The year is 4111. 52 years ago, Par'eXci was attacked. It was the weirdest thing when they arrived because no one wanted to believe the invaders were actually from outer space, especially after a particularly enterprising journalist broadcast some scenes from an obscure visual broadcast program from the 3990s. Unfortunately, the invaders didn’t take very well to being laughed at and killed everyone they saw.
Let me be clear. When they arrived, they had no intention to leave any of Par’eXci’s governments intact, but we were to be slaves in their mines. They had never encountered a species that showed them anything but fear. Actually, the fact that we’re insectoid threw them for a loop. According to the logs we were able to translate, most of the invaders’ ship’s command staff didn’t want to enslave another insectoid race for the simple fact that, in their experience, insectoids are more trouble than they’re worth. Unfortunately for all involved, the invaders’ government demanded that Par’eXci be invaded and all sentient inhabitants either be enslaved or killed. If only it had worked out that way.
When they arrived, they transmitted their intent over the broadcast airwaves. The world’s governments didn’t take it seriously, to the point they scoured the planet for the prankster who would have the means to pull off a universal transmission to the entire planet on every frequency, even military frequencies. They even found someone who took credit for it! The invaders were perplexed at first that their transmission didn’t provoke a military response. They expected missiles and orbital defenses, not that those would’ve done any good anyway. But they were monitoring worldwide broadcasts and the group that took credit for the invaders’ warning incensed them to no end. What could’ve been a relatively peaceful alien invasion instead became an orbital bombardment on every built up area. Their torpedo weapons annihilated every major and minor city and its metropolitan area. Their beam weapons destroyed the meager military force response that was able to mobilize 15 minutes after the torpedo bombardment. The initial “cleansing operation” took 25 minutes and killed 2 billion people.
There was panic, oh my God was there panic! I was still in my first exoskeleton when this happened. I remember the shock as the people who were convinced that space aliens were science-fiction watched the red orbs and green beams from the sky destroying their cities and lives. No one bothered to hide. Where could you go to avoid an attack from orbit? I personally watched one neighbor kill himself, another neighbor loaded his family in the car and drive away only to be vaporized by an invader fighter plane. My family, my mother specifically, was the strength of everyone around us. Without her, I wouldn’t have survived, nor would anyone who ran to us. We didn’t fight. What could we do against such savagery? When they landed, and walked among us, we were shocked. My mom looked up at them, then looked back at us and simply said, “Oh my God, they’re real!”
The occupation was short. It took them 3 months to completely dismantle our infrastructure and another month to put their own in its place. To their credit, it’s pretty handy to have 100% of your infrastructure made of interchangeable components. And reliable! Nothing they left behind has failed yet, but I’m getting ahead of myself. In the 5th month of the occupation, one of the invaders fell ill. None of their doctors knew what was going on, but they assumed we had infected them on purpose with a bioweapon. They didn’t know it but they had destroyed all of our bioweapons labs and killed most of the scientists with that knowledge. Those scientists they could find endured horrible torture, but the knowledge the invaders gained didn’t fill them with confidence. For they discovered that their people were all infected with our version of the common cold. A disease that makes eXci’s exoskeleton turn strange colors, antenna twitch uncontrollably and feel a bit like crap was totally incurable to the invaders.
For a time, they tried to use their medical science to fight the Cold. In the invader body, our common cold acts like supercharged Ebola, a human disease. Three weeks from infection to the first symptom, then 1 week until death. When it became clear that the invaders couldn’t defeat the illness, they responded with total annihilation. Luckily the ship in orbit had experienced a multitude of technological failures affecting their fighter craft, their instantaneous transportation device, and their communications. The invaders on Par’eXci didn’t know the ship was much further along the disease’s progression, but they had a hunch that the the disease came from the ship, though how it got there was a mystery. No eXci were ever brought to the ship...
At least, not on purpose.
