Axela

The characters in the story were created to advance, on just a peripheral basis, the cultural and historical perspective of this adventure – and not to be melodramatic progenitors of the novel. My intention was to concentrate on the progress of the society as a group and the institutional process necessary to that progress - to wit, a study in cultural anthropology. In this regard the story is much closer to non-fiction than a fictional novel populated by characters presented in endless depth – a depth that would not have advanced the basic infrastructure of the story and whose detailed personality development would not have allowed the brisk movement I felt was necessary to keep the story interesting - given the thousand years it covered..

Nonetheless, I felt a few characters sprinkled in here and there would bring a certain and important understanding to the reader. Among the few characters arising from these pages was Axela who represented the fifth generation of the family that the book follows throughout its journeys. Axela was developed for the interest of younger readers. She was an exceptionally bright girl, whose parents schooled her early and who were constantly amazed at her rapid advancement. By the time she was twelve, she was already attending and beginning to contribute to political leadership meetings. She would be the youngest person in the leadership council at the pace she was learning.

Axela’s parents were high officials in the leadership council and when it was decided to rescue the middle two Xran descent groups from half way around the world by ship, they deemed it necessary to go on that perhaps two or more year long voyage. Axela would be left at Nexra with her grandparents until her parents returned. Axela was heartbroken, and, at the last minute just before the rescue armada left its port, Axela became the world’s first stowaway with the help of her best friend’s brother who had volunteered as a deckhand on one of the ships of the armada.

Fully one-third of this story takes place at sea as the humex set out to retrieve the nearly 4,000,000 newly marooned Xrans fresh from orbit. Axela soon is discovered on board one of the armada’s ships and assigned to hard deck duty for her intransigence. But eventually she becomes an important member of the crew and goes on further to become a contributing member of the botanical science contingent attached to the armada. Axela, then, was the central, albeit incidental, character as the armada follows a colorful as well as educational geographic sea adventure.

Topography vs Typography

 As I started writing the novel, I thought that I would attach a game to the story. That is, I would leave enough written clues so that the reader should be able to determine where on Earth the story’s various scenes were taking place.

Alternatively, perhaps I should make the adventure easier to follow by inserting appropriate maps and photos of the landscape. I am still contemplating the addition of maps and photos in the next edition. For those of you who have read the book or who are currently reading the book, perhaps you could drop me a short comment or opinion about that.

Geomaritime Progression

       The south boundary of Nexra was formed by the Channel Sea, a body of water shaped more like a river than a sea. It flowed south into another small sea which in turn fed a narrow passage to a large sea, named the Southern Sea, which, finally, in turn, led to the Earth’s second largest ocean. There had been little expansion of empire south or west of Nexra because of the increasingly hostile human tribes encountered in that direction. Since Nexra was settled, the Channel Sea was utilized primarily for small boat recreation and was the center of the empire’s premier resort area.

As the reality of the barren location of the second and third descents was analyzed and understood, the inevitable conclusion required a major rescue expedition by ship. For fifty years, the humex developed marine engineering techniques – from river rafts to raft sail technology – to recreational speed sailing developed at Plateau Lake Outpost, most notably the development of sleek hulls to cut through water with far more efficiency than the river rafts. Then as copper was discovered all along the shores of the Prairie Lakes, larger ships were constructed to handle that cartage. These ships were much wider than any water vessel that had come before. Their width enabled them to sail with great cargo across relatively calm waters. Then, as the empire surrounding Nexra expanded north, out around the Great Sea, ships became larger, narrower and deeper to counter the severe storms that frequently occurred.

So by the time the decision was made to mount the effort to rescue the second and third descent groups from half-way around the world, humex ship-building techniques were quite advanced. Still, adjustments and modifications to existing ship-building technology in order to prepare them for safe ocean travel were necessary. Of primary importance was the strengthening of the infrastructure of the sailing vessels – especially the keel beams, thickness and spacing of the bulkheads, masts, centerboards and rudders. Further, construction materials to withstand the salt of the seas over which these ships would be sailing needed to be identified and developed. And, finally, the malleability of the tar and pitch used in sealing the ship from water-breachment needed to be improved to account for the increased circumstance of violent torquing the ships were bound to encounter on the high seas.

