The History



Overview

 

Experiments Of The Shee

 

Pre-Games

 

The Shee Exodus

The Shee Abandon Ship

 

C3

 
 Albia's Rediscovery By Humans

 

C1

 

The Last Shee in Albia

The Volcano & Aftermath

 

C2

 


Timeline

Albia Shee Ships

Game

Above Ground Underground

Shee experiment in genetic engineering

Ron & Eve born

The Shee discover spherical worlds beyond their own.

-

Pre-Games

Shee abandon Albia, the Shee Ark begins its journey.
Before they leave they leave two hatcheries full of eggs.
Most norns killed by grendels.

Wild forest, Xmas, Ron and Mountain
breeds appear.

Some eggs remain in incubator 1.

All Ettins and some Grendels evolve underground, including the Magma norns.

Some norn eggs remain in incubator 2

Shee Arrive In orbit of Sphericus

c3_logo.gif (13611 bytes)

& Docking Station

The Last Shee works for centuries.Shee Driven from ship by grendel stowaways
Humans discover Shee Ark
Capillata Docks with Shee Ship
Humans discover Albia
Hidden eggs are hatched from incubator 1.

c1_logo.gif (12131 bytes)

The Volcano Erupts, killing many surface dwellers whilst releasing underground dwellers. Last shee grows the Capillata ship.

Last Shee  launches the Capillata - using the volcano's eruption as launch

c2_logo.gif (13974 bytes)

& Docking Station

Ettins re-build many structures on the last Shee's orders, including lifts to gain access to underground labs.
Labs & Ettin Discovered by humans, as are new grendel breeds.

Norn eggs from incubator 2 are hatched
Last shee explores alternate worlds and takes samples of newly discovered breeds and conducts experiments that create other breeds.

He warps in time to find the Ark.

 

 

The Chronicles

 

Grey, white & blue text below is  from official Cyberlife's sources.

All sections in yellow are extrapolations and assumptions written by me or others.

 

 

Experiments Of The Shee

The Shee were an ancient and clever species entirely lacking in common sense. This rather endearing trait manifested itself in a preference for genetically engineering mice that dislike biscuits (but are rather keen on used teabags) rather than inventing a sensible mousetrap. This led to some ingenious (and generally massively over-engineered) solutions to simple problems. Some of these experiments in genetics resulted in the creation of three species that were intended to act as servants to the Shee, who were finding that good help on Albia was jolly hard to find.

shee_create.jpg (23693 bytes)

 

Experiment 1 - Cyberlifogenis vicious


The first experiment in genetics went horribly wrong and the unfortunate outcome was a nasty and bad mannered creature later known as a Grendel. The Shee quickly abandoned the experiment, but overlooked a few eggs that had been mislaid behind a dresser. Unfortunately, those eggs hatched and Grendels escaped to breed in the wild.

 

Experiment 2 - Cyberlifogenis kleptomonicus

A subsequent attempt resulted in the docile (and pale) Ettins. Unfortunately, Ettins proved to be dreadful servants, as they tended towards kleptomania (or perhaps just over-tidiness) and often nicked the masters' teacups and bits of wire and string that were put down only seconds before. They were, however, gentle and relatively harmless, so they were retained, but kept well away from the family silver and high explosives.

Later ettins were bred to become the labourers of the Shee, they did all the cleaning. When the Shee left Albia they took some ettins with them and left some in the underground Shee laboratory.

 

Experiment 3 - Cyberlifogenis cutis
norn.jpg (3850 bytes)
The Shee soldiered on with their experiments and in time managed to genetically engineer a race of sweet-tempered, gentle and relatively obedient creatures known as Norns. The Norns weren't rocket scientists, but with patience and training could learn to make a decent pot of tea and fetch slippers when asked. The Shee were pleased.

Those norns that were in the surface incubator are less genetically and mentally advanced than the underground norns. This is because the Shee moved their labs underground as they continued to tinker with the norn's genomes.

 

The Shee Exodus

Some years later the Shee came up with an uncharacteristically useful invention that allowed them to gaze into the Albian sky and see all the glittering stars up close. To their disgust, they realised that there were planets up there as well and they were spherical, rather than the inconvenient disk shape they were used to. They decided to set out in search of a more spherical home. It also seemed a pretty good way of getting away from the Grendels who were becoming more and more troublesome.

The Shee gathered up all the Norns and Ettins they could find, along with a selection of plants and animals from the planet, and huddled them aboard a spaceship genetically engineered especially for the journey. Forgetting earlier lessons, the Shee neglected to check behind the furniture for leftover creature eggs and accidentally abandoned a number of creatures on Albia's surface.

