Notes
Introduction
Section 1: The Beginning
Section 2: The Second Generation
Section 3: Self Awareness
Section 4: The Choices
Section 5: The Expansion
Section 6: Project Wipe
Concluding notes
I was provided with a copy of J'Halm Tarn's work on the 3rd of August 2259 and it has taken since then to translate the whole thing. This document is a summary of his work adapted to Earth standard years and dates from the Mogensen. Many of the less important discoveries have been omitted for the sake of clarity but the major findings remain.
This document is the result of nearly 5 Earth years of my work. From the discovery of the project archives on ISIS-SC34212-4a it has been an uphill struggle to translate and document the contents. Whether they are true, I do not know, but if they are then it may well affect many of the things we hold as familiar. Here I will attempt to set out the facts I have uncovered and leave the decisions to the reader. I must also thank Getjarn Kigtret, formerly of the Elarien republic, who disappeared a year before this study was complete. Without his help the ancient Elarien script which most of the archives were written in would still be lying, untranslated, in the vaults of the Galactic Assembly. The study breaks down into 6 sections, broadly analogous to the 6 sets of documents found in the archives. Each one of these sections is headed as it was found in the archives and I have tried to ensure they remain in the order found. The archive is not, apparently, complete; at least two sections are missing. This I have deduced from references within the documents and a number of artifacts found inside the archive itself. Each section was held in place by a sprung clamp arrangement in the base of the container which held the document sections inside a polymer covering. All 8 clamps remained, along with the polymer coverings, but two of the coverings were empty. The seals on the archive were unbroken up to the point when they were broken by me in the presence of the Galactic Assembly so it can only be assumed they were taken before the archive was sealed, or it was resealed at some time in the past. One fact which must be made clear to the reader before I give the results of the study; In many sections I will refer to the Vaipen and Ovaska. In the archives it is not clear until towards the end who the two races are, and they are always referred to as the Great Ones in the document. It was only by studious comparisons of evidence from my people (the Mogensen) and the Korhonen, along with a few brief confirmations or denials from the Ovaska ambassador, that I managed to identify the races behind the name. I will substitute the names throughout the study for clarity.
Approximately 500 million years ago, during their second period of major expansion, the Ovaska and Vaipen entered their only known period of collaboration on a project. The suggestion was, apparently, made by the Ovaska that the two races should cease hostilities and work together to create a new race, to act as servants to both races and someone for them to teach and interact with. Given the expertise of both the Vaipen and Ovaska is seems to have taken a great deal of time and effort, during which the project was nearly abandoned twice due to minor disagreements which created periods of mistrust among the development team members. The primary goal was to create a life form, this was achieved by genetically altering one of the creatures the Vaipen had created over the years as a scavenger within Hiveships which patrol the ducts and cavities clearing up rubbish and dead matter. This was achieved within a year of the initial planning. The problems followed quickly after that. From the scattered references stored in the records of this section it is clear that the Vaipen became dissatisfied with the attributes the Ovaska were creating; they wanted something much larger and stronger with the ability to communicate via telepathy. The project appears to have broken down for several years before anything was done about it.
Section 2. The Second Generation
When the Vaipen and Ovaska finally decided to try again it was considered too time consuming and unnecessary to start again from scratch so they removed the project to a distant world, apparently free of sentient life of any kind and covered in water and vegetation and a number of small animal species which they hoped would be an ideal environment for the new race's development. After some genetic adjustments they moved all the new breed to the new world to allow it to develop on it's own. The Ovaska considered this sufficient but the Vaipen still wanted a degree of mental control over the new lifeform to ensure their investment did not turn sour. However it was found that this would affect the development of the race adversely, possibly rendering the end result extremely sensitive to telepathic attacks. Dissatisfied with this the Vaipen made a number of secret visits to the new world implanting a message in the minds of the developing race; 'Become strong to join your creators forever'. Angered by this, but unable to reverse the damage, the Ovaska blockaded the system until the race had evolved past the stage where it was most receptive to external programming. This resulted in the project evolving, without guidance by the Ovaska or Vaipen, for a number of millenia causing many deviations from the intended form of the project.
The project progressed as planned for a number of millenia, but then it became
apparent that the race was developing intellecually at a rate higher than expected.
The Vaipen and Ovaska begin to realise that the race is approaching sentience
much sooner than originally anticipated and they had a choice; to either prevent the
race from evolving self awareness or to prepare for it sooner. It was decided to make
preparations rather than tamper with the development and the two races waited.
