Maf: A Brief History of the “Original Colonists” — Part Three

The great ship the “Ark Royal,” home to nearly 300.000 refugees from “Old Earth,” rested on the bottom of the ocean, two miles below the surface where it had been for the preceding seven months.

The crash had killed 3,051 passengers and crew, another 17,236 had been injured, many seriously.

Welders, crew and passengers were all ripping up bulkheads, tearing up deck panels, pulling down ceiling panels, all to contribute to the fabrication crews who were constructing a series of deep-sea submersibles.

Electricians were ripping up miles of cabling; plumbers and technicians of every kind were scavenging everything they could to help create the submersibles that would transport the 300,000 crew and passengers from the Ark Royal to land, 208 miles to the west.

The first submersible unloaded just before midnight. The local day, it was learned later, was June 22, 1893. 33 members of the ship stepped out of their rubber boats to the beach. Another 31 followed just moments later.

35 more people arrived 15 minutes later. By dawn, over 2,000 people had encamped just beyond the beach in a field with a sparse sprinkling of trees.

Captain McHenerey and his staff estimated 8,380 trips from ship to shore would have to be made to transport all the passengers and crew and survival equipment, tools, tents and temporary shelters.

Each submersible required six hours to ascend to the surface from the Ark Royal and make its way across the ocean to land at the beach.

313 submersibles would leave at 15 minute intervals. 160 hours later the full complement of the Ark Royal had landed on shore. The first arrivals had already made contact with several local farmers to whom these fields belonged as well as a small group of commercial fishing ships.

But the “Original Colonists” were astonished and amazed at the people they met. The native inhabitants of the planet called “Maf” according to the inhabitants, were all between 7 feet and 8 feet tall. Many were taller, up to 8 feet 4 inches.

297,833 people slowly spread out across the land. Their story was that they were refugees from far east. They had escaped a totalitarian government in a fleet of ships but a typhoon had sunk most of their fleet. They stated that, in the country they came from, all the people were short, ranging in height from 5 feet 2 inches to 6 feet 6 inches for some.

Although skeptical at first, the people they met were friendly and personable and apparently decided to accept the far-fetched story rather than challenge it.

Two months later the people of the Ark Royal had traveled several miles inland. They had planned to build a city which they would call home, but the local farmers and ranchers refused to sell their land.

Along the coast, several fishing villages were also encountered but these people too refused to sell their land.

It was at this time that three government personnel, representing the nation of Peplle, (pronounced ‘Pep-lay’), upon whose land the “Original Colonists” were now encamped, arrived riding tall horse-like creatures.

Over a few days, a bargain was struck. The government would cede a plot of land along the coast to the “Colonists.” This would be a large peninsula, mostly uninhabited, but farmed and ranched by several owners. The government of Peplle would buy this land then cede the entire peninsula to the “Original Colonists” who could use the land as they saw fit. Although a few thousand “Original Colonists” had chosen and would choose to live among the local population, the vast majority elected to travel to the currently unknown peninsula and there, they would build their city.

A very large family group, the Jones’ numbering over 200 members and essentially the leaders of nearly every activity (some had been officers and enlisted among the crew), the Ark Royal had participated in, would be honored with the name of the city — Jonesboro.

From day one, it would already be a big city with a population of just under 300,000.

A few months later the “Original Colonists” arrived at the peninsula; lush, green, hilly, well-watered with cliffs in some places standing above solitary beaches. The farmers and ranchers had all moved farther inland, leaving just a few tools and equipment and three broken-down tractors behind.

Trade developed bringing in food, water, knickknacks and various sundries from the towns and cities across Peplle.

The scientists of the “Original Colonists” traveled back and forth from the burgeoning city to the Ark Royal, retrieving scientific instruments and embryos and seeds of flora and fauna of Old Earth.

Horses, cattle, sheep and goats would be among the first fauna to be developed in the labs. Others included hawks, eagles and deer. Cats and dogs were deemed unnecessary to produce as over 11,000 had been pets aboard the Ark Royal and were now getting accustomed to their new homes.

In 1898, in honor of Vee and his LMT Corporation who had built the Ark Royal and rescued them all from certain death in a nuclear holocaust, the Jones family incorporated another LMT Corporation.

(It was also in 1898, that specialists and aeronautical engineers among the passengers and crew, using metal and electrical equipment they had scrounged from the Ark Royal, built their first aircraft which they only flew at night to avoid being observed by the local population who were thinking about — according to local newspapers — but had not yet built a heavier-than-air aircraft. Equipped with sophisticated radar, radio-detection equipment, infrared detectors and cameras, the plane traveled up and down the coast and several hundred miles inland, mapping, surveying, taking note of cities and towns.)

Over the next 50 years the Colonists built out their city, using local materials, making bricks and concrete, quarrying stone from the cliffs, using the nearby forests for wood.

The people of the Ark Royal slowly spread out across the huge continent. They explored, some settled down in the new communities and cities they discovered while others continued inland.

In 1922, an expedition led by Perold Jones, discovered a great river intersecting the continent.

By 1934, with clandestine help from LMT aircraft, the opposite shore of the continent was reached.

They should have stopped here, but Perold Jones, wanting more, was determined to cross the ocean to the land beyond.

It was an ocean of incredible scale, months would be required to cross it.

in 1935, Perold Jones, aboard one of three huge seaplanes he had ordered constructed, reached a group of islands far to the northwest.

These were the Janastian Islands, home to a group of small nations, each occupying one of many small islands, each island separated by just a mile or two of cold sea water.

These islands had been formed by volcanoes, all now long dormant.

The Janastian Islands were teeming with a robust and advanced society. Winters here were extreme; snow depths could easily reach 30 feet or more in a single winter with some snowfalls leaving 9 to 12 feet of snow in their wake. Summers were cool but sunny.

The six foot four, Perold Jones felt that he had finally discovered his “home.” Here in Janast, the nation occupying the main island, Perold Jones changed his name to Perold Jonas and enrolled in a college in the capital city of Jolin. This would be the “Durin College of War.”