Picture of an event in Kassidor's history

A Brief History, 24,000bc - 4100ad

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Prehistory

For millions of years before the arrival of humans on the planet, Kassidor was home to a civilization that we currently call the Saggothan. The Saggothans appear to be almost identical to the kedas that are used as draft animals today. Because the life in the cellulose kingdom does not age, there are probably many members of that civilization that are still alive today. They began to dig the vast cave systems called conclaves as early as one hundred million years ago, and used sleds, harnesses and other simple tools, but nothing that could be considered high technology. Approximately one million years ago they underwent a cultural shift where they began to build irrigation canals, use metal implements to cut hard rock and arm themselves with spears and even crossbows.

The arrival of humans on Kassidor is currently one of the greatest mysteries in the planet's history. Before first contact, Kassidorian science believed that humans and the other two microscopic evolutions were artificial life created in Saggothan labs. Kedas are intelligent and social animals, but there is no evidence that they have the intellect to pursue genetic science and create artificial life. There is also no evidence that they were able to pursue high energy physics to the point where they could have reached Earth. As of this date, the kedas/saggothans of Kassidor are by far the most 'intelligent' extrasolar life yet discovered. However the best records from pre-21st century Earth indicate that the 'great apes' were as intelligent as a keda, though not in the same ways.

Other than the presence of humans and two other microscopic evolutions of life, there is very little evidence of visitation by an alien culture, though that is the leading scientific theory today. The only other evidence of alien contact that does exist are a few stainless steel artifacts and the planet's original data system.

When the silicon Angels seeded their planets, a cultural history was brought with them. That cultural identity was strong enough to overwhelm the paleolithic culture of Kinunde, so it also seems like a world born of Earth's seedships. This means that all other human cultures, including Centorin, think of Earth as the home world and the source of their history and culture. The humans of Kassidor thought of the Saggothans as the source of their culture.

Humans were introduced to Kinunde at about the same time as Kassidor, possibly by the same agent since the two microscopic evolutions introduced to Kassidor at the time, were also introduced to Kinunde. Kinunde can barely support primitive human life. Kassidor supports more protoplasmic life than any planet yet discovered. Like any invasive species in a fertile area with few natural enemies, humans thrived. The most important natural enemies that were missing from their lives were disease pathogens. Nothing really virulent was introduced when humans were brought to Kassidor, and very few really threatening native microbes have evolved to deal with human physiology. This is not to say people don't get some respiratory infections or intestinal parasites now and then, but almost never to a level that is life threatening and all of them were well under control centuries before first contact.

Long before contact with Earth or Centorin, in fact long before people on Earth knew what a gene was, population geneticists of Kassidor were able to ascertain that three tribes of humans appeared on the planet sometime before 24,000bc. The Yondure basin today has the prototype of what became the Elves, Nycobas, Goblins, Gnomes, and several other lesser ethnic groups. There was another tribe that became the Trolls, Dwarves, Nordics, Enurates and the aboriginals indigenous to the Trenst basin in the ancient past. The Vesh basin seems to have a population closest to the prototype of those races, even though it was not settled until relatively recent times. There was a third tribe from which the Tundrite and Fmaklite populations arose in the north, and the Megnors in the south. The Fmaklites seem to be the prototype, though the Tundrite and Megnors are superficially more similar. None of the races derived from this third tribe is able to breath air thin enough to cross the lands that separate them, so it is not known how they retained similar characteristics while being separated for twenty thousand years. It is presumed that each of the tribes was introduced to the Yondure, Ttharmine and Lumpral basins at once and gradually spread from there. Different ethnic types became dominant in the areas where they were better adapted, and had differentiated into the classical races by the time of Dempala.

There was never a planet-wide 'paleolithic' era in Kassidorian history. In the major basins people farmed and lived in villages from the earliest settlement. Within a thousand Earth years of the first settlement, some peoples, mainly the Trolls, Nordics, Enurates and Nycoba, had reverted to a hunter-gather lifestyle except for the cultivation of onions. Human life at the time was bound to the onion because at that time it was the only source of an essential amino acid. Since onions could not survive where there was a freeze every 84 hours, neither could large populations of humans. Some small populations lived on dried onions as trade goods and some grew them indoors, but almost half of the land now inhabited by humans was vacant at the time. The climate was significantly different planet-wide before the Energy Age. Only the black forest in the highlands was moist, most of the Highlands was desert. The equatorial oceans were cool enough for human settlement and the planet was cooler and drier overall.

As well as onions, humans cannot get all essential nutrients without eating some of each of the two major evolutions of life on the planet. The pattern of eating portions of the three evolutions developed of necessity in these earliest times. This pattern is in every language, every culture, every religion. It leads to many linguistic expressions that can't be correctly translated because on all other human planets, much of Earth's biology has been imported and the gathering of essential nutrients is greatly simplified. However if the rules of 'soom' (as they are called today) are followed, nutrition, even in primitive times, is excellent. Because such attention had to be paid to it, all cultures have been much more conscious of proper nutrition. The short year also ensures that there is no long winter to prepare for. For these reasons it seems that the craving of sweets and fats had been bred out of all the local races before agriculture was developed on Earth.


