Gor, also known as the anti-Earth, is a parallel world described in John Norman’s Chronicles of Gor, a saga of 38 novels with philosophical, erotic and science-fictional themes. Begun in 1966, this saga describes the adventures of Tarl Cabot on the planet Gor, an anti-Earth situated in opposition to the Sun, in the same orbit as the Earth.

Gor in a nutshell

The series features several alien races. The most important in the books are the Priest-Kings and the Kurii, all from different star systems.

The Priest-Kings rule Gor as distant guardians and demiurges, leaving humans to look after their own affairs, as long as they respect certain restrictions on technology. They regard humans as an inferior species just worthy of being used as guinea pigs for their experiments in terraforming, genetics and social engineering, but it turns out that they also need them terribly to fight the Kurii.

The Kurii are an aggressive, invasive alien species with cutting-edge technology (though inferior to that of the Priest-Kings) who want to colonize Earth and Gor, and who see humans as a food source. They also use humans as agents, including on Earth, in exchange for various means, advanced technology and slaves.

The power of the Priest-Kings diminished after the “Nest War” described in the third book of the saga, and most of the time, the Priest-Kings and the Kurii, whose greatest weakness is that their civilizations are in decline, fight each other by proxy, through their respective human agents and spies.

The final episodes of the series focus mainly on space-opera adventures, alongside increasingly philosophical and sexual adventures. There are numerous sub-plots that continue over several books and return to the main storyline in subsequent books. Some of these plots begin in the first book, but most of them underlie the first ten books.

Gor’s saga is part of a literary genre generally referred to as Planet-opera, a branch of science fiction whose founding father was Edgar Rice Burroughs (John Carter of Mars is a recent film based on his work). The law of the genre consists in inventing imaginary worlds reconstructed from borrowings made from various civilizations, hence the anachronistic blend of modernity and archaism that makes it so charming. The plot often features heroes gifted with uncommon abilities, and there’s no skimping on epic sword fights and violent confrontations between barbarian warriors.

John Norman describes a society inspired by that of antiquity, highly unequal, organized into castes and practicing slavery, despite being technologically advanced, at least in certain fields, and where the status of women suffers from ruthless machismo. John Norman has rightly been accused of providing a philosophical justification for this state of affairs, and of describing the condition of Gor’s slaves, who are often women, in an overly-indulgent way, leading to various controversies.

The planet Gor

Summary of a universal tale: “Long ago, a terrible war was waged between men and women, threatening their survival. The men were victorious, and wanted to kill all the women. In their wisdom, the Priest-Kings intervened to save the women. But they would pay for this gesture by being forever submissive to men, in exchange for which the women of Gor would become the most beautiful women imaginable.”

Gor is a world whose flora, fauna and customs are meticulously described in great detail. John Norman populates his planet with diverse ethnic groups, all with different characteristics inspired by the Romans, the ancient Greeks, the American Indians, the Vikings and other civilizations. Gor’s fauna is highly varied, with many dangerous beasts and carnivores, as well as a number of strange creatures, sometimes from worlds other than Gor or Earth. Horses and dogs are completely unknown.

In these novels, these various peoples are in fact emigrants from Earth, mainly from antiquity, in spaceships thanks to the intervention of Gor’s secret rulers, the Priest-Kings. The humans of Gor possess cities with modern architecture and have acquired advanced medical knowledge, but have been forced to remain at a primitive stage in terms of transport, communication, industry and weaponry, due to restrictions imposed in the field of technology by the Priest-Kings. This restriction is mainly carried out via the religious cult of the Priest-Kings and the caste of Initiates, but also by undercover agents of the Priest-Kings, and, in extreme cases, by the use of frightening means of destruction, the Blue Fire (basically, the Priest-Kings can level a city with one shot of a weapon of mass destruction).

This drastic limitation of technological evolution in certain fields, which often remains incomplete and sometimes clumsy, was enacted to ensure the safety of the priest-kings as well as other animal and intelligent species transplanted to Gor which, without these measures, would have suffered from the presence of man due to his bellicose and destructive tendencies. One need only think of the state of our planet to realize that there is indeed a certain logic in this.

