Hi Everyone,

This is my first time as a participant in a G2G contest, and I hope that my contribution will at least stick to the rules, and at most inspire others or get me to help create the background of a faction.

Before speaking about my thoughts and the process of making my story, let me unfold it for you.

The story of the Unfallen (500 words) : 

The great trunk of the Gren Cyp’ress left the hot embrace of the sun, the light invigorating the giant structure and pushing gently on it’s leaves. In it’s core, saplings nourished upon it’s sap, sharing their idle thoughts as they were dormant, twigs and root shuffling slowly in patterned operation of mechanical components, protected behind the bark in the hollows of the most ancient Unfallen, their ship. Sa’ankal BlackThorn watched over their growth, and swam in the slow undulation of memories,  and thoughts of the Unfallen in the collective mind node of the Arboretum.

- Anticipation. Soon we will arrive

- Approval. Awakeness comes.

Images of bathing light, dark and wet soil,  water dripping, came to him. Sa’ankal BlackThorn retracted his mind from the node and instead reached for the mind of the Gren Cyp’ress.

Saplings were youngs, eager to prosper and grow. Sa'ankal Blackthorn knew better, as he had been shown the great schemes of the Unfallen Arboretum. But in this they were right. Soon it will be time to plant their roots in new fertile soil. Saplings would disseminate, blossom and mingle with primitive locals, guide them, and share with them the collective consciousness of the Unfallen.

Then it will be time to reach the stars again, life propagating in our wake, Unfallen consciousness expanding further in the galaxy, ever watchful, always prosperous.

This was his role, to guide the saplings,  shaping their minds in the node of the Arboretum.

- Sa'ankal Blackthorn : Respect Time of arrival ? Explanation Eagerness in the node. Roots undulates in anticipation. Warmth Saplings…

- Gren Cyp’ress : Patience Soon. Careful attention Watch.

A display of sensory element organized themselves and surrounded Sa'ankal Blackthorn. Allowing him to project his gaze on the light that was their soon to be new planet. As time passed, images focused on it’s surface.

Dismay… Perturbation… Alarm…

The vessel conveyed images of the planet burning. Smoke and small objects travelling erratically, a silent cry of pain in the landscape.

This images travelled the node, stimulating the ancient memories of Gren Cyp’ress, agitating the saplings, dragging them out of their slumber. Echoes of ancient species, pride who gain ascendancy in their shining glory, Madness of their dark counterparts, driven mad by dust, locusts feeding on the sap of their planets, theirs homes, enslaving our brothers and sisters, our children.

- Sa'ankal Blackthorn : Change This world is inhabited. Worry They are spreading.

Dust was unleashed in the node, allowing Sa'ankal Blackthorn to share his word across the collective consciousness of the vessel, and farther among the stars.

- Sa'ankal Blackthorn : Reassurance Life is cyclic, it happened before, it will happen again. Duty The Unfallen must awaken, meet these strangers and trim them, help them thrive and flourish in our shades. Hope For them to attain greatness… Determination or uproot those who threatens our garden.

The ancient vessel structure awoke slowly, conveyed the Arboretum call in the beyond, echoes of it’s slow howl spreading in the nothingness towards the home of the Unfallen.

What about my story :

I picture myself the Unfallen as a civilization that tries to expand by propagating in other systems. not to conquer, but to blend with nature on other world. Spread life everywhere, but also bring it in the fold of the Unfallen. For me, they havec their own consciousness but also access to a local "hive-mind", the Arboretum, allowing them to act not as individuals but as a part of greater things (the saplings are "dormant" in the ship, acting as gears with their mind occupied elsewhere). This method of communication is somewhat instantaneous in contact with each others, but needs dust to travel greater distants. To illustrate this, I devised a way of "speaking" with sentences begining with impressions, feelings or wills in italics, to underline the goal of the discourse. This allowed me to give a "color" to the discourse, mind to mind, without getting it to heavy. I picture that It would allow them to share something closer to body language despite their amorphous way of communicating. If you would have to consider a giant ship trying to mimick irony or courage, it could lead to some structural interesting movements...

