Tales From Talimara

Gateway to Earth

Reinu is a proud European city that hosts a curious tradition. Every year many First Ones of the Sect come to Earth on cultural exchanges or to live among us as friends. During the Celestial Age, the Celestial Order of Humanity and the First Ones became galactic allies, and cultural interaction began. This letter to the past was written by a quiet, inquisitive little boy called Joni, who lives on the river in this cultural hub of a city.

I know a homework assignment is probably not the best way you'd like to get a message from the future, but here goes.

My name is Joni Jansen. I'm ten biocycles old, and I live in a city called Reinu. That's pronounced "RAY-NOO", by the way. My Educative Master's big on pronunciation. But I keep on thinking that you people in the past are definitely smart enough to figure out how to say a word that's only two syllables long. One exercise we're often given by the Compendia is on how to correctly pronounce different words- sometimes in different languages. Now that's not fair.

I suppose in Reinu it makes more sense than if you were in, say, someplace else. Maybe I didn't make sense myself. Reinu is a place full of culture. You can find many customs and backgrounds here. In my school alone I can name over one hundred. International schools are a thing of the past. Nowadays it's more common to find interplanetary schools. Or at least here in Reinu they're easy to find. If you went to a smaller city you'd be lucky to find two or three. Mine's located in the suburbs of the city, in a pretty place along the river. The view of downtown is great, and so is the view of the mountains. The Alps are as pretty as ever, and the snow on top stays there all year long. But since we're upriver the land slopes down to the city and from where we are we can see the Reinan Plaza. It's a large open space that you can find in many cities nowadays. Normally they're used for celebrations like Cia Ivala festivals, Talimaran Glory Day, Christmas, New Year's and so on. And at the edge of the Plaza you can see the Cultural Institute of the Sect. That's what I want to tell you about.

This will sound out of this world to you, because it is! So get ready. In the future we've met aliens. People from other places. From other planets! Aliens. That's right, aliens! During the Interstellar Age we came to a star system thousands of light years away in another part of the galaxy. The longest journey ever made by a human starship was suddenly halted in an unfamiliar star system. The Starseeker was brought out of warp and found itself alone. The warships of the Celestial Fleet it had gone with were, well, gone. And it found itself in a system with three planets.

It was met by representatives of the people living there. They called themselves the Sect, because they had no proper name for themselves. Three cultures of one species that lived on their three planets. They were the Markua, the Redan and the Armui. They look just like us. I think life evolved almost exactly on their worlds as they did on Earth, or something. Since they were the first aliens we met, we call them the First Ones. It suits, I think! A long time ago we started to do a cultural exchange. We sent ambassadors to their worlds and they sent people to ours. They have branches of the Sect on many human planets, but here on Earth the hub of the First Ones is the Cultural Institute here in Reinu.

I would always take my best friends and we would sit in the meadows around our school buildings and look down the slope of the land towards the Institute during lunchtime. It's a huge building with bright marble on the outside, and it stands tall above the Plaza. There is a large flight of steps that leads to the entrance, and halfway up there are three statues. Each one represents a member of each sect of the First Ones. There's the Markuan warrior with a long spear and a cape, a Redani scientist with a holotablet, and an Armui farmer in rural clothing and a book of traditional stuff like songs and stories. They like that sort of thing.