06-15-2010, 02:57 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
By this point, with several life-bearing worlds known spread over many star systems, all with the same kind of life, right down to common, interfertile species in many cases, the Eosians were beginning to get used to the idea, even though they still couldn't reconcile their understanding of evolutionary biology with the empirical facts they encounted in star exploration. Those worlds they had found to carry life had all been either very Eosia-like (more accurately, very Earth like, due to artificial terraforming), or else special cases in which strains of Earth-derived life lived in odd niches. The Eosia-like worlds all orbited F or G or K stars in their 'life-zones', and if some of them seemed more clement than their orbital positions would suggest, it wasn't enough to strain the theoretical models unduly. Naturally, the Eosians searched such stars for life-bearing worlds more intensely than others, since their theoretical models said they were better choices, and practical experience bore that out. But the large majority of all stars are Class M 'red dwarfs', not the blazing G and F suns like Eos and Sol. There are also many cool K stars. An Eosian exploratory vessel, probing around a star on the M/K border, discovered that it did indeed have a planetary system. With such a cool star, the 'life zone' had to be quite close to the star. This, in turn, meant that a world in the life-zone of that system should be 'tide-locked', it's rotation matching it's orbital time. In practice, that meant that one side would always face the star, making for difficult biospheric conditions. But this star system proved to be anomalous. Orbiting close enough to the star for warmth was a wet, Eosia-liked world, with a rotational period of 23.93 hours, even though the year was less than three months! To make matters odder, the next world out was a hard-frozen rockball that was tidelocked. The fast rotation alone was odd, since such an old star system should have had plenty of time to tide-lock the innermost world (the habitable one). But a closer examination revealed another oddity: the habitable world was surrounded by rings of light, or so they appeared. Three rings, to be specific, three apparently perfectly circular, very narrow rings of light, one around the planetary equator, the other two 90 degrees apart in surrounding the planet from pole to pole, all three intersecting at the 'cardinal points', like a framework for the planet. They were about 3000 miles above the planetary sea level, and they emitted a constantly shifting spectrum of visible and invisible EM wavelengths, with no apparent source of energy. Attempts to get close to the 'rings' proved impossible, since they emitted a repulsive force that increased exponentially as a material object approached. Telesecopic observation merely showed that they were 'tubes' of something unknown, about a mile in diameter each, and they showed no deviation from perfect circularity. Radar waves were simply absorbed. Mass detectors revealed nothing, as if the mysterious objects had no mass at all. There was no difficulty in approaching or landing on the world within those rings, which proved to be a living world full of the same Terra-derived life with which the Eosians had become familiar, though in this case it had been a long time since any fresh species were added, and evolution had produced some creatures quite unfamiliar to the Eosians, even with the experience of several living worlds. The plant life, for ex, had adapted to the red-orange spectrum of the local star and the short seasons by producing modified pigments and very peculiar leafy structures and very odd life cycles. But on the cellular/biochemical level, it was still more of the same familiar life. The rings were a total puzzle to the Eosians, something they had to way to analyze or comprehend, but it wasn't long before detailed analysis showed that they were indeed exerting a slight force on the planet itself, to keep it's rotation constant and prevent 'tide-locking', and further that they also acted as a protective barrier against radiations and other dangers from the star so near to the planet. This was, to the Eosians, the final giveaway. Though there had been speculation before of artificial intervention in the spread of Eosia-style life over so many separate worlds, their version of Occam's Razor had always left the hypothesis with little practical support. The ring-frame discovery changed that, since it seemed inconceivable to the Eosians that such a thing could occur 'naturally'. MORE LATER. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-15-2010 at 03:01 PM. |
06-15-2010, 03:05 PM | #12 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
Naturally, there was endless speculation, scientific, religious, philosophical, etc, about the nature of the beings responsible for the 'rings' that kept the above planet from 'tide-locking'. There was also a great deal of largely fruitless scientitic investigation of the 'ring-frame' itself. Unfortunately for the Eosians, they didn't even know the right questions to ask at that point. New discoveries began to come it fairly quickly about this time. As their starships ranged further and further from Eos, the number of stars available for investigation rose enormously. Over the ten years or so after the discovery fot the 'rings-world', they discovered several more living worlds, including two more with the 'ring-frames' around them, one orbiting a gas giant as a satellite, right in the middle of a Jupiter-style radiation belt. In that case, the 'ring-frame' somehow kept the moon-planet from tide-locking to the huge gas giant it orbited and also shielded a rich Terra-style biosphere from the intense radiation (as intense as that around Io). Radiation that would have been fatal to any member of Genus Homo in minutes coursed around that planet. On the surface, inside the ring-frame, the radiation background was actually lower than it was on worlds like Eosia. In yet another star system, they discovered still more strange things: they found a system, with a hot class F primary, that had yet another Eosia-like world, complete with Terra-derived biosphere, in the fourth orbit. More stunning, though, was what they found in the seventh orbit (the system had eight primary planets). Here, they discovered a world quite unlike Eosia or any other living world they had discovered. It was cold, average temperature range running in the neighborhood of -455 degrees F. Only a few degrees above absolute zero, this planet was nevertheless rocky-silicate, with only a modest amount of 'ices'. It had an atmosphere of bizarre composition, with many complex compounds, and oceans of liquid helium. A bit less massive than Earth, its diameter was about that of Venus, and its surface gravity comparable to Venus as well. The planet was an oddity, but it should have been no more than that. What made it so bizarre was that the planet, which should have been so devoid of free energy as to make life there inconceivable, had once been inhabited! The fact of former habitation was unmistakable. The continents of the planet were covered in the ruins of immense cities, with enormous structures falling into decay, great unidentifiable machines decaying away in the windy, thin atmosphere and the stunning, all but incomprehensible cold of the planet. There were four continents, and three of them were nearly or totally covered in the wreckage of cities and other artificial environments, the fourth and largest continent appeared, from what the paleoarcheologists could determine, to have once been used for something approximating agriculture, though