September 18th, 3522.

Today was a Sunday.

So this is what we’ve got to work with.

Disguised in civilian clothing, stone and metal tucked under his sleeves, Niji watched the class of university channeling students in their kinetic barrier reinforced practice yard. Many were the best of the best, who would become everything from architects to specialist colony builders. But only a handful had the killer instinct to join the Solar Alliance’s military, and an even smaller number had the skill and ability to become a Scion.

Theresa Hoshino.

Paired against an older fire channeler, she flipped through the air and landed on her palm before twisting and ripping away the fire her opponent was building. She was a terrifying opponent, dark amber eyes gleaming with violent intent, hyperfocused on tearing apart her enemies.

So just like her mothers.

She stole the fire of others for herself, fought against earth channelers two at a time, and with a mere tap shattered rock and iron, like a dragon made manifest. Occasionally she sparred with the diderik youth, and those were fights worth remembering. A woman barely over 5 foot two holding her own against an alien twice her weight and size was impressive, and drew attention.

Xinji was a monster all her own, lightning fast kicks, twisting and turning and hopping on a dime. Her claws could rake through steel, and it was only the natural spiritual strength of a student that kept them from being gutted by a single swipe of her claws. Strong, just like her witch of a mother, but a far kinder soul is a blessing in today’s world.

He returned his attention to Theresa, she was a master of outside fire, and her blood was that of the wave clans, even if her brilliant mind was focused on science and engineering rather than war and nation building, though she had been taught both by her first teachers.

Though civic learning was taught to all students, so that they could at least understand how to shape the world, and for those who were more ambitious, they would rise up to become the lord of domains, from the smallest candy shop manager to the planetary governors, elevated into their role by the people and for the people.

The clans of Fire had been used as the initial basis for how humanity would be run, those loyalties owed to their people and the loyalty they returned back. Bound by the community and family ties of Water, the rules and laws fortified by the oaths and contracts of Earth, and Air was used not for their piety but for their freedom, granting them the spiritual looseness to prevent humanity from being enslaved as they were before.

Never again.

Theresa was an example of how far their kind had come, in generations past she would have been a noble lady, an assassin and broodmare both, raised to kill, subvert, and raise children for the honor and legacy of her clan. A lord yes, but with different expectations, and with her intelligence she would have been a monster.

Still, that kernel of potential hadn’t been stifled. It had simply taken a different direction, and he did not want to take her under his wings to raise another Yaga, he wanted to teach her how to survive in the cutthroat world of the thirty sixth century, to thrive and become everything she wanted to he, regardless of what and who stood in her way.

I like her.

His mandibles flicked and clicked together, four arms folded over his rotund chest as he watched Theresa create a raw flame out of her chi, the knife of fire slicing disrupting a water whip. She ducked, cast out a roiling wave of golden flames that burst up the spectrum into incandescent white and blue.

The young northerner fighting her snarled and and sent out a semi-liquid mass of water that froze solid in an instant. Niji grimaced, and knew the boy was going to get the tongue lashing of his life. That was a technique of death against one of Fire, the ice would freeze them, sap them of their warmth… and a fire channeler would wither up and die from the lack of their element.

The eastern girl he was scouting smiled toothily, and began to take deep and even breaths, which lit with fire, and spread down and outwards like a wave of invisible heat. In and out and in and out, and the ice shattered and liquefied and was then knocked aside with a quick push of uncontrolled concussive force, an invisible pulse of combustion.

Theresa cracked her neck, her naturally expressionless face raising an eyebrow at her sweaty opponent. Niji shook his head, that poor girl. He knew her bloodline records. They had a tendency for certain mental traits, some of them human, some of it… was other. Yaga had Variable Attention Stimulus Trait or VAST, as did her father, while on Aitana’s side her mother had a variant of autism. On their own that was simply part of natural human mental variance, but combined with the other blood running through her veins, she was set up for disaster.

It was a manageable risk of course, but it was something to watch out for as she continues to develop.

Her movements were like an endless waltz, she sent out a stream of heat into a wall of water from her opponent, and wretched it out of his grasp for a split second. Water boiled and exploded, and Theresa used the heat in the air to light outside flames, and with a circular motion of her arms unleashed a writhing fireball that crashed into her opponent and sent him sprawling onto the ground. He had suffered cuts on his arms where her nails had pierced skin, and dark skin peeled where heat had touched his body.

Theresa’s fought a spirit before.

It had been years ago, when she had nearly been taken by a malicious kamui out of something like a spirit tale. He had personally assisted with destroying it and the rest of their brood, and he remembered the deep scars it had suffered, burns that struck at the spirit and crippled the beast of death and tragedy.

Strong to have survived intact, to have her spirit burned out from that monster’s touch. It made sense her potential for shamanism was so strong, her spirit had been wounded and had needed to fill it with the energy of the Spirit to survive. A once above average shaman had become even greater through adversity and the determination to live.

