#itoos lore

Atlas begins his day the same way he always does- his toe bloodied, and his mind scrambled, and his heart in a mad pace from the one nightmare that just won't leave him alone.

It should be called a routine at this point, the way he always manages to wrap himself up in the sheets, muttering restlessly, aimlessly, crying-shouting- until his body finds the edge of the bed, and down he plummets onto the cold, steel floor of the ship below.

His eyes snap open, and meet the cold darkness that muddled the endless grey of his room, and sighed in relief. His body still itched from the invisible flames and red, angry horrors of his own mind, but Atlas heard nothing but the hum of the engine- the quiet of the empty space at night.

Through the cotton of the sock he wore on his foot, he could feel the droplets of a warm, sticky liquid clinging to skin. His toe radiated a dull and ceaseless pain, but it was manageable enough to allow Atlas to get back onto two feet, staggering through the darkness of his quarters. He tried his best to remember where the doorway was, and he managed to make it most of the way without making his (albeit minor) injury any worse.

The automatic door slid open without trouble, only aiding Atlas and his trek toward the kitchens for a bandaid- and most importantly, a drink.

Atlas remembers little of the fire that engulfed his dreaming world, but whatever plagued him, it was nothing that a good cup of tea can't fi-

"You're up. Late."

The voice lost to the yellowed, dimmed lighting of the ship was enough to make Atlas jump, causing him to instinctively yelp in pain as he slammed his injured foot a step back, hitting the steel floor with a painful reminder that he had yet taken care of his injury.

"Ellias! I-" Atlas swallowed, his voice still scratchy from sleep, "sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you, I just needed some-"

"-Kettle's boiled. I'm up all night. Don't bother sayin' sorry."

Atlas coughs, clearing his throat and nodding into the silent, uncertain air as he trudges toward the kitchens. He pulls on the first drawer he sees, sifting around for something to stifle the bleeding with. Random objects, odds and ends clatter and roll about in the drawer before Atlas pulls out some leftover gauze- odd, how it wasn't in the medbay.

"Do you eat before bed?" Ellias asks suddenly, causing Atlas' gaze to snap up from the bandages that he held in his hand. Ellias was seated in one of the booths, his eyes unmoving from the latest starchart they'd received from a recent contact. It was surprisng- Atlas didn't know Ellias could read starcharts,

"I...huh?"

"Do you eat?"

"Um, at dinner? Why?"

"Huh," Was all Ellias said, and then the dreary silence of a long night took over what little conversation there was, after.

Ellias had left quite a bit of hot water in the kettle, allowing Atlas to welcome the soothing beverage with ease, bringing the steaming cup to his lips and sipping away all of his eerie feelings and woes. He would truly be lying if he said these nights didn't get to him- the moments of disquiet that matched his head with his heart. Atlas wasn't sure if these were going to stop anytime soon, and it was hardly befitting of a crew member to whine simply because he had a bad dream.

"Have Shasta check you in the mornin', Atlas. I shouldn't be seeing you up so late. If needs be, Ezra'll stop by that clinic in Brigginsberg. Okay?"

Atlas gripped the handle of the mug, looking down at the shifting water as he nodded to Ellias, not thinking about how Ellias couldn't see through the darkness of the dimmed lights,

"It's nothing bad. I don't want you to go out of the way for something, really, I'll just-"

"-I worry, idiot. It's the fourth time this week. Finish your drink and go to bed, okay?"

To Atlas' surprise, he didn't think Ellias would have it in his care to count; Atlas smiled for the first time since he'd woken up,

It began as most first contact stories did: miscommunication, misinterpretation, and death. The differences in the ways of life and philosophies of the Kal'Morrans and the Harpii warriors were noticed upon their very first encounter a whole thousand years previous, and continue to persist into today.

There is no "official" story agreed upon by either party, and both governments in question will insist that the version brought back to them by their soldiers were, in fact, the correct manner as to how this altercation took down. The Council had made multiple attempts in the past to twenty years to collect enough evidence for one side or the other, and has been unsuccessful in doing so. The Council has no official stance on the first contact encounter between the Kal'Morrans and Harpii, and due to diplomatic purposes would rather see this bad blood between the two races dead, and buried.

