A Primer on the Races of Humanity – Branan

by on June 10, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

So here’s the thing. Thunderbirds don’t speak English. They don’t speak any human language. They’re beaks can’t emulate our sounds at all. And it’s the rare human that can speak their words. Parrots can talk both ways, which is real useful if you can stomach being around parrots for long. Me, I get annoyed with them quick. But the Thunderbirds thought about that before they came calling. Their computers could speak our languages just fine, so there was this nice, smooth, English voice speaking in time with the ship captain’s voice. English. British. Whatever you want to call it. Not American. Complete with English accent. That was one of the more surreal moments in my life right there. Otherwise boring patrol on the edge of a star system? Check. Big blue alien bird squawking at me? Check. Cultured English accent translating the words? Checkmate. I did not see that coming when I woke up that morning.

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A Primer on the Races of Humanity

by on June 9, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

Most people don’t know how many alien species we’ve made Contact with over the years. Partly that is because they are either human like us, or genengineered Albion creations, or both. Partly it is because people in charge of our education departments didn’t want to teach our children just how dangerous the universe can be. Whether they be intelligent cats, bears, birds, or numerous other examples, the Albion designed them all to fight, and they can be dangerous. But the vast majority of them are far away from Earth, and so the decision was made long ago that we didn’t need to teach our children about them. I think that is the wrong decision, but nobody asked me.

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A Primer on the Races of Humanity – Branan

by on June 8, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

I traveled to Betelgeuse shortly after we made Contact with the Branan. The Thunderbirds as most people refer to them. The most important thing to remember about them is that they were never as primitive as some thought them. They utterly lacked hyperspace travel, and that caused many to underestimate them. But the truth is that local hyperspace conditions were far more…rigorous…than those surrounding Earth. We would not have had hyperspace travel either if we grew up on Betelgeuse. Despite that, they colonized six nearby multiple-star systems and had established electronic presences in almost every system within one hundred lightyears of their home. That was a truly monumental task for a slower-than-light society. My family sent me to negotiate trade and manufacturing deals with them. I did that, and so much more.

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A Primer on the Races of Humanity – Branan

by on June 7, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

I met my first Thunderbird on Sunnydale back when we were assembling the fleets for the big push into the Hyades Cluster. I didn’t know word one about them at the time. I’d been born long after that Contact, and there’d never been much news about them after the initial reports. Almost like someone quieted the news or something. But what do I know? I’m just a starfighter pilot. Point is, if I’d ever known they existed, I’d forgotten about them by then. So them coming out of hyperspace with their big old ship that matched nothing in Betty’s database while me and her were on a quiet little patrol on the edge of the system was…let’s just say a surprise. Then the face of an overgrown bird appeared on my displays and started squawking away. Did I fail to mention that the Thunderbirds can’t speak any human language? Yeah.

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A Primer on the Races of Humanity

by on June 6, 2017 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

One of the things we learned very soon after Contact was that the long-dead Albion were industrious little gengineers. It was the reason they were dead, after all. The Ennead had taken exception to their perversions against Mother Nature, or whatever they called her, and devoted their existence to destroying the Albion. And the last order the Albion gave their assorted creations was to kill the Ennead. The death of both races left the Albion’s creations without an enemy and without a master. Most of them found whatever homes they could locate and retired to live out the rest of their lives. Two millennia later, we have made Contact with many of them. And if there is one thing we have learned about the Albion from their creations, it is that they were supremely imaginative in their own way.

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