they could not immediately see how that had been possible with so little incident light and heat. Naturally, it was clear from the start that this world could never have harbored the familiar, water-and-carbon life that every previously discovered living world was blessed with. Nothing derived from Earth (not that they knew anything about Earth yet) could ever have lived on this world without constant protection of a very high technological order. The planet was lifeless. After extensive searches, it began to become clear that the planet had been dead for a very, very long time. In fact, various forms of dating indicated that the cities had been decaying away for around half a billion years. Only the extreme cold and low-intensity nature of erosive processes on this deep-frozen world, plus the sheer scale of the ruins, had preserved them long enough for H. eostellaristo discover them. Naturally, the dead but once-inhabited world drew scientific and other interest like a magnet draws iron filings. At first, it was thought that this world must have been the source of the beings who had created the great 'ring-frames', but that soon appeared unlikely. These entities had been much more technologically advanced than the Eosians were, but not that advanced. However, many other things were learned about them. These beings had been totally alien. They had used liquid helium as their analogue of water, though just how that had been possible was not clear to the Eosians. They had apparently thrived in temperatures so cold that even the dimly daylit side of their world would have felt uncomfortably warm to them. Meanwhile, the living world in the fourth orbit of the system was largely ignored at first, but with the increase in interest in the seventh planet, the living, warm, Eosia-like world became a very convenient source of food and other consumables, as well as a place to rotate personnel to. A small outpost-colony was establish on this world. Remarkably, it took several years to discover that the fourth world had its own stunning shock for the Eosians, but when they did, the news was electrifying: the fourth planet was inhabited by a race of the same Genus as the Eosians! MORE LATER. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-15-2010 at 03:10 PM. |
06-15-2010, 03:17 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
The Eosian settlement had existed on the fourth planet, known as Baladai, for some years before they discovered that they were not alone (sapience-wise) on the planet. The Eosian settlement (intended mainly as a rest and resupply base for the research on the seventh world) was located on an island, itself uninhabited by the locals, and the two local Human species were both at TL0, with a combined planetary population of only a few million. The two species were _Homo polaris_, occupying the northernmost continent, adapted for extreme (for habitable worlds) cold conditions and arctic and subarctic environs, and _Homo sapiens_, occupying the smaller equatorial continent. A tiny, scattered population of TL0 humans is easy to loose amid the background of a world rich with Terra-derived CHON life. It was the presence of H. sapiens that was discovered first on Baladai. Exploring teams from the Eosian outpost encountered them, and which group was the more surprised would be difficult to say. The Eosians had grown used to the inexplicable presence of familiar life forms on many different worlds, even the same interfertile species, but until now, they had never encountered anything so close to themselves. The closest living kin to themselves that they had encountered had been various apes and monkeys. Some Eosian scientists, in the view of what they had already discovered, had speculated that Man might also exist on other worlds, but few outside of the Eosian equivalent of SF circles and academic environs took the idea entirely seriously, even after the other discoveries that had shaken up Eosian biosciences. After the discovery of H. sapiens on Baladai, yet another shock to the Eosian collective worldview began to spread. It was complicated by the fact, rapidly made apparent by closer examination, that H. sapiens was both full sapient, and a close relative of the Eosians, yet a distinct species. H. sapiens and H. eostellaris were sibling species, but not identical twins. The species were not interfertile, and the differences were both subtle, and sometimes disturbing. One of the most disturbing things the Eosians discovered about their newfound cousins was that they were, by eostellarian standards, fantastically fecund. An H. sapiens female had several chances a year to become pregnant, an H. eostellaris female got one, at best. Further, H. sapiens were more fertile per mating, with a higher chance of successful pregnancy. When the Eosians calculated the potential breeding rate of H. sapiens under good conditions, they were distinctly unnerved. Though the locals were TL0, studies indicated no signs that they were in any way less intelligent than the Eosians. The question of what to do about the discovery rapidly became a major issue in the ruling circles of the Eosian government. There was little to stop them from doing whatever they chose, since the Eosians were a TL 8/9 society by this time, while the local H. sapiens were TL0. As far as they were concerned, the Eosians might just as well have been gods. The discovery of human life on Baladai brought a tremendous amount of additional scrutiny from the Eosians, and it wasn't long, (ten years or so) before explorers discovered H. polaris on Baladai as well. To their relief, H. polaris proved to be far less fertile than H. sapiens, more along the familiar lines of H. eostellaris. But otherwise, they presented similar dilemmas. Two new fully human, sentient species presented the Eosians with moral, legal, and practical dilemmas they had scarcely dared consider up unil this time. MORE LATER. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-15-2010 at 03:22 PM. |
06-15-2010, 03:26 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
Unfortunately, the dilemmas would prove to be badly handled. The Eosians, having encountered many worlds with Earth-derived CHON life by this point, were all too familiar with the possibility of cross-contamination of disease pathogens. It had caused problems already, but even so, they had never before encountered other hominids, and perhaps didn't quite appreciate how much that escalated the potential risk. Eosians went among the H. sapiens, usually in disguises of various sorts, but not always, for purposes of scientific study, or personal curiousity, or less admirable motives at times. Within a year of contact with the population of H. sapiens on Baladai, cross-contamination had occurred, ironically from the locals to the high-tech Eosians. For the first time in their recorded history, the Eosians were exposed to multiple strains of what Terrans would later call 'influenza'. None of them were the specific strains known to modern Terra, of course. But they were close enough cousins to be very dangerous. With no natural defenses against them, and no past experience to base immunity treatments on, the Eosians were remarkably vulnerable. To make matters worse, a ship carrying personnel infected with a particularly nasty strain left the Balasia System before the full extent of the danger was appreciated. Within a few Terran months, an often lethally virulent strain of influenza had spread among the Eosians, faster than quarantine measures could be put into place. While Eosian medical technology proved capable of devising vacinations and cures for the strain, it flashed across known space at the speed of the starships carrying