Projekt 42 : Backstory
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I originally wrote this as an independent short story and eventually decided it was a nice premise to base a universe around. I was heavily inspired by the short story "All the Way Back" in the anthology "Encounters", edited by Isaac Asimov. I wrote down the name of the author but lost the paper, so please tell me if you know who wrote it.

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The Ovoid paced the spaceship’s bridge meditatively. A pacing Ovoid is a humorous sight to the uninitiated - many new recruits to the Galactic Navy have badly miscalculated their approach toward such a being. Rolling along on its side, an Ovoid looks so much like an overgrown bacillus that the members of most space-faring races - schooled though they may be in interspecies relations - cannot help but feel a vague condescension.

But an Ovoid, though nearly featureless on the surface, is not to be trifled with. Although they have no brain as such, these creatures possess an intelligence of remarkable sharpness and insight. In the common Southern Galactic Rim saying, ‘Through mere Patience and Mind, an Ovoid can make the Galaxy spin backwards.’

That was the saying that came to the mind of the young humanoid bridge officer - the only other person on the bridge at that time - as he watched the Ovoid captain pace, in his rolling way, ceaselessly backwards and forwards. He tried to concentrate on his work, but the constant motion distracted him.

Eventually he cleared his throat - a common method among humanoids for gaining attention - and said, ‘Excuse me, Captain, but is something the matter?’

The Captain ignored the interruption. The Fwyth’san lieutenant was slightly taken aback. He turned back to his desk-board, stroking the controls meditatively.

A while later, he gathered his courage and said, ‘Pardon me, Captain...’

The Ovoid wobbled in his stride and stopped. ‘Yes, lieutenant?’ An Ovoid voice is almost totally devoid of intonation, and Ovoids themselves have no tangible appendages to gesture with - only magnetic fields which don’t lend themselves to the visibility of most races. Nevertheless, some slight aberrant oscillation in the Captain’s usual idle rotation managed to convey a good-humoured demeanour.

The lieutenant, thus encouraged, continued, ‘If I may presume - in whatever weighty matters are occupying your mind, may I be of some assistance?’

The Ovoid ‘smiled.’ ‘I think not, my good Fwyth’san.’ Then, ‘But if I am not mistaken, yours is an unfamiliar aura. Have you recently joined us?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the lieutenant responded. ‘I am of the Vn’ph family on our home-world of Fwyth’ss.’

‘A good family,’ said the captain approvingly. ‘I knew one of yours, once. I trust you are a worthy representative of the Vn’ph Clan, since you have been allowed to serve on the bridge of an interstellar vessel.’

The lieutenant did not know how to respond. Would ‘Yes’ or ‘Thank you’ be appropriate?

The Captain, mercifully, did not wait for a response. ‘Perhaps, now that I think of it, you may be of some use in my speculations. You know how to work the main display board and encyclopaedia?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then go to the appropriate station.’

The lieutenant complied.

‘You are, of course, familiar with the general history of the humanoids of Nazca.’

The Fwyth’san shuddered. Every schoolchild in the Galaxy was familiar with the name, if not the specifics of its history. The Nazci, as they had called themselves, had been the most notoriously violent sapient race in the history of Galactic civilisation. There were many other races with warlike tendencies, of course, like the Fwyth’san themselves; but no race surpassed the men of Nazca in the sheer brutality of their warfare and reprisals.

The Nazci had, in their time, overrun an entire quadrant of the Galaxy, starting from planets surrounding their home-world of Nazca, somewhere in the more obscure regions of the Gamennalic Clouds. The sheer force of their barbaric war machines had enabled them to resist the entire Galactic Navy, and even to gain ground near the Galactic Core. The species who survived that war were forced into slavery by their Nazci captors.

In the end, the Galactic Research Foundation was forced to develop a weapon which was almost as brutal as anything Nazca had created. It tuned into the mental frequencies peculiar to the Nazci and disrupted them, rendering any Nazcan within fifty light-years completely unable to move. They could no longer breathe, and all died within minutes of such a weapon being activated in their region.

That had happened many millennia ago, but the effects of the war were still visible on the hardest-hit planets - of which there were many.

‘I recall their history,’ said the lieutenant evenly.

‘Good. Do you follow developments in Nazca-related research?’

‘No, sir. I was unaware that such a field existed.’

‘Most are. This is a field of reverse-engineering specific to recovered Nazci technology. The scientists there are very dedicated. They attempt to understand some of the underlying principles of Nazca’s unique scientific approach, and to find productive uses for what they uncover.’

‘Do they find much that surprises them?’

‘Oh, yes. Recently they found evidence that the Nazci launched spaceships to different parts of the Galaxy, with cryogenically preserved ecosystems aboard. These ships would find empty planets, terraform them to suit Nazca-type life, and then colonise those planets.’

