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History of the Hiigaran Landfall
Kiiths
Kiith Kaalel
Kiith LiirHra
Kiith Somtaaw
The Taiidan Republic
The End of the Imperial Era
The Taiidan Republic
The Imperialist Faction
Turanic Raiders
History of the Hiigaran Landfall
Kiiths
Kiith Kaalel
Kaalel is an old Kharakian kiith, descended from the nomads of the Walking Dunes region. The Kaalel were poor travelers for centuries, eking out a meager existence as they moved constantly from place to place, always seeking water for their herds. Eventually their fortunes improved, however; some time in the second century they formed an alliance with Kiith Sjet. The Kaalel were permitted to graze their herds on a few superior feeding grounds then owned by the Sjet'sa, in return for a tribute of tanned yearling hides, which were the best possible surface for writing at the time.
This arrangement proved to be mutually profitable for many years, until the Kaalel, emboldened by their good relations with the untouchable Keepers of Time, requested a more permanent alliance. In the year 313, they asked the Sjet'sa for the privilege of becoming his vassals. Kiith Sjet, in recognition of many decades of harmony between the two kiithid, accepted the Kaalel into the first circle of initiation, and began training the Kaaleli children in the ways of Sjet. It was understood that the Kaalel must serve as initiates of Sjet for three generations before they would be permitted to take the kiith name and serve in the third tier, as counselors and calendar keepers.
The eager and resourceful Kaalel were good students, and their first-generation initiates soon learned a great deal about reading, writing, and higher mathematics. When their training was completed, the Sjet'sa assigned them to the holdings of over a hundred far-flung kiithid, giving them work as scribes and messengers. These Kaaleli scribes and runners were known as members of Kiith Sjet, however, and within a few years the kiith'sid of Kharak had begun to ask for them by name.
Kaaleli scribes, unlike their more educated fellows in Kiith Sjet, did not try to give their employers learned advice, nor attempt to guide their decisions openly. A Kaaleli scribe simply wrote down what he or she was told, without missing, or paraphrasing, or altering a single word. Similarly, a Kaaleli messenger did not consider his or her personal welfare before obeying the employer's wishes. If a message had to be delivered between warring kiithid, the Kaaleli would find some way to penetrate enemy lines. Long distances and dangerous terrain would not stop them; the Kaaleli would go without question even into holdings that suffered from terrible plagues, if they were so commanded. The former herders were so determined not to fail their kiith'sa, and lose their chance to become true Sjetti, that they would accept any risk.
The influence of the Kaalel grew in the second generation, when the Sjet began giving Kaaleli youngsters a more refined education. The future Kaalel'sa, Liir Kaalel, was one of the students of Kaalel's second tier. When he was not studying philosophy, history, or politics, young Liir spent his days in the council chamber of his mother. Throughout his childhood, he saw many powerful men and women come to Jun Kaalel'sa, seeking the services of her people. Bound by her agreement with the Sjet, she always sent them away.
When his mother died in 337, Liir was raised to the chair of the Kaalel'sa. Immediately he began moving to consolidate his kiith; he called a gathering in the Walking Dunes, and discussed his plans. Sworn to secrecy, the Kaaleli returned to their duties in various parts of the northern hemisphere, but Liir began to meet with several of Karak's most powerful kiithid. The goal of these discussions was not immediately apparent; kiith'sid who visited Liir always went later to the Sjet'sa, to ask some minor boon, and it was generally assumed at first that Liir had given the same answer that his mother once made. Within two years, however, Liir's intentions were clear. Kiith Kaalel moved from their long-held homes in Sjet territory to a variety of new holdings all over Kharak.
The break with Sjet was a bitter one, but there was no bloodshed. The Sjet turned their Kaaleli pupils out of their homes, but it was too late to take away the knowledge and influence that Kiith Kaalel had gained while under their direction. To avoid open conflict and a bad reputation, Liir Kaalel confined his people to the roles they had been traditionally allowed in the first tier of Sjet initiation, contracting their services only as scribes and messengers. He would not send out his people to serve as tutors, councilors, or doctors to other kiithid, despite the fact that some of his own generation had achieved mastery of the second tier, and would have been qualified for these professions. He left the majority of the traditional roles of the Sjet for the elder kiith to fill, concentrating on those jobs which his people could do better than any other.
