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Deadlier than a Scorpion’s Sting – Introduction
By Kudara
Disclaimer: Star Trek Voyager and crew belong to
Paramount/Viacom and no infringement of copyright/trade marks is
intended. The only thing I lay claim to is the solar system I
created for Pegasi 51, the background and culture the
inhabitants of the Pegasi 51 system, and the original character
Alexa Nikoleon.
Note: This story diverges from the canon storyline during the
events of Scorpion II, and thus is essentially an AU story.
Rating: PG
Feedback: Always welcome, feedback is what encourages me to keep
writing. Please let me know what you like and what you dislike
about the story.
AU – Astronomical Unit, the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
Nietzschiests – German philosopher of the late 19th Century, he
questioned the prevalent foundations of morality and values.
Revision History: 02/14/06
Summary: History and brief introduction of Pegasus system,
culture, and beliefs.
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Between the years of 2110 and 2150, due to advances in
technology, medicine, and the memories of World War III almost a
century before, disease, poverty, crime, and hunger were almost
completely wiped out on Earth. A United Earth government was
formed in 2113, with only Australia declining at the time;
though they would join as well in 2150. Mankind was closer than
ever before to creating what the majority of humans though was
an ideal Earth, a utopia of human opportunity, as mankind
stepped out onto the galactic stage.
But not everyone agreed, in 2123 a privately funded ship, the
Mariposa, contained a group of Irish colonists seeking to
colonize Bringlois V, a planet in the Ficus sector, and leaving
behind Earth’s high technology lifestyle. Upon Earth itself, the
traditionalist movement was well underway and eventually
resulted in the creation of several agricultural parks across
the planet where people could live less technological
lifestyles.
In 2127 four privately funded ships, the Cumann-1 thru Cumann-4,
DY-500 C class sleeper ships capable of warp 3.6, set out for
Pegasi 51, a G5 star 50.1 light years from Earth. Unlike the
settlers of Bringlois V, this group of 2,000 settlers did not
eschew technology, they disagreed with the idea of creating a
utopia where every human’s needs were automatically provided for
from birth to death, whether that person contributed to society
or not.
They were not survivalists, though they did believe that a
person should demonstrate that they could survive in harsh
conditions. They were not Nietzschiests, because they thought
the idea of ‘will to power’ the striving for domination over
others, was the root of all types of social and personal evils
from war to common criminal acts such as murder, and assault of
all types. They did not deny that such an impulse existed in
humanity, but they believed that any such tendency had to be
mastered and sublimated for the good of society. In fact, one
could say they were anti-Nietzsche, because they wanted to
actively weed out of their society those that gave in to such
anti-social impulses.
They called themselves Ice Age Humanists, for the time period in
humanities development where they faced creatures such as the
Saber-toothed Cat, Ice Age Mammoth and survived, and they
believed in some very controversial ideas. The most
controversial was the idea that people did not have the right to
produce offspring without regard as to whether such an action
was good for their society. That a person or couple should first
consider whether or not they, and their immediate family or
social group had the resources to provide and care for the
child, and secondly that the proposed genetic pairing showed
that they would produce a healthy child instead of an unhealthy
one that would be a drain on society.
They believed that any individual should prove that they were
capable of two things before being allowed to become a full
member of society and produce offspring. One, that they were
capable of surviving in the same conditions as primitive humans,
and two, that they were capable of cooperating with others, that
they understood that humanity could not have become Earth’s
dominant species if it were not for the fact that humans
cooperated with one another. Those who thought they were above
their fellows, that they deserved to rule over, dominate,
manipulate for their own self gain, were to them as undesirable
as the person too mentally or physically weak to survive a month
with minimal equipment in the wilderness.
People called them genetic elitists, a term they begrudgingly
agreed with, though they strongly disliked the comparison it
inevitably brought up with the Chrysalis Project which had
created the genetic supermen who had brought about the Eugenics
Wars. They did desire to create a genetically elite group of
people, a group whose individuals were not only mentally and
physically tough, but who were also ‘socially fit’ for lack of a
better term. Who showed that they were capable of balancing
their own individual needs with those of society, and when
necessary bowing to societies needs over their own for the good
of their society.
In compensation for this loyalty to society, they believed that
society owed the same loyalty to its individual members, that
both should be passionately interested in the welfare, and
wellbeing of the other. In this way a powerfully caring and
unique society could be created, one in which the individual and
society shared powerful bonds that tied them together in a
partnership. In essence, they had their own ideas of what a
utopia should be, and those ideas sharply contrasted with the
ideas held by the majority of humans on Earth, who believed
everyone, no matter what they gave back to society, deserved the
same basic living standard.
The Ice Age Humanists chose Pegasi 51 for a reason, there were
two planets in its solar system, in the habitable zone, one they
planned to settle, the other they planned to use as their
advanced testing ground. Pegasus was a large and dense planet,
giving it a gravity of 1.2 G’s compared to an Earth standard of
1 G. The planet rotated around its sun at 1.3 AU, slightly
farther away than Earth from Sol, it had slightly less water
coverage, 67%, compared to Earth’s 70%, and its axial tilt was
shallower than Earths, at 16.9 degrees compared to 23.2 degrees.
The 16.9 degree axial tilt gave the planet a wide temperate
zone, a narrow tropical zone, and relatively small polar caps.
These three facts, the increased distance from the sun, the
shallower axial tilt, and the greater average land mass, all
combined to make Pegasus’s overall climate colder, and in the
temperate zones, more extreme in its seasonal variations than
Earth. In the planet’s wide temperate zones, summer’s were
hotter and the winter’s colder, spring’s warmer and fall’s
cooler, compared to the same seasons on Earth, and due to the
greater land mass, the temperature variation across the larger
continents was highly variable from coast to interior.
