Date: Fri, 6 Oct 1995 17:07:18 +0100 (MET)
From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
To: SF RPG <jimv2@empirenet.com>
Subject: History

Here is my writeup of the history of the Old Ones and the Coalition. It 
is still preliminary, and I really want some comments on this. 


The History of the Coalition

The Old Ones

The Old Ones were bilaterally symmetric beings with a spindle- shaped
body, two arms and two legs just like humans (although they often
reverted to four-legged movement when in hurry) which branched at the
elbows and knees into two lower arms or legs and at the wrists into eight
two-fingered hands or feet, giving them an remarkable dexterity. They
were covered with a thick, woolly fur they often braided into long locks
and to which they attached colourful clothing. 

By all accounts the Old Ones were a very curious race, and explored the
universe with great interest. They had already developed a highly
advanced technological civilisation when they began leaving their home
system in their great helical ships. When they appeared on the galactic
scene they began to search for other intelligent life, eager to meet it
and understand it. They made contact with a few other races, but they
found that intelligent life on their own level was rare; most intelligent
beings were trapped in primitive stages or in evolutionary cul-de-sacs,
and the advanced races of the spiral arms they eventually encountered
were not particularly sociable. 

This disturbed the Old Ones immensely. They had built a quite powerful
empire over the centuries they had expanded, but now they began to turn
inwards. Their technology had reached a plateau, similar to most of the
other races they could interact freely with. The manifold philosophies,
cultures and forms of art they had seen fascinated them, but at the same
time urged them to understand their creators better. Somehow, the Old
Ones felt, they had been given all the pieces of a cosmic puzzle, a kind
of universal enigma they had to solve. This feeling gradually spread, and
the once expansionist Old Ones began to settle down to think through
things. 

For a long time they pursued various paths; some developed more and more
elaborate philosophical systems, others contemplated mystical visions and
a few made ever more complex scientific experiments. Finally one idea
began to gain a following: to gain a better insight into things, they
needed other minds which could add their perspectives to the great quest.
The Old Ones began to study xenopsychology with great interest, and began
to seek ways to bring more consciousness to the stars. 

The first uplift project taught the Old Ones almost as much as they
taught the uplifted beings. They discovered the pitfalls of intervening
too often or manipulating alien minds too much, the problems of managing
a project lasting for millennia and the risks of a young, inexperienced
race. But it also encouraged them to begin several similar projects to
help other races in need. Gradually they transformed their empire into a
complex zoo, with many systems set apart for the development of
intelligent life and other systems "natural preserves". They had never
been that overpopulated, so there was plenty of room for the Old Ones. 


The Yss

The first race to be uplifted by the Old Ones was perhaps their greatest
success and failure, a brilliant but unstable first-born. The Yss were
elephant-like, trilaterally symmetric beings from a low gravity world
which already had developed a quite high intelligence on their own, but
were held back by some fairly simple biological limits. The Old Ones
removed the limits and began the uplifting process much too quickly and
overtly, appearing to the primitive Yss with gifts of knowledge,
technology and guardianship.  Quite soon they had developed an
intelligent species whose mentality was a mixture between the original
Yss mind and the Old Ones own, due to their frequent and well-meaning
manipulations and the imposition of their own culture. The Yss never grew
up as a race, they became a kind of new Old Ones with some alien traits. 

The Old Ones were not entirely satisfied, since they had wanted a truly
alien (yet understandable) child race, but there was no way to undo the
damage. The Yss also understood the problem all too well.  The entire
race suffered from a kind of inferiority complex versus the Old Ones, who
they regarded as perfect and ideal. They began to seek ways of developing
in new ways to please their masters, to find the new perspectives their
masters (and they) desired. The Old Ones were quite worried about their
children, the young race was so unstable that they had to intervene
strongly several times to prevent a catastrophe. At the same time, they
were impressed by the zeal and ingenuity of the Yss in finding new paths,
and gave them a much longer leach than their latter creations. After all,
the Yss were practically a reflection of the Old Ones, what could go
wrong? 