it. The ships were the fastest means of interstellar communication available to the Eosians. (FTL signals were known, but at that time none of their systems had enough range to reach from star to star.) Influenza can be deadly, and the Eosians had not experienced it in long ages, not since their ancestors' days on Earth. The Eosians of this time had utterly forgotten those days, and all they knew was that a nasty plague was loose among them. The death rate in some places ran as high as 15% overall, much higher among the elderly and the very young. News of the spreading pandemic often arrived no faster than the very starships carrying it, until the Eosian governments finally thought to use their fastest, most expensive military courier ships to outrun the infected vessels, thus sometimes enabling protection of civil populations. It took nearly four years for the pandemic to spread across the explored worlds, though they managed to protect Eosia itself, and Eos V, from infection, by dint of extreme efforts. The consequences of the plague would echo down for many centuries in the policies and actions of the Eosians. In the meantime, contagion had gone the other ways as well. In the immediate panic, precautions had been allowed to slip, and diseases common to the Eosians but unknown and deadly to the Baladian Sapients infected them. The death toll among the TL0 Sapients was, ironically, no higher by percentage than among the TL9 starfarers, if only because the local culture was one of far-spread tiny communities and remote tribes, making infection harder and less probable. Still, the population was initially low, making the loses hard to make up. In the aftermath, public anger was aroused, and accusations flew, a situation made the worse by the cold realization that it should never have happened, given the resources of a TL9 interstellar society, it could easily have been prevented by simple precautions. But the damage was done. Exploration did not stop during the pandemic. Indeed, some starships, on long deep-exploratory voyages, only learned of the existence of the plague years afterward when they returned to home port. As the ships ranged further and further out from Eos System, the number of worlds they encountered rose, and even as the last of the plague was burning itself out, starships from Eosia and Eos V were discovering still more worlds with various species of Genus Homo living on them, including three inhabited yet again by H. sapiens. Separated by light-decades or more, these worlds added yet more fuel to a very puzzling fire. MORE LATER. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-15-2010 at 03:33 PM. |
06-15-2010, 03:46 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
In the meantime, advancing technology was enabling Eosian starships to cover larger distances, steadily increasing the number of worlds accessible. They discovered more worlds surrounded by the peculiar rings of 'light', the handiwork of the original beings who had spread their type of life all over known space. While not all life-bearing worlds were marked by those rings of 'light', those in situations which would ordinarily have made them uninhabited often did. Worlds orbiting too close to their stars, or in situations where they should have been tide-locked, tended to have them. Worlds which would otherwise have been bathed in radiation from 'nearby' supernovae often had them. How they worked the Eosians had no idea, they could not approach them closely and they could only observe their effects. Meanwhile, they began to discover more worlds like Balusia VII, worlds which had once been inhabited by those ultra-cold liquid-helium entities. Like Balusia VII, these worlds were uniformly empty of sapient life (but not of subsapient forms, there were many thriving Heliugen biospheres) by the time the Eosians reached them, but they almost all were marked by planetological oddities similar to the first one they found: mostly-silicate worlds in the outer reaches of star systems, almost inconceivably cold, with liquid helium in open lakes and seas, or having once had such. With half a billion years of intervening time and the harsh conditions, paleoarcheologists had a hard time learning much at first, but gradually they began to piece together some idea of the puzzle. The uber-cold life forms, they realized, had been 'of a type', but not all just the same. Much like the various kinds of humanoids the Eosians were encountering as they explored their region of the Milky Way. They already had realized that these cold beings had NOT been the mystery entities who had spread Humanity all over the stars, they had been gone from the stage for hundreds of megayears too long for that, and there was no sign that they had had such powers. Their tech had been ahead of that of the Eosians, but not that far ahead. The clincher for this theory (that the liquid-helium entities had been spread by the same beings who later spread CHON life around) came when the Eosian explorers found one of their worlds, surrounded by the familiar mystery-rings. This world had the familiar liquid-helium 'seas', and its surface temp was appropriate to that. The giveaway was that it orbited a Class G star at a distance comparable to that of Mars from Sol. Somehow, the mysterious rings of 'light' kept the temperature hundreds of degrees colder than it should naturally have been, and screened out most of the brilliant light as well. The mechanism by which this worked was an utter mystery to the Eosians. In the meantime, Eosian science was beginning, a little, to understand the mysterious substance that had enabled them to make spaceflight economical, and faster-than-light travel possible. Along with this understanding came the beginnings of a scientific understanding of the physics of psionics. Though the Eosians at this time were nowhere close to the level of psionic Power the Atlanteans of Earth would later master, they did begin to master some of the rudiments on a large societal scale. By this point, the Eosian planetary government had grown in power to the point that it utterly dominated its breakaway colony on Eos V, and the colonies that had sprung up on suitable worlds all owed allegiance to Eosia. During this period, the Eosian planetary government began to expand into a truly interstellar authority, dominated by a few clans and empowered by the monopoly of the precious orichalcum, of which Eos I was still the only known source. It was just about then that Eosian explorers discovered, in a star system at the very edge of their range of travel, a second source of the mysterious substance. Orbiting a dim Class M dwarf star, they found yet another world that had once been host to the Helians, the liquid-helium entities. Like the others, it had been uninhabited for half a billion years. Since Class M stars are small and cold (at least compared to Sol), and very common, the Eosians had often skipped by them while visiting brighter, hotter suns. But these small, cool stars now proved often to have planets formerly inhabited by the Helians. In this case, the planet was orbited by a moonlet, no more than 100 miles wide, and it proved to be home to a veritable fleet of Helian starships, complete with dimensionator drives chock full of orichalcum, purified and ready to use. It was the most explosive economic and political discovery imaginable. MORE LATER. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-15-2010 at 03:54 PM. |
06-15-2010, 04:24 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
