Fanfiction and world-building exercise; Beta Lyrae, Caitians and Ferasans in a truly non-canon way..

patrickngo

In the beginning was the Fanged God, whose Name it is forbidden to speak.

The Fanged god reached forth from the darkness of chaos, and grasped the forge of worlds. He was angry, and he was lonely, for nothing existed but the Chaos and the forge, no sky, no sun, no night and no day, no food for his belly and no kin to share it with.

First, the Fanged god built the land, dragging the screaming not life of chaos into order, creating the Seed, to place on the forge. He struck the seed, and unleashed the Stars, and fire so very hot, the hot winds, which coalesced by his will into the Stars, its breath cooling as it grew to create the Sky, and then the Land, and then, the wet. The dry and the wet raged with the cold and the hot, lands rose and fell, and for a time, the Fanged god was amused.

but not for long, for his loneliness and his hunger persisted.

First he tried to deal with loneliness, but he lacked skill, and the things he made for companions were void of thought, crude, and clumsy. His works refined the crudeness, moving from shell, to scale, to feather, to fur.

but they were not companions, and he hungered yet more, until it tore at him from within, and in his frustration, he ate one of his creations...

and found it good.

And so the Fanged god did invent the Meat animals, the insect and the reptile, the avian and the furred meat.

but he was still so very lonely, he did meditate, on the chaos, the chaos that bore him, seeking a spirit with a mind, to bring into this world he had made.

after much time, he found one, and it was SHE.

SHE was like him, SHE had consciousness, had order to her thoughts, and SHE looked upon his works and was pleased, SHE came into his presence, and did dine on the Meat Animals, and whispered of greater things, inspiring him.

and they did mate. and from the SHE, came three sons.

One son, was Golden haired and fine, Oldest son, he was gifted with strength and grace. His fur was drawn from the light of the sun itself, and he would rule the great savannahs. His gift from Father was craftwork, and he was taught by Mother to grow food.

Second Son was as Dark as his older brother was golden, with rich, thick black fur, greater strength and nearly equal grace. He was made handsome of countenance, and so he was given the gardens of trees, the forested lands and the foothills rich in game and soil. His hands found wood easily shaped, and he made many great gifts for SHE and the Fanged God with his deep affection and faith.

Third Son, was deformed. Shorter than his brothers, with stocky legs and a deformed, tiny tail, he lacked the wit of Second Brother or the Strength and Grace of Oldest Brother. SHE banished him to the poorest lands, the cold lands to the far north and south, the almost barren mountain lands where the touch of the sun came with biting cold and the wet froze solid for much of the year, but Third Son had his talent too-he endured hardship more easily than his brothers, having never felt his mother's love or his father's pride. Third Son's other 'gift' was his father's rage.

In time, mates came to gather with First Son on the Savannahs, and with Second Son in the forests and coastal plains. They were beauties and they were fertile.

Third Son's mate? she was as deformed, as graceless and unfinished, as he was-cast out early, to live or die in the barren, wasted lands.

and so, on "The land of the Fanged God" which is called "Fera'asa" were the three peoples created-the Tall and strong golden peoples of the plain, the cunning and strong Darkened peoples of the forest, and the stubborn, brutal, foolish Mountain peoples of the cold wastes, who would envy their richer cousins, but whose families would always be smaller, and weaker, unable to take more than they could carry away before the larger tribes could chase them down.

As the peoples grew, they learned new things, and built cities, trading in knowledge and defending against their savage cold-adapted cousins. The people of the Second son were drawn to the warmer lands, and prospered, the people of First Son took the temperate lands, being the strongest and best for fending off the descendents of Third Son.

but all was not always well, for there came a time when the Fanged God hungered again, and sought to devour the peoples-he devoured thousands from the Second Son's kin, with fire and with water. He devoured legions of the Golden Son's children..

and Third Son's get choked him with their foulness, their rage, their poverty and their ignorance, and above all, with their violent ferocity, instead of being devoured by the thousands as their cousins had been, the Mountain peoples devoured The Fanged God, right down to his name, leaving SHE to weep at the death of her mate.

and thus, the gods left us all, and the survivors of the Golden, and the survivors of the Dark, grew again in prosperity. the foul ones, the Ignorant, unwashed peoples of the wastes, struggled on as they have always struggled, kept in check by their poor lands and low births.

Over time, the children of the Second son, began to envy the prosperity of the Golden ones, and began to do as their cousins have done since forever, raiding, and taking what they wanted. While the golden tribe was the stronger, Second Son's people had better fighters.

It is un-recorded and un-remembered which Patriarch first stumbled to the idea of hiring Third Son's cursed get to fight for the Golden furred children of the Fanged God...

but whomever it was, chose well, for the Cursed ones were hardened to hardship, and willing to do...well...anything in battle, in exchange for a little pay from their more graceful and civilized cousin-tribe.

thus freed from the need to fight, the Golden ones reached heights of civilization, art, and sciences...and shared them, perhaps foolishly, with their almost-as-refined cousins to the south, while relying on the brutish Northerners to keep them safe.

one of the secrets they foolishly shared, was the discovery of the self-replicating protein, the basis from which chaos becomes life. This they shared to their old rivals, perhaps accidentally, during one of the many periods when Lords fought for territories and prestige in wars as weapons improved.

This was a mistake, for that old hunger had taken root in the hearts of the children of Second Son, and they had forgotten the greatest betrayal. They sought to make themselves the equal of the Fanged God...and so, a GREAT war began again, between the sons of First Son, and the Sons of Second Son...and it was Third Son's children that stood the defense.

For the Golden ones had discovered MANY secrets, and they shared one with not only the Dark ones, who now called themselves "The Pure" or "Ferasan" in the ancient tongue, but this one was shared with the brutes, and while the others valued knowledge and secrets, and learning, they did not crave it as the Northerners do, did not feel the constant sting of being 'less clever', of being weaker, and smaller, of being deformed, of being only fit to live in the worst lands, only able to visit the better lands as servants and warriors.

The Pure drove deep into the Golden lands, marchign on a tide of steel and fire, for they were many times many, and the Golden were not used to war, and the Accursed were too few to protect them.

The Ultimatum was given "Surrender to the Pure and you will be forgiven and elevated."

The Patriarch Cait, whose fathers had walked the skies in ships, said "NO".

The final offensive saw the Golden ones' shining cities fall, one by one, Our people found retreat bitter, but our lines grew tighter, we were able to muster more strength across a narrower front, as the Golden ones, realizing they could not prevail against the Pure's numbers and genetic technology, hurried too late to build the ark that would allow them to flee.

The price we demanded, and got, for their escape, was high indeed. We held off the Pure until the last of the Golden Ones were beyond the reach of missile, and beam, and railgun shot.

And then, with their library in our hands, we unlocked the secret they had given us.

and in so doing, we made the light, brighter than a thousand suns, brighter than the world forge itself, on the largest cities and concentrations held by The Pure, and we drew our payment deep into the Mountains, where the light-that-you-can't-see could not reach.

Of course, the Pure recovered. The Nuclear strikes were localized, to cover our escape and to blind them. when they came to the hills, we fought them off, using the learning and our own natures against them, for they still can not bear hardship, but it is our mother's milk. They can not bear loneliness, but we, being mind-deafened from origin onward, endure it gladly.

The Klingons, who conquered our foes in the warmlands, call all of us 'Ferasan', it is, perhaps, for the best. The Warmlanders with their mindwalkers could not defeat us except with waves of bodies, and the Klingons offered us 'honor' and yet more Knowledge.

and so, as we served the Golden ones for payment and wisdom, we serve the Empire of Kahless, the Klingons, and we, at least, are well compensated compared to our 'cousins' with their thin, dark fur and silly decorations.

-Lorespeaker M'rrowl're,

1893 (earth reckoning)

brian334

Translation from the Book Of The Diaspora:

Seven times seven were the landings of the Wandering Clans who followed Lord Cait into the void of night. Many worlds were barren, and they passed them by. Other worlds held life hostile to invaders from space, and having fled a war there was little desire to begin another.

