06-28-2013, 11:22 PM
This isn't fanfiction, per se, although you could call it a deconstruction, of sorts, of the planetary romance genre and particularly Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover stories. The empire here has minimal interest in the natives' world. So why are they here? Enjoy it -- or laugh at it -- as you choose.
It's set, by the way, in a 'verse I originally developed as a customized background for the Traveller role-playing game ... that I wound up never playing.
In the waning days of the Terran Hegemony, Terrans (of no more specific ethnicity) colonized Dwimordene, third planet of a G0 V star. It was decidedly Earthlike save for lesser gravity and thus a thinner but still breathable atmosphere, its sea level comparable to approximately 1.2 kilometers above Earth sea level. The settlement was less than two centuries old when the Hegemony fell. Not quite two hundred years after that, the government that had replaced the Hegemony cut Dwimordene off from interstellar commerce. Though self-sufficient enough to not actually die out, the colony decivilized to a large extent in the centuries immediately following.
When rediscovered just slightly less than three millennia later, Dwimordene had redeveloped a technology more-or-less comparable to Earth’s early Renaissance. It had, however, nothing the Stellar Dictate particularly wanted … except for its location, useful for transshipments throughout a desolate portion of the Arm. So the Dictate, in its 826th year and the 3373rd (T-standard) of the Dwimordene colony, otherwise 4568 of the Stellar Era and 6809 Common Era/Anno Domini, built its starport at Dwimordene almost completely in orbit.
Only a few facilities were installed on the planet surface, their use restricted to port personnel — and they were as remote as could be managed from any centers of the society that had developed among the colonists’ descendants. The Dictate had no desire to trade with the locals and, in keeping with its typical stance of benign neglect, no interest in “civilizing” them, either. It confined the starport’s “Down” component to a barren island near the planetary equator. The nearest Dwimordené population was some 1080 kilometers away, through reef-strewn seas, and the scorching climate at the port’s location made it seem improbable that explorers would ever venture near simply to “see what they could see.”What the Dictate failed to consider properly, however, was that although Dwimordene had lost (and rebuilt) much of civilization, it never fell so far as to lose language or literacy. Even after three thousand years of isolation, its people retained traditions — and copies of old texts — concerning ships from the stars. On top of this, their technology had by now recovered to the extent of constructing efficient telescopes and making astronomical observations with them. It therefore came as rather more of a shock to the port’s local administrators than it should have when after 271 T-standard years (268 local) a small fleet of native ships approached the island on which Dwimordene Down was sited. Stargazers in several Dwimordené nations had detected the orbital port and ships docking there; they’d also tracked the regular transfer of personnel to and from the surface installation and worked out a precise idea of where that facility must be. Various native expeditions set out independently, but chose to cooperate when they encountered each other on the way (one satiric wit among the Dictate personnel commented that this proved the people of Dwimordene had ceased to be truly human). Their captains jointly expressed the desire to open diplomatic and trading relations with the starfarers. Unfortunately, the administrators were, perhaps, somewhat too blunt about the Stellar Dictate’s lack of interest in anything Dwimordene had to offer, and a great deal of wounded pride and bitterness resulted. Later officials tried to be more tactful and conciliatory, but the damage was done, and most Dwimordené at best resented the offworlders. At worst, they dreamed of overrunning Dwimordene Down with slaughter and pillage, and even pirating shuttles in which to raid the orbital port as well.Just over a century later, however, an unforeseen situation arose. No one at the starport knew for certain whether the difficulty resulted from a vessel malfunction, some sort of foul play, or a combination of both, but a small group of Dictate civilians landed in Dwimordené territory, nearly six thousand kilometers from the port. One of the Dictate’s covert agents, hurriedly briefed on local socio-political conditions, was sent to rescue the innocent and/or capture the guilty. The briefing couldn’t, in the time available, be made sufficiently comprehensive to let the agent blend in with the local populace; the Dictate had to settle for passing him off as a minor functionary of one of the rare liaison efforts. He was also to retrieve or destroy the landing vessel and all equipment it’d carried, lest the locals obtain technological knowledge for which the Dictate felt them unready. Of course, no Dwimordené was noticeably inclined to cooperate with this mission….
