Taredas
24-02-2006, 07:51
OOC: This intro is designed to fill the dual function of introducing Taredas and converting Taredas directly from a MT (possibly PMT) nation to a FT nation. I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, especially in regards to rapid acquistion of technology from alien sources and the means in which this happens.
Note that when I say "Semi-Open", I mean "to be opened at a future point announced in this thread; TG me first in any case".
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12 Tyn'rukhvin, 2018 (New Taredas Calendar)
Kartak Mo'durr was used to dealing with strange artifacts. He thought he had seen them all - the useless jewelry that fetched top prices and the perfectly useful crystal constructs that were sold cheap, not to mention the weird blades that were snatched up by the officials at Taredas as soon as they were unearthed. By now, he looked at most new artifacts with eyes jaded by many years of excavations.
This new artifact, however, was different.
Kartak was looking at a ring-shaped structure four meters in diameter, jet-black due to the chemical nature of the mysterious substance that it had been forged from, and gemstones and strange runes were carved into its surface. The surface adornments followed a distinct pattern - the eight gemstones and placed so that they divided the ring into eight sections, and each section had five of the mysterious yet oddly familiar runes. Near this ring, there was another part of the artifact, a table with forty runes, each rune exactly corresponding to a rune on the main ring. The structure was so alien... and yet...
In his childhood, Kartak had been an avid follower of a television program widely circulated throughout the Fonklebocker Fillimore region that involved the adventures of a group of explorers who traveled through portals created by an alien artifact. Ordinarily, Kartak didn't think much about his childhood - unlike many Taredi, he had always been more focused on the future than the past - but this new artifact seemed remarkably similar in design to the fictional one. Had the fantasies of his childhood transformed into the realities of the present?
Intrigued, Kartak leaned in closer to the ring. In the television show he had watched, the symbols on the alien artifact had actually been constellations... could this artifact be the same? After a moment's thought, he decided the answer was no. The symbols did not match any constellation that he had ever seen; regardless, stellar motions would ensure that constellations would not be useful symbols for any transportation device capable of lasting millenia, individual gate numbers would be much more efficient... Of course, he couldn't be sure that this device had even been intended for transportation. Why, then, did the symbols evoke such a feeling a deja vu?
Kartak sat and pondered. The runes weren't constellations or pictograms, and they didn't match any particularly notable language... except, he suddenly realized, that his second statement wasn't true. While the runes couldn't be from any common language in archaeology, there was one particularly obscure and particularly notable language that they did seem reminscent of.
Of all languages known to the Taredi, the language referred to as Astral was among the most legendary and least used. While Low Taredi was commonly seen in daily affairs and High Taredi was well-known to scientists and other professionals, Astral was the almost exclusive domain of mythology, astrology, and a small group of historians and linguists who believed it to predate Taredi civilization by millenia. The language in question was unlike any language known to the Taredi - a runic language built on a small core of fundemental words and the compound words derived by them. Could the runes he was looking at be from the oldest language the Taredi knew?
A brief examination of a Astral translation guide told Kartak all he needed to know - the symbols on the artifact and the table were definitely the Astral symbols for the numbers one through forty. However, the far more important message had been inconspicuously inscribed on the side of the table. It told him that the artifact was a transportation device, and so much more...
"We are the Ancestors. You are our Chosen. Our Legacy can be found by using Portal Code 8-14-35-6-23-31-2-12. The return Code is 2-17-36-21-16-3-28-40. We trust that you shall heed the call for your race to fulfill its Destiny..."
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4 Kerahlvin, 2018 (New Taredas Calendar)
Kartak Mo'durr had known that he had found something very important. He had not realized just how important the Federation of Taredas would deem his discovery to be.
Over the seven months since the discovery of the Portal of the Ancestors, the Taredi government had established a facility devoted wholly to the operation of the Portal and had approved funding for a large team of researchers who would be tasked with the job of identifying and reverse-engineering any Ancestors technology that might be found on the Portal's "far side". The military and scientific establishments had been tasked with assembling an elite team of soldiers and scientists to explore whatever the Portal led to. The general population had taken up a renewed interest in the myths of the Ancestors, and were speculating about what the Portal's opening would lead to.
