Forge of Creation

Landfall

CA. 166,230 B.C.E. Arri­val of the Gods

“To con­si­der Earth the only popu­la­ted world in infi­nite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field sown with seed, only one grain will grow“
–the Greek scho­lar Meto­do­rus in the 4th Cen­tury BCE.

Enki awoke in the middle of a dream. The details slip­ped away as he star­ted to rea­lize that the early war­ning had been soun­ded, which meant that the Archon was nea­ring the bra­king point in it’s tra­jec­tory. “The long jour­ney is nearly over” thought Enki, clea­ring sleep from his head. “Soon, I will stand on the soil of our new home”.

The great and power­ful voidship Archon, named for the great Creator’s ser­vants, would soon unfurl its sails to begin bra­king. These sails would expand to the size of a small pla­net desig­ned to catch the light par­tic­les of this new star Solara, soon to become their home sun, to slow the Archon.

The voidship would soon lose iner­tial gra­vity, lea­ving the crew weight­less for a short time, then gra­dually it would return, except now from the oppo­site direc­tion. Enki sat up in his bunk and glan­ced at the cling­plant in the cor­ner, just begin­ning to show light along the tips of it’s lea­ves. His sleep cycle was nearly over any­way. There would be much work to do, sto­wing loose belon­gings and trans­fe­rring sto­rage con­tai­ners to what is now the cei­ling, but would soon become the floor. It was time now to begin those activities.

He pulled a clean cloak from the bin and put it on, then called up the cro­no­me­ter dis­play on his desk to plan his day’s acti­vi­ties. The cling­plant in the cor­ner, sen­sing motion in the room, began to brigh­ten to light up his acti­vi­ties. Gra­dually, the light from its lea­ves filled the room to wor­king intensity.

Soon the adven­ture would begin for Enki. To start at the end of his jour­ney from Anuk, which was the home of the third-wave colony they had left so long ago. All Enki expe­rien­ced was the trip. He was born on the voidship during the first acce­le­ra­tion of the voyage and the­re­fore could only see from his light pro­jec­tor what it was like on a planet’s sur­face… Any planet.

Enki had lear­ned much during his life on the Archon. His mother and father did not let him become idle for more than a few days at a time. He had know­ledge of all exis­ting Empire colo­nies, their his­tory and tech­no­logy, sur­vi­val and battle stra­te­gies, and bits of infor­ma­tion about other races and non-colonized star sys­tems. Making use of his know­ledge was dif­fi­cult during the une­vent­ful jour­ney that had taken all of his life­time, and Enki was eager to put it to use.

In the dis­tant past, the Annu­nu­kai were too nume­rous and adven­tu­rous to stay on their birth pla­net Kaida. The call of explo­ra­tion and growth had taken hold nearly three eons ago, lea­ving thou­sands of colo­nies spread about the habi­ta­ble zone of the galaxy. This par­ti­cu­lar voyage marks the begin­ning of the fourth wave of colonization.

Enki had lear­ned that mille­nia ago, news reached Anuk that Kaida had been des­tro­yed as its pri­mary sun explo­ded. Howe­ver, the disas­ter had been expec­ted so there was plenty of war­ning before the explo­sion. Ever­yone had been eva­cua­ted to various nearby first-wave colo­nies. Enki’s parents were part of that evacuation.

“Enki, please meet me in the cargo bay… Res­pond.” Bla­red the ship’s audio communicator.

“I will arrive soon, Father.” Enki ans­we­red, exci­ted that there would be something much more inte­res­ting than study to do. He sto­wed all the loose items in his room and left his cabin. The trip to the cargo bay should be par­ti­cu­larly enjo­ya­ble this time, he thought as he went to the access tube, and star­ted clim­bing down the lad­der lea­ding to the cargo bay at the rear of the ship to help with the mass trans­fer acti­vi­ties. As he star­ted clim­bing, he thought he could feel him­self become lighter.