Except for small boat building operations on the Channel Sea, the area was devoid of any activity that could be utilized to jump-start a major ship building effort. Also no infrastructure aid could be gotten from any source on the Great Sea whose sea level lie four-hundred feet below Channel Sea levels. So giant dry-docks had to be constructed from scratch, and, even while the docks were being built, the construction of new enormous ships began in closely scheduled unison. Time was of the essence.

Fly Me From the Moon – the next descents from orbit

       Nearly one-hundred years after the first Xran descent group landed on Earth, the time had come for the second of the eventual three remaining descents to begin. Initially all four of the moons and therefore the closely following descents were estimated to arrive on Earth in close order over a period of less than one year. All Xrans had been prepared for immediate departure. But what the scientists had not counted on was the fact that the first moon entering the Earth’s atmosphere was larger than the rest of the moons in Xra’s orbit. The result of the heaviest moon leaving Xra’s orbit for Earth shoved Xra into a slightly higher orbit. This in turn moved the expected remaining moon entries back some one-hundred years, although this was not discovered for many years. All that the remaining Xrans knew is that this delay had severely disrupted their lives. Many of the Xrans believed that the first descent group had died in the descent attempt and that the scientist had no idea what they were doing, or, worse yet, had lied. Many of the Xrans, now quite disillusioned, sought the comfort and spiritual protection of the Great Cavern. It was nearly five Xran generations before most Xrans were convinced of the truth of the science and that eventually all Xrans would be able to descend to Earth safely. But not all Xrans could be converted to those beliefs and chose to stay and pray within the Great Cavern. Since it would be approximately thirty generations before the next descent, a live-and-let-live philosophy between the cavern dwellers and the surface dwellers continued relatively peacefully. There was time.

It was now time for the second descent to follow the next of Xran’s moons into Earth’s atmosphere. The century-old delay had been fortunate for the second and later descents. There had been many improvements in the science and the operations of the descent vehicles, and, the social data generated by one hundred years of the humex experience on Earth jammed the computers of the next descent group.  During the second descent one of the vehicles was sacrificed to keep the disintegrating moon from disintegrating too quickly. The brave action by that captain served to save the rest of the group – 200,000 deaths; 1,800,000 saved.

The second descent group landed on the opposite side of the Earth from Nexra with two oceans, one on either side of the group’s location  separating it from the center of empire. Worse yet, the second group had landed at a desert site that was devoid of almost all life, bringing with it no chance for assimilation with a non-existent human population. And, to make matters more difficult the third descent group, against all odds, was slated to land very near the second group and of course would suffer the same lack of human population available for assimilation. Having discovered that the third descent group would be landing near the second, the third descent vehicle was over supplied with food and food sources to allow both of the groups to survive until the humex of Nexra could figure out a way to rescue them.

After it had become obvious that no humans or any other useful form of life was going to be present at the second descent site, the humex leadership council began to discuss a rescue plan, made doubly urgent because the third descent group would likely end up in the same area. That, combined with the potential loss of the human assimilation value of four-million Xrans, rendered the failure to rescue the second and third descent groups unacceptable. The humex employed the orbiters to continue refining maps of Earth, concentrating on the most likely rescue route.

Crossing one or the other of the Earth’s large oceans was, of course, the only choice. Some suggested developing a shipbuilding facility at the Grove, some 8,500 land miles away from Nexra; then sailing 12,000 miles directly across the Earth’s largest ocean. This solution seemed unworkable from the beginning. All the shipbuilding expertise resided at either Nexra or Prairie Outpost. It would no doubt be difficult to entice enough humex engineering talent back to the Grove, however compelling the reason. Had there been no other choice, a mass migration of maritime engineers and the army of necessary associates to achieve such a feat may have been possible. But another choice was available – sailing from the long narrow sea that was Nexra’s southern border. This route led directly to the smaller ocean, but would be a longer voyage. It, however, would be closer to land much more of the way than the alternative of sailing 12,000 miles over completely open water from the Grove. Construction of the ship-building port began.

Nexra - Some Finishing Touches

There were two political divisions of the humex empire – the first division included the island of Nexra itself, the Great Sea Valley, the sea's surrounding plateau, and the eventual annexation of Interlaaken Camp to the east.  The second division included the trail, the outposts and the camps from The Grove to Interlaaken. Within its western portion there were two distinct elevations - Nexra itself, along with an average fifty mile wide plateau surrounding the Great Sea and its Great Sea Valley and rose four-hundred feet above the Great Sea and its valley.  This severe elevation difference presented a serious problem with transportation of goods and humex to and from Nexra from Great Sea Valley locations which number were increasing inexorably. There were a few traversable canyons some hundred miles north of Nexra from the valley, but the time it took for that route to be travelled was simply unacceptable – especially as trade commerce grew between the elevations.

