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Chapter 0: Introduction

Pangea - the jewel of the planet orbiting a single yellow star in Sauri Beta system. A big habitable planet, the continental world which could support life. Vast deserts hugging the equator whereas allowed by the large landmasses, moderate green forests on the southern and northern hemispheres and polar caps. The home for syncretic sapient species known as Pangeans: raptor, trike and all other kind of dinosaur species deriving from a common origin. The origin that never was Pangea in the first place.

Shortly before the space race began, somewhat secluded Pangeans of different subspecies discovered a very shocking truth. Their ancestors were not born on Pangea but were simply seeded millions years ago. Nobody knew why or what for, but if not the deeper research over the DNA that would never come out into light. Initial shock was replaced with even more funding towards efforts to research and colonize space. Consequently, the barriers among then-divided subspecies simply vanished as the origin turned out to be shared - somewhere, among the stars. The subspecies ceased to matter on the long run. But that happened after long, long years...

The foremost division between the Pangeans came from slightly different biology what created a lot of past tensions in their ancient times. The Ancients saw nothing wrong on preying between the subspecies, as the weak became the foods to the strong, with carnivore kingdoms and city-states employing both slavery and cattle philosophies until some point in the Pangean history that emerged: birth of the first superpower simply referred to as the First Ancient Empire. The scholars argued that herbivores deserved the same respect while the opposing stated they were lower. In the end, after century or two, the middle point had been created and while slavery hadn't been abolished for long, the bloody cattle politics was fully abandoned and buries among the annals of history. Pangea hit its golden age in their ancient times and lasted for several centuries until stagnation that prolonged, with certain issues among the provinces and necessary expansion to secure population. As the Ancient Empire assimilated more and more subspecies, it met end with a major cataclysm that ruined the central government - an eruption of the massive volcano - back then revered as place where gods were residing.

Chaos emerged and there was no single agreement on where should the empire go from that point, as it had fallen into scattered kingdoms, in some the barbaric practice of eating herbivores went back - what led into a few conflicts and society stratification. After the turbulent 200 years the Pangeans looked back at the history and the new wave of contemporary scholars looked at the First Ancient Empire with a lot of contempt and wished for these times to be back. However, the overall agreement was that no single government should be formed in order to avoid the second such a catastrophe to happen, in the end forming a single union among the kingdoms - the first step towards what Pangea would become in a few thousand years later. Thus, began the Second Ancient Empire - although named like that only to pay homage to the first time the Pangea was more or less united, even if it meant slavery of the herbivores. This time slavery was also a factor, but in the following centuries the situation would become way different.

The Pangeans of the Second Ancient Empire developed technology for longer sailing. Albeit still quite simplistic in relation to their current Space Era, it was a major leap in exploration of entire planet beyond their own continent what gave birth to more and more territories claimed around, this time taking into account a bit more loose attempt in direct control to avoid the sins of the ancestors. Some new lands became different from their own Empire and became source of quite new practice for the slaves - who also involved not only herbivores but also carnivores who fell out of grace, where indebted or ended in slavery for different reasons - to buy themselves out and settle on the new world.

The fear of not ending up in another conflict had a lot of positives but also brought shortage of need for major technologies and it took reasonably long time for Second Ancient Empire and future empires to develop. However, in the end, the positives overshadowed the negatives as the changes within the society were slow but mostly bloodless. The new lands claimed their own independence with very little tensions, so did the native Old Continent ones. Around its fifth incarnation, the Ancient Empire dissolved itself and joined the surrounding polities in their egalitarian efforts. While the nobility still existed at the time, they would simply adapt to the different society while still making sure about the proud "old time" family roots, some of them going back to the Second Ancient Empire. While still divided, the old practices were simply pages on some historical books for context and overall analysis. Even with not-so-rapid development, next millennium had seen development of electricity, radio and final planetary communication.

Lack of major conflicts slowed down the development of atomic energy which came after inventing the quick planetary communication grid. The new energy took the markets by surprise, with abundance of Uranium and heavier elements. But extensive usage of that resource quickly made Pangeans realize they needed something else due to hazards which saw the major accident with reactor meltdown and radiating area. The scientists then directed themselves towards research for less dangerous energy source while the governments put an emphasis on the renewable sources, such as solar energy or tidal waves. The Uranium-based reactors still existed, but they were secluded and slowly pushed towards scientific research roles. The solar energy however was not as efficient as the population still grew up. However, that wasn't the only reason why a new energy source was needed.

In the last stages of the Early Space Age, some of the scientists looked down at the Pangeans themselves. The inquisitive research into brought a few answers but even more questions. The aforementioned shock after finding out that the population of Pangea does not come from their planet. When the planetary communications soaked that revelation, something broke within the Pangean society. The subspecies more or less ceased to matter, or at least didn't matter beyond the biological and diet aspects that still divided them.

Almost all the efforts were put to space research and more extensive exploration of the star system that contained their home planet. The development skyrocketed and everyone wanted to became the part of some greater plan. Thus, the Middle Space Age officially began - along with first colony on the other stellar body.

Since the first space mission with very primitive designs, the Pangeans sought means to shorten the travel between the planets and stars, eventually. But the overall designs and theories could not fulfill any reasonable time chart that wouldn't last generations of travel. As expected, both necessity of breaking the speed of light barrier and new source of fuel could be resolved with something that was not thought to be within reach of Pangea. Not until one of the space missions found out a rather unique feature of their own star system by pure accident. It was at the time when quite a few corporations sought way to develop the reactionless drive and one of the tests almost ended with tragedy while starship hit by a solar flare.