Early History

Continuous written history of much of the planet goes back to at least 5900bc and in at least one basin an extinct human civilization had a complex symbology at least six thousand years earlier than that. There was writing in the Lumpral and Borlunth basins by 8000bc and in the Yondure there were stone buildings by 20,000bc or earlier. Agriculture seems to have been known by the humans who arrived and was never completely lost, though much of the planet was peopled by hunter-gathers until the discovery of agriculture on Earth. By the time the people of Earth discovered agriculture, the slow and steady spread of human clearing and irrigation was already beginning to alter the global climate on Kassidor. Many Kassidorian cultures concentrated on more intensive husbanding of small areas rather than spreading far and wide. Those who spread far and wide became hunters of the forests. Races developed more on lifestyle and climate zone. Those who spread far and wide early were stronger with lighter hair and darker skins. Those who stayed with agriculture tended to be small and slight and seek the lowlands.

Higher civilization, with writing and large towns, seems to have begun in two places at once, the Lumpral and Yondure basins, and spread to the Ttharmine basins sometime before 6,000bc. It probably came from the Yondure basin since that time coincides with the settlement of the small and seasonal Dzintiss basin with peoples from the Realm of Yondure.

In these three great basins, whole histories of civilizations arose. Each group of civilizations was isolated from all others in this time before any on Earth could write. Empires came and went. Great cities rose, dams and canals linked whole nations. Philosophy and learning were debated, fine temples displayed great art, some times highly symbolic, sometimes beautiful in natural realism. Painting of beautiful people at leisure or in heroic acts, or in quiet pastoral lives, adorned walls of courts or rich residences. In the geography pages there will be some details of some of the most important of these early civilizations. In this same time frame, several of the minor basins also had civilized life, forms of writing, governments and culture. In the Ttharmine the great sea was at it's height and it's surface was cool and comfortable, especially when compared to today when it's surface averages 138F (59C).

During this time, the equatorial highlands of the planet were largely uninhabited, but some installations were built there for ceremonial or scientific reasons. Very little remains of these early civilizations, most of what is known of them is known only from records kept by archeologists from later civilizations.

In the Yondure basin, there was a great Empire known as 'The Realm' in the language of its day (Lystic). They were the inventors of the carbon fiber reinforced crystal and creators of the multi-mile high towers that still stand today. This could be the society that introduced writing to the Ttharmine basin.

In the Ttharmine basin, the leading culture of the time was a tribe of Elves known as the Thulitlanths. The count of years used by most of the planet today began with the reign of the first Thulitlanth king. They had several states and engaged in wide-ranging exploration and established colonies in the Old Midlands. Most of their works were destroyed in the Fall, but a few religious retreats of their variant of the Kortraxian faith remain in the foothills of the Igjarmine mountains.

In the Lumpral basin there were dozens of states lead by imperial chieftains with large harems and ornate palaces, many of which survive. The large deltas of the Lunstran and Lazahn rivers lead them to build great navies of dragon-boats rowed by the highest-paid athletes of their day. Many of the cities of that time, such as Hb'nah and Dzenovah are still inhabited today.


The Energy Age

Before the Egyptians raised the first pyramids on Earth, one of the greatest of those civilizations, that of the Elves on the southwest shore of what is now the Ttharmine, the successors to the Thulitlanths, discovered science and used it to build a technical civilization which, at it's height, had the mechanical technology of Earth's 20th, the data technology of Earth's 21st and the biological technology of Earth's 22nd. That civilization first conquered aging in humans, explored the whole planet and near space and (briefly) united the whole planet in one government centered in a megalopolis called Dempala.

Life in the Elven lands in those times had a lot in common with the Victorian age of Europe. Fancy clothing was popular. There was a rigid class division between nobles and commoners with nobles having large mansions with armies of servants. The equivalent of rail travel was commonplace and steamships plied the seas, enormous airships filled the skies. Cordwood and coal were the main energy sources. Mechanized optical communication equivalent to telegraph service linked most of the planet. Furniture was ornate, as were carriages and rail cars. There was enough metal to be used for steam cylinders, hinges and jewelry. There were mechanical timepieces, even pocket watches. People commuted to work in tall elevator buildings with uniformed human operators. Visually the central parts of Dempala looked a lot like Hong Kong in the year 2000.

