Kaleida's Backstory
A few years prior to Kaleida's current day, the planet had its first contact with aliens from other worlds.
In the year equivalent to 2015, Kaleida was discovered by a trading space ship from an anonymous civilisation. It immediately became apparent to the crew that they had discovered something special: a planet rich with life, including intelligent life, unrecorded as such on the intergalactic survey. They reported the planet to the Intergalactic Untouched Planet Committee (IUPC) in order to initiate plans for the planet's protection.
The IUPC sent a representative team to the planet, who introduced themselves to a member of one of the tribes located along one of the subtropical beaches. The committee requested to meet with the most advanced people the tribesperson could direct them to in order to discuss the reasons for their visit, however the individual stated that to the best of their knowledge there was no more advanced society around than their own. This society was the mukash.
The mukashs' experience in brokering deals made discussions as easy as could have been expected. The mukash tribesperson arranged for the IUPC representatives to speak with her tribal leader, who in turn arranged for a meeting between all of the local tribal leaders and the IUPC. The series of meetings that followed took place within the Sunset Cathedra.
During this meeting the IUPC explained the nature of their visit and offered to guide the mesolithics through the process of protecting their planet from invasion of their land, for any reason that may cause changes or damage to the planet. To facilitate this, the IUPC stated that they required data about environmental pollution levels (which was fully expected to be nil at the time; this was later confirmed), population levels of various keystone species, and to be permitted to monitor Kaleida for unsanctioned alien activity on an ongoing basis. They also requested permission to install teams of global rangers to live at strategic points on Kaleida, to help facilitate this research and enact any protective measures required in case of environmental damage, including but not limited to invasions, claiming of land, mining, or poaching. Finally they explained the concept of ecotourism and requested permission to allow a small number of tourists to visit Kaleida, in order to contribute to the funding of the ranger teams. They explained that the research teams could be self-funded.
All of this required the active support of the mukash, kasulam, and pinno' grath, which was given, with varying degrees of willingness.
Outcome
After a number of meetings, the natives agreed to allow for the ranger, research, and vacation groups to visit Kaleida in return for the best possible protection from the more exploitative members of the intergalactic community. The IUPC is confident that it can deliver this.
The IUPC advised that social integration of these groups with the global community was advisable, without imposing on the local ecosystem, i.e., to live on-site in compressed-space facilities donated by the kz-cutl, while being supplied with their own food as delivered regularly by space shuttle. This helps foster a sense of equality to redress the enormous power imbalance between the off-worlders and the natives.
The IUPC also explained the concepts of finance (in order to fully explain the necessity for vacationers), space compression, drone technology, teleportation, small-scale renewable energy-generation, and radio. This was to prepare them for the understanding that they would need to install repeater towers for a radio system, to convey the harmlessness of the drones and shuttle vehicles used to support the rangers and research teams, to explain why such small buildings could house dozens of off-worlders, and to inform them of the usual preferred mode of transport on and off-planet going forward. They accepted all of this, however their understanding of the latter forms of technology was understandably lacking in depth.
Overall, they agreed on a lifestyle for the working teams that is detailed in the Living document.
Concerns were raised at various stages, including over the physiological nature of the rangers, researchers, and holidaymakers/vacationers, as the IUPC representative team members included a variety of alien ethnicities, some of which the Kaleida natives found alarming. The IUPC agreed to introduce the tribal chiefs to representatives of any new species who wished to visit Kaleida.
All of this was agreed to on the understanding that other, more advanced, species may be discovered elsewhere on Kaleida, and if so, that further agreements may need to be made with them.
Subsequent to these agreements being made, the IUPC began work to source the necessary teams of global rangers and researchers, and prepared for the arrival of a few vacationers.
Read more:
Global Rangers | Researchers | Vacationers
Location Spotlight
Kaleida has been divided into many regions, each 42.5km (26.4 miles) by 42.5km (26.4 miles), to make their protection and logging manageable. Each has its own set of coordinates. This web site focuses on location AEQ, 294.
