An Introduction to My Non-Termite ETs and a Word on How We Met Them

      

THIS POST IS NOW PART OF THE

OLD-POST RESURRECTION BLOG HOP!

I chose this post because, surprisingly, no one has

shown much interest in my non-termite ETs, and

furthermore, it works well with my current post,

Why Writing Is Like Jackstraws 

       First off, I've posted a separate page with some drawings I made of "my three aliens" and I want to apologize for their crude, cartoonish style.  They are some of the first drawings I did using the Word drawing tools and I have no training as an artist -- it's strictly folk art!  The top drawing of the three was done as a birthday card for a friend in 2002 and the bottom for the same reason in 2003.  I can't get it to post any bigger, so I'll tell you what the text at the top says. 

       Next to the eagle, it says "Saretigá↑~] from Prf. A'a'ma" -- that is, in !Ka<tá, happy birthday ((literally, "felicitous repetition of hatching").  Sa- corresponds to re- in English and retigá means either "birthday" or "hatching."  The sliding upward inflection [↑~] connotes happy or good.

      Next to the lemuriform, it says "Mae! zokam laziqua rival shima, from Luku" -- that is, in Glin Quornaz, "May fate sing sweet music to you," a standard phrase of well-wishing used for Happy Birthday, Good Luck, etc.  The literal word-by-word translation is "To you fate sing music sweet."

       Next to the creature who resembles a squirrel/sea otter cross, it says, " Trant-intusórama from Trea" -- that is, in Poz-até, "Trant [the sea-goddess] love you," again, a standard phrase of well-wishing and a common blessing among the Pozú.

       I have extensive files on !Ka<tá, but I've done only minimal work on the languages of the planets Quornam and Pozúa, just enough to write something when it becomes necessary.

       So just how did Earthers happen to meet these semi-familiar but still strange extraterrestrials?  Today I'll talk only about the history of interstellar flight on Earth and how the first contact came about.  In my next post I'll discuss the ETs themselves and say a word about life throughout this region of the galaxy.

       In 2697, the same decade in which the Earth Unification Charter was finalized, a physicist named Iven Herinen (of a brilliance on the order of Newton, Einstein, and Hawking, but unfortunately an alcoholic who died in his early forties) devised a set of mathematical formulas that formed the basis of a new branch of science called temporal quantum physics.  Between 2724 and 2740, a female physicist named Irina Hilo collected a group of other female physicists, all lesbians, and began to work on applications of Herinen's formulas that would make interstellar travel possible.  The male community of physicists wasn't particularly happy to be bested by a bunch of "quay" women (as the epithet evolved), whom they castigated with names like "Hilo's Harridans" and "Herinen’s Whores."  Irina Hilo herself also died young, possibly harrassed to death, but her last disciple and lover, the formidable Prf. Anezka Lara, continued and perfected Hilo's work. 

       Around 2750 the Iven Herinen Space Port was constructed in Midammerik (in what is now southeast Kansas) for the sole purpose of developing interstellar flight under the guidance of Prf. Lara.  In 2754, a young pilot and Lieutenant, Robbin Nikalishin, joined this SkyPiercer Project and rose quickly to the rank of Captain.  In the 30th century he is universally and affectionately known as Capt. Robbie,  "The Man Who Found Bird among the Stars."  His story was told in a lengthy fictionalized biography entitled the same, by an Oxkam Professor named Tania Barden. [Unfortunately, this is the book that Lorinda J. Taylor (the person "channeling" all this from the future) got bogged down in and has yet to finish.]
      
       In 2755 the first flight that used TQ technology to jump large fractions of light-years took place; later 2755 became the Year 1 of the new calendar.  However,  a major disaster in the interstellar program delayed the first mission to a nearby star until the year 2769, with Capt. Robbin Nikalishin commanding the Bridge of the ship Ariana.  There was a debate as to whether the mission should tackle Alpha Centauri (4.36 ly from Earth) or the more distant (10.5 ly) Epsilon Eridani.  Capt. Nikalishin argued for the latter, since he had had a dream of going to that system ever since he was a small boy.  It turned out, however, that they had bit off more than they could chew for an initial voyage; they ended up crash-landing on a moon and getting marooned.  And then just as they were about to open a canister of cyanide gas and put an end to dying slowly from starvation and oxygen deprivation, they saw something moving against the stars ... and it wasn't a meteor.
       It was the Birds, flying in a ship called the Firebrand, on their own mission of exploration.
      Capt. Nikalishin maintained until his dying day that the hand of fate was instrumental in his stubborn insistence on making Epsilon Eridani the first destination.  Two lines crossing a vast universe converged in that place and the whole future of humanity was changed.  The Birds -- more properly known as the Krisí’i’aidá, from the name of their planet (Krisí’i’aid) -- rescued the crew of the Ariana and accompanied it home to Earth, shocking the world.