SCIENCE&ARTWORK | HOKU ARCHEOLOGIST ON CHELOK PEOPLE | PART 1

A PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF FIVE YEARS AMONGST THE CHELOK IN THEIR CAPITAL OF DHEGHО̄M

By Jaqehura Fadasa (Verdant Hilltop)

Archeologist for the now-extinct Voliloshoku Academy of Xenoarcheology

*mentions of time and space have been translated to common units

"If I knew when the world began, I've would have started my account from there..." - a common ancient saying amongst chelok historians

Despite my age, I am still enchanted by what the fields have to offer, I enjoy hard work and confident supervision of my digs, which is why I have a brood of students and assistants to handle all the paperwork, as I am talking to the chelok natives, many feet underground exploring ancient facilities long used for varying purposes over time. None of the decades of academia could prepare me for this experience despite my fascination with its cultures and ingenuity, so when I learned that ship scrappers were preparing an expedition into space from the defunct Hoku Expansion, I had to take a temporary fat to bring my team to board.

THE TRIP

Unfortunately for me and the misfortune of my countrymen, my generation is one of the last that still remembers the Expanse in its glory days, before the Relentless Force struck. My training is not so commercially useful for my people on the brink of extinction, but it is useful for these foreign 'pirates' who aim to get high-value parts - because our way of building is so foreign to them. We left Forzai straight to the heart of the Expanse, our arrene sponsors gave us the luxury of manning a mining ship, the Eye of Ririth (apparently named after the hero of the forge in ancient arrene), which they expected us to bring back full of riches. The path through the existing star routes would take us just over nine months to complete, but due to the incessant stops along the way, thanks to our secondary transport services, it took us about two years to reach the border of Hoku space.

Already inside the Expanse, there were some stops initiated en route, by some old mining systems long since abandoned, the reason would be rumors that the old militias used these dark border systems as bases of operation and repair, which meant that there could be dozens if not hundreds of pre-war hoku warships and weaponry in these regions, and my team being the only natives, were commanded to classify and identify any equipment we found, as well as unlocking the genetic barriers of our military bases. And as we expected, we found a dozen hangars containing hundreds of hoku starfighters, some under repairs that were never finished, some that were never paired with their pilots. Despite the great cultural importance that these fighters have for my people, the main crew did not allow us to take charge of any, but it didn't cost much to try...

I believe we had brought about 12 of those starfighters, half of which were of those brand new, while I had to personally supervise by order of the captain, the careful dismantling and scrapping of 24 such vessels for their compact jump-drives and weapons. Had something gone wrong in those tedious and tense weeks, the whole asteroid belt would have exploded like chained crackers in new year's eve. After three years in deep space, we were at last, half-way through our mission.

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The other half of the cargo we're supposed to fetch within this deserted space were all sorts of Chelok artifacts. The Hoku Expanse was a prime place for such scavenging because of its proximity to the world of Dhegо̄m, thus, the sponsors thought we might be able to smuggle some old but still working tech of any sort. I myself knew of a few places in literature where the arrene pirates could get their treasure, one of those was back in my homeworld of Voliloshoku.

For unknown reasons, many of the capital outworlds of our expanse were merely glassed by the Unrelenting Force, which left shortly after. We would be historically safe in these regions but you can never be too wary out here, it is known for a fact that they still patrol the Muhori and Paza systems, the heart of the expanse, and there is nothing one can do about it.

Voliloshoku is the only known world if its kind, orbiting a red dwarf in the Lagrange point of its companion, which in turn orbits a brighter white star. Such is its strangeness, that here water freezes by nightfall and simmers before midday, and the temperatures rise and drop within weeks, as the planet moves around its parent star, at times closer and at times farther from the brighter ones, it is rarely fully dark because of its three stars. It is a swampy hellscape with no trees or grass or animals of any kind, but the ones that survived the glassing around our major colonies. The air is breathable but moist and heavy, one shall not wander in broad daylight unshielded.

