Interviewer's Notes
The War for Earth was the single greatest struggle in history. Not the history of any one group, but the history of everyone, in every species, on every world. No other conflict has impacted all five known sapient species in such broad and wide-reaching ways, both drastic and seemingly inconsequential. It has seen the end of empires, the salvation of an entire species, and a death toll unparalleled in scope.
In those terrifying and elating seventy-eight days, everything was changed, and for everyone. From a Mongolian shepherd to a doctor to the leader of an invasion force, no one has been left unaffected. The aftershocks of this event reverberates across the light years and impacts the lives of those living around distant stars. From politics, to art, to even the very geography of this world, the War has left a lasting impact, and will continue to leave its mark for as long it is remembered.
Remembrance. That is the drive behind this book, which I wrote over the course of six months, four dozen interviews, and hundreds of hours of audio files. There are more numerous and more accurate sources available to those who seek only raw data about the war and its aftereffects. But, numbers and charts can only go so far in capturing what happened in that war, for it lacks the center of it all- people. This story is ultimately a story of people, for it was people who began the war, people who fought in it, and people who died in it. How can we understand an event such as this, if we do not understand the people involved in it?
As the Colonization Fleet hurtles towards Earth, and old wounds reopen, it is my hope that this collection can bring about a clearer understanding of that momentous occasion. Not through numbers, but through the thoughts, the fears, and the hopes of so many different people, who were linked together by a single event.
If we understand them, and that which links them, then perhaps we can embrace the future as we remember the past- together.
- October 4th, 2041
-/-\-
Final Report
Observer - Designation They Are Worth Remembering
Verification Code When the Great fight, it is the Small who suffer
This document serves as a final and personal report on my findings during the fifteen local years I have been deployed on this world. In addition to the passive information gathering via physical documents and the planet's digital information network, of which you will find three hundred exabytes worth of data, I have also engaged in active investigation under the guise of a human journalist.
It is the opinion of this observer that the Human-Race-Fithp War, colloquially known as the War for Earth or World War Three, is the single greatest anthropological event we have ever recorded. Entire theories and schools of thought regarding the development, interaction, and longevity of civilization will be overturned in the face of what has been uncovered here.
The very concept of a war of conquest being waged over interstellar distances was, in the opinions of observers such as myself, considered near-impossible. The combination of resources, biology, technology, and cultural impetus to make a sapient species desire to militarily conquer and colonize worlds in other star systems is unlikely- it was naturally a great shock to us when we learned of the Race's growing interstellar empire, which included the nascent species known as Rabotevs and Hallessi.
Therefore, it is an even greater shock to learn that yet another species shared similar ambitions to the Race- our own Descendants. The placement of the Messages, and their impact, remains a source of controversy among us, and this revelation will only serve to make it even more severe. There is no excuse for the gross oversight required to allow the expulsion of the Chpatisk Fithp and the demise of those on the Homeworld to go almost entirely unobserved, especially in light of the role, however indirect, we have played.
These two cultures and their developments alone would be of considerable interest and a source of debate, but it is the third culture involved that makes this into such a world-shattering event. The very fact that, not only do these two interstellar cultures bent on conquest of some sort or another exist, and exist in a similar frame of time, but that they invaded a world inhabited by a people who had not even left the orbit of their unusually large moon, and that this planetary culture proved capable of defeating both attacks, is an event so unlikely that it should not exist.
Let alone the fact that these events happened on our former doorstep.
Nevertheless, it is my duty to understand the causes and effects of an event such as this. Firstly, we must note the unusual distances between these three cultures. It must be noted that humanity, the fithp, and the Race and its two client species all inhabit a bubble of space only fifteen light years across. In fact, our old suns are those closest to Sol, where the war was waged. While similarly close sapient cultures have occurred before, as well as cultures in the same solar system and even the same planet, the tight grouping of these five species is still noteworthy.
Secondly, we must note the species themselves, and the worlds they inhabit. The planets of the Race are all arid worlds, orbiting low-metallicity stars. Life on these three worlds are dominated by caution, where even the smallest mistaken expenditure of resources and energy can prove fatal. This in turn created a culture of deliberation, where progress is glacial by any carbon-based lifeform's standard, but societal stability and longevity is unsurpassed.
