History Creator / RichardSharpeShaver

* AllMythsAreTrue: The first mortal beings to learn to use the Atlan technology are supposed to have inspired all the [[OurGodsAreDifferent god mythologies]] and tales of TheFairFolk around the world - including the Abrahamic God. The more malevolent of them, likewise, inspired [[OurDemonsAreDifferent tales of demons]], with [[{{Satan}} Sathanas]] a particularly notorious instance of this.

* AncientAstronauts: The Atlans and Titans had a spacefaring civilization, and it's ultimately ambiguous whether Earth was even their original homeworld.

** ArtisticLicenseBiology: All of Shaver's ideas about the nature of aging, which he believes to be a symptom of accumulating poisons coming from the sun, and therefore, could be filtered out (or avoided entirely by moving to a planet with a different, younger sun), allowing people to theoretically live forever. He seems quite aware that this goes against the scientific orthodoxy of his day, but insists it's nonetheless true.

* BeneathTheEarth: Where most of it happened

* FootnoteFever: ''Amazing Stories'' printed a lot of Shaver's work with a lot of explanatory editor's notes in the form of footnotes, detailing concepts that the main narratives only lightly touch on, or else providing definitions for the {{technobabble}}.

** ImmortalApathy: Zigzagged. Some of the oldest beings on the planet - such as the loathsome Mula - do fall into this, seeing mortal life as their playthings, while the more benevolent ones, like Queen Tanitia, care very deeply about the rest of us, and are keen to share their secrets. It seems to mainly be a matter of the kind of influences and rays an individual immortal is exposed to: Mula has become a SenseFreak addicted to pleasure rays, while Tanitia is a sober-minded leader with lots of friends.
* LittleBitBeastly: The Atlans had created "variform hybrids", genetic fusions of themselves and other alien races they had encountered, who lived in [[ShiningCity Tean City]] and enjoyed full citizenship. In "I Remember Lemuria!", Mutan Mion briefly pauses to admire an attractive [[SnakePeople woman with a snake tail instead of legs]], and his main love interest, Arl, is a [[FaunsAndSatyrs faun-like creature]] with [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation purple skin]].
** The Titans are also fond of blending animalistic traits into their own genomes; [[HornedHumanoid horns seem to be fairly common]], and early in the story, we encounter a Titan woman [[MultiArmedMultitasking with six arms]]. As with the variform women mentioned above, Mutan Mion finds this all [[NightmareFetishist extremely sexy]].

* NonIndicativeName: Dero is short for "Detrimental Robot", even though they're not actually robots in our modern sense. Shaver seems to have meant it to refer more to "mindless beings that only follow their programming" and less to mean "mechanical being" - although some of his stories do also feature things that are robots in both senses of the term.

* PastLifeMemories: Kind of. Shaver claimed that he can remember the life of Mutan Mion, an Atlan who lived millennia ago, as if he was there - hence ''I Remember Lemuria!''. There is, however, no particular indication that he is supposed to be the reincarnation ''of'' Mutan Mion.

** BenevolentPrecursors: With the aid of the alien Nortans, Mutan Mion (an Atlan) left behind records of ancient secrets so that modern man could share in the Precursors' wisdom. Among those records are the psychic resonances picked up by Shaver and transcribed into his writings.

* ScavengerWorld: The various underworld factions are almost entirely defined by their relationship to scavenged Atlan technology.

* StupidEvil: The Hobloks. They're evil and extremely dangerous, but also very dumb. Since Shaver saw evil as an inherently detrimental force, most of his villains are ultimately venial, small-minded brutes, and even his {{Diabolical Mastermind}}s aren't as smart as they think they are.

--> All of eighty feet tall she must have been. She towered over our heads as she arose to greet us, a vast cloud of the glittering hair of the Nor women floating about her head, the sex aura a visible iridescence flashing about her form. I yearned toward that vast beauty which was not hidden for in Nor it is considered impolite to conceal the body greatly, being an offense against art and friendship to take beauty out of life. I was impelled madly toward her until I fell on my knees before her, my hands outstretched to touch the gleaming, ultra-living flesh of her feet.

