Who knows if the moon's

a balloon, coming out of a keen city

in the sky-filled with pretty people

(and if you and i should

get into it,if they

should take me and you into their balloon,

why then

we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:

go sailing

away and away sailing into a keen

city which nobody's ever visited,where

always

it's

Spring)and everyone's

in love and flowers pick themselves

-e.e. cummings, "who knows if the moon's", &, 1925

The Silver Millennium, one of history's vaguest and most mysterious kingdom of the Golden Ages, is considered the Holy Grail of all civilizations to learn from. Ever since its demise countless years ago, mankind has strived to learn of its complex and mysterious society and culture. Millennia have passed, and even missions to the moon by NASA has yielded very little in actual artifacts from the (in?)famous region, also know as the Moon Kingdom.

Some things have changed, even though little remains of the Silver Millennium. In early 1992, the television show Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, based on a Japanese writer's comic book series, debuted in Japan, based on actual, concrete, historically accurate and evidence-backed events. In the story, a group of girls, reincarnated from a kingdom on the moon, fight evil in their daily lives. Very popular in Japan, the show portrays the kingdom on the moon as a pastoral, peaceful world, wrongfully attacked by the people of the Earth.

It appears, however, that there are those who disagree with that assumption.

"Those sailors have selective memory," I was assured. "And that Takerchee lady didn't do her homework. She's got it all wrong."


Penguin Poo: The Story of the Association of Survivors under Serenity

Sara Morris

History Hrsirtism, June 2004



Secret society


It took several years, as well as numerous chases down dark alleys and well-spent money for mob circles, but finally, this reporter managed to secure an exclusive interview with actual survivors from the Silver Millennium - a group that calls themselves the ASS, the Association of Survivors under Serenity. The group, reclusive and almost hostile to reporters, finally agreed to break their silence at what they see as the "gross dramatization" of life under Queen Serenity, famed ruler of the Silver Millennium. I met them in an undisclosed location, somewhere in the United States (that is as specific as I am allowed to get as per the agreement) several weeks ago as they came together for their annual get-together.

The A.S.S. was formed many hundreds of thousands of years ago, and is considered the oldest and longest-running society for survivors of destroyed and long lost magical civilizations. The members number in the several hundreds, ranging from men, women, and children of all ages. Many of them have Nordic and Scandinavian complexion - blonde and blue-eyed - but there are others who have darker skin and darker hair, mainly from their direct sun exposure on the bright side of the moon. The annual get-together normally plans out various activities and tournaments with other societies of its kind; this year, it is a bowling championship with their team, the Flatulent Turtles, against the Lost Magic Civilization Bowling Alliance (LMCBA)'s current title holders, the Butthole Pirates from Never-Never-Land.

"Look at them!" One of the Turtles, a female, turned to me and laughed. "They're nothing but a bunch of pixies and fairies on their team!"

The origins of my search

As many faithful readers may recall, several years ago I had written an article about the Silver Millennium in History Hrsirtism. Citing numerous sources - among them famed, well-researched books such as Dance's Tales of the Silver Millenium, Lordship's Electric Angel, Kaylienne's Making of a Queen and Nolan's trilogy, and of course Takeuchi's series. There were also several anonymous sources which I used, first-hand diary accounts from the famed space traveler Douyou Geddeshokes, who lived during the time of the Silver Millennium as the Earth's ambassador, later to become famous for founding the prestigious Society of Poo Sniffers.

It was published in History Hrsirtism back in the Summer of 2002, the first piece of its kind since the last book of Tolkien, who himself dedicated years of his time to researching the Silver Millennium contemporary magic world ally, Arda. (It is of interest, as I mentioned to the readers of my previous article, that the Battle of Pelennor Fields very much mirrors the Battle of Schnozengoz in Silver Milennium - the difference, of course, being the lack of elephant-esque creatures smushing hapless soldiers into pancakes.) Almost instantly after the article was printed, I began to receive an unprecedented amount of mail regarding my research and my findings. Most of it was positive and congratulatory. I was hailed by my editors as having made a true breakthrough in the research of magic lands.

