Side-Write: Retrospective

So I've been focusing a lot on the emotional conflicts involved and the more intimate details between Saphron and Mala, but I've been deliberately avoiding getting into the details of the greater context around them. Partly because I hate naming things. But it's getting to a point where I probably shouldn't put it off any longer.

So today I decided this Side-Write would be a good time to really sit down and explore some background with Saphron's people, to actually put some names to them and such. None of this is finalized of course, as usual it's not officially canon so much as an insight into "what may be" and the creative process. I hope it's an interesting read!

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In the orbit of an especially bright binary star system, there formed a planet that eventually developed the mixture of components necessary for life. It was the fourth furthest from the suns themselves, and by the galactic standard it was a cold planet with a long year. Water stayed liquid near the equators, but the northern and southern hemispheres dropped below water's freezing point for about three-quarters of the year, only thawing for their respective summers. For a long time, one-third of the planet was covered by its ice caps.

Over time, life bloomed on the planet. First in the oceans, then on land. Tiny creatures developed the habit of giving birth to live young and nurturing them further from their teats, giving rise to mammals. Eventually, one species rose to hunt and devour the smaller mammals: agile quadrupeds suited to stealth and pouncing. They developed thick winter coats that let them survive the winters, and keen noses to let them find hibernating prey in their burrows. This forced the prey to burrow deeper and search for ways to more completely hide from the world, even letting sheets of ice form over their homes to hide them.

It's believed that this is when the hunters developed the use of tools, to excavate in the ice for food. Somewhere along the line, the hunters began to walk upright, to allow them greater use of their front paws to manipulate and create tools. Their brains grew larger as more complex use of tools ensured better survival through the building of shelters and elaborate equipment. But it was at the equator that roaming bands of these hunters learned the art of animal husbandry, that if they kept enough prey alive in a herd, and encouraged them to breed, and fed them plenty, that there would be enough meat available that they would no longer have to roam in search of food to survive. This allowed the formation of permanent homes, and towns, and eventually, cities.

These animals had become a people, budding up in many different areas of the world, mostly in a ring around the middle. Language sprouted up in many forms, as did war. In a long, bloody conquest, one conqueror drew a full ring around the world, killing all who defied her, and eventually united the people under a single sigil, forced them to speak a single language. Any of those savages who lived in the periphery, wandering north or south of civilization, were defiled, even killed, unless they learned to speak the one true tongue, to become part of what was touted the first enlightened society.

Of course, this empire eventually fell, and various other nations rose and fell. The people gradually grew prosperous, and some had enough free time to ask questions, to stop and think, to discuss philosophy and develop scientific practices. And for a long time, they believed they were the only civilized people, indeed the only intelligent beings in the universe, chosen by the gods to rule over all the lesser creatures in existence.

This ended with the discovery of the radio wave. At first it was an exciting development in communication, but it did not take long to notice a strange noise on the more sensitive and developed equipment. Curious scientists collaborated to create even more extensive arrays, and found that the bizarre noises came from the sky. It was a chaos of noise, but the more they studied it, developing recording equipment to let them study it all and search for patterns, the more certain they became: there was life beyond their world, somewhere amid the stars. Not just another people, but a fathomless multitude of people with different languages, different vocal profiles, different methods of communication be it through sound or other things they couldn't even identify until later. They were far from alone: they were one of many, and they were surrounded.

This is the origin of my people, the F'nlum. We are a proud people, and though there has been much warring in our history, we strive to become better than we were. Ever since we discovered the transmissions raining down from the heavens, we have been fascinated with them. We listen to the chaos of the galaxy, and we struggle to understand what is happening out there. With every step we take to decipher their sophisticated transmissions and to translate the countless languages out there, the world comes together to speculate and wonder about these distant people, to discuss how we might interact with them, how we might contribute to these discussions and conflicts, what we agree and disagree with. It seems there is some measure of civilization and interstellar organization out there, but there is also deception, betrayal, and even war. Propaganda, and campaigns to spread awareness of what could easily be lies, or true atrocities. Many things we'd consider a violation of basic sapient rights seem to be treated as commonplace out there. Over the decades that followed, we learned a great deal about why we should fear the stars in the sky. And yet, we also found an unstoppable desire inside us to reach them.