By the time he reached the cargo bay door a short time later, his weight had dec­rea­sed to about half that of nor­mal, and he star­ted to take the lad­der ten rungs at a time, enjo­ying this new­found free­dom and won­de­ring if it would hurt to jump the last hun­dred feet. Then he rea­li­zed that his mass had not dec­rea­sed, and such a jump would surely break his legs unless he wai­ted for the iner­tial gra­vity to dec­rease to under ten per­cent acceleration.

Yet when he was ten feet from the bot­tom of the tube, he kic­ked off from the lad­der and slowly drop­ped to the floor, lan­ding in a per­fect three-point cat-stance. “I could really enjoy this. Too bad it will only last for such a short time.” Enki thought to him­self, smi­ling. He reached down and ope­ned the cargo bay door on the floor and step­ped through to climb the last span of lad­ders to the floor of the cargo bay. many of the colo­nists had gathe­red here, and were busily remo­ving fas­te­ners which were hol­ding the cargo con­tai­ners to the floor while they wai­ted for the hiss of the ion engi­nes to stop.

Enki knew every one of the colo­nists aboard the Archon. Of the nearly 300 aboard, most were mille­nia old, though still young by Annu­nu­kai stan­dards. the social caste of each crew mem­ber could be easily iden­ti­fied by their clothing and groo­ming sty­les. The Wor­kers in tight-fitting breeches and sha­ved heads. The Jud­ges in their flo­wing robes, long hair, and some with full beards. The Warriors in their uni­forms of tra­di­tio­nal gold and black, having short-cropped hair and beards, some having cyber­ne­tic implants to enhance their strength, sight, or hea­ring. Lastly, the Igigi, who were inven­tors and engi­neers, dres­sed in various dis­cor­dant bright colors, none quite like the other.

Enki’s mother Antu and his father Anu were both 25 mille­nia old. Elderly by Annu­nu­kai stan­dards. They had not wan­ted to go on this jour­ney, except that having been eva­cua­ted from Kaida in their youth had left them without a home star sys­tem. It would be doubt­ful if either of them would live another mille­nium. Their gene­tic struc­ture was star­ting to drift again, and the medi­cal equip­ment neces­sary for a gene­tic re-sequencing was not avai­la­ble on this colo­nist ship. Howe­ver, they knew and accep­ted the risk that this new colony would take nearly that long to create the tech­no­logy base for such an ins­tru­ment. By that time, it would likely be too late to repair their ori­gi­nal gene­tic code, and they would die. This was really not such a terri­ble pro­po­si­tion after having lived this long. They would spend their last days pre­pa­ring Enki for lea­dership such that would make the Annu­nu­kai empire proud, record a life­time of know­ledge into Me sto­nes, and spend their last years as lords of this new colony.

Nearly all of the cargo had been relea­sed by the time the ion engi­nes shut down com­ple­tely, the endu­ring hiss that Enki had heard all his life sud­denly went silent, which left him with a strange fee­ling of loss. I may not sleep this night, he thought.

The acti­vity began again in ear­nest. Groups of five to a con­tai­ner, pushing off lightly from the floor, then floa­ting slowly across the room, coming to rest on the oppo­site floor, and fas­te­ning the con­tai­ner into place. Each con­tai­ner and its new loca­tion was chec­ked off a list and the data etched into a Me stone for later retrieval.

Enki tried to help without get­ting in the way as he saw con­tai­ners, mar­ked in detail, that would come into use when the Archon made land­fall on a new pla­net. Food, tools, equip­ment, wea­pons, and fuel were moved from the aft floor to the for­ward floor and strap­ped down.
One con­tai­ner for exam­ple, con­tai­ned gene­tic equip­ment and sam­ples enough to terra­form a pla­net or re-create the envi­ron­ment of any of the 3,200 colo­nies, inc­lu­ding Kaida. It was the hope of Anu and Antu to find a pla­net sui­ta­ble to trans­plant its life, so that the Kaida eco-system could live on.