This was, of course, one of the collections of starships assembled in the dying days of the Helian Empire of half a billion years earlier. The ships were far from perfectly preserved. Though they were in a vacuum, and sheltered underground from cosmic radiation and temperature shifts, the ships had been there for a long, long, long time. But they were better preserved in their shallow caverns than they could possibly have been on the surface of any living world. When the news of the discovery broke, the technological, xenoarcheological, and historical importance of it galvanized the scientific community of the Eosian worlds. Helian technology had been considerably more advanced that that available to the Eosians, and these (relatively) well-preserved ships offered a treasure-trove of access to that technology. Those reasons alone would have made the prize almost dangerously valuable. But there were thousands of tons of orichalcum in the engines and other key systems in those ancient vessels. The total monetary value of that fleet's orichalcum content was almost incomprehensible. A gram of orichalcum could purchase, for ex, ten square miles of good-quality land on Eosia or a similar world, or anything of comparable value. It was absolutely indispensable to the interstellar technology of the Eosians, and had other uses as well. To make the new discovery the more precious and dangerous, the only other available source of orichalcum, the mines on Eos I, were showing signs of playing out. Each year, the total yield of orichalcum from those mines in the Great Copper Mass on Eos I dropped by a few grams, and became that much harder to retrieve as the mines went deeper and deeper. Under the laws that governed the growing interstellar community that was spreading out from the Eos System, all orichalcum was the property of the government of the Eosia itself. The only exception was that which was traded to the government of Eos V (the only independent world of H. eostellaris), and since the only source of orichalcum was controlled by the Eosian government, that independence was limited. While starships and other orichalcum-using technology were often the property of individuals or clans, the orichalcum in their workings was considered to be 'rented' from the governmental reserves. This was the foundation, in practical terms, of the government's authority. When the realization that such a huge reservoir of orichalcum had been found, the government on Eosia reacted rapidly, dispatching armed starships and tens of thousands of soldiers and combat machines to the tiny asteroid. Even so, by the time they arrived, raiders and thieves had already struck, making off with modest (but fantastically valuable) amounts of orichalcum, and doing incalculable damage to the historical value of the site in the process. Even once the planetoid was garrisoned, it proved almost impossible to staunch the trickle of smuggled orichalcum out, since the incentives to do so were so enormous. One individual could carry a king's ransom of orichalcum in a hollow boot heel, or in tiny specks in clothing, or any of a dozen other clever ways. Even as the government tried to assert control over the reservoir of orichalcum on the planetoid, the realization spread that all that orichalcum had to have come from somewhere. The ancient, alien Helians had had access to a source of the miracle-material that enabled them to assemble kilotons of it, and if that source still existed, it would be mind-numbingly valuable. Treasure hunters, criminals, and clan and governmental agents of various stripes descended on the archeological sites where Helian records and artifacts might be found, in search of any clue, any hint of the source and its location. The government of Eosia had been in control since the aftermath of the nuclear wars. It was not a particularly harsh or brutal state, but it was strict, and many were chafing under it. It had been a necessary strictness during the years of the recovery, and the restoration of the ecological damage, but by now Eosia was almost fully recovered, and colonies were spreading out over dozens of worlds. The resources and attention of the homeworld's authorities were strained to keep control, driven by all the usual good and bad intentions. The authorities on Eosia knew perfectly well that without the orichalcum monopoly, their chances of retaining central control were nearly nil. Those who were chafing to loosen or eliminate that central control knew it also, and this added to the drive to find the source of the Helians' orichalcum, and it made the temptation of that fleet of starships the greater, since there was more orichalcum in those ruined ships than had been mined in all the history of the mines on Eos I. If a would-be independent clan or world could seize control of that archeological site, or find a similar one, they could easily bid defiance to the orichalcum monopoly of the homeworld. It was really only a matter of time until matters escalated. MORE LATER. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-15-2010 at 04:38 PM. |
06-15-2010, 04:53 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
There were dozens of established, stable extrastellar colonies in existence by this point, and some additional dozens of new, growing colonies that were still somewhat dependent on outside economic and/or political support. All were tied to the home government on Eosia by the orichalcum monopoly. The government on Eosia had emerged out of the chaos and horror in the aftermath of the Brief War, a nuclear exchange, on the homeworld, and by this point it had governed the homeworld and most of the colony planets for just over four Terran centuries. Originally established by the victors of the atomic exchange with the specific goal of restoring peace on Eosia and overseeing the reconstruction of the society and the restoration of the ecosphere, it was by its original nature something of a strict state. It was not a dictatorship, nor particularly brutal, but the laws were strict, punishments for violation were harsh, and the government claimed a large share of everyone's income and resources for collective projects, going back to the restoration of the homeworld's ecosphere. On the other hand, the government had strict internal checks and balances, and if it was harsh, it was also generally regarded as being fair. This enabled it to hang onto power some time after its original chartered purposes (the homeworld reconstruction and ecological repair) were more or less completed. But now it was straining past its abilities to control the diverging interests of homeworld and colony. Now, a coalition had formed of separatist colonies, worlds with sufficient population and technical/industrial base to contemplate independence. The Helian fleet depot was an opportunity such as they were never likely to see again, offering both great risk and great potential rewards. History sometimes turns on impersonal trends and great economic and political forces, or phenomena of nature that are beyond anyone's planning or alteration. But it also sometimes turns on the luck of the draw, on the random chance of one person being in a certain place instead of another. It so happened that at this moment of political tension, the political and social leaders of the separtist worlds chanced to include several fire-eater or risk-taking personalities. They were pre-inclined to the high-stakes gamble. More cautious or responsible leaders might have been hesitant to take such a chance, these were not. So it was that a small but carefully prepared and well-trained assault force launched a surprise attack againt the fleet garrison on the Helian Moonlet, in a straightforward attempt to seize control of the facility. The assault force achieved surprise, but the officers and personnel garrisoning the Helian Depot were among the best the homeworld military had to offer. The surprise attack turned into a bloody affair, with the attackers having the advantage of surprise and superb intelligence, but being badly outnumbered and outarmed. When it was over, the attackers had won, losing well over half their force in the process. The defending garrison was dead to the last man, in part through the agency of several traitors among the civilian personnel of the Depot, 'sleeper' agents pre-planted by the separatist leadership. The separatist leadership had been counting on the garrison to surrender, when they realized that their flank had been turned from within, and that the attackers had seized control of communications and the other key facilities. The intense resistance had caught the separtist political leadership quite off guard. To make matters worse, the defenders had managed to dispatch a courier ship which had fought free, and could be counted on to take word of the attack to the home government, weeks before the planners had intended.