"The Giants" - Part 1

The Giants

Part 1

"Hey Yarnspinner!"

"Cram!" replied Essdy. "It has been a while, how have you been."

"Can't complain," returned Cram Nayawt. "I'm in the mood for a story. Do you have one that is a little different?"

"Have you heard the one about the giants?"

"Giants?"

"They live on an 'uncharted' planet, and they are about 4 to 5 meters high."

"Sounds good!"

Essdy started his story

These giant's live in a world with a binary sun. Their planet has two main continents. One is in the northern hemisphere where there is near constant light. However, it is very temperate as neither sun produces much energy. Thus, with an abundance of water, it is tropical as you can imagine. Plant life on this continent is abundant.

In this environment live the giants. As I said they are 4 to 5 meters tall, and they have razor sharp teeth. Their mouths are big enough to eat you or me whole. They stand on powerful back legs. Their arms look by comparison useless. However, they can easily manipulate tools with their hands. They have a tail that aids in balancing their enormous bulk. They are a nasty looking bunch. In addition, guess what, they are not plant eaters. However, like most life, they will occasionally eat some greens, but they only eat plants in time of famine, and at festivals.

These giant creatures call themselves the Xer and live in tribes of 10 to 20. Each tribe has a tribal leader. This leader is responsible for the well-being of the entire tribe, but they are also the only ones that mate. Of the members of the tribe only a handful are males. The largest tribe of 30 members had only five males.

The Xer have domesticated some enormous plant eaters. These cattle can grow to 25 meters long although most of that is tail. They use every part of these animals. They use their skin for shelters, their bones for tools, and waste very little of this precious resource.

By contrast, the southern hemisphere is where actual seasons occur. They have cold harsh winters. All the life on this side of the planet has adapted accordingly. The plants and animals hibernate during the winter, and are reborn when the thaw occurs. No matter neither the continent nor the season, the precipitation throughout the planet is ample for life.

The southern continent has a wide variety of life as well. However, the scale is much smaller. One particular species developed a thriving civilization on the southern continent. These creatures call their civilization the Easim. They are a small bunch. The tallest ever known was only a meter tall. The young ones that had not reached the age of adulthood could fit in my hand and not hang over at any point. They are furry little people with small pointed ears. They are small but quite muscular and strong. Stout is an excellent description of these people.

These creatures were much more advanced than their northern neighbors were. They built vast cities with a million or more inhabitants. They surrounded their cities with immense farms. The farms raised grains and livestock. The members of this civilization are omnivorous, and their diet is quite diverse. They seemed to eat constantly. These Easim were always concerned about having enough food to make it through the winter.

They had great storage facilities. They could store vast amounts of grain. They built facilities that would keep meat stores during the winter months. However, they needed all of their land just to maintain their current population levels. They knew how much population their lands could support and attempted to keep their population under that level.

Obviously, the Easim's culture and civilization was much more advanced compared to the Xer. In fact, they had sent individuals to the Xer's continent for study for several years. They feared their neighbor's giant stature and their carnivorous ways. Thus, they kept their distance. They gathered quite a bit of information on this more primitive culture, but they were unable to decipher their language. They would get close, but not that close.

The Eacim had begun to explore other things. They had launched rockets, and felt they were well suited for space travel. After all, hibernating for long stretches is beneficial to many forms of long distance space travel. They had begun searching for extraterrestrial life with radio telescopes. They developed minimal inter-planet communication capability. In a few years, they may have been able to join the commonwealth. However, disaster struck their civilization.

It wasn't the Izanian, but the Xer. As they were exploring the outer reaches of their solar system, the Xer began exploring the seas. Most tribal cultures live by the vast resources of the seas early in their development. However, a ship to carry these giants would take vast land resources to construct. Further, with the dietary needs of these massive bodies, a vast number of small sea creatures would be required.

However, there are enormous hulks habiting the seas of this world. The Xer discovered this and began hunting these creatures. At first, it was an activity for the extremely wealthy. After all, only the most successful tribal leaders could afford the time and effort into constructing an enormous sea sailing vessels.