She smiled and Jiji saw someone to be nurtured.

Theresa was grateful for the quiet of the library, quietly sipping at a cup of iced limon tea. Which sent her mind on a tangent on various crops of the Solar Alliance. There was bacca, a family of crops derived from the tobacco plant and cultivated for about five centuries. Used for space hydroponics, livestock feed, vegetables, drugs and decorative flowers. Yan-tudou or smoke-potato is one of the most popular and usually boiled, mashed or fried.

There were bombards which were oranges without peels that could grow as large as pumpkins, kaffa which had tens of thousands of variants, with new cultivars created to sell to new alien markets, from vines that grow in lightless caves to underwater kaffa kelp. Limon was one of her people’s most well known crops, the citrus was a fast growing, highly engineered plant that could bear fruits within a year and was a popular food crop.

Then her mind went to meat, and the animals that were their main food crops. Doves or… well pigeons were the most common livestock bird alongside chicken and turkey rocs, kept as livestock by people in the city to displace wild stock. Hell her own house had a flock they raised for meat and eggs, and they often exchanged birds to get desirable traits for their next stock. There was domestic bonnacon, river pigs, ducks, ibex and—

And now I’m going on a tangent about domestic animals.

Tess rubbed her face, there were a thousand and one subjects that had drawn her eye over the years, and keeping her mind focused on the whole picture could prove difficult. Which was why she was here at the library, hundreds of thousands of books, and vast, deep and ancient servers that dated to before the Days of Iron. It wasn’t the well of knowledge alone that made it special, it was the atmosphere and the system etched in the very bones of the building.

Spirits floated like wisps, organizing the pages, shifting the books to a plan that couldn’t be deciphered, or bringing in new books from across the planet and beyond. Spirits of knowledge, owls and foxes and ravens flying and walking to the beat of an old heart.

There was a dull thunk as a book slipped out from its hiding spot and landed on her table. Tess rolled her eyes, not very subtle guys. The book had a title on the cover, The Pillars of Faith. It opened to a particular page, and she opened the book, too curious not to.

There’s strength to be had in the struggle, it changes a being in ways that nobody can predict. One’s scars are a road-map which leads a being to where they are today.

She turned the page, it… was a book of sutras, countless anecdotes and pillars of faith. It looked old, and she could feel its spirit, and then flinched at a familiar presence, hiding the book, which was in an astaran language translated by her holo-caster.

Sveta wasn’t approaching her, but she looked… tired and out of sorts and there was a sense of wrongness about that. So Tess stood up, and walked over despite how much her brain was saying it was a bad idea.

“Hey!” She called out, and the astaran woman was startled out of her brooding by the happy chirping greeting. Tess let her gaze wander up and down, unable to help herself. Turns out turning eighteen didn’t suddenly wipe away your hormones, even if she had been a late bloomer when it came to attraction. It had only hit her when she turned seventeen… she had unintentionally snubbed a few people before then.

She doesn’t look like she’s slept much. She noted worriedly. As an astaran she looked human enough, but she possessed an uncanny beauty with her too-long legs, and her outward nostrils and segmented frame. Dark hair was swept aside by long fingers, and Sveta stared at her with contempt.

“What do you want, human?”

“I think we got off the wrong foot before, and thought it’d be a good idea to clear the air between us.” They had been sniping at each other fairly often and it had gotten tiresome. At least it wasn’t as bad as she heard the spats between astaran women was like, with various levels of appeasement whether it was food, minor gifts or even sex, along with rumors and threat displays.

I wouldn’t mind the sex actually. She flushed at the stray thought, and coughed politely. Sveta was wearing a leather jacket over a white shirt, golden eyes staring down at her.

“And how will you do that?”

“By asking what your problem is with me,” Tess shrugged at the alien’s dumbfounded expression, and the record scratch of her song. “I’m not going to beat around the bush, no reason for it.”

“You lied.” Sveta said it like it made sense to her, and there was a nervous flick of her large ears. “When you helped me… you held back, refused to use your power. That’s a grave insult among my people. We can not lie amongst ourselves. You lied.”

“Then you’re obviously not used to not being around other species,” Tess pointed out, bitter at the fact her honor had been questioned. “You ever think there’s a reason why I didn’t use my power in full? Do you think I would hold back against some thugs for a laugh.” She stalked forward and Sveta took a step back in turn, eyes wide.

“Then why? Why should I accept any answers from a liar? From an honorless cur?”

“Because I can barely control my flames, not without these.” She pointed to her bracers, their interface steadily stabilizing her power. “I came down with a sickness and was left crippled, so I’m a bit insulted at your insinuations Sveta.” A hiss rose deep from her throat, her rage burning, growing.

Seething.

