by S. W. Ahmed
2. The Aftar
By number the smallest of the four advanced species in the galaxy (total population of 332 quadrillion), and the oldest (8 billion Earth years). Their region of space, known as the Aftaran Dominion and covering much of the core of the galaxy, is also the smallest (74 billion star systems, only 9 billion of which are inhabited by their species). They evolved from bird-like creatures on a desert planet called Meenjaza in the Afta-Raushan star system. The Aftaran head looks somewhat like that of an owl, covered with tiny feathers, including large, round eyes, pointed ears and a beak-like mouth. Aftarans stand upright, with adults reaching heights of 8 feet, and have two arms and two legs each. They are rumored to have wings as well, but always keep them concealed under their loose robes. They often cover their heads and faces with parts of their robes, especially when traveling or in front of strangers.
The Aftar are a highly reclusive society. Spiritual and serious by nature, many of them devote their lives to the study of religion and mysticism. They interact little with other species, most of them living very simple lives in monastery-like communities on desert planets spread far and wide across their star systems. Their concept of individualism is considerably stronger than that of the Mendoken. They do have a hierarchical structure with a ruling council at the top chosen by popular decree, but it is far less organized and much looser than the Mendoken hierarchy. The current supreme head of the council is called Lord Wazilban.
Although the Aftar have traditionally been a male dominated society, they do place great importance on the equality of males and females, and there are many female Aftarans in key positions of influence across the Dominion. They have strong family bonds, and individual Aftarans always identify themselves with the clans their families have originated from.
Their level of technology is the lowest among the four species, as technological advancement is not a major focus for them. Some Aftarans, however, appear to have supernatural powers that are not explicable by science. The current average lifespan of each Aftaran is close to 1,000 Earth years, the longest of all species in the galaxy. Their strict meditation routines and healthy diets appear to contribute to this extraordinary longevity, although they claim it is a result of the deep faith they have in their religion.
3. The Volona
With a region of space covering 220 billion star systems, most of them in the lower half of the galaxy, the Volona inhabit 68 billion of them with their population of 4.5 quintillion. About as old as the Mendoken (3 billion years), they originated from a blue marine planet called Barenoa in the Volo-Maree star system. Nobody knows what kind of creatures they evolved from, nor does anybody know what they look like now. This is because they are very secretive by nature, hardly ever interacting with other species and never revealing their history or their true appearances to any outsiders.
The Volona are known for their hedonism and pursuit of the finer things in life. Any events or objects that result in pleasure or physical comfort, such as consumption of food, leisurely activities and entertainment, are their highest priorities. They choose to live in virtual worlds, created by the imaginations of their own desires. Those few beings from other species that have had the opportunity to encounter these virtual worlds are stunned at the beauty and splendor of the surroundings and lifestyles within, unsurpassed in luxury anywhere else in the entire galaxy.
The Volona have an imperial system of government, with a ruler called Adrelina. She is the latest empress of a dynasty that has lasted for over 2 million Earth years. Since they are a female dominated society, most of the ruling positions in the Volonan Empire are held by females.
The level of technology that the Volona have is high, although almost all of it is tailored around the needs of their prized virtual environments. They have sophisticated weaponry with which to protect their virtual environments from others, and their borders are by far the most heavily fortified in the entire galaxy. The current average lifespan of a Volonan is only 180 Earth years. This is because their focus on attaining pleasure and living in virtual worlds causes their bodies to deteriorate much more quickly than those of the other advanced species.
4. The Phyrax
Covering the largest region of space, the Phyrax Federation is thinly spread across approximately 580 billion star systems, most of them in the farthest edges of the Glaessan below and around the Volonan Empire. There are additional sections belonging to the Phyrax that stretch all the way up to the core of the galaxy as well. Their low population of 1.4 quintillion is dispersed over 200 billion star systems, resulting in some of the most sparsely populated regions in the entire galaxy. They came into existence 4 billion years ago, on a large, yellow, gaseous planet 18 times the size of Jupiter. Called Pyratreef, it is the sixth planet in the Phyra-Benjax star system.
Phyraxes are huge creatures, towering up to a height of 20 feet and a width of 8 feet. Their bodies are composed of gaseous substances held together by pure energy, a consequence of the planet they originated from. They look somewhat like clouds themselves, although they have a distinct structure that includes a head, a lower body, and a number of limbs that dynamically take shape as needed. They have no eyes, noses or ears, but can nonetheless sense the presence of everything around them. With their low body density, they can naturally float through the atmosphere of most planets, and hence have no need for legs or feet. They have no gender and do not reproduce. Instead, a form of energy in the gases of Pyratreef gives rise to the periodic birth of new Phyraxes. This form of energy they have transferred to all other planets they live on to produce offspring there as well.