This sea hunting activity began to reshape the Xer's culture. A tribe of 30 was unheard of in the past. The hunt could bring in fresh food with little land resources needed. The Xer obtain a better practical understanding of the sea, and they could stray farther and farther from sight of their land.

The seafaring skills of the Xer became quite modest that in one expedition, they discovered another continent. It was a continent frozen in ice. It was south of their equator, and it was incased in ice. Great stories were told about the frigid and dark continent. Words were invented to describe this land mass as they had never seen snow and ice before.

Nothing more came from it for quite a long time. However, on a fateful day a storm came up during one expedition. This expedition landed upon a lush green continent. This continent was also south of the equator. The storm resulted in a new set of stories of a land that was sometimes covered in lush greenery and when the gods got angry, they covered the land in a cold ice.

Expeditions began to explore the "New World." The Eacim hid as the giant Xer explored the lush lands surrounding the cities. The Xer became convinced that the lands were only occupied by small insignificant animals. This is partially the fault of the Eacim. They should have attempted to communicate with the Xer. They should have indicated that the continent was inhabited by a sentient creature. However, they did not do this, and they felt it was too late to do anything about it.

Eventually, one of the Xer clans loaded a few of their large beasts upon a ship, and headed to the southern continent. They had the intention of setting up a full-time colony on one of the large Eacim farms. They completely intended not to offend the gods in hope that the ice covering would be avoided. They believed that they were effective in appease the gods.

Naturally, the snow came, and forced the Xer to retreat. However, many Eacim died that winter due to the lack of food from the farm the Xer had taken over. They did not know what to do with this new situation.

Perhaps they would have to leave their home world. The small Eacim were a peaceful people, and they did not wish to take any aggressive actions against the lesser technology of the Xer. Thus, they put a push on their space program. The Eacim thought the very least they could do was to colonize another planet. That would take the pressure off the farms.

They had not been able to communicate with the Xer in all the time they had studied them. Thus, if their space program was successful, they may be able to obtain some outside help. They hoped to find a habitable planet, or they hoped to find some help in the vast reaches of space.

After much work, they intercepted signals from the galactic commonwealth. They were unable to decode these signals, but it was an indication of life outside of their meager system. They were hoping to obtain help from those beings.

They also sent some of their young ones, who as I mentioned were quite small, to record as much communication between Xer as possible. These tiny Eacim could live under the nose of these giants. They could gather much information; however, it was quite dangerous.

They perceived that this information gathering would greatly improve their chance of survival. As you might be able to tell, they were not very sophisticated in their language skills. Until they met the Xer, they had little concept of another language. It was not one of their strengths.

Three brave Eacim were selected to take a message to anyone that would listen. They would launch shortly before the season of hibernation, and hibernate once the proper time was reached. Thus, they could awaken in the outer reaches of their solar system. This was the best hope the Eacim would have without harming the Xer themselves.

The Eacim were a peaceful race, and never considered force until the launch of their interplanetary probe neared. Skeptics did not believe that anyone would hear their cries for help. The vastness of the cosmos was going to prevent the success of the mission. Some felt they must prepare for battle. This idea had never come up in their history, and it was quite a foreign idea.

A great study of the Xer in every possible way was being undertaken. They looked for weaknesses that they could exploit. They tried to learn their habits and their cultural tendencies as much as possible. However, this was going to be very difficult without understanding the language.

The Xer were beginning to construct vessels that could sail farther, faster, and with a bigger payload. The great sea animals were being harvested, and the population of the Xer began to expand. Before long, their civilization may need spring grazing lands for their livestock. The Eacim farmland was very tempting to them.

The Xer did not believe they could easily develop the technology that would allow them to survive the icy weather. However, with these abundant grazing lands available, some tribes believe they could free up local lands by grazing their herds during the abundant times of this southern hemisphere. They could use their local lands for grazing or other industries for part of the year.

The loss of vast farmlands would decimate the Eacim civilization if something were not done. The Xer acted as if they were the only life on the planet that meant anything. They did not worry about the consequences of their actions. The Xer saw this resource of grazing lands, and they were going to take advantage of this resource. This was a great danger for the Eacim.