Time Line for Dragon Masters of Zekira
15 thousand years ago, a small pocket of civilization arose on a world light-years from anywhere. Though primative, their culture grew carefully and placed value upon spirit, body and life essence before any politics and violence.
14 thousand years ago, their progress and peace was shattered
by invaders from the next planet out in their solar system. The invaders
brought not only fierce machinery and military dominance to the peaceful
folk, but also disease, famine and fear. The native population withdrew
to a single small continent, all others were devistated, wiped from
the face of their world.
12,500 years ago, fifteen hundred
years after they came, the alien invaders vanished. They left behind
relics and ruins, though they had taken native habitations and made
them into their own as well. No trace of the ferocity or disaster they
brought survived.
10 thousand years ago, new colonists
arrived from a faroff planet. Exiled on to their generation ship, branded
as 'different' from their normal cousins on their homeworld, they exhibited
not only grace and physical prowess but psionic powers that only grew
during their 12 generation trip through space.
Always few in number due to their inherant infertility, these new colonists
treated the world as the true treasure it was: a lush planet of clean
air and water, wide lands and interesting wildlife. Not a world to be
stripped but one to be explored, where their natural abilities could
expand even further into almost godlike power.
What little contact the newcomers had with the natives was stunted by
the extreme xenophobia exhibited by the now-savage remains of the once
peaceful civilization.
The world was dubbed Zekira by its colonists and their people spread
their population across the larger four Lands, establishing modern -
if hand-made - citites and habitable zones. As time passed the medical
field exceleld, while other high technology was passed by, in favor
of a 'hands-on' colony. Their strong and strange mental powers became
coupled with physical mutations, both beneficial and harmful. Their
social structure became more solid with each passing century. Business
and commerce became paired with politics and competition. Zekira has
long been a world dominated by people with drive and intelligence. Though
their population has slowly increased, it could never threaten to over-run
the world.
Many centuries after settling
Zekira, the generation ship at last disintegrated upon entering the
atmosphere, severing the ties to any other world. Since that time, advances
in communication and genetics far outdistance those which they arrived
with, but their interest in games, competition and gambling keep the
population entertained on a level that largely prevents the urge for
war or mass destruction. Zekirans are peaceful, prefering to settle
their differences in subtle ways - if not by legal ones, then by subterfuge
and politics. That is never to say that murder, extortion and other
unpleasant means do not exist, but they are used in lieu of rough combative
means.
Six hundred years ago, the ruins
of an ancient community were found by a wealthy land holder. His 'tourism'
trade became quite popular in a short time, and has since begun a slight
but gaining interest in the potential archaeological history of the
world before it became Zekira.
Four hundred years ago, a long-forgotten satelite picked up a blip of motion towards Zekira, one far beyond the solar system but rapidly approaching. Systems monitored by the few scientists left who even knew of the sensor array were alerted by ancient computers. Quickly re-learning methods of decoding transmissions, the sense of curiosity that the scientific world had was rapidly replaced by dread.
The invaders were on their way to their
last conquered world.
And they wanted it back.
Differences between this Alternate world and
the World of Zekira main game:
Because of the pacifistic nature of Zekirans, no large-scale war could
possibly be waged against this enemy. First contact revealed the invaders'
secrets to telepathic screeners. The invaders were found to be almost
as xenophobic as the colonists' forebears, and as those whom they had
sadly defeated on this world had become. Their fears could be exploited,
and if the war-machines of the aliens could not be taken down by mechanical
means, the geneticists of Zekira could arrange for more 'organic' weapons
with which to fight.
Thus were the fears of the invaders given life - the Dragon Masters
of Zekira send their huge reptilian monsters into the skies to act as
'fighter planes' against wave upon wave of flying craft. Even the seas,
woods and deserts offer no sancuary for the invaders, for the draconic
kind have been engineered to fight on land, sea and air as needed. The
invaders have their superior war machines and vastly greater numbers.
Who will win the battle for Zekira? The invaders? Or… the Dragon
Masters?