A Brief Story of Known Space is a three-part essay by the author of Albedo himself, Steven A. Gallacci, about the official backstory of the whole setting and how the whole anthropomorphic society was "awakened", even he doesn't give any clues about its precise origins. This is also notable for being one of his few non-comic book works.
Arras Chanka, The Cradle of a Civilization
Arras Chanka is a planet located in some corner of the universe, which at the time of the "Awakening" had approximately two million inhabitants, representing more than 163 species of mammals and Avians (birds), without anyone wondering their origins and how their civilization was created so suddenly. All this changed due to a simple and obvious question...
In SD (-)52-02-08 (February 8th, SD -52), three Felines cub kids from a man named Chennote Atah asked his father about the changing seasons. Since their father had no answer to give them, he decides to ask the Net about the answer, which was given in a very technical way. This intrigued the man, for he remembered that there was another cycle of changing seasons before, but for some reason, he remembered nothing else, not even the moment when his children were born before.
Distraught to see that he had no recollection of his past beyond last year's events, the man went to seek mental help. When the news of the Chen Atah incident became public, all the inhabitants of the planet noticed the same issue of that man: Nobody in Arras Chanka could remember a single thing from a year ago. And to make matters worse, no one remembered how all aspects of their culture, from the most basic to the most advanced technology, existed in the first place, beginning with the fact that all the inhabitants of the planet were so different from each other, even genetically. Obviously, the population of the Arras Chanka fell prey to panic as they realized such a global mental gap among their people.
Later, a committee was organized to try to clarify the facts and find the reason for such a historical lapse between the current events and those of previous years. Thanks to the analysis of the medical records of all the inhabitants of Arras Chanka and the death records of all the people who died before SD -54, evidence was found of a drug that could alter behavior and memory, which was administered to the entire population of the planet years ago. No one knows how this drug could have been administered to all the inhabitants of the planet, nor its method of distribution, but it was known that this drug was capable of erasing or blocking a person's memory for a determined period of time. In addition, geophysical evidence was found that the known population centers already existed 40 years ago and that for some mysterious reason the inhabitants were continuing their lives despite not remembering anything from the last four decades.
To make things even more perplexing, coupled with the fact that the inhabitants of the planet were already very different from each other, there was also the indication that they were also very different genetically with the flora and fauna of Arras Chanka, indicating that their residents were not natives of that world and that they were brought to that planet by someone or something.
With the passage of time, various theories about the origin of civilization emerged among the inhabitants, ranging from that Arras Chanka could have been some kind of penal colony, to those, much more serious and with more solid evidence, that the entire anthropomorphic civilization was created as part of a great social experiment designed by beings who were called since then as the Creators.
Once with that knowledge, at least in partial points, of their origins, another question arose: So What Do We Do Now? There were those in maintaining the status quo, and others in switching to another system that was freer and less limiting, and there were others who considered a system as perfect as that of the time as impossible in practice and undesirable in theory. Because of this, many groups emerged, some with very intense spiritual tendencies, in order to await the arrival or return of their creators to worship them as gods. In the same way, other cultural expressions emerged, such as music and the arts, although in the case of music, this was artificially limited to prevent it from becoming a factor of future destabilization.
Another issue that was taken into account was the urgency of beginning to colonize other worlds apart from Arras Chanka as soon as possible, seeing that sooner or later one planet would not be enough to protect so many inhabitants, so the race to space began.
The First Years
Years after the "Awakening", and after having more or less a clear idea of the situation in which all their civilization was involved, there was a period of important scientific breakthroughs that had as their main point to know the secrets of the universe where they lived. But the first scientists realized that this would not be an easy job...To begin with, the supposedly omniscient Net seemed for one reason or another to have no knowledge of information that was supposed to be obvious to such a powerful computer system. For example, while it know how to create a nuclear reactor and describe the details of an atomic phenomenon, on the other hand, the Net apparently did not know anything about atomic phenomena, or even something as simple as the periodic table of elements, among other knowledge that the AI did not know, or refused to say for some mysterious reason.
To solve these problems, the first investigators created research centers whose purpose was to find the hidden secrets of many of the phenomena that existed around them and to apply them for the good of their society as a whole. For this reason, a very important discovery was the creation of virtual simulation, which helped a lot in the creation of different things from nuclear power plants to chairs in a simpler way, not to mention in the design and research of dangerous projects, such as those involving chemical or biological substances.
Thanks to all these technological breakthroughs, and to the knowledge acquired from them, one of the most important priorities, the conquest of space, became more accessible, although not exactly simpler or less dangerous. It took many years of intense testing to create systems that would allow for easy space travel, the most notable advance being the miniaturization of nuclear fusion reactors to fit inside a spacecraft or aircraft.
Tropes:
- Armor-Piercing Question: This is how the whole deal began, when some children did a normal question to their father about the change of seasons. Since their father cannot give an answer, he goes to the Net and realizes he can't remember anything from past years, snowballing the whole situation into a planetary crisis of faith.
