Part One -- The Lost Civilization Point of View

The Birth of the Lost Civilization
By the time that the Sivata first arrived on Earth via the ArcWay, some 12,000 years ago, little remained of the small and temporary colonial site of the ArcBuilders, abandoned 108,000 years earlier.  At the time of the brief ArcBuilder reign on Earth, the world had been in the midst of the Eemian Interglacial, a quite warm period (warmer even than the Holocene interglacial) perfectly suited for the ArcBuilder species.  But the aliens had vanished after a mere 2,000 years or so on Earth, barely enough time to establish their otherwise distinctive footprint common on so many other worlds.  What was left was the great adobe-like hive structure in which the ArcBuilder culture had lived, abandoned to the tropical elements prevalent in what would become the western coast of India, in the Gulf of Cambay.

Since that time, the Earth fell into a new glacial period 114,000 years ago, the Wisconsin Glaciation, and weather conditions in the region of Cambay became somewhat more seasonally extreme.  The now ancient ArcBuilder ruins, already quite dilapidated, were all but erased by large storm systems.  All that remained was a flat grassy plain surrounding the enigmatic monument of the ArcWay.  Little was changed 12,000 years ago, when the ArcWay once again came to life and the Sivata stepped onto the surface of Earth.

The only major difference, really, between the time of the ArcBuilders and the Sivata was the presence of a new species in the region.  Humanity had evolved, and a population had long since moved into this lush river valley.  While being a primitive hunter-gatherer society, this population of Humans also demonstrated the species hallmark of curiosity.  The movement of strange, even frightening aliens, and their construction of a large stone base with the aid of technology that would have been nothing sort of magical to these Humans, did nothing to scare them away.  Indeed, several representatives of this group eventually made contact with the Sivata, who were themselves delighted to have found a species both intelligent and curious, and friendly enough to come in contact with another, entirely different species.

In short order Human and Sivata began to work together, despite the physical differences between the two species.  Initially the Humans believed the aliens to be their spirits personified, come from the Otherworld to make a heaven on Earth.  But each successive generation of Human began to take more objective views of the Sivata, until the time came that they knew those beings to be, in essence, no different from themselves.  Of course, concurrent with this evolving view was the evolving capabilities of the Humans.  New generations learned new skills, fostered by the Sivata, and by some 150 years after the arrival of the Sivata, the Human population was well knowledgeable about basic Sivata technology.

It would be several more generations, however, until the Humans began to enter into mainstream Sivata society.  The Sivata, possessing a naturally and enhanced lifespan that was far greater than Humanity, watched with pleasure as their wards began to excel within the new environment that had been created.  Humans and Sivata worked well together in the Cambay Valley, as it was known, and there was little sign of tensions or other ill effects as a result of Humans and aliens living in such close concert.  Indeed, by a thousand years after the arrival of the Sivata, Humans had become nearly fully integrated into the Sivata social structure. It was at roughly this point that Humanity truly first became an interstellar species.

The Expansion Into the Local Neighborhood
The height of the Sivata presence on Earth began at about 11,000 years ago.  While the Sivata polity was largely unbroken over their many interstellar holdings, thanks to the ArcWays, they advanced on specific worlds relatively slowly, reflecting their general philosophy of expansion and use of a star system as needs dictated.  To them, the technological maturation of the fostered Human culture necessitated a shift in their dealings with the people.  The Cambay Valley was rich with resources, but the growing advanced Human population had begun to strain those resources.  Rather than move outward and displace other Human populations, still living at primitive levels, the Humans began to move through the ArcWays and colonize other worlds.

The first such extrasolar colonies were established on worlds that the Sivata had already colonized themselves.  This first stage of Humanity's movement from Earth was heavily regulated, and typically were composed of up to 200 individuals, and provided land not far from the Sivata population center.  These small colonies, generally left to themselves, made good use of their independence, although no ties were severed with their benefactors.  In many cases, the two populations eventually drifted back together and lived much as they had on Earth, to their mutual benefit.