Finally, seven months after the Portal's discovery, it would be opened for the first time. Today. Even now, the
"Input eight has been encoded!" announced the Portal Status Manager.
Kartak was growing a bit nervous. In the television shows that he had watched as a child, the alien portal had led to the ancient oppressors of "humanity". If the same sort of events happened today, would the Taredi stand before those that came before?
"Input five has been encoded!"
No. The team that Kartak had been assigned to had many of the best and brightest minds in the Federation of Taredas. He would not just die out there, if there was indeed hostility on the other side. He would return, and the Taredi would manage to beat the enemy.
"Input six has been encoded!"
Kartak's determination allowed him to dismiss his fears. He turned to face the Portal with his fellow explorers.
"Input three has been encoded... Portal is activating!"
The Portal glowed with the lights of forty activated symbols; then it turned pitch black. The power indicator on the Input Table glowed as energy was fed into the Portal, and a spinning ring of light appeared at the perimeter of the Portal's aperture. It spun inwards, extended outwards towards the exploration team, then withdrew inwards and outwards to disappear back into the Portal's black component material, leaving a shimmering translucent surface in its wake.
It was easy to tell from the absolute stillness that the far side was not enemy territory. No enemy would have taken such territory as the Far Side and not used it for their own purposes. Giant machines rose fifty stories into the air under the blue star, while mines delved deep into the solid ground of the chthonian world once inhabited by the Ancestors. Research labs and arcologies filled the spaces between the two extremes. Most notably of all, the sky was filled with massive dock-like structures, some with smaller structures inside.
Almost immediately, Kartak knew what the world on the far side was. Legend said that the Ancestors had maintained a huge world, far larger than the one occupied by the Taredi. The Ancestors had built a navy of ships on this world, ships capable of crossing the greatest ocean of all... namely, space itself, as Kartak belatedly realized.
By the will of the Ancestors, and by sheer luck, Kartak had found Ai'Berlim'ynor - the Armory of the Ancients. Now, it was time to see what secrets the Ancestors had left for their Chosen.
Kartak followed the rest of the exploration team through the Portal. The Taredi had years of discoveries ahead of them.
Note that when I say "Semi-Open", I mean "to be opened at a future point announced in this thread; TG me first in any case".
----------------------------
12 Tyn'rukhvin, 2018 (New Taredas Calendar)
Kartak Mo'durr was used to dealing with strange artifacts. He thought he had seen them all - the useless jewelry that fetched top prices and the perfectly useful crystal constructs that were sold cheap, not to mention the weird blades that were snatched up by the officials at Taredas as soon as they were unearthed. By now, he looked at most new artifacts with eyes jaded by many years of excavations.
This new artifact, however, was different.
Kartak was looking at a ring-shaped structure four meters in diameter, jet-black due to the chemical nature of the mysterious substance that it had been forged from, and gemstones and strange runes were carved into its surface. The surface adornments followed a distinct pattern - the eight gemstones and placed so that they divided the ring into eight sections, and each section had five of the mysterious yet oddly familiar runes. Near this ring, there was another part of the artifact, a table with forty runes, each rune exactly corresponding to a rune on the main ring. The structure was so alien... and yet...
In his childhood, Kartak had been an avid follower of a television program widely circulated throughout the Fonklebocker Fillimore region that involved the adventures of a group of explorers who traveled through portals created by an alien artifact. Ordinarily, Kartak didn't think much about his childhood - unlike many Taredi, he had always been more focused on the future than the past - but this new artifact seemed remarkably similar in design to the fictional one. Had the fantasies of his childhood transformed into the realities of the present?
Intrigued, Kartak leaned in closer to the ring. In the television show he had watched, the symbols on the alien artifact had actually been constellations... could this artifact be the same? After a moment's thought, he decided the answer was no. The symbols did not match any constellation that he had ever seen; regardless, stellar motions would ensure that constellations would not be useful symbols for any transportation device capable of lasting millenia, individual gate numbers would be much more efficient... Of course, he couldn't be sure that this device had even been intended for transportation. Why, then, did the symbols evoke such a feeling a deja vu?