While we may never know the courses the Rabotevs and Hallessi would have taken before their colonization, it would not be an uneducated guess to assume that their industrial civilizations would have borne a degree of similarity to the Race- slow to advance, but with the foresight to preserve their resources and stability to the best of their abilities.
In stark contrast, Earth, the home of Humanity, bears a striking similarity to our own world. It orbits a younger, higher-metallicity star, and is incredibly rich in resources valuable to developing carbon-based sophonts. Oceans of great depth dominate the surface, while the soil proves incredibly fertile. Even in comparison to other such verdant worlds, it is in an ideal location, with a massive moon to stabilize its orbit, and the existence of multiple gas-giants that serve as a sort of vacuum for impactors.
This garden of a world resulted in a people suited for such an environment- experimental, restless, and volatile, but also with the capacity for great change because of those selfsame attributes. It seems that the parallels run even deeper than initially suspected.
These three societies all bear the flaws endemic to their types. The Race's rigid way of thinking and slow advancement, while beneficial in assuring long-term stability even across interstellar distances, would have left it woefully out of its depth against more adaptive and mercurial societies. Proof of that can be seen with this war, where it failed to adapt in time to defeat a species largely limited to its own atmosphere, despite being an interstellar polity. It is quite fortunate for the Race that they encountered this issue under more forgiving circumstances- a conflict with some of the other species we have observed would have led to far more disastrous outcomes.
Likewise, humanity's volatility and constant state of social upheaval had brought their world to the brink of ecological ruin, with a stark divisions between social classes, planetary cultures, and factors pertaining to their biology. It is all to easy to consider that, if this war had not occurred, humanity may have very well met the same fate as our own civilization, but even more rapidly, to the point where there would not even be survivors left on other worlds who could rebuild.
As for the fithp, there is nothing I can say about them that has not been said before.
In a stroke of what one may call extreme improbability, or perhaps fate, the conflict between these three cultures have possibly offered solutions to these issues, via cultural mingling and exchange of technologies. In the face of existential interstellar threats, humanity has resolved many of its internal divisions, and the use of non-native technology such as fusion power as allowed them to continue their growth in a way that does not threaten their biosphere. In turn, the Race on Earth have demonstrated a profound shift in perspective, one that may spread to their worlds and allow them to overcome their phobia of change. Likewise, the outcome of the conflict has allowed the fithp an opportunity to mature like other species, and to finally look past the Messages as the sole authority of their future.
And yet, issues remain. The lack of a one-world superstate on Earth leaves open the possibility of conflict, but with weapons that can easily destroy their world. Their access to the Messages may inhibit their natural development, in ways we cannot predict as of yet. And should they make peace among themselves and form a superstate, there remains the issue of peace with the Race. This is a scenario we have only witnessed once before- a dark-forest cold war. I remain optimistic that this cold war will also be resolved peacefully.
Of course, this is only hard data and well-learned conjecture- neither one can fully embody what has happened here.
It is for that reason I have created this collection of interviews, which has also been released to the public on Earth as an epistolary account of the War. With all field notes were removed, of course. It is all too easy for us to become detached from these events- from parsecs and countless revolutions away, these events are distilled into academic reports and highly technical notes, describing cultures far less advanced than our own.
And yet, these events are, in the words of one particular individual I interviewed, ultimately stories about people. People who, while possessing technology far beneath us, are people much like us. In losing that, we may lose vision of ourselves. It is the hope of this observer that these firsthand accounts, gathered from individuals belonging to all five species and an eclectic gathering of social roles and cultures, will help us remember the personal side of these events.
I have no doubt that they will, in time, uncover the last secrets from the Messages, and perhaps even learn how to surpass the speed of light itself. When that time comes, and our civilizations meet, I hope we will remember these people and their stories, so we can forge a truer understanding our both them and ourselves, and move towards a brighter future as one.
In the meantime, I request that I be allowed to remain on this world, and continue my studies of these intertwined peoples for another thirty local revolutions.
-/-\-
You have been reading:
Worldfall, by Thuktun Flishithy