Welcome to Pact Day!
Today I want to talk about the conflict that changed the GryFalconi in many ways, crating disparity in their society. They are one of the species that have a more fleshed out background than other species with more details to their history and people.
In the series, the navigator of the Oethra 7, Axis de la Rynch, is a GryFalconi. Visually, GyrFalconi are brightly colored between their skin color and feathers. Those living in the high places of Aries 7 have wings and have an arrogance that, in the recent years, has hurt the victims of the Terren invasion more than helped.
Axis is a biped and almost as tall as Dargon, who is 2.4 meter tall (7.87 feet). He has dark brown skin and a plume of red-tipped gray feathers instead of hair. His round eyes are large and black with an outer ring of yellow. He has dark-colored finger nails and a wide, boney-plated nose which gives him a flat-faced appearance.
The GyrFalconi's coloring of feathers and skin is very vibrant and different from being to being. The males are much more brilliant in their variations than the females, their plumage used to attract others during mating. The dullest of the GyrFalconi are the nesting males before they reach their prime. I'll talk more about that in next weeks blog post. GyrFalconi coloring doesn't help them hide in their surroundings but meant to make them stand out. It has been several hundred generations since they have had to worry about predators plucking them out of the sky or from the foliage.
Axis is one of the GyrFalconi who didn't escape when the Terrens attacked the place where he lived. He was captured at a young age and was part of the group who had their wings removed so they could be put to work in the mines.
Now, you might wonder why the Terren still used a primitive way of mining for valuables? This is far into humanity's future, surely they would have a better way of removing the crystals from Aries 7 than slave labor?
Sure there is equipment that can be used to strip a location of valuable ore. But there are rules to invasion. You don't bring in the high tech, valuable equipment for phase two of the takeover until threats from the population has been subdued and the opposing military force decimated. There is a risk of sabotage and loss of equipment that would take years to replace. Aries 7 is not near the Terren controlled space of the Milky Way, but situated within the Andromeda Galaxy, and not reached quickly or easily. Therefore the Terren's had to secure the planet before they could completely take advantage of Aries 7 natural resources.
There is another reason that has to do with keeping the structural integrity of the M'Cathaian crystals. If shattered, they are useless.
Keep in mind that the four Terren companies that govern the humans were on the brink of collapsing because they had expended more money than they could bring in with the resources they currently controlled. The highly sought after M'Cathaian crystals were extremely valuable and the Terren military didn't have the non-combat personnel to extract the gems themselves. They needed the revenue the crystals would bring. So in their desperation, the people of the mountain communities the Terrens subjugated were utilized to work in the mines that would bring in money that would allow the Terrens to continue their endeavors on Aries 7.
The GyrFalconi's lack of obvious technology reinforced the Terren's superiority complex. Since GyrFalconi could fly, they had every few transportation vehicles. They did have a half dozen sky cities but no recognizable manufacturing or industrial facilities. The GyrFalconi had a military force, but not a large one. Their people didn't war against each other and until the Terren's surprise attack, they didn't worry overmuch about invasion from space. They were part of the Valespian Pact and as such, their sector was patrolled by Galactic Imperial Patrol (GIP).
The Terren's had invaded and occupied a portion of Aries 7 for three Galactic Standard years before Valespia's Andromadan Galactic Legion arrived to evict them. The Twenty Year War started but the humans had plenty of time to do irreparable damage to the GyrFalconi under their control.
Six months before Aries 7 was liberated, Axis was captured. He was young at the time, almost old enough to have his own nest but not quite. The Terrens removed his wings and forced him into the mines even knowing that GyrFalconi who lost the ability to fly and kept in the mines usually died within a year.
Those who were liberated from Terren control were quickly shunned by the GyFalconi in the sky cities and not allowed to rejoin kin in the high places or even the mountain towns.
The GyrFalconi who had their wings removed were only one kind of injury left the wake of the Terren occupation. Warehouses filled with incubating eggs were discovered. The hatchlings born in captivity had underdeveloped wings, and no one knew exactly what the humans did to cause such changes in the GyrFalconi. Originally, the hatchlings were given to the winged in the sky cities but when it was discovered the hatchling's wings would never grow big enough to allow them to fly, the hatchlings were returned to the ground cities, further widening the rift in between the winged and wingless. The wingless adopted the hatchlings and the subsequent generations were born with inferior wings.
Within the first six Galactic Standard months after Aries 7 was liberated, GIP reported back to the Galactic Imperials, describing the way the victims of the Terren occupation had been shunned by those still whole. The Galactic Imperials sent aid to the displaced, stationing GIP planetside to ensure the supplies weren't redirected to the sky cities. Modern cities were built ground level and the GIP helped as best as they could to treat not only the physical wounds of the survivors but the emotional ones. A governing council was established, and a police and military force created. The displaced GyrFalconi did not expect their winged brethren would treat them fairly and learned quickly how to not only to protect themselves physically, but also through the courts and the spiritual clergy.
Schools were built in the ground cities, catering to occupations that would better be suited to those now bound to the land. Some GyrFalconi sought ways to take to the sky and became pilots, while others left their homeworld for the stars, becoming highly sought after starship navigators. They had retained their natural sense of location of their spacefaring ancestors, allowing them to know where they were in the galaxy in relation to their homeplanet.
This incident colored the opinions of the people of the Valepsian Pact, placing Terrens in such poor light that even after several years post event, animosity remained high against humans. The monetary compensation the Terrens agreed to would help the rebuild parts of Aries 7 but no amount of money could mend GyrFalconi society. The harmony between the people was broken and their own fears created additional harm that the victims of the Terren occupation will never forget, even if they eventually forgive.
Thank you for stopping by and reading!!
No comments:
Post a Comment