Worldbuilding Blogfest: History of the Frederikaners

History of the Frederikaners
from 'Shepherd'

The seed colonists of the planet Niesse are a distinct nationality/ethnicity known as the Frederikaners. The main group of Frederikaners live outside the Terran Empire, and are under the authority of an alien species known as the Gray, and live on a continent on one of the Five Worlds that is owned by the Gray. This is their history.

 The Gray

They are humanoids with bulging foreheads, large eyes, and tiny noses and mouths. Their skin is a greenish-gray color and they are hairless. They are the creatures known to Terran folklore as the Gray aliens, the ones who commit alien abductions. And some of what is said about them is true.\par The Gray are what is called 'true aliens', as opposed to human aliens who are biologically humans but of non-Terran origin who can interbreed with humans. Like other true aliens, the Gray seem mentally alien to humans and it's difficult to understand and judge them.

The colony of humans they started is one example. Humans would regard the notion of collecting human beings and putting them in an isolated habitat on another world as a form of cruelty. The Gray consider that they are preserving interesting living artifacts in a sort of museum. They consider that since they took the original human stock from a world which had not yet developed interstellar travel, the humans were merely a form of clever animal with no more rights than any other animal not to be put into preserves and zoos.

The First Collection

 The first group of humans collected by the Gray to form their human colony was collected at least ten years prior to 1871, when the Second Collection--- the first successful Collection--- was made. The First Collection was composed of a group of random individuals of all racial and linguistic backgrounds, collected both from cities and from agricultural areas. It had about 15% more males than females as human social customs on Terra during that era made it less likely for women other than streetwalkers to be roaming the streets. The First Collection failed to form a viable colony due to strife.

The Second Collection

The Grays somehow got rid of the survivors of the First Collection and began on the Second, which they determined was to be a more homogeneous group. They decided on a preferred type of human--- agricultural workers that were speakers of Germanic languages such as English, German or Danish. and who were of the Nordic physical type. This collection began in 1871. The Second Collection did not pick up individuals, but small groups, mostly groups of sisters and brothers who were young enough to be adaptable. They were collected in North America among groups of mostly-immigrant farmers and ranchers, many from an American town called Fredericksburg. A notable member of this group was a professor of linguistics from a university who had created a simple international language based on Anglo-Saxon and Germanic root words. This language, Aermannske, became the basis of the Frederikaner dialect, and in addition was revived on Terra much later and became used on a number of Terran colonies with significant Germanic-ethnic populations. The Second Collection, perhaps because they were people of a pioneering spirit, made a successful colony.

The Third, Fourth and Fifth Collections

These Collections were made of small groups of the desired type, both from North America and from the European homelands. The Third Collection was to bring in people with craft skills--- blacksmiths and stonemasons, potters, weavers and the like. The Fourth Collection featured people with cultural skills--- musicians and makers of musical instruments, painters, wood-carvers, and tailors and seamstresses who were familiar with the national costume of the various European regions which were the home of those in the Collections. The Fifth Collection included a number of university professors with specialties related to Germanic history, languages, mythology and folklore, as well as Catholic and Lutheran theology professors and pastors.

The Last Collection

The Fifth Collection was complete by 1900, but the Grays continued to travel to Terra and observe humans. During the time of the Holocaust, their observation posts were near to Jewish villages in Poland which were overrun by Nazis. The Gray were sympathetic and spirited many of these rural Polish Jews out of harms way. Many of these were of the desired Nordic physical type, and they all spoke a Germanic language, Yiddish. So it is not too surprising that many of the rescued found their way to the Gray colony of humans, who by then were known as the Frederikaners. The people of the Last Collection, having experienced a few extra decades of the goings-on back on Terra, were considered rather sophisticated and clever.

 Post Collection History

The Frederikaners and their farming enterprises did very well in the years following the collection. They may not have been happy on the restrictions placed on them by the Gray but the learned to live within the restrictions. Because of the trauma of being kidnapped by the Gray at a time when humans didn't even know alien beings existed, the Frederikaners became suspicious of 'outlanders'--- anyone from outside the Frederikaner community, whether Terran or alien.\par From time to time, when troublemakers, misfits, rebels or criminals arose, the individuals involved were removed from the colony by the Gray. The only new Terrans were emissaries of the Pope, to report secretly on the state of the faith among the Frederikaners, so that the Pope would be able to appoint the appropriate Frederikaner-born priest to be the group's bishop. (So the Frederikaners knew nothing of Hiroshima or of the European Union, but knew about John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.)

The population growth among the Frederikaners reached a peak just as the Terran Empire began a phase of rapid expansion, and colonists for the new worlds were a highly valuable commodity. The Gray offered a company called Grovanli Iterations a contract for a group of colonists--- all volunteers--- and Grovanli gladly paid the rather exorbitant price to get access to some of the unique Frederikaners as seed colonists for the world Niesse.

Wow, this post is long!!! If you would like to read some of the more concise entries on this blogfest, the list is at Sharon Bayliss' blog.  It's also a day late due to the early arrival yesterday of the septic tank guy who got my indoor plumbing functional again. Functional indoor toilets are cool.

Link Caritas:
TonyBreedenBooks.com: Worldbuilding: A Look at the History and Politics of Øtherworld  First, I must express my admiration for Tony's stamina in using the Ø, it is a lot of work putting in strange letters. The world seems to be a relatively near-future world. With mutants. Mutants are cool. Not as cool as functional indoor toilets, but cool. Note: I could not figure out how to link to the individual post on the blog, so just linked to the blog itself.

Icefall Studio: Worldbuilding Blogfest #2: History & Politics    Layla Lawlor blogged this without having internet at home, so her blog-stamina is greatly to be praised. Karamanda is a city in the mountains in which everyone has wings.