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Could we eventually uncover a lost civilization on the sunken Kerguelen continent? And if so, what might have been its fate? By around 110 million BC the first portions of the Kerguelen island continent had appeared. Large portions of the island continent would remain dry land for millions of years, after which they would all eventually submerge to become one with the sea floor again (with the last disappearing from the surface around 20,000,000 BC). This article lists some developments possibly relevant to the Kerguelen island continent, and any intelligent lifeforms which may have arisen or taken refuge there. Sponser this page This page last updated on or about 1-9-06 a - j m o o n e y h a m . c o m - o r i g i n a l

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Back to timeline contents: Antarctic and Kerguelen continents: Kerguelen lost civilization contents: Kerguelen 295 million BC through 20 million BC

Approximately 15,000,000 BC: Suddenly most competing ape lines on Earth go extinct, leaving only a handful of survivors

Why the sudden extinctions of many ape lines at this time? That remains a mystery. But if it was due to harsh changes in world climate and/or geology, or to cosmic impacts or dust/gas clouds in space blocking Earth's sunlight, then perhaps the Kerguelen elite were pretty shrewd after all to order the exodus.

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Approximately 14,000,000 BC: Antarctica enjoys a warm, ice-free period?

How long does this period last? Is the Antarctic environment today something like the tundra of 20th century Alaska, or still warmer and more lush than that? Antarctica boasted tropical rainforests in the far past-- does it manage even a brief return to such conditions now?

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Approximately 13,000,000 BC: A 'mini-extinction' event may be afflicting life on Earth

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Approximately 3,000,000 BC to 2,000,000 BC: A mysterious time of transformative evolution for the creature that someday will call itself "human"

A couple million years in possession of powerful imitative speech capabilities has allowed these predecessors of human beings to learn some of the value of a chorus-- multiple voices applied in unison. Such actions can offer a pleasing if somewhat haunting feeling to the primates; a seemingly mysterious premonition of hidden talents, and greater things to come. At least, if such harmonies affect human ancestors in ways similar to how they will do their 20th century descendents.

Loud harmonies may provide a deep inner pleasure to the ape-people.

The use of chorus begins as random accidents of simultaneous calls achieving harmony, with they and their consequences eventually observed and emulated by the packs purposely later on. Choruses are seen to have unusual effects on not only the pack members themselves, but other packs who hear them, as well as even mighty beasts such as lions, bears, and wolf packs. Indeed, hints of the chorus can be detected in some of the sounds emanating from wolf packs too at times (Did early humans get one clue to chorus from the sounds of wolf packs? Does this signal the initial stirrings of kinship between humans and wolves, which will one day lead to the domesticated dog? Maybe. But keep in mind at this early date that wolves are both competitors and a constant predatory threat to humans in various regions of the world).

Over the millennia a few packs grasp the value of chorus techniques in battles against competing packs, as well as during hunts of great predators and other large beasts. A chorus can make a pack seem larger and stronger than they are-- a terrific survival advantage.

Over time the chorus technique spreads to virtually all of this class of primates, worldwide.

Note that as the use of the chorus spreads among these hominids, its value to a given group will be somewhat proportional to that group's ability to recognize and harmonize with the voices of others in the group-- and to distinguish members' sounds from those of animals which they might be preying upon (or hiding from).

As the power of the chorus spreads across all hominid groups, inter-group competition in related acoustic pattern recognition and matching will intensify. After all, those best able to master and exploit the chorus technique will more often win various survival challenges than those that don't. Intra-group competition of course will also be present, from the very earliest point that the technique is recognized as beneficial to survival.

Does an intellectual 'bootstrapping' process of switching back and forth between marginal improvements in acoustic pattern recognition/matching and trial-and-error (even copycat) tool-making begin to take place now? Could it be that the acquisition of speech and the earliest tool-making capacities are intimately linked?

Note one implication of the above citation is that human predecessors may be developing their sense of past and future in parallel with their struggle to speak and learn to create hand tools. This in turn demands greater conscious memory capacity, giving something of an upward spiral to evolutionary events...

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Approximately 3,000,000 BC- 30,000 BC: The Kerguelen fleet realizes that some distant relatives of Kerguelen primitives on Earth are starting to show signs of intelligence; The Kerguelen eventually begin to interact with the ape-men in limited ways

The unmistakeable sounds of song and music emanating from ape gatherings first attract the attention of the Kerguelen. As time passes primitive tool use and greater cooperation among the apes becomes apparent.