Laser based weaponry, as well as heavy artillery, were common. Most armor was made of carbon fiber. Ground troops used solar panel shields and laser swords in street fights. Immense mobile forts roamed the frontiers, up to eight floors in height, on treads made of whole tree trunks. Military airships ruled the skies and whole military bases hung in the sky on tethers. No other civilization on the planet could resist the might of Dempala and by 3100bc, the whole planet was united into one Empire. By 3050bc it was possible to circumnavigate the planet by rail in just over a local year.

The government of the Empire was structured as a constitutional monarchy, but in it's early years, before 2670bc, the rule of Dempala was relatively enlightened and tolerant. The Elves brought modern medicine, communication and agriculture to all the lands they united. Unlike the European/American colonial era of the 16th thru 20th centuries, they did not interfere with local customs or religions. Dempala's kings usually left the local power structure intact, if possible. They brought peace, communications, and education to the areas they united. For two hundred Earth years even the commoners were well-fed, healthy and literate. During that time the well-to-do did not know age and the entire population became accustomed to an ever increasing level of prosperity.

Genetic science was advanced enough to exterminate most crop pests, some of the most dangerous carnivores and most disease organisms that were able to infect humans. The genetic science of that time was able to put the essential amino acid from onions into rinko, lon and enthora and open up another fifty million square miles of land to potential human settlement. These are called the 'new' basins, though settlement there is now up to seven thousand years old. The process was not without it's drawbacks. The extinctions of whole phyla of crop pests upset the ecological balance and many important crops of the time were lost, as well as many ornamental plants and domestic animal species. The net result was a technological mass extinction even more extensive than that suffered on Earth during the 21st century, though it was less noticeable because most of the exterminated species were small or microscopic while Earth's mass extinction was mainly the large vertebrates.

That civilization was cut down in it's prime by the exhaustion of the planet's limited industrial resources. As the resources ran down, rival groups began to fight over them with the result that the planet-wide empire began to break apart. The military remained united and revolted against civilian order. They restored the world union of Dempala briefly, for a period of less than seventy Earth years. Their empire was built on force and maintained by secret technology. Nevertheless, it collapsed, badly, in a world-wide revolution now known as 'The Fall'. Just about the time Imhotep laid the first drawings of Giza before Cheops, factions of the military turned on each other. Kenetic weapons from space destroyed many of the major fortresses of the day and plunged the planet into a winter that killed more than half of the nineteen billion people alive at the time. The brutality of that later empire and the horrors of the Fall gave Elves a bad reputation in all parts of the world that persisted in the racial subconscious for centuries.


The Troubled Times

When the extended winter finally passed, world-wide communication broke down but a lot of technology remained in use if it could be hand-powered. Advanced ceramics remained in use in most societies, and began to take the place that metal tools had earlier. A modicum of recovery was swift in most areas, except that instead of three major civilized basins, there were now more than a dozen.

Two thousand years after the fall, by the time of classical Greece, there were more than a hundred civilized nations on the planet, a million cities with plumbing and organized animal-drawn transportation systems on regular routes. History had not been peaceful, young men were still going off to die in battle with muscle-powered weapons for distant kings in gilded palaces. There are libraries full of histories of the dates and times of battles in various years and the nations and kings that fought them in all basins. The battles were made more hideous, especially in the first few centuries after the fall, by the lingering presence of serviceable weapons from the technological age, and the mutations the military had produced.

This era is generally known as the 'Troubled Times' and many tales from these times are told on many human worlds. The juxtaposition of primitive daily life with the remnants of powerful technology from a bygone age has an attraction that has proved interesting to many, and many historical incidents from this era have been re-told in print and video formats. In most of these incidents, the 'magic' and 'wizardry' of the Elves played a crucial role. Though those tales proved the most compelling, we should remember that most kings of the time ruled feudal realms with no more technology at their disposal than the emperors of China, the Aztecs, or the kings of mediaeval Europe. We need to also remember that just about all of the incidents that have been retold took place in the Ttharmine, Korst, Yondure and Salvador basins and the history of the other times and places (about 90% of Kassidor's history) is generally unknown to the remaining population of human space.

Much genetic technology, and the scientific principal itself, was lost to the vast majority of the world. It was banned by religions, forgotten by scholars and feared by the common folk. Mutated forms of humans created as fighting men by the late military empire roamed all the basins bordering the Ttharmine and spread as far as the Knidola, Prvest and even Borlunth basins. During this time the ability to cure aging was lost, and only those ancients who had hoarded large supplies were able to preserve their lives. They were resented by the ephemeral, and in most basins had to go into hiding and keep moving to keep from being discovered. Distrust of strangers was common and extreme religions prospered.

After defeating Mordor in a bloody war, Gondor was the last great kingdom of the Ttharmine basin. Most of the remaining technical weapons were destroyed in that war and warfare became smaller scale. That basin fell to pettier and pettier states as states became less important. The Elven population continued to migrate back toward the Old Lands to the west of the Ttharmine and the other lands around it, leaving the Old Midlands to the Nordic, Troll, Goblin and mutant populations that are found there today. The Ttharmine sea dropped at it's greatest rate during that time, flooding the old Great Salt Desert and creating the Sea of Reeds, what is now the plains of the Zhindu basin. The Dwarven kingdoms of Wescarp and Quanwark and all the Nordic principalities of Elevnos had seaports for may generations during this age, cities that are now a thousand miles or more up river from Zhlindu.