As for their aim... Unfallen have been described with a conflicted past, leading them to be peaceful but carrying a big stick", and I tried to show it with memories held by the most ancient of them. And how they would, with the heroes, try to transmit knowledge and shape the younger ones on how to grow.

They would have a conflicted approach with other sentient species. They would try to acclimate with them, working together for greatness, evolution and maybe transcendancy. But also be extremely careful, to point of making drastic decision to weed out those who would not behave peacefully or in respect with nature (who said Cravers ?). But after the end of the endless, the Unfallen would have seen other species rise and fall, so they would have an external point of view on the growth of others. As really ancient space faring species, they would have disseminates in the galaxy, but by blending with nature and being watchful guardians most of them would be dormant, on almost every distant worlds, in communion with nature. But once in the presence of other sentient species or of awaken Unfallen they would slowly wake up. To give information by reconnecting to an Arboretum locally and then to their homeworld.

Mainquest perspectives :

As for the mainquest, I pictured my story beginning it, the observation of this new world with potentially a minor (or major faction), a sentient species, and how the Unfallen would react to it.

• Contact minor faction and assess the menace : assimilate peacefully or conquer brutaly (to protect them from themselves)
• Awaken other dormant unfallen by exploring curiosities (reward : gain military ship or pop on different systems) 
• Collect dust for specific buildings in order to share the hive-mind on other colonies. Reward : bonus approval
• Access luxury/strategic resources
• Quest Trigger event for the other factions : add penalties on cost of war declaration for other factions. Unfilled gain free war declaration on « enemies ».

I must have forget something, but will edit my post if I manage to shake my dusty memories. Hope you enjoyed my story, and feel free to throw at me your commentaries (but no rotten tomatoes or vegetables, please... that's not what an Unfallen would do...).

First edit : few mispelling and coma misplacement... Let me know if you see any other mistakes. I'm not a native english speakers and grammatical and spelling errors creep behind my keyboard when I'm not looking exactly what I write down... Also, every pun or uses of the tree semantic field of words are intended. But as I said, I'm not a native english speaker, so some of them could have... contrary effects on what I intended.

Second edit : story trimmed down from 505 words to 500 exactly. Thank you Carolean7 ;)

Third edit : word count check, using word counter.net or word does not give the same word count (some weird count with the hyphen used for dialogues, and with composed names). I trimmed it a little again, both methods of counting now give me under 500 words.

I like what you've created here. Your explanation of the story helped me understand it better once I understood your intentions on how they communicate.  

First thing though, you must trim this to be below 500 words, or else Frogsquadron will swing the DQ axe, as he has mentioned in the rules post. Fair warning.

Are you familiar with a little indie title by the name of Starbound? You probably haven't since you describe your method of communication like so:

To illustrate this, I devised a way of "speaking" with sentences beginning with impressions, feelings or wills in italics, to underline the goal of the discourse. This allowed me to give a "color" to the discourse, mind to mind, without getting it to heavy. I picture that It would allow them to share something closer to body language despite their amorphous way of communicating. If you would have to consider a giant ship trying to mimick irony or courage, it could lead to some structural interesting movements...

I've been interested in a general idea of how the Unfallen communicate and there are a variety of ideas floating around; I feel this is rather fitting, it might be because I think so or you explain yourself well, since for something the size of a ship to convey emotion if especially if their "voice" lacks tone, it makes a lot of sense. There are a few interesting ways of communication of tone, I remember in a book I read ages ago that there was a race that conveyed emotion through blinking their eyes.

Anyway, in regards to this little indie title Starbound, there are the "Glitch" who are robots stuck in a medieval time setting who would state their emotion or intent before their statement. Of course, this reference stems from HK-47 from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - OOOOOooooh that JAM - and maybe further back from there, but that's as far as I am informed.

However I do find such a thing fitting and a distinct way to show character.

I appreciate your explantions as well; I did a similar thing and I feel it can help certain readers get more into your submission - at least I had feedback suggesting so - and understand the intent of some aspects you included in the story - like dust extending communication, ties to the Endless and a bit of Unfallen character; as well as explaining how you see the quest working.