AUTHOR'S NOTE. Please refer to previous items on this page for references regarding humanity's musical legacy. END NOTE.

Finally, widespread and purposeful use of fire by the apes begins breaking out all over the planet.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Keep in mind that humanity still cannot start a fire from scratch, and so must obtain it however they can and then maintain it perpetually over generations or else risk becoming subservient to other groups, or more easily falling prey to predators or other threats from the environment.

Some fleet personnel begin interacting with the apes, from time to time. Eventually they begin attempting to get the apes to team up with a smaller primate species like the Kerguelens themselves did early on. A few isolated genetic tweaks to both ape and monkey species are made in an effort to encourage such a pair up. The fleet's efforts at combining the two species into something resembling their own ends up stymied. But the apes do continue to show progress in their own way.

The fleet takes care not to allow their experiments to become known to the elite.

Many more generations pass among the Kerguelen. Interest in the apes ebbs and flows among the fleet, as the species seems it will never evolve any further than it already has. Then, finally, the species begins to show the promise the fleet had been hoping to see for eons. The potential to become a whole new peasant/slave population for the fleet crews themselves. For in that manner might they achieve the levels of wealth and luxury up to now enjoyed only by the elite. They could also return to Earth, and enjoy the vast regions of unconstricted and hospitable space there-- wholly unlike the environments of their cramped craft quarters, and dangerous vacuum of space outside their vessels. Many fleet Kerguelen also chafed against the strict population controls of the fleet, imposed by the elite. A looser rein on free will here as compared to earlier Kerguelen history, plus more free time as well, allows the fleet Kerguelen to brood upon such matters. Upon a return to Earth such population restrictions could be ignored. There was enough space for billions of Kerguelen there.

Under these conditions the efforts to plan for a future return to Earth and subjugation of the fledgling humans there began to become somewhat organized affairs of the fleet Kerguelen. Details regarding how this might be done without interference from the elite-- or how the fleet Kerguelen might separate their own destinies from those of the elite-- are mostly neglected.

The fleet Kerguelen have no choice but to mention the continuing evolution of the apes on Earth in their reports to the randomly called elite. Fortunately, the elite take little notice.

The fleet Kerguelen increase the frequencies of their visits to Earth. They are not always as discrete as they should be. They are often sloppy because of the still primitive nature of the humans there, and the long time practice of taking little heed on the planet's surface, among merely dumb animals.

A growing argument builds among various factions of the fleet Kerguelen over how to handle the ever smarter apes-- including how much to let the apes see/know of the fleet Kerguelen themselves.

Eventually some fleet Kerguelen strike up continuing relationships with some humans. They experiment with some. Lucky ones become agents of the fleet, either among their own kind, or in secret underground or underwater bases about the planet.

Keep in mind the fleet Kerguelen must hide many of their activities regarding Earth from the elite Kerguelen. Thus, the reason for the hidden bases being constructed underground or undersea. Such bases are easier to cover up or otherwise explain as aberrations in instrument readings, than more obvious installations would be.

Despite their advanced technology, the fleet Kerguelen are also subject to very close surveillance and accounting by the elite for equipment, materials, and hours of labor utilized for any purpose. So their available resources for the construction of the hidden bases are much more limited than might be expected by observers accustommed to a freer, more private society, equipped with a similar level of technology.

Another factor to consider is the fact that certain bits of Kerguelen technology such as power sources, manufacturing equipment, and advanced materials used to build the Earth bases or installed there for other purposes would tend to make those bases be more easily found by Kerguelen instruments from space than would otherwise be the case. So even if the Kerguelen could use such items without accounting for them in inventory, the act would only increase the risk of discovery and execution (or worse) later.

This means the secret bases are almost always built and stocked only with native Earth materials and labor, and significant Kerguelen effort goes into maximizing the usefulness and flexibility of the locations while using only primitive and obsolete Kerguelen ideas and techniques adapted to contemporary Earth and human capacities and circumstances. That way, even if a refuge is discovered and investigated by elite agents of the fleet, they should find little to indicate Kerguelen involvement.

Of course, despite their worries of discovery, the fleet Kerguelen do occasionally use advanced technologies in some aspects of the construction of these bases. But it is mostly just to carve out spaces within rock where the rock is too hard or the local human labor too sparse to sculpt as quickly or in as complex a manner as the Kerguelen desire-- and during hours when the naughty Kerguelen are sure none of the other Kerguelen are in position to monitor the local vicinity. The Kerguelen also take pains to cover the clues to artificial construction with intentional sloppiness in some aspects, and sometimes orders to a local human labor force to chip away manually at new tunnel surfaces a bit to make them look more hand carved, in case of later visual inspection.

Human access to Kerguelen technologies is kept very limited, for the most part.

The fleet Kerguelen continue to 'sample' the human population and experiment with them over time. They also largely continue their slipshod manner of interacting with the planet and its inhabitants.

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Approximately 2,300,000 BC: A Stone Age "tool factory" is in operation in Kenya, and a possible 0.5+ km asteroid impact in the deep southeast Pacific Ocean may increase atmospheric water vapor sufficiently to eventually bring about the next Ice Age

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Approximately 2,000,000 BC- 6000 BC: The Pleistocene Epoch, or Ice Age runs its course

There are possibly ten separate cycles of cooling and rewarming during this period, during which the glaciers advance then retreat again. Sea levels may also decline and rise again in these cycles.

Four of the cycles are exceptionally harsh in the cooling stage. The most recent cooling stage may have begin around 56,000 BC- 48,000 BC.

During the cooling stages of the Pleistocene, the North American west is wetter than it will be circa 2000 AD.

Life diversity in New Zealand suffers greatly from the Ice Age.

Enormous ice sheets repeatedly sweep the islands almost clean of life, but for the northern end of North Island.

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Approximately 700,000 BC: A rare super meteor storm may be raging over the region of Australia and southeast Asia now...

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98,000 BC: A super nova explosion sweeps away much dust and gas in the vicinity of the solar system

Our local bubble is but one of several such regions within 2000 lightyears. They are called Loops I, II, and III respectively. Each consists of a roughly spherical region a few hundred lightyears in diameter.

Though the bubbles possess a lower density of interstellar dust and gas than the regions outside them, they are not completely empty, but populated by very diffuse clouds, such as the Local Fluff, which our solar system will appear to be entering around the end of the 20th century. Aging bubbles also tend to slowly refill again, to eventually regain their original densities of dust and gas. Entering and exiting bubbles can expose solar systems to changes in cosmic ray environments.

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30,000 BC- 18,000 BC: A small-scale mutiny afflicts the Kerguelen fleet

Eventually all the Kerguelen personnel of this group dies out (due to unexpected supply dependencies on the main body of the fleet) and their human friends inherit their spacecraft. But the craft must be well hidden and rarely used-- because the main fleet will destroy or re-take them if possible. Over time these human owned Kerguelen spacecraft are lost to various ends-- capture, crashes, parts/skills shortages, etc., until very few remain. A handful will eventually end up with the people of the southeast asian peninsula, who will marvel at their workings. But in general the craft are of limited use, because of ongoing Kerguelen fleet surveillance. Possession and use of the craft must even be kept secret from other human beings as well, since the Kerguelen are known to have spies among the population.

In the aftermath of the mutiny, the Kerguelen elite undertake measures to further tighten security among the fleet Kerguelen. The new harsher terms do not sit well with the fleet, but there is precious little they can do about it.

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Approximately 22,000 BC: The Kerguelen completely fail to notice the alarming events taking place on Earth's southeast asian peninsula, until long after things have settled back to something nearer normal again-- which is a lucky break for humanity

Needless to say, the Kerguelen elite are somewhat upset when they finally learn of the oversight. Fortunately for the Kerguelen fleet personnel, the peninsula matter appeared to take care of itself, with the victors in the civil war discarding virtually all their most dangerous technologies in the aftermath, and reverting to a much less threatening level of technical expertise in the decades and centuries that followed. So no emergency eradication measure against humanity (or similarly extreme contingencies) became necessary.

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Approximately 18,000 BC- 12,000 BC: Earth is bombarded five times by heavier than usual cosmic dust concentrations from space

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Approximately 9,500 BC- 9,000 BC: The Asvin of Earth surprise the Kerguelen fleet, and then vanish

[To see details about the Asvin civilization, please refer to What Could Have Been: A Lost Civilization in Southeast Asia, 25,125 BC- 13,875 BC]

After this shocking development, the Kerguelen elite direct the fleet to move some elements further away from Earth, while better masking others from long range detection or location via Kerguelen equivalent technologies. These measures will effectively render much Kerguelen space activity invisible to humanity until at least around the turn of the 22nd century AD.

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Approximately 8,000 BC+: Total world population may be somewhere between 5 and 10 million

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Approximately 6,000 BC - 1 AD: Sometime during this period the Earth, along with the rest of the Solar System, enters a vast cloud of interstellar gas

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9,000 BC- 1,945 AD: The Kerguelen fleet maintains covert surveillance of Earth, seeking signs of the Asvin; The fleet otherwise cuts back on operations on and near Earth

The mystery of the missing Asvin, along with the surprise attack in space, haunts the Kerguelens. They watch closely for centuries, then millennia, for signs of their reappearance, only to find none. Instead, the entire planet of ape-men seems to go backwards 10,000 years in technology, in the wake of the Asvin's vanishing act.

The Kerguelen are concerned for quite some time that the Asvin civilization itself made some unexpected leap into space, like the Kerguelen themselves. But no evidence of this is ever uncovered (beyond the sneak attack on the Kerguelen fleet near Earth millennia before).

It would seem that if the Asvin did take up residence in space, they also made a foolhardy attempt to leave the solar system for another. The Kerguelen think this a real possibility, since the Asvin could not possibly be as knowledgeable and sophistocated as the Kerguelen in space matters, and thus would not realize only death would await anyone but Kerguelen using Kerguelen spacecraft to cross the void between stars. Kerguelen technology alone (especially that available in the small craft in possession of the Asvin) was simply inadequate to such journeys: strenuous supplementary measures would also be required for success.

Most Kerguelen believe the Asvin aboard the Kerguelen spacecraft returned to Earth, and shared the fate of their nation. Both the Asvin and Raman states appear to have successfully destroyed one another. It's known the Asvin used nuclear weapons on the Raman; but it's less clear how the Raman destroyed the Asvin. The great Asvin cities and their aircraft simply disappeared, virtually overnight. Remnants had been detected on the sea bottom. And some salvaged Asvin sea craft had been found in the hands of non-Asvin and non-Raman human beings.

The fleet however never gives up its suspicions. For there remains the fact that a small number of fleet spacecraft continue missing, and on occasion there are brief but untrackable signs of something like them being operated somewhere on Earth. However, they never operate very long, or over great distances, or rise far above the surface, and that prevents the fleet from pinpointing their location. The nature of the missing craft allows some of them not only spaceflight but deep undersea transport as well. Though the fleet can detect such undersea usage too, such detection measures are less sensitive than those for dry land and open sky. Thus, the rogue vessels may typically operate undetected longer and further undersea than elsewhere on the planet.

But the overwhelming impression of Earth is that humanity has slid backwards 10,000 years or more in technology and commerce. And no significant signs of Asvin or Raman survivors or activity is seen for thousands of years.

Due to orders from the elite to put more distance between their spacecraft and Earth due to the possible continuing threat from renegade craft, detection of the renegades on Earth was made more difficult and haphazard than before.

It is under these circumstances that the fleet Kerguelen determines it necessary to increase their caution in dealing with humans, and begin research and development in regards to increasing the stealthiness and maneuvering capabilities of their own vessels, as well as their instrumentation regarding long range and detailed detection of all manner of mass and energy changes.

But since Kerguelen R&D and technology deployment was notoriously slow and haphazard but for those times the elite demanded a particular result, there were many holes in execution, plus a continuing sloppiness towards and sporadic fraternization with the humans, which led to memories, stories, and myths among the humans concerning the Kerguelen.

It should be noted here that the overall research and development efforts of the Kerguelen people no longer occur in a lockstep fashion. One of the effects of the leap into space and reorganization of Kerguelen society had been some divergence between groups in terms of innovation.

To be sure, elite ordered R&D could proceed at a blistering pace when it occured-- but it simply didn't, most of the time.

Scholars still dutifully documented their largely untested and untried ideas for the archives, certain that they'd never see them realized in their own lifetimes.

Innovations among the fleet crept along at a snail's pace-- but this was still faster than the dead stillness of innovation throughout most of the rest of Kerguelen society. Fleet crews enjoyed the freedom to immediately implement small and negligible cost changes which would improve certain types of operations-- and so they did. On a regular basis.

Of course, decades of such small accummulated innovations could be surpassed in only months by elite ordered R&D. But such orders were exceedingly rare.

It is around this time that a randomly called elite orders the creation of a special fleet task force with the sole purpose of covering up the tracks of the Kerguelen fleet in general, wherever events regarding Earth might lead to evidence of the Kerguelens' existence. The reason? To better cope with a possibly underestimated and hidden human foe, armed with technology comparable or superior to the Kerguelen themselves.

The task force is small, but imbued with substantial power as a consequence of the order. Its existence reduces some of the sloppiness of the rest of the fleet in regards to Earth, but not all of it.

Plus, there's the renegade fleet craft left on Earth, and various degrees of small fleet Kerguelen/human hybrid derived societies to complicate matters (when I say hybrid, I mean in the social sense, not the reproductive sense).

There's also surely vestiges of Rama and Asvin Empire technologies and peoples somewhere on the planet, as well as ongoing technological developments possibly occuring among humans with no contact whatsoever with Kerguelen, Asvin, or Raman people and technologies.

Another important elite order of this time was a crash R&D program into the possibilities of interstellar flight, should an exit from the solar system prove necessary to protect the elite from Earth. A third order initiated a crash R&D effort into weapons technologies suitable for waging war on humans either in space or on Earth. The last order of the elite was to pull back the majority of fleet operations from Earth orbit and the Moon-- to put greater distance between the fleet and any possible threat from Earth. The surprise attack was considered no small thing by the elite, despite its strategic insignificance. The Kerguelen still maintained a substantial spy network on the planet, equipping agents with communications techniques or technology always at least one or two steps ahead of cutting edge human efforts, so as to prevent interception. Most Kerguelen spies had no idea their masters were non-human. Indeed, many worked officially or unofficially under the auspices of various human security or intelligence agencies, once such things came into being.

Meanwhile, the lax discipline and conflicting interests in the fleet vis a vis the elite continued to cause problems for the group as a whole.

Note that in the last twenty centuries or so of this period the Kerguelen elite order the fleet to also begin minimizing their operations in the plane of the ecliptic-- the most heavily trafficked and likely-to-be-monitored-by-renegades-or-Asvin region of the solar system. This new order causes much dismay and annoyance to the fleet Kerguelen, as virtually all navigational software must be changed, and numerous installations and relay satellites moved. The worst and most difficult aspects however lie in the movement of the largest Kerguelen vessels/stations from quite convenient and stable locations to others which may be much less so.

One technique that makes the process somewhat less onerous is exploiting the Earth's 'blindspots' in the solar system. Such as on the far side of the Sun, or the Moon, and other regions rendered non-visible from earth due to both permanent and temporary circumstances.

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1960 AD- 1965 AD: Multiple Russian probes launched towards Mars all meet with disaster

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1,969 AD- 1973 AD: Another series of Russian missions to Mars fails to live up to expectations

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1,989 AD: The sophistocated Russian Mars Phobos probes fail, with the last disappearing under puzzling circumstances

Many years later scientists will explain the strange images were essentially caused by something similar to long exposures performed with cameras on Earth, smearing or lengthening some images into weird geometries, or else by other flaws in the transmission. They also will say the Phobos missions were plagued with many sorts of problems which made them likely to fail or return erroneous results.

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1,991 AD: A small and unusual object is detected near Earth, following an unlikely flightpath and exhibiting some signs of possible artifice

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1,993 AD: NASA's Mars Observer is lost as it approaches Mars

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1,995 AD: Russia loses a Mars probe during launch; it falls somewhere in the vicinity of the Andes mountains

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"I never knew of any instance where it was proven that any sort of vehicle had come from outer space to our country and either lived here or left"

-- Former Democratic US President Jimmy Carter; 1,996

Note that any aircraft or spacecraft, new or old, from either Asvin or Kerguelen sources, would not have originated from outside our solar system (or by non-native terran means), and thus would pose no threat to the veracity of Carter's statement if someday revealed.

Relating to a desperate search to locate a downed US aircraft possibly incorporating sensitive technologies or intelligence elements (for which all coventional search measures had failed), Carter had this to say about a psychic brought in by the CIA to locate the craft:

"I have to say that without my knowledge, the head of the CIA asked her to come in...she went into a trance. And while she was in the trance, she gave some latitude and longitude figures. We focused our satellite cameras on that point and the plane was there."

-- Former US President Jimmy Carter, 1996

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1,998 AD: A Japanese Mars probe fails during launch

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1999 AD: NASA suffers the failure of two more separate missions to Mars; Humanity is realizing that the undersea Kerguelen plateau was once a dryland island continent....while they are also nearing the levels of wealth and technology necessary to explore the undersea mass...

Note that the sunken Kerguelen continent could well offer a wealth of signs of ancient, advanced civilization, even now, some 20 million years after catastrophic volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tidal waves, and sinking beneath the sea. At least it could if some civilization approximately equal to our own or better technology-wise ever existed there.

Of course, these signs would be on the sea bottom, perhaps two kilometers under water, and likely buried by a substantial layer of sediment and debris beyond that. Only the greatest luck would allow a purely visual inspection to reveal useful evidence of a lost civilization. Digging and drilling would likely be required. But any materials like concrete, bricks, glass, or steel, or cables and pipelines would likely be recognizable if uncovered. There's a good chance fossilized skeletons would still be available too, if they ever existed in the first place on the lost continent. We might also find prehistoric pollutants in the area, if an advanced industrial society once prospered there.

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2000 milestone: The status of Kerguelen

The new islands however are little more than the tips of new undersea mountains poking above the waves; nothing as massive and vast as the original three Kerguelen bodies.

These mountain tops and other associated lands today form an island group, comprised of some 7000 square km of archipelago (roughly 300 islands and reefs) and lying situated in the South Indian Ocean. The largest island of the bunch is called Kerguelen. The entire group is legally considered a French possession.

In recent history the modern island of Kerguelen has seen both ice and considerable volcanic activity (Kerguelen possesses plenty of volcanoes). The above sea level remnants of Kerguelen suffer a frigid climate due to the convergence of Antarctic and Indian Ocean currents in the vicinity, and often strong winds which contribute to the chill. The winds also contribute to high waves in the area-- with 15 m heights being considered not unusual. This heavy wave action may contribute to the year-round ice-free nature of the seas around the islands. The skies of modern Kerguelen spend much of their time overcast.

Virtually the only native plant which has survived in the region from ancient times is the Kerguelen cabbage (rabbits brought in by foreigners destroyed practically all other lowland vegetation which had managed to survive the previous icy and volcanic periods).

Today a scientific research station of considerable size exists in the area, housing up to 100 scientists at a time.

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2000 AD: By now humanity has explored something less than 2% of the deep oceans-- and less than 10% of the oceans overall

50% of the surface of the Earth exists beneath 3000 to 6000 meters of ocean depth. Life in the deep ocean is at least as diverse as that in rainforests.

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2001 AD: Humanity discovers a surprising contamination of near Earth space with uranium

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2004 AD: A rolling robotic probe (the US Spirit rover) accidentally catches sight of a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) in the skies over Mars; a "strange" object a few miles across is detected in the vicinity of Saturn-- and there may be more like it

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Approximately 1945 AD through the present: The Kerguelen fleet reduces operations on and near Earth still more

The special task force's responsibilities and power increased still more in the 20th century when humanity-at-large began testing and using nuclear weapons, as well as some years later dispatching space probes into Earth and Moon orbit and beyond. Most fleet operations are ordered to add still more stand off distance between Earth and themselves, and new operating procedures and technologies are integrated into the fleet to better fend off humanity's increasing capabilities to observe events in space and near Earth orbits. The fleet is becoming steadily more stealthy to match humanity's growing capacities.

Too, most of the secret fleet Kerguelen bases on Earth are shut down and destroyed as the fleet can not afford to properly maintain or man them any longer, as the possibilities of native scrutiny become increasingly keen.

The growing power of the task force, plus the high priority of R&D projects into interstellar flight and anti-human weapons technologies are making for changes in internal fleet politics.

The astonishingly fast pace of innovation among 20th and early 21st century humanity is alarming both the fleet and the elite. At this time the Kerguelen possess a level of technology in some ways (not all) equivalent to what might be expected of 25th century humanity. But it has taken the Kerguelen millions of years to reach this point. At the present going rates humanity will surpass the Kerguelen in only a matter of centuries. One of the mostly unspoken and unexamined implications of this is that the structure of Kerguelen society may require substantial change to adequately deal with this threat. Needless to say, this scale of internal change is not something the elite would wish to consider.

