by Trevor Wyatt
July-August
After three years of research and development (that included reverse engineering captured Sonali technology), the start of year four of the war finds Terran Armada military capabilities on par with both offensive and defensive Sonali weaponry.
Reactions to this new military equality vary on each homefront:
•Terrans, already accustomed to significant causalities, react positively to these new "wins" against their enemy. Chants of "Remember the Mariner!" resurge as does pride in the military.
•Sonali citizens begin to question the war and have concerns regarding their daily life now that the enemy has become a real threat. Spurred by this new perspective, Sonali Scholars begin earnest research into a species that can no longer be categorized merely as "primitive aggressors".
September-December
Battles between the matched forces of Terran and Sonali military result in longer battles with significant loss of life on both sides.
Terran Ships Missing or Destroyed include: TUS Zenith, TUS Cyclone, TUS Hurricane, TUS Tornado, TUS Virgil, TUS Messenger, TUS Carolina, TUS Dynasty, TUS Eckard, TUS Franklin, TUS Claude, and TUS Marseille.
Sonali Ships Destroyed include: La'na, S'elal, M'alei, La'asi, Ka'era, S'hai, T'lan, M'hida, C'mei, F'ali, D'aie, and A'hai.
2201:
January
After five months of dealing with a "stalemate of destruction", both Sonali and Terrans begin covert operations to discover alternative means of winning the war. Recovered paperwork and/or testimony from Sonali and Terrans are the only existing proof of such activities during the war. It should be noted that military on both sides refuse to comment and deny the existence of these projects.
February
Omega Project: Designed to enhance Terran abilities due to the injection of a series of sophisticated nanites. One goal of the project was to increase Terran adaptability to extreme environmental changes, in particular the low-oxygen high argon atmosphere of Sonali. Test subject 01 results were found superior to all other subjects.
April
Devanagari Project- Sonali project to create air-borne parasites queued to Terran physiology. Personal logs (original recordings lost) kept by Sonali scientists describe the creation of a parasitic entity designed to attack Terrans-only. Testimony by a scientist on the project said they successfully created the phage with plans to deploy it via introduction into the atmosphere of large Terran cities. However, the war came to an end before the phage was deployed on a wide scale (per testimony of scientist). Despite this testimony rumors persist that select Terran colonies met their demise via use of this lethal parasitic invasion.
May
"Operation Zephyr" was a covert message system based on the American Indian language of Tuscarora. However, Terran Armada Counter Intelligence discovered that the coded messages were compromised. Terran Armada uses this opportunity to send out false messages regarding the location of a military convoy. Sonali war ships came out of FTL with plans to converge on a ship full of high-ranking military officials. Instead they find a "dummy" ship that detonates destroying the entire fleet.
June
Terran Armada decides to carry out the "Wolf Offensive". This dramatic action involves 'glassing' Beta Hydrae III - a densely populated region of Sonali.
Captain Montgomery is tasked with leading a counter-offensive. However, he still has questions regarding the Sonali's role in the destruction of TUS Mariner. Poised on the brink of genocide, Captain Montgomery returns to the location of the debris from TUS Mariner to investigate further.
Instead of meeting the Sonali, Captain Montgomery meets and speaks with another species the Nakra who admit that they destroyed TUS Mariner all those years ago. Their reasoning was that this area of space i.e. the nebula is their homeworld and must be kept sacred and secret; any species that trespass are not allowed to leave as they would reveal what they found. Thus, TUS Mariner had to be dispatched in an attempt to stay hidden.
Ullian of the Nakra tells Captain Montgomery he regrets his next actions; however, he must destroy TUS Seeker as he did TUS Mariner to protect his people. A battle ensues where TUS Seeker eventually has the upper hand insofar as the aliens have suffered great losses. At that time Ullian of the Nakra accepts Captain Montgomery's promise to leave them alone.
Realizing that the Sonali are guilt-less and that the war should never have started, Captain Montgomery rushes to the location of the large-scale attack between the Sonali and Terrans. Captain Montgomery opens a communication channel between the two warring sides: he reveals that the Sonali were innocent of the destruction of TUS Mariner and that the war was "predicated on a lie."
July
Terrans and Sonali agree to a cease fire under the "Mariner Armistice."
2202:
February
Seven months later, after numerous negotiations and meetings between both sides, an official peace treaty "The Mariner Accords" between Terran Armada and the Sonali is agreed upon and signed putting an official end to the five-year war. In addition, a provision is made within the treaty to protect the nebula of the Nakra homeworld from incursion from any and all alien species.
The five-year Earth-Sonali War was the worst conflict either side had every experienced in history.
Terran Union: Lives lost: 4 billionNumber of surviving colonies: 153 colonies out of 198 Loss of overall military force: 25%
Sonali Combine:Lives lost: 5 billionNumber of surviving colonies: 102 Loss of military forces: 18%
Sonali Combine
Planet of Origin: Sonali Prime
Appearance: Humanoid (two eyes, nose, mouth and two legs); however, they have facial slits instead of ears. Average height 6' tall. Hairless. Body color is a uniform pale blue with some darker gradients of blue on the face.