Liir Kaalel'sa guided his people for nearly fifty years. Under his direction, the Kaalel became a genuine force in Kharakian society. Kaaleli scribes copied and recopied many thousands of documents and texts, greatly expanding the general knowledge of those Kushan fortunate enough to be literate. More importantly, the Kaalel refined their methods of delivering messages over time. From 348-360, they established chains of communication across Kharak with the use of colored smoke and signal drums, which made their good graces nearly indispensable to most of the planet's military leaders. To protect the privacy of certain communiques, they also developed many methods of encryption.
Over time, Kiith Kaalel evolved into a powerful family, a small but influential clan of information specialists. They produced many gifted historians and writers, maintaining universal literacy within their kiith, but they also delved deeper into politics and intelligence work. By the year 563, Kaaleli were more often employed as spies, assassins and torturers than as messengers or scribes; they were as likely to extract valuable information as they were to transmit it. Although most Kharakians mistrusted them, their talents were too valuable to be dismissed, especially during the Heresy Wars, when accurate and swift information could be the difference between life and death to generals in the field.
During the Daiamid Movement, Kiith Kaalel were among the first to see which way the wind was blowing, and they quickly bent knee to the Naabal. During the Intervention, it was Kiith Kaalel that carried the word of the coming Naabal armies from place to place, recommending immediate surrender to any who would listen. To this day, Naabal scholars maintain that the efforts of Kaalel saved Kharak a great deal of unnecessary bloodshed. For two generations thereafter, the Kaalel gave up their own names to study at the feet of the larger kiith, devoting themselves en masse to transcribing as much of the Naabal's knowledge as possible. When they emerged from their years of service in the year 857, the Kaalel took up their names again, and brought with them the plans of a new invention: the printing press.
Thereafter, Kaalel's influence exploded. Publishing became a more lucrative profession than anyone could have dreamed, as more and more Kharakians learned to read and write. Kiith Kaalel closed the ancient breach with Kiith Sjet in 902, when they agreed to publish the famous Sjetti Holder's Almanac, which was for over 200 years the most-read and valuable book in any kiith dwelling. The first Kaaleli newspaper was distributed in Tiir in the year 913. When the first public radio broadcasts were made in 998, the most popular commentator of the time was Ran Kaalel. They invested in television stations and low orbital satellites; even in the Mothership herself, the majority of sensors and comm arrays owed some small debt to the efforts of Kiith Kaalel. As most of us know, the bulk of the Fleet Intelligence corps during Exodus was recruited from this family's ranks.
Thanks to their specialized knowledge in communication technologies, encryption and linguistics, Kiith Kaalel had a disproportionate number of crew members and Sleepers onboard the Mothership. Nearly half of their kiith survived the Burning of Kharak, some 50,000 men and women! In accordance with their large numbers, the Kaalel now wield tremendous influence in Hiigaran politics. The former officers of Fleet Intel are one of six kiithid responsible for manning our planetary navies, and although they don't have the specialized fighting skills of the Sobanii, they make up in numbers what they lack in training. In the past decade, the Kaalel have established themselves as a powerful warrior kiith in their own right.
What the future holds for Kiith Kaalel is anyone's guess. Regardless of what comes, however, they will almost certainly be the first to grasp its implications, and they are likely to turn any situation to their advantage; this has always been their way.
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Kiith LiirHra
Kiith LiirHra is a young family. Their parent Kiith, the Hraal, rose on Kharak during the Time of Reason, and gained great power as one of the driving forces in Kharak's industrial revolution. Emerging from under the wing of Kiith Naabal when the Great Daiamid was established, the Hraal were most notable for their application and improvement on the Naabal's basic steam engine. Hraal owned several steam-powered factories by the year 830, and hand in hand with its sister Kiithid, who collectively became known as the "Naabal Kiithlings," the Hraal eventually built the rail lines which linked the northern hemisphere with the rapidly growing Southern Federation.