The Uplift Epoch

For a long time the Old Ones, their allies and the Yss continued the
uplifting process. Having learned from their mistakes, they were more
patient and intervened less and less, to make the development of the
uplifted race more natural and avoid imprinting alien ideas on it.
Eventually the Old Ones decreed that no contact should be undertaken at
all with a young race before they had evaluated the consequences
carefully, and then the interference should be as minimal as possible. At
least in one case this non-intervention policy almost cost a young race
its existence as the Old Ones just watched it teeter on the brink of
destruction.  However, the rule was not absolute and sometimes the
uplifters would get impatient and intervene anyway, especially in
problematic cases. 

The child races were generally contacted later and later in their
development as the Old Ones got better and better at uplifting and more
and more desperate to keep their children free from outside influence. At
the same time, the contacted child races were confined within their home
systems to keep them "natural", visited by the curious Old Ones who
wanted to see things from their perspective.  In a few cases they allowed
races to travel to other stars in the vicinity, but generally they held
back the development of FTL travel and encouraged the child races to
remain in their home system. 

The Old Ones gradually changed further, becoming ever more philosophical
and content to watch the civilisations they had spawned. Their children
each developed in their own way, but always the Old Ones or their
servants were there, ready to put an end to any disagreeable development. 


The Mlenimm

One of the races the Old Ones uplifted was the Mlenimm. The Mlenimm had
evolved on the extensive plains of an old garden world. Herbivores formed
big herds stalked by various predators, just like on an terrestrial
savannah. But one predator developed a symbiotic relation to its prey: a
pack-family would "adopt" a herbivore herd, eating old and weak
individuals when other prey grew scarce but also protecting the herd from
other predators, warning it of danger and leading it to fertile areas the
pack discovered. Gradually the protectors evolved as the climate
gradually worsened and the competition became more harsh, and attained
intelligence. Unfortunately for the Mlenimm, their tribal cultures were
locked into an ecological trap: to evolve culturally and technologically,
they would need to become more populous, but that was impossible due to
the finite size of their ecological niche.  They could never build
permanent settlements, since the herbivores would then eat all available
food and force them to move on again, and above a certain size the herds
became too large and unwieldy to handle. So they remained a primitive
race, herding their animals with crude stone and wood tools. 

The Old Ones changed all that. They had to intervene directly and
radically, but they succeeded in giving the Mlenimm an evolutionary boost
without destroying their uniqueness. They moved them to huge orbital
stations imitating the plains, and taught them how to use the facilities
and build more habitats if needed (the orbital stations were heavily
automated and essentially ran themselves anyway). Then the Old Ones
retired again, and watched the space-Mlenimm develop their own culture. 

The Mlenimm became a unusual but skilled race. They kept the old intense
pack-loyalty even when the old nomadic lifestyle was gradually replaced
with a high-tech nomadism among the asteroids and habitats of their
system. They were unusually peaceful as a race (since they as predators
had strong inhibitions against killing each other), although non-lethal
fights were extremely common between individuals to establish the pecking
order. Mlenimm philosophy was simple, rugged and very rational: the
universe is a big and strange place, but you can always trust your
pack-mates and find a herd of some kind to protect. They never saw the
Old Ones as gods or masters, just a strange and very lucky gift, or maybe
as welcome prey... 


The Fall of the Old Ones

The biggest error of the Old Ones was probably not their actions, but
that despite their immense curiosity and will to understand others, they
never really understood their child races. Maybe they had become too used
to their highly advanced philosophical life that they had simply lost
touch with the often hard reality the other races lived in. 

The Yss were not content with the situation, as they more and more felt
that their masters had lost the spark they had given them.  They wanted
to bring back the dynamic to the empire and once and for all be accepted
as the equals of their uplifters. Among other things, they went behind
the backs of the Old Ones and allowed communication between the child
races for some reason. It is unlikely that the Old Ones didn9t notice
this, but either they didn9t care or they thought this inter-species
communication could provide a much needed clue to their quest. 