As he wor­ked to move sup­plies and equip­ment to the for­ward floor, Enki con­si­de­red his new life with exci­te­ment. Remote sen­sing veri­fied the liva­bi­lity of their new home sys­tem. Three pla­nets exist within the life-band of this sta­ble yellow sun. The one furthest from Sola­ris see­med a good choice for their home base and it had been agreed in Coun­cil to name it Aleph and esta­blish a city there called Olym­pus. This pla­net resem­bles Kaida in a num­ber of key ways:

First, it has a thick Nitrogen-Oxygen atmosphere with mode­rate amounts of Helium that would make the sky appear light indigo, simi­lar to that of Kaida.

Second, two moons floa­ted in the sky, one very large moon with a rich atmosphere, but nearly cove­red in liquid water and another moon much sma­ller, and blan­ke­ted with pock­marks and cracks, which demons­tra­ted a rea­so­na­ble defense against debris, such as comets, aste­roids, and meteorites.

Third, Aleph is sma­ller than Kaida by only ten per­cent. The­re­fore, gra­vity is simi­lar enough to easily adapt the gene­tics of the flora and fauna to the new planet.

There were only a few minor pro­blems to be addres­sed. The tidal for­ces beneath the crust have not yet sub­si­ded to com­plete sta­bi­lity, so vol­ca­nism remains quite active on nearly a third of the planet’s sur­face. Another large over­lap­ping area is ocean, con­tai­ning most of the planet’s pho­tosynthe­sis while the remai­ning sur­face is divi­ded bet­ween ice caps and barren rock, lea­ving but a small habi­ta­ble range in which to esta­blish a Kai­dan ecosys­tem. Life-forming this pla­net would be a cha­llenge that would take many mille­nia. For­tu­na­tely, one moon and two other pla­nets in the sys­tem were full of life and could be sipho­ned to Aleph in the event of problems.

What kind of life would they find? His trai­ning pro­vi­ded only a simu­la­tion of what they could find here. Would there be sepa­rate evol­ving beings like the Annu­nu­kai, or would the most inte­lli­gient life be a colla­bo­ra­tive hive mind like the marau­ding Zshal?

“Enki! You will overshoot the bin­dings.” Antu inte­rrup­ted his thoughts. “Please focus your atten­tion to the task at hand”

“Sorr-y Mother.” Enki stam­me­red as he shif­ted his weight to com­pen­sate for the mis­gui­ded tra­jec­tory of the ship­ping container.

“He will learn the wis­dom of focus very soon mother. I too, weary of Wor­ker acti­vi­ties. Soon we can be cha­llen­ged at our new home. This will teach focus even to my brother.” Enlil smi­led poin­tedly at him as he com­ple­ted the fas­te­ning of a crate, then pushed off the floor to obtain another load.

The Zshal, thought Enki with a sick fee­ling. Those bloodthirsty, grey-skinned, insect-like horde of demons that tra­vel throughout the galaxy searching for inte­lli­gience to ens­lave and con­sume, fue­ling their appe­tite for domi­nion and cau­sing all life to fall before their psio­nic onslaught.

Great phi­lo­sophi­cal minds say that the Zshal were crea­ted by the Archons soon after the birth of the galaxy to bring adver­sity and chaos to bear on the pro­cess of inte­lli­gient pro­gres­sion. Their evil is indes­truc­ti­ble, yet they are limi­ted in num­bers to ensure that vir­tue may never be overwhelmed.

Enki shud­de­red at the thought of the Zshal arri­ving before this colony had a chance to gain a foothold here. He secu­red the con­tai­ner he had just moved and went for another.

These demons had been bea­ten back in most colo­ni­zed sys­tems, but being indes­truc­ti­ble by nature, once their phy­si­cal body is des­tro­yed, their spi­rits have the power to rema­te­ria­lize the struc­ture of their bodies out of com­mon mat­ter over a few centuries.

