Zeritoicus is a planet orbiting Sirus C, it’s land masses are more like small islands then whole continents. Over 90% of the planet is an ocean. The Zeritoigans are an amphibious people, who can direct thoughts and communicate with each other underwater with no words. A highly empathic people, it’s both one of their greatest strengths and weaknesses. They feel each other’s pain and share in each other’s joy, just by swimming or walking close enough to each other. With a touch they can transmit mental images, memories, desires, anything. While so many other planets in the sector looked to stars for other worlds, the Zeritoigans went to the depths of their own oceans in a way most never have.

Zoh was the nearest habitable planet to Zeritoicus, and they unfortunately, have been more successful then Earth in colonizing other worlds. It is thought that the rate of their consumption combined with wars that never seemed to cease drove the Zoh to other galaxies. When the first starships landed on Zeritoicus, they called it “Waterworld” and claimed it for themselves. The Zeritogans fought back, but had no weapons to compete with seemed like a Zoh army. The ones that survived were forced to live underwater, or as second-class citizens in the Zoh Empire. In time the Zoh would manufacture a drug to “help” the Zeritoigans with their “problem” of empathy and telepathy, the vulnerablity that in actuality made them so strong. It was a highly addictive, mind numbing substance that came in a powder you breathe in with your gills. It turned Zeritogans to shadows of their former selves, it inhibited their telepathic strengths and in general made it hard for them to feel anything. Yet when a sprock addict is coming off that high, they can smell the drug from a mile away, they can see what they smell, and will do almost anything to get it. The Zoh use this to control the Zeritoigans, it was a kind of enslavement, and they refused to even acknowledge the Zeritoigans true name. Instead, they were called “Exo”, a slur used by the Zoh against any of the indigenous people from the worlds they colonized. Some of the Zeriotigans, the Nsil, and the Appos adopted the term “Exo” to describe themselves too, and while some argued it was a sign of an internalized inferiority complex, others saw it as a way to stand unified in the fact they while they lived in the Empire, they were not of the Empire. In truth, it was probably a combination of both.

On Zeritoicus an underwater resistance is growing, and in the face of Zoh tyranny a new kind of society is being nurtured, one that honors all the indigenous Zeriotigan languages, belief systems, and complete ways of being. “Zer” meaning mother, “ito” meaning water, “ica” meaning father, “us” meaning the land. For the Zeritoigan diaspora the time has come to return home.

PART II :

Time travel 101: Now is now. Here is here . Everything else is theoretical bullshit until it’s not anymore.

So, why am I here now ? or should I say, “Why am I now here? “. That’s sort of complicated to answer because there is usually more than one of “me” here and I could have any number of agendas. At any given point there may be a dozen or so of “me” between the years 1997 and 2019 although I mostly live and work in 2089 as a scientist and defender of the Nile State. My primary purpose for traveling to this current era is to manage the acquisition of natural resources necessary for Light Travel, the most important of which is copper. By the year 2083  all of the Earth’s copper has been depleted.

I have  convinced several thousand people from your era  to acquire it for me. I pay them , no questions asked (most of the time). Some people have gone to unimaginable lengths to get it for me, and I’m not very proud of that.  It can get downright dangerous . Even  I haven’t always survived this mission. Going to your own funeral more than once is surreal to say the least. I am the 3rd sequence, second in command…ok I’m not going to get into this now, but I will say this : the sayings about  “know thy self” and “being your own worst enemy” have a meaning to me that scares most people.

One of the most disturbing questions I get is : ”If you have a time machine , why do you care what happens?” Let me  put it this way : if a kitten falls out of a tree and I tell you I could care less, your culture looks at me like I’m a cruel monster , but  I have to hear people disregard an infinite universe of real survival-threatening possibilities, people with real, vital problems,. So when folks come up with stupid-ass questions like “If you got a time machine … why don’t you just go back and change the past ?“ You people watch too much TV.

An alternate reality is real to the people who have to live there and I owe it  (what ?) to them . I’m often shocked by how cavalierly some people  disregard the humans that have yet to be born.

Am I a hypocrite because I steal from your era to help mine?  Natural resources and time travel make interesting bedfellows. Who is really stealing from whom?

Oddly enough, for some, it isn’t quantum mechanics, it isn’t alchemy, it isn’t the fact that I’m a time traveler from the future : some people in your era have the most  difficulty wrapping their head around Africa as a world power .  But most of those people are racists , a topic I had to do research on before starting this trip.  The good news is you’ll eventually grow out of it.  You’ll have no idea how stupid “racism” is until the aliens show up.

Scholar Black.

Hitched a ride on this comet last week. Fun!

Gondar, The Nile States: 2052 AD, (Earth time)

Leaving home and not knowing when, or if, she’d return was nothing new to her. Her parents had been displaced like their parents before them. It was a cycle she couldn’t see any way out of, so in a way, to make her ancestors proud, she volunteered for the journey. In her mind the future of humanity depended on this.