As the different child races begun to interact, they realised they shared
the same problem despite their other differences: the Old Ones limited
them in all manner of ways, without ever letting them forget who uplifted
them in the remote past. They also began to realise that they were quite
numerous and powerful compared to the Old Ones, who had spent the last
millennia on philosophy, xenopsychology and uplifting theory instead of
technological development. Gradually the child races begun to demand to
be able to choose their destiny for themselves, instead of having it
dictated by the Old Ones. While the Old Ones discussed the matter in
their usual philosophical and slow manner, some of the more impatient
races began to act independently anyway. During a few years the situation
grew more and more uneasy, as the Old Ones tried to convince the children
that they were acting wrong and the children tried to sneak between the
patrols to reach new worlds. 

The igniting spark occurred when a habitat of Mlenimm was destroyed by
the Old Ones as they were attempting to explore a ecological preserve,
set aside to house a new uplifted species. The reaction was immediate:
the child races declared war on the Old Ones, who apparently were a bit
surprised by the swift reaction. At first the war was mostly a matter of
sabotage as the Yss tried to cripple the society of the Old Ones and the
Mlenimm destroyed orbital installations, hoping to force the Old Ones to
back down and grant them independence. But it soon turned more deadly as
the shocked Old Ones unleashed the weapons they had cached in secret
bases millennia ago. After the first atrocities nobody could stop; the
war was a matter of life and death. The Mlenimm groups 2adopted2 other
species and helped them with tactics. The Yss subverted Old One
technology. The Gools provided weapons and shipyards. The Mothers
coordinated the rebel races. 

The Great War raged for several decades, across immense distances.  The
Old Ones had the most weapons and skill, but lacked the ferocity of the
younger races and more importantly, their desperation. Even to the end
the Old Ones could not understand that they were beaten, the entire
concept was alien to them. As system after system fell, the weapons used
became more and more destructive. Invisible FTL missiles annihilated
orbital installations, ships and habitats, but planets proved harder to
subjugate. Usually strategic installations, infrastructure and population
centres were targeted to render the planet harmless as the invaders tried
to find the hidden bases and weapons in the system before moving on. 
Latter biological weapons, climate- and ecology-wrecking asteroids or
huge antimatter detonations wiped out the inhabitants (and in some cases
most life) on several planets. Automated factories would churn out
autonomous weapons, intended to seek out certain targets in space or
orbit above a planet, destroying all signs of intelligent life. 

As the War went on, the child races increasingly often confronted each
other over vital resources, and it became obvious that the Old Ones were
actually a minor threat compared to other groups, and the destruction of
their last strongholds was hardly noticed.  Something had changed in the
Mlenimm during the war; their old inhibitions against attacking others
(or themselves) were gone, and they increasingly saw themselves as the
race that should lead and protect the others, just like they once
protected and led their herds.  Some races had intense internal schism
and were destroying themselves, taking others with them. 


The Coalition

The Coalition was formed as a defence alliance against the aggressive
Mlenimm between three races, the Yss, the Mothers and the Hafaru. As one
of the few united groups it managed to resist the Mlenimm, and other
races began to ally with it, seeing the advantage of cooperation.
Gradually the Coalition became more and more powerful, despite huge
internal problems and the fall of the Yss. 

The Old Ones had implanted hidden psychological weaknesses within the Yss
during their uplifting as a precaution. They never used them in the Great
War, possibly because they now felt them to be totally repugnant but more
probably because they had forgot about them. The Mlenimm had no such
scruples, and used psychological warfare to activate hidden weaknesses in
the Yss and other uplifted races. As the Coalition advanced on the
Mlenimm, the Yss civilisation rapidly crumbled when an epidemic of
suicides spread; when other Yss heard about it, they also committed
suicide until the entire race was gone. Fortunately the Old Ones
apparently didn't insert similar safeguards in other species, but the
Mlenimm became so adept at psychological warfare that their name still
inspires fear to many races. 