In the Lumpral basin a showman named Launju who had preserved a cache of military technology from an outpost of Dempala, set himself up as an immortal God and lead a dynasty of kings who conquered a huge Empire in the midlands of that basin. He was eventually exposed and driven from power by dactyls dispatched by the Kassikan, and fled to the Trenst basin where he changed his name to Brancettrabble. The great cities of the deeps continued on as they had for thousands of years before the technological age, as if the whole technological age was just a little noise that made one look up for a moment and left a few more piles of inexplicable ruins scattered on the basin floor. Many cities that were great before the Energy Age were great after. Many of the same ancient landmarks housed the same farmer's markets they had for the last few thousand Earth years, as they still do in Hb'Nah today. The Lumpral basin had half the population of Kassidor at the dawn of Europe's iron age, four of its eight or nine billion people. That huge basin has maintained an unstably stable population for eight thousand Earth years, hovering between two and four billion, between destitute and prosperous.

The land of Yondure was more changed by the technological age than Lumpral, and maintained more of the advanced technology of their day, including optical messaging and crystal construction. Socially however, it was changed little by Dempala. The great clans still dotted the plains, each their own little kingdom of a few square miles. What is now Little City Island was once a magnificent castle on a hill above the plain and miles from the nearest water. The era between the Energy Age and modern times was the heyday of the great clan castle in that basin, the era so many novels are still written about. With the opening of interstellar data access, many of them have been available to other parts of human space. Yondure was where crystal building was discovered and the ancient spires of Yondure attest to that. The southern end of the basin came under the influence of Bordzvek at times, but the city of Yondure and all the great castles were never closer than a year's journey from land under Bordzvek's control.

Many other basins had traces of respectable civilization by now. The founders of Knidola found an old civilization in the basin of which only a few mossy ruins have survived, no record and no legend. The oldest traces of civilization at Lbront Nevn were put down during the Energy Age, and it's culture began to take shape during this time. Humans had settled the entire planet by that time, perhaps hundreds of millions in primitive conditions thruout all the warm, moist parts of the globe. It had all been explored now and colonies had been left behind during the age of technology. Most had lost all technology and blended in with whatever native tribe was in the area creating greater or lesser changes. Most of the actual population of the planet, already several billion, were using agriculture and settled in the few million most fertile square miles of the three most fertile basins. Important populations were beginning to grow in the lands bordering Wescarp and pilgrims from the Highland Elves began to establish communities in distant basins that were sparsely settled. Dos, Knidola, Oterlaveshta, Kln, Edniktar, Kshoned, Norbin and Yclel-vi received these pilgrims and the new culture blended with the old in different ways in each of those small basins.

The city of Bordzvek was already great and during the troubled times was the center of the greatest republic the planet has ever known. This nation independently re-invented firearms during this time using fibro-ceramics. While Athens was fighting Troy over Helen, Bordzvek boasted military might that could have crushed both sides in World War I. It dominated the world from the southern Yondure basin to the shores of lake Knidola. There was an entire ocean within it's borders. The Republic of Bordzvek controlled a larger land area than Ghengis Khan and a larger population than Mao for longer than The United States of America existed. It lasted nearly fifteen hundred Earth years until the time of Christ when it dissipated due to the spread of genes from the Highland Elves.

As republics go, it fared no better than America in governance. The first ten generations or so saw a reasonably egalitarian distribution of power, but as time went on interest groups took over and the government became controlled by the corporations as in the later days of America or the Empire government today. Unlike America but like Centorin, this arrangement was codified. By the time of it's dissipation, the governmental structure was nearly identical to Centorin's, with representatives chosen directly by the corporations and their votes weighted by corporate wealth. This system persists today, though it has no coercive power and has become the model for the voluntary mercantile association in most Kassidorian cities. To this day the city council of Bordzvek considers their land the last surviving state of the Energy Age and in many ways that is true.


The Kassikan and the Highland Elves

If there were any common themes to identify cultures as Kassidorian rather than of Earth origin it would be that they often have a more liberal attitude toward sex and more often get involved in extensive systems of canals, locks and dams. What is still the largest man-made body of water, still holding more water than all other man-made bodies of water combined, began filling about the time of the fall of Atlantis. It was small at first, just a little puddle on a little trickle long lost out in the desert, years of trekking beyond land any civilization had explored since the age of technology.