Rumors abounded that a single team of special forces somehow got aboard the ship and raised absolute cain until they were discovered and killed. To this day, no government will admit responsibility for fear of jeopardizing any relationships with our new celestial neighbors. It wouldn’t do to alert people we’d just met that a single team was able to wipe out an entire invasion force. There are theories, of course, that the team was gUn’si and fIv’ert and one of the fIvs had a cold, but this is one of those conspiracy theories that everyone is happy to leave ambiguous.
We’re told by the Ferengi ambassador that we’re lucky to be alive. The usual response to a biological plague is total planetary obliteration. Our scientists and those of the Ferengi and Federation believe our Par with the cold brushed the life support system while he was sabotaging it. The sabotage caused his cold to mutate into something that the invaders’ bodies could catch and being enclosed in the ship ensured everyone was infected. By the time anyone realized what had happened, occupation teams had been transported all over Par’eXci. The Par’eXci team’s sabotage prevented the ship’s self destruct as well as any fighters or shuttles from escaping. The invaders’ instantaneous transportation device was sabotaged as well.
In their last week on Par’eXci, the invaders killed any and all eXci they could find. There is a statue of the last one, blade in hand, in the central mall of the New World Capitol in kIi’uyy. In dIf 4059, Par’eXci had a population of 8.7 billion. Seven satellite orbits later, there were fewer than 200 million. Those survivors thought it pointless to keep the old national boundaries and formed a world government whose priority was to understand the technology the invaders left behind and to make sure their race didn’t come back to finish the job. It wasn’t until 4078, when we met the Ferengi, that we found out why weren’t slagged. It seems that there were two invader ships in orbit when the conflagration began. The theory is that when our team was sabotaging systems, the command crew of both ships were in a meeting discussing whether two ships was necessary to subdue a primitive planet like Par’eXci. They decided it wasn’t and the other ship went home, but not before its command crew was infected. Apparently, the invaders’ home planet is less than 2 weeks away from Par’eXci by their method of star travel.
The common cold wiped out the entire species of the invaders of Par’eXci!
That news wasn’t kept private. With so few eXci left, the New World government decided secrets were things of the past and broadcast to all of Par’eXci that every invader was dead. There were a few celebrations, but mostly the world mourned the loss of an entire people, even though they tried to do the exact same thing to us. The Ferengi were deeply impressed with our attitude and sent a message (without our knowledge) to their good friends, the Federation.
The Ferengi and the Federation have a strange relationship. Both peoples are friendly but the Federation won’t share technology, nor will they instruct less advanced people in the use of newly found technology. The Ferengi do, but only after discussing it with the Federation. The Ferengi have a few instances in their past of giving tech to people who weren’t ready and they won’t make that mistake again, but they also view primitivism as a disadvantage that must be treated. So they rely on the judgement of the Federation, who are much more pragmatic and analytical than the Ferengi are, and are also much better judges of character. There was nearly an interstellar incident when the Federation shuttle landed outside the New World capitol (right next to the Statue of the Dying Invader, by the way) but since they weren’t shooting it was decided to let them come down. It is with Ferengi and Federation help that we translated the invader database. Most of our technological advancement since 4079 came from that database, although our more brilliant minds have found peaceful uses for their more destructive devices and ideas.
It was 3 years after we found out how to get into the invader ship before we actually did it. Fear, of what we’d find, of seeing an invader after all those years. But we went in to find out just who it was that saved Par’eXci. All that was found of that team were 5 scorch marks on the floor. There wasn’t even enough genetic material in the carbon to test. The only reason we know those were our Par is that there were several brass shell casings found in every direction around the scorch marks. They died heroes. We now know how to run that ship and we’ve been using it to meet our neighbors. Luckily it has formidable energy shielding because the invaders made themselves known to everyone as the guys you shoot at on sight. The Par’eXci crew of that ship has had several offers of the equivalent of a nectar bath when it’s discovered we stopped the invaders.
