Sol Access -- a bit of ufology
Sol Access, or
Arilan 'a-Sol was built inside an asteroid, in 1:1 orbital resonance with Earth, in a
horseshoe orbit.
Several such objects have been identified in the past 40 years, notably 3753 Cruithne. Sol Access hasn't; solar array have been set up on its surface, with the primary purpose of providing power for the access control station, and the secondary purposes of minimizing the body's albedo.
Traffic to and from Sol Access could conceivably be detected using current technology, as is the unusual infrared emission profile of the asteroid. The usual process for identifying celestial body is probably ill-suited to the task (it's likely traces appeared in surveys but were dismissed as artifacts in the data).
Access to Earth through the Starways was opened in 1789 (according to our calendar).
The foreign relations of Yttes, so to speak, are traditionally handled by the Human Institute (
Ithyr 'a-Ra), an independant department of the
Smanastyr ('University').
A entirely separate body, the Mediation (
maspalhor) serves as a counterpower. (It is, in essence, a high court handling disputes between components of the Empire.)
As is traditional, the Institute spent two decades observing and studying Earth, trying to keep a low profile. There was, of course, some unavoidable contact. In particular the informants of the
ra'-Yttes did learn a few things about their visitors in the process. (Japan got a good look at an ocean surveyor and her shuttle ca. 1803. The Dogon still had some unexplained astronomical knowledge in the 20th. Kant's treatise
Perpetual Peace bears odd similarities to imperial institutions.)
By the 1810s, the Institute was strongly arguing in favor of formal contact and direct takeover of what they deemed 'problematic polities'.
That approach had fallen out of favor. It had been applied on several planets; one of them, Lohutek, contacted at a somehow comparable technological stage, was proving increadibly troublesome, bringing discredit to the whole approach.
(Several states on Lohutek were at the time, developping their space capability with an eye to building a rival empire, and in fact a small military detachment was placed on the route to Earth to discourage a more hostile takeover.)
A lenghty dispute began between Institute and Mediation. Ultimately, Mediation argued that Earth could not be formally contacted without integration into the Empire, with a high likely of immediate violent consequences Yttes was currently not equipped to deal with.
One unauthorized intervention was, however, approved after the fact: a worrying tendancy towards glaciation had been thwarted around 1805.
The problem with Earth was slavery: a constant in many human societies, but which had reached worrying, almost industrial levels on Earth.
A number of unauthorized interventions were made in the 19th century.
It was a time of black ops, as a number of key people were contacted, often blackmailed and threatened by Institute members.
The American Civil War put an end to this policy. A bitter legal dispute erupted between Institute and Mediation, both sides accusing the other of crimes against humanity.
The whole dispute was rendered moot, anyway, by the eruption of a major political crisis on Lohutek. All resources were focused there for two decades.
The study of Earth began again in earnest in the 1880s. Mediation and Institute administration had changed; both sides grudgingly accepted that the mid-19th century black ops had led to marginal improvement but that direct contact was best left for later.
The truce came to an end in 1897, amid scandal, after three deaths in the crash of a reconnaissance shuttle with Earth people finding at least one of the bodies, and several pieces of the craft. Another issue brought to public attention was that Earth people were now more aware of what they were seeing in the skies.
The Second Lohutek War lasted from 1901 to 1909; by the end public opinion on Yttes was utterly sick of foreign intervention.
Earth observation was carried on almost exclusively by unmanned craft.
Fast-forward to WWII. A whole generation after. New people were in charge at Yttes; the preceding decades had been a period of peace in the Empire.
In 1944, Occun 'a-Thomman, the new head of Earth studies made public a very detailed report on what exactly went on on Earth during both World Wars and the interwar period.
This was, needless to say, more than sufficient to turn public opinion; early nuclear weapons and further hints of an incipient cold war made clear that the policy of non-intervention was needlessly cruel.
The Institute was this time, and surprisingly, not vehemently against contact. Analysing a compilation of imperial contact policy over the last millenia, they had come across the following conclusions:
- Official contact in the late 1940s would necessarily lead to global thermonuclear war, as the rival powers would compete for contact privilege.
- A tendancy towards ethical improvement could and should be improved by very limited intervention and contact with key people.
- Such a policy of restricted contact was indeed unethical, but from an utilitarian perspective would give better results than either full-scale intervention or non-intervention.
