@ 900 years ago – Tare has a strong and stable civilisation at this point, and is starting to branch out from the original island, Gorra, and establish on other islands. World exploration phase, somewhat hampered by extremely violent oceans.
@ 300 years ago – The attitude toward psychic ability finally shifts enough that it’s considered a good rather than a bad thing, and the Tarens actively try breeding for it. Later, once they figure out how to boost it with machinery, they find that psychic talent of some sort is almost universal in the population, although they don’t have anyone who can even come close to the level of the old Lantarens.
@ 200 years ago – Computer age begins.
@ 120 years ago – Advanced nanotech age begins. At this point they’ve passed Earth’s current level of technology and are beginning the first roll-out of the bio-powered interface.
@ 100 years ago – Tarens build spaceships which will allow them to travel through the interplanetary gate again. This gate (or rift) goes to deep-space and is thick with aether and doesn’t seem to be like either the gates I’ve travelled with First, or the gate which took me from Earth to Muina. The Tarens start hunting for habitable planets/Muina, which is by no means easy. They send off and lose a lot of drones.
@ 90 years ago – A planet called Channa is located, which has an ex-Muinan population. It’s a rocky, arid world and not very attractive as a colonisation prospect, so the Tarens set up some mines on an unsettled continent, and indulge in long ethical debates about what to do about the ex-Muinans who are living a harsh, nomadic hunter-gatherer life. Instead of stepping in and trying to take over, the Tarens disguised themselves, learned the dialect, and have been feeding them small technological advances, turning them into a more agrarian culture. Since Channa’s Ionoth infestation was relatively minor, they’ve left it at that until recent years when, like all the other known planets, Channa started to suffer from much increased Ionoth numbers. Now there’s a huge argument about whether Tare should lend more outright assistance or even try to remove several million Channans from the planet.
@ 80 years ago – Located Nuri, a moon-sized planet with a small but stable population (tech level probably equal to the Romans). The Nurans seem to consider Taren technology a contaminant, and though there’s been some diplomatic exchanges, the Nurans really don’t want to have anything to do with the Tarens, and won’t share information. They also seem inclined to hold the Tarens at fault for the recent increase in Ionoth infestation. The Nurans have the strongest natural psychic powers of the known planets, and have been able to handle Ionoth up till now, but are thought to be struggling with the increase.
@ 60 years ago – Located Dyess, which has the remains of Muinan-type habitation, but it seems Dyess was overwhelmed by Ionoth long ago. It’s a watery world with a string of tropical islands crawling with things that consider humans tasty with ketchup. There’s been quite a few expeditions there focused on collecting useful plant life, but the slivers of land mass are not considered worth colonisation.
@ 50 years ago – Located Kolar, which is a dry but reasonably habitable world where ex-Muinans have been busy having wars with Ionoth and occasionally themselves. It’s the most advanced technologically of those Tare has encountered and though they would have been more primitive than Earth at time of contact, they’re now a little more advanced thanks to Tare’s help. The Tarens and the Kolarens don’t have a very warm relationship. The Kolarens really want the Tarens to share more of their technological secrets, while Tare likes Kolaren resources but not the prospect of them standing on an equal footing. Kolar has an internet, but the Tarens won’t give anyone except the Kolaren Setari the interface. Of course, large portions of Kolar don’t want the interface, and loathe all the potential violations of privacy it would bring.
@ 30 years ago – Muina rediscovered. Much rejoicing till entire expeditionary force wiped out in an explosion. Repeated expeditionary attempts invariably wiped out, although in different ways.
@ 30 years ago – KOTIS formed: theoretically a joint venture between Tare and Kolar, but in truth mainly Tare. This was in response to a noticeable increase in Ionoth presence across the known worlds, and also wanting to fix Muina. Both Tarens and Kolarens consider Muina home and there’s this grand ambition to move back there.
@ 18 years ago – Tare is suffering from more and more Ionoth coming through to real-space and has to devote a lot of time and manpower to fighting them. They begin a big push to increase the strength of psychic talents, formulating the Setari program in the hopes of moving the battle out of the cities. Which has been very effective, but in no way fixes the larger problem.
So that’s the interplanetary situation. I can see why Ruuel doesn’t think there’s much chance of them finding Earth, since it took them so long to find their own home world. Thanks to the strays which have shown up on Tare and Kolar, they know there’s at least three other inhabited planets of Muina-descendents, and they haven’t even been able to find them.
Thirty years ago when they found Muina, the Tarens didn’t know very much about why they’d had to leave Muina in the first place other than "everyone’s dying, run away!". Why the Lantarens felt interplanetary travel was so important is a mystery, and so is how the Pillars were created. Not a single one of the core group of people involved in setting any of this up on Muina made it to any of the known worlds.
There are endless stories about the Lantarens, most of which make them out to be arrogant mystic masters, but beyond being really great psychics, the true scope and nature of their powers isn’t known.
So there’s my context for starting Isten Notra’s project, though I’m not sure how quickly I’ll get that done when my mornings involve getting drunk and then sleeping it off. And still feeling tired in the evening.
Saturday, March 8
Early Muina Expeditions
Thirty years ago a drone returned through the rift gate having charted a path to a new habitable planet. The exploratory ship Lonara was despatched with a crew of twenty to survey the find. As planets go, Muina’s a juicy one. Large polar caps and a few arid splotches, but the rest a very habitable green and blue gem. Lots of lakes. Massive cities of empty, white blockish buildings. The Lonara did a quick aerial survey of the first big city they found, and could see no sign of human life, though plenty of animals. They set down on what looked like a parade ground, left a few drones, and reported back that the home world had been located at last.
Both the Lonara and another ship, the Tsaszen, were sent to begin a more detailed exploration. Fifty crew altogether, a mixture of military and scientific specialists. The Tarens had known that Muina was dangerous – or had been when it was evacuated – so they’d expected to find it infested with Ionoth. But even before the Setari program began they’d developed plenty of effective anti-Ionoth weapons, and without their own cities and citizens in the way, that first expedition wasn’t really expecting major problems.