One way to stop their plun­der is to impri­son them, as hap­pe­ned During the Nebula Wars. Small groups of them had been suc­cess­fully impri­so­ned inside black hole sin­gu­la­ri­ties, but this was dif­fi­cult to accom­plish. The only alter­na­tive is to turn them aside with an energy field tuned to remove their mole­cu­lar cohe­sion. This scat­ters their mole­cu­les far and wide, effec­ti­vely stop­ping their attack for a short time.

For­tu­na­tely for ever­yone, the Zshal hive mind has no con­cept of revenge, they accept their “undead” sta­tus as com­ple­tely as they expect their vic­tims to accept domi­na­tion. So when defea­ted, they just wan­der off to a new star sys­tem and start anew.

The Warrior caste’s pri­mary mis­sion is to con­tain the Zshal threat in wha­te­ver man­ner is most likely to ensure the pro­tec­tion of the colo­nists. Warriors cons­tantly moni­tor the area for signs of their coming and prod the Igigi into pro­du­cing more effec­tive and effi­cient ways to repel the enemy.

The Jud­ges caste does the plan­ning and lea­ding of the colony, the Wor­ker caste builds and obtains mate­rials, and the Igigi caste sup­ports all other mis­sions by researching, crea­ting, and ope­ra­ting new technology.

The load trans­fer task was com­ple­ted in a rela­ti­vely short time and ever­yone floa­ted back to their rooms to move their per­so­nal belon­gings in the same man­ner as they had the cargo bay. When all the con­tents of the voidship had been thus secu­red, the word was given to deploy the sail.

Enki watched the sail unfurl at the rear of the voidship from the light pro­jec­tor at his desk. Gra­vity gra­dually retur­ned to the Archon allo­wing the Annu­nu­kai to walk the decks again. Most ever­yone had enjo­yed the brief new fee­ling of floa­ting free, but they also knew it was not good for their health. Acci­dents were more nume­rous during the tran­si­tion and their bodies were made for gra­vity and would start dete­rio­ra­ting in a mat­ter of days. With the new direc­tion and grea­ter strength of gra­vity, some had trou­ble fin­ding balance at first, but within days ever­yone on the ship became fami­liar with the new spa­cial orientation.

Though Enki wished he could be allo­wed to take a Vimana out and scout ahead of the ship, he knew that once he left the doc­king bay, there would be nothing to slow his approach to Sola­ris. He would be doo­med to pass by the sys­tem at the same appro­xi­mate speed he left the voidship’s pro­tec­tive gra­vi­tic shell. There was no bra­king mecha­nism on a Vimana like the solar sail of the Archon. He would have to be con­tent with the Vimana simu­la­tor on the com­pu­ter of his light pro­jec­tor. At least he would be in top form when they finally arrived.

Maybe his father would let him pilot on the first sur­vey mis­sion from orbit around Aleph.

The days pas­sed quickly as Enki trai­ned while wai­ting for the jour­ney to end. He became an expert Vimana pilot thanks to the Me inter­face on his light pro­jec­tor. Each of his ances­tors who had been pilots, had left their expe­rience on Me sto­nes for the trai­ning of those who came after. Some­ti­mes the impres­sions were so well-preserved that it felt to Enki like their very thoughts were inside of his mind, nud­ging and tem­pe­ring his reac­tions as he became fami­liar with the con­trols of each class of Vimana.

Stran­gely, des­pite that fact that some of those who had recor­ded the sto­nes had been gone for nearly a million years, he found that he had come to know them as family mem­bers and as exam­ples with which to hone his atti­tu­des and pre­fe­ren­ces as an indi­vi­dual. He felt sure he was there when his grand­father fought the Zshal during the Nebula Wars. He could feel his own hand swea­ting on the trig­ger as he pic­ked those demons off one by one, and the relief that came when there were no more to bar his way as he ans­we­red the colonist’s dis­tress beacon.