Some of the followers broke off to begin new lives and the Patriarch of Patriarchs did not stop them. Some protested, saying they would deprive the new home of their strength when the strength of all was needed.

"Have we become Dark in our wandering, to use force on our brothers that they conform to our will?" was his reply. "If we kill them their strength is lost to us anyway. And perhaps their seed will prosper where they settle. We will continue until we find Our Mother's World."

It had become a dream, shared by most of the Golden Ones in their wandering. When the Children of the Third Son had taken the life of their Father, Mother had gone away to a place of solitude to die of her loneliness. There the Children of the First Son would find their new home.

In the seventieth year of wandering a scout came back to the fleet. Some of the Mountain Clansmen had placed children in the care of the Golden Clans, fearing the wrath of the Dark Clans when the Golden were finally gone, and these children preferred the life of scouts and prospectors. They had ranged out ahead and to the sides of the fleet as it made its way through the void, finding supplies for fuel, materials that were necessary for the fleet to survive, and contact with the other people of the galaxy. And seeking ever for the world Lord Cait promised would be there.

The scout showed them recordings of a world he had found: it was blue from far away, the sign of water. Its continents were divided by great mountain chains, and its plains were golden with grass. The scout had gathered soil from several places and it grew their own plants as readily as it grew the great green spiral-leaved plants of its forests. And its animals were tiny: worms and bugs and such creatures as lived in the streams and soils.

For many days they speculated, debated, and argued over the world, but Lord Cait remained silent. The star in the center of the system was a massive blue binary which had transferred much of its mass to its companion, ejecting stellar debris into a vast field around the double-star. A third blue star orbited the pair at a great distance, and was, like the central pair, an exceedingly bright star. There was a primitive race on one of the moons of a gas giant around this star: a race very much unlike the Children. They had not yet learned to leave their world. There were three more stars in the system, a fat old orange star and the outer two suns golden like the sun of Fera'asa. The closer of these two was the center of the system in which the scout's world resided.

The wandering clans were divided: some wishing to settle there, others wishing to continue on. Then Lord Cait made his pronouncement.

"We shall go there. For a time the fleet will stay and help create the world we will live upon, but once the colony is deemed viable, the fleet will be free to go where it will, with those who wish to go."

Seven years the fleet traveled. Scout and his clansmen went ahead and began the first farms which would feed the first meat animals. When the fleet arrived, the aged Lord Cait looked through a port at the world which was to be his people's future home and said, "This is the world of Our Mother."

When the Scout returned to the fleet to begin organizing the colonization, Lord Cait named him, K'chk'maar Ahrmm, which is He Who Found His Mother. But Lord Cait was never to step upon the world, for he died that night.

For a generation the ships of the Fleet remained in orbit, and then they resumed their wanderings. The technology of the colony reverted to a pre-industrial stage, then slowly climbed back up.

By the time the Caitians, as they had come to name themselves, went back into space, the Sheliak of Beta Lyrae C were also climbing toward the stars. The interactions between these two races would define how they each viewed the exploration of the galaxy in the centuries which followed.

Dr. Alice Gill, Xenomythology 204, Starfleet Academy, 2396-97

brian334

Third Squad Fire Team iii Leader ordered a withdrawal. There was no more to be gained here and, honor not withstanding, the loss of yet another fire team would leave his platoon weakened to the point of ineffectiveness. He covered their rear as the Fek'lr savaged the battlefield, until his weapon's last magazine was emptied. Then he drew his watsai.

Fire Team iii Subleader turned to assist him but he shouted, "Lead the team! I will buy time!"

Reluctantly she turned and ran, with the other two, back to the force fields of the main encampment. And he held.

Beheading the first, a ravager, then eviscerating the hordlings who followed her. When more followed he swept his claws against a ravager's breast as he TRIBBLE the legs off another, then clove her skull down the center, neatly splitting between the armored plates that protected her crown. He had space.

He fell back to the next choke point and stood his ground again. And then it came over him like a warm bath: the battle-rage. His sight focused, his muscles lost the sensation of exhaustion, his mind lost track of every thought, and time slowed to a crawl.

He saw the ravager and her hordlings coming, saw that her claws held a Klingon disruptor, saw her claw squeeze. He stepped aside. His body couldn't move fast enough, it was stuck in thick mud, but it was fast enough to dodge the blast of the weapon which he took from the ravager. He shoved its barrel into her mouth and fired. She didn't know she was dead yet.

His watsai was gone, but he still had claws, and suddenly he felt they were as strong as steel. He slashed the slow-moving hordlings, raking with his feet to disembowel, slashing throats with his hands. That one had a mek'leth and he took its arm off at the shoulder, ripped the weapon from its clenched claws, and shoved the arm into its mouth.

The Fek'lr were moving faster now, and he managed to kill the one with his watsai only after its crude swipe drew blood from his hip. He had steel in two hands now, and another clear space, so he fell back. Sound resumed, and he finally noticed its previous absence. His lugs hurt, and he burned in his muscles as the hordlings cleared a space around him, created a pathway. A giant stepped through.

A slave master. It screamed, a long ululation, and the hordlings swarmed toward him. He realized his death was imminent. With all the force he could muster he flung the mek'leth left-handed. The giant was too slow to avoid it and it struck the creature's face, missing the eye by a blade's width. It was the last Fire Team iii Leader saw of the beast, who was obscured by hordlings.

He wished the battle-rage would come again, and knew it would not. He would die here, now. He would take these hordlings with him. He killed in ones and twos, and fell back when he could to kill more as they swarmed heedless of their own deaths. Somehow his watsai was lost again and he had acquired a bat'leth. He could not recall how that had happened, but he fought on.

He heard popping, and insects buzzing. A hordling dropped as its head exploded. He wished that would happen more often. He swung the bat'leth, his arms burning and his shoulders on fire. His breath was pain, but not to breathe was pain. A tearing sound, as of cloth being ripped, drowned the screams of the hordlings, and they fell in waves. With the last of his strength he decapitated the one before him. His leg spasmed in agony and he stomped, claws extended, to slash open the throat of the legless hordling which had bitten him.

Before him the battlefield was littered with dead and dying Fek'lri, and he fell to one knee, gasping to draw his breath. A squad of Klingons ran past him, their slug-throwers barking. One carried a multi-barreled weapon attached to him with a harness that sprayed slugs, and the Fek'lr melted in its spray.

Fire Team iii Subleader was there, but his vision was washing out, pale white bleached everything. Her words were meaningless echoes. He fell to the ground, but would never remember doing it.

***

A forest of pale trees on a steep, snow covered slope. Cold dry winds blew, invigorated his blood. He pounced and the meat was his, its last struggles on the ends of his claws were accompanied by the only sound it would ever make in its short, brutal life.

"Is this what you want?" a female asked. He had not heard her approach, and he jumped, flipped to face her, crouching.

She was ancient, grey where once black markings had been, and scarred. She was powerful. No patriarch could have held her against her will.

"You are free to remain here, if you wish," she said, taking no defensive posture against his ready attack. Suddenly he felt as a kit who challenges his mother. Only her forbearance allowed him to remain alive.

"Remain, hunt, whatever you wish. No one will bother you, none will require anything of you. Stay, if it is what you want." Her eyes were green. Not the hazel some of the Mountain folk had, but the green of chromium-beryl. None of the Children had eyes like hers.

"Who?" he finally asked.

"I am who I am. This is my mountain. If you stay, your time for doing deeds will have come to an end. You will sire no kits, earn no name, your deeds will be forgotten. Or you can go back."

"To fight?"

"To live."

"How?"

"You must want it."

And he found that he did. "How do I..."

Once again white light bleached the colors away, and he felt as if he were being pushed from behind.

***

The Colonel was proud. Fire Team iii Leader saw the Klingon smile as his eyes opened.