In short, the higher gravity and more extreme conditions made
the second planet from Pegasi 51 ideal in the Ice Age Humanists
point of view, allowing them to prove themselves against its
environment.
The second habitable planet was the third planet from Pegasi 51;
they named this planet Crucible, for the process of refining and
tempering they hoped it would achieve on their people. Crucible
had a planetary axial tilt of 45 degrees; this extreme tilt
resulted in the planet essentially having no temperate zone at
all, only polar and tropical zones. The planet was smaller than
Earth, had a gravity of 0.95 G, and its atmosphere was thinner
than both Pegasus and Earth. The climate of the planet was a
result of the combination of its tilt, atmosphere and 1.6 AU
distance from Pegasi 51. The side of the planet facing the sun
was hot, averaging 51 degrees Celsius; the side of the planet
not facing the sun was correspondingly cold averaging -30
degrees Celsius. Only the hardiest and well prepared of people
would be able to survive for any length of time on Crucible, and
that was just what the Ice Age Humanists desired.
The journey from Earth to Pegasi 51 took the four ships thirteen
months to complete, on February 5, 2129, Earth time, they
entered orbit around the white shrouded, blue and brown planet
Pegasus, their future home. The next day, the 11th day of the
third lunar cycle of the Pegasus year they landed. Pegasus had
three main land masses, along with two large continent sized
islands, and various smaller islands. The colonists landed on
the largest land mass, on a vast grassland plain surrounded by
older mountains, where their scans showed there would be
relatively little chance of volcanic activity or earthquakes.
Ten Pegasus years later, or fifteen Earth years, as the Pegasus
year was 540 days or 1.5 Earth years long, the colony was fully
formed and thriving.
They named the single moon which orbited the planet, Bellerophon,
after the ancient mythical rider of Pegasus. Bellerophon took
33.75 days to orbit the planet, which meant that the 540 day
year had 16 lunar months. The settlers, a majority of whom were
from Ireland and the British Isles, along with other families
from Europe, Russia, and America, decided to celebrate the old
Solstice and Equinox holidays along with the beginnings of every
season. They decided that the four months containing a Solstice
or Equinox would be 33 days long, and the other twelve months 34
days long.
As soon as the settlement was built they began creating their
version of utopia. They had decided upon their criminal code and
the resulting punishments before ever leaving Earth. The result
was startlingly simple; either you committed a social crime, or
a social and personal crime. A social crime always resulted in
counseling for the first two offenses, and lifetime imprisonment
for the third, social crimes were all crimes other than violent
assault with intent to kill, murder, and rape, which were
defined as personal and social crimes and resulted in immediate
lifetime imprisonment. The reasoning behind the decisive
punishment was two fold, one to protect society, and two to
prevent a person who would commit such crimes from ever having
offspring.
Secondly, they developed the tests by which Pegasus’s citizens
would prove their fitness as individuals and members of society.
The tests were divided out by the elements, Fire, Water, Earth
and Air, and the tests would take place first on Pegasus and
then on Crucible.
The tests of Fire and Water were simple survival tests of hot
environmental conditions and cold environmental conditions. The
test of Earth was a test of one’s ability to create the
essential necessities for survival from the simplest implements;
the test of Air was a test of one’s leadership abilities,
showing that you could guide others and ensure their survival as
well as your own.
The tests of Fire, Water and Earth were four part tests, the
first part tested how well one contributed to the success of a
randomly selected group undergoing the test with you, the second
part tested how well one fared in the same circumstances as an
individual. Parts one and two were held on Pegasus, then the
tests repeated, only upon Crucible. The test of Air due to its
nature was a two part test, first leading a group on Pegasus,
and second leading a group upon Crucible.
They began testing first with the older adults, developing and
refining the challenges to be overcome, and then, once the tests
were close to their final form, they began testing those who had
just reached the age of adulthood, which they decided would be
11 Pegasus years or 16.5 Earth years old.
The reward was a very public one, an intricate blending of old
Earth Celtic knot and tribal tattoo design combined into a
complex facial tattoo, the completed design was comprised of
smaller parts, one for each test completed. Once one had
completed all four tests on Pegasus, and all four tests on
Crucible, the entire left side of the face would be covered by
the tattoo, making a very obvious statement of one’s
accomplishments. The public nature of the tattoo had the desired
effect, one risked extreme social disgrace by choosing as a
partner someone who had failed to complete at least the Pegasus
portion of the tests.
The flip side of the draconian laws and expectations was the
emphasis placed upon medical care for pregnant women, ensuring
that the unborn fetus was as healthy as medical care could
guarantee, and that any defects, genetic or otherwise, were
found and cured before the increased gravity caused a
miscarriage. After the child was born, the child and their
family were provided with free counseling throughout the entire
11 years of childhood, to make sure that the child was mentally
and socially well adapted and that they could meet the societal
expectations placed upon them.
For those who could not adapt to the planet, or the intense
societal expectations, transportation was provided to take them
back to Earth when contact was reestablished 26 Pegasus years
later. Every year thereafter, transportation was provided for
those who wanted to leave Pegasus, but surprisingly, after the
first group of dissatisfied colonists returned to Earth,
subsequent years resulted in very few of Pegasus’ citizens
choosing to leave their home. After becoming part of the
Federation, those sentenced on Pegasus to life imprisonment were
given the opportunity to serve standard Federation sentences in
Federation prisons for their crimes, but once they had finished
serving their Federation terms they were never again allowed on
Pegasus. |
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