Unfor­tu­na­tely, he also felt the pangs of remorse and pity as he (his grand­father) lan­ded at the spa­ce­port to find that most of the colo­nists had been left mind­less vege­ta­bles from the psychic ons­laught of the hive mind before he had arrived.

Enki was sha­king with rage as his hand reached around the desk to turn off the simu­la­tion. “I will remem­ber, Grand­father” he spoke aloud. Then for some hours after­ward, he sat sta­ring at the deck until he could no lon­ger sit upright. His bunk pro­mi­sed some relief, but betra­yed him that night with more night­ma­res of battle.

The next mor­ning was well under­way accor­ding to his sleep cycle when he was awa­ke­ned by the insis­tent musi­cal notes of his cabin chime. Someone was at the door. Was it time to enter orbit already?

He tried to voice the word “Open” but it was only a squeak, so he drag­ged him­self out of his bunk and fum­bled for a tunic. The chime again…

“Alright then” Enki finally said as he made it to the door and pas­sed his hand across the sen­sor “What is so impor­tant this morning?”

The cabin door ope­ned and Antu ente­red. “You sleep late Enki” she said trying to hide a trace of dis­dain in her voice. ” We will soon begin an orbit around our new home, would you like to be on the first sur­vey mission?”

“Yes I would” said Enki enthu­sias­ti­cally. “I have been pilot trai­ning on the simu­la­tor. May I pilot the shuttle?“
“We should leave those tasks to the Igigi, at least until the colony is esta­blished. How far did you pro­gress in the trai­ning ses­sion?” Antu asked, cautiously.

“I pas­sed the level 12 stan­dard, then I found a Me in the library that came from Grand­father. He was brave and strong.” Enki’s voice trai­led off in thought upon remem­be­ring the experience.

Antu’s expres­sion chan­ged to com­pas­sion as she remem­be­red her own trai­ning with the memory Me. “He was that indeed. Did you get to the end?”

“Yes, mother. There can be no doubt of our his­tory when we have such effec­tive means to remem­ber. My life stretches before and the Me sto­nes are pla­ced in my hand to allow the great­ness of our family to inc­rease. I am grateful.”

“Not as gra­te­ful as I, little brother!” Enlil had appea­red without notice, as was his tac­tic. “I will bring our family to great heights of power and tech­no­logy just as surely as I stand. You need not bother since you will pro­bably only be a mote in my path.” A sneer cros­sed his face as he finished spea­king and then disap­pea­red out the door as though all neces­sary things had been spoken.

Enki’s expres­sion chan­ged from con­fi­dence to sur­prise, then to anger as he twitched recog­ni­tion of the appea­rance of his only brother who was, it see­med too pre­dic­ta­ble, even in his attemp­ted unpre­dic­ta­bi­lity, to grasp the basic con­cepts of honor or humi­lity. Enki was con­vin­ced that it would make him unfit to rule anything, but his father and mother refu­sed to com­ment whe­ne­ver there was a dis­pute bet­ween them, accor­ding to Annu­nu­kai custom.

He tur­ned to Antu, who’s expres­sion remai­ned unchan­ged, and then to his pre­pa­ra­tion for the day. “You need not defend me against him.” he said, “The Archons will see whom I serve, while he ser­ves only one. I will be ready in short. Thank you, mother for the visit, I will see you on the sur­vey deck.”

He was gra­te­ful when his door slid clo­sed as his mother left the room.

The sur­vey deck was crow­ded when Enki arri­ved. There really was no best gathe­ring place on the ship, but the sur­vey deck was a par­ti­cu­larly poor choice. But this was where the first mis­sion of their new home would begin, so ever­yone arri­ved to add their own energy to it’s success.As he ente­red the vimana, he found his father and brother already strap­ped in, while a small sur­vey crew of 5 Igigi busily made pre­pa­ra­tions to get under­way. Though Enki hadn’t seen for him­self, he knew that the Archon was already in a cir­cu­lar orbit around Aleph, in pre­pa­ra­tion to become an orbi­tal sta­tion that pro­vi­des sup­port during the terra­for­ming pro­cess, pro­tec­tion from dan­ger, and a means of escape should the colo­ni­zing plan fail.