"Forty-seven confirmed kills in hand-to-hand combat, six ravagers and a slave-master," were his first words.

Fire Team iii Leader tried to come to his feet, but was stayed by pain that pinned him to the cot. He was in a medical tent. There weren't many others: Fek'lr tended to not leave wounded behind.

"You are now First Reconnaissance Platoon Leader," the Colonel said. "You will have your platoon trained and ready to take the field in six days. Elements of Second and Third Reconnaissance Platoons will be joining your platoon. And one more thing."

The colonel took out his d'k tahg, sliced his palm, allowed blood to drip onto his blade, then laid it on Fire Team... No, First Recon Platoon Leader's chest.

"For the blood you shed in my name, I welcome you to House Lam'mrk."

Pins and needles jabbed at him from his shoulder to his fingertips as his hand moved to the weapon's hilt. He raised his other hand and moved the blade to make the cut. He was stopped in the gesture by the Colonel's hand.

"Your blood is too thin already. Shed no more today."

"I am honored, ra'wI"

"House Lam'mrk is honored to accept you. Heal today. In six days I will have need of your unit."

"We will be ready."

When the Colonel left the tent, Fire Team iii Subleader entered.

"You are awake. And I see the Colonel has given you a new knife. I suppose you won't need this one." She held his father's watsai, the one he lost on the battlefield.

"How did you..."

"I found it lodged in a ravager's spine. The Colonel had us count the kills. We couldn't count the ones killed with bullets, but you left a trail any hrn could follow after your ammunition ran out."

"You came back. I told you to retreat."

"No, you told me to lead them. I did. You inspired a rally, you know. The line had collapsed, but from the shield we could see you out there killing and falling back, killing, and falling back. When we found the ammunition crates and reloaded, we went back to help get you out. Not that you needed help. The rest of the command was inspired. They fell upon the Fek'lri like a wave."

"That explains this." He lifted the d'k tahg. "Subleader, what can you tell me of the new platoon?"

"I am now Fire Team i Leader of First Reconnaissance Platoon."

"I didn't know..."

"Fourteen members of I Company survive. Your fire team is the only one still intact. The One With The Lopped Ear from Fire Team iv and The One With The Scarred Cheek from Fire Team i are with us. All the others are from different platoons."

"A hard day. Who is our Captain?"

"You. Company I consists of First Recon Platoon. I think you report to The Colonel."

"Is that... how many?"

"3356th Light Infantry Regiment now consists of just over two hundred warriors."

"All right now," said an Orion medic. "Unless you have something really important to say, I have work to do."

"Do your work," snapped Fire Team i Leader.

"He won't want you to see what comes next. Out!"

"Get a feel for the unit. This is going to be difficult, but we have only six days. Dismissed, Fire Team Leader."

Her lip curled at the Orion, but she left. The Orion began to take straps out of a cart and arrange them on the cot.

"How bad are my injuries?" First Platoon Leader asked.

"Not severe, but you had so many you lost about half your blood."

"Is that why I hurt all over?"

"That is from the lactose buildup in you body. You must have burned about a quart of adrenaline to get that much. You almost died of toxic shock before we figured that part out."

He took one of the straps and began to lash force Leader's leg to the cot.

"What's that for?" Force Leader asked.

"My safety," the medic replied. "I have to tend your cuts to prevent infection, and the treatment hurts!"

"I can tolerate it."

"I'm not betting my life that you can," the Orion said as he lashed force Leader's other leg to the cot.

As it turned out, Force Leader was wrong. And the straps probably did save the medic's life.

***

brian334

somtaawkhar wrote: »

While I get that it's fan fiction, Cait is 15 Lyncis.

Beta Lyrae is Sheliak.

That's my fault. In Star Fleet Battles, Lyrans were used instead of Caitians due to copyright issues, and when I wrote Chuss in my fanfic I made his homeworld orbit Beta Lyrae E, one of the two yellow stars of the Beta Lyrae group, so that he could be a Lyran. You'll note that Chuss is distinctly different from canon Caitians. (If you haven't read my fanfic you probably won't note this.)

In the post above I showed that the Sheliak world orbited Beta Lyrae C. The stars share an orbital center, but are as far apart as Proxima and Beta Centauri. The two races would have been able to communicate via radio before ever they left their worlds in slowboats, and long before warp development turned years of travel between the worlds into days.

And 15 Lyncis is still Cait. It's just not the world we're on here. The Caitian Diaspora happened over a great many years, and a great many attempts to find and found a new homeworld were made. Even in Canon, Cait isn't the only Caitian homeworld.

For the uninitiated:

The Beta Lyrae Star is known as Sheliak in our real world. It's actually a group of six stars.

A is a bright blue giant star which at one point expanded until it engulfed its companion, which began to eat it. The resulting competition resulted in a massive debris disc which occludes B.

B is probably a blue giant too, but it is hidden in the debris and in the glare of A. Presumably it's still devouring A.

C is also a blue giant in orbit of the common center of B and A, but at a comfortable distance.

D is an orange main-sequence dwarf, also in orbit of the common center.

E is a yellow dwarf marginally larger than Sol.

F is the twin sister of E

This Story is why Lyrans were placed here in Star Fleet Battles, acknowledging the origin of Caitians as Kzinti from Niven's Known Space stories without infringing on Niven's Known Space copyrights.

All of that said, I am a huge fan of patricngo's work. His level of creativity and his ability to give life to his worlds are awe-inspiring. I can't wait to read what he writes next.

jonsills

brian334 wrote: »

somtaawkhar wrote: »

While I get that it's fan fiction, Cait is 15 Lyncis.

Beta Lyrae is Sheliak.

That's my fault. In Star Fleet Battles, Lyrans were used instead of Caitians due to copyright issues, and when I wrote Chuss in my fanfic I made his homeworld orbit Beta Lyrae E, one of the two yellow stars of the Beta Lyrae group, so that he could be a Lyran. You'll note that Chuss is distinctly different from canon Caitians. (If you haven't read my fanfic you probably won't note this.)

In the post above I showed that the Sheliak world orbited Beta Lyrae C. The stars share an orbital center, but are as far apart as Proxima and Beta Centauri. The two races would have been able to communicate via radio before ever they left their worlds in slowboats, and long before warp development turned years of travel between the worlds into days.

And 15 Lyncis is still Cait. It's just not the world we're on here. The Caitian Diaspora happened over a great many years, and a great many attempts to find and found a new homeworld were made. Even in Canon, Cait isn't the only Caitian homeworld.

For the uninitiated:

The Beta Lyrae Star is known as Sheliak in our real world. It's actually a group of six stars.

A is a bright blue giant star which at one point expanded until it engulfed its companion, which began to eat it. The resulting competition resulted in a massive debris disc which occludes B.

B is probably a blue giant too, but it is hidden in the debris and in the glare of A. Presumably it's still devouring A.

C is also a blue giant in orbit of the common center of B and A, but at a comfortable distance.

D is an orange main-sequence dwarf, also in orbit of the common center.

E is a yellow dwarf marginally larger than Sol.

F is the twin sister of E

This Story is why Lyrans were placed here in Star Fleet Battles, acknowledging the origin of Caitians as Kzinti from Niven's Known Space stories without infringing on Niven's Known Space copyrights.

All of that said, I am a huge fan of patricngo's work. His level of creativity and his ability to give life to his worlds are awe-inspiring. I can't wait to read what he writes next.

