The Camera Eye - Chapter 1

Here follows an excerpt of the recent essay A Short History of Humanity and Its Interactions with the T’sivetan People from Historian John Berrenor, a human and Keeper of Historical Documents at the Ikasaratan Branch of Kantara Vulpina’s Academy.

* * *

…the first contact involving human and T’sivetan interactions came to be about eight hundred years ago, long before the modern T’sivetan times and just as the first of the Oncera dynasty came into power. Arriving at the beginning of high-speed, long-distance space travel among the residents of Earth, the first humans to ever walk T’sivet’s surface came down upon a small island near the village of Arctic Point at T’sivet’s northern-most point. The humans stumbled across the village of Arctic Point by accident, as food and fuel sources were hard to find and some of their representatives were sent to the village to search for supplies.

Back then, the T’sivetan people were poorly equipped and hardly had the usable technology required fighting against such a power, especially the weaker villages towards the north that still relied on the old ways and lived in tents and used the pelts of the Ferals to clothe themselves. When humans first arrived on T’sivet, the native peoples of this land were only adapted to survival, be it the thick-fur of the lynx Felid or wolf Canid, or the thickly-fatted bodies of the Ursines who lived in the village of Arctic Point. Despite the alien-nature of the beasts, the humans approached them in friendly manner and simply asked for any available supplies. Thankfully, the “aliens” spoke the same language, which they deemed the “common tongue” but was known to the humans as “English”. While initially on unstable terms, the humans were allowed into the village of Arctic Point for supplies such as food and clothing, but were forced to leave every night to maintain the villager’s safety.

Eventually, the two sides came to an agreement. The ruler of Arctic Point, name and title unknown, allowed some representatives from the humans to come into the village of Arctic Point and spoke with the humans for nearly a week. By the end of the week, the humans and the residents of Arctic Point allowed the humans to live and work amongst them in exchange for any food and supplies they would need as payment so long as the humans were able to show them some of their ways and explain their technology, thus creating the first treaty of T’sivet fifty years before even the Oncera dynasty created their own treaty unifying the district of Ikasarat. Humans never drew their weapons on the people of Arctic Point, and lived a ways outside of the village, using their ship as living space and keeping peace with the residents of Arctic Point.

It wasn’t long before the humans kept up on their end of the treaty. Mining operations were quickly established a fair distance outside of the village, and humans quickly became accompanied to the atmosphere of this alien world, hardly any difference being present from their native conditions. Gold and oil were found a mere twenty miles away from the original village of Arctic Point, making pre-T’sivetan Arctic Point the richest city in the land. Residents of Arctic Point soon combined plentiful timber with the oil and created log cabins, and stone was mined to create even sturdier architecture, bringing Arctic Point into the forefront of the pre-T’sivetan era.

It was then that the humans introduced what may have been the most pivotal introduction to modern T’sivet that ever came: the gun. Humans showed T’sivetans the use of the hunting rifle; the suddenly booming town of Arctic Point found in the gun a way to more easily hunt down the necessary amount of food for the increasing population. By the time that the Oncera dynasty finally ruled over a unified Ikasarat and humans were able to finally use their ship to return back to Earth nearly seventy years later, Arctic Point had nearly quadrupled in size, forty of the top hunters used guns to hunt prey instead of the old ways, and pistols were now being used by law enforcement. Through human interactions with the ruler of Arctic Point, the village turned into a small hunting and mining town and humans were able to bring back favorable reports of the people of T’sivet. Three years later, a private spaceport had been built for humans looking to come to T’sivet, though numbers remained limited so as not to overwhelm the native T’sivetans.

For a long time, humans remained in the Arctic Point region and slowly built up their own wealth. Interspecies breeding eventually occurred when by upon accidental discovery a human mated with a lynx Felid resulting in a cross-breed that resulting in a lynx Felid with little human look but gained the human’s hair color, build, and intelligence. While only the first of such cases to exist, humans are now responsible for mixed breeding among T’sivet despite the overall purist attitude towards mating and an insistence that specie should marry with specie though the extent of breeding in such a manner is entirely possible.