[1] It had been a long time (centuries) since the Eosians had engaged in major warfare, they were long on theory and short on experience. The separatists had simply not counted on the possibility that their enemies might not do what the plan called for them to do. The defenders, though disciplined and well trained, had never taken the possibility of a surprise military attack as being a real possibility, that sort of thing happened in history books, not reality. But the die was now cast. The separtists knew they could not turn back, after having raised up arms againt the home government, and killed several hundred officers and men of the home military in the process. When word reached Eosia of what had happened, outrage spread through the public, even as panic spread through much of the elite. All that orichalcum simply could not be left in rebel hands, given time it could make them effectively unbeatable. A race against time began, as the home government strove to gather and prepare a sufficient force to suppress the secession, and the now-terrified and exhilarated (for a fire-eater, both can emotions can go together) leaders of the separtist movement prepared for the assault they knew was coming, and struggled to convert the orichalcum supply they had captured into a real asset. What followed was every bit as bloody as one might have expected. The home fleet, consisting of several thousand starships, some of them actual military vessels, many more hastily-converted civilian starships, set out for the worlds that formed the center of the secessionist alliance. Those worlds were building warships as fast their shipyards could tear orichalcum from the ancient Helian machines. Four subfleets now bore down on those worlds. The public mood on the separtist worlds varied from world to world, and region to region, and person to person. There were many homeworld loyalists, others who were passionate secessionists, and a majority of pragmatic types who wanted to live their lives and survive the coming maelstrom. The governments of the major secessionist worlds ranged from effective autocracies to something like democracies, but all were now equally targeted. The homeworld industrial and technical advantage proved to be sufficient, in the event, to get the punative expeditions to their target worlds before the defenders had sufficient time to build their defenses. But sufficient preparations had been completed to force hard-fought battles in space around each world, with heavy casualties and the outcome in doubt in each case. In the end, of the five major worlds that led the secession effort, the homeworld fleets won the battles around four of them, establishing space superiority. Three of them surrendered at that point, the fourth had to be invaded, and the major cities seized and the leadership captured or killed at considerable cost in lives and treasure. The fifth world, which the Eosians called Char'ryn, was the most heavily defended. The homeworld ships sent there could not establish full space control, though they soon managed to force the secessionists onto the defensive, and the planet was heavily fortified, every city a fortress and the key facilities carefully defended and/or hidden. As might be expected wit such extensive preparations, this planet was the one in which the native population was both the largest (over 100 million) and most solidly in favor of secession. In a decision that would remain controversial among Eosians for thousands of years, the admiral in command of the fleet investing the planet concluded that it was going to take too long to destroy the entire defending fleet, and that until she could do that, she dared not try to land a ground assault force to seize anything on the surface. Further, she dared not retreat or permit them any time to recoup their losses, since they knew large amounts of the stolen orichalcum had been transferred to this rebel world, and would rapidly form the nucleus of even stronger defenses, given time. MORE LATER. [1] Though the Eosians did have FTL signal technology, it was very range limited, and for the most part messages travelled as fast as the ships. The separatists had hoped to keep the home government in the dark long enough to convert their captured orichalcum into an unbeatable strategic advantage. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-15-2010 at 04:59 PM. |
06-15-2010, 05:10 PM | #18 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
Facing those choices, the admiral decided that the only practical option was the most dire. She ordered the planetary population centers, both military and civilian, to be subjected to full nuclear bombardment. The option had been considered from the start, and each investing fleet carried several dozen large ships modified to be basically enormous missile-platforms, capable of launching hundreds of large missiles each with MIRVed payloads. These weapons were intended to be a last-ditch measure, and possibly a threat, most of the planners had not seriously contemplated their actual use. To enhance their use as a threat, they were equipped with enormous warheads, fifty to a missile, each capable of homing in on a separate target, each warhead capable of producing a 200 megaton detonation, each designed to be as radioactively 'dirty' as their builders could manage on short notice. Several crews actually attempted to mutiny when the admiral's order went out, but she held most of the fleet personnel and all the security officers in line. She contacted the leader of the defending fleet, and the head of state of the local government, and gave them 15 minutes to signal surrender, informing them that the alternative was full nuclear bombardment. This colony was the most secession-minded, its leadership (duely chosen by the Eosian version of a popular vote) included some of the biggest natural risk-takers of the entire alliance. A general horror of nuclear weaponry had permeated Eosian culture even since the Brief War 400 years earlier, and the concensus was that the homeworld admiral was bluffing. They made no response, and were still debating what she would actually choose to do when the first reports of nuclear explosions started arriving in the command centers. Admiral Tsheln had not been bluffing. [2] When the remaining defense forces realized that the homeworld force really was launching a full nuclear assault, they themselves made a last, desperate attempt to stop the attack. But forces sufficient to make an invasion unworkable were far from enough to break throug to the missile-platform ships, and dozens of defending spacecraft hurled themsleves to their destruction in an effort that accomplished nothing. Defending ships too far