Range Report:

Time on Hokein

Considering it takes Hokein roughly twenty-five Earth years to go around our sun Betelgeuse I found it amazing that the Hokeini, and Earthlings were able to devise a new standard calendar. Sure the days on Hokein are the same as that on Earth (24 hours), but the seasons here are so “jacked up” compared to those on Earth. When we Earthlings first arrived they quickly began to realize this. Each season here on Hokein last approximately six and one- half Earth years. There was no real way for one to count their age in the standard definition of an Earth year since that did not exist here. You would have two one year olds... one from Earth and one from Hokein. One would be one standard Earth year old and the other would be six! Could you imagine trying to buy diapers with that dilemma? Luckily the Hokeini people would be more than cooperative into finding a new system that worked for both of us. The Hokeini people broke down days, and the like into something we could all agree on:

There is a 24 hour day One Cycle is 30 of these days There are 10 Cycles in a Period Each Period is 300 days Earth weeks (or close to it) are called Quarter-Cycles

Obviously some Earth people did not care too much for this because it made them sound older than what they really were. There was much grumbling by the middle-aged group as you can imagine.

-Abram “Red” Roosevelt Ranger, Hokeini Expeditionary Force

Prelude: or “How we got here.”

During the late 20th Century and into the 21st terrorists groups became quite a bit more sophisticated, and time after time very brave men and women around the world would give their all and put them down. It got to a point where these groups became like the hydra of myth. One would be cut down and seemingly two more would take its place to infect the world with their petty hatred. Over time it seemed more and more like the hands that were tugging on the marionette strings were higher and higher up. Funding for these groups seemed to increase dramatically and groups from around the world seemed to become aligned under the same banner. This happened slowly at first, but after about sixty years or so one had trouble denying that some other force was leading this new alliance. The attacks that seemed almost random attacks of opportunity before had become well-orchestrated in later times where hacking raids into government mainframes of the world was now more common than the ages past where some self-professed holy warrior directed out attacks in a bug infested cave somewhere. Yeah, those times were over...

In the early 22nd Century these groups carried the same banner and chanted under the same pledge as a member of Black Star. The mantra of the group seemed to be a genocidal cleansing of the Earth, and this could pretty much only happen one way according to their plans. Black Star had become big, and evidence of their followers could be seen practically the world over. Seemingly anyone could join them if you played by their rules, and committed your life (and those around you) to them. Over the years members were discovered and put on trial. Everyone from local, state, and national politicians, university fraternities, that guy working at the electronics store, that lady down the road that teaches your kid piano, and even that doctor that worked on getting out that ingrown toenail for you last month were found out and added to the list. By the time they were discovered most of them had heard where you and the rest of the people in town had pretty sour opinions of their “Society” and had ways of making you pay if you testified against them. Towards the end practically everyone knew which side of the fence the other person stood on, but many of the upright were too afraid to do anything about it.

All in all, the world had really begun to fill up. Pollution and greenhouse gasses were going off the charts and some very enlightened (and rich) people and

spokespeople from the nations of the world finally realized that nothing could be done to slow down the damage that was being done. I mean it’s simple, right? Tell the population to quit breathing out carbon dioxide. Pretty laughable that people a hundred years before were putting the blame on SUVs and the like when it was really the population of the world that was killing it faster. Don’t get me wrong... the SUVs had their place in this, but realistically buying a hybrid car wasn’t going to turn things around. Black Star had an option to the mess, and they weren’t putting it up to a vote. The human race was too sick and uncaring to continue to live, so they would just fix the problem themselves.