A small band of travelers from the Ttharmine settled there, at the point where Kassidor's stargate sits today. They were people fleeing all the war and strife of their world, what is now called the Old Midlands, north and east across the sea from the ruins of Dempala. They also brought with them all that remained of what was then already legendary old technology. Little by little, water began to collect in the area as they prevented the tiny stream from flowing back into the lowlands. They were at the edge of a flat plain just before it dropped off, at a valley's narrowest point. Beyond them the plain spread for thousands of miles. There was a narrow canyon cut in an impervious rock layer, they were at the outlet of that canyon onto the hills beyond where this flatland eroded off.

They built a culture centered on digging canals and filling ever more on the dam. This culture grew very slowly at first because the travelers were few and this desert trickle was small. The dam grew faster than the level of the pond for centuries. Layer after layer of canals along the contours were built during the early centuries as the water level rose. Many of these people were scientists, they had little energy resources but the science to calculate efficiency. The main thing they brought with them were ancient books. These hermits out here not only preserved the science of ancient times like the monks in the middle ages on Earth, but preserved the scientific method. They built a strong keep high on the canyon rim where they carried on further research. You could have called them a religious movement, their goal was nothing less than to remove violence and strife from the human soul by removing aging from the human body.

They were gradually successful. They had reserves of life extending treatments from ancient technology so they remained at their work for ages. Their descendants were intelligent and well educated. There were never any fights for succession in this society and are not to this day because these are the same individuals who are the leaders of the great university of Kassidor, the Kassikan, in 4100ad. The word 'Kassikan' translates to 'all of knowledge' or 'everything known.' Except for one who died in an experiment before classical Greece was founded, the founding members still lead that university/industrial concern. For many centuries it was small, distant and isolated, known only to a few other ancient wizards who called it 'the keep.' There is scarcely a human being alive today on any planet who has not heard of the Kassikan.

All new members of this society were raised to avoid strife, and they had advanced sociological knowledge to understand the roots of strife in the alpha male system. There was a sparse native population in these wilds, a few nomadic tribes of a distantly related highland people. These people were peaceful hunter-gathers never building up enough population to resort to warfare. Their technology was primitive, a few wood and stone implements, a few hides to wrap around themselves in the cold of dark, and onions they took inside with them that allowed them to live where there was no competition for land. They were assimilated into the new culture in many ways. Their mythology was of nature and merely a personification of actual truth. They were slender and fair haired with tawny golden skin and blue eyes. These people interbred with the Western Elves to form the Highland Elves, an ethnic group that was established about the same time as the Dorian Greeks.

By the time of Socrates, the Highlands held a large lake nearly a thousand miles long in the center of a fertile plain, and another smaller lake a couple thousand miles farther north where there had been only intermittent water holes a hundred Earth years before. The dam reached the top of the canyon and the first of the great canals was built. It was named Ninth Canal and began a fifteen hundred Earth year countdown to the eventual height of the lake. Expeditions from the Kassikan began to dam other small streams far to the north and connect them with canals along the contour. It was carefully planned to line up with the eventual level of the lake, when it would cover the whole plain. Explorers found that this would eventually reach a valley where the biggest dam yet dreamed would build the biggest lake yet dreamed.

Downstream of that, they discovered another small and dying ocean and other Elvish peoples that were totally unknown to the people of the old lands, even in the technology age. During that technology age this unknown basin, now called the Salvador, held dozens of nations and at least a billion people. Over the following centuries many of it's people began to migrate up to the lands of this new and even greater lake, and today the two Elven populations have merged.

By this time the founders of the Kassikan felt that the first part of their mission was accomplished. Biology had provided enough crops for all, peace had provided the stability to continue the growth of irrigation and the dam. By the time of Alexander the Great, their culture had transformed an area equal to that which Alexander conquered. In that region, many new cities had universities of their own that were continuing the study of crop yield and sustainability. The ancient knowledge of the world was preserved and explorers began to range out of the Highlands to the parts of the world that had been known in the age of technology. Very slowly at first, other islands of civilization began to contact each other. This peaceful world of the Kassikan was protected from invasion by the enormous distances to any other threatening power. They found the world at least as varied as their ancestors did. Several newer areas had built impressive civilizations where the land had never known them before. Great ideas in art and culture began to pass around the world, not all of them from the Highland Elves.

The factors which had made this new culture peaceful were many and varied. Some were cultural like the drinking of yaag, some were contagiously genetic like the virus which caused woman to be receptive to all men but the alpha and caused all people to avoid bossy domineering individuals. Some factors were economic like better agriculture and vast tracts of fertile land. Their ideas and viral agents spread faster than actual knowledge of the civilization they came from. There was never anything for any of the other civilizations of the late Troubled Times to fight against, in many cases civilizations had been transformed without really knowing how or why, as was the case with the Trenst and Bordzvek basins.