away to make even such a futile effort, and the personnel in the deep shelters below, watched in horror as city after city, town after town, orbital habitat after habitat, were blasted to radioactive rubble. Some of the missiles were shot down by ground defenses or orbital weapons, but there were too many, far too many, to stop them all. The assault fleet launched a bit over 1000 missiles, which in turn erupted into 50,000 warheads. The defenders, working miracles of desperation in striving to protect their homes, families, and society, managed to stop a near-miraculous 25% of the total. The remaining warheads were more than sufficient to do the job. Altogether, roughly 7 teratons of explosive power fell on the rebellious colony that day. Over the course of some 30 Terran hours, a thriving, 250 year old colony world was reduced to a ruin, every city with a population greater than 1000 destroyed, every orbital and moons-based facility destroyed, the population reduced from over 100 million to less than 5 million, lost in a world in which all services were gone, all organization gone, and the air, soil, and water infused with sufficient 'hot' fallout that it would take decades to dissipate. Not only the cities and bases were hit, but the agricultural areas were exposed to multiple sucessive detonations. Only the polar regions were spared direct assault, because there were few people and nothing valuable there to attack. The handful of defending spacecraft that still survived could do nothing but watch in impotent, raging helplessness as their world died. Since the attacking forces were now doing nothing more than defending the missile platforms, they could not even engage them in any useful way. Some of the defending ships died in futile suicide attacks. Others landed, driven by whatever irrational impulse to do so, whether seeking survivors, or merely driven mad. A few defending ships, with better equipment than the patchwork that had been hastily prepared for the defense, made for open space, seeking escape. Most got away, the attacking forces spared them little attention.[1] When the last of the immense explosions had passed, when there was no trace of resistance, and indeed no sign of remaining intelligent life on the rebel world able to do so much as raise a radio signal, the attackers were left with little to do but look down at their handiwork. Great firestorms were still burning all over Charr'yn, and much of the planet was shrouded in cloud and smoke. The full extent of the damage was beyond any easy assessment. Admiral Tsheln ordered her fleet back to Eosia, and retired to her chambers, and she issued no further communication to her personnel throughout the return journey. Upon their arrival in the Eos System, when word spread of what had been done, to say that it was controversial is to fail of description. Arguments broke out, within the government and within the general population. Some considered it to have been the lesser evil, compared to what would otherwise have been an ongoing war. Others called for Tsheln's head on a platter, preferably removed without anesthesia. Even the military command elite was divided about the wisdom and morality of her actions. Even as Charr'yn had been dying, another fleet had managed to seize the Helian Depot, thus regaining the orichalcum supply that had set the entire horror into motion. The battle there had been bloody, but fought between professional soldiers and spacers on both sides. The news from Charr'yn turned victory celebrations on Eosia and the loyalist worlds into...something else. As it would happen, Tsheln would make the intense, world-wide debate about her fate moot. Shortly after their return to Eosia, she was found dead in her personal chambers, deceased from a self-induced poisoning. Even her death was controversial, some thought her motivated by unbearable guilt, others thought she intended to spare her homeworld the divisive debate over her fate. Others called her a coward unable to face the consequences of her actions. Her defenders thought she had been unfairly hounded and cursed, her detractors often publically expressed regret that her death had been so painless. Whatever the case, as word spread across space of what had happened at Charr'yn, controversy erupted everywhere. However, the rebellion did end. The level of ruthlessness displayed sent a shiver through both loyalist and secessionist, and with the home government in control of that immense orichalcum supply again, there was no hope of constructing any defense that could not be overwhelmed, if the homeworld was prepared to use such extreme measures.[3] The secession war had lasted, all told, about 2 Terran years. It had ended in a victory for the homeworld that tasted of ashes and recrimination, in a defeat for four of the primary would-be separtists that would leave them under occupation for a generation, and in the death of millions of innocents on Charr'yn. It was a victory that would haunt winner and loser alike. Life went on, of course. But about that... MORE LATER [1] Take note of those escaping ships, we may hear from them again ere the full tale is told. [2] The Charr'yn leadership had some reason to think she might have been bluffing, it should be noted. Admiral Tsheln had been known as a voice of conciliation in the past. Her attitude had always been that force should be a last resort, and she was also known for various humanitarian activities on her own. She was a well known figure in the homeworld government, and a member of the most prestigious of the dominat clans of Eosia, and was generally considered to be a moderate voice. In this case, they misread her disastrously. [3] The importance of the orichalcum that set the war in motion can be understood by the fact that if the people of Charr'yn had been given a couple of Terran years to work with that huge supply of the substance, they could fairly easily have defended themselves even against Tsheln's nuclear saturation attack. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-15-2010 at 05:38 PM. |
06-17-2010, 10:19 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
The aftermath of the secession war was confused, and anxious. The former separatist worlds were under occupation by homeworld forces, other planets who had been quietly sympathetic to the separatist movement but stayed on the sidelines (much to their relief after news of what happened to Charr'yn spread) were nervous, still torn between the desire for independence and the realization that the home government was apparently playing for keeps. The 'victorious' homeworld was exhausted. Given the rarity of orichalcum, and its value for countless processes, the unity government on Eosia had never actually maintained a spatial war fleet, per se. Such a thing would have been an extravagant use of orichalcum that could be more profitably and practically used elsewhere. Instead they had maintained a small force of warships, plus a reserve force of merchant ships and other vessels 'under contract' in case of emergency. This was how the central government had managed to assemble its warfleet with such apparently swiftness, by invoking its 'emergency clauses' with the owners of the various ships for which the government provided orichalcum. But in doing so, the government had necessarily brought interstellar and interplanetary trade and commerce to a near halt. Due to the range and cost limitations of their FTL signalling technology, even interstellar communications had effectively halted, except for emergency high-priority messages, mostly military, during the war period. The economy, inevitably, had been hurt. Interstellar shipping and communication were a modest-sized