Kiith LiirHra broke off from the main body of the Hraal in the year 1012, when the prospect of space exploration was under serious discussion at Tiir. Many of the smaller kiithid of the Hraal had expressed an interest in aerospace technologies to their kiith'sa, but at the time the Hraal'sa saw no reason to risk their assets on a venture in which they could see no possibility for short-term profit. Arban Hraal, then the Sa of a small manufacturing kiith, disagreed violently with the conservatism of his kiith'sa. Driven by a vision of the future, he began a campaign to recruit several other minor kiithid of the Hraal, selecting those who could share his vision and whose manufacturing and research facilities would be most useful to his cause. Collectively, this group of young Hraal upstarts petitioned the mighty financiers of Kiith Manaan for a massive loan-enough money to buy their freedom from Hraal, and pay for all the human and manufacturing assets they'd be taking with them.
Siima Manaan'sa, amused by the defiant bravado of Arban Hraal and his compatriots, made a thorough appraisal of their holdings and offered them a low-interest loan of some 500 million Kharakid credits--an outrageous sum at the time. Kiith Hraal, however, was not amused by their children attempting to leave the nest without permission, and would not accept the proposed settlement quietly. They branded Arban Hraal a thief and banished him from their kiith, forbidding him to take any family members or assets with him. His holdings were seized, including the account in which his Manaani credits were deposited, and he was denied access to anything he had once called his, including his wife and children. When he tried to storm into the Hraal compound where his people were being held, ostensibly awaiting "interview" by their kiith'sa, a trio of hooded Hraal security men subdued him. He was taken out into the middle of the Painted Desert in a hovercar, bound and blindfolded, and staked to a dune nearly 200 kliks from the nearest town.
Arban Hraal was not defeated by these extreme measures; he was only just beginning his rebellion. When the Hraal security men returned the next evening, to see if a day in the sun without water or shelter had taught him a lesson, they couldn't find him. They searched the surrounding area by ornithopter, but found no trace of him but a length of knotted rope. Eventually they assumed that he had been left accidentally near the feeding ground of a dune strangler...but at any rate, they were fairly certain that he would never be heard from again.
The truth, of course, was that Arban Hraal had snapped his bonds in the night and escaped. While his kiith'sa searched for him by day, he was sleeping under the sand; by night he was slowly making his way to the nearby city of Frein, navigating by the stars. Once he stumbled into the town, ragged and filthy and only half-alive, he managed to make contact with a sympathetic kiith brother, Kona Hraal. Kona was able to hide him in the Hraal railyard where he worked, and kept him there until Arban was somewhat recovered from his severe dehydration and sandflea poisoning. Penniless and hungry, but unwilling to risk the life of the man who had helped him, Arban Hraal quickly vanished again, crawling aboard a north-bound freight train. Over the next week he made his way from Frein, very near the Southern pole, all the way to the Daiamid at Tiir.
Ragged from his crossing of the Great Banded Desert in a freight car, Arban Hraal staggered into the Assembly an unkempt, blazing-eyed wildman. No one was more surprised than the Hraal'sa when he rushed into the midst of the assembled kiith'sid of Kharak and demanded his right to be heard. He insisted that he was Arban LiirHra'sa, the leader of a hidden kiith nearly 20,000 strong, and that the Hraal were keeping his people prisoner. In the resulting furor, Sobanii guardsmen stepped forward to drag Arban away and the Hraal'sa stood up, demanding an explanation: why was this lunatic allowed to intrude upon the halls of the Daiamid? Arban's future looked very dark indeed until Siima Manaan'sa rose from her chair, silencing all when she stepped down to the floor to give the ragged man her hand.
"Welcome, LiirHra'sa," she said. "We wondered what had happened to you."