Eventually, some humans traveled downwards into the northern portions of what is now the Northern Plains and eventually came upon the city of Bailova. The people of Bailova had been able to figure out on their own what the people of Arctic Point needed the help of the humans to do, and had also been able to manage the farming of livestock such as sheep, pigs and cows. Unlike the people of Arctic Point, the people of Bailova were wary of the un-furred humans and shut them out of their village, violently attacking the humans who only drew further distrust with their usage of guns. Humans were forced to build away from Bailova and create self-sustaining communities of their own, creating lands in the sparse woodlands within a day’s travel of Bailova.

Peace did not come easily between the communities. While the humans were able to quickly advance and could have easily overcame the people of Bailova, the two sides clashed in a few skirmishes in which Bailovans easily turned the tide against the humans with their use of magic, a power that appeared greater than most of the weapons available to the humans and frequently caused them to turn tail and run. Not understanding the powers of magic, a few humans thought it to be the work of some evil entity and proceeded to banish those who suddenly appeared with the signs of magic usage from their communities, causing even humans to become cast out and left to the mercy of the Bailovans, not to mention the various diseases that wiped out nearly three-quarters the population of the humans in the Northern Plains within three years. Similarly, nearly half the population of Bailova was knocked out by diseases such as the flu and smallpox, the former harder-hitting than their own flu-type diseases and many not even slightly immune to the latter.

In between the years between the human acceptance by the residents of Arctic Point and the arrival on the Northern Plains, the first of the Oncera dynasty took power. Founders of the beginnings of modern T’sivet, the Oncera dynasty soon united the entirety of the Western Ikasaratan Plains north to the Kantaran Mountains and south to the coastline and white sand beaches, from the southern Brishind Coast to the edges of the Eastern Soron Deserts. The Oncera dynasty was also largely responsible for the widespread appearance of magic throughout the realm and became great preservers of history and trade records. From the Oncera works, it has been shown that humans had traveled down to Ikasarat soon after their travels to the Northern Plains, though the extent of their traveling is as yet unknown.

It is highly likely that the reason for the human existence in the Western Ikasaratan Plains is the humans scouting procedures over the large space of time. Humans were have reported to stayed mostly north of the Kantaran Mountains, but have also recorded the usage of scouts to explore the area. While sometimes treated unfavorably, records from the Oncera dynasty and afterwards showed that humans were frequently accepted into royal courts as ambassadors and as personal servants to the rulers of the Oncera dynasty. Favorable reports came back from most who explored the Oncera dynasty with the exception of a few who believed their cohorts had some sort of magic used on them to give them the favorable reviews. While it may have put the humans on good terms with the Oncera dynasty, it also placed them in a greater rift with the mostly independent Bailovans, who distrusted humans after thinking they had allied themselves with other kingdoms to eventually take over them later.

It was not for thirty years that humans were able to gain the trust of the Bailovans through a common ground of religion. A single brave priest from the human town went over to the Bailovans to preach a message of forgiveness and how the church of the humans wanted them to come to an agreement and that the Bailovans would agree to a treaty by conversion of to the various human religions. However, it soon became clear that T’sivetans already had a system of religion in place, consisting of the Creator and the seven saints. The sole Creator created the entirety of T’sivet and commanded peace among others, while their saints spread the word in the earliest of times and were also the patrons of the seven types of magic – fire, water, earth, wind, psychic, dark, and light – which the Creator had bestowed to a chosen few. The Bailovans religion so greatly resembled some of the human religions that the two were able to merge and Bailova finally opened its doors to the humans in a similar treaty to the one that the residents of Arctic Point had created. In addition, humans were cured of the diseases gained from the Bailovans through their usage of magic on humans, and the humans used their knowledge of medicine to quickly restore any diseased Bailovans from their own maladies.

