Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1999 02:31:54 -0500
From: Sam Lea <vanrion@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: A Destiny of Crystal - Preface

This is a story that I have been working on for a long time, this part
amazingly enough does what all prefaces do, give you some background
information about the world that you are going to be reading about. I
have a great deal written that I am changing around, so I plan on
posting as often as possible.  Now for the standard stuff. This story
contains males having sex with males. If you do not like, are not old
enough or for any other reason should not be reading this, don't. Polite
criticism accepted, flames ignored, praise sought after.
vanrion@worldnet.att.net

Preface

	You know that there was a time long ago when we looked up at the
heavens and they seemed endless. But now times have changed, to begin with
we are no longer confined to just one planet, and the payment for this was
that the skies that were once endless have changed to places that we can
go, explore and live.  Sometimes I wish skies were endless again. I think
that the endless sea of stars found boundaries when we discovered space
flight, and figured out how to build viable colonies on other planets.
After we had colonized all of the planets within our solar system, we began
looking outward. As we looked outward the distances once again seemed
endless. Then our scientists discovered cryogenics, and once again what
before had seemed infinite, was now close at hand.
	We have all agreed that cryogenics was the first fence that was put
on the meadow of the universe. You would go to sleep, get frozen, travel to
your destination, and then wake up not a day older, even though a hundred
years could have passed from the night that you went to sleep and the
morning that you woke up. It gave us a sense of immortality, or at least
the illusion of having an endless amount of time.  Cryogenics allowed all
of us; humans, elves, dwarves, fairies and were-kind, to travel between the
stars.
	We discovered when we were still colonizing the planets in our own
solar system that magic didn't work in the vast expanse of space, but it
did work on other planets.  For some reason, which neither our scientists
nor magicians could discover, nor could our priests provide an explanation
for, the forces of magic would not work beyond the embrace of a planet. But
we accepted it and went on.  We had three religions now; science, magic,
and our faith in our gods. But we had lost our faith. There was a time of
legends when the gods would talk to us and help us personally, but now that
happened no more. Occasionally there were still miracles but they were few
and far between. Sometimes it seemed as though our gods had been lost, or
simply banished. But we did still believe, well some of us at least.
	Then our scientists, as if almost sensing our despair and loss of
faith, created a miracle.  They called it the Rainbow Arc of Fire.  And
when they presented it to us we all knew why.  The night that the
scientists and colonizing companies sent the first colony ship with the new
drive, the night sky above our homeworld lit up with a blazing rainbow
streaking from horizon to horizon, which startled and amazed us all. Now we
traveled on the light of a rainbow. Our lights spread throughout the
universe, as we explored, and colonized new worlds.  Cryogenics became a
little bit cheaper, the colonies went out further, and the universe shrank
a little more.
	After a few years of sitting on their laurels, the scientists came
up with another miracle.  Magicians performed miracles everyday, maybe the
scientists felt that they had to compete.  Whatever the reason, they
created better computers, which in turn gave us another world of perception
to discover and explore.  First they called it virtual reality, and then
after a few improvements, they called it ultra-reality.  This new reality
provided new ways of looking at space and time, thus creating a new and
better way of piloting our starships, and new ways of communicating.
	Building upon this latest miracle, we or rather our society of
scientists discovered faster-than-light travel. We then began to breach the
realm of hyperspace, and we cut the waves of its surface as smoothly as a
dolphin jumps between the waves of an ocean. Colonies went further, and
more and more people set out for newer frontiers. But that was a time of
peace and prosperity, historians have dubbed that time the Unified
years. The years when we were all one people, but alas that time has been
lost. And a new era begun.
	And with the new era, came the War of the Stars. Great starships
were built, designed only to destroy others, and they were armed to a
fare-thee-well. Most of the dwarves and elves banded together, taking all
of their engineering and magical expertise with them and forming a new
empire.  They called themselves the Ashken- Fei, and many fell beneath
their mighty armadas.  The were-kind stuck together in this battle for
territory, with a name known only to themselves, building ships that
changed shape as they, themselves did.  The humans, having always been a
peace loving, family oriented people, banded together and called themselves
the Leishans. They stayed out of the fight as much as possible, protecting
themselves only when fired upon.  For the most part the other races left
them alone, although occasionally one clan or another would try to take a
human planet. Of the fairies, not much is known about what they did, other
than a few unsubstantiated rumors that they provided espionage services for
all of the races. Loss of life was felt by all of the people, and the loss
was the terrible price of pride and prejudice.
	The war went on for several thousand years. After all of this time,
no one remembered what they war had been started over, only that they had
always been fighting. Out of the darkness of this tragedy a guiding light
appeared. This light came in the form of a child of all the races who
traveled to the home worlds in a graceful white ship name the Lumia.  After
meeting with this great visionary, the leaders called an end to the battle,
and Visha lead the races to a new era of peace and understanding.  With
this new peace the society of scientists finally reunited.  With their
reunion came another discovery, the gating system.
	The gating system was a new engine that could open a door between
two points and ignore the distance between. They called it the Visha Gate
to honor the one who had opened a new door and led them to peace.
	One of the other things that Visha had done away with was money.
Communication had become instant and in an attempt to do away with crime,
Visha suggested that money be completely reduced to information.
Everyone's retinal pattern and handprint was scanned and logged in a
computer.  That computer was duplicated a million times by magic, and then
each computer was placed on a planet and tied into the communications
net. Crime went down but did not disappear. Space-Piracy took hold for
there were many things that people did not trust to be sent through the
gate.
	Hunger was eliminated, as food was made plentiful both by magic and
science. Guilds were created to train those who could use magic or had the
gifts.  The gifts are what we call empathy, telepathy, and such.
	Visha disappeared and no one knows what happened to her.
	Unfortunately without her to guide the people the peace that she
created disappeared with her, and once again the spirit of war re-awoke
with in the people, but not nearly as bad as before. Yet the universe cried
out for something to be done, for her children once again needed a
savior. And so she set out to do something about it. This is the story that
we now begin.