The rest, as they say, is history. The Daiamid voted to allow the LiirHra their independence by a significant majority. The Hraal were punished for their mistreatment of their kiith children by being forced to part with the LiirHra at a much lower price than the sum of the Manaani appraisal, and the Hraal'sa of the time quickly found himself deposed by his sister. The upstart kiithling LiirHra went on to be a forerunner in Kharak's conquest of space, and they were key contributors to all aspects of manufacture and research of the Mothership. Among the Sleepers, LiirHra had a presence of nearly 50,000 souls, and since the return to Hiigara they have made put many of the technological advances we made during the Exodus to good use.
A minor footnote completes the ironic circle of Kiith LiirHra's history. Ten years after landfall on Hiigara, the last surviving members of Kiith Hraal, tired of struggling for a voice of their own in the new Daiamid, at last agreed to become vassals of the LiirHra, merging with the younger family for mutual profit and protection. LiirHra gave the former Hraal a kiithing gift of two factory ships when the two families joined, the Gren-Shto and the Steelweaver, and the former Hraal have proved to be as loyal and productive as any kiithid living under the LiirHra flag.
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Kiith Somtaaw
Of the earliest days of Kiith Somtaaw little is known, although this ancient family could once trace its unbroken lineage back over 1,000 years on Kharak. The Somtaaw made their ancestral homes in the peaks and valleys of the Kohntala Mountain range, one of the more dramatic geographic features in Kharak's northern hemisphere. In the first and second centuries, Somtaaw's holdings in the Khontala were rich and varied, running the gamut from farms, dams, and mills to fortresses and towns, including the walled cities of Hameln and Gydeo. The kiith was more than self-sufficient; the terraced farms of the lowlands and the seasonal grazing pastures of the highlands produced a great surplus of food and hides, and the Somtaaw prospered in trade.
Starting in the year 178, Kharakian artists from various disciplines were gathered under the patronage of Teigor Somtaaw, one of the most enlightened kiith'sid of his time. Employing hundreds of skilled masons, painters, architects and weavers, Kiith Somtaaw began building a series of temples on the slopes of the mountain called Lungma Jiin, "The Roof of the World." There were 33 temples in all, leading from the sands of the Kasaar to the very summit of what was, at that time, the world's highest known mountain.
Collectively, the 33 temples of the Somtaaw were known as "The Shimmering Path." For nearly 400 years, it was considered the height of spiritual devotion for a religiously inclined Kharakian to walk the Shimmering Path; most Kharakians attempted the trip at least once a lifetime. Beginning at the first temple, the Oracle of Tala, the distance that a pilgrim was able to travel on his or her own feet was considered a watermark for the strength of the Faith that burned within.
The vast majority of Kharakians finished the pilgrimage at the Seventh Temple, the famous "Dome of Heaven," which lay within the city walls of Gydeo. For those stubborn few who felt the need to move closer to god, however, there were 26 more temples along the Shimmering Path, each more inaccessible than the last. The highest of these was Temple of the Mysteries, which very few travelers could reach; the upper slopes of Lungma Jiin were a blasted ladder of crumbling granite and thin ice, and constantly buffeted by freezing gale force winds. According to legend, the most sacred relics of the Somtaaw were kept on the altar of this temple, and any pilgrim who made the journey on foot was permitted to touch them: the famed Star-Metal Scrolls, which were alleged to have been written by the hand of Jakuul Himself, in a language which no living man could read.
Up until the discovery of Khar Toba, most serious Kharakian scholars had assumed that the Somtaaw's Star Metal Scrolls were just a myth, very much like their Chalice of Life or any other mystical refuse from Kharakian legend. Before the discovery of the Guidestone, the Star-Metal Scrolls were put into the same category as Soban's sword Caaliburnos, or the Burning Spear of Gaalsi. However, given the discovery of the Guidestone, a great deal of new interest was generated in the Somtaaw holy relics. Many prominent anthrocists and historians, including the famous Mevath Sagald, joined forces and put a motion before the Great Daiamid at Tiir, requesting that the Somtaaw's upper temples, which had been closed to outsiders for over 300 years, be re-opened for the benefit of modern-day scholars.