KAL'MORRA: THEY CAME FROM THE AIR

[The Official story from the Kal'Morran perspective. This is the widely accepted as the truth among Kal'Morrans and their sympathizers]

The Kal'Morran Sun Warriors came across a space-faring vessel that had crash landed near the lakes of Calari and Bah-rami. Kal'Morran sources claim that there were no survivors in the spaceship as they were all killed upon impact.

Having no idea who or what these "aliens" were, they took the bodies from the ship and interred them in the local temple for inspection.

Without knowing it, upon the Sun Warriors inspecting the ship they activated a primitive distress beacon, allowing the Harpii in the chain of command to send more ships to investigate the call. There were ten Harpii "Warbirds" in all, and within a three days time of the activation of the beacon, they had arrived on Kal'Morran land.

Meanwhile, the corpses of the Harpii crew members who had died on impact had- by Kal'Morran accounts- began spreading an illness that ravaged the elder and younger population. Children and elders apparently died by the thousands, and was devastating to the Kal'Morrans at the time.

"It is said in the ancient texts there will come a time where we all must die. Our people, part of the great cosmic cycle, will return to the stars that gave us life so many years ago."

"For centuries we endured the hardships of a struggling, infant people. We fought with tribes that no longer have names as they- along with so many more of those whose fate we will eventually share- as they, too, perished amidst the great journey back to the stars, to home.

And through those centuries of hardships and ancient enemies, we became an empire of ages- millennia were spent in the early stages of our people's youth, prospering in ways that the ancient ones never thought possible."

"We grew up. We conquered nations and [lesser] kind, we traversed the Seas of [Boriana], waded through the Jaw of Gilcar- the stars that gave us life, our legends, our people, were now far beyond the limits of our great and mighty civilization.

It has been years since we have been able to say these words and remember their meaning. We've become fractured, lost in our own anger and self-created problems that we fail to see what lies in front of us on the horizon: total annihilation."

"We must come together. We must survive. For though we must return to the stars, that day is not today; for though our future seems grim and dark, there is light that The All-Mother sends to us, to shine through; though we as Vidarryns are pitted brother against brother in the greatest threat we have ever known, we must have faith that in the end we as one, whole people will come out on top."

There was nothing in the beginning but cold and darkness. It was deep and fathomless.

The Great One, Ankur, was formed from the nothing into the heavens. He was the sun, the moon, and the sky. There was no color in the sky, no heat to the sun, and no brightness to the moon. Ankur was lonely, and had no one to share his existence with.

Ankur gathered the fathomless, the sun, and the paleness of the moon to create Othala, his beloved. She was the stars in the nigh, the clouds of the day, the shine of the sun and the blue in the sky. Together, Ankur and Othala lived as the horizonless sky, deeply in love.

Othala wanted to give Ankur a child, someone they could share their love with. Twins were born from Othala, Kal'Pak and Terfifi. Kal'Pak and Terfifi were the deep, steady earth. Kal'Pak took shape of the mountains, and Terfifi took shape of the land, and stone. These twins had the ability to create life, and created the first giants and the mothers of all monsters, populating the land with strange and wild beasts. These giants were so large in size, their feet bore holes into the surface of the earth, creating craters and valleys as deep as the sky is high. These giants and monsters had no soul, and so they only destroyed.

But from the darkness of these caverns and craters created the primordial form of Wec, an evil being of pure black. Wec was born from the evils of the giants, from the death the barren land held, from the darkness the earth had.

Wec turned his gaze toward the sky, and saw the stars, and was determined to make Othala his. Knowing Othala could not bear to see her husband harmed, Wec threatened her, telling Othala that he will consume Ankur if she does not listen and follow him to the earth.

Ankur reassured Othala, telling her that he is strong enough to deal with the evil of Wec, and not to listen to what Wec had said. Othala does not agree to come to earth, and Ankur begins to be slowly consumed by the darkness of Wec, eating away at his being each day, slowly.

Othala, horrified at Ankur's pain and Wec's evil, began to cry. Othala cried and wept for seventy days and seventy nights, her tears falling from the stars and filling the caverns, the holes and valleys of the earth.