At this time in the game Black Star had long been moved from your everyday band of terrorist thugs to a full blown worldwide religious cult. Remember those enlightened and rich people and nations that I told you about? Well, they had another option as well. We build these big freaking ships, and load them up with people and find a new home while the Earth gets time to heal. Heck, yeah it was crazy, and was probably decided on after a few too many drinks. Just crazy enough to work! Let it be known that Black Star has their fingers in practically everything going on with the planet, and with this word about colonizing starting to get out Black Star took action like they never had done before. Initially this started with assassination attempts of higher-ups and top scientists alike, and some of this was successful. After the allied Earth nations went into full tilt on construction of the ships moved to other techniques such as using biological weapons and dirty-bomb nukes in high population areas.

This only seemed to fuel the fire of those building the ships and strengthened their resolve to put Black Star down for good. Easier said than done... Almost the entire world became a war zone, and many of these battles came into urban areas where, as if there were a doubt, Black Star proved it cared little in the way of collateral damage. After a few bloody years it seemed that no matter what happened in the end that the cult would wind up getting what they desired. As the ships were nearing completion a lottery was held that selected millions of people for transport on these craft to a new chance at life elsewhere.

Amazingly enough not everyone jumped at the chance as some of the scholars originally thought they would. What was out there? Where were they going? No one was telling, but astronomers had long been studying the space-ways for a planet that could support life. After accomplishments in space travel lately

humanity had been past our solar system only a few times, but the key word they were hanging onto was a few “successful” times. Space travel had become a more common occurrence as well. If NASA wanted to put a space probe past Pluto then they would fly it out there themselves to give it a head start and be back before sunrise the next morning. Faster than light travel by way of “Bridge” wasn’t science fiction anymore, but it still made one queasy, and could give one heck of a hangover if you weren’t used to it. Space fold wasn’t just a theory anymore... Einstein and Rosen were right... go figure.

Astronomers believed they finally had a winner. Six-hundred and forty light years away in the Betelgeuse system a planet was spotted that astronomers believed would do the trick. The second planet in the system was the target, and B- 2 was the designated nickname of the planet in question. It looked good... really good. Given the size of the star and proximity of the planet it would appear that one “year” in B-2’s timescale would equal roughly twenty five Earth years. Wow... could we withstand a winter that was approximately six and a half Earth years long? I guess that depends on if you are living in Alaska or Maui? Regardless, it’s better than what we have now. The fighting on Earth had almost come to a standstill, and the planet was ravaged.

Early in the year 2136 the winners of the lottery filed into the first colony ship built on Earth. Nothing this large has ever been built on Earth before, and about midway through the construction the engineers realized it first-hand. There were difficulties. These difficulties were ones that shut down the construction for almost another decade. Luckily it was caught early enough, and the following two colony ships were constructed in space. To this day nobody knows if it were Black Star sabotage, or just the natural laws of gravity and physics that delayed the first ship’s completion. Honestly, to this day when I write this account nobody cares anymore. The two other “Province” class colony ships were ready for their maiden voyage. Along with the three colony ships a military battle cruiser was also constructed. Many of the Brass were concerned with having most of the military on one ship, and not have better support for the unknown. The requests and opinions were taken into consideration, but there was really no time to do anything further. The time was now. We had to go! The colony ship Arkadios, still in construction on the Earth, had to be left behind to catch up later.

Each colony ship was almost six kilometers in length and half that in width, and could carry upwards to two million people on its decks. The colony ships also carried ten shuttlecraft roughly the size of an old school C-130 (does anyone even remember them?) in its belly. The Cruiser Kerberos was only about a quarter of that size but carried a staggering amount of firepower and twelve smaller recon craft the size of a city bus. The colony ships Nostos, and Kyrillos along with the cruiser Kerberos departed their home for the red sun. That was 2136...

Twelve cycles later the Nostos arrived in the Betelgeuse system. At first the crew feared they plotted the course too close to the star, but after a few moments of realizing they weren’t being vaporized the sheer size of the star became apparent. They were told from the beginning that if the star were placed in the position of our sun that its mass would take up everything in our system to the orbit of the planet Jupiter. Jaws dropped and the crew stared in disbelief at the sheer mass of the star floating in space before them.

