Tethys Settlement
Post-discovery human colonization happened over ten sta’y’s after discovery, over eight hundred Tethys-years before the time of the chronicle in the Tethys series. It was driven by Klaast Turill, then the wealthiest man in the human galaxy.
They settled on a planet, populated with a broad range of vegetable species. Grasses: hypher, fask, lemon grass, tussock. Shrubs: kilt, rambling rose, hebe. Most impressive of all were the two dominant kinds of trees. Their antecedents remained unclear. The vegetation’s genetic material puzzlingly was Terran, even though it bore no discernible resemblance to that of any known species. These trees, tika and noquo, were found predominantly in The Valley and the peninsula known as ‘Fontaine’, at the southern reaches of the vast continent ‘Aslam’. In the Valley most of them were concentrated in a broad swath of forest draped over the low hills of the Myrmidic Woods.
Upon arrival on the planet, more than ten thousand sleepers were aroused from suspended animation and ferried down to selected areas on Tapide, Aslam, Finister, Cosinante, and Grelande. There they began to implement Klaast Turill’s grand plan. For several years they constructed the infrastructure of an imaginary civilization; mostly cities. In vats they grew domestic and wild animals, which they either set free or corralled for domestic use. They introduced new species of grass, shrub, tree, mosses, lichens, ferns; labored hard to build what was in effect an enormous, very realistic and convincing, conceptually diverse stage-set, against which was to play out their and their descendants’ future.
When it was done they subjected themselves to an imprinting process which embedded false memories, to be awakened at the appropriate signal and supplant their real ones. A lottery was held to determine who would play which role in the grand scheme of things. The outcome, they knew, would not please those ending up at the bottom of the social scale, but, apart from a few grumbles, the matter went smoothly.
Everything happened as planned. The players readied themselves for their roles; positioned themselves for their new life. A signal was broadcast; the false memories were activated. A new and curious world began: set against a background of the technological ignorance of a medieval Earth; with adjustments here and there to remove those aspects considered undesirable, while retaining others considered essential to ensure the maintenance of what was considered the ideal status quo. Maybe it wasn’t utopia, but for the colonists it was preferable to the prevailing state of affairs among the other worlds populated by interstellar humanity.
The stage-setting on Tethys was varied and occasionally bizarre: deliberately so. Uniformity had not been the intention: only the discouragement of any urge to move toward higher technological stages.
Mechanisms had been put into place to ensure that undesirable developments, should they indeed occur, were foiled. A small group of select colonists, their memories erased like all the others’, but supplanted with ‘guardian patterns’ which retained some inkling of the elements of ‘real’ history, watched over the developing societies. They fostered desirable elements and ruthlessly suppressed those considered dangerous. The main population centers had each been assigned such a group. Over the centuries only one of these groups survived with its purpose intact: the ‘Magices’ of the Isle of Skele, off the coast of Keaen, who were responsible for keeping events in the Valley on the pre-ordained course. After the demise of their colleagues they sent occasional emissaries to the other centers: agents empowered to keep civilization on the pre-ordained course by any means considered necessary and expedient. These forays met with varying success, and history began to deviate from the idealized patterns envisaged by the founders. The Magices of Skele, realizing that there were limits to what they could accomplish, chose to focus their energies on the Valley, whose established political and social situation required more attention than had been anticipated.
As the centuries passed, unforeseen contingencies of profound import perturbed the planned course of events. Curious mutations appeared in animals and humans alike. These occurred most frequently in those living in and near the Myrmidic Woods. Some of the creatures imported by humans and left to roam freely, assumed grotesque forms. A certain species of ape became the ‘elec’: a kind of shaggy primate predator. The elecs living in the Myrmidic Woods grew to monstrous proportions, but were comparatively benign. Those of the plains became sleek killers, possessed of a frightful intelligence, who stalked their victims at night and were not adverse to attacking waystations or small villages—though they avoided the larger settlements. Other creatures, some of them similarly fearsome, abounded. These derived from a variety of mutated species, now capable of cross-breeding, and so giving rise yet more new species. Many of these were rarely glimpsed and became the stuff of nightmarish legend.
All the mutated animal species are nocturnal and shun the light of day. For reasons unknown, none can abide the close proximity of copper. As a result, copper is a most valued metal. Most houses—especially those in the countryside and on the periphery of even large settlements—have copper strips nailed along their walls and around their windows and doors. Elecs and other creatures of the night will not venture through openings thus protected.
Humans mutated with less effect on their appearance and disposition. Indeed, the mutations were oddly systematic, producing, in the male, ‘Magices’—a name applied because of their association with the Magices on Skele—and in females those known as ‘Sareens’. A curious affinity exists between the creatures of the night and mutant humans: an awareness of a profound kinship. As a consequence not even the fiercest elec would harm a Magice or a Sareen. They can roam freely where ordinary humans dare not got for fear for their lives.