The kzin connection lies in a Larry Niven story, "The Soft Weapon" (he later adapted it into a TAS episode, "The Slaver Weapon", after his original pitch was rejected - he had a deadline, and he's one of us unfortunates who can only write when inspired). In that tale, Beta Lyrae A is a tourist attraction for ships passing through the area, with a rare spiraling disk of debris and glowing gases; a human pilot, who had been engaged by the manic-depressive puppeteer Nessus to take him to purchase a Slaver stasis box (containing something a billion years old, no one would know what until the stasis field was released), stopped by in passing to look at it, and detected another stasis box on a small, icy minor planet called Cueball. He landed to investigate (Nessus was in manic phase at the time, and didn't fear the situation the way a sane puppeteer would), and was captured by the crew of the kzin warship Traitor's Claw. The kzinti interrogated their captives (the human fought back against the kzin Telepath by vividly recalling the sensation of eating carrots), then opened the stasis box, revealing a weapon devised by the tnuctipun during their rebellion against the thrintun, or Slavers, a billion years earlier. That... proved to be a mistake. It also led to Nessus kicking the kzin commander, Chuft-Captain, with his hind leg, breaking part of the kzin's endoskeletal structure that's analogous to human ribs.

Kzinti are not, of course, native to Cueball - nothing is. But kzinti and Beta Lyrae connect at that point, so placing a world of the Caitian Diaspora around one of the Sheliak stars is a nice touch.

Jon's Post, supplemental: And only after typing all that do I realize that Brian linked a Wikipedia article about the story in his post. I just liked Niven's older stuff.

brian334

From Lectures on Xenobiology, by Dr. Survin at Memory Alpha, 2353

Care must be taken when examining differentiation between species that one does not inadvertently confuse speciation with phenotype variation. A classic example of this is the generally incorrect assumption that Caitians and Ferasans are distinct species.

There are commonly believed to be five so-called races of the Ferasan stock. The Ferasan Majority, the Ferasan Minority, the Caitian of Cait, the Caitian of Regulus V, and the Caitian of Beta Lyrae E IV. Let us consider, for a moment, their physical variations.

Individuals of the Ferasan Majority tend to be dark, most commonly black, with short, fine fur and little to no undercoat fur. They never exhibit the longer hair of the Caitian, and their ears, which may even be hairless, tend to be located more to the sides of their heads.

Individuals of the Ferasan Minority tend to be grey and black, with a mottled pattern to their long fur. Some even sport white highlights or have a tawny base coat over which the mottling is exhibited. Their hair is uniformly long, though they never develop the manes associated with Caitians. Their ears tend to be upright with very long hair, and they have a very dense undercoat. They are broader of build than the Majority stock, with larger feet and short tails which often show a ringed pattern.

Caitians of Cait are almost uniformly a tawny color with a darker and thicker mane which can grow to great length, even though the hair of the rest of their body is quite short, excepting a tuft at the tip of the tale which matches the mane's coloration. A dense undercoat is common. They are also quite small compared to the Ferasans, averaging the hight of Vulcans or humans, with similar body mass.

The Catians of Regulus V are somewhat larger than the Vulcan average. They do not exhibit the manes of the Catians of Cait, and have the most varied coat patterns of all of the various breeds, with hair of varying length, color, and pattern. Spotting tends to be very common.

The Caitians of Beta Lyrae are the tawny-golden color of Cait's inhabitants, but only males sport manes. These are far shorter than the manes of the Caitians of Cait, and almost always the same color as the hair on the rest of their bodies. There is greater variance in the size of Beta Lyrans, which ten to be almost twice the mass of the average Vulcan, with heights of up to two point five meters.

Given the physical differences, and their dispersion across the galaxy, one would be forgiven for assuming there was an equal variation in their genetic structure. In fact, there is not. The largest variation occurs on Ferasa itself, with less than one percent variation in the DNA of the Majority and MInority so-called races. The uniformity of the DNA profiles of the majority is explained by their adoption of genetic augmentation practices. At the same time, the Minority race, often called Mountain Lout by the Majority Ferasans, tends to exhibit a more normal genetic distribution.

The natives of Beta Lyrae and of Cait are very close, genetically, with less than twenty centuries between their divergence. Their physical differences are pronounced, but this is an example of phenotype variation, in which environmental factors favor one or another trait. An example of this is found in humans: when one tribe has experienced famine, the survivors tend to be the ones who are capable of storage of fat, and in subsequent generations obesity within that tribe is pronounced.

But all Caitians and all Ferasans can freely interbreed without fear of genetic difficulties. Indeed, the Regulan Caitians are the product of interbreeding between the Ferasan Minority and Caitians.

This example serves to illustrate the difficulties of classifying species which appear simultaneously on vastly different worlds. From the moment of a species' introduction to a new climate, that species seeks the best method of survival and propagation in the new environent. Over time this may lead to speciation, but in the short term, phenotype variation must occur to provide the stepping stones toward speciation...

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It should be noted that very often mythologies are based in fact, but care should be taken because those facts may not be the ones one would expect. Earth's nearly universal "Great Flood" myth may well have originated with the catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea Basin at the end of the last Ice Age, when humanity was just beginning to develop agriculture and cities, as an example. To such primitives, such an event would have appeared to be the act of a wrathful god. Indeed, in almost all of the variations of the tale that is how it is described.

While some races directly report such events, others shroud them in mystery, cover them in allegory, and embellish them with imaginative imagery. In the case of the Caitians, we have multiple sources for the same tales, and extensive comparisons have been performed on their many legends. While there is some tweaking around the edges, most of the tales are similar enough to have had a common origin.

Some examples are the myths of Lord Chuut and the Hired Warrior with the One Green eye, which are universal to all of the various colonies of the Caitian and Ferasan peoples, and the mythologies of Lord Cait, whose mythos is nearly universal among the various elements of the Caitian Diaspora.

It is almost certain that these tales, like those of Caesar, Alexander, Timur, and Gengis Khan, are based upon real people. Some of the tales would have been ancient by the time of the Diaspora and others created after the ancestors of the Caitians left Ferasa.

For the sake of comparison, let us examine the three hundred or so songs of The Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye. No matter which culture tells the tale, the description of the Hired Warrior is similar enough that its foundation upon a real person is almost difficult to refute. Because he has no name, (and in fact the Mountain Clans of Ferasa continue the tradition of requiring a person to earn a name to this day,) eloquent descriptions of his appearance, right down to his scars and his coat pattern, exist across the various cultures. Though there is some small deviation, primarily through omission, there appears to be no embellishment of the character's appearance, as if the intent was to identify one, and only one, person visually. Indeed, there are even scent descriptors and, in Ferasan and Caitian, but not Mountain Clan variations, there are psychic descriptors which conform to a single identity.

This uniformity should be weighted against the nearly inescapable logic that if all of the tales occurred as told, the Hired Warrior would have had a career spanning three hundred years. No doubt the deeds of others have been attributed to this hero, and perhaps some tales are outright fabrications. But there are some thirty core stories, which are found in all of the various Caitian and Ferasan subcultures, which depict a powerful warrior who performs great deeds, yet never earns his name.

It is hoped that in time Ferasa will be opened to exploration by xenoanthropologists and archaeologists so that the history of the period of the Ferasan First Awakening can be studied in detail on site. Until then, we have only the oral and recorded histories of the Caitians upon which to base our understanding of Ferasa prior to the Diaspora.

So let us begin by comparing three descriptions of the Hired Warrior, as recorded by Fersan Lowlander, Ferasan Highlander, and Caitian storytellers.

Dr. Alice Gill, Xenomythology 204, Starfleet Academy, 2396-97


From The Book Of Fables, Ferasa, 2287

...He was a stunted, grotesque figure, long of torso and short of limb, covered in a comic's robe of mottled fur. His mind was absent, no thought passed in his empty, flat skull, and his eyes, set wide, looked out to the sides rather than straight ahead. Though his right eye bore the color of the mountain clans, the strange blue-and-white color of the sky, his left was as green as a moss-covered rock. The scar which cleft the tip of his left ear passed the eye and continued on his cheek, and on his chest he bore the gouge of a leaper-buck's horn. Knife scars marked his right arm in criss-crossed patterns, and where it was not scarred his skin was covered in masses of lank, shaggy fur the color of the stone and shadow from which his people had been born.