If a major fai­lure should hap­pen, the Archon would be enti­rely on its own to fend for itself. Though quan­tum com­mu­ni­ca­tions could imme­dia­tely alert the nea­rest colo­nies, it could be years before help would arrive. Even in the event of attack by the Zshal, it would be up to the crew and colo­nists to over­come or die.

Even the Archons them­sel­ves would likely ignore a dis­tress call unless in their wis­dom, they dee­med it part of this solar system’s mas­ter plan. If it hap­pe­ned, inter­ven­tion would be an ins­tan­ta­neous flurry of acti­vity that would be hardly noti­ced, the time frame com­pres­sed to mic­ro­se­conds, lea­ving ever­yone invol­ved, won­de­ring if it had all been a dream. If anything had hap­pe­ned at all. The Archons were adept at mani­pu­la­ting time and space, but were unin­te­res­ted in explai­ning or refu­ting anything to mere Annu­nu­kai. And it is said that they jea­lously guard their sec­rets of tech­no­logy lest a child-race become too power­ful and dis­rupt the balance of existence.

The vimana pas­sed through the gra­vi­tic shell around the Archon to the open space beyond and aimed for the hori­zon of Aleph. Then after a time, the illu­mi­na­tion inc­rea­sed inside the cabin as energy was trans­fe­rred to the hull of the vimana in return for dece­le­ra­tion, while the atmosphere drag­ged at their har­nes­ses like an eager rap­tor strai­ning at its thongs.

The entry was vio­lent but short-lived as the vimana broke through the lower stra­tosphere and coo­led, pan­ting its way toward the sur­face of the planet.

Erup­ting vol­ca­noes spe­wed soot and stone in the dis­tance as the orbi­tal maps over­laid the navi­ga­tion con­sole with maps and data con­cer­ning the loca­tion of habi­ta­ble zones on Aleph. The sky out the view­port ligh­te­ned to an azure-purple hue.

Enki loo­ked over at his father who was smi­ling. Then he poin­ted to a busy spot on the navi­ga­tion con­sole and asked, “Is this where we are going?”

Anu nod­ded, still loo­king at the sky as if in a trance. Then he loo­ked down and rein­for­ced his ans­wer. “My son, this is the spot where we will begin again.”

Within minu­tes, the smo­king vol­cano moved over on the light pro­jec­tor to be repla­ced by the image of a green moun­tain range, bor­de­red by the sea and reaching into the sky. It loo­med lar­ger as they approached and Enki could hear someone in front draw a heavy breath.

“Mount Olym­pus is the name of our new home.” said Anu, “and It shall be made great as the hills of Kaida.”

The pilot made a course correc­tion and aimed for a flat spot near the water. Clo­ser exa­mi­na­tion revea­led a plain of grassy plants punc­tua­ted by lar­ger shrubs and bor­de­red by a narrow beach of black sand.

An Igigi named Zu spoke up ten­ta­ti­vely, to avoid dis­tur­bing the moment. “Lord Anu. We recom­mend lan­ding here first. It is impor­tant to obtain sam­ples and to bring them back for analy­sis. It is also impor­tant to stay inside the vimana until we know everything about the life pat­terns of this pla­net, lest we poi­son our­sel­ves unwittingly.”

Enki expec­ted a gla­ring rebuke from his father, but ins­tead he clo­sed his eyes and said, “That is wise. We have so much to risk. Let us not ove­rex­tend our grasp to reach for our desires.”

As Enki sta­red out the view­port at the tiny sun rising over the peak of Mount Olym­pus, he won­de­red if he would ever become the lord of this pla­net. Something inside him said that it could never hap­pen. Then, as he felt the thud of rails touching black sand, somehow he didn’t mind, and won­de­red why.