Intro for a Short History of the Galaxy

Background For My Galactic History

(as it goes along with my stories)

By Dan M.

Some may wonder why I started this new series of books in the first place.  What motivated me?  For those who are interested, I will give my reasons, before launching into the hinted "galactic history" which is background for the novels.

I heard of a discovery (a.k.a. theory) which came as a result of the mapping of the human genome.  About 70,000 years ago, the human race was down to only 2000 mating pairs. On the grand scale, that means we were rapidly approaching extinction.

Now here is where mental analysis joins with theory.  Seventy thousand years ago was not the end of the last ice age.  It was the middle.  If the human population was dying out due to cold or lack of food, why then did this suddenly turn around right in the middle of the freeze?  The last Ice Age began about forty thousand years earlier, around 110,000 years ago (or a bit more).  Most likely, the human population declined not only due to the direct freezing weather, but also due to the decrease in available food and fresh liquid water.  Core samples show there was some warming around fifty five to sixty thousand years back, but by thirty thousand the Earth was just as cold as it had been and then got even colder reaching its worst around 21000 years ago.  As of 70,000 years back, there were still fifty-five to sixty thousand years of ice ahead.   How did the downward slide of human numbers suddenly reverse right in the middle of a hundred-thousand years of ice and start an upward climb?

Did someone suddenly invent a warmer type of clothing?  Not too ruddy likely.  To do so would mean discovery and use of a new clothing material and in the middle of the ice age, where were they going to grow or get some new miracle material they did not think to use for the first 40,000 years of freezing?  The only easily obtainable materials would be things like animal skins and plants which they already had available.

"Nothing new to see here… —Move along.  Move along."
So what was it?

Did someone figure out a new food source?  The same things apply.  The growing of food was not an easy thing with a colder climate and as much as a third of the Earth under an ice layer.  Even in the warmer equatorial regions, the weather was generally much cooler than today's norm and not conducive to mass agricultural techniques. How could they suddenly have new plants or new agricultural methods which would make a difference in growing crops in freezing weather?

Why in the middle of a long age of ice, —a time of a frozen Earth, —did a dying populace suddenly find a new way of life and turn near calamity and extinction into near overpopulation today with over six billion, approaching seven billion, people?  What could possibly have driven the population increase even though there was still 50 millennia of Ice Age yet to come?  I puzzled about this for a time, and then one thing struck me.  If there was a "smoking gun" showing intervention by others (whether gods or aliens) this was it.  There are tales and legends of beings from space visiting Earth sometime in the past.  Some stories called them gods, but whether they were truly gods or not, they would be seen as such by the humans, if they landed and started handing out blankets and food rations at the right time.  Or if they taught the native people how to build buildings that would protect them better from the cold.  In the retelling, they may have gone from godsends to gods.

Regardless, I now had the answer that could launch a new series of books.  While many different races may have visited at different times, the ones who were of interest were the ones who were human.

How do I know some of them were human?  From the many stories told of "gods" (visitors) from the skies who mated with human females and brought forth offspring.  The only way this could occur is if those visitors had DNA very close to our own, —less than a one percent difference to be sure, —in other words, if they were human.  The great apes are only around 2% difference in their DNA and yet we cannot mate with them.  Just as we cannot mate with dogs or elephants or chipmunks, we surely could not mate with flying serpents, reptilians or other alien forms, —unless they were VERY close to human in their make-up.  Consequently, Earth was visited by people like us, and the most likely time this happened was seventy thousand years ago, when humankind was close to extinction.

* * *

Within my stories, there were indeed many different races strewn throughout the galaxy and beyond.  The people who arrived here were themselves refugees from a galactic war.  They saw the Earth with its people similar to them as a great place to hide from the enemies of man 'out there' in the galaxy.  Helping the people on this planet would increase the odds in their favor if their enemies found them.

The stories tell that the aliens, or at least their offspring, had strange powers and abilities.  Was this the beginning of the tales of magic which have come down to present day?  If there are people who can do magic living among us, are they showing their alien ancestry by doing so?

             I currently have four teen science fiction books finished, which explore these possibilities.  I hope they are found enjoyable.