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A Very Long Time Ago

Above an insignificant blue-green planet floated a mighty starship, and on the command deck of that starship the ship's master found his attention drifting towards that life-choked world. His senses took in the full scope of the planet as he drifted, cloak rustling in the low gravity.

Unlike his subordinates, the master's cloak had no hood. A solid, blank mask and helmet protected his features from the outside world. It had no eyeholes, for the master had no need of such things; his highly-evolved and modified brain read the imprints of the ether as easily as a lesser being could see and hear. To wear such a mask was a mark of high caste, signifying his worthiness to command a temple ship.

The last temple ship. When the master was still an initiate in the great chain there had been hundreds of temple ships supporting tens of thousands of smaller craft in the unending work. Over the years the temples had fallen to war or to accident and now only his temple remained to finish the last bits of the great work. The end of his species was approaching; every one from the master down to the rawest acolyte could feel entropy nipping at their heels. Soon they would go and learn their ultimate fate. They would either die, or they would join Those Who Had Gone Before in whatever higher realm they existed in now.

But first, the work needed to be completed. While the master's race wouldn't be there to shepherd their chosen seedlings through the long climb from bare sentience to sapience, they needed to be cultivated... to be preserved against the Universe's capricious whims.

(... )

The master's hands played over the Orb's surface. A final gift from Those Who Had Gone Before, the shimmering sphere of pale yellow light would in turn pass from his people to the seedlings. The master suspected that the Orb wasn't the handiwork of Those Who Had Gone Before, but a gift given to them by a patron who preceded them on the long path.

(... )

"Master Charn'El," said one of his underlings. "Our scouts report they've collected the necessary specimens for the breeding project and are preparing to return to the temple."

Charn'El nodded once. "The other work?" he asked.

"Our servants are being freed as we speak. Those who can survive on their own will be distributed across several reserves far from the seedling worlds. Those who can't will be euthanized as painlessly as possible."

"Very well," the master said. "Once the specimens are aboard, we depart for the seedling world. Then..." he trailed off, looking one last time at the blue-green planet beneath them. "And then we face our destiny. Let us hope that when the time comes, these new ones will succeed where we failed."

~***~

Excerpt from "Our Story: The History of Metahumanity" by Winn Adami (957 SA [2914 CE]):

"Of the beings that set the modern galaxy in motion, we know very little. They were roughly humanoid, perhaps two and a half meters tall with six limbs. They seem to have had strong psionic potential; every surviving artifact we've discovered needs a psychic ‘trigger' to operate correctly. We know they took humans from Earth roughly 70,000 standard years ago and scattered them across dozens of planets in known space, with more found every decade. And we know that shortly after this happened they vanished, leaving only a few instances of fossilized remains, a handful of technological trinkets and numerous metahuman subspecies.

Why they did this is shrouded in mystery; the only known message from the Preservers to their posterity, the B'hala Orb, remains maddeningly vague. The Orb's message has confounded a hundred generations of scholars and mystics, and continues to do so to this day. Perhaps one day we will truly understand what the Preservers were trying to tell us..."


So yeah. Welcome to an idea that's been kicking around for a while. In essence it's a reboot/re-imagining/AU of the venerable Star Trek universe, and as you can see we're starting from the very beginning. Never let it be said that I'm not ambitious. :v

I don't know exactly where this is going, but it's going somewhere. I'll probably spend the next little while - when I'm not busy with everything else - slowly filling in the gaps, explaining things and maybe even actually writing more story bits like the above. Kibbitzing is always welcome.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
And here I was getting strong Assassin's Creed vibes from it...
I like what I'm seeing- it makes me wonder why there isn't more pre-humanity Trekfic.  The only flaw is that it has an end.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.
How many of the setting elements are you thinking of playing with?

For example, are the Vulcans still a separate race, or are they descended from some of the humans that the Preservers took from Earth? The latter makes more sense biologically if you're planning on having interfertile pairings between Vulcans and Humans, and they can still have pointed ears and prize rational thought. (If they have the pointed ears, they can also be nicknamed Alvar, Elves, or any such other term by the Terrans... which goes a fair way to showing that this isn't standard-issue Trek.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
robkelk Wrote:How many of the setting elements are you thinking of playing with?

All the elements, all of them!

Okay, quick backstory: This whole thing was inspired by a Trek-based setting riff over on RPG.net called "Federal Space" written by a fella named Shadowjack (yeah, that Shadowjack). It's been sitting in the back of my mind for a long while now, and a minor kerfuffle over on spacebattles brought it to the foreground for the moment. So I figured I might as well make hay while the sun shines, yeah?