A second wave of extrasolar colonization occurred some 10,800 years ago, and this time it was a much more independent affair.  Worlds that had been surveyed by the Sivata, but not yet colonized by them, were allocated to the continually growing Human population.  While the Sivata often helped Humans establish themselves on these worlds, the colonies themselves were largely independent, with only occasional supplies being delivered by the Sivata or Humans from Earth.  The final wave of colonization began 10,600 years ago, and these were the most independent yet.  Worlds that were known to the Sivata, but which had not yet been surveyed, were taken over by the Human colonists.  n some cases the colonies eventually returned, finding some planets simply too harsh to maintain a presence upon.  But many did not return, and maintained only cursory communications with their fosterers and their Earthly kin.

For the most part, however, this Lost Civilization maintained close ties with both the Sivata and Earth.  Because of the ArcWay network, an interstellar civilization was possible, and it was composed of dozens of worlds.  Humanity itself began to diverge in many directions, both culturally and socially, but always they remained largely dependent on the ArcWays for supplies, and the Sivata for technological support.  For the hundreds of years that Humanity lived off world, this was a satisfactory set up.  Social specialization was possible when a society had little to worry about in regards to food or technological repairs.

On Earth, the Lost Civilization had long since become highly integrated with the Sivata, to the point where it had unwittingly become highly dependent on their fosterers.  While they gained a high proficiency in the operation of Sivata technology, their knowledge of how to construct it, even of how to repair it, was severely limited.  And this would come back to haunt them.

The Lost Civilization and Earth
While the Lost Civilization was growing and learning under the tutelage of the Sivata, the rest of Humanity on Earth continued to live on in a primitive hunter and gatherer state under the often weighty presence of the continuing ice age.  Both the Sivata and the Lost Civilization were well aware of this, but because of the Sivata's unwillingness to travel beyond their colonial region, save for exploratory forays, little attention was paid to the rest of the world's approximate ten million population.  Even the Lost Civilization itself was more interested in their new found technological advances than they were with the rest of Humanity.

This changed around 10,900 years ago when individuals from the Lost Civilization, apparently developing an interest in anthropological social and cultural studies, began to travel the world to study the various different populations.  With time, this led to some small outposts in various locations in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.  While the interaction between these outposts and the primitive Humans remained largely restricted, reflecting a Human-centric opinion of non-interference that was quite opposed to the more liberal attitudes held by the Sivata, some cross-over influences were inevitable.  In many cases the representatives of the Lost Civilization were thought of as wise men, in other cases they were considered deities.  But never did those cultural scientists take advantage of their brethren.

However, there would be a lasting impact that, at this point in history, could not even be guessed at, and it would come with the nearly overnight fall of the entire Sivata polity.

The Fall of the Sivata and the Consequences
The conquest of the Sivata by the entities which inhabited the ArcWay network itself (trapped there by the ArcBuilders so many thousands of years before) had been underway for decades before the Sivata finally realized what was going on.  With much of their homeworld already taken over by these entities, often collectively termed "the Enemy", a drastic measure was taken to end the threat.

The Enemy had apparently never attacked Humans, realizing that they did not possess the technological knowledge that was needed to realize their goals.  But they had infiltrated Sivata society to a great degree, to the point where many colonies had begun to be abandoned by 10,550 years ago as the Enemy began to work on achieving their goal.  The Lost Civilization, spread as it was throughout the Local Neighborhood, noted this withdrawal, but largely ignored it as they continued to receive aid from the Sivata in regards to their borrowed technology.  The unaffected Sivata, once they learned the truth about the great change in their brethren and their polity, were thus free to act in a final and decisive manner which would affect neither Human nor any other sapient being that they had encountered.

It was 10,500 years ago, over the span of only a few hours, that representatives of the unaffected Sivata traveled through the ArcWays, bringing with them packages of doom, a final solution that killed off those representatives of the Enemy in the physical world, and which ended with the complete shutdown of the ArcWays.  The Sivata had spread a genetically engineered and highly virulent disease to all the worlds of the ArcWays, one tailored to kill the Sivata themselves, swiftly and decisively.  Spreads by tens of agents, it was released on many worlds in an airborne form.  At a predetermined point, other Sivata agents shutdown the ArcWay, much as the ArcBuilders themselves had, leaving the entire network little more than a collection of inert monuments on many different worlds.  thus, those Sivata which escaped the disease were effectively isolated, to eventually succumb to either age or the effects of being possessed by the Enemy.