However, approximately two weeks after the mail started, I received a letter which changed everything in my research. It was written in a shaky hand, in dark red, almost as if it had been in blood, and it was scathing. I am obliged to print, for the readers' understanding, this letter in its original, unedited form:


"Dear Ms. Papirini;

I have a few things to say about a recent article. Please do not get offended if I say something wrong, as this is my first time writing to a prestigious magazine.


Well....to be perfectly frank, I am extremely angry at your disgraceful and totally biased treatment of the Silver Millenium. It is apparent you have NO idea what you are doing! How DARE you write that the Silver Millenium was a utopian paradise created for the masses by a loving female monarch and her innocent pure daughter? YOU HALF-ASSED AMERICAN DUPE! You believe ANYTHING put in front of you if it was roled in on a Quesinart with no wheels! You'd believe anything if your mother breast-fed it to you you SOGGY POINTY-EARED LITTLE
Grashtisahtisting!*

I am appalld by your complete disregard of REAL sources. Every source you mentioned are not only incomplete, but they ALSO are written by AMATEUR TEENAGERS who have nothing better to do than to watch a SUB-PAR KIDS SHOW about FLOOSIES whom, I will add, had REALLY REALLY BAD BREATH!! Where are your firsthand resources, such as the SURVIVORS of the Silver milenium, hm? Or were you too busy looking on MOONROMANCE.NET for a story, you drivelling LIBERAL IDIOT!

Maybe if you LOOKED hard enough you'd find the REAL survivors of the Silver Millennium, because we still live. We are still around, but it never occurred in your TINY EARTHLING PEON BRAIN of yours to LOOK for us, did it? Huh? HUH? Well, go SUCK A BALLOON YOU WORTHLESS SUV-DRIVING MORTAL! You better WATCH YOUR BACK MISSY, because us survivors arent going to take it sitting down standing up OR riding a bike! SO THERE!

AND YOU CALL YOURSELF A HISTORIAN! BAH! YOU ARE NOTHING




And with that, have a good day.

Sincerely,
A Friend.


After a thorough investigation by the federal government, and several court hearings later, it was uncovered that the person who had sent the threatening note was, in fact, a bona fide survivor of the fabled Silver Millennium. He was almost an unbelievable 30,000 years old - and yet still as handsome and as charming as a 20-year-old - at the time of his incarceration.

After this unusual event, I wondered if all of the existing literature on the Silver Millennium was, in fact, incorrect. This also led me to wonder of the existance of other men and women like my handsome would-be stalker. Where would I find others like him? Were they aware that others like them survived?

So began my incredible search, which lasted almost two years and led me to such far off, exotic places as Messina, New York, and Sebastan, Florida. My search brought me all over the continental United States and British Columbia, where I finally learned of the Association of Survivors under Serenity - A.S.S. - from an anonymous tip. The culmination was their bowling tournament against Never-Never-Land, where I met many survivors - men, women and children who told me their stories and personal recollections for the first time ever, and exclusively for my article.

A brief history of the Silver Millennium

It turns out that, many thousands of years ago, the Silver Millennium was originally founded by Santa Claus, and was known as Candyland. It was his original base of operations during Christmas; unfortunately, the Great Reindeer Rebellion forced him to relocate onto Earth, where the (slightly) warmer climates suited his workers.

The Candyland outpost would not be inhabited again until an Earth man, whose name is lost to antiquity, was kicked extremely hard in his genital area for a bet, which caused him to fly out of the earth's atmosphere and right into the ruins of Candyland. He was impaled by a minaret and died instantly. His family and friends, worried about his whereabouts, re-enacted the scene several weeks later after his disappearance and found his remains; unable to return home (as the men did not wish to risk their own impalement on any tree on Earth) they settled in Candyland. As far as geneology goes on the moon, everyone on the Silver Millennium is descended from that particular group of people.