The main thrust here is everything is up for grabs. It is Star Trek (mostly) so there'll still be vulcans and klingons and bajorans and cardassians etc. But the nature of those peoples will be vastly different in some cases. In others, not so much (klingons might be Preserver seedlings, but they're still klingons. Just not as... bumpy.).
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
So, I'm not the only one who recalls that episode where Klingons, Romulans Cardassians and the Enterprise race to uncover clues hidden in the genomes of disparate alien races, only to find that all their worlds were seeded with life aeons ago by the first ancestral race....

And suggest that this may be the reason - aside from budget - why the humanoid form is so common.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
In a manner of speaking. Squaring that circle's one of the great bugbears of Trekdom. So there's my take on it.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Looks pretty cool to me.  I like how it gives the impression of multiple iterations of sentient species who have grown and faded; it reminds me of B5 (and by extension, The Silmarillion).  And yes, this does explain how half-human hybrids are even possible at all.
I am curious as to what direction you'd be taking this.  Is it about the end of the Preservers?  Did they tear themselves apart, or were they attacked by a mysterious foe?  Is that foe something that could affect the Federation et al.?  Or is it about discovery of the how the Preservers worked, and what they used to guard the seedling races?
Winn Adami (957 SA [2914 CE])
2914?  Is this the same Winn Adami, living for centuries, or did Earth start counting dates from the Buddha's Enlightenment?
-- ∇×V
robkelk Wrote:How many of the setting elements are you thinking of playing with?
M Fnord Wrote:All the elements, all of them!

Okay, quick backstory: This whole thing was inspired by a Trek-based setting riff over on RPG.net called "Federal Space" written by a fella named Shadowjack (yeah, that Shadowjack). It's been sitting in the back of my mind for a long while now, and a minor kerfuffle over on spacebattles brought it to the foreground for the moment. So I figured I might as well make hay while the sun shines, yeah?

The main thrust here is everything is up for grabs. It is Star Trek (mostly) so there'll still be vulcans and klingons and bajorans and cardassians etc. But the nature of those peoples will be vastly different in some cases. In others, not so much (klingons might be Preserver seedlings, but they're still klingons. Just not as... bumpy.).
Okay, since everything is up for grabs, and since your initial post indicates some humans aren't "baseline" humans any more...

Submitted for your consideration:

In the very early days of Terran interstellar exploration, the USS Atlantis (second spacecraft to bear the name) discovered a habitable world. The planet had one supercontinent, shaped roughly like a five-pointed star; this lead the crew of the Atlantis to call the planet "Númenor" (after the same-shaped continent in Middle Earth, and because the captain had a sense of humour). It was only after they had achieved orbit around Númenor that they detected the radio signals.

Contact was quickly established with the natives of Númenor. (The planetary name given by the crew of Atlantis stuck - the local names for the planet all translated to "earth," as so many humans' homeworlds' names do.) They were still sufficiently close to Terran human that both planets' humanity could breed with the other. They were also sufficiently advanced technologically to have radio communications (AM only) and decent ground-based telescopes, but their chemical sciences were stuck at the "alchemical" stage. Their biological sciences, however, were in advance of even Terra's at the time the Atlantis discovered Númenor - the natives used biotechnology in places where Terrans would use chemical technology, breeding a wide variety of plants and animals to produce useful industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals. These pharmaceuticals included the first drugs that Terran scientists identified as being useful to unlock metahuman abilities in otherwise-normal humans.

The people of Númenor were first called Númenorians by the people of Terra, but the laziness of a certain fraction of humanity took hold and a shorter name (also from Tolkien's work) quickly gained favour. Nowadays the natives of Númenor are known across the galaxy as Andorians, and have a reputation of being among the galaxy's best biotechnologists.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
vorticity Wrote:Is this the same Winn Adami, living for centuries, or did Earth start counting dates from the Buddha's Enlightenment?

None of the above. Like I said, everything's up for grabs and that includes the timeline. Certain things on the timeline will remain the same (maybe) as will certain people, but when they happen and how they happen... that'll change. For one thing there's a lot more history between the 20th/21st centuries and the Federation. Not all of it is pleasant.

But we'll be getting there if/when the time comes.

Anyway, by my rough calculations the famous Five-Year Mission of the Starship Enterprise begins in the year 2809, with things proceeding from there.

robkelk Wrote:Submitted for your consideration:

Interesting, and it may see use elsewhere, but I've got plans for the andorians...
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Feel free to file off the serial numbers...

Edit: After a few hours' reflection, I realize there are two distinct parts to my offering - the reason why the Andorians share a name with something out of Middle Earth, and the alien race themselves. One could separate the two easily.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Sooo... is modern warp drive invented by an Earthling, Zefram Cochrane, or an Alpha Centauran, Zeyafrem Co'achran? I always prefered the version where humans came up with impulse power and took a 6 year slowboat to Alpha Centauri, a few decades before warp drive came around myself. It gives more of a sense of achievement than, "oh, aliens were watching for centuries but stayed back until we climbed out of the kiddie pool." But then, I have issues with Trek's Prime Directive anyway.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows