The Decline Of The Kith

Starfarers, 46.

Of all the Kith ships, only Fleetwing still explores beyond known space. The crew of Fleetwing have found two potentially colonizable planets. However, many generations of effort would be necessary to make such planets hospitable. Nanotech and robots would help but there is not enough interest on Earth or elsewhere and the Kith cannot transport colonists for free. The Argosy crew voted to disband and settle on Harbor because trade had become too sparse. Fleetwing accepted Dau Ernen from Argosy and he will eventually become her captain. Planetary civilizations are becoming alien to Kith. The Aurorans regard a Kith visit as a novelty, nothing more. Fleetwing has not visited Aurora for about a thousand years.

In the western hemisphere on Olivares:

land is apportioned by intricate kinship rules;

people live in scattered serrated towers;

they wear robes and masks in public and wage ceremonious but deadly feuds;

they have multi(?)sexual group marriages;

they pass exams to gain rank in a hierarchy serving a demiurge;

but they are less enigmatic than the people of the eastern hemisphere.

 

It is becoming harder to maintain repair facilities for Kith ships because such facilities are expensive, widely scattered and less frequently used. The end of the Kith approaches.