[caption id="attachment_885" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A star rising against the horizon of CRM-114, the smallest planet in Albarricu"]
[/caption]Though it may never be known, there is evidence to corroborate that the Kulvalen can see the future, albeit as a sea of possibilities contrary to the beliefs of the desperate flock that seeks their counsel on many things. Add to it their cynicism and they turn out to be a diplomatic nightmare. However, their inherently non-violent nature ensured that diplomacy was unnecessary: the Kulvalen could roam the star systems without having to present identity proofs or opportunities for belligerents to complicate existing stratagems.
After the Second Bianumium War, which saw large-scale consolidations of the mines and the defeat of the Miners' Imperium, the United Galactica was set up to coordinate the production and export of the metal to other star systems while setting up a joint pool of funds and other resources. Every year, the member unions contributed 5% of their net profit (not income) into this pool, which was then mobilized by the Galactic Treasury for various necessities.
[caption id="attachment_880" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A view of the Imperium's estates on Kanos"]
[/caption]Even though enmities prevailed and old causes threatened to topple small establishments, they did not disrupt the larger workings of the UG. Planets were explored and terraformed, peoples were scattered and began to civilize, a booming economy began to emerge that employed the local commodity currents to grow, and a pan-galactic stability threatened to overcome their being. Fortunately or unfortunately, an incident occurred on the Tas-Orm system that brought to light many of the factors and entities that the UG had taken for granted.
The Tesselar community in the system's fourth quadrant had, over the course of two decades, subjugated the local Kulvalen community to a position of inferiority amongst the Tesselari. An isolated incident in the same period - wherein a Kulvalen boy had been falsely accused of injuring a local civil servant - resulted in the hegemony devolving into a pogrom, leaving hundreds dead.
[caption id="attachment_882" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A Tesselari street at night"]
[/caption]The Kulvalen representative on the UG subsequently threatened to withdraw the supply of essential information and knowledge to the whole of Tas-Orm if immediate and prompt action was not only promised but also taken. While the board knew it was within the reaches of the Ormar race to attain such information gathering systems, the incident itself would provide enough fodder for any finger-pointing in the future. However, the ensuing jailing raised concerns about how the Kulvalen were contributing to the Ormar – and not just to some communities – whether they were, apart from being "more informed", worthy of being treated as equals in a capitalist society where money paid for money.
The threat of a mass-ousting looming on the horizon, accompanied by increasing complications within the UG, the Kulvalen finally understood their need for retaliation and instigated the enslaved Hondar to rebel against the Ormar using their various administrative positions. At the same time, with greater quantities of bianumium now available to them through the Hondar, a telepathic communication device was fashioned that enabled the Kulvalen to accurately coordinate their moves. All of a sudden, there was an inversion of positions: the Kulvalen and Hondar were the predators and the Ormar were prey. With the local economy collapsing, the UG proving moot and the exodus of hundreds of millions of refugees to neighbouring star systems, the Aeni intervened.
Belonging to the Lernal Galaxy, the Aeneas were the last of the humans in the entire Universe. Even though they numbered in the thousands of trillions now, an old war they had waged against the Ormar still stung them: in the Earth year 8221 AD, some legions of Ormar retreating from some other engagement came upon the Intersolar Consortium, a system of 200 planets that the humans had colonized.
[caption id="attachment_878" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="'Aeneas Flees Burning Troy', Frederico Barocci, 1598; the Aenear Humans are named after the hero of Virgil's epic poem."]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_884" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Scheme of an Ormarian battlecruiser"]
[/caption]Even though it would eventually be revealed that the aliens were a band of traitors and cowards, they projected an aggressive and war-like image that drew the humans to war with them. A Pyrrhic victory resulted and, eventually, only a few million humans survived. Having captured the spaceships, they renamed themselves the Aeni and traced the invaders' route back to Tas-Orm, in the neighbourhood of which they established the human - rather Aenear - stronghold of Dardanoi.
The intervention of the Aeni only meant more defeats for the Ormar. However, the Hondar, realizing that if outsiders became involved in a war for their lands, the reinstitution of equal race rights wouldn't remain the only outcome of what came to be called the Tripolar War (Aeni vs. Ormar vs. Kulvalen-Hondar), raging for close to a millennium. Towards the end, the Kulvalen-Hondar alliance had fractured into two factions: some of the Hondar, not acknowledging the possibility of an Aenear threat, forged a symbiotic relationship with the Aeni, resulting in a fourth front that emerged ultimately victorious.
While the Ormar had been routed, it was not thorough and pockets of rebels remained to be found in both the star systems as well as scattered across the Universe. Tas-Orm was renamed Tas-Honid and the Kulvalen-Hondar reigned supreme therein. Unfortunately, wounds still remained as was evidenced by the sundering of the Hondar and a new Cold War between Tas-Honid and Dardanoi.
No comments:
Post a Comment