** Shaver had a thing for [[CuteMonsterGirl monster girls]] 67 years before [[Anime/MonsterMusume Monster Musume]]. Talk about ahead of his time!
--> Mutan Mion: Yes, much more efficient than my own at the moment, which were wandering over the figure of a variform female on the walk whose upper part was the perfect torso of a woman and whose lower part was a sinuously gliding thirty feet of brilliantly mottled snake. You could never have escaped her embrace of your own will once she had wrapped those life-generating coils around you!
** He seemed to be into [[GiantWoman giantesses]], too...

** He seemed to be into giantesses, too...

* ForTheEvulz: All the motivation the Deros need to mess with us

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in TheForties, began contributing short stories and art to ScienceFiction {{Pulp Magazine}}s, notably ''Magazine/AmazingStories''. He became renowned for a novella called ''[[http://sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/ I Remember Lemuria!]]'' about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran [[FollowTheLeader almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards]], to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young Creator/HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

* HiddenElfVillage: The Deros and Teros have their roots in the same tradition of Victorian era "Lost Race" literature that inspired Creator/JRRTolkien's elves, books like ''Literature/{{She}}'' and Creator/EdwardBulwerLytton's ''The Coming Race''.

* Narm: Mutan Mion's reaction upon seeing a Titan die a sudden death in the middle of a function.
--> Mutan Mion: "By the Elder Gods!" I swore to myself at the realization that no guard ray was going to protect us. "It is true; our perfect government is not so perfect after all!"

** ArtisticLicenseSpace: In ''I Remember Lemuria!'', Mutan Mion attends a lecture on the nature of the sun, in which he learns that stars are formed from especially large and carbon-rich planets that catch fire. After enough time, however, the star burns through the carbon and starts burning heavy metals, which pollute the sunlight and cause aging. The Atlans and Titans left Earth when they realized [[JustBeforeTheEnd this was starting to happen]].

* FootnoteFever: ''Amazing Stories'' printed a lot of Shaver's work with a lot of explanatory editor's notes in the form of footnotes, detailing concepts that the main narratives only lightly touch on, or else providing definitions for the {technobabble}}.

** The Titans also seem to naturally have somewhat animalistic traits; [[HornedHumanoid horns seem to be fairly common]], and early in the story, we encounter a Titan woman [[MultiArmedMultitasking with six arms]]. As with the variform women mentioned above, Mutan Mion finds this all [[NightmareFetishist extremely sexy]].

* InsufferableImbecile: The Hobloks. They're evil and extremely dangerous, but also very dumb. Since Shaver saw evil as an inherently detrimental force, most of his villains are ultimately venial, small-minded brutes, and even his {{Diabolical Mastermind}}s aren't as smart as they think they are.

* LittleBitBeastly: The Atlans had created "variform hybrids", genetic fusions of themselves and other alien races they had encountered, who lived in [[ShiningCity Tean City]] and enjoyed full citizenship. In "I Remember Lemuria!", Mutan Mion briefly pauses to admire an attractive [[SnakePeople woman with a snake tail instead of legs]], and his main love interest, Arl, seems to be a [[FaunsAndSatyrs faun-like creature]] with [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation purple skin]].
** The Titans also seem to naturally have somewhat animalistic traits; Mion mentions that one of his Titan professors is a gigantic HornedHumanoid, and early in the story, he encounters a Titan woman [[MultiArmedMultitasking with six arms]]. As with the variform women mentioned above, Mutan Mion finds this all [[NightmareFetishist extremely sexy]].

* PeeveGoblins: Deros are this on a macro level, with a hand in more or less every tragedy and disaster you've heard of

Deros themselves seem to have fallen by the pop-cultural wayside, supplanted by TheGrays (and more recently, the ReptilianConspiracy) as the ultimate hub of UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories, but they still crop up now and then among devotees of pulpy weirdness. ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and, even more centrally, its spinoff ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' both feature "derros" [[note]]''Pathinder'''s second edition reverts to "dero"[[/note]], and they turn up in Japanese horror movie ''Film/{{Marebito}}'' too, while Creator/JordanPeele's horror movie ''Film/{{Us}}'' also depicts a subterranean world of machine-like half-people. Even Harlan Ellison got over his frustration with dero-mania, at least briefly, with his short story "The Elevator People" presenting a very Shaver-like scenario.

