Valdarin

## **The Valdarin**

“Brilliant ones”, “Shining ones’,
“Guardians / Watchers,”  “Keepers”

*The Valdarin were first marooned on Earth as a result of an interplanetary war in*
the Solar system 70 million years ago. This war destroyed their home planet of Marduk—the fifth planet of the
solar system and hurtled debris through the solar system that impacted every
major planet, causing widespread devastation and triggered the events that appeared to wipe out the dinosaurs on Earth.

The
marooned Valdarin were a science expedition sent to the third planet to study
it.  The Valdarins of Marduk had only
recently discovered the existence of a larger universe outside the interior of
their planet.  Life had developed on the
inside, much like on every other planet.
Until they had found a way to the outside, they had no experience,
philosophy or a single clue about the overarching solar system, galaxy or
universe.  Over the next few hundred
years they endured the extreme cold of the outside to explore the wonders of
the universe.  They discovered and
developed the science of astronomy and noticed the movements of the stars and
other planets.

Eventually,
they began to develop a working space program and began exploring first the
wondrous planet of Xion and its five moons.
Later, they turned their attention inwards towards the inner solar
system when telescopes became powerful enough to detect the signs of life on
the second, third and fourth planets.
Valdarin scientists were also intrigued about another star that was
coming closer and closer to the sun. It was named “Nibiru” which means “dark
traveler” in the Valdarin language and scientists studying it, predicted the
star would pass very close to the seventh and final planet of the Solar
system.  In a rush to answer those constantly
nagging questions about are we alone in the universe, they began sending radio
signals at this star with the hopes that someone would answer.

Unfortunately,
someone DID answer.  Nibiru was dim red
dwarf that had two planets of its own.
They were an indescribable race that seemed to have no set form, meaning
every time they were encountered in battle, they took on a different
shape.  It was almost as if their outward
forms would morph to the optimum design for whatever function they were
undertaking.  They were horribly
xenophobic, clever and apparently desperate.
It was calculated that that Nibiru was a dying brown dwarf star and
would pass close enough to the sun to end up being locked into a very long term
orbit with Sol and would revisit the Solar system approximately every 3600
years.  The ensuing war lasted three
years and was devastating to both sides.

After the
war, life resumed but the Valdarins never forgot.  They developed better defensive technologies
and began in the transformation of the fourth planet and one of the moons of
Xion in earnest as contingencies should the second inevitable war occur with
the species from Nibiru.  It became
obvious that the Nibirans had also been preparing for a second war.  When it came, the onslaught was like nothing
the Valdarins had ever imagined.  The
apparent leader of the people that called themselves the Doloth named himself
“Azathol” but that is about all the Valdarins ever got before the massacre
began.  Eighteen months into a brutal war
for their very existence, the unthinkable occurred.

It is
thought that the Doloth had constructed a weapon of unimaginable power.  No one really knows, but mid afternoon of the
festival of Sevant, the Valdarin hope died with the complete and utter
destruction of Marduk.  A lone ship,
already stationed in orbit around Mars, witnessed the destruction and when a
swarm of Nibirian ships began to descend on their position and the fledgling
Martian colony, Commander Xander Cronis of the biological survey ship Astarte
attempted to flee as they were not equipped in any way for a head to head
battle with an alien warship.

They made
it to the third planet and was attempting to find a safe place to land and hide
until the passing of Nibiru when it was assumed the aliens would also
leave.  Because they had what remaining
sensors focused on intently searching for warships, they never saw the incoming
debris until it was too late to do anything other than raise their
shields.  They never even saw the
Nibirian warship that was riding in the wake of the asteroid.  Because of the shields, the asteroid just hit
them with a glancing blow, but the force pulled them in along with it as it
careened into the planet below.  The
asteroid punctured the crust of the earth into inner Aerathiea.  Had it been at less of an angle and  more direct hit, the asteroid would have
impacted the central sun, upsetting the crucial balance that makes all life
possible and this story would not exist.

They were
entombed by the material we now call “Aeturnum”, causing time to move
significantly slower for them.  There had
been about 2000 in the ship’s compliment
at the time, but only about 600 survived the destruction.  The survivors originally didn’t know what had
happened… they were disoriented and had no idea that 70 million years had
passed.  Any part of their ship that was
not exposed to the weird material had decayed or vaporized millions years ago
and turned back into their constituent elements.  Much of their technology was long gone but
they found from such a long exposure that they were forever changed.  Many of them had lost consciousness but some
of them had not and those that had not were altered in a less perceptible way
but from all their points of view, no more time had passed than usual, but they
emerged from the influence of the Aeturnum about 50,000 years ago (206,000
Aerathiean years).  They found that they
no longer age and due to the unique properties of the Duranae elemental
material permanently fused in their systems, they had unimaginable and
extraordinary powers.

Even
though most of the Valdarins were scientists--- biologists, botanists,
geologists, etc, there was a politically motivated core group that had been
bent on learning as much about the third planet as possible in order to one day
escape the tyranny at home.

Duranae
are sub-microscopic particles of Axionic matter from the Aeturnum Realm blasted
off from meteor impacts and volcanic activity.
It is perpetually persistent in the Aerathiean biosphere and cannot be
filtered out.  When the Aeturnum is in
proximity to three dimensional space/time, it begins to crystallize quantum
fluctuations into matter that is stable in the material plane.  This material has the unusual property of
guiding and directing the flow of conscious thought and creativity into action
and material.  If there is no direct
conscious thought or control present outside of the background noise of all
conscious entities, the materials forms as the hundred odd material elements we
are already familiar with.

Unfortunately,
being immortal and having regenerative abilities that border on indestructible
doesn’t automatically give one super-wisdom or calm the self-inflated ego.  In those terms, they were just as
dysfunctional as always.

When the
Valdarin arrived in Aerathiea, they were not surprised to find themselves
inside the Earth as that is the same type of environment they had developed in
on their home planet of Marduk.  Marduk's
surface, even with the high pressure atmosphere was significantly colder than
earth.  Only a narrow equatorial band
existed where life could flourish, giving way to ice-bound tundra and polar
conditions in all other areas.

Physical

Valdarin
look more human than humans.  The humans
before the Valdarin were proto-human at best, closer to Neanderthal than modern
human.  When the Valdarin arrived, there
was an adjustment period.  In many ways
they appeared as ordinary people, but times of stress or other high emotions
would bring out latent and unpredictable behavior or events that could only be
explained in a paranormal textbook.
There was very little way to accurately tell or compute time in
Aerathiea as Moloth and the five sisters had not yet been placed inside
Aerathiea to gauge time yet, so they where not completely aware of how long
they