The Silver Millennium lasted for several thousand years. At first, the group was a democracy, but as time went on, the government evolved into one that stated a divine right to rule. The leading family, the Silver clan, finally rose to prominence and renamed Candyland as the Silver Millennium, ruling as absolute monarchs and supposedly beautifying the harsh land into a proverbial paradise, with an estimated population of 10 million. The last ruler was Selenity, who died in the battle to protect her kingdom from a large group of insurgents from Earth. The moon would never again be populated, and would not be visited again until 1969.

For the approximately 10,000 survivors, they left after the devastation was complete, but before the transportation of all of Serenity's dead to Earth. Many of them survived simply due to the fact that they were nowhere near the battle, and had only heard from distant family members to flee the moon. Others who had been near the battle, or even in the battle for the moon, his under rubble, disguised themselves as Earth warriors, even going so far as to bring top generals to bed in return for safe passage to Earth.

For some reason unknown to medical science, all of the survivors who went to Earth in between the end of the battle and the final fall of the kingdom found that their lives were indefinitely lengthened. Though theories on the effects of the moon's magic abound by various scientists around the country, the answer remains elusive.

The truth about the Silver Millennium

Racka Wainay** is a young-looking, relatively handsome young woman who lives in the continental United States. Seemingly of Scandinavian origins, the truth of the matter is that Ms. Wainay is actually 23,452 years old - and counting.

"Do you see these marks?" She pulled up her sleeves to show me small, reddened welts. "These are old scars from when I slipped on one of the roads up near Cangood. I blocked my arms from the moonrocks and scratched myself up good. I as a little girl back then, and all they had to treat them were icepacks on my arms."

Contrary to popular belief, Wainay claims that life on the Silver Millennium was hard, and cold as well for those who lived on the dark side of the moon, which is where she was. When she was a young child, she lived in a tiny, cramped igloo, no bigger than three feet wide on each diameter, with her mother, her two stepmothers, her mother's second husband, and her second stepmother's third husband. The other children included one brother from her mother's first marriage and three sisters from her other stepparents. On top of that, however, there were two orphans they found on the side of the road, a hobo her older brother took in as a favor for a friend, a dog, three cats, and a pet dingo named Fifi living in the tiny igloo. She explained this all to me as we walked into the bar area of the bowling alley, and we both ordered drinks for ourselves.

"It was cold, so cold we always were supposed to wear fur coats." She took a drink from her mug of beer. "Because fur coats were expensive import goods, though, we only had one coat for fifteen of us. So most of us just went naked, and the one who was assigned the fur coat for the day got to go to town for food and drinks. The only good thing was that we were warm while we were in the igloo because the tight quarters generated so much body heat. We actually melted the igloo a couple of times from it, and igloos can be a ipain/i to build without blocks of ice that are big enough to use.

"Life was extremely hard for us," Wainay continued. "We were so poor because we were moonroack harvesters, and with 90 percent of the population having that occupation, you're naturally going to get an overflow of moonrock on the market and wages from those rocks that could barely eek out a living for a piece of fungus....if fungus actually grew on the moon outside of The Dome."

'The Dome' which Ms. Wainay refered to was The Dome of Happy People, where a mere 2 percent of the population lived on the bright side of the moon. In this dome, explained Ms. Wainay, were all of the sights and scenes that most people who know the story of the Silver Millenium are accustomed to - the castle, the city streets, the sparkling rivers. But even her own people, the queen would not allow most of her population into this dome.

"You had to have all kinds of passports and money, and you had to be clean and know how to do a certain type of jig in order to even get near The Dome of Happy People," Wainay explained. "If you didn't, you were just sent back."

Another survivor and a member of the bowling team, Idol Buddkiss, seconds that. He was not as low as Wainay's family was - he was a well-off merchant of paper fans and masking tape - but he knew of the hardships very well.

"I had families caked in moondust crawling through my town," he muttered. "It was deplorable, how so many people were practically ignored by the queen."

Budkiss was a part of a secret group called the Helping Hands, which strived to make the lives of those who lived outside of The Dome of Happy People better. Every time, however, a petition was sent, it was publicly burned and denounced as heretical to the queen's wishes.