By 2000 humanity already possesses comparable or even superior technologies to the Kerguelen in some fields. But these are considered much less dangerous to the Kerguelen than certain other items might be. Plus, via covert surveillance and onsite spies, the Kerguelen are sometimes able to steal information and samples of technological innovations from humanity to aid their own research efforts.

Fortunately, most human organizations do not suspect such intelligence efforts may sometimes be from outsiders, but rather exclusively suspect and accuse only their own kind.

Internal Kerguelen debates are raging on issues such as possibly exterminating humanity without warning, or peaceably contacting it, and seeking some sort of treaty of non-aggression. The fleet cannot yet flee the system into interstellar space at any pace safe from pursuit, as the required propulsion means are not yet at hand. However, a multitude of deadly weapons have been devised with which to terminate the man-apes. Most consist of biological weapons, which are easy and cheap to create and produce in mass quantities, as well as keep safely contained in the routine conditions available across a fleet of spacecraft and mass of space-based colonies.

However, as always, the Kerguelen rarely decide or act quickly on any matter, until forced to by events. And the possible consequences of unleashing their biological agents upon the Earth do not sit well with the elite, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, many agents as yet have no suitable defensive measures to protect the Kerguelen themselves-- it being far easier to create killer viruses than to stop them once active. So in the circumstance that something forced the Kerguelen back to Earth for a refuge, they might be threatened by the agent(s) (or mutations of same) they themselves placed there. Plus, applying such agents would mean terminating all physical intelligence contacts with agents on Earth beforehand, as a fail-safe measure. And once the human population fell below critical mass, no longer would new technological innovations or entertainment media pour forth from the ape-men. The Kerguelen elite are coming to like both these elements too much to give them up easily. And some are even daring to contemplate an existence where the Kerguelen attempt to maintain the secrecy of their presence from humanity indefinitely, with an ever diminishing margin of technological advantage! After all, so long as humanity remains unaware of the Kerguelen, they will continue to remain vulnerable to various weapons the Kerguelen could loose upon them, in the worst case; but at the same time the Kerguelen can continue to spy upon and steal the best of what technologies the humans come up with, to at least maintain a rough parity with the ape-men, if not better.

The Kerguelen have been forced by events to once again increase contact between themselves and humans, in order to obtain more information regarding certain human technologies which already surpass the Kerguelen's, as well as other matters, such as subtlely sabotaging various developments which the Kerguelen consider to pose a threat to them. For instance, the Kerguelen do not consider complete peace between Earth nations as necessarily beneficial from their point of view-- although such peace might slow the pace of weapons innovation somewhat, which would be good. No, the Kerguelen would rather keep some conflicts going Earthside to keep the humans' attention from turning too much to the skies. Wars also consume resources, making it more difficult for humans to invest in long term, deep space mission technologies and certain other matters the Kerguelen perceive as threatening to the status quo. And, best of all, wars between humans on Earth just might eradicate or effectively disable the species, solving the Kerguelen's human problem once and for all, without any need to install genetically engineered killer viruses on the planet.

The increasing popularity of UFO sightings and studies among humanity in the late 20th/early 21st centuries also disturb and alarm the Kerguelen elite-- for if such things ever become too popular, or actually taken seriously, Kerguelen security could rapidly become compromised.

Therefore, as the 20th century came to a close, the Kerguelen elite formed a new task force, giving it the mission to supervise and finance purely human organizations on Earth, with some dedicated to creating UFO stories out of whole cloth (including some quite elaborate and convincing on their face hoaxes), and others purposed to debunk the same stories, as well as possibly others coming from third parties. The organizations at times also encouraged writings on the subject by both professionals and amateurs, via various means.

The resulting firestorm of argument and debate served well to keep UFOs on the fringes of serious human study, for quite some time.