The Age of Eternity

By the golden age of Athens, there were about ten to twelve billion people on the planet, a number that hadn't been seen since the Energy Age. Then, during the year 34,54,12 (663bc.) a method to preserve and restore youth was first marketed by the Kassikan. At least four billion of the people alive at that time are still with us and three million of them live in Kassidor City (most of the population of the city at that time) and at any one time about a hundred thousand of them would be happy to have you drop by and visit. Three of them speak a little Centish.

Kassidor is a natural place for this to be studied because one whole evolution of the dominant life forms on the planet do not age. There is living proof that it is possible and an example of how to do it. It was expensive for the first few generations in any one area. But it was the same technology that vastly improved all medical treatment, agriculture and house growth. Further advances brought it within the reach of all but the very poorest in the most backward areas by the time of Christ, what is called the late 41st century on Kassidor.

This same discovery seeded a great crisis. During the years when eternal youth was new, the planet's population was shooting up more than it had during the Energy Age. This had more to do with crop yields than increased lifespan, but there were people in that time and place as oblivious to facts as there were in America in the early 21st century. There was a group worried about the population pressure extended lifespans would bring. In the Earth year 117bc a group of extremists released a virus that made women sterile permanently. It could be transmitted thru semen, saliva or mucus. Thru cultures with any promiscuity at all, it spread within half a generation. When the sterility plague began, the whole planet's population is believed to have been just over twenty seven billion human beings, having doubled since the cure for aging was introduced.

More than half lived at a technical level equivalent to the 16th or 17th centuries in Europe or China. In most civilized countries most populations were agrarian. The average urban dweller enjoyed running water and sewer, weekly bathing and animal drawn streetcars. The average rural dweller had to manually pump water from a drilled well or brook. The technology of the time was already becoming strained with the population in the older basins.

The plague did put a halt to population growth and some decline did occur. By the time a treatment was available for the sterility induced by the plague, Kassidor's population may have declined by three or four billion. Most of them were those who refused to treat their age due to religious reasons, the Kluboeb religion. For obvious reasons that religion has all but disappeared from the population today. The first treatments for that plague were available by 154ad, 42,25,52 in Kassidor's years. Since then, having a child is possible again but takes deliberate intent.

In most areas, the culture passed from one of generations to one of only young adults within a human lifetime. In some areas, religion and poverty worked together to deny youth to rural populations for generations. In some areas great divisions arose in society over this issue. Once eternal youth was made free and contagious via sex by the wizard Brancettrabble in 51ad (42,01,51 Kassidorian) this division of society disappeared for all but religious extremists and from then on no one in any part of the general population has given aging a thought.

This era saw the rapid 'dissipation' of governments under the influence of the new culture. Different types of organizations attempted to hang on in different ways. Those that were successful evolved into private water, sewer, streetcar, etc. companies. It was no longer a history of nations and empires but a history of cities. Once people no longer expended all their energy raising the next generation, two main things happened. They used less energy, and they had a lot more time left over for cultural pursuits. It has been since this age that culture became a much bigger part of society on Kassidor. What people did with their cultural time varied enormously from region to region. Many of the major media companies that still dominate the market today got their start during this age, names like Klikenstra, Pinnacle Labs and Koluccor have been known to most cultures of Kassidor since long before human feet touched Centorin. Amplified, recorded and synthetic music, projected videos and glossy magazines were commonplace in this age and were available to the masses. What they looked and sounded like and covered varied enormously from region to region.

This was the era when the 'new' cities rose. These were cities that had never known a government, but were just organic collections of humans each trying to find their own little need to fill. This culture was often organized around a water supply. The Isle of Zhlindu's attraction had been the pure sparkling water that fell from the fastness in it's early days, a relief from the tepid filtration and pretty bothersome salt content of other waters around the sea of reeds. Knidola's attraction was it's magnificent lake, Trenst it's fertile swamp. Dos, Trastrab and Yclel-vi are on great rivers that provide massive amounts of water power.

Areas with ancient but primitive habitation were transformed, to a greater or lessor degree, by the new way of life. Cities like Edniktar and Fmaklar in the basin of the Tuidain Ocean (now swamp) for example. Edniktar developed an elaborate system of wooden-rail trolleys on posts drawn by pulleys and ropes from several central animal yards. They invented a practical low-friction roller bearing of ceramic and plastic in the effort. That bearing became the world standard while Europe was still locked in the dark ages.

Over almost all of the planet, the petty wars that had marked the era known as the 'Troubled Times' were over. With people living essentially forever, no one would volunteer to fight. First armies, then police forces, became impossible. It became fashionable to build and design for the long term. In most cities, most of the heavy industrial machinery still in use today was built. The use of grown housing and crystal building gained in popularity once people had the time to wait a hundred Earth years for a home or building to be complete.