Kartak sat and pondered. The runes weren't constellations or pictograms, and they didn't match any particularly notable language... except, he suddenly realized, that his second statement wasn't true. While the runes couldn't be from any common language in archaeology, there was one particularly obscure and particularly notable language that they did seem reminscent of.
Of all languages known to the Taredi, the language referred to as Astral was among the most legendary and least used. While Low Taredi was commonly seen in daily affairs and High Taredi was well-known to scientists and other professionals, Astral was the almost exclusive domain of mythology, astrology, and a small group of historians and linguists who believed it to predate Taredi civilization by millenia. The language in question was unlike any language known to the Taredi - a runic language built on a small core of fundemental words and the compound words derived by them. Could the runes he was looking at be from the oldest language the Taredi knew?
A brief examination of a Astral translation guide told Kartak all he needed to know - the symbols on the artifact and the table were definitely the Astral symbols for the numbers one through forty. However, the far more important message had been inconspicuously inscribed on the side of the table. It told him that the artifact was a transportation device, and so much more...
"We are the Ancestors. You are our Chosen. Our Legacy can be found by using Portal Code 8-14-35-6-23-31-2-12. The return Code is 2-17-36-21-16-3-28-40. We trust that you shall heed the call for your race to fulfill its Destiny..."
-------------------------------------------------
4 Kerahlvin, 2018 (New Taredas Calendar)
Kartak Mo'durr had known that he had found something very important. He had not realized just how important the Federation of Taredas would deem his discovery to be.
Over the seven months since the discovery of the Portal of the Ancestors, the Taredi government had established a facility devoted wholly to the operation of the Portal and had approved funding for a large team of researchers who would be tasked with the job of identifying and reverse-engineering any Ancestors technology that might be found on the Portal's "far side". The military and scientific establishments had been tasked with assembling an elite team of soldiers and scientists to explore whatever the Portal led to. The general population had taken up a renewed interest in the myths of the Ancestors, and were speculating about what the Portal's opening would lead to.
Finally, seven months after the Portal's discovery, it would be opened for the first time. Today. Even now, the
"Input eight has been encoded!" announced the Portal Status Manager.
Kartak was growing a bit nervous. In the television shows that he had watched as a child, the alien portal had led to the ancient oppressors of "humanity". If the same sort of events happened today, would the Taredi stand before those that came before?
"Input five has been encoded!"
No. The team that Kartak had been assigned to had many of the best and brightest minds in the Federation of Taredas. He would not just die out there, if there was indeed hostility on the other side. He would return, and the Taredi would manage to beat the enemy.
"Input six has been encoded!"
Kartak's determination allowed him to dismiss his fears. He turned to face the Portal with his fellow explorers.
"Input three has been encoded... Portal is activating!"
The Portal glowed with the lights of forty activated symbols; then it turned pitch black. The power indicator on the Input Table glowed as energy was fed into the Portal, and a spinning ring of light appeared at the perimeter of the Portal's aperture. It spun inwards, extended outwards towards the exploration team, then withdrew inwards and outwards to disappear back into the Portal's black component material, leaving a shimmering translucent surface in its wake.
It was easy to tell from the absolute stillness that the far side was not enemy territory. No enemy would have taken such territory as the Far Side and not used it for their own purposes. Giant machines rose fifty stories into the air under the blue star, while mines delved deep into the solid ground of the chthonian world once inhabited by the Ancestors. Research labs and arcologies filled the spaces between the two extremes. Most notably of all, the sky was filled with massive dock-like structures, some with smaller structures inside.
Almost immediately, Kartak knew what the world on the far side was. Legend said that the Ancestors had maintained a huge world, far larger than the one occupied by the Taredi. The Ancestors had built a navy of ships on this world, ships capable of crossing the greatest ocean of all... namely, space itself, as Kartak belatedly realized.
By the will of the Ancestors, and by sheer luck, Kartak had found Ai'Berlim'ynor - the Armory of the Ancients. Now, it was time to see what secrets the Ancestors had left for their Chosen.
Kartak followed the rest of the exploration team through the Portal. The Taredi had years of discoveries ahead of them.