There appeared to be no way to construct a road up the steep side of the mountain that was Nexra because of the conspiration of gravity and the unstable ground on that side of the island. The problem was becoming unbearable when an engineer, in response to a contest, came up with a brilliant approach – a tunnel. The tunnel would zig-zag up to the upper level inside the mountain where the ground was stable and then would reappear some four hundred feet above its mouth to the base of Nexra's urban center.  The tunnel, from start to finish, took the humex some six years to build. It included a hand operated bellows system to supply fresh air to the eight mile long tunnel aided by windmills set to extract poor air out of the system. A small town was built to handle the needs of all the workers and their families. Brick factories were constructed and ran day and night. At its completion, the tunnel was one of the top wonders of the humex empire, along with the 8,500 mile trail and its bridges.

Once the tunnel was completed, a Great Sea port, at the lower base of Nexra was built and the ship building industry came to Nexra, and in time rivaled its commercial contemporary, Prairie Lakes Outpost. The Port of Nexra utilized the town built for the tunnel builders and expanded it, and humex commerce took another giant leap forward.

The final great public works project undertaken by the humex was to build a port solely for ship building on the upper waterway isolating Nexra on its southern shore. The humex had decided long ago not to venture any farther south or west, rather they would concentrate on consolidating their influence over the Great Sea Valley and its accompanying plateau to the north. In early explorations to the south and west, the humex found human tribes increasingly hostile. Now with the next Xran descent slated to arrive on the other side of the planet, the humex decided to build an armada to rescue them. It would be a long and dangerous voyage.

Infrastructure of Empire

Infrastructure of Empire

          As the humex traveled west toward Nexra, they came upon an increasing number of human tribes with an increasing level of cultural sophistication, although such contact was infrequent. But it was a surprise, that, by the time they arrived in Nexra, the humex found many and diverse tribes of humans, mostly settled in the Great Sea Valley. As the humex and the humans came in contact with each other, most of the humans wanted to join the humex for the usual reasons – security and food. The problem that the humex encountered was the startling cultural diversity of the humans – not only from the humex, but from each other. Cultural assimilation, therefore, took on a new sophisticated requirement. Initially, after the first descent, human tribes encountered were simple and had no strong cultural practices. There was no special need to disabuse the tribes of their old cultural traits – they had little or none. But, the human tribes encountered in the Great Sea Valley were markedly more sophisticated, and, many of their social practices were unacceptable to the humex.  

The loosely confederated humex assimilation administrators, headed up by Airam, were able to manage the cultural assimilation of the human tribes found along the trail with a minimum of administrative and educational effort. Now, cultural assimilation had been thrust into a professional imperative. More training of more administrators was required to keep up with the demand of the increasing number of human tribes wanting to join the humex. First, a brand new program of cultural detoxification had to be developed. And, the program had to be different for each tribe - to get the new tribes to a point – a blank slate so to say – where they could be taught the humex culture and to be placed within it as a contributing member of their new society. It took Airam and associates over two years to get in front of the curve of cultural assimilation, but finally they had it under control. As usual, the new humans brought with them many social and material contributions to their new culture and by virtue of the vast numbers of new humans; the overall security of the fledgling Humex Empire was appreciably enhanced.

After assisting Airam in the establishment of the so-far-successful incoming human cultural assimilation agency, Ahlu turned his full attention to his primary professional duty – that of the leader of Nexra’s development activities. Surveying, engineering and topographic map making had been in process for about three years before Ahlu arrived on the scene. Continual planning meetings had been held to attempt to establish zones, dividing the site into ten political precincts. Definitions of commercial, residential and governmental sites were established. Each land-use was defined, in some detail, describing allowable building types and uses.  Rules for development were established. And infrastructure requirements were outlined.

Who would settle where in Nexra? There had been many demographic maps considered, constructed, and changed often because of the new human groups who were given citizenship and whose entry had resulted in oft-changing humex cultural demographics, although usually slight. Until Ahlu arrived and became active, the progress of the development group had ground to a virtual standstill. Infighting between the departments had been endless. The consensus necessary to begin development in earnest was nowhere to be found. Ahlu estimated that most of a year had been lost. The next descent group was scheduled to arrive somewhere on Earth in fewer than fifteen years. This, coupled with the increasing pace of humex emigration from cities all the way back to The Grove in higher than anticipated numbers, added significant pressure to this dysfunctional process.