"The aspect of rule that most people are shown on Sailor Moon is peaceful and happy, but thats only because the people inside The Dome were mostly brainless yesmen to the queen and gave her no trouble about her policies. Outside of the city, though, the queen ruled with an iron fist," he smoked a cigarette during the interview, which took place outside to honor the state smoking ban. "She taxed everyone, put the sword on anyone who protested, and had her soldiers eat garlic before any skirmishes. The burps from those brutes were hideous, and they smelled like piss."

Budkiss was eventually imprisoned by the queen for his activities, but managed to barter, with all of his properties, a compromise to become a servant for the queen for the remainder of his term or, he ironically smirked, 'until the kingdom's end.'

"Most who were captured just languished in the prisons," he said. "Most of them were too poor to help themselves, let alone the queen."

Cultural aspects

Despite constant hardship, some citizens outside of the Dome of Happy People managed to find hope and even happiness in the harsh moon world. Lily Cocker was one little girl who managed to find a way to keep her mind off of her family's sadness.

"I used to throw rocks at people," she smiled as she watched the bowlers on the lane. "It was fun. I liked how people shouted and yelled, and it was funny when I hid from them, because I was small enough to crawl under things and they couldn't find me. But you couldn't draw blood, or you'd be shot. At least that's what mommy told me...."

Others had less violent ways of expressing themselves.

"I created the first Beetle." Rico Swave, who is the wealthiest of the survivors, gingerly smoked a Cuban cigar, to the consternation of the bar owner. "It was silver - what other color could it be? - and it went 10 miles an hour. It was a beautiful thing, baby. And the Queen had ten of them in her garage, one for each day and three extra because she always crashed into the side of a building or a tree or something. That's why she eventually got a chauffeur - me! I drove her around for five years."

Back in the early 1930's, Mr. Swave, broken by the Great Depression, peddled his Beetle to several car companies to no avail. He finally won with Volkswagon, who patented the Beetle and gives him a 10 million dollar monthly pension for the success of the little car.

"I have a neon green one now." He puffed on his cigarette. "Its a lot brighter. And if you adjusted how much my Beetle cost in comparison to how much the Volkswagon model costs....the new one's a steal!"

While others made technological changes to make people's lives easier, others listened to music and wrote books. Ms. Wainay, in particular, remembers one musician whose immortal musical prowess survives even to this day.

"Keith Richards was so gorgeous," she recollected, as she worked for him as his dresser and his guitarist back on the moon. "He was around long before the Rolling Stones. He had a couple of big hits on the Silver Millennium. The girls went wild for him. He was more of a blues-type back then, and he didn't do any drugs - because the type of stuff people take now didn't exist back then. I mean, if you heard him before the Rolling Stones....pure genius."

Several others second this, though they also remarked that he had not come to a survivors' meeting since the early 1960's - coinciding with his joining Mick Jagger - and rarely mentions the truth of his past to anyone. In fact, some believe that he even went so far as to completely distance himself from his past to achieve his success with the band.

"Its a shame, really." One older Millennium guard, Pepper Spree, remarked caustically. "He ought to be more proud of his roots. Instead, he's whining about not being knighted by the Queen of England. Well, Liz has nothing on the moon, I say. If I could talk to him today, I'd say to him that being whacked in the neck by some frumpy old lady is about as exciting as chopping your trunk off."

Various calls to Mr. Richards were not answered. Richards' agent, also, had no comment on his story or on his past.

"We have no idea what these people are talking about," a Rolling Stones biographer announced upon my calling them with this information after the tournament had ended. "They're all crazy, really. And even if it was true, Keith's too drunk to remember it!"

The queen and the princess

Few of the interviewees had much to say that was of positive temperament when the topic turned to the last queen of the Silver Millennium. Many of the interviewees were downright vicious in their opinion towards her.

"She was a horrible person." Ivano Sukkabol, an escaped political prisoner, bitterly remarked. "She was on par with such evil that only Spongebob Squarepants could perform. She was heinous, vain, and its her fault the Earth people hated us! All she cared about was her castle and her followers."