The net result of all of this for the Lost Civilization was immediate and complete isolation.  Those off world colonies found themselves in command of technologies that they did not truly understand, and though they could operate them, they could not repair or reconstruct them.  In some cases, environmental concerns would overcome them, and many such colonies went extinct.  In other cases, programs of genetic manipulation in order to adapt to extreme environments were accelerated.  Some were successful, some were not.  And many more colonies simply began to regress as their technology began to wear out.  But for all intents and purposes, these worlds ceased belonging to the Lost Civilization as soon as the ArcWays were shutdown.

On Earth, however, the Lost Civilization struggled on.  The center of the Lost Civilization remained within the Cambay Valley, where the people had become much more insular as they struggled to maintain their culture in the face of the loss of their fosterers.  And for several generations they did so, for while they could no longer repair or reconstruct the Sivata technology, they were able to keep it in good working order for some time.  The old outposts throughout the world became settlements in their own right, one of many ways they attempted to preserve their society.  For a period of time, beginning around 10,000 years ago (8000 BCE), forays into the Solar System were begun, an attempt to gather resources from asteroids, the Moon, even Mars.  However, these programs were largely ineffective due to the lack of expertise by the Lost Civilization, now grown even less in the five hundred years since the fall of the Sivata, and they largely ceased by 7800 BCE.  As if a signal, the Lost Civilization began to degrade rapidly after this.

All settlements, including the Valley of Cambay, began to lose control of their failing technology, and the economies began to shift to an agrarian base. High tech items began to find themselves in storage, while others began to be taken apart, the metals recycled into more useful items, such as plows and other farm implements.  In other regions of the world, settlements began to grow insular, the old methods of transportation breaking down and likewise begin rendered for their raw materials.  As the generations wore on, these settlement inhabitants interbred with local populations, eventually finding themselves adopting local customs and local social structures.  In Cambay, the old Sivata colony had become the last true bastion of the Lost Civilization.  But the ice age was likewise ending, and the world's climate was changing.  In the face of this, the Lost Civilization had no power.

At about 10,000 years ago (8000 BCE), the ice age had begun to end, and the great ice sheets began to retreat from the land.  As a result of this slow but inexorable melting the world ocean levels began to rise.  Much of the Cambay Valley became inundated, largely crippling the Lost Civilization's ability to feed themselves, as much of their farmland began to disappear beneath the encroaching sea.  In only two hundred years the local population had fallen greatly, reduced by disease and starvation, but primarily by emigration to other regions of prehistoric India.  By 7500 BCE, the single remaining Lost Civilization settlement had been reduced to a few thousand individuals, desperately hanging onto traditions and memories that had come close to becoming little more than ceremony and myth.

It was in 7500 BCE, however, that the final hammer fell on the Lost Civilization.  A massive earthquake centered off of the coast of India struck, reaching an approximate level of 9.5 on the Richter Scale.  This megaquake lowered most of the Cambay region, above and below the still rising oceans, by as much as 20 meters.  What regions that weren't sunk due to the quake were swept clean by the resulting massive tsunami.  In a single day the last true bastion of the Lost Civilization was destroyed, leaving behind only a handful of witnesses.  Tales abounded locally and spread abroad for generations, but by and large all knowledge of the Lost Civilization was lost.  No relics remained, for even the long silent ArcWay had been sunk and buried beneath ocean sediments.  Tribesmen began to settle the new coast line, and around the world Humans began to develop agriculture anew.

Modern history began to evolve, and would lead to a new era for Human kind on the Earth and in space.  but it would remain long millennia before anyone discovered the truth behind Man's first foray into the local Galactic neighborhood.

Introduction and Notes

It is somewhat difficult to both design an alien species objectively, and to provide the reader with information on them while preserving the mystery.  Indeed, the two halves seem to be mutually exclusive.  Therefore, the general format of this page will be to provide information from two different point of views.