The decisive battle against the Mlenimm was a narrow victory for the
Coalition, mainly due to the problems the Mlenimm had with working
together. But long after the main concentration of the predators had been
destroyed small groups reappeared, striking from hidden bases and quickly
retreating. 

The final fate of the Mlenimm was somewhat ironic. One of the last
surviving groups of the race had set up a colony on their old home planet
in order to build a defensive outpost. The Coalition defeated its space
forces and carefully destroyed the installations on the planet, but could
not wipe out the survivors without seriously damaging the remaining
ecosystem. So instead a permanent sentinel station was placed in an
orbit, and the surviving Mlenimm left alone on the planet as long as they
didn9t attempt to build any technological installations. Little is known
about the conditions on the surface, but observations indicate that the
advanced Mlenimm have had some influence on their primitive cousins left
behind by the Old Ones. 


The Reorganisation

After the defeat of the Mlenimm, the Coalition began to secure its 
hold over the remains of the Old One9s empire. This process took 
well over a century of intermittent warfare as rebellious planets 
were brought back into the fold and rouge races defeated. The 
restoration (or terraforming) of ravaged planets was begun. It was 
during this epoch, known as the 2Reorganisation2 that one of the 
most tragic incidents of the entire war occurred.

The Vessels of Potentiality, a minor uplifted species previously left
totally alone had quietly developed their own technology, somewhat helped
when the Yss secret listening post broke down and fell into their
surprised claws. They had moved out into their solar system, and sent one
of their first FTL ships towards a nearby star. This star was actually
one of the most important remaining population centres for the Gools, and
as the unknown vessel appeared in the system it was mistaken for an
Mlenimm raid and immediately destroyed. Worried that the Mlenimm had some
secret base in the region they previously thought was safe, the Gools
scouted nearby systems and found a planet surrounded by what appeared to
be starships under construction. They immediately attacked what they
perceived as a Mlenimm colony, destroying all orbital installations and
other signs of civilisation before someone saw the old records indicating
the system as a uplifting system. 

The Coalition (and the Gools) were horrified by the destruction, and
immediately stepped in to save what they could. The damage done was
horrific; cities had been incinerated, entire regions were glass deserts
and the climate had been seriously altered. Despite some rather expensive
Coalition help, billions of the Vessels died. The survivors grew up as a
race within the Coalition, and today remain a very strong factor in its
politics, fierce supporters of the protection of non-starfaring species
and the rules of the Coalition. 

The general outcry among the members of the Coalition after this affair
led to the formation of a new treaty delineating the rights of primitive
species and the responsibilities of starfaring species to them. It also
led to the Great Mapping, a huge project where the Coalition tried to
define the regions belonging to each species. The turmoil of the War and
the Reorganisation had seriously confused this area, and things were not
made easier by the fact that some species had occupied planets far from
their homeworlds, not to mention the loss of the archives of the Old
Ones. There was also some discussions about punishing the Gools for the
devastation, but since they were such an important part in the
Reorganisation at this point (and that most races realised they might
have done the same) the question was eventually dropped. 

The Great Mapping eventually managed to solve most geopolitical problems
and establish some general rules. Each species got a domain, not
necessarily a connected volume but otherwise up to them to rule as they
saw fit (under the various treaties the species had accepted, of course).
To ensure the possibility of interstellar travel, corridors of Coalition
space were established where the rules of the Coalition held instead of
any individual species. In addition some regions were declared
restricted, usually systems where primitive species lived (in this kind
of system no activity detectable by the technology of the locals is
allowed, and no interaction is to be undertaken without approval from the
Coalition). Finally, in some regions the Coalition established special
zones with compromise rules since no easy solution to the political
problems could be found or to ensure access to some resources for all
Coalition members. 