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Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
It's set, by the way, in a 'verse I originally developed as a customized background for the Traveller role-playing game ... that I wound up never playing.
In the waning days of the Terran Hegemony, Terrans (of no more specific ethnicity) colonized Dwimordene, third planet of a G0 V star. It was decidedly Earthlike save for lesser gravity and thus a thinner but still breathable atmosphere, its sea level comparable to approximately 1.2 kilometers above Earth sea level. The settlement was less than two centuries old when the Hegemony fell. Not quite two hundred years after that, the government that had replaced the Hegemony cut Dwimordene off from interstellar commerce. Though self-sufficient enough to not actually die out, the colony decivilized to a large extent in the centuries immediately following.
When rediscovered just slightly less than three millennia later, Dwimordene had redeveloped a technology more-or-less comparable to Earth’s early Renaissance. It had, however, nothing the Stellar Dictate particularly wanted … except for its location, useful for transshipments throughout a desolate portion of the Arm. So the Dictate, in its 826th year and the 3373rd (T-standard) of the Dwimordene colony, otherwise 4568 of the Stellar Era and 6809 Common Era/Anno Domini, built its starport at Dwimordene almost completely in orbit.
Only a few facilities were installed on the planet surface, their use restricted to port personnel — and they were as remote as could be managed from any centers of the society that had developed among the colonists’ descendants. The Dictate had no desire to trade with the locals and, in keeping with its typical stance of benign neglect, no interest in “civilizing” them, either. It confined the starport’s “Down” component to a barren island near the planetary equator. The nearest Dwimordené population was some 1080 kilometers away, through reef-strewn seas, and the scorching climate at the port’s location made it seem improbable that explorers would ever venture near simply to “see what they could see.”What the Dictate failed to consider properly, however, was that although Dwimordene had lost (and rebuilt) much of civilization, it never fell so far as to lose language or literacy. Even after three thousand years of isolation, its people retained traditions — and copies of old texts — concerning ships from the stars. On top of this, their technology had by now recovered to the extent of constructing efficient telescopes and making astronomical observations with them. It therefore came as rather more of a shock to the port’s local administrators than it should have when after 271 T-standard years (268 local) a small fleet of native ships approached the island on which Dwimordene Down was sited. Stargazers in several Dwimordené nations had detected the orbital port and ships docking there; they’d also tracked the regular transfer of personnel to and from the surface installation and worked out a precise idea of where that facility must be. Various native expeditions set out independently, but chose to cooperate when they encountered each other on the way (one satiric wit among the Dictate personnel commented that this proved the people of Dwimordene had ceased to be truly human). Their captains jointly expressed the desire to open diplomatic and trading relations with the starfarers. Unfortunately, the administrators were, perhaps, somewhat too blunt about the Stellar Dictate’s lack of interest in anything Dwimordene had to offer, and a great deal of wounded pride and bitterness resulted. Later officials tried to be more tactful and conciliatory, but the damage was done, and most Dwimordené at best resented the offworlders. At worst, they dreamed of overrunning Dwimordene Down with slaughter and pillage, and even pirating shuttles in which to raid the orbital port as well.Just over a century later, however, an unforeseen situation arose. No one at the starport knew for certain whether the difficulty resulted from a vessel malfunction, some sort of foul play, or a combination of both, but a small group of Dictate civilians landed in Dwimordené territory, nearly six thousand kilometers from the port. One of the Dictate’s covert agents, hurriedly briefed on local socio-political conditions, was sent to rescue the innocent and/or capture the guilty. The briefing couldn’t, in the time available, be made sufficiently comprehensive to let the agent blend in with the local populace; the Dictate had to settle for passing him off as a minor functionary of one of the rare liaison efforts. He was also to retrieve or destroy the landing vessel and all equipment it’d carried, lest the locals obtain technological knowledge for which the Dictate felt them unready. Of course, no Dwimordené was noticeably inclined to cooperate with this mission….
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Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.