Little remains of the seven wonders laid out by Elgani Bariarch in his famous nationalist prose poem. The Great Chemical Works would have been been destroyed in Bariarch’s lifetime, while the ancient and mysterious Hall of the Mirror King was demolished not long afterward to make way for a sleeker, more modern facility with more lucrative commercial rental space. The Stone of Screaming Arcturia was lost in the fall of Gul Arcturis Spicu, while the once-magnificent Mall of the Viridias survives only in the ruin of its grandly labyrinthine underground parking complex, having been ground down over the course of a century or more by the steady foot traffic of countless pilgrims seeking solace in troubled times. The Beard of the Bumblebee God appears to have gone extinct by the late 5300s, while the Colossus of Man is evidently an extended metaphor intended to represent, in some lurid detail, Bariarch’s somewhat eccentric theories regarding the ideal human physique. The one specimen to survive to the present day is the Face of Hirith, the lone non-human contribution to the canon, likely included as a concession to Bariarch’s Bazrahin mistress and frequent ghostwriter Ludmilla Jassan.

A number of neo-Bariarchites in the early 5300s attempted to establish a new canon of Viridian wonders to replace the already-vanishing classics, but newer works such as Trashlandia and the Great Hole of Orsinder failed to inspire like the originals. Recreations of the lost wonders may be observed at the Tomorrow Hive’s Viridia Now! living history resort and casino, although the accuracy of their presentation has been frequently criticized by scholars and preservationists.

—Recorder 3000-21