Our world is named after an old word for warmth: Sshrkm. It used to represent the belief that the planet itself was warmth, but cold crept in like an invader that had to be repelled. Now, there's a good deal of irony in the fact that our industrial revolution has raised the temperature of the planet by several degrees, beating back the cold and giving truth to the planet's name. The ice caps have melted significantly, forming new "warm oceans" where there used to be land, and few of us even grow our winter coats anymore, though some believe that our habit of wearing clothes is partly responsible. Thankfully, we've been gleaning some insight into technology from our neighbors in the stars to help propel us forward, and advances in atomic energy have helped us reduce our pollution dramatically. It's clear that many of them out there are far beyond us. There are plenty of factions among the F'nlum that say we should avoid traveling out there or making meaningful contact with aliens, but our natural curiosity and desire to explore and expand cannot be restricted by such cautions forever. We want to see the other people of the galaxy, and we want to see other worlds. The idea is so fascinating that every child grows up now dreaming of joining the stellar navy, and as a tentative sort of peace finally settles in our world, nations giving up their borders to be part of the World Republic while resources grow abundant and population stabilizes, the reasons not to reach out to other stars are dwindling away.

I was a small child when our first FTL craft embarked on a journey beyond the solar system. The ship was cobbled together from a thousand carefully collated hints into the technology gleaned from transmissions we now know were centuries old. It was still over a year round trip, but it was incredibly exciting nonetheless, and everyone awaited the return of each exploratory voyage with an almost universal exhilaration. There was tension to it as well, of course: our ships could travel faster than our communications now, so we literally couldn't hear back from them until they returned. It was almost like the days of old again.

But after a few trips to nearby stars to test and refine our technology, we finally embarked on the trip that had been seen as most immediately necessary by all F'nlum kind since we first discussed the possibility: traveling to meet our nearest neighbor.

Their society only seemed to be a little older than ours, so we'd almost expected them to be the ones to visit us, but they didn't seem to advance quite as quickly as we did. We'd tried communicating with them despite the round trip on a single call taking many years, but they seemed strangely reticent to communicate with us. We probably should have taken the signs more seriously, but for all the fearful wailing of the xenophobes among us, we were desperate to make first contact.

The first craft we sent to their world never returned. A couple years later, we sent a more cautious probe, but it could find no trace of our craft. Some accident with the FTL drive, perhaps? We knew it wasn't entirely stable yet, we'd been pushing hard to get to this point. Our probe had kept its distance and received no reply from the people of that distant world, so it returned home quickly. We had many questions, and no answers. We set up an array of deep space relays: tiny, stationary listening devices equipped with a bank of minuscule probes barely able to sustain an FTL reaction, to carry a message home faster than the speed of light. Finally, we picked up the last transmission of our first diplomatic voyage across the stars.

They were begging for peace until the last second.

I graduated from law school into a world mobilizing for war. I was steeped in the grief and anger of a worldwide society stung by betrayal. Some said we should wipe them all out. Others said we should just prepare to defend ourselves. Still others suggested a show of force to open diplomatic channels, or to demand reparations. Anger and fear. I wasn't immune to it. I don't know what I really believed deep down, but when I found myself on stage, my words moved people. To fight.

So when the aliens finally spoke to us... to command us to surrender ourselves to their superiority... I suddenly became very popular. I found myself high in the government, discussing on councils how to deal with the alien threat. I helped organize the construction of massive shipyards in the once useless, frozen stretches of Sshrkm, now perfect for forging certain hardy, spaceworthy components to launch and assemble in space. On the screen I promised that our wrath was righteous. In private, I found a wife, had a child, and quietly doubted the necessity of war.

Saphron grew up entirely inside the span of our first interstellar war. It had looked like it wouldn't take long at first, but they managed to steal our people, and our technology with it, and fought back harder in the end than we had expected. The war dragged on, and fear turned to dread, grief to misery, fury to hate. Somewhere along the way, I found myself propelled into the highest seat on the planet, without particularly wanting to be there. I was the face people trusted to get the job done, to make the slimes pay, to take back our loved ones and carve a blood price out of those monsters for those that have died.

I just wanted it to be over. I want Saphron to live in a peaceful world, like my parents had. But... I don't want to be the warmonger anymore. I don't want to be the one to turn this from a war to a slaughter. If the people want genocide, I will kill myself before I give that order.

We found a way out. A way to end it, without any more death. But... it means giving them my only child. Of all the stupid, awful things that could come of this war... I thought I could at least protect Saphron. Hell, half the reason I accepted such a prestigious position was, if the war did go poorly, my family would be among the most securely protected people on the planet.

I'm the most powerful man on the planet, and I still can't get what I want. I feel like the gods are mocking me. I'm sorry, Saphron. Please... find some way to make this work. Come home again, whole and safe. And, if you can... bring peace back with you. I can swallow my pride if you can do what I can't.