Four planets are known to be in the star’s system. The star is classified as a Red Super Giant. No telling how many planets it has devoured in its existence. Common knowledge of the star is that it will go Nova in the future. What does that mean to us? Well, that meant we had some time. The cosmic timeline was one that humans often could not comprehend. After a few days observing the planets the crew of the Nostos began to realize they were on their own. The other ships had not arrived as scheduled. Over years of turmoil on home soil the command found little use in panicking or delaying matters further. The roughly five million citizens onboard the enormous Province colony ship Nostos were starting to ask questions. “How much longer ‘till we get there?” As if nobody had ever heard that before... Command sent out seven smaller Hermes class recon ships to get Intel on B-2. Reports came back mixed (as we realized it would). Some recon ships reported vast plains and mountainous regions with many lifeforms, and others picked up on inhabitants based on dense population areas. I know some of you are reading this report now saying “of course there were inhabitants...”. Hey, we didn’t know at the time.

Yes, inhabitants. The recon craft brought back info that could hardly be believed. Humanoids... maybe even Homo sapiens like us. Rough estimate based on multiple global scans over a 168 hour scan of the planet gives us a best guess of 2.5 million sapient inhabitants. There are still some closer to desert areas we have

questions about and need more Intel. This works its way out later, but back to the history... Scanners detected the technology level was probably equal to late 1800s – early 1900s Earth equivalents. No satellite, cellular, or radio communication was detected at all. What to do? We send down a diplomatic team to make nice. We looked for the largest population center and hoped to God that we picked the good guys.

The meeting of the two civilizations went better than expected. Hokein is our new home. Astonishingly enough our languages were very close and seemed to be based in Latin. Scientist and scholars are baffled on either side of the cosmos. Glad to know the scientist and scholars on this planet don’t really know anything either. Bringing us back to reality is the world of Hokein itself. The new inhabitants grew accustomed to the strange world and cosmic radiation the Super Giant Betelgeuse. Things went well for a long time. We brought peace to our new brothers and sisters. They reached out to us. They taught us about their world, and we taught them about ours. They taught us about their fauna that inhabited their world, from the harmless to the deadly.

It seemed as if the great extinction of the dinosaurs didn’t happen here as it did on their world. For one, how on Earth did they as a species grow alongside us? Also... how did the lack of the asteroid that cleansed our planet of Dinosaurs make a world of super-evolved predators? This was probably the future of our world if it was not struck by that asteroid way back when. It’s hard to think about that now even being an Earth history scholar like myself. What if the dinosaurs had survived? Wait... and then I get ahead of myself. How the heck do they have dinosaurs here, and much less humans and other sentient species like the Gobs. More into the Gobs a bit later (and their cooking!)... Don’t even get me started on “magic”. How odd! There is so much to learn here.

Over the next sixty periods we grew accustomed to the strange cosmic radiation, creatures, and red hued sky under the Super Giant Betelgeuse. We all did really well integrating and becoming ONE people. There were many advancements in medicine and technology as we all shared what we knew to benefit the world as a whole. I’m not saying everything was perfect, and who could ever say that in reality. There were issues and difficulties here just like they would be anywhere. We were excited and full of optimism, but we weren’t naïve. We grew accustomed to our new lives and our new families. Until one day...

When a ship travels through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge the light around the craft is captured in the bubble that the craft is contained in, and when the craft’s journey is over it arrives in a brilliant blinding flash of light which can be seen from the surface of the planet if the ship arrives within 500,000 kilometers or so. No communications had been received from Earth or the other ships in the almost seventy-five years since the Nostos departed its home. On a cool morning late into the summer years of Hokein three of these bright flashes appeared within mere minutes of each other in the orbit of the planet opposite of the Nostos. Upon closer inspection the ships were determined NOT to be the missing ships from Earth but three strange green and brown ships that scanners detected were almost totally organic. Two larger ships flanked a smaller craft in the middle. All three ships were enormous, but the two larger where about half the size of the Nostos and the craft in the middle was almost the size of the Kerberos. Moments after a shuttlecraft was sent from the Nostos to investigate approximately sixty smaller craft broke from each of the larger ship while roughly twenty broke from the thinner ship. All these ships quickly accelerated towards the surface and while doing so blasted the shuttle with green flashes of energy that ripped it in two and sent it burning up into the atmosphere.