- Furthermore the policy could be sustainable in practice.
The decisive argument was a projection of future Earth population, proving that Earth's population would very soon catch up with Yttes itself. In practice this meant that intervention on Earth would be on the scale of the Second Lohutek War.
The Occun doctrine, as implemented from 1947 until now was one of careful observation, limited contact -- with the provision that formal contact and intervention would be initiated in case of nuclear war.
The policy proved moderately successful. It was personnally supervised by Occun, as head of Earth studies and then of the institute. Desman a'-Dejal, his successor in both capacities followed the same policy, with a somewhat less intense focus.
The general consensus is that contact proper will not be a possibility for at least a century. Earth observation is proving, however, more difficult, as Earth technology catches up -- the ubiquity of cell phones, a permanent presence in Space, generally better astronomy make the current secrecy harder to sustain. For the time being, the policy stays in place, with however, a much reduced presence of ra'-Yttes on Earth.
Does that mean that UFO sightings are real, then?
Most of them are fake, or sightings of astronomical phenomena, weather balloons and the like. In general, the skeptical approach is right.
The fact is, the number of alleged UFO sightings is probably way superior to the total number of imperial ships!
What happens -- and what apparently Occun was counting on, based on similar experiences on other planets -- is that many people have reported sightings, even abductions, somewhat inspired by what they heard of real contact and real accidental sightings. The alleged stories are picked up by other people, repeatedly so.
This helps with the general 'discretion approach'. By the 1990s the UFO phenomenon was so discredited that any real cases were immediately forgotten about. (Even very close calls. Shuttles inspecting nuclear power plants were sighted, and in one case followed by the Belgian Army in the early '90s.)
There is a grain of truth to the claims of Nordic aliens or greys. The 'Nordic' trend has sort of a sad backstory -- skin color of ra'Yttes has a very wide range, but most changed their skin and hair color, especially in the 50s. With that skin tone, they found out they could work freely and unimpended in broad daylight without their activities registering as suspicious.
The ra'Yttes are a smaller than Earth humans (not child-sized, though), with proportionally larger eyes. They generally don't attract attention; but seen aboard or near a shuttle, at night, with
'a-Yttes clothes, hairstyle and skin color... they certainly would look eerie to already stunned witnesses.
Note, though, the ra'Yttes never molested humans, implanted anything on them, never performed medical procedures, nor had sex with them. They don't use anal probes, don't molest cattle, and don't draw crop circles.
They're not in league with any governments though individual politicians might have been contacted. The US Air Force is in possession of two 'flying saucers' (actually, reentry shields); assorted bits and pieces of 'a-Yttes craft are probably found in a few hidden warehouses somewhere. (They're most likely bits of heat shield or hull; weird enough to attract attention but nothing you could reverse engineer technology from.)
Eight
ra'-Yttes died on Earth; two bodies were found by humans. One of these was indeed identified as alien, the other was taken for human.
As for abduction and Men In Black... Some people have been taken against their will, and memories have indeed been altered. The origin of the 'Men in Black' legend can't be satisfactorily traced to a specific incident, but the ra'Yttes do dress up while on Earth. (Another way of being labeled 'not suspicious'.)
A brief pronunciation guide.
The stops written <p, th, c, k> are aspirated. <b, j, g> are unaspirated and (depending on speaker) slightly glottalized.
<a, e, i, o> have (more or less) their IPA values. y is an unrounded back vowel: [ɯ]. u is a lax equivalent: [ʌ]~[ʊ]
<c, j> are lamino-palatal (the blade of the tongue touches the hard palate) before front vowels or <y>, but apical otherwise (the tip of the tongue touches the hard palate).
<t, s, n> are apico-alveolar; <th> is lamino-dental (the blade of the tongue touches the teeth.)
<h> has its IPA-value, but is pronounced [ç] before <i, y>. <rh> [r̥] is an unvoiced trill, <lh> is an unvoiced lateral fricative [ɬ]
While I'm at it, <r> and <l> are [rʲ], [lʲ], as are the digraphs <ri>, <li>. Their unvoiced counterparts are <rhi>, <lhi> [r̥ʲ] [ɬʲ}
' is the glottal stop.
The dash in 'a-Yttes, ra'-Yttes is an orthographic convenience. Both are pronounced in one word, with a glottal stop between <a> and <y>