While there was little violence at the time, violence was still possible and there were still some highwaymen, a few village militias and some violent sports. What governments survived at all were more custom and convention than coercion. It was no longer practical to collect taxes, enforce licences or other restrictions on competition. This is the era when the philosophical concept of 'individual sovereignty' became popular. With the longer lives to collect knowledge, science and philosophy made great leaps. At the same time, the lack of patents, intellectual property agreements and means to enforce them, drove most science underground to secret vaults and lairs far from prying eyes.

During the latter part of this age an ecological disaster occurred that has never been cured. The vine that grows boat hulls always had a root. In the early 43rd century of Kassidor's history (around 350ad), some lab was able to cross that with the common seaweed that floats in the ocean current (also a lonoid) and get a hull crop out in the open ocean and not have to take any land. To make the obvious story short, the Ttharnine was lost by 751ad, the last ocean by 1569 and only valiant effort keeps a few shipping channels open in the modern age. As of now you can't reach any of that floating wildhull swamp on the tubes, but if you should ever come across any, do not go into it. To venture into it is almost certain death. If you come across a character who says he can lead you in to see it for a copper, just remember that the amount of narcotics sold every year on Kassidor is in the millions of tons, and the number of humans eaten by predators each year is about a million.

There are many who think this time before the Instinct, the time called the 40's in Kassidorian history, was the golden age of their civilization. There are many alive today who remember that age that will tell you about it, sometimes at length thru many cups. There are many places you will see the era called 'The Kassidorian Age' or 'The Kassikan Age', especially by those who call the 50's 'The Brancettrabble Age'.


Modern Times

During the middle ages of Europe, an isolated culture from the basin known as Lbront Nevn crossed the deserts that had kept them separated from the eastern fringes of the Trenst basin since the Energy Age. This basin was so isolated that there had been no interbreeding with the planet at large and it was still home to a militaristic, alpha-male-dominated society. When they encountered the quiet and peaceful society that had spread to the world at large, they found little resistence to increasing their empire enormously. In little more than a generation they built roads across the desert and sent large numbers of troops to occupy more territory than their society had known for four thousand years. Millions were displaced and the horror stories became a media sensation. The economy of the whole Trenst basin began to be effected.

The general population was defenseless against this onslaught and for a time it appeared that half of the Trenst basin might fall under their control before the effects of the Kassikan's virus and yaag would have a chance to work on them. This was especially true when it became known that the anti-aging cure had spread to them so the same people would remain in control of that empire indefinitely.

The Trenst basin's economy is lead by the wizard Brancettrabble and the hundreds of industrial concerns he owns. He saw the invasion from Lbront Nevn as bad for business and used his laboratories to produce an airborne virus that would paralyze anyone attempting to use violence on another human being. This was introduced to the Lbront Nevn basin via high altitude balloon one third of the way into Kassidor's 45th century (812ad). This virus was designed to be highly contagious and it wiped out the threat from Lbront Nevn that same year. It didn't stop there however, and spread to the entire planet before the 45th century was over. This incident marked the total end of coercion between one human being over another and made Kassidorian society what it is today.

By the European renaissance, Center Lake was topped off and the Kassikan was now at the outlet. In this era that university first reactivated one of the photonic server devices left over from the ancient age of technology. This data system was thought to have been built by the human Energy Age civilization until the stargates were opened and Centorin scientists were able to study them. Examination of other artifacts of that civilization show it to be comparable to 19th thru 21th century Earth, 31st or 32nd century Centorin. There were ornate steam turbines and gas lamps. The manufacture of the components of that data system is still so far beyond Centorin science that it appears to be magic and only the outlawed science of the simulates was able to even interface with it. It is now believed, at least by the Centorin scientific community, that these 'palantirs' were left by the same visitors who left humans and the other evolutions of microbes on the planet. But however they arrived, starting in 1396 AD, the current civilization has been using them as a data system. By the time Europe discovered America, the major cities of the planet were linked with a network of those devices. New ones were continually excavated from the ruins of the Energy Age and returned to service until millions of towns were linked by the time of first contact.

By the time the first Angel ran in silicon the lake that began with a little bit of mud and pebbles on a little desert trickle had become the largest engineering project the human race had yet undertaken. A single surface of water without lock or rapids. The straightest path from one end to the other of this interconnected system of lakes, canals and tunnels is 13,781 miles. There were 17,483 miles of dam and dike frontage holding that water back by 2000ad. Over a million miles of canals attached to it by that time. That canal system continues to grow slowly today and is still in use by the population.

Starships of simulated or frozen humans from Earth reached the planet in the Earth years 2267, 2338, 2424(2) and 2461. The Brazilian sleeper of 2338 (100,00,34 in Kassidorian years) was the most well known and it received media attention from most areas of the planet. Most of the knowledge necessary to create photo-electronic devices was gleaned from that expedition with some from the Angel ship of 2267. They enjoyed a brief fad but became uninteresting to society at large because of their temporary nature. Their use has continued commercially however and data service expanded to most small towns. The whole planet continued to have data service from then on. The Angel expedition of 2424 set up an observatory off Narrulla's nose with the remains of the older one and has been there since. Today Narrulla's Tear (as it is called) is the only known remnant of the once powerful Angel civilization.

