Ramera - Prologue - 2nd Draft

PROLOGUE

THE EARTH
Year 2986: A brilliant sapphire set amongst the other vari-colored gems also cast around the golden primary Sol. There are green and brown landscapes with brighter areas of yellow for the desserts. Vast deep blue seas fading into pale greens around the more tropical coastlines are covering the bulk of the planet. The brilliant white ice and snow located on the highest mountain peaks and in the vast polar ice caps.
The smudges of pollution that were once like bruises on the planet over the biggest of the modern cities are no longer there. The cities are no longer there. The remnants of the Great Wall of China, The great pyramids of Egypt are still standing resolute if considerably more crumbly.
There are only one million people on the Earth now, and not a soul more, per Alliance Decree. The current populace of Earth is primarily made up of maintenance personnel. From the maintenance personnel to the general inhabitants are all the chosen ones of the Alliance. People that have either purchased or earned the coveted privilege to reside on the planet of our forbears.
The Alliance grants and revokes this favor at will. It wields this power with the temperament and ruthlessness of a spoiled child.
What was once the cradle of human life is now a vast wildlife preserve. There are animals, but not many, yet. In fact the first generations born on the planet are now about to issue forth their own young. There are fewer species now, not all were able to be saved in mankind’s exodus from the planet.
In the late twenty-first century a series of poor political decisions made was the catalyst in a series of events that managed to push the overburdened planet over the edge. Nuclear Weapons, the fire that had been played with too many times was unleashed in massive amounts.
The finely balanced eco-system of the planet was pushed too far out of balance and was unable to recover. Spiraling further and further out of control.
THE ALLIANCE
One of the only wise decisions made during that time was the pooling of the Earths space programs creating the Global Space Alliance. The best minds of the planet were recruited and charged with creating a base on the Earth’s moon.
The Alliance took on a life of its own and as it expanded it began recruiting the cream of Earth’s crop. This was fortunate since they managed to salvage so many biological samples and people from the inevitable self destruction.
When the Earth became unstable and plagues were ravaging the populace the Alliance shut down all transportation from the planet.
The Alliance had managed to develop a new type of drive that created wormholes in space leading into sub space. Thus cutting a trip of days don to minutes, months into hours. Once a worm hole was created into sub space, any ship with the exact coordinates could access it. Access to sub space simply avoided the dilemmas created by anti-matter and other propulsion systems.
The Alliance had gained the upper hand and was not about to let it go. There were massive fees associated with all aspects of life. The original charter members of the alliance were now the wealthy class and all others were deeply in debt. They spent lifetimes struggling to work off their amassed debt. The Earth and it’s loss was the main rallying cry for the oppressed.
The Alliance withdrew from our system as is discovered other hospitable colonial worlds. Gradually abandoning the colonies on Earth’s Moon, Mars, Callisto and an Ice mining Colony on Io. The Alliance had no further need of Earth and the Chancellor George Rasmus made sure that the people under his now total rule were kept too busy to mourn for the home world.
There were several contacts with other species as the Alliance explored the galaxy. Most were still pretty primitive, but some were highly advanced. Relations with these species were tentative and advanced slowly. Usually there is much suspicion when encountering another advanced species, so great care was necessary.
Unfortunately as happens with most dictators bent on oppression the line of Chancellor’s, all Rasmus’, grew more and more paranoid and jealous of their own power. A series of atrocities and corrupt practices were weakening the Alliances popularity and the loyalty of the people.
Small secret rebellious sects began to crop up and in typical government fashion, it pressed its boot down harder on the populace. The populace was poorly equipped for rebellion on a mass scale, being spread out across the galaxy. They were desperate for a change and a way to escape the oppression.
The Alliance’s encounter with the Dernai had opened new vistas for the Chancellor. He believed with every fiber of his being that the path to Earth was though studying the Dernai sciences. So he assembled a team and sent them to the planet to study and learn of their ways.
THE DERNAI
One species was different. The Dernai on a large planet called Mowan.
The Dernai, as a race, was very peaceful and very much in tune with the world around them. They were able to control every aspect of their world but had gained the wisdom to elect to do so only in the most necessary of situations; otherwise they allowed things to run in their normal course.
The ebb and flow of their lives were in tune with their world.
The concept of complex machinery was really foreign to them. They saw the use for it in regards to other races but found no need of it themselves. They were a very spiritual race in the sense of their connection to their world and all of its inhabitants; it was the very core of who and what they were.
The chance to learn and commune with new species and races delighted them and they were always welcoming to peaceful alien races, openness and honesty was their way of life and this was a new approach and unlike other species encountered. They were a pleasant and caring race that was slow to judge and even slower to anger.
Their entire philosophy was the emphasis of balance, to look at things at treat them as a whole, be it person, planet, solar system or even the entire universe. They stove to understand the delicate balances and to redress any imbalances.
The Dernai were about the same height range as most humans. They had four sinewy arms that ended in paws more than hands. Their three legs were long and exceedingly supple. Their flexible torso, or trunk, was long and thick, no neck but they were able to turn and rotate their elongated heads at amazing angles and directions, almost like an owl.
They had one round eye, centered in their elongated face, their mouths were wide and surrounded by a thin line that would be classified as lips. They only had ear and nose slits.
Their vocal chords had an amazing ability to emit both audible and inaudible noises. They also had strong prehensile tails. They were covered head to toe in long silky coats of fine fur. They were in reality a mammal, but they had more plant like characteristics and behaviors than any mammal anyone had ever seen. They seemed like a strange combination of a cat and a climbing vine of some plant.
The Dernai or Derna normally would live to be anywhere from 1500 to 2500 years old.
Younglings, as the Derna called their children were referred to as such until the tender age of 100. The younglings had no discernable sex until the age of sixty when it became apparent in their coloring that changed as they matured. The Derna were a light golden color from birth until age sixty when males would develop striping ranging in color from brown or reddish brown to black and their eye color would change from the youngling yellow to a bright vivid green. The females would develop a spinal stripe that ranged from brilliant white through the grays and on to black; their eyes would also change from the youngling yellow to a soft violet.
They were a medically advanced race in comparison to other aliens and even humans. They had developed and immense pharmacology that could cure or treat almost anything.
For passing on knowledge and in response to certain birth defects they had developed a surgical technique to implant knowledge or correct the flaw at a genetic level, similar to grafting plants and trees together to form a new hybrid. This was not a common practice. The passing on of knowledge, or Minah, was a rare privilege that had to be earned through years of study and integrity.