The Quispe were a clan of miners in the Kuiper Belt before the Formic Wars that eventually became the inhabitants of the planet Nest.[1]
Structure[]
The Quispe were of the family called Huapaya, though only a few were actually of Huapaya blood, who were Andean natives, speakers of Quechua and Aymara. The crew spoke Common as well, since they needed to be understood when trading with strangers. The crew were all considered family, and not mere cousins. They called the head of the family Mother or Father. The head of the whole Quispe clan was the Grandfather.[1]
History[]
Pre-Formic Wars[]
Before 87 BX, the current Mother of the clan loved and studied birds. She had been a scientist on Earth, before she followed her husband into space. She brought with her two populations of birds that she knew well, Keas and Ravens, as they were the most intelligent kinds. For some reason, the Mother was worried about the Earth being destroyed in an alien invasion, and so she also brought with her the frozen embryos of thousands of other species. She named the ship of the Quispe the Ark, as they would be prepared to find another world and bring to life the plants and animals from Earth. The clan remained in the Kuiper Belt, and made their living by mining asteroids and sending metals back to Earth.[1]
The First Formic War[]
In 87 BX when the Formics invaded the Sol System, the crew witnessed the defeat of the onslaught of the Formic Scout Ship, but also saw a larger fleet amassing outside of the system, and decided that they could not help humanity in the Second Formic War. The Mother assembled the crew in the cargo bay and asked the crew if they would go with her to find another world and save humanity from extinction. The Ark was capable of this voyage, especially after they took possession of a habitat module from an abandoned trading post in The Belt. It was already growing enough food crops to sustain ten times their population, and it had plenty of room for the birds free to soar and fly, to nest and breed.[1]
Within the first ten years of the flight, a certain group of people called themselves the Engineers, because they were the ones who made repairs and invented new machinery on the inside and outside of the ship. They were constantly leaving the parts of the ship that rotated to create gravity, and spent most of their time in weightless space. The engineers saw how dangerous it was to have regular human shape, so they asked Mother if they could explore ways to modify their genes so that their children would be better suited to the labor. Mother said yes, and the Engineers joined with the scientists of the crew, and while they could still access communications with Earth, they learned all they could about genes and how to modify them. As they were in contact with Earth, they knew of the miraculous victory of Mazer Rackham, but also had friends in the International Fleet to know that the public story was a lie, and that Mazer Rackham had figured out that all the Formic ships acted from one point of view, and which ship contained that point of view. He violated his orders and launched a missile and it destroyed the Hive Queen ship. Mother gave the crew a choice to return to Earth, but because they knew the Formics would return to avenge their Queen they decided to continue their voyage.[1]
When the children of the Engineers were born, they had the modifications to work better with four hands. The normal people, known as Runa or the Folk, had to watch their children to try to keep them from imitating the Engineers, because they could get injured or die imitating them. These modified humans were called Yachachiyruna, or individuals a Yachachi. They hardly used Quechua anymore, except in holy ceremonies, but in those days it was simply the Quechua word for engineer or technician.[1]
After around two centuries of voyaging, the Ark arrived on a habitable world, and it was named Nest and settled by the Runa, the Yachachiyruna, the Keas and the Ravens.[1]
Trivia[]
- Quispe is a common Quechua family name in real life.[2]