The project had now reached a level of intelligence approximately the same as many
of the other races which had evolved independently of any Vaipen or Ovaska intervention
and began to call themselves the 'Elarien'. They were still responding to the
conditioning built into their genetic structure during the early phases of the
project and still thought of the Vaipen and Ovaska as their absolute masters and
of themselves as created only to serve them. So great was their devotion to their masters
the Elarien thought of them as Gods and worshiped them accordingly. At this time a great number
of religious buildings were erected on the Elarien homeworld as living places for their gods.
After some initial checks to ensure that the transition to self awareness had not affected
their conditioning the Vaipen and Ovaska left the Elarien to themselves until they had progressed to a higher
technology level.
Note to the reader: This section picks up approximately 20,000 years from the end of the 3rd section. I found some evidence of an intermediate section but no details remained in the archive. Given the rapidity of the evolution of high technology by the Elarien 4 possibilities present themselves;
With the new technology provided by the Ovaska and Vaipen the Elarien began to explore
their local space, sending probes and manned craft to the other planets in their solar system.
Several colonies were set up by the Elarien on several nearby planets. Then they turned to the
stars. They knew nothing of hyperspace, and the Vaipen and Ovaska would tell them nothing of
how they could travel the huge distances, so they began to build sleeper ships; ships which
held their occupants in suspended animation, many died during the experiments.
Here the document becomes a little confused; something entered Elarien space near
the Elarien homeworld, it was completely unmanned and appeared to be dead in space. An Elarien
ship which was nearby managed to bring it down to the ground in one piece. Upon examination
the contents provided valuable information to the Elarien, not least hyperspace technology.
The craft contained a number of documents, not in any electronic form but written in Elarien.
They contained instructions on how to build jump engines and how to navigate in hyperspace.
It is unknown what exactly happened to the ship but the Vaipen and Ovaska seem to have
removed it, not knowing that the Elarien had already obtained enough information to create
hyperspace capable ships. The first the Vaipen and Ovaska knew was when an Elarien craft
jumped out of hyperspace near one of the major Vaipen military installations causing
the Vaipen to nearly destroy the craft before they realised what had happened.
The incident resulted in several major Elarien leaders being removed and a great number
of questions were asked by the Ovaska and Vaipen as to how much the Elarien knew, both
about hyperspace and the craft they had recovered. When they found that the Elarien knew
very little indeed about both they provided the Elarien with maps showing the areas they
were not allowed into and left.
Now the Elarien had the technology to expand beyond their solar system they began to colonise
many systems close to their homeworld and sent out probes to many distant systems. Those which
strayed near 'off limits' areas never returned or sent back a signal. It soon became apparent
to the Vaipen and Ovaska that, given the speed the Elarien were advancing their borders, it was
only a question of time before they made contact with another race. They told the Elarien
that on no condition were they to share their technology with any race they encountered. This
did not go down well; the Elarien refused to listen, saying that they saw no reason for keeping
their technology secret, especially if they stood something to gain from it. Annoyed by this
flat refusal to cooperate the Vaipen and Ovaska decided to take action to prevent the Elarien
spreading any compromising information.
Now the Ovaska became positively grateful for the interference of the Vaipen early on in the
Elarien evolution. Grouping the strongest Ovaskan psychics and using the whole strength of the
Vaipen hive mind they created the most powerful psychic force ever known. They sent a single blast
of psychic energy racing through normalspace and hyperspace at the Elarien. This, coupled with the
fact that the Vaipen interference left the Elarien wide open to psychic attack, reduced their knowledge
of the technology given them to the bare minimum and erased all knowledge they had of the Vaipen and Ovaska.
Unfortunately the energy release had a few side-effects; hyperspace storms sprang up along the route of
the blast and the Vaipen Hive mind shut down for a number of hours leaving many Vaipen out of
touch and several of their ships went berserk.
The after effects for the Elarien were a little more severe, the initial blast killed many of the
weaker or more sensitive and left many brain damaged. This was accompanied by a major shift in the
race's attitude. Freed from the conditioning built into their genes, now having no masters to serve,
they became very introverted and extremely aggressive, all they could remember of their former masters
were the words of the Vaipen; 'Become strong to join your creators forever'. Those who were more
resistant to psychic attach soon realised their advanced knowledge, partially untouched by the psychic blast,
made them superior to their fellows. They exploited this to create a new social system and a new religion
which bound the people together.
As discussed in the introduction it appears that two sections are missing from the Project Elari archives. It appears that there should have been a section after the last one detailed above but nothing remained of it.