Alas, nothing came of this motion before the Burning of Kharak. Representatives from Kiith Somtaaw dragged their heels in the Daiamid assembly, and even went so far as to suggest that archaeologists should approach the Temple of Mysteries on foot, dressed in traditional pilgrim's clothes! Sagald and her coalition declared this notion "ridiculous," and openly referred to the Somtaaw as "backward barbarians." Many Sagald supporters pointed out that the Daiamid was founded to hear sound logical debates, not listen to superstitious nonsense! Arguments on both side were still being heard when the Mothership was launched.
In any case, we will never know what we might have learned from the Somtaaw Scrolls; they were lost with the rest of Kharak, and among the Somtaaw survivors who awoke on Hiigara 15 years ago, there were none who could claim to have seen them. Since the later days of the Heresy Wars, Kiith Somtaaw had largely abandoned their role as a religious kiith; by the time of the Exodus, the vast majority of Somtaaw's kiithid were engaged in another profession, the profession by which they are still best known today: mining.
The transformation of Kiith Somtaaw from a primary religious kiith to a hard-working miner's kiith was a slow and painful one, and involved many generations of privation and suffering. The centuries of the Heresy Wars were hard times for the Somtaaw; their Khontala mountains provided a natural barrier between the forces of Gaalsi and Siid, and both sides struggled urgently to subdue or seduce the Somtaaw for nearly two hundred years. The flow of pilgrims to Somtaaw temples slowed disastrously in a world at war, and soon there was not enough money flowing into the kiith's coffers to maintain those temples in their intended role, as way-stations along the Shimmering Path. Eventually, in the year 675, all 33 of the Somtaaw temples were closed to outsiders, except for the Oracle of Tala and the Dome of Heaven.
By virtue of their own sheer stubbornness, and the natural protection provided by the narrow passes and forbidding peaks of their homeland, the Somtaaw were able to hold off all invaders during the worst of the Siidim and Gaalsien conflict. More difficult to resist, however, was the seduction of becoming a vassal clan, especially when the Somtaaw holdings, although easy to defend, were also easy to cut off from trade routes. Even a small garrison could hold the Kasaar like a cork in a bottle, and keep the Somtaaw trapped in their mountain fortresses; invaders couldn't enter, but neither could caravans and other visitors. Contact with the outside was sporadic throughout the seventh and eighth centuries...the Somtaaw held no goods sufficiently inviting to keep the Kasaar Road open.
This changed in the year 789, when Kuura Somtaaw, then kiith'sa of the 30,000 souls who still made their homes in the Khontala, awoke one night from a strange dream. Kuura had seen the image of the god Sajuuk, driving a great red sword into the earth in the Khontala mountains, in a seldom-visited region far from the main roads. Driven by the urgency of her vision, she ordered several smaller families to begin digging in the Red Creek valley. Because their kiith'sa was descended from the temple women of Tala, the Somtaaw reluctantly obeyed, and several Somtaaw kiithid moved to the area and began the excavation, although no one was quite certain what they were looking for.
What the Somtaaw found at Red Creek was a deposit of the richest iron ore ever seen on Kharak, which lay just six feet below the soft sediments of the valley floor. Here was enough metal to be hammered into a hundred thousand swords, and Kiith Somtaaw was not slow to announce their find to the rest of the world. Although both Siid and Gaalsi offered ruinous sums to buy the mine, or the ore that it produced, Kuura Somtaaw refused to trade with either side. In her own words, "Why should I sell these madmen a knife to cut my throat with?"
Instead, the Somtaaw built their own smelters and began mixing the iron with carbon, producing a very high grade steel...a commodity far more precious than gold, especially during those dangerous times. The arrangement that eventually sustained Kuura Somtaaw's kiith was made with the Sobanii, who immediately saw the use for Somtaaw steel and the superior weapons that could be forged from it. In exchange for a yearly tribute from the smelters at Hameln, the Soban signed an unheard-of contract; the mercenary kiith agreed to keep the Kasaar open and clear of marauders for a period of no less than one hundred years!