Gor’s planet has a lower gravity (around 0.85 G) than Earth’s, which has made it possible for large flying creatures to appear, and for cities to build tall towers linked by air bridges. One thing to note is that Gor has no real deposits of natural coal or oil. The Priest-Kings have terraformed it to avoid the presence of these elements, which further reduces the ability of humans to embark on an industrial revolution.

Gor’s known geography consists mainly of the west coast of a continent stretching from the Arctic in the north to the equator, with the Thassa Ocean to the west. The Voltai mountain range forms a boundary that extends across all latitudes. There are also islands in the ocean, and relatively unknown plains to the east of the Voltai. The word Gor itself refers to the hearthstone in the Gorean language (the mother tongue of the city-states located in the northern temperate region, and the lingua franca spoken in many other regions).

The Goreans

To find out how to play characters in the world of Gor, I invite you to follow this link which paints a portrait of goreans in general: https://www.psychee.org/gorpedia/the-goreans/

The science of Gor

Gor’s saga is not medieval fantasy, but planet-fantasy with space-opera overtones! It’s heavily influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars Cycle. It’s not a super-macho version of the Gallo-Roman world, nor of the sword & sorcery novels of the Conan the Barbarian cycle.

In Gor’s world: no magic! But there are elements of science-fiction technology which, to the average uneducated person as well as to the man from Earth, could pass for magic. If the saga of the novels begins in the equivalent of the 1960s, it extends into our future!

You are in the future

The world of Gor remains, on the whole, a rather backward world in terms of science and technology, with civilizations whose social structures are still ancient, and whose technology is more comparable, on average, to that of 16th-century Europe than anything else. The same applies to Ar Station: most people live as they do everywhere else in Gor, i.e. a mixture of Roman antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. So, apart from the calendar, there’s no difference for the average inhabitant..

Technology

But there are some amazing things. Goreans are ingenious, like Earthlings, and have no qualms about learning from Earthlings about sciences and techniques they didn’t know, or even going to Earth to help themselves (even if this is rare), to bring back machines and inventions to Gor. Let’s take a quick look at the sciences and techniques of Gor:

As Gor has almost no oil or coal, heating is dependent on wood and sophisticated insulation and heat recovery systems. Plastic is unknown here, but in its use it is replaced by glass and high-quality ceramics.

While steam and industrial machinery are unknown, and almost everyone uses traditional lighting methods such as candles and torches, electricity is not. Goreans use energy bulbs, which are electric super-batteries that power many electrical and electronic machines and technologies. These marvels, reserved for the wealthiest people, but not so rare, are most often artifacts supplied indirectly by the Priest-Kings, but also objects that have been collected on Earth, during missions by agents of the Priest-Kings or the Kurii. Others are created and manufactured by Goreans themselves. These include electric lighting, the dynamo, blood analysis machines, medical X-ray photography, slave goads, universal translators, electric locks or electrified cages, electric blankets, refrigerators, and even loudspeakers and data media players (yes, you can play music on a CD-ROM in some of Gor’s luxurious lounges); there are even a few blast furnaces powered by electricity.

More commonly, there are lots of very practical things: precision metallurgy, including clocks and micromechanics, paper and printing, chronometers and marine compasses, compasses, semi-industrial weaving using mechanized looms, embroidery and semi-industrial glass, lighters and other firelighters, wire and wire mesh, ceramics and porcelain, hydraulic and pneumatic machines, kilns and furnaces, as well as refractory and construction bricks, alloys and high-grade steel. We’re also familiar with telescopes, spectacles, magnifying glasses and microscopes.

It’s in the medical field that Goreans are incredibly advanced. Theoretical science may differ, but the technical results are similar: Gorean doctors understand the role of organs, blood circulation, the general functioning of the brain, anatomy, micro-biology, genetics, artificial selection (including on humans), dietetics, epidemiology and vaccination. They even have psychiatrists! Their medical techniques and pharmacopoeia mean that they have less recourse to surgery than Earthlings, and they are better able than Earthlings to treat certain serious illnesses such as cancer. On the other hand, they are less proficient in all aspects of traumatology, i.e. serious physical injury. But they are nonetheless very gifted.