"She was pretty petty," Mr. Budkiss said. "All she did was put on ceremonies and spend money to buy the most expensive shoe polish she could get. She practically neglected her duties. But she got it from her parents. They were pretty bad too."

"All I remember," a former slave, who wished to remain anonymous, explained, "All I can remember, is her pouring butterscotch and hot peanut butter on us whenever we did anything wrong, and then making is watch sub-par movies to torture us. You know, things on the level of One Night at McCool's and Vanilla Sky. Bad movies like that. It was psychologically unbearable! I wanted to kill her!"

Not everyone's opnion of her was completely negative, however. Several survivors called many of the accusations lies.

"Serenity is always being misunderstood as some greedy despot who exploited her people." Swave shook his head disapprovingly. "But thats not true. Fate just made her accident prone. She was not perfect. Nobody is, not even me, sadly."

"Everyone assumes," Another former palace worker, Widja Fugmei, worked as a lady-in-waiting for the queen. "Everybody assumes that Serenity worked on her own. ut the truth is, she had others helping her. She had her harem manipulating her, and of course her ministers. She'd cry everyday, everyone turned her one way and another. She was delicate at times, and almost had a breakdown. How can you justify calling her cruel? Anyone who says she was cruel is a lie. She gave away money freely to any who came to her."

Despite the sharp difference of opinion on the queen's circumstance, all of the older survivors agree on one thing: her beautiful daughter was brainwashed.

"She was made to believe in something of a fantasy," Wainay remarked. "She was much more competent than her mother was, even at such a young age. There were points where I heard that she had to lead the kingdom."

"Princess Serenity was a doll." Sukkabol was warm in his remembrances. "It wasn't her mother, but her who would help families. She'd have her servants go down and free prisoners secretly when her mother wasn't paying attention. That happened to be often."

"She was very clumsy, almost as clumsy as her mother, and sneaky." Budkiss took another drag. "But I loved her for it, because she used her sneakiness to accomplish things. And in fact, I heard she had personally gone to the Earth king to plead for compromise for Earth and the moon, which Queen Serenity rejected. She believed in her feelings of peace, rather than a brothel of half-baked penguin prostitutes."

Pengiuns?

Approximately several thousand miles away, a high-rise bungalow rested in the Soho district of London. The temperature inside is freezing; a sign on the apartment door required everyone to wear a sweater. Icicles lined the wall of the otherwise comfortable-looking domicile. Also spread around the room were ancient pictures, tapestries and the signatures of many famous British musicians, as well as every actor in "Deep Throat".

"Yup, this is my house." Across from me sat a small, squat blue penguin with a yellow goatee under his bill. "I work as a part-time record producer. I've produced every big name in England since the Beatles. I've also written books on the War of the Roses, and have produced soundtrack scores for a London version of 'Cats', 'Oklahoma!' and..." he snickered, "slightly less intellectual productions. Not that I need money, though."

Mr. Couche Smacker*** is a small penguin with a Londonian accent, living in the prime of his life. He also adds a new, heretofore unknown dimension to the history of the Silver Millennium, one that confirms and dismisses various rumors about the queen. Smacker claims to be the father of Princess Serenity.

"Its true, actually." Smacker adjusted himself in his chair as he talked. "Out of 731 other penguins, it was me. I can remember the day we conceived very clearly, though I'm not sure if that's something totally appropriate to talk about. I mean, kids do read this stuff, right? Of course they do. But yeah, we did the deal, and the next thing you know, Serenity's got a basketball in her stomach and I am brow-beaten by all the other guys for getting her knocked up first. I mean, how unfair is that?"

Mr. Smacker showed me to various images of Serenity as a little infant, as well as tapestries he himself made of the birth. He explained further to me that his relationship with the queen was purely sexual.

"Oh yeah, most of those other jerks, all they wanted was the power of being the Head Honcho, you know?" Smacker shrugged. "I mean, whoever gets the paternity, gets the power to shape the policy. But I didn't go for it. All I wanted was nookie, and the queen understood that. Nothing political at all. Though, I idid/i kind of bump some ribs to get my parking tickets reneged....but....that was it. Nothing world-shifting, nothing like that, I'm no Monica Lewinsky."