The first part is a history of the species written from an omniscient point of view, in order to provide a full spectrum of information. Even items that a dedicated scientist from the year 3501 CE, the "present year", would not know shall be presented here, or in future updates to the site.

The second part of the page will deal with what a dedicated member of the Shostak Institute of Earth would know.  These two views can be shown concurrently, without a redundancy of information, for one will be largely a historical overview, while the other will deal almost exclusively with the impact that such a species, or even the simple knowledge of such a species, will have on "modern" Humanity.

Updates

June 29, 2006:  Completed this first draft of the Lost Civilization.

June 28, 2006:  A continuation of page construction.

June 27, 2006:  Established this page and the first bits of its data.

Part Two -- The Shostak Institute Entry

Systematics
Species Time Frame:  11,000 to 7500 BCE
Current Status:  The culture itself is extinct, but their descendants live on as the many different Lost Colonies, located throughout the Local Neighborhood.
Known Worlds:  Ruins and descendent cultures are present on several worlds throughout the Local Neighborhood.
Impact on Sol System:  Originated on Earth, and may well have had some influence on varies primitive cultures of the period, giving rise to certain modern myths and legends.  There is, however, no evidence to definitively prove this.

Classification:  Homo sapiens sapiens
Biochemistry:  Carbon-based
Morphology:  Typical human body form, with an average height of 5.5 feet.  Racial lineage is largely proto-Indian, but isolation within the Cambay Valley has brought about some specific racial characteristics, including typically aquiline noses, high brows, and prominent chins.  Skin  and other coloring is conjecture, but likely reflects their lineage with darker colors.
Environment:  Cambay was a tropical region during the time of the Lost Civilization, although presumably these people were capable of adapting to various other climes.
Reproduction:  Sexual reproduction within the normal Human parameters.  Specific morals surrounding this remain unknown.
Intelligence:  Like all Humans of even this ancient period, the people of the Lost Civilization were very intelligent and adaptable, as evidenced by their ability to be integrated within an alien, high-tech culture.  Their inability to maintain their civilization after the disappearance of the Sivata, however, may owe more to their dependence on the Sivata for technical support rather than any problem with technological repair.

It is thus ironic that the belief in such mythical cultures should have lead to the very earliest indications that there was something hidden in mankind's past, something remarkable.  From the earliest beginnings of archaeology, the occasional enigmatic artifact would be recovered from ancient ruins.  Many times wall paintings or scenes painted on pots would be discovered, their meaning ambiguous.  To some, they spoke of a mysterious past when the Earth was visited by aliens.  Most viewed such theories as untenable at best, ridiculous at worst, and wrote off these findings as the result of free imagination by ancient artisans.  And indeed, most of these did not speak of ancient aliens.  But they did, it would turn out, echo memories of a much more distant past, when Humans were indeed under the tutelage of aliens.

The first concrete hints of this came in 2001 CE, when ruins in the submerged Gulf of Cambay were announced to the public.  Having been discovered some years earlier, they had been briefly explored by side-scan sonar.  The resulting images revealed the regular outlines of building foundations, buried under ages of sediment.  When announced in 2001, however, few people believed the claims that they dated back some 9,000 years.  Archaeologists would work with these difficult to reach ruins for decades more, off and on as world politics retreated and interfered, but their true significance would not be realized for nearly 300 years more.

In 2276 CE, an excavation team on the asteroid 22 Kalliope, working to expand habitation tunnels, broke through into a known but previously ignored subterranean chamber.  There had been some speculation that this chamber had once been open to space, as the surface signs seemed to indicate that time had sealed the roof with ice deposits.  Indeed, on the surface of the asteroid, the chamber's roof was clearly marked as a hazard, one of many such regions on the asteroid, for the fear of the unwary breaking through the crust and falling into the chamber.  But after entering into the chamber, the crews discovered that someone had indeed fallen in.

