The Palfenians are a species from the planet Palfen.
Biology[]
Palfenians had green colored skin, with heads that were great in size, with elongated pointy ears.
History[]
Around the year 967 A.D., a spaceship a four crew member team was launched from Palfen. The team was composed of Captain Zemruk, Co-pilot Fektu, and botanists Potsa and Nalku. In addition they were accompanied by two robots BJ and BG. Their mission was to journey to the planet K-452 to do a comprehensive study on the indigenous flora and collect samples.
After arriving on K-452, the Palfenians conducted their study of the planet, both topographically, geographically and botanical. Once they were satisfied in collected enough data and samples, the crew returned to their vessel, boarded their ship and left the planet.
En-route to Palfen, their vessel unexpectedly crossed into an asteroid field. While their captain and pilot managed to avoid the larger celestial bodies, they were still impacted by the more smaller ones. The impact damaged their fuel tanks leaving them with insufficient fuel to reach Palfen.
Captain Zemruk contacted mission control of their situation, to which they were directed to land on a nearby planet with environmental conditions similar to Palfen and await the arrival of a rescue mission. The crew then directed their ship to a planet designated as M-873 which was Earth. From mission control, the crew were briefly informed of the intelligent species, humans, and their primitive society, and warned to steer clear of the humans and minimize their presence.
The aliens proceeded to enter the atmosphere the planet, briefly hovering over the North American continent, observing a group of hunter-gatherers hunt, which involved driving a herd of animals towards a cliff, and forcing them all to plummet to their death. The slaughter disturbed the Palfenians due to the wastefulness. This in mind the crew decided to choose a more civilized location, taking their ship to the Asian continent, marveling at the Great Wall of China. Whilst following the wall, the aliens witnessed a section being attacked, ending with the attackers taking prisoner several captives who they hurled over the wall to their deaths or in some cases drawn and quartered them. The gruesome scene shocked the aliens on how cruel the humans were to their own kind.
The Palfenians decided to move onto Scotland, selecting their landing site in a large dense forest. The crew used the site as their base of operations, though never ventured beyond the perimeter, awaiting rescue. On the third day of their stay on M-873, Potsa and Nalku wanted to go out an study the local flora. This was permitted by their captain though warned them to be on their guard. The Palfenians then went into deeper into the forest to collect plant samples, though unknown to them, where they were doing the survey, there was a road nearby used by locals from a village.
Several human villagers spied the two aliens, who eventually took notice of the watchers, and quickly tried to flee. The two botanists were overtaken by the villagers, and then brought to the nearest town where they were paraded to be gawked at. Upon seeing the aliens, the humans believed Potsa and Nalku to be demons and goblins from Hell. They were blamed for all the woes in the region, from droughts, crop failures, to floods. A mob soon called for them to be burned. They were further associated as demons, using their appearances as proof as well as their strange devices and plant samples as examples of witchcraft.
Before the duo were burned by the mad mob, Zemruk and Fektu arrived via an aircraft to stop the fire. Their technology proved effective in repelling the primitive weaponry, and set BJ to assist Potsa and Nalku . In the ensuing fight, the aliens were all rescued, however were forced to leave behind BJ.
They returned to the forest to treat their injured crewmates. Though unfortunately words of their existence soon spread across the land, to court of King Edmund. At first initially dubious on the rumors, it was only after being shown the "corpse" of BJ was he made a believer. Later word reached him that a rebel faction had approached the demons, forcing Edmund to seek a dialogue with creatures himself.
Due to the cultural divide, with the Palfenians seeking a peaceful resolution of coexistence until they were rescued while the king sought to manipulate them to his own ends, a true understanding between the races could not be achieved. Thankfully the Palfenians managed to bribe peace from the king by offering him a flashlight, which he took as a totem of power. However word began reaching him that his people were discontent of his consorting with demons, and rebellion was on the rise. To be seen as a hero to his people and appease their bloodlust, Edmund broke the agreement of peace between the Palfenians and launched an attack on the down ship.
Thankfully the Palfenian rescue mission arrived to rescue and pacify the human barbarians. Before leaving the Palfenian crew managed to acquire a plant native to Earth, which turned out to be a cannabis leaf.
Culture[]
Palfenians were a race of explorers that sent out scientific expeditions, driven by curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge and discovery. A peaceful race, Palfenians saw themselves not as conquerors, but guests on other worlds, and always committed to responsible exploration, taking great care to prevent spread of unknown contaminants brought to other worlds, to ensure that their presence would not do harm.
The species was highly advanced around the 1st millennium. Humans at the time having developed a feudal society, were two hundred generations behind the Palfenians who had access to space travel, advanced holography, sentient robots, lasers, etc.
A Palfenian year was equivalent to 391 days.
Source[]
- Close Encounters in King Edmund's Court by Eldar Hasanov (2023)