Despite its nasty appearance and inhospitable conditions, we the Hoku were not the first here to wonder if Voliloshoku's intemperate weather could ever be tamed. Ancient ruins found in the south pole have been attributed to Chelok settlers some 7 thousand years ago, the reason why the massive colony was ultimately abandoned lies in the extreme radioactivity of the area, it is uncertain if the whole region suffered a disastrous nuclear waste leak, or if it was bombarded from space in times of war, nevertheless, there is no scarcity of chelok artifacts beneath the muddy surface, or across the other planets of Nigutal'za, the red dwarf. Although, everything was long dead due to radiation exposure and severe weathering, to these pirates there was nothing of value in these ruins, so after a few days of sifting through the oxidized remains, we departed nonchalantly. While I was upset at leaving the ruins, the crew was very happy to find a dormant communications satellite that could be used to upgrade our own ship with a stronger radar - one of my technicians gave them assistance with the components.

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The icy poles of the nearest planet, Nigutaline, offered us a renewal of the water and helium supplies, while also hiding another dormant hangar. For the looks of it, other pirates have been here before, given some abandoned hacking and drilling equipment used to trespass the walls, whoever got there before, didn't go much deep into the base. Our native pass allowed us to verify the operational status of the purifying station which found itself mostly intact, I convinced the crew to tow one of the Volkalian cargo ships with us, and I guaranteed that what we could find with such greater range far surpassed what I owed them for towing the ship. I've got to highlight here that did not have any exosuits for our kind onboard, and that the ones we got for exploring the planet's surface for a little bit came with that ship. In their defense, I must admit I've grown quite a distaste for their kind as well as I grew within the Dominion, but they didn't help me conciliate either. I've met other more friendly members of the main crew over the course of these three years, but their group cohesion is infuriating, even if they know they are being unfair to you, it is particularly humiliating to live amongst such small, yet powerful beings...

At this point, we still had 3 months of starlanes ahead before getting anywhere close to Dheghо̄m, and now nothing else in our way, though the holes in our lightsail would get us late by a few days. In our trip towards the chelok world, we found a returning qire merchant ship, to whom we managed to sell two of the unmarked starships we'd brought onboard.

ARRIVAL AT DHEGHО̄M

The Eye of Ririth traced a free return route around Soh - Dhegо̄m's parent star - so it could not waste any more time with my endeavors, allowing me and my crew to detach with our Volkalian ship, we were towed and guided by chelok authorities in a two-week journey down to their world. During this time, we had full liberty to study the ship's architecture and documentation, many of which are pretty standard still according to Arrene law nowadays, though these M-AM drives might need some refurbishing in 5 years' time. Since hoku port licenses are no longer recognized by the Dominion nor Chelok spaces, we had to rebaptize the ship's documentation according to standard naval law, a process which delayed our touch down by about four days, mainly because we had to vote upon a new name for it - we've decided for Kotishera, goddess of Crafts and War of the ancient Hukat - giving our new registry MOV 201 KTXR.

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Dhegо̄m is a small oceanic planet with two moderately-sized moons, to which we had a full spectacular view during the entire time - because Kotishera has no landing capabilities, we had to hire a small freighter ship to get us off lunnocentric orbit, as they call it, and down to the ground for a very salty price, passing through the stationary port station to get ourselves checked, scanned, and most importantly - have our suits and skin heavily bleached and suntanned by the sterilizing process, before FINALLY getting on a somewhat comfortable hour-long flight down to Urafar, their port capital, akin to Aa-Iritesh'akar back in Argost.

Urafar is a large city made of concentric ring-like districts at the bottom of a huge canyon, the canyon walls span hundreds of meters and the only way out is following the river downstream or up the dozens of gates across the canyon walls, the temperate forest around it appears to be seeping in like a waterfall - the vegetation and climate within the canyon is rather incompatible with the outside, since the higher atmospheric pressure creates a different humidity and temperature profile, having a patch of rainforest extending inside from the north. We were told that this canyon is the result of billions of years of continental movement, trying to break apart this dense continent, and that within half a billion years a new strait will be formed in this area.