A body, half buried beneath the remains of the old roof, lay in the far corner of the house-sized chamber, only the upper body visible, arms reaching out as if the person had been attempting to reach for something, or had been attempting to pull himself out.  On closer examination, it was discovered that the victim of the fall was encased within a completely unfamiliar, highly stylized spacesuit, one that was quite unknown to the Amtech workers.  Initially believing the body to have been an independent prospector from a few decades earlier (an uncommon but not unknown practice), the find was reported to Amtech authorities and left in situ.  Once the authorities began examining the body, however, it did not take long to realize that the woman (as she was discovered to be) had been trapped in that collapse for 9,900 years, a massive incongruity to known Human history.

The discovery of the Kalliope Woman, as she became known, was the catalyst for teasing out evidence of the Lost Civilization from the veils of history.  So named because of its existence lost in the folds of history, this ancient culture was backtracked by analyzing some of the metals that composed the space suit of the Kalliope Woman.  Matching the metallurgical signature of the Indian Subcontinent, all eyes were turned towards ancient ruins in that region, and eventually they fell on the ruins in the Gulf of Cambay.  Artifacts, long buried within the sediments that covered that ancient city, were recovered and found to be of a technical nature that not only far surpassed the stone age cultures of the time, but some of them were of composites that had not yet been conceived of by modern Humanity.

Other ruins were eventually discovered on Mars and on the Moon, long rumored but never investigated due to the apparent ludicrousness that such reports had conveyed.  Curiously, the nature of these ruins indicate resource procurement, but at a level that seems haphazardly at best.  All of these ruins date from roughly the same period, between 8500 and 7800 BCE, and some have suggested that the Lost civilization had been engaged in the search for resources to support their civilization, which may have been suffering from adverse effects arising from the ending of the last ice age.

Over the next few centuries, however, more indications would be found of the Lost Civilization, spread across the planet, and it was eventually determined that it had been in decline for the same period that they had been searching for resources off-world.  Because of this, it was clear that there must have been a more advanced period for the Lost Civilization, not to mention a period during which these remarkable people had begun to develop their advanced culture.  But the lack of any such findings was puzzling indeed.  And indeed, it would be many centuries before the key to this arising would be found.

The Lost Colonies and their Implications
In 2808 CE, the Hegemony was served a major shock.  Returning from interstellar space came a colonial vessel, first launched back in 2245 CE as a part of the New hope Sleeper Colony Project.  Heavily modified, this vessel was only a return to the nest by an ancient colony, but it was the first contact with an even older population of Humans.  The ship had returned from 82 Eridani, and bore representatives of both the colony and Humans who had settled the world during the height of the Lost Civilization.

These people reported the existence of the ArcWay network, known to them through fragmented ancient records, as well as how to reactivate that system, a task which would take two gates working in concert.  With the discovery of these ArcWays, and the fact that there was at least one community of Humans whose origins dated back to the time of the Lost Civilization, the evidence for extraterrestrial influence on Earth in the distant past was quite compelling.  The Tsevordes, from 82 Eridani, had no knowledge of who had helped them reach their distant world, although they spoke of hints of ancient beings that might have been responsible.  They had found ruins on their world not made by Human hands, although the connection could not be proven.

In 2856 CE, during the course of the Renewed Contact Program by the Hegemony, this proof was at long last discovered.  A team exploring a world orbiting Xi Scorpii found themselves surrounded by the ruins of an advanced civilization.  Belonging to the Sivata, this species was eventually proven to have made wide use of the ArcWays, and had apparently colonized dozens of worlds in the network.  Among these was Earth, at a period of time which coincided with the Lost Civilization.  At about the same time, other worlds hosting transplanted human populations (since termed Lost Colonies) possessed archaeological evidence pointing to the genesis of their culture.  It was becoming clearer that these Lost Colonies, and the Lost Civilization itself, had possessed a common origin, and had seen their beginnings with the advent of the Sivata on Earth.

In the end, it is believed that all surviving Lost Colonies have been accounted for, and that the extent of the Lost Civilization throughout the Local Neighborhood has been mapped.  But the possibility always remains for colonial settlements that had been made without the benefit of the ArcWays.  Indeed, if this is true, then there may still be brothers to Humanity, spread out among the stars, waiting to be contacted by their long lost homeworld.