Fiction:On The Origin Of Culture

Miguelo Caralaggi PhD, anthropology at Università di Nuovo Milano Chieama Ma'thaeli, Veracitor of alien history Sanctuarium Veracitorium

Vol. 23, iss.15 of Modern Historian.

Since time immemorial, humankind has always questioned its origins; how it came about, the circumstances of its development and later how it was connected to the countless alien civilizations that dot the cosmos. There have been many theories throughout the history of the written word but after careful study of the evidence, much speculation as well as other collaborative insights from like-minded individuals from the and the greater human society, I have concluded that one species in particular, them being the denizens of the  had a crucial impact on modern society.

My findings first started after reading an article published by xenolinguist Toberek in 2797. His article detailed that the dialects of Latin and Greek bore key similarities to Low Dracid, a language that is still used within the Imperium to this day and forms part of the basis of Dran'va. Inspired by this article I looked deeper, knowing that the Latin alphabet borrowed heavily from the Greek variant which even in the time of the classical Roman Empire was still the key trade language. I looked back further and found that Greek itself borrowed considerably from the Phoenician alphabet, widely regarded as the first ever codified alphabet in Europe and Africa.

Comparing the Dracid and Phoenician alphabets, I found reasonable similarity. While the Dracid alphabet does contain more characters (38 compared to the Phoenicians' 20) and an uppercase-lowercase system, there was some similarity in the design style (examples include the similarity between the Dracid Yeast and Phoenician W, Dracid Limba and Phoenician L, Dracid Uhrum and Phoenician T) that could indicate a connection.

It was in these early phases that Chieama Ma'thaeli and I began working together. Using records fro mthe Alcanti Royal Academy and Tunisian archaeological records, we learned that there was in fact an unexplainable outpost within the Tunisian heartland that had been uncovered c. 2241. While the outpost was largely empty, there was strong evidence of artificial construction. The underground complex fit a regulating pattern, with three floors connected by tunnels too straight to be natural. According to Royal Academy archives, this was once an outpost set up not extremely far from modern-day Tunis. Similar outposts have been recorded in the Italian Alps, Turkey, Syria, southern England, and northern Greece. Most however, according to records, were largely remotely operated.

The fact these outposts were on record, the connection between the Dracid and Phoenician alphabets and the locations of these outposts does suggest that the Imperium was at least monitoring the rise of some of the most well-known civilizations of the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. The question that stands though is why. From our understanding, the Imperium is one of the more ancient of the modern civilizations, possibly worthy of precursor status themselves given how there is evidence in Andromeda that they have terraformed planets specifically for the purpose of harbouring life to develop into intelligence. We discussed this matter with Professor Erius Kovorum of the Alcanti Royal Academy, and he claimed the following:

"Intelligence is a quality within life that permits one to survive. But sapience has proven time and again that those with sapience can not only more easily tailor their environments to suit them, sapiens can also create their environments; stations, cities, planets and so on. The Royal Academy sees this value and desires to promote it and foster it. As studies have shown that the advancement of civilisation is a mix of chance, opportunity and ideology. The most important factor of civilization is that its ideas ensure survival, with progress coming second. That said, sometimes civilizations need guidance on the correct method to develop, such as the point-of-no-return for mutually assured destruction. Thus, the Royal Academy does sometimes perform efforts to alter the course of development for the sake of a civilisation's survival."

This turned out to be rather insightful. The statement does confirm that the Imperium does take measures to preserve early civilisations, however documented evidence from the civilisations they helped is sketchy at best. Most of them bear no mention of dragon-like creatures anything close to what the Draconis and their subspecies resemble, but of ocurse with improved technology in the right fields comes better methods of espionage. Perhaps the Imperium did sent influencers disguised as locals? Perhaps they did make direct involvement but kept evidence of them to a minimum?

This does fit in with an established theory of ancient astronauts, who visited early cultures from other planets (or galaxies) and taught them the fundamentals of civilisation from farming to construction and warfare. If the Imperium is responsible for fostering western civilization, they were a lot cleverer at hiding it and doing it than what most early ancient astronaut theories suggested. But there is also the question of how extensively did the Draconis foster and educate us? How long before they simply let us advance on our own path?

Sadly this is where things were difficult. We learned early on that the Draconis don't like sharing their records on intervention for an apparent concern that the information will either cause serious damage to that society, or it spreads disbelief or even - dare I say it - deification, although all these circumstances seem to be based on an arbitrary level of "readiness" dictated by the Royal Academy itself. Given the relative level of advancement of the Imperium itself it is impossible to work out where they have intervened either directly or indirectly. Our best guess however is that the Imperium minimised its involvement by the 1500s during the Reconnaissance period, where science was slowly becoming more prevalent. Although it is possible the Imperium was involving itself right up to and beyond the information age.

Further study of past events however will be required in order to fully affirm the Imperium's involvement. During research we also encountered mentions of plant genomes that were mentioned in observational records that we could access. Other peers have suggested that these mentioned plant genomes, including gram wheat and red grape, were introduced by the Draconis to Mediterranean cultures. Unfortunately given how adept many Andromedan firms are with genetic engineering it is difficult, perhaps next-to-impossible to work out what plant cultures were artificially created and which are natural, as it is possible that the Draconis introduced transitional crop cultures in order to hide their tracks but this is mere speculation.

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