Though it would seem difficult to believe that a penguin could possibly cross-breed with a human, Mr. Smacker insisted that it was true. He even explained how it was actually possible to me.

"What she did was," he explained, "is that she'd use that crystal of hers to change around our...well, our private parts and stuff. I can't really explain, but it worked pretty well. I mean, if a little baby came out of it, of course...

"No that she was bad thought. No no! I loved her. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I taught her how to ice skate, she taught me the joy of blwoing bubbles through a straw. I mean, man, I felt like a kid again around her."

Upon the question of the truth of the princess' paternity, Smacker became very venhement. He was extremely defensive on the subject, and was so certain that he even offered to subject himself to a paternity test to prove himself. (Multiple calls to Sailor Moon to have her participate or to discuss the matter of her paternity were not answered.)

"Most of the guys, they never believed me. But look at Sailor Moon when she's on screen!" Smacker showed me various poses and home movies. "Look! When she walks, she has that boanfide Smacker family penguin waddle. Even when she trips, she carries my stride with her. And her hair! Golden. So look at my goatee! Pure blonde! I was the only blonde outta those guys, and Serenity only banged us penguins to my knowledge. She very rarely left the palace even, and intrigues were always big in that arena. so if she'd had affairs with someone else of her race, whoah hoihoo/i, there'd be 700 penguins steaming like an egg in a pan."

Smacker explained to me that the penguins, not Serenity, was in true control of the Silver Millennium. He showed me various documents which his fellow penguins had forged or had Serenity sign, referring to various public policies, specifically regarding Earth relations.

"See these? The work of schmucks." He is sole owner of the most extensive archive of Silver Millennium policy documents. "I didn't care for politics, but these guys? Every day, one guy would take control over Serenity, go to bed with her, then get her blessing to write some ridiculous law. Look at this, a law banning paper bags in grocery stores! I mean, we didn't have plastic back then! Ridiculous, I tell you."

On document in particular caught my eye. Policy 3426, "Earth", is a detailled proclamation regarding relations between the two planets and the moon's attempts to sever them. Smacker claims this was mainly a penguin conspiracy.

"This Earth policy? Totally Harold's idea. But the other ones agreed." He showed me the entire 562 page document, written in the Millenium Law scribe. "They saw Earth guys as the ones who'd turn their frozen paradise into America 2. America wasn't even born yet! But all they cared about was that the moon would be cold enough for them to ice skate on it for 50 billion years. Not that it mattered, because the people on Earth didn't have the technology to put a man in a track suit up a ladder! But those other penguins, they weren't very logical, were they? NO! All they wanted was ice cream and royal vagina. They didn't give a care that they were digging the brood's grave. When I protested, they jailed me! I was in prison for months before they released me. But after that, I never saw Serenity again. Shame, really; she was my daughter, after all."

When I pressed him, before leaving, about why Serenity would prefer, of all things, to have relations with penguins, he seemed perplex. His answer simply raised many questions.

"I don't know, lady. I guess she just liked it."

The Sunrise of Knowledge

The Silver Millennium Flatulent Turtles won their bowling tournament against the Never-Never-Land Fairies, 7 games to 2. The high game was a 300. Each of the five members of the A.S.S. bowling team kissed the trophy in victory as the losing team looked on in defeat. The get together is at an end.

As each of the courageous survivors leave, many of them thanked me.

"We're so happy," one of them remarked, "that we finally get to tell our story. All the world knows are lies."

One, however, was not as ecstatic as the others. Surprisingly, it was Idol Buddkiss, who looked slightly upset.

"Well," he replied. "I just hope no one thinks we're lying."

-SM, Somewhere in the U.S.

*Piece of poopy.

**All names have been changed to protect everyone's identities. I swore I would do that, lest I be smacked to death by a bottle of Dr. Pepper.

***This is his real name. He allowed us to use it, despite our insistance to the contrary.