Write your own The Coming Race story

The American Narrator

An unnamed, well-traveled American of English descent whose grandfather served in the War of Independence. After his companion's fatal accident, he becomes stranded alone in the subterranean world of the Ana. He serves as the outsider viewpoint through which the reader learns about Vril-ya society, and is bound by promise to his host not to reveal the surface world to others.

The Engineer

An unnamed professional engineer and the narrator's companion who first glimpses the underground world and reports its strange light and lamplit road. He descends into the chasm with the narrator but is killed when the rope's fastenings give way, and his body is subsequently devoured by the giant subterranean reptile. His death leaves the narrator stranded underground.

Zee

The daughter of the narrator's host and a distinguished member of the College of Sages, she is described as tall, serene, and of sphinx-like beauty. She is the one who learns the narrator's language through Vril-assisted trance and serves as his primary teacher and interlocutor. She possesses formidable Vril abilities and exercises quiet authority over the narrator, occasionally sending him to sleep with a gesture.

The Host (Narrator's Guide)

The first Ana the narrator fully interacts with, a tall winged being of sphinx-like calm who leads him to safety and shelters him in his home. He serves as chief of the Light-preserving Council and is a figure of authority and measured wisdom. He keeps the narrator's origins secret from the broader community and communicates through signs before Zee teaches him the narrator's language.

Taee

The eldest son of the chief magistrate of the tribe, approximately twelve years old, and introduced as the child who retrieved the narrator's rope and grappling-hooks. He is notably more vivacious and energetic than most Ana, and is described as singularly handsome even by Ana standards. He befriends the narrator closely and scrupulously obeys the prohibition against asking the narrator about his origins.

The Subterranean World (The Ana's Domain)

A vast underground realm reached through a volcanic chasm in a mine, lit throughout by myriads of artificial lamps producing soft silvery light that renders the world as bright and warm as an Italian noon. The landscape features alien vegetation in hues of leaden and golden red, fern-like and fungal trees, lakes and rivulets including streams that shine like naphtha or roseate flame, and ranges of precipitous rock forming a backdrop of wild and solemn beauty. Cities and cultivated fields fill its valleys, and winged Ana fly through its luminous atmosphere in sport and transit.

The Volcanic Chasm

A jagged fissure deep within a mine, apparently charred at its sides by ancient volcanic fires, through which a brilliant upwelling light first alerts the engineer to the underground world. It serves as the sole known point of descent from the surface world and is guarded by at least one enormous reptilian predator. The rope and grappling-hooks the narrator used were retrieved from its base by Taee.

The Egyptian-Style Building (Magistrate's Hall)

A massive edifice partly hollowed from rock, fronted by huge tapering columns with capitals carved to resemble local underground vegetation, reminiscent of Egyptian temple architecture but more fantastically ornamental. It contains an enormous hall with tesselated precious-metal floors, a platform lift, richly ornamented chambers, automata, caged singing birds, and a factory-like hall where Ana children silently work at great gem-studded machinery.

College of Sages

An institution of learning and inquiry to which Zee belongs, apparently responsible for scholarship, scientific knowledge, and wisdom among the Ana. It is associated with the study of Vril and other advanced knowledge, and is distinct from political bodies such as the Light-preserving Council. Zee's membership denotes her exceptional intellectual standing.

The Lamplit Road

A broad, level underground thoroughfare at the base of the volcanic chasm, illuminated as far as the eye can see by evenly spaced artificial lamps resembling gas-lamps in a great city. It forms the main artery into the Ana's subterranean landscape and was the first evidence of intelligent underground habitation glimpsed by the engineer.

Light-preserving Council

A governing or administrative body among the Ana, of which the narrator's host serves as chief. Its name suggests responsibility for maintaining or overseeing the artificial lighting systems that sustain life in the sunless underground world. It represents a form of civic authority distinct from the earlier democratic republics the Ana have transcended.

Vril Staff (Vril Rod)

A slender rod of bright polished metal carried by the Ana, through which Vril energy is focused and directed. Even in the hands of a child it can project destructive force sufficient to shatter fortresses or annihilate armies. The same instrument is used for healing, inducing calm or sleep, and other benign applications of Vril. The narrator's host carries one and uses it to touch and command automata, as well as to soothe the narrator.

Mechanical Automata

Human-shaped mechanical servants used throughout Ana society in place of organic domestic workers. They glide silently and rapidly on command, activated by a touch of the Vril staff, and stand motionless at their posts when not in use. They are described as phantom-like and wholly indistinguishable from living beings at a casual glance.