but vitally important element of the economy of the Eosian worlds, and the government calculated that the economy had shrunk, overall, by about 10% during the war period. Tax revenues had fallen with it, and the central government now found itself saddled with an enormous war debt. Many starships had been destroyed or damaged beyond repair during the fighting. Since most of those ships had been private or semi-private vessels called up using the emergency clauses, the government owed some recompense to the owners. The shortage of shipping was acute, with the result that even after the state of war ended, cargoes and messages sat idle, waiting for an available ship to carry them. Many shipyards had been damaged or destroyed, and much of the precious orichalcum had been scattered into space as clouds of vapor, beyond recovery. Many citizens of Eosia and the loyalist worlds had friends and relatives among the separatists. Charr'yn itself had been a popular colonial destination, and the dead of that world had many living kin on the loyalist worlds. Even among the 'winners' of the secession war, there was much bitter recrimination and great confusion. For the scientific and historical communities of the Eosian civilization, the war had brought additional tragedy. The Helian fleet depot that had served to trigger the disaster had been a treasure of knowledge. It was the best, most perfectly preserved example of Helian technology, records, and even what had passed for aesthetics among the helium-beings. Each of the ancient starships had been a precious, irreplaceable gem of potential knowledge. Naturally, the depot had not fared well during the war. The initial assault through which the separatists had seized control had done considerable damage, but that was nothing compared to what followed. The entire point of the seizure was to gain access to the kilotons of orichalcum in the engines and systems of the ancient starships, which meant tearing apart the ships. Since the separatists were in a desperate hurry, they had not taken any time to preserve anything else as they tore out the miracle-substance, not even making any systematic record of what was being torn apart. When the central government recaptured the depot, they too had used extensive force, and in the ensuing combat even further damage had been done to the site. By the time the war was over, there was little left of the former archeological treasure than rubble. Just as desperate for orichalcum to rebuild their resources as the separatists had been for orichalcum to defend themselves, the central authorities had little choice but to mine out even more of the material. To their credit, they did try to preserve what they could as they mined out the rubble, but it was too late, and they could spare little time, since the demands were insatiable. Given their realization that all that knowledge had been crushed and destroyed, on top of the horror the discovery of the site had brought to the Eosian worlds, many in the academic community of the culture might be forgiven a supersitious suspicion that the entire site was cursed. For the highest authorities of the homeworld government, however, the entire situation had another desperate edge: the realization that the peace was unstable. Many of the would-be separatist worlds still had substantial movements that (very quietly) continued to advocate and work for just that. The very act of extreme force that had ended the secession movement in the short term had sown the seeds for a greater one later, and some of the politicians on the loyalist planets were wise enough to perceive that. There were various factions within the unity government that advocated various approaches to the problem. Hard-liners and conciliators, imperialists and isolationists, and a dozen other combinations argued back and forth during the years immediately after the secession war and the destruction of Charr'yn. But now, again, history was to turn based on the luck of who happened to be where. Just as the fact that a group of fire-eaters happened to be in control on the richest and most fractious colony-worlds had led to utter disaster, the luck of the draw that t so happened that the leadership of the central government on Eosia at that time was made up of a more restrained set of personalities would change the course of events. One politician in particular would prove critical to this process. His name would be Anglicized as Rsehlsar, and he had just recently taken up a seat in the highest legislative body of the central government. He was of middle years by the standards of his species and his culture and tech level, an experienced and respected but not visibly unusual politician and aristocrat. He had risen to his rank by a combination of hereditary position, political horse-trading, and electoral success, allowing him to cast himself as the compromise choice in a divisive election.[1] Under the surface, Rsehlsar was looking past the short-term implications of the victory in the war and the needs of reconstruction, and reaching unpleasant conclusions about the chances of the central government retaining power beyond the next few years. Rsehlsar understood, better than most of his fellow legislators, that the authority of the central government rested primarily on two pillars: the habit of obedience and the acknowledgement of its legitimacy among its subjects, and the all-important orichalcum monopoly. Rsehlsar also knew that neither pillar was made of stone. Rsehlsar recognized that as new colonies were founded, farther and farther from Eos System, the intangible bonds of legitimacy would eventually weaken and snap, especially as mature colonies themselves became centers of further colonization. Distance would erode the sense of unity, and new loyalties would inevitably form in their place. Self-interests would diverge, memories would fade. Rsehlsar also recognized the orichalcum monopoly was inherently unsustainable, since it was almost certainly only a matter of time before more such supplies of orichalcum as the fleet depot were found. The few records of the Helians that Eosians had been able to comprehend hinted of many such depots and 'garages' spread across the galaxy, and all that orichalcum had to have a source. Already, the thoughts of many people were turning to the hope of finding that source, and the desire could only grow with time. To make matters worse, the orichalcum mines on Eos I were showing the first clear signs of playing out. At the height of their operations, only a few metric tons per year of orichalcum had been produced, and the fleet depot had contained more of the material than had been mined in the entire history of the mines on Eos I. Now, each year the yield of orichalcum fell by a few grams. It was getting more and more difficult and expensive to mine out ore bodies that were of lower and lower quality. Rsehlsar knew that discreet analyses by the mine authorities indicated that the yield was likely to start falling sharply within another 20-40 Terran years. Though some others were aware of these facts, Rsehlsar was giving them more thought than most, and more creative thought. The plan he formed for dealing with the problems he saw on the horizon would change Eosian history. MORE LATER. [1] Eosian society was dominated by clans at every level of society, but there were also democratic, monarchical, and oligarchical elements to their central state. Successful politicians needed both the right ancestry and the ability to appeal to the larger public. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 06-17-2010 at 10:33 PM. |
06-17-2010, 10:49 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: The Eosians...
LATER.