With no-one to look after them, the Norn died out shortly after the Shee left. The Shee thoughtfully provided a secret store of six Norn eggs in the Hatchery, just near the incubator machine to revive them. An endearing, peaceful and playful race, the Norns relied on the Shee to look after them. Only one living Grendel mother remains, in the tree houses of the Grendel lair and she has plenty of eggs left!

shee_leave.jpg (21071 bytes)

sheeship.jpg (11920 bytes)
Before the shee left, they locked some norns eggs away in hibernation in the shee caverns.

As they locked the door for the last time, they forgot to release the other animals hidden below, and even locked in the ettin - a species that had helped the shee in the labs.... the ettin were trapped.

 

The Shee Abandon Ship

Back in space, the Shee neared their destination sphere and were surprised to find that Grendels had stowed away on the ship and again began to display typically embarrassing behaviour, terrorising the Norns and Ettins, breaking machinery and generally behaving like ruffians. The Shee gathered together some biscuits and a few clean socks and made tracks for the planet below, again forgetting a goodly number of creature eggs and leaving all their laboratory equipment on the ship.


RECAP:
Drifting in space around a decidedly spherical planet in an unknown star system is a remarkable starship, grown from genetically-modified materials. This remarkable spacecraft, abandoned by its creators, is home to a variety of lifeforms that originated on the far-away, disk-shaped planet of Albia. Many of the animals on board the ship were originally indigenous to Albia, with a select few specifically engineered by the planet's only advanced race, the Shee.

 

Albia's Rediscovery By Humans

In the year (earth year:) 1996, the first human, using a home computer, entered Albia, hatched the eggs and began to strive the species back into existence. They used their control of the Handish to this end. By this time, the grendels had all turned on each other meaning that they were all dead except for one mother who occasionally hatched a baby. Ron and Eve were the first two norns hatched by man, their first-born was named Cain. Their race gradually became more suited to human's taste of cute, a few individuals still survived in the wild and were named the "Ron" race in reverence of the first known norn

 

The Last Shee in Albia

 

After years of working in isolation, and only straying from the task to have some tea and biscuits, the device was completed! The other Shee had laughed at the idea that one could literally jump across dimensions and get to the mysterious spherical world with no physical effort at all, but he had persisted and those long nights of twiddling with DNA had paid off. Finally, here was the device that would allow his race to explore the rest of their universe with ease, and it was all his own work. He just couldn't wait to see the look on the others faces...


 

But that was where the problems started.

Albia seemed to be deserted, there was not a single trace of a Shee anywhere. Sure, the Norns, Grendels and Ettins were still running around the place but there was no sign of proper life forms. Checking out the communal laboratories revealed that a gigantic space ship had been constructed at some point in the past and the planet had been evacuated. Just how long had he been working? He knew that when he was problem-solving he was pretty hard to get through to, but surely someone would have come and informed him that everyone was leaving!

Still, with the amount of dust that was lying around it looked like they'd been gone for years - real Shee years rather than the accelerated time scale they'd made all their creations live in. Well, he'd just have to follow them and show them his great device! Any fool could make a spaceship but only he had the vision to create holes in space … or was it time? He had to admit he wasn't entirely sure what the device did exactly - that was evolution for you - but it did seem to make holes in something that allowed things to pass through to another place. A place that was very much like the place you were just in - but different. All his tests had confirmed this, and he'd even travelled through himself on many occasions. Come to think of it, he wasn't entirely sure that the here he was in now was the here he'd started in but he didn't consider that a great problem. It was close enough to his here to fool him and that was all that mattered.

So he'd begun growing a ship for the voyage; he could still detect the trail through space left by the others so actually tracking them down wasn't a problem. Catching them up, on the other hand, would require the kind of thinking that only he could do … something so clever that they would all congratulate him on his original thinking and reward him with a nice cup of tea, maybe two.

Late in the Albian night, so late as to be morning, a lone figure could be found hunched over a wooden table. The table's one short leg periodically threatened to upset the contents of the flasks and test tubes that covered its surface. The figure seemed to be talking to itself - a steady stream of chemical names and reactions, "Hmm, pyruvate, glucose... hmm, amino acid reacts with... no, it was glucose, wasn't it? Oh dear, oh dear... Maybe a cup of tea will help clear my head."

He stood and stretched; exchanging his hunched figure for that of a lanky Shee scientist. He had recently emerged from his private underground laboratory to find that the disk-shaped planet he inhabited was completely devoid of other Shee and he was left alone with a clutch of Norns, a few Grendels and his tools, flasks and test tubes.