From A Translation of Loresinger Of hrm'Oulaww Mountain Tribe's rendition of The Tale Of The Green Pearl, as recorded by Dr. Alice Gill of the Ferasan Expedition of 2381.

He was a powerful warrior of broad proportions, whose long luxurious fur was marked by the scars of battle. His left eye was as green as a jade stone, and a scar crossed it from the tip of his ear to his cheek. The marks of a hundred battles showed on his arms and his chest, and his legs bore the smell of lowland grasses which clung to him long days after his run across the treeless flat ground...

From The Book Of Honor, Cait, 2305 (a collection of what in human terms would be Caitian Fairy Tales)

He was a chubby fellow whose black-and grey fur was patched and scarred from his many stumbles. His wide, flat head had been bumped far too many times for his own good, and his left eye had turned green after a raka-bird had clawed it. He smelled of grass and wet, and his mind was as blank as the look in his pale, blue eye, while his green eye, it is said, looked into the world of the dead.

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The Klingon Cruiser batlh HoH found the worlds of Sheliak and The World Of Our Mother by following rumors of their existence among the traders of the border worlds. It was only eighty years since the conquest of Ferasa, and the natives of the outer star were very obviously related to them.

The natives of the inner star were truly alien, and their world was unsuitable for Klingon colonization. Their ships were exploring the gaudy jewel of the binary pair in the center of their multi-star system, but they were not yet warp capable. Within the decade after the batlh HoH's passing, the Sheliak would become warp capable. Indeed, they would become a major supplier of rare minerals to the Empire in time, but they had little interest in the almost barren outer stars of their system.

The inhabitants of The World Of Our Mother had just achieved the first interplanetary flights within their own star's orbit, and were building a vessel capable of reaching the Sheliak star when the batlh HoH arrived. Its captain, B'rassa Daughter of Molka, of House Gaanlh, thought to have an easy time subduing the world.

With her was a telepath of the Ferasans, and she thought to use it as a translator, and an example that Klingons would be benevolent to their subjects. This turned out to be a mistake. She, with one hundred warriors of the Empire, came into the Arcade of Sunlight and Shade where Patriarch M'rragh held court. She showed holograms of the subjugation of Ferasa, enumerated the privileges enjoyed by the Mountain Clans which had submitted to their rule, and threatened the fate of the lowland Ferasans would befall them if they sought to stand before the might of the Empire.

The Ferasan telepath translated, but she was unable to endure the hateful thoughts of the assembled lords of the Beta Lyran Golden. All around her their thoughts were of rending her, and her mind was unable to probe the thoughts of any one, surrounded as she was by the projections of hate. Thus it was that she failed to warn her Captain in time.

It was the ship in orbit which saw the first signs of trouble: the people were abandoning their city. His call to his captain warning her of the event was the trigger, and the Golden Lords fell upon the Ferasan, her Captain, and the guards. Only a handful managed to beam back to their ship.

The city of M'rragh was burned from orbit, but with the best troops already dead, the First Officer chose to destroy everything in orbit, take such prisoners as he could from there, and return to the Empire. Over the next two centuries there were multiple attempts to conquer the world, but each, after some successes, ultimately failed. The Sheliak grew in power over this time, learning by watching the Klingons, and developing their own technology at a rapid pace. Though they never interfered, the Klingons were reluctant to use the world-killing technologies at their disposal, perhaps fearing that the Sheliak would imitate them, or perhaps fearing the Sheliak would become involved. Neither scenario was desirable due to the value of the Sheliak as trading partners.

The Treaty On The Bones Of M'rragh was ratified and thereafter the Klingons gave up their attempts to conquer the world, but under the terms of the treaty, individuals and groups would continue to raid the world as training exercises. The Beta Lyrans accepted because the terms of the treaty forbade the use of weapons not possessed by both sides. Klingon disruptors, especially from orbital ships, had killed whole villages, and the former cities had all been abandoned as too inviting for orbital weaponry.

On Beta Lyrae there was no settlement larger than a village, and yet they had fought the Klingons to a standstill time and time again. The treaty placed their villages and the towns which they would soon become off limits for raids. It became a time for Heroes again, as in the old folk-tales they so cherished. Solitary hunters ventured from village to village, town to town, fighting off Klingons and bringing news and knowledge of the world beyond their village fences. The names of their greatest heroes were recorded in the local Book Of Heroes.

As the power of the local lords grew, the patriarchs subsumed the various Books, forming libraries of lists of heroes and their deeds. It became a kind of prestige among the greatest of the patriarchs as to who held the most books, and the books with the most distinguished names, until at last all of The World Of Our Mother was under the authority of one Patriarch of Patriarchs.

The period of the Treaty lasted from approximately the 1880s of Earth until the arrival of the Federation Starship USS Yi Sun-sin in 2251. Though the treaty remained, the Klingons chose to withdraw from the area when the Sheliak and Federation came to the verge of war. The Sheliak were left with undisputed dominion over the territory under a treaty so complex that a century later semanticists were still discovering new implications in its thousands of pages, paragraphs, and footnotes.

To distinguish the Sheliak from the Caitian the Sheliak were given the human name of their star, as seen from Earth, while the Caitians were named Beta Lyrans for its location in the Lyrae constellation. Note that from Earth the centermost three suns appear to be a single star while the outermost three are not visible at all without powerful telescopes.

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One should not overlook the power of mythology in shaping the attitudes of a culture. In the eight centuries since the Diaspora event in Caitian culture, their retention of their ancestral mythos has kept the fires of bigotry alight and blazing, to the extent that when Ferasans and Caitians meet there is likely to be bloodshed.

When one considers that the races share a common ancestry as recently as two millennia ago, it is even more surprising that their mutual hatred is as strong as it is, and that the intervening centuries have not served to mitigate it. But their myths give us a glimpse into the origin of the feud, and the fact that the same myths are shared by both cultures allows us to examine the feud from both sides.

In the Caitian Origin myth, which we have studied earlier in the semester, the Fanged God divided the land between his two eldest sons, with the third, deformed son taking the regions neither wanted. However, in the Ferasan version of this tale, the elder son was given all of the world to rule. The second son was jealous and begged his mother to intercede on his behalf. She is reported, in the myth, to have said, "You are strong and cunning. Take what you want."

Thus, from the point of view of the 'Golden Ones,' the 'Dark Ones' stole their world, while from the other point of view, the 'Dark Ones' were cheated of their inheritance and had to fight for what they deserved. In both cases the other was the cause of their feud.


Let us examine the stories of The Final Days for comparison. In the Caitian version:

"And Lord Cait saw that the Dark Ones would spend a hundred lives to take one Golden. Their hordes marched across the savanna, even unto the gates of the Last Refuge. Lord Cait summoned his council and said, 'There is not time enough to load our library, and the final ships are not yet completed. We must abandon our storehouse of knowledge, and choose, by lots if no other means can be found, a legion of our own to leave behind, to hold the lines until we have gone beyond the reach of the Dark Ones.

"Then the one of the Mountain Clans which Lord Cait had named Krreelth, (meaning Faithful,) spoke, saying, "Give us the keys to the library and our clans will hold the Gates long enough for you to make good your exit. We will relinquish our places in the fleet so that your mates and young, and your warriors, may make good their escape.'

"Then many of the assembled lords smiled behind their hands, thinking the mottled chieftain a double fool for asking payment with a library he could not read, and for giving up a place in the fleet when all knew the Dark Ones would enslave any who remained behind. Lord Cait accepted the deal, and the Mountain Clans deployed to defend while the refugees boarded ships and launched for the stars.

"And as the last ship rose on a column of fire the unthinkable happened: the Dark Ones unleashed the Fire of the Sun on the gates of the Last Refuge. And as the world dwindled in their telescopes, they could see the fight between the insane 'Pure' Ferasans had become a fight of nuclear weapons as city after city burned. 'It has come to pass as I have always said it must;' Lord Cait said, 'When no enemy remained for the Pure to cleanse, they fell upon one another and destroyed it all."

