"Star Log 7. Elsewhere fine and warm. Data speaking. Such a beautiful day especially that I am alone on Enterprise. Nearby is Upyria, a wonderful planet hosting the most important meeting of the Confederation's leaders. Captain Picard might rule the New Order, as he gained the main support from The Knights of The Immortell Temple. The New World is about to rise…"

2005. This could be the end of a Star Trek episode, where we can watch Data happy alone on Enterprise, amusing himself reading headlines like "Real Vampires? Please give me a break! I'm sure there are some weird people out there, but they just need a good therapist." For him, Picard is already the leader of the New World, where all races, all creatures, mortals and undead, bodies and shadows, can now live in peace and harmony.
Even The Knights of The Immortell Temple gathering the undead, the most fearful creatures, ruled by the most powerful and popular - The Vampires give Picard their support.

2005. The Vampires among us. The Immortal Bite.

Billions of Dollars. Tourists from all over the world, especially from Japan, go to Ireland, Serbia, Bulgaria or visit places like Transylvania and Yorkshire, attracted to vampire stories. An inciting business is blooming, from Vampire video games releases, movies, books, t-shirts, bloody fangs, Halloween costumes, Vampire Fashion of Gothic inspiration, to the Vampire Bibleor the Vampire Ring which can be bought online for only 20-80$
Porn industry provides us the image of provocative teen vamp girls and boys turning on all senses offering an immortal and delicious sexy bite.
Vampire characters have been for centuries a best-seller recipe. Film directors struggle to come up with new ideas and special effects in their vampire movies to meet higher expectations. Even the new comers in the music business, the ringtones composers, have the same problem.
In the past years, we could see an increased number of newspapers adds or chat-rooms announcements all over the world where so-called vampires offered the gift of immortality to those lost, desperate and longing for a getaway.
Lots of teenagers were sent to mental hospitals, therefore making the specialists in vampire studies advising parents to be close to their tormented off springs.

Vampire Chronicles

Some people feel isolated, non-communicative, maybe because they can see better by night and have to wear 15 V block sunglasses by day, they are extremely pale, sometimes longing for fresh human blood or another kind of energy.
Some of them choose to ignore medical problems, considering themselves as vampires, above human racehuman race.

From Homer's Odysseys to Lord Byron's Giaour , from Bram Stoker's Dracula to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, from Nosferatu to Blade and Underworld, the image of fabulous blood drinking creatures, founded on the same pervasive beliefs through cultures all over the globe, became an archetype, with a whole range of fans and an abundance of explanations.

Vampire imagery through the ages

In Homer's Odyssey, the shades met by Odysseus in his journey to the Underworld were lured to the blood of freshly sacrificed rams. Some Roman fables describe a nocturnal bird that only fed on human flesh and blood, called the Strix.
From Slavic 4th century stories, one can find out that people believed in vampires who drank blood and could only be destroyed by cutting off its head and afterwards putting it between the corpse's legs. The earliest English stories of vampires were recorded by medieval chroniclers in the 12th century.
Nowadays, vampires are depicted a as a cast with a peculiar style of dress and decor combining elements of the Victorian age, Glam, Punk and Gothic fashion styles featured in vampire fiction.

What's in a name?

Some say that the word vampire (or "vampyre" as accepted in 1734 in the English language) derives from the Slavic word vampire or vampyr, and it has appeared for the first time in the 1600s somewhere in the Balkans. However, vampir is derived from upir, first mentioned by an Old Russian manuscript from 1047 in which a Novgorodian prince is called 'Upir Lichyj' (Wicked Vampire).



The portrait of a vampire

Popular culture in Western Europe depicts vampires as evil masculine creatures, having no soul (therefore no mirror reflection), mostly living in graveyards, with extended fangs or canines, ready to bite for fresh blood and then disappear in mist or changing into bats or wolves. Easily scared of Bible, Holy Water, silver crosses and garlic, a vampire can be destroyed by means of powerful sunlight exposure, by shooting with special pure silver bullets, or by ramming a wooden stake through its heart.
The Aztec Civatateo, The Australian Yara-Ma-Yha-Who and the Malaysian Pennangalan where also blood - sucker vampires, known in mythology as one of the most cruel and dangerous creatures.
Some Female vampire characters in modern movies might have been inspired by Philippine folklore reminding of the beautiful women transformed by night into fearful vampires, feeding only with fresh blood of infants.