The alien craft, upon breaking into the red hued sky, scattered and began to target population centers with blazing accuracy sending the world into chaos almost instantly. As the attacks commenced upon the surface against the unwary population the three large alien craft slowly stalked the Nostos and seeing no real way to defend itself the command was given to attempt a landing planet side to hope to avoid imminent destruction at the hands of the unknown invaders. The plan by the crew to land was recognized by the invaders and all three ships opened fire upon the Nostos. The human’s only defensive options were the close range weapons towards the nose of the ship used to deal with pesky asteroids that might happen to get in the flight path, and with the nose pointed towards the planet in an effort to re-enter and land they would not be of any use today. Needless to say the attackers’ strange green energy fired from their weapons cut through the aft and the main engines of the ship causing the Nostos to come in hard on the surface of Hokein below.

A stroke of luck or incredible piloting (or both) managed to cause the enormous ship to cut a huge trench and finally skid to a stop leaving a trail of twisted metal and destroyed landscape in its wake over four miles in length. The

three alien ships appeared to gloat almost indifferently as they drifted through orbit above their downed prize. The initial battle was short with surprising few Human casualties. It is unknown why the invaders avoided any confrontation over Gob settlements, but that appeared to be a fact. Perhaps they did not consider them a threat at all, and wasn’t worth their time? Still to this day nobody knows for sure. After the initial raid the two larger ships landed and foot soldiers and combat vehicles began to disembark by the thousands. To our surprise they appeared human. Dressed in armor of only earthen colors like browns, greens, and oranges the aliens they were fierce fighters with their strange weapons that spit out the same green energy as their vehicle weapons had been observed doing.

It was very strange in the way they fought. They seemed to be almost emotionless, and very rarely were heard giving verbal orders or the like. They were effective fighters, but seemed to not fight very “intelligently” if you understand what I’m trying to say... many of us have compared their style of fighting to that of the British soldiers during the American Revolutionary Wars all those periods/years ago. They seemed very susceptible to ambush which is how we got our first real face to face encounters with the aliens. Upon capturing a squad (almost too easily...) about three-quarters of a cycle into the conflict we finally got some good Intel into who our enemy was. They appeared mostly human, save for their ears and their eyes. Their ears are slim and come to a point at the top. The nick-name “Elf”, based on the mythical race name on Earth, came to be used to refer to them once the information began to get out and other fighters began to capture more and more of the invaders.

Once a group of them were captured it was almost as if the rest of their force would just write them off as lost. They were a very eerily quiet and sometimes almost to seem as if they were in a trance. Empty look in their eyes didn’t help much either. Let me fill you in on what I just said... their eyes! They have solid black eyes. Yes, much like a shark on Earth. Very creepy is putting it lightly. We tried the old putting a spotlight on them trick when we tried (the futile) interrogation attempts. When the light was moved around and we put them in darkness it was apparent that their eyes change from black in the bright light through a milky solid white in darkness with stages of grays in the middle based on the intensity of the light. We gathered from this that they have the ability to see in darkness as long as even some tiny bit of light can be gathered into their eyes.

One of the aliens was captured one day about two cycles into the invasion that had a pretty substantial head injury. The trance like spaced out behavior of the other aliens was not applying to this guy. Sure, he was still as bizarre and one could imagine, but there was a spark of individuality that was apparent, AND he would talk (not that we could really understand him, but it was a welcome change). Star charts from Earth and Hokein both were given to him to look at, and one day after somehow realizing the commonalities between the two he pointed to a star in the Orion constellation of the Earth chart. A red pinpoint he pointed to then would point to the ground under his feet. Yes, Betelgeuse! He knew where he was. Realizing he knew we understood him he then pointed to another star in the Orion constellation then pointed to himself nodding his head. Rigel.. He had his finger on the star Rigel.