It led into ship machinery going haywire and creating a certain anomaly around it - displacing the vessel away by several hundred light seconds in the longest minute of some scientists' life. It quickly turned out that the ship's energy shield which protected it from micrometeorites was overcharged with solar particles and created some electromagnetic disturbance which resulted in what later would be referred to as the First Solar Push. Of course, the terms was coined by the media yet slowly drifted into the scientific field as the common terms. In fact what happened was strong reaction between what was supposed to be energetic shield and solar flare - so strong it bound space and time. The rivaling corporations quickly took the opportunity to test such ways but only one succeeded: a minor engineering firm led by Karah Sjelti - a trike girl who was rejected to Interplanetary Pangean Academy of Science.

Her design had a similar built to the original vessel but had slight reconfiguration of the shield. Instead of making it means of actual defense, Karah's starship repurposed it into active shielding that would be ignited on command. With certain vessel adjustments - such as alternative hull architecture to provide sort of exhaust - managed to control the FTL displacement into certain directions. After a short presentation Sjelti Drives became the richest corporation on entire planet overnight. This marked the beginning of the Deep Space Era.

Relentless exploration beyond their own homeworld toppled quite a few efforts to adapt two reasonably friendly planets to be at least minimally supportive for the Pangean life. Instead everyone simply started to buy out the research bonds - both civilian and the military ones - what not only brought even more funding towards space exploration and designing deep space vessels, but also allowed a lot of middle-class Pangeans to afford going beyond their own planet. Given how joint but heavily decentralized governments of Pangea were, it led into similar situation in which anyone could settle down wherever she or he wanted like back in the ancient times. Within first two decades, Pangeans basically seeded fifteen star systems and everything seemed to go smoothly until one moment in the overall expansionist boom: contact with aliens.

Known as Diactrete Conflict it began with overall confusion around Diactrete 6 - a small gas planet around binary stars of Diactrete. It should be noted that Pangeans had been using gas planets for extensive electromagnetic pulse from their ships. However, fully unaware of the fact someone else could be lurking around the planet. Without much ado - and given who the aliens turned out to be - it was taken as form of assault and ignited war.

The aliens turned out to be Khirrians - forming a vast empire in the neighboring space. These sleek, elegant corvids directed their fleets towards the external Pangean Republic systems and laid siege over still developing colonies. The Khirrian Empire subjugated at least two systems until response in form of united fleet from various Pangean states and colonies responded and led into hard-earned victory over Chaak 7 - one of the external planets in the system under same name - which pushed Empire away. The Khirrians were not really prepared for such an armed response and both sides quickly armed up and would go on total war. However, after the battle for Chaak 7 it became weird state of conflict that lasted for thirty years with minor skirmishes along the borders until both sides ceased to maintain any combat efforts. The negotiations came later, along with diplomatic silence on the official channels.

Underneath the political tables both sides started to spy on each other, as well as the cultures started mingling along the buffer zone colonized only by corporations on both sides which engaged into their own warfare if necessary. It turned out that the Khirrian Empire was a little older than Pangeans civilization and came into similar conclusions in regard to FTL, although their own technology remained secret for the most part. Typical Khirrian spaceships never utilized discharge around the gas giants, instead being redirected into weapon systems. These corvids are cunning politicians and born-by-blood warriors - unlike Pangeans who prefer the peaceful solutions and scientific pursuits. But that contact made quite a few shakes to the Pangean Republic which reformed into Pangean Trade Union.

The Pangean Trade Union affirmed a little different approach and started to secure their own trade routes, especially when the other species - Dihari and Seh'lai started to visit both Pangean and the borderworld systems.

Dihari, who became subjugated by Khirr Empire, are extremely colorful macaws that contrast greatly with normal black and black-and-white Khirrians. The Dihari Protectorate is in fact form of a slave puppet state - to the saurian disdain as egalitarianism was the highest value revered by the Pangeans - although with a very mixed and turbulent relations with its sovereign. Not all Dihari expressed their dislike towards such a situation and preferred to be protected - while part of the macaws demanded more freedoms, especially after revelation of existence of more egalitarian society which never oppressed anyone. However, the corvids highly perceived the Dihari culture for its uniqueness and even went as far as allowing their own faith and beliefs to Khirrians themselves, while still employing Dihari as their own slaves - unlike seen from outside however, it is more complicated.

On the opposite side stood Seh'lai. These cyan-blooded bird-wyverns had been living in heavily disjointed stellar states, making up Bandit Kingdoms and living quite free way of life. And by free way of life - it means piracy, scavenging, smuggling, being employed as mere thugs. Said to be brutal and barbaric, little thought has always been given to the actual origin of the species. The Seh'lai were once a proud civilization that had fallen at some point in their history, rendering their culture scatter into pieces and devolving into countless states that rose and fall every century or so. While only the thin minority of the Seh'lai live off the piracy and scavenging, deep inside their territories - called Bandit Kingdoms - a lot of them live their daily lives, some trying to cater the old history for the sake of the new times. However, the new generations of Seh'lai seek adventures and being hired outside the stagnated region of space that is presumably their own home region for several thousand years. A lot of these bird-wyverns employ themselves into Khirr navy as privateers or actual commanders then return their own space in glory and fame. Some of the newer clans were created by such Seh'lai who simply spent their entire lives within Khirrian Empire, fighting other criminals: the disobedient Dihari, anti-Imperial Khirrian opposition, the newly-met young Pangean pirates or their own Seh'lai pirate clans.

For sure the region the Pangea Trade Union had joined is an interesting place for anyone seeking adventures. Especially for the young Pangeans who were luckily born in these times and aim high for going into the farthest regions of space... or simply doesn't know about that just yet.