Metallic Books and Sheets

The Ana record knowledge and history in thin sheets and small volumes of fine metal rather than paper, bound in the fashion of surface books but in metallic form. These metallic sheets were used by Zee and the narrator's host to construct a bilingual dictionary during the narrator's Vril-induced trances, pairing the narrator's drawings and words with Ana equivalents.

Vril

Vril is the all-permeating natural fluid or force mastered by the Ana, encompassing what surface scientists separately call electricity, magnetism, and galvanism, and potentially representing the unified force behind all natural energies. It can destroy with the power of lightning, heal disease, restore life, extract light, control weather, transmit thoughts between minds, and cleave through solid rock. A single Vril rod wielded by a child can shatter a fortress, rendering military superiority meaningless and effectively ending war among the Vril-ya. It is also used to induce trance states in which knowledge and language can be rapidly transferred between minds.

History and Origins of the Ana

According to Ana tradition, their remote ancestors once lived on the surface of the earth but were driven underground by a slow, catastrophic inundation predating the biblical Flood of Noah. A surviving remnant took refuge in caverns and gradually lost contact with the surface world as the geography of the earth was wholly transformed. They brought with them arts of civilisation including gas-lighting and hydraulic engineering, and over many generations evolved from a meat-eating, war-prone, democratically governed society into the serene, post-scarcity civilisation enabled by the discovery of Vril.

Ana Society and Social Order

Ana communities are organised into tribes or city-states ruled by magistrates, having long since passed through and abandoned democracy and popular assemblies as crude early experiments. Males and females are both tall and winged, but females are taller and of ampler proportions than males, with less softness of expression. The society is characterised by absolute calm, courtesy, and suppression of vehement emotion; even children are taught to disdain emotional outbursts. Civilisation is defined as 'the art of diffusing tranquil happiness belonging to a virtuous and well-ordered household.'

Prehistoric Underground Civilisations

The narrator is informed that within the deeper bowels of the earth lie the ruins of vast cities predating the age of Noah, attesting to civilisations that flourished before the geological epochs assigned by surface science. These are not the crude hut-dwelling or flint-using peoples of standard archaeological theory but advanced races, implying a long hidden pre-history of intelligent life deep within the planet.

Vril-Induced Trance and Language Transfer

The Ana can use Vril to induce a trance state in another being, during which knowledge—including entire languages—can be transmitted directly between minds. It was through repeated Vril trances during the narrator's unconscious periods that Zee taught him the Ana language and herself learned his. The process is described as far more reliable and systematic than surface-world experiments in mesmerism or clairvoyance.

The End of War Among the Vril-ya

The discovery and mastery of Vril's destructive potential brought warfare permanently to an end among the advanced Ana tribes. Because a single child wielding a Vril rod could annihilate any army or fortress, military superiority in numbers or discipline became meaningless, making war mutually suicidal. This military deadlock became the foundation of the Ana's lasting peace and the collapse of competitive political and social strife.

The Giant Subterranean Reptile

A monstrous predatory creature encountered at the base of the volcanic chasm, resembling a vastly enlarged crocodile or alligator, which emerges from a dark fissure and apparently devours the engineer's corpse. It represents one of several animal species—unknown to the surface world—that either survived the prehistoric Deluge underground or evolved within the earth's hollows.

Ana Wings and Flight

The Ana wear large wings that fold over their breasts and reach their knees as part of their standard attire; the wings extend from and merge with the arms and inflate the garment beneath them like a bladder when spread. They allow swift, soaring flight comparable to an eagle's, and are used for sport, travel, and rapid retrieval missions. The wings carry a slight electrical charge detectable by touch. Adult males and daughters both wear wings, while at least the wife of the host is depicted without them.

The Ana (Vril-ya)

The Ana are a superhuman subterranean race descended from surface-world ancestors who fled underground during an ancient catastrophe, possibly a prehistoric Deluge. They are taller than humans, with sphinx-like faces of regular beauty, reddish skin, large black arched-browed eyes, and folding wings attached to their garments that allow flight. They are wholly serene and passionless in demeanour, unknown to rudeness, and endowed with physical and mental capabilities far exceeding those of surface humanity. The higher tribes, including the one encountered by the narrator, have long transcended war, democracy, and class strife through mastery of Vril.