She was spiraling, talking with the astaran had been an impulsive mistake. There was a lot of things held dear to her heart, her honor, her integrity and honesty wasn’t something to be questioned without truth behind them. To have some outsider claim such things, it made her want to declare a duel in that instant and take that bitch down a peg.

The alien’s face was painted with emotion, horror, shame perhaps?

It didn’t matter.

Her tea was ashes and oil in her mouth, and she swiftly turned on her heels. She needed time to calm down before she ripped someone’s throat out.

Time she would take away from an insensitive jerk.

Sveta grimaced, trying not to cry as her emotions ran wild and her song pressed dangerously against reality.

You don’t have to keep struggling, you know?

“Remember the tenets, let go of your earthly desires, they do not matter. You do not matter.” She calmed herself, her breathing exercises helped keep her barbarous temper in check.

That human girl had infuriated her by revealing her shame, she had been mocking and insulting someone who was injured, who had fought with every part of her being to regain her birthright. She hadn’t held back because she wanted to, but because her control was still insufficient. She had hurt someone’s feelings without meaning— no I did mean it, and that was the problem wasn’t it?

Her people were flighty and yet closely tied, a people of Air and Earth. Piety and Tradition, nomads at heart. But they always returned home, but she had been different. She was the nail that had to be hammered down, the black sheep, the weak link.

Sveta had wanted to hurt the human for no other reason than her being a target.

And why not, she has a freedom you don’t have.

For her species, it was the men and the more independent women that left their homes, acting as nomads before settling down. But she didn’t want to come back to her home, didn’t want to live in an empty palace among empty people of no will or mind of their own. She was a cog in the machine, nothing more and nothing less.

My people, my nation is a sham built on mountains of corpses. Sveta thought sadly, bile in her throat and the urge to vomit rising. That was why she had run away to the other side of known space, as far away from ‘home’ as possible with the flimsy excuse of going on a journey.

She had wanted to expand her horizons, to see the world outside the view of her uncle and had failed by having his teachings instilled too deeply into her psyche.

I've ruined my chances out of petty spite.

She had decided long ago that her freedom was a distant dream, but that despite it she didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of her ancestors. She had wanted to learn the wonders outside the cold palace walls.

You will fail, that is why you need me. All you have to do is ask.

Sveta felt so, so cold.

And as she walked, she didn’t notice the purple flames that sparked from her footsteps.

Compendium Entry (History): ASTARA

Born roughly four thousand years before the astarans discovered and reverse engineered the Void Rail Network. Astara was a warrior queen of terrifying psychic power and overwhelming in sheer presence and personality. Many of the current political structures and methods of control over the core of the empire are tied back to her rule stabilizing society with the creation of the Pillars of Faith.

Astara rose to power swiftly, taking control of nomadic tribes and teaching them the secrets of civilization she had stolen from the mountain nations. To understand how she did so is to understand how astaran minds work. The most basic astaran unit of social grouping is that of the cenobium, and social hierarchy is a massive part of their instincts. A cenobium is divided into male and female, a somewhat flexible divide due to culture and their sequential hermaphroditism.

Astaran males evolved to be larger and stronger and more aggressive, acting as guardians and protectors while the females hunt and gather, though both interchange those roles as needed. Social rankings evolved as a way to determine mates, with females and males both developing various seduction dances and challenges. The higher one’s social ranking, the greater their access to resources and mates, and due to their biology a leader will both bear and sire children.

Astara exploited that in her conquest, giving oppressed astarans the chance to rise up in their social ranking and establishing a fairer and less oppressive system. As well as taking on lovers of all sexes and taking them into her social group. Her charisma and power allowed her to spread her influence over the next century, turning nomadic clans and forging them into an army a million strong. With her newfound army armed with bog iron and bronze she conquered the continent of Zapadu within a decade, and established the First Gardariki Empire across the western continent.

She spread her rule across the entire planet, advancing technology at a rapid pace to the point that within two centuries her armies went from yielding bronze to using steel and primitive explosives, and from sailing boats to primitive ironclad steam ships. She ruled the world with an iron fist veiled in velvet, but eventually her reign did come to an end.

The death blow came from space, when an origonium-rich asteroid struck the eastern continent of Skhid and triggered a global winter and poisoned the environment with exotic and toxic elements. It devastated her near global empire, and led to the rapid decline and collapse of astaran civilization. In a desperate attempt to preserve civilization she wrote down a treatise that would serve as a foundation for the next age, the Pillars of Faith and thousands of texts and preserved knowledge.

She would spend the last century of her life preserving what remained of her people as an estimated sixty percent of the population died during the decades-long winter. Her order of monks and nuns would preserve the light of civilization and instill two thousand years of cultural stratification to survive in a devastated biosphere.

Astara would eventually perish from radiation poisoning, and her monks would preserve her immortally when her very name became the root word for the collective name of her species.