Ahlu held a meeting with the managers and staffs of the planning agency. He acknowledged that urban development, especially on this scale, was a difficult undertaking. He knew mistakes had been made, but there would be no recriminations for past errors. For now, it was time for everyone to pull together for the common good. He stated the obvious, but underlined forcefully, that most immigrants were still living in their wagons or other temporary facilities. He further observed that although the euphoria of arriving in Nexra was the adrenaline carrying the hopes and the enthusiasm – and the patience of the new arrivals for now, signs of disillusionment were appearing sporadically. Ahlu pounded his fist on the lectern and implored the crowd that from now on progress must be visible and immediate – period.

He asked to meet with the department heads for an early next morning meeting to establish new and imperative progress parameters. He asked the department heads to be thinking of the most urgent and efficient projects available to start within the guiding principles – visible and immediate.

Ahlu was comforted to find that much good basic legwork had been done on the preparation to begin certain activities. For instance, the political precinct maps had been overlaid with development zoning maps providing five or six good alternatives. Demographic statistics and estimates were acceptably up to date so the political and developmental maps could be finalized and populated. The rules on infrastructure required with each type of development contemplated were almost completed and Ahlu could see that the typically extensive humex analysis was present in the work completed so far. Once the mapping was complete, the first visible activity would be infrastructure construction. Ironically, the first physical commitment of materials and labor would be assigned to the longest term commitment. Once a basic grid of roads, along with accompanying underground water and sewer systems was engineered and installed, the Nexrans would be able to begin to erect apartments for the incoming throngs as well as supporting manufacturing, distribution, service and government buildings and attendant activity, including hospitals and schools. Ahlu believed that after his morning meeting, his department heads would share his short-term vision that would make development progress visible and immediate. He was right.

A Novel Divided

It was at this point in writing this novel, that it was becoming apparent that the story had more than one distinct sub-story. The first was an introduction to the universe and to one of the civilizations that inhabited it. The Xrans, as a civilization, were established as one of the story’s complex characters – their story being told as a study of their alien anthropology.

The second sub-story followed the humex (the biological partnership of human and Xran) west, across an entire continent and on into a second – 8,500 miles in all – to a point on the Earth, Nexra, chosen from orbit as the most favorable location for not only developing empire, but as the rendezvous point for the expected multi-Xran descents from orbit. The choice assumed the descent groups would land above the equator and in a common hemisphere with Nexra. But the landing locations identified were just a lightly educated guess.  Many of the ancient technologies and discoveries were made during this trek: the wheel, building construction techniques, continual progress on sailing techniques and the assembly of ever larger ships, transport wagon development, bridge construction, copper discovery, money and banking, windmill development, the discovery of horses, among many others. The humex learned quickly how to manipulate their environment with the tools they found and developed along the way - necessity being the mother of invention.

The third sub-story would concentrate on the development and political rise of Nexra. Although, the humex developed processes to assimilate various, albeit occasional, human cultures along the way to Nexra, the increasing numbers of human tribes in the proximity of Nexra, called for a very sophisticated rework of those processes. These human tribes, in addition to being culturally different and more sophisticated than the early eastern human tribes, had unique qualities that were important to add to the humex civilization. This assimilation process was long and complicated. As has been written, fairness and evenly distributed prosperity were the watchwords of the humex. With everyone within the civilization happily contributing at each of their highest levels, the humex continued to advance exponentially.

Along with the social advances addressed by the third sub-story, the processes governing the physical layout of Nexra would be covered. Land set aside for residential, commercial and agricultural uses were defined and mapped efficiently in the usual humex way.  A major port on the Great Sea was developed as were ever larger ships – both for commercial hauling and passenger transportation. The entire great sea basin gradually came under Nexran rule and the anthropology of efficiently blending human societies with humex societies was at the top of the political to-do list for the humex.

At this point, I was certain of at least three more sub-story divisions, (1) The Middle Descents – covering the second and third Xran descents from orbit; (2) The Rescue Voyage, covering the rescue, half way around the world, of the middle two descent groups; and (3) Millenium, which summarizes one thousand years of humex progress, and follows archaeological adventurers retracing the original trail and outposts left by the humex pioneers on their way to Nexra. The last sub-story contains some surprising events and discoveries.