Life span: 80-90 years
Sexual dimorphism: Females and males possess the same sexual organs as Terran females and males. Sonali reproduce sexually; however, their path to reproduction is complex. The Sonali are sequential hermaphrodites – they are born one gender and at sexual maturity they switch. The process by is called "Ascension." At the age of 18 (Terran years) the Sonali are put through the Ascension ceremony. Although the specifics of the transformation are unknown to outsiders the following is known:
•Sonali are born gendered; however they are also born sterile
•It is only by going through Ascension that the Sonali become fertile
•By switching genders at maturity their bodies receive a signal to "turn on" the faculties needed to reproduce i.e. ovulation and sperm production
•Before the baby is born it is incubated outside the body until birth
•It is speculated, but unknown if this incubation influences the birth gender
Culture:
The Sonali are a technologically advanced race especially with regard to weaponry. In first contact with Terran Union they had a much greater advantage when it came to combat. Although their society has no record of war amongst itself, the Sonali have devoted a great deal to defense due to their disdain for most other species based on the belief that many are not intelligent enough to warrant contact. In addition they guard their advances in medicine, science and other fields closely.
Interactions with Terrans were initially only within combat situations. However, once the war ended, the Sonali were willing to cooperate with the Terrans regarding establishing a galactic council.
Gender Controversy:
A younger generation (pre-Ascesnion age) of the Sonali have formed the Origin Movement pushing for the end of mandatory Ascension. Their belief is that changing gender, or staying with your birth gender should be an individual choice. They also believe that this decision goes hand-in-hand with the additional choice whether to procreate or not.
Concerns for the future of the Sonali race are driving another group (Post-Ascension age) to argue for the continuation of Ascension both as a cultural tradition and as a necessity for survival of the
species. This group called the Ascendents believes that the anti-ascension generation have been influenced by Terrans. They believe that the short-sightedness of Terran society with regard to its own survival and its condition of static gender have "infected" the young Sonali with these ideas. The Sonali population is steady; however, there is fear of its decline should large numbers of the young choose to remain sterile.
Tyreesian Collective
Physical Description
The Tyreesians are a humanoid race. They are naturally short, but strong. They are mostly four to five feet tall, with thin silky skins. The average Tyreesian male has a thick and sturdy build. They have slits for eyes and ears and a closed third eye on their forehead. They have four fingers on each hand and four toes on each leg. Their skin color varies widely, from coffee brown to sugar white. They are not an exactly hairy species, hence it is rare to see a Tyreesian possessing hairs (of any kind on any part of their body).
Anatomy/Physiology
Their entire anatomical and physiological system resembles that of Terrans. They also possess a beating heart and as well as sexual organs not unlike Terrans, both for male and female. Hence, interbreeding among Terrans and Tyreesians is very possible.
Culture
The Tyreesians are a patriarchal society, where the men make all the decisions and the women basically listen and do what they are told. There are no such things as women movements, and feminism isn’t even a word that exists in their vocabulary. They are a highly advanced race with a brain capacity that is naturally larger than Terrans. However, this increased brain capacity is one reason why they are naturally aggressive. The Tyreesians are also very cunning, and it is said that doing business with a Tyreesian is like doing business with a serpent. You don’t really know when they’re going to bite you in the back.
It is a taboo for a Tyreesian female to be unbound (what Terrans call unmarried). Marriage ceremonies are known as The Binding, where a Tyreesian female is bound for the duration of her life to a Tyreesian male. Because the Tyreesian female population is roughly higher than the Tyreesian males, it is not unusual to see a male Tyreesian being bound to more than one female Tyreesian. In fact, this is such a conquest that the more females you are bound to the more you are highly regarded in the society. Barbaric by many standards, especially Terran, but this is who they are. Politicians that will be very successful usually have as much as three females bound to them. Tyreesian female are unable to partake in any election, though they can vote.
Though Tyreesian females must be bound to a male (the lawful age for this to have happened is 25), Tyreesian males do not have to have a female bound to him. Usually, poor Tyreesian males find it difficult and as a result have a very low social standing.
Even though the females don’t have a voice, this does not preclude them from being major drivers of the entire Tyreesian society. A Tyreesian female can be involved in scientific research, trade, education, commerce—basically all spheres of the economy. However, the law forbids a Tyreesian female from occupying a position of power, such as Captain, Governor, or President. If she is appointed to such a position, as some can be because of their extreme aptitude, the female Tyreesian’s master (the male to which she is bound), will rule in her stead. In other words, she can only conduct her affairs by proxy. Of course, this is impracticable in positions that require quick reactions, like the Captain of a Ship or the Admiral of a Battle Fleet. As a result, the Tyreesian Army do not have a female Commander within its fleet.
Politics/Governance
The Tyreesian Collective runs a democratic system across their galactic space. They have a President and a Governor’s council. The governor’s council is the most powerful arm of their governmental system, while the President is really a ceremonial role—though, no one knows the true extent to which the President is powerful. The governor’s council is a council of all the governors within the galactic space and is headed by a chairman that is elected by the council and approved by the population-elected president. Every planet is sectioned off, and each section has a governor.