* AllMythsAreTrue: The first mortal beings to learn to use the Atlan technology are supposed to have inspired all the [[AGodAmI god mythologies]] and tales of TheFairFolk around the world - including the Abrahamic God. The more malevolent of them, likewise, inspired [[OurDemonsAreDifferent tales of demons]], with [[{{Satan}} Sathanas]] a particularly notorious instance of this.

** ArtisticLicenseSpace: In "I Remember Lemuria!", Mutan Mion attends a lecture on the nature of the sun, in which he learn that stars are formed from especially large and carbon-rich planets that catch fire. After enough time, however, the star burns through the carbon and starts burning heavy metals, which pollute the sunlight and cause aging. The Atlans and Titans left Earth when they realized [[JustBeforeTheEnd this was starting to happen]].

* InsufferableImbecile: The Hobloks. They're evil and extremely dangerous, but also very dumb.

* HumanAliens: The Atlans were from another world, but were essentially human in all the meaningful ways. Shaver occasionally refers to the Atlan Mutan Mion as a man, before correcting himself that "being" is perhaps more appropriate.

* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: In the foreword to "I Remember Lemuria!", he complains that one of the factors preventing him from being taken seriously is that most people get too distracted making puns about "sharp shavers".

* PastLifeMemories: Kind of. In "I Remember Lemuria!", Shaver claims that he can remember the life of Mutan Mion, an Atlan who lived millennia ago, as if he was there. There is, however, no particular indication that he is supposed to be the reincarnation ''of'' Mutan Mion.

* {{Precursors}}: The Atlans, whose technology the Deros had appropriated after they vanished

* {{Ultraterrestrials}}: The ancestors of the Teros and Deros left the Earth because the sun's radiation is harmful to them; those that stayed behind gradually evolved into their respective two forms, similarly to the Eloi and {{the Morlocks}} in ''Literature/TheTimeMachine''.

Richard Sharpe Shaver was an American factory worker who, in TheForties, began contributing short stories and art to ScienceFiction {{Pulp Magazine}}s, notably ''Magazine/AmazingStories''. He became renowned for a short story called ''[[http://sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/ I Remember Lemuria!]]'' about a man held captive by monstrous subhuman creatures that lived beneath the Earth. The story became so popular that ''Amazing Stories'' ran [[FollowTheLeader almost nothing but sequels and other related material for some time afterwards]], to the dismay of some of their readership, including a young Creator/HarlanEllison. After the craze had run its course, Shaver abandoned writing to pursue an interest in geology and died in 1975.

* AuthorAppeal: Apparently Palmer had to cut out, or at least reduce, a lot of uncomfortably horny content. {{Multiboobage}} is a recurring motif.

* GenerationXerox: Discussed in "Formula from the Underworld", when Hank explains to Harte Manville that most living creatures will fall into generational patterns without the outside stimulae for change, which is why the Hobloks are AlwaysChaoticEvil... and why surface humans can be so frustrating.

* MoleMen: The subterranean deros, along with many other underground races.

* LivingForeverIsAwesome: In "A Formula From The Underworld", Harte Manville travels BeneathTheEarth in search of the eponymous formula, which he believes will grant [[TheAgeless immunity to aging]], although not CompleteImmortality. This is presented as an unambiguously good thing, and is something he fully intends to share with the surface world - and ultimately does, ending the story by explaining directly to the reader how it can be achieved if the governments of Earth will put in the effort and budget.

* ProudScholarRaceGuy: The good subterranean forces, such as the Teros and snail-men, are all very enlightened and can psychically commune to pool their collective intelligence as a kind of benevolent, temporary HiveMind.

* TotallyRadical: When describing the appearance of the Hobloks:

* TheSchizophreniaConspiracy: Many psychologists have noted that Shaver's worldview has a lot in common with the fantasies created by some paranoid schizophrenics, right down to the [[MindControlConspiracy "influencing machine"]] motif. Compare with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews James Tilly Matthews]] and his "Air Loom". Fittingly, a lot of the technology in his stories revolves around rays that can project thoughts into other people's heads, allowing MindControl and {{Agony Beam}}s.

Richard Shaver maintained that ''[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} he wasn't writing fiction]].'' Following a workplace accident, he became convinced that he'd gained the power of {{telepathy}} and could hear not only the thoughts of the people around him, but secret conversations between the monsters described in his stories (which he named "Deros", short for "detrimental robots", though in some of his earlier stories they're known as "Hobloks") and the anguished screams of their human victims. He sent his work to ''Amazing Stories'' as a warning to mankind, but his publisher, Ray Palmer, saw gold and edited his manuscript to make it fit the magazine's style.