You’re wondering why I’ve refrained from using the invaders’ name. We certainly know it; it was one of the first terms that was translated from their database. The problem is that, combined with their appearance, it raises a problem with our own past fictitious works. Because, you see, even though they looked exactly like the aliens from that old Sci-fi program, they called themselves...
Klingons.
Let me be clear. When they arrived, they had no intention to leave any of Par’eXci’s governments intact, but we were to be slaves in their mines. They had never encountered a species that showed them anything but fear. Actually, the fact that we’re insectoid threw them for a loop. According to the logs we were able to translate, most of the invaders’ ship’s command staff didn’t want to enslave another insectoid race for the simple fact that, in their experience, insectoids are more trouble than they’re worth. Unfortunately for all involved, the invaders’ government demanded that Par’eXci be invaded and all sentient inhabitants either be enslaved or killed. If only it had worked out that way.
When they arrived, they transmitted their intent over the broadcast airwaves. The world’s governments didn’t take it seriously, to the point they scoured the planet for the prankster who would have the means to pull off a universal transmission to the entire planet on every frequency, even military frequencies. They even found someone who took credit for it! The invaders were perplexed at first that their transmission didn’t provoke a military response. They expected missiles and orbital defenses, not that those would’ve done any good anyway. But they were monitoring worldwide broadcasts and the group that took credit for the invaders’ warning incensed them to no end. What could’ve been a relatively peaceful alien invasion instead became an orbital bombardment on every built up area. Their torpedo weapons annihilated every major and minor city and its metropolitan area. Their beam weapons destroyed the meager military force response that was able to mobilize 15 minutes after the torpedo bombardment. The initial “cleansing operation” took 25 minutes and killed 2 billion people.
There was panic, oh my God was there panic! I was still in my first exoskeleton when this happened. I remember the shock as the people who were convinced that space aliens were science-fiction watched the red orbs and green beams from the sky destroying their cities and lives. No one bothered to hide. Where could you go to avoid an attack from orbit? I personally watched one neighbor kill himself, another neighbor loaded his family in the car and drive away only to be vaporized by an invader fighter plane. My family, my mother specifically, was the strength of everyone around us. Without her, I wouldn’t have survived, nor would anyone who ran to us. We didn’t fight. What could we do against such savagery? When they landed, and walked among us, we were shocked. My mom looked up at them, then looked back at us and simply said, “Oh my God, they’re real!”
The occupation was short. It took them 3 months to completely dismantle our infrastructure and another month to put their own in its place. To their credit, it’s pretty handy to have 100% of your infrastructure made of interchangeable components. And reliable! Nothing they left behind has failed yet, but I’m getting ahead of myself. In the 5th month of the occupation, one of the invaders fell ill. None of their doctors knew what was going on, but they assumed we had infected them on purpose with a bioweapon. They didn’t know it but they had destroyed all of our bioweapons labs and killed most of the scientists with that knowledge. Those scientists they could find endured horrible torture, but the knowledge the invaders gained didn’t fill them with confidence. For they discovered that their people were all infected with our version of the common cold. A disease that makes eXci’s exoskeleton turn strange colors, antenna twitch uncontrollably and feel a bit like crap was totally incurable to the invaders.
For a time, they tried to use their medical science to fight the Cold. In the invader body, our common cold acts like supercharged Ebola, a human disease. Three weeks from infection to the first symptom, then 1 week until death. When it became clear that the invaders couldn’t defeat the illness, they responded with total annihilation. Luckily the ship in orbit had experienced a multitude of technological failures affecting their fighter craft, their instantaneous transportation device, and their communications. The invaders on Par’eXci didn’t know the ship was much further along the disease’s progression, but they had a hunch that the the disease came from the ship, though how it got there was a mystery. No eXci were ever brought to the ship...
At least, not on purpose.
Rumors abounded that a single team of special forces somehow got aboard the ship and raised absolute cain until they were discovered and killed. To this day, no government will admit responsibility for fear of jeopardizing any relationships with our new celestial neighbors. It wouldn’t do to alert people we’d just met that a single team was able to wipe out an entire invasion force. There are theories, of course, that the team was gUn’si and fIv’ert and one of the fIvs had a cold, but this is one of those conspiracy theories that everyone is happy to leave ambiguous.