Elections hold every five years, and hence politics is a very active part of the Tyreesian Collective. In fact, because of their prodigious and seemingly unending ability to be cunning and sly, their political campaigns are usually riddled with maneuvers and tricks and twists that befuddle the un-Tyreesian mind. Many races have described this as watching a blockbuster movie—it’s almost unreal. This led some races to coin the expression “Tyreesian Politics”, which has become a galactic mainstay. Having a Tyreesian as a strategist, especially for peoples of other races, is most times seen as a harbinger of great and mighty success.
It is strictly forbidden for a Tyreesian female to contest for any public office, either for president, governor or lesser offices. It is also forbidden for a Tyreesian female to engage in political rallies, except at the side of her male master. Note that there is no law preventing them from contesting in elections. Many academicians have argued that if a Tyreesian female can head a governmental, interplanetary agency by proxy, why can’t she be president by proxy?
Some sociopolitical experts at the prestigious Tyreesian School of Social Science in the Central City of Zayon have theorized several reason why this is so. Basically, they believe that the cultural mind-washing that has been ongoing for centuries have relegated the females to a thinking that is weak and subordinative. Simply put, most Tyreesian females are unable to envision themselves as more than a male’s slave. These experts, however, predict an uprising that is most likely going to shake up the Tyreesian Collective and lead to the establishment of a new dynamism that may take centuries for the greater Tyreesian population to get used to. They believe that as the Tyreesians interface more and more with other races, the females will begin to think differently.
“Tyreesian Politics”: this is an expression that refers to the application of extreme cunning, tricks and sleights of hand to politics, much like what is obtainable in the worlds of the Tyreesian Collective.
Irivani Hegemony
Irivan is a moon circling the gas giant planet Majriti in the binary Upsilon Andromedae system about 144 light years from Earth. It is the third planet of the F component star, Titawin, formerly Upsilon Andromedae A. Irivan is a cloudy and rather cold world about the size of Mars, though with an atmospheric pressure nearly twice that of Earth. The Irivani have three sexes, male, female, and irimale. Males and irimales are very difficult to tell apart because they comport themselves similarly. The species is triploid, with each sex contributing one of three sets of chromosomes.
Physically they resemble tall, thin apes with six limbs: four upper arms and two legs. Each limb ends in a hand: the upper hands and the “feet” have three fingers and a thumb, whereas the middle hands each possess four fingers and a thumb.
Arboreal for most of their evolutionary history, the primitive Irivani descended from the trees following an asteroid strike that precipitated a world-wide catastrophe, killing off 99% of the moon’s forests. The pressure to survive in a post-apocalyptic environment set the Irivani on the road to intelligence.
Their religion was based on the worship of the Great Ved, who had created the universe and subsequently retired to live on Majriti (known to the irivani as Veddash).
Though the distant stars—excepting Titawin itself—were only occasionally visible through rifts in the clouds enveloping their world, nearby Veddash was a constant presence in Irivan’s night skies. The moon’s forests returned slowly, but by the time they had returned to their original glory, the Irivani no longer wished to return to their primitive beginnings, although their mythology is full of pastoral tales. Instead, they established a thriving metropolitan culture in the trees, with outposts and settlements linked by a system of aerial roads and paths. Fascinated by the flying abilities of the forests’ abundant avian organisms, the Irivani pursued their dream of flight until they perfected balloons, gliders, and, later, powered heavier-than-air flying machines. The moo
n’s thick atmosphere assisted in their efforts. Once able to rise into the relatively clear upper reaches of their atmosphere, Irivanian astronomy and cosmology began in earnest.
Though there were no planets in the Titawinian system capable of supporting life like theirs, the Irivani were soon able to voyage to the binary system’s smaller component, an M-type red dwarf about 750 AU from Titawin itself—much farther than the distance from Sol to Uranus (just over 19 AU), but considerably less than the distance from Sol to Alpha Centauri (273,196.8 AU).
They found no intelligent life on the small, rocky worlds of Upsilon Andromedae B, though there were traces of long-ago visitors. This discovery energized Irivanian scientists and they set to developing the capability to journey to other, more distant, stars.
Seyshallian Nation
The Seyshallian are descended from cephalopod-like creatures that were forced onto land when the oceans on their native world shrank drastically in the wake of a stellar cataclysm. The pressure to survive also kicked their intellectual development into high gear, intelligence being helpful to their survival. Having evolved into their current amphibious form, the Seyshallian live a partially land-based existence, with considerable time spent underwater. On land, they engage in mercantile and scientific pursuits, whereas beneath the oceans they hunt and grow their crops.
Seyshallian are naturally aggressive. After several disastrous early attempts to come together in large cities as their population expanded, their settlements never grew any larger than two or three hundred individuals. Consequently their planet is dotted with many small villages and towns, in regions analogous to duchies. These duchies or principalities are overseen by rulers who scheme and strive and engage with each other in ever-shifting alliances. Great lovers of ceremony, they put on many festivals and have numerous holidays.