Many organizations on Kassidor kept up active communication with Earth until the extermination. Kassidorian technology advanced rapidly and the planet was largely untroubled by both simulates and later the Wetat, because of the low concentration of metals in the system. The contact with Earth effected Earth a lot more than Kassidor, except that many people on Kassidor had phones and video devices for awhile, and video screens are still common in public houses and in middle and upper class households in the Bordzvek basin. More than half of all Kassidorians remember this era and call it 'The Starship Age' in conversation. This was before the dome was breached on Centorin.

During the isolation, Kassidor was once again the most technologically advanced human world for almost five hundred Earth years. Transportation and photo-electronic technology continued to improve. The tuvee bean brought economical renewable fuel. Motorized vehicles began to come into use in the Yakhan as early as Earth's 17th century. By the time the isolation ended, motorized 'needle-boats' were common thruout the planet, motorized streetcars were in use in many cities and floatation elevators had given way to counter-weighted motorized types running off piped methane or compressed air.

Few of Centorin are aware of the fact that when Centorin science progressed to the point of receiving interstellar signals in 3226, Earth, Naiho and Kassidor had already been in radio contact for more than a hundred and fifty years. Aging had been cured on Earth as Early as 2378 and some citizens of Amazonas are that old. Some citizens of Novo Grosso were born as early as 3006, all courtesy of the Kassikan. In return the Kassikan received the science to build tubeways from a civilization of Earth that had already passed by the time Centorin was able to establish radio contact with Tibet. Because the radio link is so small and slow, Centorin never had the time to learn the true size of Kassidor's civilization until the gateship was already committed.

The gateship Almon's Crossing reached Kassidor from Centorin in 3817 (110,23,25 in Kassidorian dates) and was received by the Kassikan as the Centorins could find no government to negotiate with. This has lead to the illusion thruout the Empire that the Kassikan is the government of Kassidor, while it is in fact a University with many business investments based on commercialization of its discoveries. It is not a government and has less control over its employees than even the government of Novo Grosso has over its citizens.

Once again, the discovery of Kassidor effected the discoverer more than the people of Kassidor. The cure for aging was not known to Centorin's population till radio contact was made. Kassidorian culture was considered scandalous by Centorins and became an underground media sensation. Once the stargate was opened, all that could afford it came in droves as tourists.

Kassidorian companies in several cities were already well into building an old-design above-ground tubeway system when the gateship arrived and the tubes have remained incompatible to this day. Today the gatehead station takes up the interior of the Kassikan's great dome and everyone who arrives on the planet must disembark the Empire standard tube and board a local small-gauge at one of three stations, each about three blocks away, for the remainder of their journey.

The Kassikan has skillfully dodged all attempts to get them embroiled in Empire politics and no calls to mount a military expedition to take the Kassikan have gained any traction. There are none in the Centorin military who are keen to test themselves against the biological powers of the Kassikan. Few understand the full implications of the fact that it was the Kassikan that secretly supplied the Centorin military with the antidote to the Instinct that broke the quarantine standoff in 3821. The Kassikan has kept their side of the bargain, as close as Centorin intelligence can determine they have not meddled in Empire politics in any way. The same proof cannot be obtained for Brancettrabble and several Houses suspect him of aiding the Pastorialists in recent audits.

Today, as we enter standard year 4100, most of the population still tend their gardens on Morningday, laze around or recreate for Afternoonday and party by Nightday. Almost all of them still walk to almost everywhere they ever go and the one percent of the planet's population within an hour's walk of a tube station don't think it's worth paying for a tube unless it cuts off more than a few hour's walk. While the planet is considered part of the Empire, and the Empire does have an embassy there, there is still really no government. Immigrant groups try to establish them from time to time and may even have them among themselves for a generation or two until they find themselves blending in to become just another voluntary organization like any other cultural club or cultural preservation society.

The day will soon come when more humans will live off Kassidor than on, because it's population grows so slowly since it has been so populated so long. The best estimates of the planet's population in the year 4100 is 41,650,000,000. It has added about two billion since the discovery by the Angels in 2267. But a recent trend since the gates were opened may increase that rate of growth. Though Kassidor was always the most populous planet in human space, it has always attracted more immigration than emigrants since the gate first opened. Today the rate is hundreds of thousands per Earth year, but if the curve continues the same way it has for the past century, it may soon be millions. Because there is another statistic that Kassidor also is first in, in spite of still having more than half the Empire's population in 4100, the planet Kassidor still has the greatest area of habitable but uninhabited wilderness of any planet in the Empire. An area as large as the total habitable area of Earth or Centorin. Unlike any other planet in the Empire, all that land is free.


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