The corporate-governments of the world had been bleeding the Earth of it’s resources with no regard to the future for centuries now. The privatization of the space exploration industry at once both expanded the field and crushed it’s potential to be something beneficial for all. From the Nile States, this was the first “people-powered” intergalactic space flight in history.

Most intergalactic flights at this point have never returned to Earth. Past corporate-governments went with too many weapons to make a good impression on the worlds they encountered, and with no renewable fuel plans to make the return flight. Past missions to colonize other worlds in other galaxies always failed. The Nile nation had learned from other’s failures, and combined with their own sensibility, this was no mission to colonize.

Makeda’s interests were to trade with other worlds, the way her people always gathered in open-air markets on Earth. Not only as an exchange of goods, but of information, tools to help each other survive, and in the spirit of celebration no matter how grim the situation may be.

The people of the Nile nation, human and android alike, were all in on this mission. The ship had been built using mostly recycled material, from satellite parts to toxic waste, that was collected over the years after being dumped upon the shores of the Nile nation by other corporate-governments. And all the astronauts on this mission agreed, to have a representation of humanity in space that truly reflected the people, and not the corporate elite, was of the utmost importance. A peaceful delegation to the cosmos, to go into the unknown with no fear, with more information, tools and resources to be shared, than ammunition.

And the world thought they were crazy.

Yet to think, this same world less then 50 years ago thought they were alone in the universe. A thought as ludicrous today as when people once thought the Earth was flat. As it was in that time, we saw what happened when ships armed to the teeth go in search of new worlds to colonize, the genocide and the mayhem and the seeds of what has made life on Earth almost unbearable to this day. No, what’s crazy is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result.

The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence is out there. Making moves. Looking for our spacecraft. Looking for us……

www.seti.org

I can’t believe they said we stole the ship. Steal? Really? I built the damn thing. I’m flattered that they grew so attached to it. You look at something for a few thousand years and you think it’s yours, people are funny like that… shit, even people who aren’t technically “people” are funny like that. I’m getting ahead of myself.

When you tell folks you’re a “time traveler” from the “future”, they tend to jump to all sorts of conclusions. If I ever have to say “I’m a time traveler” out loud, you can bet shit has already hit the proverbial fan. Trust, I’d rather you think I’m crazy than take the time to humor some geeky twerp in a discussion about rudimentary quantum mechanics.

If I ever tell someone what I do, it’s to soothe my own conscience – not because I’m trying to convince you, or even care what you think. By the time it becomes necessary for me to say anything, something profound has already been altered. Your life will never be what it was going to be (for better or worse), and as matter of principle, I think you have a right to know why. Whether you believe me or not is a matter of no consequence. Belief and knowledge are not the same.

Every once in a while, I encounter a genuinely curious person who wants to know how I “travel through time”. Sometimes I get the argumentative types that find it hard to believe that the “linear time line” is an illusion. A useful one… but an illusion nonetheless. It’s really not that hard to grasp: it’s always “now” somewhere. And it’s never not been that way. Every culture on the planet seemed to understand that – except yours.

The KoAhn species emerged in the early days of the universe, shortly after the time of the Big Bang itself. Born of supernovas, they are a mysterious race about whom little is objectively known, but much speculated (and more often gossiped) about.

Physical Form:

The KoAhn’s unique ability to shape shift between both particle and wave form allows them to be physical or electromagnetic at will. Tangible or invisible. Embodied or abstract. They play with the matter energy dichotomy, and can take on physical characteristics and facial features of their choice and mood, though they do tend to settle on one general look for the purposes of ease and convenience.

Habits:

Because the KoAhn can travel at the speed of light, and because they are intimately familiar with the secret locations of worm holes, they have evolved into a messenger species. They will carry your notes, ideas, thoughts, packages anywhere in the universe, for a price. Delays and detours are common, though ultimately they are reliable, and will cut transportation time by a thousand percent. They are not swayed by money per se. Rather, they find it occasionally useful, and they may say yes to a low paying transmission as easily as they say no to a high paying one. Depends on where they want to go.

The KoAhn are tricksters, who love to play practical jokes, observe the many follies of the cosmos, and participate in mischief making at any and all opportunities. They have a wicked arsenal of jokes in most of the universe’s known languages. Kids of all species tend to love them.

The KoAhn have the ability to mind meld with creatures of their choice, though this is enormously taxing on them, and thus only happens on a rare occasion. From time to time, a mind meld may leave a lifelong imprint on a KoAhn being, forever connecting the melding parties.

It is common to find a KoAhn eavesdropping on conversations, silently and invisibly observing secrets in progress. They tend to know immense amounts of inside information, but never use it to blackmail or benefit themselves. Mostly, it’s for fun.