When Ankur became wholly consumed by Wec, it was then that Othala finally agreed to Wec's demands, and she tore herself from the heavens. She fell from the stars, the blue sky, the heavens, and landed in the oceans of her tears. She was gone.

Ankur became enraged, and refused to allow Wec to return to the earth. Fighting with every part of his existence, Ankur's one last action tie Wec to the moon, to his body. If Ankur could no longer be with his beloved, then Wec can no longer return to the land and darkness from which he was born. This killed Ankur, and Wec is forever locked in an eternal war with the last action of the dead Ankur. His fight can still be seen to this day.

Terfifi and Kal'Pak, filled with sorrow at the loss of their parents, created not a monster or giant, but a being wholly different and new- someone to appreciate the world their parents left behind, to love the world after the ruin and chaos.

Terfifi morphed the water into the image of their mother and father, creating man and woman, and Kal'pak took the water of his mother's tears and created grass, and trees, and animals and life. The world was no longer barren, but green and blue, just like Othala and Ankur.

Thane, for all his medical knowledge, wasn't sure how it came to be that such a small, petite human with her hair done in braided pigtails was capable of such rage, but if one thing was absolutely certain- it was that this woman's got spunk.

Moxie.

Grit.

"-AND ANOTHER THING! IF I EVER HEAR YOU TALK BADLY ABOUT MR. MOSELY AGAIN, I'LL CALL YOUR BOSS! THAT'S RIGHT! I'LL GO TO THE HIGHER UPS! AND THEN WHAT WILL HAPPEN, HUH?"

What she doesn't have, however, is tough enough skin to withstand the burning, boiling steam of an engine to a train that had one real, pissed off conductor. The very same conductor, of course, that the woman was screaming at.

Thane sighed, irritation beginning to seep into his chest as he rolled up the sleeves of his coat, his mind a stream of curse words and expletives as he did something that could only be described as, "really, really painful".

Thane's eyes snapped back to the woman, and the familiar sound of boiling steam rising through copper pipes caused her words to be lost to the wind. The conductor said nothing, instead throwing his body weight into the motion that brought the ventilation of the engine open.

Thane jumped.

-

Rosalie, for all her engineering knowledge, wasn't exactly sure how it came to be that in one moment, she was upright, angry, yelling, to being slammed onto the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Or rocks.

The landing felt like rocks.

But if one thing was absolutely certain, if one thing made sense throughout this entire, horrible mess that was her train ride home, it was that a large man just tackled her straight to the ground; the air knocked clear out her lungs.

He's got moxie.

Guts.

Grit?

Might be a pervert-

But the sudden screams of steam practically deafening both of Rosalie's ears was enough to make all of her thoughts come to a screeching halt. Rosalie's eyes slammed shut and her hands moved reflexively to her head, ignoring how the stranger seemed to move toward the steam, and not away from it.

-

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-

One of these days, Thane will learn to stop giving a damn. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but when that day comes Thane won't have the care to jump in front of steam hot enough to give any human a permanent makeover.

Luckily for the random rage-filled woman, Thane was not only human. Sure, he may look a bit pink and red by the end of this and might want a cold bath, but dead or seriously injured he is not.

Hooray.

The screeching of steam ended before the clouds did, the hot gas rolling through the station and dissipating before it ever became truly harmful to the touch. Thane stood over the woman he'd tackled with a face akin to one of annoyance, not pain. His eyes flickered over to the conductor of the train, his face paled and eyes wide, as if startled more so by Thane's thick, Kal'Morran skin then by his own actions that caused this all in the first place.

Thane shrugged his shoulders, fixing his now warm and wet coat before bending down, extending a hand to the woman beneath him, wordlessly asking for a hand as to help her up.

-

Okay. Maybe not a pervert.

The minute the screeching stopped, Rosalie opened her eyes. Clouds of white steam wafted through the air, following the direction of the breeze and covering all other sights, save for the station that sat within yards of her own line of sight.

Rosalie turned her head to find what she believed to be the man that knocked her down, a hand in place of where he was- directly in front of the steam pipes only moments ago.

"You-" Rosalie started, her voice soft- a contrast from her yelling of only moments before, "Are you alright?"

"M'fine," The man says gruffly, his hand shaking in front of her face for emphasis, "You need help up off the floor, or do you just wanna stay there?"

