Unfortunately, seemingly little is there. The past achievements of my people are all but guesswork by the Itreans and Humans of today. We continue to watch Earth as it goes through the Paleocene Era. The continents are moving farther and farther apart from one another. It is fascinating that at one time, almost all of the continents were supposedly together.
What is believed is that sometime after the asteroid impact was that my people either worked with the other surviving growing intelligent sharks and dinosaurs. We had small towns where we harvested the food, developed our own religions, and even had what you called a civilization. Supposedly, it took almost six million years for the human race to become what it is today. The Itreans had plenty of time for 66 million years to finally progress to what it is now before the arrival of humankind. Where those bones of my people are at is a mystery, but perhaps it lies in the great ocean depths waiting to be uncovered.
This leads to the inevitable conclusion of an intelligent growing civilization of any world. What happened to that civilization? It is a theory that I best surmise of my people that the peak of our society was during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. This was a time where Itrea was the hottest at being around an average temperature of 30 degrees Celsius. The asteroid impact still left lingering consequences upon our people. Carbon Dioxide emissions were higher than expected, causing the temperatures to be on par with the era of dinosaurs. Life was starting to adapt to this increased amount of heat and supposedly flourished. However, all good things eventually come to an end. The humans, unfortunately, have no fundamental belief in what caused the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum to come to an end or what started it. All that my people must have known was that everything was getting colder.
It must have been gradual, but the effects were substantial. It is my firm belief that the Itreans evolved much slower than humans. Even if we did have brains to think like them or beliefs that coincided with them, we operated differently in the end. We were at one with the environment, and we lived as simple people would. We survived until we started to see that our world was getting colder and colder. Desperation leads to innovation. All the civilizations got together and finally lifted up their hands to try to find out why the world was changing. It was here that we created the first rockets that eventually began to traverse orbit. Our technology was still primitive, but we had enough that we were learning about the Sol system.
There is an ancient religion that no longer exists in the Itrean clans. This is known as "Itrea'Nolala'Ko" or "The Slow Armageddon of Itrea" in the human tongue. This belief would span into other religions, but the common belief must have been where the Itreans had learned of the same possible fates of Venus and Mars. These were worlds that once supposedly held life on them, at least to the Itrean beliefs at the time. Itrea was slowly changing, and the Itrean people experienced a traumatic event of an asteroid collision that would decimate trillions in the deep ancient past. To them, the Itreans must have felt that the world of Itrea was doomed to be destroyed or made uninhabitable. More resources were being devoted to the developing civilization to encourage outer space travel and find new places to live before Itrea would experience true Armageddon.
While most of this is still guesswork, there is another aspect in the ancient Itrean history that suggests something interesting. The humans never invented space folding gate travel. They instead reverse engineered it from alien wreckage on Mars in the 23
rd
century. Was the technology ours? Unfortunately, we don't have that answer. So little information is available.....in the end, we have to go by legends and myths.
It is my belief that the ancient Itreans never really reached Mars or even Luna, for that matter. Their technology was even more basic than the humans. Something fell into our laps, and all of it rests on a single legend......the Kiline.
The Kiline are often looked at as the "The First Ones." This name resides in the Itrean language because they are believed to be the first sentient alien race that we ever encountered. To some of us, they are gods. To some, they are travelers with incredible power. We generally look at them as the guides to the universe. Perhaps even the Cicerone that has been guiding you in the first several stories might actually be one of these Kiline, to begin with. In the end, I have no answer to provide.
Whatever are their true names, the Kiline must have had pity for the Itrean people. They provided something to us that would revolutionize our civilization. It was so important that it would even help the human race as well. The technology was that of gate folding technology. With it, we could open up wormholes and jump to new solar systems. Even if it was the only piece of equipment, the gift of the travelers was one that we would remember in legend, even if others claimed we simply discovered it ourselves.
Whether it is true or not doesn't matter. With the ability to fold space, the Itreans and their ancient belief that their world would come to an end drove the people to space exploration. With gate folding technology, they eventually found new worlds to settle on. The ancient religion of Itrea'Nolala'Ko would help push the many developing clans to abandon the planet. It must have been rough. Unlike the 22
nd
century "Earth to Mars Exodus," for the Itreans, everyone began to pack up their belongings as they got on the ships. New awaited worlds were available that were far better than Itrea was ever imagined. The Promised Land awaited, and Itrea was to be forgotten. For the ones that possibly stayed on the planet, it is apparent that they never made it.
Instead, we say goodbye to this world. We begin to leave this planet as it would eventually have a new name.....Earth. A new civilization and intelligent race known as humanity would be brought forth as the world would undergo a Great Ice Age to further challenge life on it. To give credit, the humans managed to do well if they were able to survive such low hostile temperatures and still become what it is today. Perhaps they managed to do something that even the Itreans were too fearful of challenging.
Earth shrinks in the background. We get to faster and faster speeds. We move faster than the speed of the light as Sol begins to shrink down to a tiny speck in the galactic background. Just like everything else, the small yellow dwarf star is just a glowing dot in the vast amounts of other bright dots in the blackness of space. If only everyone could experience this form of travel, it would be more desirable than gate folding technology. We would begin to see the sheer size of the galaxy alone. We move at faster and faster speeds as the dots start to move. It is like driving through a three-dimensional light shower. We see the heated gases of star clusters in the center to even see Sol is just part of a massive moving series of star filaments orbiting the galactic center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Our destination is one that brings us through the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy. We pass through a massive yellow and orange light that the distant specks of light began to fade. The surrounding environment is so bright that we can barely see anything......with the exception of those that absorb light. It is here that we see clusters of black holes. Most of them are small but are in synchronized orbit with one another. Eventually, these black holes and pulsars would fly into one another to grow in size. We pass by one that is utterly enormous. Perhaps this is Sagittarius A that is part of the heart of the galactic engine that drives the millions of stars around it.
It is an unusual feeling. To see such bright light replaced with black stars rivals what we see of everything else. If sentient life could develop here, then it must feel that the outside is empty nothingness, devoid of life, and devoid of light.
But our destination is not here as we continue to traverse through the heart of the galaxy. Giant stars began to fly past us that are utterly enormous and make Sol seem like a speck of dirt when placed next to it. Beautiful and bright, these stars burn brighter and hotter, but they will fall like so many things....often with a rather large explosion.
Where did the Itrean civilizations travel and develop? Our answer finally comes closer and closer to us. We watch as our eyes adjust to the new light that comes before us. We leave that vast assortment of light and gases that illuminate the cosmos. We continue to watch stars zip past us at an alarming rate. In the end, we have traversed tens of thousands of light-years. We are essentially on the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy. For the Itreans, the Itrea'Nolala'Ko drove us to get as far away from the planet as possible. It made sense that the opposite of the galaxy was the prime choice.