The city's architecture differs very much from what you'd usually see anywhere on Argost, here, prevail ancient buildings, pyramids, roads, and monuments are carved out of stone, with a few trading centers made of your typical reinforced steel and glass classical style. The spaces between the city districts are filled with wildlife reserves and farms, with irrigation channels diverting part of the river upstream to different parts of the city, going through circular treatment pools before being returned to the delta.

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Parts of the city are very new judging by the fresh stone cuts and the currently occurring masonry work we were able to see by ourselves, though these few projects seem more restorative, attempting to preserve the original look of whatever stairway or road had centuries ago. For that reason, heavy vehicles are only allowed at designated lanes and zones, forcing you to walk or pedal to whatever destination you have. Our guide took us to a supposedly 'millenia-old' hotel still in operation - we were of course skeptical of all the other trivia given to us about the hotel, though the city is pretty, it would not be a proper city without any snakes trying to get one extra out of foreigners like ourselves.

APPEARANCE

At this point, my colleagues and I are pretty familiar with their appearance and somewhat familiar with the local customs - which might not be the case for my peers - understandably because we've been secluding ourselves to preservation colonies after The Fall - so I will try my best attempt to describe them and their ways.

While other species in the Dominion tend to be rather short when compared to ourselves, very rarely reaching out taller than 1.6m - the chelok have their shortest people around that height, on average standing eye-to-eye with any hoku. That is also because they walk on their hindlegs unlike the arrene, which are strong but not as strong as ours and with very short ankles. They are very similar in body shape to ourselves, though possessing flat feet with small front-facing toes, five fingers, and a single strong thumb on each hand which points inward when at rest.

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Another key obvious difference between us and them is that chelok have very short skulls, nearly round or oval skulls, most of it which is occupied by their brain, their faces are pretty flat, with only two front-facing eyes in the middle of the face, one on either side, with their sclera in white and iris in a different color for each individual. Their nose sticks out from the middle of the face, it is generally tetrahedral with different degrees of roundness. The mouth rests just below the nose, at rest the characteristic lips go not wider than the space between the eyes, when it opens, no fangs or menacing teeth pop out of the jaw, instead revealing flat blade teeth for cutting the food in the front of the mouth, and flat crushing molars in the back of the mouth for extended chewing, inside the mouth rests a short muscular tongue, like ours, and like us, their vocalizations are their primary manner of language.

With one rounded ear on either side of the head - their ears were adapted to simply funnel sounds into the inner ear, thus they lack the ability to express emotions through them like we do - on the other hand, their faces can shift in ways unthinkable to our kind, it was amusing and fascinating to me and my crew seeing the amount of facial expressions they can make. The chelok are also devoid of any protective feathers, or scales, or thick hide, instead being barely covered by thin hairs over smooth skin, it which can vary in tans just like ours - the hairs are more prominently grown in the head, face, chest, and privates.

THE CHELOK FROM URAFAR

The great majority of the population residing at Urafar has dark skin similar to ours, though we've been a few individuals with both lighter and even darker skin than that - the males generally opt for shaving their heads bald, while those in higher positions of power cultivate long and decorated braids. The females are quite a curious case, it seems that the traditions of a third of their people prohibit their females from exhibiting their faces and bodies, while the other portion is not required at all by their beliefs - which is from where we noted one of the primary differences between male and female - the chelok, like some burrowing animals from Auot'zae, are mammals, so their females feed their brood during a short period of their initial lives using either of the two mammary glands they sport on their chests - and, unlike males all females seem have liberty on how to trim their head hairs, though those are higher positions choose to tie them short or have none at all for some reason we don't yet understand.

