Exodus
The flight of the Pelted from Earth.
History
When oppression grew too harsh, the pelted races gathered and offered the government an ultimatum: they would tell the world of their slavery if they were not freed. In return they were given ships and exiled, a fate they decided was better than staying amid their human makers. The flagship of their sleeper ships was named the Freedom; the other two in the convoy were the Merry Independence and the far smaller Joyful Liberty.
During their two-hundred year voyage, the three ships kept most of their population frozen in cryosleep. Only a small number of people remained active, assigned to separate tasks. The felinoids were assigned to creating a sustainable population with the Homefront technology gifted to them by scientists from the original project. During the sleeper-ship age, there were almost no natural-born children; 99% of offspring were genetically created by the felinoids, decanted as infants, and raised to a point where they could make the decision to undergo cryosleep or remain to work on the population problem.
The vulpinoids had split into two groups. The first, who called themselves Joy's Children (after the first engineered vulpinoid) were assigned the task of documenting, distributing, and sustaining a universal tongue. They chose the Standard American English of their native origin and set about creating a language bible and distributing it, incorporating what few words they thought would be of use, including the ones created by the revolutionists.
The second group of vulpinoids named themselves the FEVS, an acryonym for Flat-footed Engineered Vulpine-based Species, since most of them were indeed flat-footed. They were charged with maintaining the ships.
Secret History
Here we put all the records from Earth that add context to the story the Pelted tell about the Exodus.
Records
"Holly purportedly kept a diary about her life, beginning the day she learned to write," Kellen explained. "On the journey out it was accidentally destroyed, yet we have more documentation about the events leading up to and following the revolution and diaspora than we do about any other part of our origin. When we met humanity some three hundred years ago, they only added to that knowledge."[1]
I have seen the ships they've built us now have walked inside their skin. We'll know them when we fly them, and how to put to dreams our kin: Another risk, they tell me. Another risk. Waking schedules have been fixed and fit to last the hungry days, A long and lonely watch to sit as the months grow long and gray, and tumble into decades. Into centuries![1]
Modern
The Exodus remains relevant to the Pelted to this day. The Exodus Foundation keeps its remaining records vital, and it is the topic of songs, poems, plays and 3deos, books, and remains a popular setting for historicals.
Story References
- Kellen Grove talks about Holly extensively to his students, and #Musicsings a song about her that he composed.[1]
- Vasiht'h gives Jahir a book when they were in college, Major Poets of the Exodus.[2].