Famous Vampire Figures

Lilith.
Lilith appears in Hebrew texts as the fist wife of Adam, both created by God equals. Legends say she has been banished because she had not obeyed his orders, and fled from the Garden of Eden to the shores of the Red Sea, muttering God's name and claiming for revenge. As she din not return to Eden (after God sending 3 of his archangels who couldn't convince her), 100 of Lilith's offspring were killed. From that moment, Lilith murdered babies (girls younger than 20 days old and boys younger than 8 days).
Besides Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, she is blamed for stealing the sperm from young men in their dreams and killing them afterwards.
According to The Alphabet of Ben-Sera, Lilith met Cain (after he had killed his brother, Abel) by the Shores of the Red Sea and gave birth to demons and monsters.


Chupacabra.
This fantastic creature from Latin -America who inspired a cartoon character, is thought guilty of the night attacks on goats for drinking their blood 90's. Some eye-witnesses speak of Chupacabra as a reptile; other pictured him as an extraterrestrial.

Dracula. "Son of the Dragon", the cruel prince from the Romanian folklore, Vlad the Impaler inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula, published in England in 1897.
If the Carpathian Prince is supposed to have tortured enemy prisoners by hanging them on stakes around the castle, Dracula had been portrayed as suffering from contagious demonic possession, sexually obsessed, with extra sensitive abilities and turning himself into a bat, of course. this last decription survived in popular fiction for the last century.

Vampires of the 3 rd Millennium

United by the thirst of human blood or human energy, with a proximity-based sense for their fellow vampires, Photosensitive, but with improved night vision (few claiming to be able to drive or even read by starlight while wearing sunglasses, for example), the contemporary vampires have an improved immunity to diseases (except for AIDS), suffer from Insomnia and have poor interpersonal skills.
Some of those believing themselves to be vampires of the legend might suffer disassociate identity disorder, schizophrenia, or antisocial personality disorder.

A few vampire groups are linked to cults and societies. Here are some of the most famous organizations: Anne Rice's Vampire Lestat Fan Club, The Bram Stoker Society, The British Dracula Society, The British Vampyre Society, The Count Dracula Fanclub, The Count Dracula Society, The Miss Lucy Westenra Society of the Undead, The Quincey P. Morris Dracula Society, The Vampires Archives of Istanbul, Vampire Information Exchange, Realm of the vampire, The Dracula Experience.

Vampire world

The main categories of the vampires sect members are called Psionic and Sanguinarian.
While Psionic vampires have to start off with blood and seem to be able to feed with psionic energy, poor sanguinarians aren't smart enough and remain blood-addicted.
Depending on their feeding preferences, "specialists" talk about Astrals (vampires entering peoples' dreams and sucking their energy), Emotionals (fed with emotional energy in a inexplicable way), Elementals (none-harmful vampires having natural healthy meals from basic elements of ancient times) and Incubi (taking blood and energy by means of sexual violence)
Of course, the vampire world has to be hierarchically organized, these categories of vampires being either Royal (with the power of killing all others), PureBlood (born as vampires therefore with the power to kill all Turns) or Turn (converted by means of blood transfusion)
Another complex hierarchy refers to vampires as Inheritors, Classics, Night-Timers, genetics, Psi-vamps, Bloodists, Fetishists, Sexual Vampires, Real Predators, Real Hunters and Historical Vampires, depending on both their behavior and birth data.

Blame it on DNA

For all these vampire skills and practices, some people believe that Porphyria, a rare hereditary disease is the answer, sometimes associated with neurological symptoms.
Porphyria might cause sunlight sensitivity, red eyes and teeth but also the difficulty of awakening during the day.
The closer we are to the 3d century, the more scientific explanations we have.
The latest news is that the Inheritors are supposed to have an extra chromosome or have an altered DNA because of a Virus called V5 which is passed to their children and can infect all those genetically predisposed (like Classics, for example).
V5 virus might actually be related to other viruses such as the common flu virus or the AIDS virus, but a special vaccine has not been discovered yet …
Q: Are Vampires faster, stronger, younger, smarter, and more psychic?
A: If so, they might easily become better soldiers, sportsmen, terrorists, hackers or world leaders, just because of a retrovirus some want to escape of, and others dream to wear in their veins.
Well, this does not seem like a fair image of the New World.


Star log 2005

The Knights of the Immortell Temple are just pure fiction, fed by vampire stories, myths and legends. We call ourselves Humans, located on a blue planet named Earth.
Our universe is full of hopes and dreams, tears and fears, desires and pleasures, fun and science, arts, industry, high - tech, spaceship travelers, moon-land achievers, but also bears lots of beliefs, traditions, superstitions.
Until one could find Data's log alone on an Enterprise, vampires are likely to become part of a funny story in a color-book about the Evolution oh Humanity, which he could have got from Santa Clause himself…

To be continued? (Post your comment above)

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