Ptribute to Pterry
Pterraforming
All stories have to happen somewhere. And so it emerges, slowly, from an imagination as fertile as the Nile Valley after a good flooding. It is flat, because that's nicely ironic and adds an interesting flavour to the geography. Discography that should be, perhaps. It's not a planet, because it doesn't orbit a sun. It is a World, with an emphatically capital W. And it is carried on the back of four elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle, because that's got style and don't you wish you'd thought of it first. In the beginning, it looks somewhat vague, with just one grubby city and an awful lot of weird countryside. Little by little, though, the map fills with swamps and rivers, islands and mountains, forests and deserts. This world, you see, has room for as many stories as you like. It has everything Earth can boast, and then some. More colours. More days in the week. More dimensions than you can fit on a string. If it can happen anywhere, it can happen here.
Ptales, Old and New
Stories don't die, though they may become fossilised. They sink to the bottom of our consciousness, layer upon layer, compressed, half-forgotten. Give it time and the weight of the years turns them into gems. It takes a master craftsman to cut them, polish them, set them into a stunning new frame where they catch the light in novel and unexpected ways. It's a ptransformation of the old that may have lost its lustre into a new sparkling, dazzling jewel. It's a creation not ex nihilo but ex omni. Only the terminally arrogant think they owe nothing to the stories that have been. Recycling is good for the Disc. If you can make something new out of the old tales, you are both a gem cutter and a gem yourself. And Mr P, Him diamond.
Ptolerance
The wisdom of Vimes, wrought in decades of merciless self-scrutiny: The Others don't need to be Better Than Us. If we can be bastards then so can they. Their equal rights require no saintliness on their side, no more than on ours. What's with the Us and Them anyway? If you're a watchman, you're a watchman, no matter if you're a troll, dwarf, zombie, vampire, ape, Omnian, woman or in need of a chitty to prove your species. Vimes would sign up a sentient banana if it were loyal and up to the job. Especially if it had any talent for paperwork. The only thing you should be judged on is – you.
Ptravel
Do people step more cautiously in the knowledge that they can fall off the Edge? Does it limit your horizon - or focus it? How does it affect the mind when there definitely is a centre of the world and, unless you are a God, you are definitely not it? And incidentally, how deep could the Deep Down Dwarves dig without tumbling out of the bottom of the world? We navigate differently on the Disc; we look at our usual assumptions in a new way. And we transcend the normal boundaries. If ever you met Eric Wheelbrace, he would tell you that you have a Right to Roam anywhere, any time. The Disc belongs to the people, and that means you.
Ptruth
The Dead really did speak on the overhead, never mind Moist's trickery. Ptruth is more than a formality. Ptruth is beyond the Auditors' grasp. It all depends on the mind's willingness to see. Because armies do breach the peace and hence they do belong arrested. And it is true, you can kill people just a little and if you do it often enough it adds up to murder. And humans need stories to be human, because belief can turn fancy into reality. And lies race around the world at lightning speed, but the boots of truth are solid and keep walking, like a golem, unstoppable, across the very ocean floor if need be. Change the Things Tak Wrote and you may change reality for a time to suit your purposes. But somewhere in a cave underground, the ptruth lies cast in stone and one day a man will stumble upon it whilst looking for his cow. There are always echoes. It's probably because of quantum.
Ptime
Ptime won't touch them now. Havelock's hair won't go grey. Young Sam won't grow a beard. We will not see Gytha Ogg in a wheelchair nor Tiffany Aching at the height of her power. You will forever be a kitten. Ptime will continue, charging back and forth from past to future and round again at will, like Binky can, or Lobsang. Get the procrastinators going, wind back the story once more. Take the Librarian's hand and he'll lead you through L-space to the beginning or end of your choice. Tell us the story. Tell it again. He Aten't Dead.