Rosalie's cheeks burned, flushing at the sarcasm in the man's tone. Rosalie smiles, nodding wordlessly before taking his large- incredibly large- hand, and finding herself upright before she could blink once more.

"I-" She started, "thank you. I don't typically like to start fighting with people, but that conductor was a mean ol' bastard and I just- I just couldn't stand it!"

"Then pick a fight with someone not working on a steam train," Thane points out before pausing, adding, "maybe don't pick fights with people taller than you, either."

"I wasn't pickin' a figh-"

"Right," Thane says, well aware that the excuse the woman would come up with next will not be a good one, "'Course. He started it, right?"

"Obviously!"

Thane nods, running his hands through his hair with a sigh,

"Take care of yourself, ma'am, I'll be at my clinic if you want to do a check up-"

"Rosalie,"

Thane double takes, "Huh?"

"Rosalie," The woman repeats, "That's my name. I-I sorta figured you'd want to know it, since you took all that steam instead of lettin' me get hurt. What's yours?"

"Thane," He answers with a sigh, "I'm the town's doctor. Like I said, I run a clinic down the way if you wanna get a check up, alright?"

"I might just do that," Rosalie says with a smile, "though I think I got myself handled."

Thane can't help but chuckle at that.

Moxie.

Spunk.

It would be the fact that he is half Kal'Morran and half human. Humans and Kal'Morrans have a rather decent political relationship, and for the most part can get along just fine. The comments and anti-Kal'Morran hate from the humans, however, come from the association with the Battle of Kneps (an event that will be explored fully and is central to many, many problems in the story)!

Kal'Morrans, on the other half of the coin, have the tendency to want to keep their species and by extension, their culture, to themselves. To be half-Kal'Morran is to be almost un-Kal'Morran, and by default will be considered "other" to the Kal'Morrans. To "mix blood" is an offense to the Kal'Morran identity.

Harpii have an imperialistic society, and by default will consider themselves superior to all others. They're particularly hostile to the Kal'Morra, and have little in terms of political leeway with humans. This would be something definitely seen if one were Half human and half Harpii.

Key for map is below!

WHITE BORDER: The Minox Star System

DARK RED Border: The Corault Star System

LIGHT BLUE: The Neutral Zone

DARK BLUE: Kal'Morran controlled space

LIME GREEN: Anderran controlled space

PURPLE: Lyvera controlled space

ORANGE BORDER WITH RED LINES: The Wastes; recent Council acquisition

LIGHT RED: Council of Interplanetary Systems Controlled Space

YELLOW: Harpii Controlled Space

RED BORDER WITH YELLOW AND BLUE LINES: Jointly controlled space owned by the Harpii Crown, The Kal'Morran, and the Council.

In the realm of Quailian Mechanics, aether particles are technically signature particles that are emitted after a Calveranian energy field has been created. This energy field acts on frequencies- the higher the frequency, the more complex the energy field.

Telekinesis is believed to be performed by brain waves becoming "attuned" to the frequency required to create a low-functioning Calveranian energy field. Telekinesis is then, by this definition, a simple task to perform for the alien species whose minds are capable of creating an energy field.

Telempathy is considered the next highest frequency, and is a bit more complex than the last. Telempathy is the ability to read the emotions of another living form, but the catch is that it must be sentient. Telempathy cannot be done with animals, as the brain waves of such creatures are too simple to create an energy field with.

Telempathy requires the telempath to create the equivalent of a band width, broad and wide enough to catch the high-functioning waves of the person they are reading. Once this band width is on the correct or closest frequency to the person's brain waves, they are able to become "joined". This is, in essence, how the telempath is capable of feeling the person's emotions.

Telepathy works in a similar way, only it is much harder to perform and there are very few life forms in the galaxy who may be capable of doing it. Telepathy works like telempathy, but requires a greater amplification in order to become tuned into the highest form of brain activity that is seen in sentient life forms.

Telepathy is rarely achieved these days due to a physical limitation that is brought on by thousands of years of evolution. The Vidarri were known to have horn or crescent-shaped protrusions from the head, and many believe that this was physical epicenter of the amplification that was needed in order to perform telepathy.