Chapter Notes: Based on dialogue in S2 Ep 13 "Tiny."
The Harvest
Long ago, in a time forgotten by history, the Giants found a way to plant and nurture beans enriched by magic so powerful they could open doors to other worlds.
Despite their great size and fearsome looks, the Giants were law-abiding and peaceful. They had an ancient civilization and were not monsters. The humans hated and feared them, until they realized the truth - the Giants could make good allies. They became trading partners.
The Giants were generous with their magic, and saw nothing wrong with helping fellow travelers see foreign lands and gaze up at alien stars. The Giants sold the humans the beans.
The humans, awed by this new ability, used the beans to pass between worlds, discovering alien planets and learning all they could about the multiverse.
The Jumpers opened vortex after vortex. They mastered the ability to keep the gates open and stable, for longer periods of time. The Jumpers stretched these swirling tears in spacetime wider and wider. Eventually the portals grew wide enough to march armies through.
The first human explorers set out in small teams on foot, sent by their kings and chieftains to discover new lands and bring back whatever they could. The Jumpers returned with strange new minerals, gems, foods, medicines, exotic plants and animals and, of course, magical artifacts. They made contact with people of all shapes and sizes, all races and species.
The explorers grew confident, and then they grew haughty. The rulers of their homeworld sent representatives to start settlements and plant flags. Their soldiers threatened the other worlds. Attacked the other worlds.
Pillaged the other worlds.
Those who could not defend themselves were subjugated by the invaders, and those who could fight died by the thousands in the fierce battles against them. Kingdoms in every world were thrown into upheaval in the wake of the invaders. The ramifications were felt long after they left.
Gates opened and closed at the whims of the Jumpers, weakening the very fabric of reality, thinning the walls between universes. Unstable doors began to shut on their own, unable to be opened again. The bean supply dwindled, and when the humans sought more, the Giants refused to comply.
The Giants were disgusted. Horrified. They had no other choice but to cease all ties with the humans, boycotting any trade. Some Giants took it upon themselves to kill the Jumpers and take back the magic beans.
A war broke out between the humans and the Giants, and the humans had no chance of success until their alchemists synthesized poison that could swiftly neutralize and kill a Giant. They coated their weapons in these chemicals, and their small size proved beneficial. A soldier could sneak up on a Giant and get one good blow on the ankle before being discovered. The humans also found ways to deliver the toxin en masse, turning the bloody war in their favor. Giants began dying in the thousands, and the few clans remaining knew they were capable of one final, brutal assault.
Instead, the survivors retreated. They chose to vanish from the world and be forgotten, hiding in refuges in the clouds. A new mandate was made to never interact with the humans ever again, and to allow themselves to become myths told to scare human children. So the Giants could live the rest of their days in peace.
But they still grew the beans.
What were the Giants without the beans? The plants were older than their civilization. Though long-lived, not even the Giants remembered where the first wild plant had come from. They only knew the plant's magic was a gift from the gods, who the Giants strongly believed in. The magic was their life, the Harvest their tradition. Surely it was no longer dangerous to grow them, now the humans thought they were extinct.
Surely history would not repeat itself.