Other “elf”, or I guess I should use the proper term Rigelian for them now, were brought into contact with our new buddy “Head wound Harry”, but the effect he had on them was seemingly breaking the trance like state with them as well. Obviously these prisoners were very important and so they were well taken care of. Six cycles (approximately six Earth months) into the war and we had cracked their language, and discovered that they are ruled by an all controlling Queen with a type of “Hive Mind” stranglehold on the rest of the race. It also appeared that the Queen was not 392 or whatever light years away on Rigel, but HERE on Hokein... or rather above it on the Rigelian cruiser in our orbit. The Rigelians that we have in custody have no idea why they are here on this planet. “Need to know” info for them I guess. I’m assuming this Queen doesn’t give them much news on anything, or choice for that matter.

On the outside the Rigelians were still constantly at battle with our own. Flashes of green energy in the night and sounds of machine gun fire, and even the Arcanists and Astrologers with their magic got involved in the fight. The tide of the war was in no way turning. The Rigelians still held the upper hand and appeared they would soon conquer us all. Almost nine bloody cycles after the Rigelians had arrived some here were talking about maybe surrendering, but seriously none of us knew how that would even be done. We were not soldiers... and I say that in our defense. There were some of us with weapons training, of course, but as a whole we were simple colonists and their descendants. We had weapons, and the native Hokeini over the years had taught us much, but we were still clearly out matched. On one day as the giant sun was setting into the sky two brilliant flashes appeared

in the sky above the planet. Many of us hung our heads low and kicked at the dirt as we shook our heads and prayed the reinforcements that the Rigelians just got would just have mercy on us and make it quick, but it wasn’t long after seeing the flashes that the radios sparked to life with voices yelling “They’re here! They’re here!”

The Kyrillos and the Kerberos had finally arrived! It was long years overdue, but the rest of our people had finally arrived. Mere minutes upon arriving, the Rigelian ships opened fire on the two ships long sent from Earth, and almost instantly the Kerberos returned fire and within what seemed to be only a heartbeat crippled the Rigelian Command ship. We finally stood a chance at surviving this, and the Rigelians somehow realized that because that is when they began firing the nukes. During the bombardment approximately fifty to sixty of these warheads managed to hit the surface of the planet. Luckily for us these bombs were much smaller than anything that had been used on Earth, but the damage was still done that would take much time to repair. The colony ship Kyrillos took light damage and limped its way towards the surface to try to minimize casualties.

The Kerberos advanced on the three Rigelian ships on its own and many of the smaller Rigelian craft were called up to attack the warship in desperation. The smaller craft were swatted away like mosquitoes and many of them crashed back onto the surface of Hokein. The three main Rigelian ships continued their attack on the Kerberos, but the Earth battle cruiser was only interested in the command ship and concentrated all its firepower on it causing it to erupt into a ball of nuclear flame as wreckage and the Rigelians queer green energy sprayed across the hulls of the other two ships. The Kerberos took a substantial amount of damage itself and sank into the atmosphere to make an emergency landing all the while blasting the smaller attacking Rigelian ships to bits as it fell. As the Earth warship came to a skidding halt the whole world fell still. The trance was broken. The Rigelians shook the cobwebs from their heads and dropped their weapons to the ground. After nine cycles the war was finally over, and with no notice the two remaining Rigelian ships fled the system as quickly as they had arrived stranding almost six million of their very confused people on Hokein without a second thought. That seems like so long ago...

Over the next five periods on Hokein the Rigelians began to group up and settle in the wilderness (typically around their downed craft), and other than a few