The Sacred and Terrible Air, the book written in the same universe as Disco Elysium, was originally planned to be the first of a cycle of novels. We never got this cycle, because the commercial failure of SATA sent Robert Kurvitz, future lead writer of DE and the chief architect of the universe into an alcoholic spiral. But Kurvitz, under his alias Marat Sar, did post the planned titles and accompanying quotes for the entire cycle on an estonian forum, so I figured I would share them here.
#0
A SACRED AND TERRIBLE AIR
My heart will not rest until it rests in you.
- St. Augustine
#1
THE COUNTERMEASURES
What am I searching for in your dreams?
I am not searching. I am merely cleaning up.
- Christian Emmerich
#2
NO TRUCE WITH THE FURIES
Man-kind, be vigilant! We loved you.
- Julius Fučik
#3
MADRUGADA
It must be lit as dreams, by lightning flashes only.
- Witold Gombrowicz
#4
TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE DAYS REMAINING
Evening brings the child back to the arms of the mother.
- Sappho
#5
COALITION WARSHIP
I don’t want to be in no indie shit. I want to be in the big ones.
I want to be in the ones that matter.
- Mickey Rourke
#6
WE ARE THE WAITING
What remains, is longing for something completely different.
- Luis Althusser
#7
INDIFFERENCE
A great silence, some low pressure front is forming.
- Arvi Siig
some speculations and notes, the quote for #1, talking about cleaning up in your dreams, reminds me heavily of Cleaning Out The Rooms, which is a song by Sea Power referenced in Disco Elysium as part of talking about how
might have lost his memory, and with the usage of the ZA/UM drug in SATA allowing for fucky memory insertion (also the Pale does that too!)#2, No Truce With The Furies is of course one of the early titles for Disco Elysium (the first title was actually McLaine and Torsson, who do appear as characters in DE, but NTWTF was the title for a large portion of its development, so you won't see much about McLaine and Torsson). The quote was also used at the end of Disco Elysium.
#4 is interesting, the title makes it clear it's about the exact end of the world. The phrase "Evening brings the child back to the arms of the mother." has a few connotations in the universe. The city where Dolores Dei was crowned an Innocence is Advesperact, "Evening comes", which is certainly a
connection, and of course the ideology of entropolism is about "returning to the past", so the idea of the child coming back to the mother would fit in this.the commercial failure of SATA sent Robert Kurvitz, future lead writer of DE and the chief architect of the universe into an alcoholic spiral
jeez I gotta read this book huh? and also play through the game again.
It's pretty good, I'd definetly recommend it, specifically the Group Ibex translation
