The Platform of Aries is a square platform raised on piles over the Gulf of Mexico, the first of the twelve zodiacal platforms that seal Antiterra: “the beginning of the whole game”. Its law is that of Aries, and it tests those who come to it.
| Type | Place (zodiacal platform) |
| World | Antiterra |
| Location | Over the Gulf of Mexico |
| Sign | Aries (first of twelve) |
| Spanish entry | Plataforma de Aries |
Description
From the water “there is only a kind of mark, with piles, but they must extend very far from the ocean.” It is “a square of a platform, as if it were an oil platform”, resting on piles that reach a remote bottom. It is not in the sea or in Atlantis but above the ocean: “a raised platform… that had risen from below”, large enough for a dragon to land. People live inside it; if the platform falls, “all who live there” die. It stands alone on the water.
The twelve platforms
There are twelve, one per sign: “you see something like 12 dual points, which are those platforms.” Aries is the first, the second is that of Big Bull, the third is in Arizona, and the three form a sequence that can be traveled.
They are dual in three ways: each has two faces; two acosmic guardians, “one malevolent, one benevolent”; and two seats, the second “diametrically opposite, in the other corner of the world”. The counterpart of the Mexican guardian of Aries lives in the north, “closer to the northern people, to a snow queen”, and the two are bitter rivals. If the two guardians destroy each other, “the platform and all who live there are destroyed; it is a hecatomb.”
The law of Aries
Each platform is a test, governed by the moral law of its sign. In Aries “violence reigns, senseless impulse”. One fails by always reacting violently; emotions must be controlled, for “whoever dares without prudence ends up the victim of a mad, unbridled wrath that comes back around”. Whoever kills a guardian “ends up becoming a guardian, if not destroyed or devoured by the platform”. Aries requires a guardian “who watches over freedom”.
Function
The platforms block teleportation (“by something called platforms”), forcing travel by ship, submarine or time. They are Antiterra’s only defense against demonic invasion; the devils lost power over “the domain of the platforms” in an earlier world. They also close the way out: “here you have the problem of leaving Antiterra, which you closed with the platforms.” They can be operated at a distance: “you can move things both from inside the platform and the platforms among themselves.”
Conflicting accounts
- Origin. One version credits the Atlanteans: the platform emerged from the depths of the Gulf. Another credits Graz’zt, who placed the platforms as safeguards “with dual magic”.
- Purpose. They are described as safeguards against demonic invasion. One member of the company read them instead as “straitjackets for madhouses”, locks imprisoning Antiterra with Graz’zt as jailer; this is a personal reading, not established doctrine.
Open questions
- Names and faces of the two guardians of Aries.
- Location and signs of the other nine platforms.
- Size, material, color and condition of the platform, and how many live inside and how.
- What the test consists of and who administers it.
- How the platforms were closed and how they could be opened.