After the Oncera dynasty stepped down from the throne to become the first Dukes, humans had made their way into Arctic Point and Northern Plains society and a new ruler, Siam I, stepped in and began a conquest of the regions of T’sivet, easily taking over the Eastern Ikasaratan Deserts and beginning a crusade of the north by way of the Brishind Coast to T’sivet’s west. Allying himself with the ruler of Ai’sharra, Siam I fought the Northern Plains in the seven-month Northern Plains War. By this time, humans and Bailovans had been closer together and human guns were in continued use. Combining magic and guns, the native T’sivetans and the humans easily defeated the Felid Siam I, who was killed in battle by a gunshot.

After the Northern Plains War, humans began to feel allied with the T’sivetans and refrained from being referred to as a separate demographic. Now, the humans began to refer to themselves as T’sivetans themselves, and made themselves home in Arctic Point and the Northern Plains. Ships still came and went from T’sivet to Earth, but the ships were fewer and were mostly meant to bring supplies to Earth or have people return to Earth who didn’t want to stay longer. Creating bonds with each other, the citizens of Arctic Point and the Northern Plains combined under a peace treaty, though each side kept its own ruler in power.

The two were not at peace for long, as Siam II soon began Siam’s War. Lasting almost a year, Siam II led multiple charges from Ai’sharra onto the Northern Plains with varying degrees of success. A successful attack on Bailova, wherein he captured the city, lead hundreds of Bailovans to seek shelter in the human settlements nearby, where they staged a counterattack again with human technology overcoming Siam II’s forces. Siam II was eventually killed, ending Siam’s War with the Northern Plains maintaining their independence in part to human and Arctic Point intervention.

Siam III, however, learned the mistakes of his predecessors and accepted Northern Plains and the Northern Brishind Coast with open arms and spent the large amount of three years trying to come up with a peace treaty with the Northern Plains featuring one of the heirs to the Oncera estate, even accepting the Bailovan religion. Eventually Bailova and the Northern Plains seceded from its treaty with Arctic Point and came into T’sivet after encouragement from the Oncera representative. Seven years later, human technology clashed against itself as Siam III forcefully brought Arctic Point and its inhabitants under his control in a very short rebellion, thus bringing modern T’sivet to its current size stretching from Ikasarat and the Southern Deserts up through Arctic Point and from the Brishind Coast to the Kotew Woods east of the Kantaran Mountains, as yet unnamed until the Garou dynasty by explorer Kantara Vulpina, who named the mountains after her great grandmother Kantara Vulpina II, who explored the mountains.

Though humans gradually accepted T’sivetan society and even willingly assimilated themselves in with their anthropomorphic neighbors, there began a series of disconcerting events that greatly unnerved both the rulers of T’sivet and the populace as a whole. Humans began to have a strange reputation, and many times native T’sivetan anthropomorphs and humans clashed against one another in ideals and in strange bouts of rebellion. A most notable instance is that of the Silver Dogs, originally created by accident when a group of nine humans retreated into the Kantaran Mountains during the final years of Siam IV’s reign accidentally came upon a strange magic that transformed them into giant werewolf-like creatures – though with a much fairer disposition as shown by recent notable examples like Azarae Tarasaki of Hannara, a skilled light mage and Silver Dog representative of the royal court – out of a want to be like the native T’sivetan population.

However, the Silver Dog incidence is only one of the milder cases of rebellion between humans and anthropomorphic T’sivetan citizens. A higher number of suicides took place during the reign of the wolf Canid Lupino I, Siam IV’s successor, and throughout the rest of the Lupino dynasty than during any other, though no research has clearly been done as to whether or not the cases in question were fighting depression or insanity or both. A group of human radicals even assassinated Lupino IV on his way to a census taking place in Ai’sharra using powerful guns, afterwards proceeding to defile his body by cutting off his limbs; the rebels were soon arrested after the arrival of the vixen Kantara Vulpina I, the first queen and the only female dynasty of T’sivet, took the throne and sentenced the humans in question to death for acts of treason and murder of a king, a process which took nearly four years to complete because of the humans in question inciting even more rebellions towards Kantara I.