With the Naabal intervention, the Somtaaw expanded their operations, throwing themselves into their new profession with the kiith's customary enthusiasm. Although they never developed any significant technological advances on their own, they were always quick to buy, copy or outright steal any new tool or technique, once another kiith had put it into operation. Thus the Somtaaw profited greatly from the introduction of steam-powered drills, narrow-gauge railroads and chemical explosives. By the time of the Exodus, Kiith Somtaaw was nearly 500,000 strong, and had even built new holdings alongside great industrial kiithid like Naabal and LiirHra, to the extent of opening off-planet mines in the Kharakian asteroid belt.
The return to Hiigara was not as joyous for Somtaaw as for many of our people. Although a few of their number were awake during the journey from Kharak, employed in the care and maintenance of resource collectors, the vast majority of Somtaaw survivors were Sleepers during the journey. When they were awakened on Hiigara, many were horrified to hear that the families and loved ones they left on Kharak were gone, and that there was no hope of return. Of a kiith that had once been so strong, very few survivors remained; only 15,000 Somtaaw awakened on Kharak, less than a twentieth of their number, and the vast majority of these were men.
Somtaaw's fortunes were further complicated by a political conflict with Kiith Naabal, which made a bid seven years after landfall to absorb the Somtaaw survivors as a vassal clan. It was argued in the New Daiamid that Somtaaw's kiithid had valuable skills, which could be of the greatest possible use to Hiigara if channeled by Naabal's industrial planning committees. According to the Naabal, it was in the best interests of all Hiigarans if Somtaaw joined with Kiith Naabal, and provided their mining expertise to the Naabal-owned colonies throughout the Hiigaran buffer zone.
Somtaaw flatly refused this proposition, and the debate between Somtaaw and Naabal supporters in the New Daiamid has already been cited by many as a history-making event. According to the Somtaaw survivors, larger and more powerful kiithid like Naabal were deliberately campaigning to deprive the weakened Sleeper clans of their sovereign rights, which included the staking of land claims on Hiigara, a voice in the New Daiamid, and access to the ship-building capabilities of the Mothership Station. Given that the Mothership's building array had already provided whole fleets to the larger kiithid, and no less than fifteen carrier groups each to Naabal, Soban, Kaalel and Manaan, Kiith Somtaaw argued that they also had the right to seek their fortune among the stars. They proposed to build themselves a tonnage of starships which was proportional to their kiith numbers.
During the Somtaaw/Naabal debate, dispossessed members of many Kharak's devastated kiithid joined the Somtaaw as family members, swelling their ranks from 15,000 to nearly 25,000 in a few short months. The matter was contended for months in the Daiamid, with the larger kiithid of the inner council arguing bitterly. Kiith Soban honored its ancient ties to Somtaaw and opposed Naabal's power-hungry crusade, and so did the Paktu, a kiith inclined to support Somtaaw both out of historical sympathy with the underdog and respect for the rising confederation of Somtaaw with other weakened kiithid. On the opposite side of the table, Kiith LiirHra supported Naabal vigorously, citing the benefits of their own union with the survivors of the Hraal.
The matter was eventually decided by the Sa of Sa's, Karan Sjet, who came down on the side of the Somtaaw, and granted the miners access to the Mothership Station for a period of six months. In that time, the Somtaaw built two enormous mining ships, the Kuun-Lan and the Fal-Corum, which were both launched, fully manned, within 45 days. In the final days of their control over the Mothership's PDA, Kiith Somtaaw triumphantly built one final ship, the Clee San, a top-of-the-line deep space research frigate. Students of history will note that the names of all three vessels derive from the names of temples along the old Shimmering Path: Kuun-Lan, "Purifying Flame", Fal-Corum, "Silent Wayfarer", and Clee San, "Truth Seeker"...
Since then the Somtaaw have explored many neighboring systems to Hiigara. Although their numbers are small, they've set up several mining stations to collect rare elements, and they sell the fruits of their labors to all clients allowed by the current Hiigaran trade regulations. Like all our kiithid, their ships are bound to respond to any call to arms, when Hiigaran space is violated. But beyond the Somtaaw's duty to Hiigara, they live free and bend knee to none but their own kiith'sa...maintaining a centuries-long tradition.
Continue...
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