History of Earth
- 1500 B.C.
Construction of the great pyramids of Egypt is complete. The Xenonites intervene shortly thereafter.
- 319 B.C.
Kuma, an African chieftain, is overthrown.
- 27 B.C.
The Pax Romana begins.
- 180 A.D.
The sudden appearance of a number of red bricks in an African jungle leads to the formation of a new nation, Atakala.
- 476 A.D.
One month after the Supreme Coordinator’s decision, a murky swamp churned in unrest on the planet Earth. Rotting leaves swirled with dismay as a dirt-covered limb sprouted from the ground. Mud oozed to the side, and a patch of forest litter gave way. The mud clad earth rose slowly, as if the horrors of the paludal depths were being brought to life. The swamp moaned a soft, sad call, warning the world of a strange creature escaping its grave. Coal black birds flitted uneasily from scraggled branch to scraggled branch watching the scene below with nervous apprehension. A mud-encrusted figure rose from the swamp; even the caimans backed away in apprehension. A dark shadow enveloped the melancholy realm, acknowledging that whatever the creature was, it could only add to the fears of the swamp.
A long, brown python viewed the creature uneasily, wondering whether to strike or flee. The swamp continued the dirge it had sung without pause for over two hundred years.
At last the creature stood. It lifted a hideous arm and painstakingly scraped a thick layer of mud and leaves from its face. As the last glob of silt fell, time froze–there was a single moment of absolute peace and silence. The doleful song ended; only to be replaced by a new, hope filled song washing across the ferns. The ravens strained their necks to sing as best their dismal voices could; the caimans looked up in reverence. All was still, as suddenly a glorious light illuminated the swamp, bathing the usually dark and dreary brush in an intense shower of pure golden color. The color could not last long of course, since this was still a swamp, and swamps tend to be dismal places. The light gradually faded away, but it had left a lasting impression of something new and splendid. For, the swamp had recognized the creature. The inhabitants of Sped Swamp watched in joy as the muddy figure slowly made its way out of the marsh and into the land of Atakala.
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History of Shamonj
- 500 B.C.
The Hake Philosopher Wyvere popularizes the Seven Scrolls by writing a modern translation and distributing copies throughout the planet.
- 400 A.D.
War breaks out as the Hakes, led by their hero Ertius, declare independence from the Sheeks and establish their own capital in the southern city of Kaspari. Forty years later, it is taken back by the Sheeks.
- 451 A.D.
A new hero, Quinn, leads the Hake Army to victory, reestablishing the capital Kaspari in the Hakes’ Land.
- 476 A.D.
Shamonj, the thirteenth planet in the Myria System, had a single flaw on its otherwise perfect face. Where the fertile land of the Hakes bordered the Shallow Sea, where eastward the Adnu Mountains towered along the Champazia border and westward the River Yellow wandered in its journey from the Tablelands of Selfar to the Shallow, there should have been a pristine land with low, mulberry capped hills and a wheat filled plain stretching for hundreds of miles before stopping abruptly at the pebbled shore of a vast sea.
But instead, the land was buried in a layer of shrapnel and rubbish, the hilltops black and charred from endless years of battle. What was once Dorthar, a rich land of the Hakes, was now simply “The Zone”, a remote wasteland, dumping ground for the Sheeks and the front for their unceasing war with the Hakes.
The Zone was a terrible sight. Wrecked flyrs, craters, and debris blanketed the depredated earth. The rubble stretched from one horizon to the other, a vast expanse of desolation marking the wars between Hakes and Sheeks, stacked in layers that would make any archeologist both jealous and disgusted. It was said that if one dug deep enough, somewhere beneath the metal and ash could be found the first stick used by a Sheek to order a Hake to prepare breakfast. Most likely, the layer above contained the breakfast used to poison the Sheek.
Now, thousands of years later, the situation had not changed much, except that the plain looked significantly worse, and the Hakes and Sheeks were each outfitted with their own fleet of the latest, top of the line war-flyrs.
Brilliant gold was the color of the Sheeks' fleet, a powerful armada ablaze in the orange rays of the sun Myria. Numbering over two hundred, the golden flyrs stretched across the northern horizon.
On the opposite side of the plain, a fleet of red colored Hake flyrs covered the southern horizon.
The two fleets hovered in the sky, eyeing each other with distrust and anger. No one advanced; no one retreated. They guarded some invisible boundary that only existed in their imagination. With the two fleets a scant quarter mile from each other, it seemed that one shot could start a tremendous battle.
Which is exactly what happened.
Without warning, a brilliantly polished golden flyr burst into flames. A panorama of orange fire flashed above The Zone as debris crashed to the ground. No one could tell which of the red flyrs had fired the Shot Heard 'Round the Planet, and no one seemed to care. As the deafening explosion resonated throughout the sky, the battle began. Sheek laser fire raked across the horizons, and the Hake war-flyrs dodged to get out of the way.
* * * * * * * *
The emperor of the Sheek Authority was a rash, angry Sheek called Gaelen. While many Sheeks distrusted the Hakes, he downright abhorred them, ruling the planetary democracy with a heavy hand of corruption and prejudice. In his days, the Hakes were driven ever further into flight, and great numbers were killed in increasing skirmishes. While it was not yet illegal to be a Hake, it was getting very close.
More than his hatred for the Hakes, however, Gaelen had a passion for war. Against the advice of his closest advisers, and without the knowledge of the millions of Sheeple he ruled, he commissioned a war-flyr of his very own, desiring to attend a battle in person rather than review a series of statistics and numbers at his desk in Seoltin. It was a decision he never had the chance to regret. He was aboard the Gaelen (code named Zantha 12-B so as to not attract undue attention) on its first tour of duty to The Zone when it exploded in a ball of fire. It was the only Sheek flyr lost that day, seeming to be a stroke of luck for the Hakes–except that not one Hake had fired a shot, and their leader Quinn never intended to have the Sheek Emperor killed.