Deros themselves seem to have fallen by the pop-cultural wayside, supplanted by TheGrays (and more recently, the ReptilianConspiracy) as the ultimate hub of UsefulNotes/ConspiracyTheories, but they still crop up now and then among devotees of pulpy weirdness. ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' and, even more centrally, its spinoff ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' both feature "derros", and they turn up in Japanese horror movie ''Film/{{Marebito}}'' too, while Creator/JordanPeele's horror movie ''Film/{{Us}}'' also depicts a subterranean world of machine-like half-people. Even Harlan Ellison got over his frustration with dero-mania, at least briefly, with his short story "The Elevator People" presenting a very Shaver-like scenario.

* AllMythsAreTrue: The Atlans are supposed to have inspired all the god mythologies and tales of TheFairFolk around the world - including the Abrahamic God.
* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Deros / Hobloks, to the point where "evil" might not evil be the right word. The stories repeatedly stress that the Deros have been exposed to so much of a kind of detrimental radiation from the ancient technology (they never learned how to use the filtering machines to protect themselves) that doing harm to others is utterly instinctive to them. They can no more resist that instinct than a rabbit can resist the instinct to hop.

* MoleMen: The subterranean deros.

* InsufferableImbecile: The Deros, again. They're evil and extremely dangerous, but also very dumb.

* OurMonstersAreWeird: Say what you will about Shaver's sanity, but he had a lot of imagination. "Formula From The Underworld" features a race of benevolent centaur-like snail people, for example. Also see BodyHorror, above.

* TokenRomance: Ray Palmer would often insert a romantic subplot or some other element of sex appeal into Shaver's relatively chaste manuscripts. {{Multiboobage}} is a recurring motif.

* EyepatchOfPower: Implied in "Formula from the Underworld", where the hero, a rugged and resourceful explorer
named [[AwesomeMcCoolname Harte Manville]], tells us he's missing an eye in the opening paragraph. He doesn't specifically mention wearing a patch, but it's implied.

-->...some one of the cavern dwellers had turned on a growth force generator and lain down to sleep in it. The results were that he had become [[AGodAmI another, greater life]]. He had not turned it off, but stayed beside it and growth had made a super being of him. It was not balanced growth. He was a [[FatBastard vast mass of pink flesh with sprouts of peculiar life protruding from him]]. This Thing was the boss of the place. The captives were destined to serve this mass of flesh. His appetite for women was enormous, to judge by the harem that surrounded him, stroking the quivering pinkness, carefully removing the sprouts when they were ripe, dancing for the vast eyes that surmounted the awful pile of flesh. [[AndThatsTerrible I did not like this modern god.]]
* GenerationXerox: Discussed is "Formula from the Underworld", when Hank explains to Harte Manville that most living creatures will fall into generational patterns without the outside stimulae for change, which is why the Hobloks are AlwaysChaoticEvil... and why surface humans can be so frustrating.

* EyepatchOfPower: The hero of "Formula from the Underworld" - the story that established the bulk of his cosmology - is [[AwesomeMcCoolname Harte Manville]], a rugged, resourceful explorer with an eyepatch.

* AllMythsAreTrue: The Atlans are supposed to have inspired all the god mythologies around the world - including the Abrahamic God.

* MoleMen: The subterranean deros.

Richard Shaver maintained that ''[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} he wasn't writing fiction]].'' Following a workplace accident, he became convinced that he'd gained the power of {{telepathy}} and could hear not only the thoughts of the people around him, but secret conversations between the monsters described in his stories (which he named "Deros", short for "detrimental robots") and the anguished screams of their human victims. He sent his work to ''Amazing Stories'' as a warning to mankind, but his publisher, Ray Palmer, saw gold and edited his manuscript to make it fit the magazine's style.

* NonIndicativeName: Dero is short for "Detrimental Robot", even though they're not actually robots.

* TheSchizophreniaConspiracy: Many psychologists have noted that Shaver's worldview has a lot in common with the fantasies created by some paranoid schizophrenics, right down to the [[MindControlConspiracy "influencing machine"]] motif. Compare with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews James Tilly Matthews]] and his "Air Loom".