Kantara II reported a strange series of rebellions towards the remainders of the Oncera line, who were jointly trying to dispel human insecurity of their fellow T’sivetans. However, the rebellion was caused because the humans believed that the Onceras were trying to subdue them and make them subject to their own power. The rebellion resulted in fourteen humans being arrested and the attempted murder of the Onceras, which failed miserably. The Onceras later sent a formal apology to the people who had rebelled against them mediated by Kantara II and explained their actions, and relations eventually grew in between T’sivetans and humans in the south.

The three successive queens of the Vulpina dynasty experienced a fair share of rebellions, but Kantara Vulpina III recorded a strange case of a rebellion near the Kotew Woods in the north in which it’s three leaders had gone mad, one even reporting that the anthropomorphic T’sivetans were unreal and only existed in his dreams while they were all actually humans; evidence has yet to agree that the anthropomorphs of T’sivet are not real, though it sparked controversy and a domino effect of rebellions across the T’sivetan kingdom. Though the overarching rebellion nearly spread into a war, Kantara III was able to restore peace before stepping down when old in years to make way for a second wolf Canid dynasty in Garou I.

Garou I soon encounter problems of his own when a man outside of Bailova was discovered kidnapping the anthropomorphic residents of the city and performing medical tests and autopsies of T’sivetans to study and examine their DNA; those close to the scene described it as grisly with bodies all over the floor and the occasional “patient” who had a limb sawed off and required medical attention. Witnesses soon alerted authorities and the man was institutionalized at the hands of esteemed witch Desmaia Lo’Kanta I of Bailova and the lab where the man was performing the tests was soon destroyed.

Despite numerous setbacks in the relations between humans and native anthropomorphic T’sivetans, humans have overall improved the lifestyle and material wealth of the T’sivetan population ever since their arrival in Arctic Point. Arctic Point was for a while the richest city until the industrial boom in Ai’sharra during the three queens of the Vulpina dynasty, again driven by humans, and soon switched to the city of Ikasarat during the middle-to-current Garou dynasty with the appearance of long-lost heir Reynard Oncera. The dollar became the standard currency during the late Lupino and early Vulpina dynasty due to its simple base-10 formula. Industrialization during the Lupino dynasty brought on guns, farming and harvesting tools, and weapons like swords and axes became mass-produced. Architecture grew and electricity came soon afterwards with Ai’sharra during Garou I having the first ever water-powered electrical plant from a dam. Guns were improved, and hunting and the military along with, though it was initially rare and expensive to manufacture guns and the bullets required. The advent of the electrical age of T’sivet spurred on by Kantara Vulpina II brought with it lights, photographs, alternative energy sources such as sunlight, and security cameras were used to reduce crime.

However, I don’t know what to make of the human intervention in the affairs of T’sivetans, be it good or bad. Since the arrival of humans, T’sivet has undergone a faster rate of growth than even Earth has undergone, being on par with it in just under nine hundred years and five dynasties. But the T’sivetans sounded so pure before even the wars that unified it together and before human technology was introduced; matter of fact, it’s become such that the T’sivetans are almost as corrupt as the people on Earth to which I came away from. Before it was simple petty thievery and the occasional raid by a band of rogues, but now it has gotten into rebellions, governmental coups, cult-works, and technological crimes. I can’t say that humans have spoiled T’sivetans with the introduction of technology; I simply hope that T’sivetans become able to look back and stop this nonsense before it’s all too late.

I have my convictions that it may be too late as it is, that T’sivetans are eventually going to catapult themselves to ruin if they don’t stop indulging themselves in this technological war. Cameras may be useful in stopping criminals, but that doesn’t mean they always tell the truth. Guns may be used to kill people who have committed a crime, but they kill too quickly and before more information may be gained. Technology itself is a useful thing, but the people of T’sivet need to realize that there is a limit as to its usefulness and at what point they cross the line with it.

Then again, it’s entirely possible that they could have been heading in that direction already.