And in the Ferasan version:

"Lord Fshht'rrow arrayed his forces for the final onslaught which would bring divine enlightenment to the last of the heretics. He watched as ship after ship rose, and knew that with each launch the numbers of defenders shrunk. Soon he would gain the stronghold and the ship construction facilities therein, and he would pursue the heretics across the stars.

"An aide came before The Most Pure and said, 'Exhalted, the southern perimeter is secure. Our scouts report only louts guard the gate, and they are few in number. And they have changed the way they fight; where before they fought alongside the Golden, now they hide and ambush and vanish into the rocks. Our best seers are being decimated by simple traps.'

"Lord Fshht'rrow said, 'Then the Heretics have abandoned them to our mercy. Now we attack!" He arrayed his columns and his artillery and began the final assault on the South Gate, and his troops breached the gate uncontested. The Mountain Louts had abandoned their lords! The Last Refuge was taken!

"But treachery is ever the nature of the heretics, for they left behind them final proof of their immorality: they would destroy that which they were too weak to hold. The refuge and its shipyards were destroyed with atomic fire, and from the sky, for days after, they rained bombs on every city the Pure had captured, and every Hold they had built, until all of the world burned and lay shrouded in black fog that slowly consumed the Pure who had managed to avoid death by fire.

"Lord Fshhtrrow survived long enough to record the villainy of the heretics, but even his genetically perfect body could not withstand the light which shines through steel, though he lay blind and in agony for sixty-six nights."

If you will note, both report the same events, but both blame the other for the destruction of Ferasa from which it would require three hundred years for them to rebound, only to be engulfed by the Klingon Empire just as they became capable of space travel again. And both overlook a simpler answer: there was a third group involved. The Mountain Clans, when I visited as a member of the Cultural Outreach program in the 2380's, made no secret of their belief that the nuclear attacks on the lowland cities was their doing.

Dr. Alice Gill, Xenomythology 204, Starfleet Academy, 2396-97

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When the Hired Warrior With The One Green eye came into K'kmmrau he did not lead Lord Chuut's armies, nor even a company of mercenaries. He came alone.

At the gate of the city he was delayed by guards who held him in contempt. "Give your message and be on your way," they said.

"I am Emissary of Lord Chuut, with words for the ears of Lord Fr'Ratheerr of K'kmmrau, and no others," he said. "Delay me and face the wrath of your lord.

He had given a title, not a name, and so the guards believed he could be nothing more than a simple messenger. They simply called for the Gate Captain, and teased the mercenary lout. In turn he was deaf to their insults, which enraged them to further rudeness. He was no more responsive than an old statue. In the end one of the guards hurled the contents of a nightsoil pot, and though he saw it and could have easily dodged the splatter, he stood resolute, unmoving, as it splattered him.

Then the guard captain arrived and demanded, "Who are you to stand so before my gate?"

"I am Emissary of Lord Chuut," Green eye said, "With words for the ears of Lord Fr'Ratheerr of K'kmmrau, and no others."

"Speak your words and begone, foul-smelling lout."

"You are not Lord Fr'Ratheerr, and the smell is a gift of your soldiers. I assumed it was given that I might present a scent to remind them of home."

"Then come with me," Guard Captain said, and lead him into the gatehouse. Four of the Golden guards followed and they entered a ramp down into the chambers beneath the guard house. A metal door slammed behind them and they came to a row of cells where prisoners were kept. With spears they encouraged Green Eye into a cell.

"Stay there as long as you like," Guard Captain said. "When you wish to be set free, give your message to my guard."

"I am emissary of Lord Chuut," Green Eye repeated. "Delay me and face the wrath of your lord."

For six days he languished, eating nothing but foul meat and drinking nothing but filthy water. In the oppression of the cells there was nothing of sunlight or fresh air, and his only companions were branded criminals who waited there for their deaths.

As he slept on the sixth night he dreamed again of his father, who came to him from a black cave in the rocks of a grey mountain. The mountain rose on until it pierced the sky, and below his feet clouds laid out as a prairie that went on forever.

"So, you come to find me trapped between the word of my lord and the deceit of his enemies," he said to his father.

"Be wary, and in secret gather tomorrow the charra herb, for tomorrow night they intend to poison you."

"I am sorry, Father. I had thought by now to have earned a name which my sons could bear."

"Lord Chuut has laid out the path for you to follow. A name is unimportant, in the end, if the one who bears it is as faithless as these servants of Lord Fr'Ratheerr."

Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye awoke the seventh morning of his captivity and heard a commotion in the guard house. The sound came nearer; it was a troop of soldiers. at their head was one with body armor and the scent of leather and herbal oil.

"I am Frrach-Commander," he said, giving a half-name such as the children of nobles may earn for minor deeds in their lord's service. "You will give your message to me, and I will release you."

"Already your servants have delayed me for seven days and six nights," Green Eye said. "Your lord will be quite angry when he learns of their delay of an emissary."

"Give your message, I need no lectures from a TRIBBLE-smelling lout on how to deal with scum."

"My message is for the ears of Lord Fr'Ratheerr only. Delay me and face the wrath of your lord."

Frrach-Commander stood a moment in thought, then said, "Release him."

The guard put his key in the lock and turned, but the lock was stuck. Embarrassed, he turned the key harder, until it broke from the shaft. "Frrach-Commander!" the guard said, "I don't understand, this lock..."

Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye reached out and pushed the gate, and it opened. "I do not like locks," he said.

Frrach-Commander said, "Come with me, but stay behind so I do not have to smell you."

"The scent is a gift of your guards. I thought they preferred the smell to that of the fresh grass of the savanna."

The half-named said nothing, but lead his company back out of the gatehouse and toward the center of the city. Green Eye looked about as must a mountain kit on his first visit to a city of the Golden, but he was not awed, as the guards thought. He was looking with a warrior's eye, and what he saw did not please him. The city was all but indefensible, with houses stacked on one another, made of wood which would burn, and crowded close so that the fire of one would travel to the next. The streets were narrow and straight, perfect for attackers to section off the city and take it bit by bit, and impossible for defenders to move unobserved as they tried to resist.

They came to a small manor house close to the city center, still largely made of wood, but with space around it and a low stone wall. "Bathe him," instructed Frrach-Commander, and he left Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye in the care of his House Servant.

He was lead to a bath, where female slaves scrubbed and oiled him, and they took offense to his lack of interest in them as they tried to tease him, but as they were Golden, even though slaves, they would never consent to mate with a mercenary lout. Just as their teasing turned to insult an older slave entered. She might have been pretty, once, but now she was older, and her eyes held the sadness of too many years. She bore the brand of the slaver on her cheek.

"Get out," she said, and the bath-slaves fled. Green Eye realized she had once been a princess, had possibly even carried a name, but now she was nothing. And that knowledge showed in her walk, her deportment, her every movement. Where once there had been grace there was now only a hollow echo of that past refinement.

"I am to prepare you for this evening's feast," she said, and she discarded the short-bristled brush the bath slaves had been using with little success on his long fur. Instead she drew out a long-toothed comb and began to slowly work out the knots left by his imprisonment.

"Princess, I can groom myself," he said. "There is no need for you to bear this humiliation, for it can be intended as nothing less."

"It is, but so many humiliations have I endured, that I no longer feel the sting." She looked at him again and said, "No one has named me Princess in a lifetime. Do you know me?"

"No, Princess, but I can see.

"The green eye?" she asked.

"The mind behind it," he said. "Who were you, and how did you come to be here?"

"Who I was died with my father and my mate. I would have died with them, save for a promise, that my sons be spared the brand in exchange for my taking it in their place. Name me not again, for I will be punished to remind me that I no longer carry a name."

"Sons?" he asked.

"They were too young to die in the fighting, and since have been raised to hate me. They are loyal servants of my master."

"Fate is known to be cruel."

