eyes stopped on Victor.
“Mr. Winterborne?”
Victor winced, but he still stood up and answered after thinking for a second, “I feel like this verse was intended to be whispered or spoken softly in the darkness of hidden mining shafts to evoke a sense of deep, collective human warmth.”
“Great answer, Mr. Winterborne.” The teacher nodded.
“Now let’s analyze…” He continued his lesson.
Victor heaved a small sigh of relief as he sat back down.
“Now the third and fourth movements are interconnected. They are the Liturgies of the Horizon and Vault Communions.”
“The Liturgies of the Horizon were the most dangerous and widely distributed form of literature, and it was a genre of short, lyrical poetry known as ‘The Horizon Songs.” Though written as poems, they were meant to be read like quiet anthems.
This poetry relied heavily on double meanings and coded language.
They used metaphors of geography and physics—like “the unyielding frequency,” “the breaking of the glass,” or “the morning after the long shift”—to bypass censors.
Unlike the grim realism of the short stories, the Liturgies were deeply romantic and defiant.
They spoke of an inevitable day when the air pressure would clear, the mechanical hum would stop, and a “Great Harmony” would wash over the stars.
They were explicitly designed to give desperate, exhausted people a reason to survive until tomorrow.
And that was exactly why they were so dangerous; anyone caught with them was arrested and put to work until they died of exhaustion.”
“The most vibrant and emotionally raw literary movement was born inside ‘The Vault Communions’.
These were clandestine, highly illegal gatherings held deep within abandoned mining shafts, forgotten ventilation hubs, or hollowed-out cargo containers.
Under the cover of total darkness, hundreds of laborers would pack tightly into these secret spaces to collectively consume forbidden art.
“Literature in the Vaults was an immersive, shared experience.
“Readers” were often charismatic orators who had spent months memorizing smuggled texts.
They would stand in the center of the hushed crowd, reciting poetry, reading from scrap-iron anthologies, or singing acoustic folk songs in hushed, resonant tones.
Because they were deep in the caves, free of any supervision, it was in those moments that they could be themselves and be happy for a few hours.
Although they had only precarious lighting and scarce food, these parties were the happiest and most animated parties of that era.
“These parties served as the ultimate distribution network for the resistance. The other three types of literature of this era were disseminated during the communions. At the end of a session, small, handwritten scripts, loose pages of poetry, and charcoal sketches were rapidly traded hand-to-hand like precious currency. Attendees would carefully hide these pages inside their clothing or tool belts, smuggling them back into the public barracks to be quietly read under blankets by the faint light of industrial machinery. It was a culture built on absolute trust; a single whistleblower could condemn the entire room, yet the desire for creative expression was so overwhelming that the Vaults remained packed every single weekend across three centuries.”
“Let’s see some examples…” Mr.
Nathans said.
But Victor’s mind was elsewhere; that’s because he had an idea: he could use these Vault Communions in his book!
He remembered that in the final of the book, one of the band members saw the vanished lead singer at a celebration; the odd thing was that even after decades had passed, the man seemed exactly the same as the year he disappeared decades ago, and he was still accompanied by that strange girl.
Victor had been thinking about how to adapt this part, but as he listened to Mr.
Nathan’s explanation, he thought that these Vault Communions were a good substitute.
He didn’t know how to adapt to this setting yet, but at least now he had a good idea.
His eyes shone as he went back to pay attention to the lecture.
If he wanted to adapt the plot to this setting, he needed to understand this subject well enough.