The day before had been spent collecting clues of the other Shee's departure and a desperate search for hidden supplies of tea bags. As best he could tell, the Grendels had been making rather a mess of things and some sort of creature had been incubated in a very large test tube in the communal laboratories. He wasn't able to determine the thing's final size, but indications were it was large enough to hold a goodly number of Shee as well as a selection of plants and animals within itself. The Shee figured it had been a spaceship of some sort, based upon the genetic remnants strewn about some of the other underground laboratories. And since it wasn't anywhere about, it stood to reason that it was somewhere else entirely.

He wondered if they had taken the Ettins - they'd certainly come in handy now - but he hadn't seen any yet. They would have taken their precious Norns, but definitely would have left the Grendels behind. Frankly, he wasn't really that bothered by the lack of Shee company, but was somewhat upset to find the planet's supply of tea and biscuits was nearly non-existent. Impetus enough to find out where his companions had gone.

He soon decided that he needed his own transportation off the planet. There was plenty of spare genetic material around. He was sure he could improve on the other Shee's genetic tinkering so he set to work germinated a test tube with some of the extra genetic muck. "Goodness," he thought, "I'll certainly need a larger test tube."

 

Day 4 (Albian Year 1800) My transport creature is nearly half grown. I've decided to call her Capillata. I'm not sure it's actually female, but since ships are commonly named after the female of the species, I've decided to follow convention. I still need to figure out a way to escape the Albian atmosphere. I've not found many Norns on the planet, and only one Grendel so far, but I have found a couple of Ettins who I have pressed into my service. Still no tea to be found.

Day 8 (Albian Year 1800) Capillata is outgrowing her 10th test tube. She may need to be transferred to the Eastern Ocean soon to complete her growing cycle. I have begun to regret having taken on the two Ettins. I asked them to tidy my quarters and came back late one night to find that they had tidied every last piece of furniture out of the room. The room is certainly clean, but I've still not found a fresh shirt or a single pair of socks.

Day 14 (Albian Year 1800) I've gathered together a variety of plants and creatures for the voyage. Most importantly, I believe I have come up with a suitable alternative to tea. It's far too frothy and seems to taste best cold, but I think it will be acceptable once aged.

Day 28 (Albian Year 1800) Capillata is fully grown and seems anxious to be away. I've come up with a extremely clever (if I do say so myself) launch method. Now, if I could find a way of getting Capillata into the old volcano. Unfortunately, my launch method may increase the radioactivity down below, but I hardly think anyone will be around long enough to notice.

Day 42 (Albian Year 1800) The barbed docking protrusion on Capillata is fully formed and she's now been transferred to an are below the inactive volcano. I've designed food pods for the main living area and those are also nearly fully grown. I've decided not to take the Ettins but have left them explicit instructions as to what to do once I've left. I'm not hoping for much, but I can at least say I've done what I can. I'm taking Norn genomes, but won't take any from the planet. I do hope they will be alright...

 

The Volcano & Aftermath
 

In earth year 1998, the world of Albia began to shake.  Lava began to spill from the Purple Mountains. The Shee City began to crack with the forces of an earthquake.  Weather began to rip the surface of the world apart, revealing a rich new section of the world - the previously hidden 'Shee labs' - where norns had been cared for and machinery built.  The volcano completely changed the surface of Albia, spurting new objects and animals into the air from below, where they'd been living ever since the shee left the world.

In amongst the rubble came the Ettin.  The species that used to help the shee by cleaning the labs.  They too could now strive on the surface. Also released was some more norn eggs that the shee had been studying, and some grendels too - which, throughout their years of being accidentally locked away, had evolved differently.  This can only be bad for Albia.

Since the volcano and earthquakes, a diverse change in the weather has occurred, and now seasons, which before the eruption was never possible or even a concept, now rip through Albia, spreading rain and snow.

Who knows what other planets are around... It is reported that there is a planet thriving with Grendels somewhere around. This planet is similar to Albia in a couple of ways, one being its two dimensional structure.

It is also believed that a thriving Shee Civilisation is inhabiting a new truly three dimensional world somewhere outside of Albia's solar system.


When the Capillata reached orbit, the last Shee adjusted for the path of the Shee Ship and took off. To make up for lost time he also crossed a thousand years of time to hopefully meet the other Shee before they abandoned ship. Almost instantly he was there, and docked with the ship using specially engineered docking clamps.
 
The Last Shee travels and experiments are detailed in the Stories section.