The plan he came up with was tricky to implement, and in fact he had to put it into effect over the course of several years, with a considerable element of misdirection and stealth. It cut across the short-term self-interest of quite a few powerful individuals and groups, and it in some ways ran counter to the natural tendency of human nature. But Rsehlsar was patient, capable, and ready to take a long view. He had to move carefully, defending his own political position as he did, but in the end, over course of thirty Terran years, he succeeded in gradually implementing his idea. To condense decades of political activity into a short description, he convinced the government of Eosia to agree to the establishment of a sort of interstellar trade association, or so he sold it. That alone took over 5 years of effort, and then, working behind the scenes, he built on that, gradually transforming the trade association into something more powerful, able to serve as an arbitrating authority. In the meantime, he worked quietly with the political groups that favored separatism on the colonies, sometimes aiding them, sometimes opposing them, as the need dictated. Twenty three years after the nuclear destruction of the population of Charr'yn, several additional colonies had grown in population and economic status to the point that they were chafing under rule from Eosia. Furthermore, the remaining older colonies were now older yet, and memory of what had happened on Charr'yn had begun to fade a little, with the arrival at adulthood of a generation born after the event. The authority of the homeworld government over the colonies was tricky to maintain. They were too far away and too lightly populated (compared to the teeming billions on Eosia) for any sort of democratic representation to work, the clans were too intertwined for aristocratic connection, and the practical economic and political power disparity meant that no matter how things were arranged, the government of the colonies and Eosia under one homeworld government meant that the colonies were effectively imperial possessions. When the secession movements began to agitate seriously again, Rsehlsar was ready. At a carefully chosen moment, he presented what seemed like a sudden stroke of genius as a compromise, but was in fact the result of years of careful preparation and 'seeding the ground'. Rather than try again to force all the fractious colonies into submission (a trickier effort this time around, since there were more of them), the homeworld government preempted the secessionists by offering the more 'mature' colonies independence voluntarily. Along with that, Rsehlsar arranged for the colonies to be offered membership in an interstellar league of sorts, which he fashioned around the seed-crystal of his trade association. It was a much harder thing to accomplish than it sounds, and it was the culmination of his life's work to make it happen, but Rsehlsar pulled it off, by dint of hard work, personal ability, a dose of luck, and more than a little underhanded maneuvering. The design of the new interstellar organization was a stroke of genius on the part of Rsehlsar. The government of Eosia itself, still far, far more powerful and wealthy than any four or five of the colonies together, retained control of the planet Eosia and the Eos System (except for Eos V). They 'graciously' deeded control of the orichalcum mines on Eos I to the new association, which would distribute the miracle-material to the member-governments in proportion to the population, seniority, and other factors of a world, according to a formula agreed to beforehand. This made membership in the association irresistible for the colony governments, since it guaranteed their access to the indispensable orichalcum. The government monopoly on the substance that had been held by the homeworld government was transferred to the association, as was an agreement that any future supplies of the substance would be likewise distributed thus. It was the triumph of Rsehlsar's career to establish this new order, and having done so, and having peacefully arranged the transformation of the Eosian colonial empire into a loose but peaceful commonwealth, he then retired to his estates, content to leave the future to others, his work completed. :) Well...not quite. Though it made a good PR line. In fact, though Rsehlsar did officially retire from public life, the top officials of the homeworld government and the new interstellar government were proteges of his, he had 'holds' on still others, and for practical purposes he retained the behind-the-scenes political power for many years. Rsehlsar would be the unofficial guiding hand over the new body for over 40 years, until his natural death. The new interstellar association was called by a name that would translate into English as something like 'the Eosian Arbitration', or perhaps the 'Eosian Moderation', neither of which makes much sense. For convenience, we shall call it the Eosian Hegemony. The highest official, though, we can comfortably call the Grand Arbitrator. It was, in fact, only just barely a government. The plan Rsehlsar had devised gave the planetary (and sometimes subplanetary) governments nearly total sovereignty over their internal affairs. This was one of its selling points. The Hegemony basically arbitrated disputes between member-worlds, and distributed orichalcum from the dwindling source of supply. Another selling point of the plan was that no world could be refused its share of the substance for any reason. No matter what form of government, form of society, or whatever else occurred on a planet, in theory as long as it remained a member of the Hegemony, its supply of orichalcum was guaranteed. Rsehlsar knew that this last was critical to the long-term stability of the Hegemony. If control of the orichalcum supply was ever used as a source of political leverage, the system was likely strain apart before long. He also knew that the Hegemony could make itself useful in other ways, and under his unofficial leadership (the first three Grand Arbitrators were so much under his sway that they might as well have been animatrons), the Hegemony did just that. By maintaining an exploration service, the Hegemony could keep track of new worlds and new discoveries, and of course search for new sources of orichalcum in the process. This gave planetary governments another reason to support the Hegemony, since they were guaranteed access to any orichalcum found, and it spared them the expense of paying for their own survey services. By acting as a banking authority, and establishing a few standards of trade, the Hegemony reinforced its light but solid authority. Rsehlsar also managed to establish the precedent that any colony that reached a certain minimum level of population, organization, etc, would be considered an indpendent world, making it unlikely any one government could dominate enough worlds to control the Hegemony. The final triumph Rsehlsar managed was that he was able to integrate other Homosentient species into the Hegemony. Inevitably, on the worlds where Eosians found other human species, those Homosentients eventually began to learn the technologies, techniques, etc of Eosia. The first non-eostellaris government to be admitted to the Hegemony came just a few years before the death of Rsehlsar, and the peaceful precedent it set was his last great triumph. By the time Rsehlsar died, and his unofficial but firm hand was removed from the helm, the Hegemony had grown to include 40 planets, including Eosia. One hundred Terran years later, it had grown to 100 worlds. As Rsehlsar had foreseen, other caches of Helian starships were found, the first some 20 years after his death, and so were other reserves of purified orichalcum left behind by the helium-based creatures. The careful planning Rsehlsar had put into the Hegemony paid off, enabling the material to be distributed with only political and social and economic arguments, not violence. Two hundred years after Rsehlsar died, the Hegemony had grown to include 300 planets, and 393 governments, since not all worlds were unified. Three hundred years after the death of its founder, the Hegemony contained 500 worlds, by 500 years after his death, it had grown to 10,000. Most of those worlds were Eosia-like, and settled by colonists from Eosia or one of the other colonies. There were many, many Eosia-like (actually Earth-like) worlds, since the Familiar Eldren had terraformed well over a billion of them, and the vast majority held no native sapient life. Even so, the Hegemony discovered dozens of worlds with Homosentients on them. Most of these Homosentients were technically primitive, TL0 or TL1, and out of the two dozen or so species the Hegemony encountered, the most numerous was H. sapiens. But so well had Rsehlsar planned that the Hegemony was able to absorb the various Homosentient species into its structure with only a minimum of trouble. The very lightness and looseness of the Hegemony made it very enduring, and able to adjust itself easily to changing conditions. MORE LATER. |
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