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Apart from being strange to their customs of this era, we were also stunned upon hearing the amount of languages spoken all over the place, signs are standardized to four writing systems, but we saw store banners displayed in at least ten. Merchants will attempt to sell you anything by changing through every language they know and get frustrated at us, we quickly learned that the side-to-side head swing also seems to indicate "no" for them as it does for us.

Because their skin is so fragile, and they possess no physical offense but the blunt force of their muscles, it is a consensus amongst chelok that clothing is an important accessory not only for rituals, or status, but also for daily activities, shielding them from the sun's rays in fashion - and must I say, their clothes and accessories are all in for metals, glasses, and jewels adorning their fabrics. It is hard to say whether most of it is tradition or what's in vogue right now. Stopping at the markets looking to blend in their apparel we found both what seemed to be both natural and synthetic textiles. Some of those clothes see very straight, hard cuts and designs with neutral or 3 color palettes, while some go out of their way to be floral or full of natural-looking colorful patterns. Got to admit we've ended up looking even more foreign by picking up articles of clothing by ourselves than what we were using before, I myself choose to keep my current robes for a little more.

I should add that a day in Dhegо̄m are only three-quarters as long as our common day, so we had to get back inside pretty soon, prompting us to also get some very sketchy quality wristwatches. The first few days were full of discoveries, but our mission was far from starting as our translator attempted to contact the local archeological society. For now, we tried to enjoy the vistas around the expansive Urafar. 

One thing we noticed after a few hours touring by the city - or better yet, did not notice - was the presence of synths of any kind, at best, some chelok which sported all sorts of extensions - jaws, arms, spinal, and retinal extensions, none of which they were ashamed to hide, instead even wearing ripped apparel to show up their extensions, such as arms or legs.  Another absent thing across the city is the color blue (or green, or both, unable to translate), blue(?) pigments used in the painting seem very muted or too dark whenever they are present, with a richness of ochres, reds and oranges everywhere, apart from the black and white which is very prominent - which is an interesting indicator of what ancient lineage these chelok descend from, as they are biologically less sensitive to any blues - as a result of that, dark blues and black are used interchangeably all over the place.

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During our introduction to the city we've also experimented with their local foods and common specialties from the Dominion - because of the way this canyon varies temperature and pressure, different plants and animals are farmed at different places across the formation - granting great variety, some of which I believe are impossible to find anywhere else. We've seen characteristic animals that are only bred by them, animals which we all have seen in historical and archeological records but never in vivo before, I'm particularly impressed by the color variety of said 'chickens', as one would usually say it indicates different kinds, but chickens were purposedly bred for millenia to have this coloration variety. They have mounts that some cultures consider very reasonable and preferable to eat, in that matter I'd say horses are very similar to our antillos, except with no horns or large digging claws, and considerably smaller and hairier. We've chosen to stay a little bit closer to home in our first meal, ordering a few insects and crustaceans, the cook gave us all quite a show, throwing and stirring our food at ridiculous speed and height between pans before serving us with a boiling-hot meal and large glass of cold white sweet juice of a green fruit he opened on site, once the food was cool enough to savor we could attest chelok cuisine is just as fantastic as described by the trader texts, perhaps, even more, depending on the dish.

After a local week had passed, we finally got a return from the Urafar Archeological Society to visit a place they called Northern Site D-24. We were greeted by a stub and pale elderly chelok, practically dressed like one of us, which we found pretty amusing because the whole crew was dressed like chelok hikers, he was also the only one who actually spoke perfect Hukat with us. It SEEMS that the UAS sent us a Hoku xenoarcheologist and I'm not exactly sure whether to feel offended or grateful, the latter seems professionally more reasonable - since they are well aware that a chunk of our records were lost during The Fall. After a very pleasant lunch within the premises of the very spacious minimalist building of the UAS, we got onto rovers to visit the site, which was located some 50 kilometers upstream.

- M.O. Valent, 14/03/2023

Happy π-day