‘With Nazci?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Then... there can be hundreds of Nazci-derived civilisations, breeding in the numerous unexplored sections of the Galaxy!’

‘Perhaps. However, it is unlikely that any of the expeditions were successful. In any event, that is not what I want to converse with you about. I have recently been given a very interesting theory to review for a scientific paper.’

‘Captain! You are a scientist?’

‘Only a very minor one,’ said the Ovoid, with a weak attempt at modesty, although a faint glow from his magnetic emitters betrayed his pleasure. ‘However, that is not important. About this theory...’

The Captain began pacing again. ‘You are, of course, aware that the Nazci were nocturnal. By their own ancient scientific records, their pre-technological ancestors had the habit of beginning a night’s hunt facing directly away from their sun. This is the first point pertaining to the theory.

‘The second is a similar observation. These proto-Nazci hunter-gatherers hunted in the autumn and winter seasons. They merely gathered fruit and grain during the favourable spring and summer.

‘The third point. As a result of the combination of the first two factors, the Nazci would always be looking at a specific point in the night sky of Nazca when they began their hunt.’

‘There are similar cases, aren’t there?’ the lieutenant interposed. ‘I think I heard of a race called the Xandr...’

The Captain abruptly stopped his rolling. ‘There is unexpected depth to you, my dear lieutenant,’ said the Captain with delighted astonishment. ‘We’ll make a first mate of you yet!’

The lieutenant’s Fwyth’san face glowed with pleasure. (In the Fwyth’san species, this takes the form of the facial fur standing on end.) ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.

‘As you know, then, from the similar case of the Xandr, the Nazci began to associate a specific pattern of stars with certain behaviour. The Xandr had a quite harmless association. When confronted with a specific pattern they felt an irresistible urge to swim, I seem to recall.’

‘To fly, sir.’

‘Ah yes. You seem to have made it your study. In any event, the Nazci subconsciously associated their particular pattern with violence. The Nazci had an incredible racial memory. The compulsion to kill when faced with their hunting-pattern would be nigh impossible to control.’

‘“Nigh impossible?” Can any sapient being be so in thrall to subconscious triggers?’

‘Never underestimate the subconscious.’

‘I don’t, Captain, but...’

The Captain manipulated a metallic object with his magnetic field to call for silence. ‘I was about to say, “but never overestimate it, either.” An overestimation of the power of the subconscious has led many researchers on the Nazci to pity their subjects for their violent nature.’

‘You may as well pity a Sc'lynthh for spinning webs to catch children - instead of pollen.’

The Captain gave that peculiar Ovoid squeal of delight. ‘Exactly, my boy, exactly! But try to tell that to those over-sympathetic romanticists with their notions of the Noble Savage!’ On a more subdued note, the Captain continued, ‘Nevertheless, as concerns this paper. The researcher believes he has pinpointed the portion of star-field the Nazci would be looking at from time to time when hunting.’

‘He believes to have found the Nazci violence-pattern, in other words.’

‘Yes. No image was provided with the paper due to constraints in the size of the quantum data-transmission in our area. However, these are the co-ordinates, as calculated by the distance and orientation references of planet Nazca. Look it up, please.’

‘At once,’ said the lieutenant, and manipulated the dials on the main screen control desk. The screen, until then a direct image of the nebula they were traversing, became a view of distant starscapes.

‘I’m at the co-ordinates. What are we looking for, sir?’

‘A small galaxy. The Gamennalic Clouds hide it from the rest of our own Galaxy. However, it has been mapped by expeditions travelling above the Galactic plane. They have named it the Angular Galaxy.’

‘I’m looking for it.’

‘I’ll describe it to you from the text. “The Angular Galaxy is a spiral-armed galaxy which rotates anti-clockwise from a Galactic viewing angle. It has four arms that are spaced at regular intervals around its circumference; in other words, at right angles to each other. A wave of explicit gravitational radiation, corresponding to events within the central black hole, is travelling outward along the spiral arms. Its effect is that it bends the arms abruptly. This means that the arms, spiralling clockwise, suddenly bend at right angles again.” Do you see where this leads?’

‘I think so, sir,’ said the lieutenant grimly. ‘Ah... there it is.’

The main screen image was now centred on the Angular Galaxy.

‘No doubt about it,’ said the Captain, with something like vague satisfaction. ‘Rather striking, is it not?’

‘I’ll say it is!’ said the Fwyth’san vehemently. ‘Why, if you create a rough diagram of that galaxy, it becomes none other than the Imperial symbol of the Nazci!’

‘Exactly,’ said the Captain, ‘the Swastika.’

And with that, he resumed his pacing.

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