KETHRASELENNE · THE ALMANAC
DRAFT EDITION
20 SEPTEMBER 2026
Canon recordA decision record approved by Briana.

Vector Shift — Saga Structure Correction: The Story Begins on Kethra#

Canon • Stated by Briana • 18 September 2026

This corrects the Saga Timeline Update of earlier the same day. That record placed Kethra after the Reckoning and treated the five sagas as the songs of Earth-of-the-songs. That placement is withdrawn. The earlier file is left unchanged as a record; this correction takes precedence.

Briana's words#

The entire story begins on Kethra, no history of Earth of the songs. And the Varkhesh are the last story of the saga, and come that time, what will be learned, is that the Varkhesh hive is located on Earth. And that will be stunning - both because they discover their ancestral home is real, and then because genocidal maniacs occupy it.

Before this, when asked where Kethra sits relative to the Varkhesh, she said: "the Varkhesh are way in teh future".

What is now canon#

  1. The saga begins on Kethra. The five-saga sequence (the First Colonial War, the Interstellar Empire War, the Golden Age, the Second Colonial Wars, the Varkhesh Reckoning) is Kethra's future, not its remembered past.
  2. The songs contain no history of Earth. Earth-of-the-songs remains a myth. Nobody knows where Earth is, and nobody can prove it existed. The five sagas are not the songs.
  3. The Varkhesh come last, in the final saga.
  4. The Varkhesh hive is located on Earth. Humanity learns this only in the last saga. It lands as a double shock:
    • the ancestral home is real;
    • "genocidal maniacs occupy it".

Consequences for existing material#

  • The Earth heritage decision and Earth-of-the-songs stand unchanged.
  • The Varkhesh origin notes (a monarchical world, gene-war, armour, the hive, the King, first contact by spy satellite) stand. The hive being on Earth is new. How the Varkhesh came to occupy Earth is open (see below).
  • The Kethra Almanac (draft) was written for the withdrawn placement. It treats the five sagas as scripture, gives Kethrans a memory of the Varkhesh ("the Armoured"), and explains faction names as inherited from the songs. It needs revision. The revision is tracked separately.
  • Saga 1 begins in Kethra's present. The almanac's present day, AL 2314, fits the opening of saga 1, "Crowns and Contested Worlds". It already has rival crowns, an armistice, charter disputes and belt unrest. Whether AL 2314 is the saga's start is open.

Open questions (Briana's to decide)#

  1. The earlier timeline mentions Earth. It includes "Earth, its countries, and its colonies unite", "Earth's expanded empire", and "the Defence of Humanity's Homeworld … Earth's defence". Now that the story begins on Kethra, should these read Kethra (Kethra as humanity's homeworld, its nations and its colonies)?
  2. "The war reaching Earth" in the Reckoning. Does humanity eventually carry the war to Earth, the hive's seat? Or does the Reckoning reach Kethra, the homeworld?
  3. How the Varkhesh came to hold Earth. Did they take it from the humans who stayed behind, or find it already empty? This matters for canon first contact: the Varkhesh first took human mechs for beings like themselves and were horrified when a human stepped out. That reaction only works if they had not already met humans on Earth.
  4. Why the Founders left, and why they swore never to look back. Did they flee the Varkhesh? If so, the Founders knew, and their descendants do not.

Prepared by Claude.

← All canon records