"I find her greatest cruelties are those inflicted by other Children. As you will soon discover. You will never leave this city, you know."

"I do not fear death," he said, "But neither do I desire it."

"Then tell me your secret, your message. I can help you to escape afterward, and with it I can buy a clean death, if not an honorable one."

"If you can escape, why haven't you?"

"My sons. Their lives are held hostage against my escape and, though they hate me, I am their mother."

"My life is held hostage against my vow of service. My words are for the ears of Lord Fr'Ratheerr alone."

"Then you shall die tonight," she said, "And you words will go unheard."

"If I am to die tonight, I would walk in a garden under the sky once more. As my mate is far away, would you walk with me in her place?"

The slave laughed, and for a moment the beauty she once was glimmered as the sun from behind a cloud. And then she said, "Yes, if I am not called to some other task, I will walk with you."

And so they spent the afternoon, walking, talking as though they were old friends, sharing a laugh in the sunshine, and as the day waned she grew less and less cheerful, while he grew ever more optimistic. For in a patch of the garden he found the fragrant charra herb, and managed to hide a handfull in his pouch as the ever-present guards were distracted.

In time slave was called away to some task, and Green Eye was lead to a waiting room. There he heard the sounds of the preparation of a feast as slaves and servants scurried around the manor, and after a time the guests began to arrive. And the four guards never left their post outside his door.

The party began, and still he waited, and the smell of fresh-killed meat and blood filled the air. He hungered, for he had not eaten well in six nights. At last he remembered, and he ate the charra. Moments later slave came for him and guided him to the great hall where the half-named Commander held court, flanked by heavy banquet tables and fat guests who ate and drank his bounty.

"Our guest of honor has arrived!" shouted Frrach-Commander. "Shreem for the guest of honor!"

A house servant carried a pewter drinking horn filled with thick red drink: the blood of a fresh-killed meat-beast. Frrach-Commander lifted his own horn and said, "Drink!" and he downed his horn.

Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye lifted his and drank, as did the remaining guests.

"Tell us, Emissary of Lord Chuut, what message you carry for our lord?" demanded the host.

"My message is for the ears of Lord Fr'Ratheerr alone. You risk his ire in delaying me."

"You are either a spy or an assassin," said Frrach-Commander. "Or perhaps you are a fool! Lord Chuut could have sent a messenger with greater standing than a barbarian if he wished his message to be heard by a lord."

"You are free to so advise Lord Chuut, at your convenience, Frrach-Commander," Green Eye said.

"Then he has sent a fool!" declared the half-named. "Servants! Bring suitable attire for a fool!"

Two older servants came out with a robe and cowl of motley, with which they draped and crowned him.

"Tell us more, Fool! We could use a good laugh!"

But the shreem he had drunk had been taken from a meat-beast killed with chagg-grass. The potency of the weed, thus amplified, caused his gut to knot, and blinding pain coursed through his abdomen. He fell to one knee and vomited, and the crowd gasped. Green Eye fell to the floor as his stomach contracted again and again.

"Can't hold his shreem!" said the half-named. "Take him away."

Hired Warrior With the One Green Eye could not resist as four servants carried him away.

He awoke in a small, dark room, still in great pain, as a bucket of cold water splashed him. The half-named was there.

"I have the antidote here," Frrach-Commander said. "Give me the message, and I will give you the antidote."

"Your lord will be angered when he learns of the delay," Green eye managed to say through clenched jaws, as his cramps continued.

"Really, if you have nothing else to say, I have better things to do. Die, for all I care, but if you do desire to live, say your message to the guard."

"I have one more thing to say," Green Eye said, and the half-named leaned close to hear it. "When this is over, I will kill you."

Frrach-Commander laughed, then, and as the door slammed behind him he continued to laugh, the sound of him dwindled with distance, leaving Green Eye alone with his pain, and a guard.

He awoke in the dark to the sound of a key in the lock of his door, and blazing light filled the tiny room with the remains of his stomach fluids drying on the stone floor. Behind the blazing lantern the voice of the half-named could be heard saying, "He just fell over. We gave him a place to die, far from the servants. His screams of agony were hard to hear. He's probably dead by now..."

"Not dead yet," Green Eye said as a new, regal figure entered the chamber.

"I am Grro Hrraasch," said the new figure. "I am here to escort you to my lord. And if you should turn out to be as I have been told, a spy or assassin, I am here to end you."

"I am Emissary of Lord Chuut, who will no doubt be glad to hear of the welcome I have received in your city, my lord Grro Hrraasch."

Green Eye made a show of removing the fool's motley the half-named had given him the night before, to be certain it was seen by the fully-named minor lord of the city. He then followed the lord out and past the shocked Frrach-Commander who no doubt was certain until Green Eye spoke that he was dead.

As they left the manor and headed toward the palace at the city center, Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye said, "This city seems difficult to defend."

"Your lord would be a fool to attack it. If that is your message you may return to him now, with our assurance that he will pay dearly for the attempt."

"My Lord Chuut has no desire to challenge Lord Fr'Ratheerr. I only note it as a warrior who might be called upon to defend it."

"We have long studied the defense of our lands. Fear not, an invader will not get within a trebuchet's reach of the city."

"Unless they are invited in," said Green Eye. "Please forgive me, I constantly worry about such things."

They came at last to the palace, which was an old stone fortress at its heart surrounded by newer and lesser structures built on a grand scale. There Green Eye was escorted to the Great Hall, and for all its magnificence, Green eye found he preferred Lord Chuut's Arcade of Sunlight And Shade with, its plane-tree roof and grass-lined stepping stone walks. At the end of the hall, upon a simple wooden bench, sat Lord Fr'Ratheerr.

"I am told you bear a message for me from Lord Chuut of the Westveld."

"My lord, I am told the message is for your ears only." Green Eye indicated the assembled courtiers.

"My lord," said Grro Hrraasch, "On the way here he spoke of invasion."

Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye said, "My Lord Chuut has no plans to challenge you, nor have I been sent as an assassin. At you gate I was insulted and besplattered with TRIBBLE, I have been disarmed and imprisoned, I have been starved, poisoned, dressed in fool's motley, and left to die. All of this I have endured to bring a message from My Lord Chuut. If you wish, draw your watsai before I approach, but my lord, I will not disobey the orders of my liege. His words are for your ears alone."

"He must have paid a handsome price to buy such loyalty," said Lord Fr'Ratheerr Come to me and speak your words."

The honor guard readied spears as he approached, but Green Eye dropped to a knee at the foot of the great lord and whispered, "My Lord Chuut has learned that Lord Gaavrroo Cha'au has assembled an army and is on his way to attack you. Further, he has hired an assassin to kill you during the fighting. I was told that the attack was to take place nine days after I received the message, and it took me a day to reach your gates. I have been delayed seven more days. The attack is set for tomorrow, and if you have not yet heard of this, the captain who guards your borders is among those lords subverted by Lord Cha'au."

"I see. And what does your Lord Chuut advise?"

"That you defend yourself, Lord."

"And why would Lord Chuut desire to offer me counsel when he could gain my western lands were I too weak to hold them?"

"Because he finds you a good neighbor, and would have to expend great treasure and the lives of soldiers to strike a new accord with Lord Cha'au. You have never violated the established terms of your border agreement, and neither has he. Lord Cha'au would see him as weak, and would plunge the region into a war he cannot win to secure a few extra fields he cannot hold."

"What are your orders now that your message has been delivered?"

"To serve you in whatever capacity you deem fit until the crisis has passed."

"And for what capacity are you fit?"

"I am a hired warrior. I can advise and, if your Golden will follow a Barbarian, I can lead."

"What is your advice?"

"To each of your captains, give orders to send scouts to the southeast seeking an encampment of warriors within a few hours march of your city. Do not let them know you have also given the same orders to the others. Those who inform you of Lord Cha'au's host will be loyal, while those who do not will either be disloyal or incompetent, which is just as bad."