The Goreans have also invented the ultimate remedy of sorts: longevity serum, a cocktail of multipotent stem-cell activators which, in just four injections, stops the subject’s aging process. Yes, this means that Goreans can make a person potentially immortal. To come across a six-hundred-year-old Gorean is not so incredible. It’s uncommon, because Gor’s world is violent, and because the longevity serum isn’t that widespread, but healthy centenarians are not uncommon!

What the Priest-Kings firmly forbid, with enough means to intervene in case of transgression, via their agents or the Initiates, or more directly, are a few techniques and sciences that could tip the balance of Gor, both for mankind and for the planet. Here’s the list of what’s forbidden. And whoever dares to work on this takes great risks, for himself, his family, and even his entire city!

The following are prohibited: the internal combustion engine and steam (and therefore any industrial machinery that might run on these engines), personal armor (strangely enough, this is more a religious ban than actually based on a Priest-King ban), firearms, wave communication systems (but not wire, we’ve already mentioned loudspeakers, there are also microphones, as we discover in the third novel), fast-moving machines, including even advanced sailing (Gorean ships are barely more efficient than ancient galleys) and, last but not least, explosives, including black powder.

The novels don’t mention it, but, no, there’s no reason why the Priest-Kings should have banned astronomy: many people in the highest cultured castes know that they live on a planet in our solar system, and that, not far away, there’s the Earth, and that other worlds exist around the other stars in the Milky Way.

Science fiction

Now let’s talk about what’s possible, but only in the realm of science fiction. Already, some Goreans know that space travel is possible aboard spaceships: they take part in voyages to Earth to meet agents there, and bring back cargoes of poor Earthwomen abducted there to become slaves on Gor. For their transport, these earthlings are locked in hypersleep chambers, and more than one slaver has seen one of these strange chambers. The Priest-Kings have mastered antigravity, force fields and interstellar travel, and their technological power enables them to move a planet and terraform it. They even seem capable of mastering telepathic and mind-control technologies.

Now let’s talk about what’s possible, but only in the realm of science fiction. Already, some Goreans know that space travel is possible aboard spaceships: they take part in voyages to Earth to meet agents there, and bring back cargoes of poor Earthwomen abducted there to become slaves on Gor. For their transport, these earthlings are locked in hypersleep chambers, and more than one slaver has seen one of these strange chambers. The Priest-Kings have mastered antigravity, force fields and interstellar travel, and their technological power enables them to move a planet and terraform it. They even seem capable of mastering telepathic and mind-control technologies.

So, science-fiction and modern technologies and machines from Earth, or entrusted to the Goreans by the Priest-Kings, do exist. But it’s very rare; it’s a very big secret, which the owners hide with great care. Either because they are agents of the Priest-Kings (or the Kurii), or because they hide from them to avoid being caught.

In conclusion, it’s not at all absurd or incoherent to see hints of science-fiction technologies here and there in Gor’s world. What would be absurd or incoherent is for it to be there for all to see. A simple pistol is a terrible weapon on Gor, and agents of the Priest-Kings and initiates will do anything to make such a thing and its owner disappear; nobody would want to own one, unless they were insane, or incredibly cautious. Goreans, in general, don’t understand Earth science and technology and despise it completely. They also have a strong religious superstition that encourages them to ignore it and even destroy it out of an abundance of caution.

In conclusion, it’s not at all absurd or incoherent to see hints of science-fiction technologies here and there in Gor’s world. What would be absurd or incoherent is for it to be there for all to see. A simple pistol is a terrible weapon on Gor, and agents of the Priest-Kings and initiates will do anything to make such a thing and its owner disappear; nobody would want to own one, unless they were insane, or incredibly cautious. Goreans, in general, don’t understand Earth science and technology and despise it completely. They also have a strong religious superstition that encourages them to ignore it and even destroy it out of an abundance of caution.