We’re told by the Ferengi ambassador that we’re lucky to be alive. The usual response to a biological plague is total planetary obliteration. Our scientists and those of the Ferengi and Federation believe our Par with the cold brushed the life support system while he was sabotaging it. The sabotage caused his cold to mutate into something that the invaders’ bodies could catch and being enclosed in the ship ensured everyone was infected. By the time anyone realized what had happened, occupation teams had been transported all over Par’eXci. The Par’eXci team’s sabotage prevented the ship’s self destruct as well as any fighters or shuttles from escaping. The invaders’ instantaneous transportation device was sabotaged as well.
In their last week on Par’eXci, the invaders killed any and all eXci they could find. There is a statue of the last one, blade in hand, in the central mall of the New World Capitol in kIi’uyy. In dIf 4059, Par’eXci had a population of 8.7 billion. Seven satellite orbits later, there were fewer than 200 million. Those survivors thought it pointless to keep the old national boundaries and formed a world government whose priority was to understand the technology the invaders left behind and to make sure their race didn’t come back to finish the job. It wasn’t until 4078, when we met the Ferengi, that we found out why weren’t slagged. It seems that there were two invader ships in orbit when the conflagration began. The theory is that when our team was sabotaging systems, the command crew of both ships were in a meeting discussing whether two ships was necessary to subdue a primitive planet like Par’eXci. They decided it wasn’t and the other ship went home, but not before its command crew was infected. Apparently, the invaders’ home planet is less than 2 weeks away from Par’eXci by their method of star travel.
The common cold wiped out the entire species of the invaders of Par’eXci!
That news wasn’t kept private. With so few eXci left, the New World government decided secrets were things of the past and broadcast to all of Par’eXci that every invader was dead. There were a few celebrations, but mostly the world mourned the loss of an entire people, even though they tried to do the exact same thing to us. The Ferengi were deeply impressed with our attitude and sent a message (without our knowledge) to their good friends, the Federation.
The Ferengi and the Federation have a strange relationship. Both peoples are friendly but the Federation won’t share technology, nor will they instruct less advanced people in the use of newly found technology. The Ferengi do, but only after discussing it with the Federation. The Ferengi have a few instances in their past of giving tech to people who weren’t ready and they won’t make that mistake again, but they also view primitivism as a disadvantage that must be treated. So they rely on the judgement of the Federation, who are much more pragmatic and analytical than the Ferengi are, and are also much better judges of character. There was nearly an interstellar incident when the Federation shuttle landed outside the New World capitol (right next to the Statue of the Dying Invader, by the way) but since they weren’t shooting it was decided to let them come down. It is with Ferengi and Federation help that we translated the invader database. Most of our technological advancement since 4079 came from that database, although our more brilliant minds have found peaceful uses for their more destructive devices and ideas.
It was 3 years after we found out how to get into the invader ship before we actually did it. Fear, of what we’d find, of seeing an invader after all those years. But we went in to find out just who it was that saved Par’eXci. All that was found of that team were 5 scorch marks on the floor. There wasn’t even enough genetic material in the carbon to test. The only reason we know those were our Par is that there were several brass shell casings found in every direction around the scorch marks. They died heroes. We now know how to run that ship and we’ve been using it to meet our neighbors. Luckily it has formidable energy shielding because the invaders made themselves known to everyone as the guys you shoot at on sight. The Par’eXci crew of that ship has had several offers of the equivalent of a nectar bath when it’s discovered we stopped the invaders.
You’re wondering why I’ve refrained from using the invaders’ name. We certainly know it; it was one of the first terms that was translated from their database. The problem is that, combined with their appearance, it raises a problem with our own past fictitious works. Because, you see, even though they looked exactly like the aliens from that old Sci-fi program, they called themselves...
Klingons.
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