The Phyrax are mostly solitary creatures, many of them living as hermits in clouds in the sky. They have no known system of government, or any form of law and order. They value their liberty above all else, each of them living its life according to its own wishes. They are adventurers, fighters and hunters, placing tremendous importance on bravery in invading other worlds, winning in combat and acquiring wealth by seizing the riches of the races they subdue. They have powerful battleships and military technology, but lack basic infrastructure and services on their own planets. Phyraxes generally live to about 370 Earth years of age.
5. The Wars
The Glaessan is not, and never has been, a peaceful place. Its history is filled with wars, each one more violent and devastating than the one before. The Mendoken have a violent history of their own, having advanced into what they now are only after many bitter battles between different groups holding their own agendas and beliefs. Eventually the ideologies of science, logic and order prevailed, after which the Mendoken rapidly grew into a sophisticated civilization. They developed high speed space travel capability, and expanded their populations to neighboring planets and eventually across entire star systems.
The other three advanced civilizations are believed to have gone through similar upheavals in history before finding their own core, unifying values that led them to power, prosperity and great strides in advancement.
Due to the rapid expansion of their territories, the four civilizations eventually made contact with each other. That was when the real problems began. War after war followed, never resulting in a concrete, sustainable victory of one side over the other. Eventually the Mendoken and Aftar drifted to one side with an alliance, and the Volona and Phyrax to the other. Peace did finally prevail after uncountable millenia of continuous conflict, although occasional border skirmishes still occurred from time to time. Many treaties and interstellar regulations between the four advanced civilizations were put in place during this period.
But the Glaessan did not appear to have peace in its fate. Just recently, major wars broke out once again, with the Mendoken and Aftar on one side, and the Volona and Phyrax on the other. The cause, according to the Mendoken at least, was a Volonan attempt to make direct contact with a number of species not yet advanced enough to join the galactic community, in order to gain access to valuable raw materials on their planets. When the Mendoken confronte
d the Volona about this blatant violation of the intragalactic non-interference rule, the Volona wasted little time in escalating the conflict into a military one. At the same time, a band of Phyraxes attacked several Aftaran star systems along their common border and wiped out a couple of indigenous species living there, after charging the Aftar with unfairly attempting to convert Phyraxes living near the border to their religion. This was how the wars began.
This time, however, the Volona are quickly gaining the upper hand against the Mendoken, with this new ability to travel unseen through consars (rifts in higher dimensions). They suddenly appear undetected in the middle of Mendoken space, destroy their targets, and then disappear again before they can be pursued. Officially, the Volona deny they are behind the consar attacks, and claim they do not even have consar technology. But history has repeatedly revealed their deceptive nature, and the Mendoken have learned the hard way never to trust or believe what they say.
The Mendoken have desperately been trying to come up with the same technology, but for various reasons have not been successful yet. That is why they are so interested in Marc and his work. Their hope is that he will help them quickly achieve the breakthrough they need to defeat the enemy.
6. Space Travel
Space travel in the Glaessan is restricted by regulation to the standard 3 dimensions. This was set in a treaty between the four advanced species almost a billion years ago, and the study of consar travel has been banned since. There are two main reasons:
· Non-interference with any life forms that may exist in parallel universes in other dimensions. Although such life has never been directly observed, current scientific theory strongly indicates the likelihood of its existence. Because it is impossible for us to physically see the other dimensions, the path of a consar may inadvertently lead right through a world belonging to aliens in a parallel universe.
· Strict religious doctrine of the Aftar that any attempts to interfere with other dimensions will result in a cataclysmic downfall of all civilizations in the Glaessan. This is clearly stated in their religious scriptures.
This treaty has been broken by the Volona, who recently developed consar travel capability in secret.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity does hold true for much of the universe, at least as a reasonable approximation for how massive bodies in the universe exert gravitational pulls on each other through the spacetime fabric. It turns out, however, that the restriction his theory imposes on high speed travel, namely that the speed of light is the uppermost constant against which all other motion is relative, is not entirely correct. Although most things in nature do appear to conform to that limit, the limit can actually be passed by artificial means. Once the limit is passed, Einstein’s theory breaks down and no longer applies. Ships can therefore travel faster than the speed of light without requiring infinite energy or experiencing any time dilation.
A process known as bosian layering is the widely accepted standard that all ships in the galaxy use to avoid the restrictions of relativity during acceleration up to the speed of light. This process entails maintaining an invisible layer around the ship as it accelerates up to light speed, a layer that is not affected by relativity. Once it passes the light speed barrier, the ship can shed this protective layer and keep on accelerating normally to the top speed that its engines allow. The same kind of layer is used during deceleration below light speed as well.
A process similar to bosian layering is used to transmit messages through space at many times the speed of traditional electromagnetic waves. When a message is transmitted, however, the protective layer around the message is never shed and is maintained for the duration of its journey through space.