Another, more sinister development among the Kerguelen at this time, is a directive to another new task force to focus upon the more developed and democratic nations of humanity, and try to influence them to reshape themselves to be more like the Kerguelen society. To greatly reduce civil liberties, and raise surveillance rates on the public and middle-to-low hierarchy individuals to as near 100% as possible. During the 20th century this task force experienced many setbacks in their efforts, due to the signficant differences between humanity and the Kerguelen themselves. It was simply difficult to get a good understanding of the human culture. Finally, however, they found the key: the growth of monstrous so-called 'business' corporations among humanity. These organizations were gaining new freedoms and powers almost daily, to the expense of democratic forms of government. Human business interests also coincided nicely with Kerguelen interests, in that human business disliked uncertainty, and craved stability. Add to this the simple and straightforward over-riding desire for human currency which ruled these entities, and the situation was tailor-made for Kerguelen manipulation. The critical region seemed to be one called the United States of America, as all the other advanced democracies seemed to follow its lead. Turn the US into a police state, and the other democracies would likely follow suit. Those that didn't, could be forced into obedience with the USA's overwhelming military might. And all the rest of humanity's various nations were so primitive and weak that they would have no choice but to accept the commands of the US afterwards.

Yes, the keystone was the USA. Strip it of its democratic ways, and humanity was essentially conquered. The powerful scenario generating computers aboard the Kerguelen space vessels, as well as the Kerguelen's ability to manipulate Earth markets via electronic means, would provide the details and tactics required to achieve the objective. One, maybe two human generations (25-50 years) were estimated to be all the time required for complete success.

Humanity was not totally defenseless. The modern descendents of the original Asvin secret societies, though now few in number and limited in influence, became aware of the new manipulative efforts, and sought to counter them. Unfortunately, their resources were no match for the instant electronic wealth the Kerguelen could effortlessly create within human banking systems at will, and wield throughout human society to push their agenda. To humanity-at-large, such effects seemed merely to stem from the money of various human corporations, interest groups, and wealthy individuals. So why didn't government economic authorities detect the tampering? Partly because the Kerguelen masked the sources of the extra funds in a multitude of ways, from generating it within the secret and unaccountable budgets of US intelligence agencies, to making it appear as massive but hard to stem counterfeiting efforts in third world countries, to producing it along with other virtual monies in massive corporate corruption and fraud events, and in smaller amounts here and there as parts of criminal computer cracking of human banks, which essentially allowed a tapping of Earth-based insurance company funds, as well as tax payer dollars in the resulting bailouts. The simplest and most straightforward way however was to manipulate the USA into simply printing more money. That is, perform massive deficit spending, with a huge share slotted for military, intelligence, and security purposes, and therefore suitable for diverting in all sorts of ways untraceable afterwards by authorities. Of course, after a number of years this would produce severe economic problems for the US-- but by then the rest of the world would already be under its thumb, and it would be convenient to the Kerguelen schedule for the US to then become weakened itself, and so more easily susceptible to the Kerguelen's own brands of overt command and control.

Soon, the Kerguelen would directly or indirectly rule America: and through America, all humanity.

Fortunately for the Kerguelen, the USA economy in particular was especially vulnerable to such manipulation at this time, due to it being in the early stages of both computing and internet technology revolutions simultaneously. Human experts were still uncertain about how to balance civil liberties, profit, and security in the new and fluctuating environment, and were under enormous economic and political pressures to squeeze civil liberties anyway. Thus, the Kerguelen were delighted at how easily much of their plans fell into place. The human elite often seemed to be doing the Kerguelen's work for them!

But there were also some humans outside the secret societies who struggled against such manipulations, even while unaware of the Kerguelen presence and influence. They far outweighed the numbers and capacities of the secret societies for resisting the Kerguelen, as the societies themselves had been decimated over the millennia by various misfortunes, including the short attention span of human beings in general (even legacy members of the societies themselves would often abandon the cause, as at times whole generations would pass with no fresh and obvious evidence of the Kerguelen threat to the human race).

So this time the fate of humanity would be decided not by one or a few local heroes, but by small groups spread far and wide across the globe, amplifying their intelligence and leveraging their clout via the internet and whatever other technologies they could seize upon, to do their best to prevent humanity from being seduced into entering a new Dark Age, from which they might never be able to emerge again.

Of course, the scant odds of success for these scattered resistance elements became the butt of popular jokes among the Kerguelen elite and fleet alike: circa early 2003 even mainstream US media itself was frequently heaping ridicule upon such parties and their efforts. Yes, the conquest of humanity looked to be a hilarious event, indeed.

The Kerguelen Contents

Back to timeline contents: Antarctic and Kerguelen continents: Kerguelen lost civilization contents: Kerguelen 295 million BC through 20 million BC