"Your Lord gave you this plan, of course."

"No, my lord Fr'Ratheer. He does not advise me on military matters, I advise him."

"Very well. Then you will remain by my side and advise me. The first time you give bad advice, I shall kill you."

"If I should give you bad advice on a military matter, death would be a just reward."

In the night eight captains came before their lord with news of an invasion force assembled for an attack at dawn, and before dawn four came to him with word that there was nothing to cause alarm. The four were executed as traitors, and in the eye of Lord Fr'Ratheerr Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye rose in status to become one of his most trusted advisers.

Lord Fr'Ratheerr girded Green Eye in a harness indicating his status as a Marshal, and sent Green Eye to the walls to observe the attack. For a time the defenders held the wall, but the treachery was well planned, and from the opposite side of the city the gate was opened to allow a smaller force to enter. Green Eye ordered the wall to be held, and fell back with the Patriarch's Guard to defend the Palace.

"My lord, the old fortress is defensible; this pile of lumber is a trap. We must fall back."

"It will leave me out of communication with my troops," he said.

"Every moment you remain here is a moment the assassin can strike. I will defend you as I can, but it would be easier within strong walls."

As he spoke, disloyal troops aided by the soldiers of Lord Cha'au fought in the streets of K'kmmrau, pushing toward the palace. So Lord Fr'Ratheerr was convinced to fall back behind the stone walls. In the chaos which followed, citizens fought on both sides with soldiers and against them, often confused as to which side was the loyal one and which the traitor. As he could, Hired Warrior advised and kept track of the progress of the battle, twice leading sallies to drive attackers away from the gate.

"When this is over I will give you a name," promised Lord Fr'Ratheerr after witnessing the second sally.

Just before dawn a company fell back to the gate of the old fort, hard pressed by the rebels, and the gate was opened to receive them. They were a company of gate guards, under the command of Frrach-Commander. Once within the walls he deployed his men in defense and came, with his officers, into the old throne room where Lord Fr'Ratheerr and Green Eye oversaw the defense of the city.

As he made his obeisance his officers attacked the Patriarch's Guard, and his soldiers on the walls attacked the loyal guards.

Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye responded, killing an officer then lunging to separate the half-named from his former patriarch, who now sank back with a vicious wound. The battle was quick, but lasted long enough for Green Eye to remind the half-named that he always kept his promises.

As Green Eye slew Frrach-Commander and turned to aid the surviving Guards he saw the assassin strike: it was the youngest of Lord Fr'Ratheerr's concubines. Too late to save his life, Green Eye exacted vengeance with a thrown knife to the heart of the female.

He then lead the fight to clear the fortress of the remaining soldiers who had fortunately been unable to open the gate. As the attack on the fortress gate came from outside, Hired Warrior With The One Green Eye ordered the palace to be set afire. The blaze grew quickly and swept from building to building its heat driving the attackers away. The fire grew into a firestorm which swept through east and south of the city.

But Hired Warrior didn't know that Lord Chuut had broken the border treaty and lead his legions across. He entered the west gate, wearing the colors of Lord Fr'Ratheerr, and swept the disloyal troops away. When the palace burned itself out and the fires spread out and weakened in the eastern part of the city he came before the old fort's gate, to be met by Green Eye.

In the audience hall he was shown the bodies of the former lord and his concubine, still where they had fallen. "I failed to keep him alive, My Lord, but I have given you a city. Surely that is a deed worthy of a name?"

"You not only failed to accomplish what I sent you to do, but you burned half the city in the process. When will you learn that the easiest way to do a thing is not always the best?" was Lord Chuut's reply. Though the city became a vassal to his own lands, Lord Chuut did not reward Green Eye with a name.

Transliterated by Masha Aktay from the tale as told by Chuss of Beta Lyrae in the Earth Year 2414.

brian334

"Of course Caitians have katras, as do all intelligent beings. It is supposed, though unverified, that all creatures capable of self-recognition possess katras, but only those endowed with telepathic ability have thus far been known to create mental constructs capable of surviving their deaths."

"So the Caitian stories of the Green-eyed warrior who speaks to ghosts may be based in fact?"

"I am unfamiliar with the tales, but so far as I know the Caitians do not practice the disciplines which would be required for the creation of a sustainable katra. Perhaps their methods are different from those practiced by Vulcans. As I understand it, they use a form of hero worship, or reverence for their honored elders. Perhaps this is sufficient to channel the katra of an elder as he prepares for his death."

"Could it be done accidentally? In such a way that the dying one is unaware of, and makes no attempt to perform the procedure?"

"In the Vulcan tradition, while the actual transfer of a katra is quick, it is the culmination of extensive and exhaustive training and discipline. Of course, the Vulcan way may not be the only way, but it is the only one I know. However, I have had occasion to wonder if the so-called ghosts of Earth legend are not human katras. If untrained human telepaths can create sustainable katras which survive the death of their bodies, there is no reason to suppose any other species might as well. However, I must remind you that this is mere speculation and not based upon scientific observation."

"How would you know if a Caitian carried the katra of a deceased loved one?"

"Telepathic contact is one way, though if the katra were to hide itself, it might go unobserved."

"So the Caitians would know if the katras of their ancestors were still around?"

"Again, that depends on many factors, such as the willingness of the Caitian telepath to seek out such katras, the relative strength of the katra formed by an undisciplined mind, and the social conventions of Caitians in dealing with their dead. A Vulcan telepath would quickly identify a katra if he were alert to its presence. Otherwise, Vulcan telepaths do not, as do Beta-Zed, continually read the minds of others. I am uncertain of the Caitian mores and attitudes regarding the use of telepathy."

brian334

In the years of the Diaspora, Caitians were everywhere and spreading out, seeking a new home far enough for safety from the Ferasans, but close enough to settle within the lifetimes of many of the refugees. Remember that they were traveling at sublight speeds, with a few exceptions, so this limited them to a radius of approximately forty to seventy light years.

Still, large segments of the fleet dropped out of the migration sooner, and some were said to have continued onward long after the fleet was disbanded. There was, among the Caitians, a subrace known as the Mountain Clans, the majority of whom remained on Ferasa, and can still be found there, often serving in segregated units within the Klingon military. As with the Klingons, the Caitians used them as scouts and skirmishers.

It is incredible to think, from our point of view, that there was no interbreeding between the Caitians and the Mountain Clans during this time, but this is the recorded history of the time. Indeed, the Catians made the deal that, once they found worlds to settle, the fleet would be given to the Mountain Clans to go where they would, to whatever purpose they chose. Long after the Caitians settled their ships continued to fly, many acting as communications and cargo carriers between Caitian worlds. But in time technology wears out, and eventually the salvage of vessels could not sustain the repair and operation of the few remaining functional ships.

It appears the Mountain Clans all settled one world, Regulus V, with a large number of Caitians, and on this world they did interbreed. Whether their numbers were always small or whether they were decimated by some unrecorded catastrophe is unknown, but they occupy a small arc of mountains on a temperate subcontinent, and their presence was discovered only after the discovery of a crashed colony ship on the small moon the Regulan Caitians call K'Tirr's Eye.

While it is difficult to contact the isolated and isolationist clans of Regulus, some efforts have been made. They seem to prefer a primitive lifestyle, their homes are simple, not much better than animal dens in shallow caves, and they live by the chase rather than agriculture or husbandry. Their songs glorify the lifestyle, and their culture is built around individuality and personal skill.

Thus it was quite surprising to me to discover they had retained literacy. Their animal hide scrolls and their blood-based inks record tales of their past, genealogies, and the names of great heroes. In several of their tales there is mention of a Library, though when I asked, I was told it was allegorical.

As to their original spacecraft, who can say where they ended up? Some may be out there yet, still moving at just below the speed of light, hunting among the stars, their crews having forgotten what they were seeking.


Dr. Alice Gill, Xenomythology 204, Starfleet Academy, 2396-97