The tremendous energy needed for the high speeds of interstellar travel is generated by controlled collisions between matter and anti-matter. Anti-matter is actually plentifully available in the universe, contrary to what scientists on Earth believe. It is available in elementary particle form, in sizes many times smaller than those of quarks, and is spread everywhere across the vast expanses of space, totally invisible to the naked eye. Any properly equipped ship traveling through space can pick up these antimatter particles in transit and use them in collisions with normal matter. This whole process is known as kilasion, and ship engines that use this technology are known as kilasic engines. All kilasic engines have to be equipped with the ability to perform bosian layering.
For a long time, one major issue in interstellar space travel, given the volume of traffic in the galaxy (especially in the Mendoken Republic), was the possibility of collisions between ships crossing the same section of space. In order to eliminate this risk, a complex network of routes known as the Yuwa was created during peacetime 200 million years ago. Much of the planning for this was done by the Mendoken, and subsequently adopted as the standard by the other three civilizations. Over 50 billion major highways exist today in the Yuwa, coupled with an additional 820 billion smaller routes.
Accompanying the Yuwa is a standard naming convention for all star systems in the galaxy. Every star system has a name of two words joined together. The first part is always an abbreviation of the name of one of the four advanced species, depending on whose region of space it is in (Mendo, Afta, Volo or Phyra). The second part is a unique name chosen by that species for the star. The solar system that Earth belongs to, for example, is called Mendo-Biesel. Each star also has a unique numeric value that is used by all ships’ navigation systems.
7. Other Species
The Glaessan galaxy is filled with life, of all shapes, sizes and levels of intelligence. There are billions of species on various types of planets and moons, some of them seemingly inhospitable to any form of life. But, as always, Nature has its way of adapting to different environments, equipping local creatures with the necessary properties to survive in their surroundings.
As a part of the interim peace period that began a few hundred million years ago, the four advanced species have agreed to galaxy-wide laws that require the placement of silupsal filters around any star system exhibiting intelligent life on one or more of its planets. The general rule is that the filter will be lifted whenever the civilization inside reaches the ability to travel through space at high speed. Such advancement usually indicates that they have successfully passed the self-destruction mark. Humans on Earth are not believed to have reached that level yet
There appears to be plenty of life in neighboring galaxies as well. But due to the tremendous distance between galaxies and the maximum speed of the fastest ships in the Glaessan reaching no more than 600,000 times the speed of light, it would take several years to travel to even the nearest galaxy. For that reason, travel to other galaxies is few and far between. So far, there have been no major confrontations with beings from other galaxies. But some limited, peaceful contact has sporadically been made by both the Mendoken and Phyrax with a species known as the Tolaf in the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest galaxy to the Glaessan.
On the discussion went, hour after hour. Eventually Marc began to show signs of tiredness, his lack of sleep from the previous night finally catching up with him. He requested HoloMarc to stop the discussion, and made his way to the bedroom. Without changing, he sprawled on the bed and fell asleep within seconds.
Chapter 10
Tibara was a desert world. The sixth planet in the Afta-Johran star system, it lay in one of the remotest regions of the entire Aftaran Dominion, not too far from the border to the MendokenRepublic. Aftarans typically preferred desert landscapes on which to live, but Tibara was quite different from the norm. This desert was not of sand, but of ice. Average temperatures in the summer rose to no more than -180 degrees Fahrenheit. In the winter, they could drop to below -400 degrees, not too far from absolute zero. The atmosphere, although very thin, contained a composition of gases similar to Earth – almost 80% nitrogen, with the rest broken up between methane, ethane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxygen, diacetylene and traces of several other gases.
/> The land was rugged, with sharp-edged mountains and volcanoes dotting much of the surface, glaciers carving out deep valleys, and huge plains of ice stretching out for thousands of miles. The only habitable location on this ice world was a deep network of underground tunnels left behind by an unknown, extinct alien race that had once lived here billions of years earlier. Now the planet was totally devoid of any settlements or signs of civilization. Aftarans generally stayed away from it, thanks to its highly inhospitable climate.
Peering out of his post at the barren plain ahead, Dumyan reminded himself that the inhospitable climate was just one of many reasons why he always hoped that every day he spent on Tibara would be his last. The only thing he could hear was the continuous clatter of ice trinkets from the blizzard outside, hitting the transparent shield in front of him with full force. The shield was small, tightly wedged between two blocks of ice jutting out of the side of a tall mountain. But however small it was, it provided the only view he had of the planet’s surface.
“At least being here means I’m not out there in the midst of the storm,” he said to himself. That was the sole consolation he had for his current predicament.
Dumyan was an Aftaran, a member of the 1238th generation of the Subhar clan. He stood nearly 8 feet tall, with his body covered in a loose, brown robe. A section of the upper part of his robe was wrapped around his head and face, leaving only his round, brown eyes exposed. Strapped over his shoulder was a small weapon that looked like a short sword, and with one of his feather-covered hands he held a binocular-like viewer to his eyes.