Dorn Heirs: Marens Rising

By J Cook Dunnigan

For fans of Star Trek's exploration of alien cultures and Star Wars' focus on mysticism, the Gifts & Rifts Series follows the interactions and changes brought about by those interactions upon the very different alien races.
Dorn Heirs: Marens Rising, the first Book of the Series, follows a remnant of the Dorn species as they search for worthy successors to their technological advancements and spiritual insights.
After finding the Thorens, who had certain traits similar to the Dorns, possessing certain telepathic abilities and being non-placental, the Dorns try to enhance the Thorens' development in hopes of eliminating their baser, violent impulses. The Dorns withdraw to the Isle of Mare, when they become convinced that their investment in the Thorens will not yield the results they desired. A Dorn last attempt to affect the desired changes fails and causes a predictable aggressive reaction by the Thorens.
Taig, one of the fiercest Thorens of his generation and drawn to the Dorns, will discover that the Dorns he seeks to eradicate from his world possess secret insights that they are willing to share with him alone. The gifts he receives change his very nature, and he must resolve the dilemma that the Dorns failed to achieve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Livingood
• Release date: Aug 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780983908951

Book preview

Dorn Heirs: Marens Rising

J. Cook Dunnigan

Dorn Heirs Copyright © 2018 by J. Cook Dunnigan. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. 

Cover designed by J. Cook Dunnigan 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue: Intervention

Chapter 1: The Emergence

Chapter 2: The Dorn Incident

Chapter 3: The City of Elcod

Chapter 4: The Council of Elders

Chapter 5: The Dorn Refuge

Chapter 6: An End and a Beginning

Chapter 7: Respite and Reflection

Chapter 8: The Plan and The Council of Elders

Chapter 9: Taig's Personal Challenge

Chapter 10: A New Tribe

Chapter 11: No Falsehood

Chapter 12: The Launch

Chapter 13: The Council and the Aftermath

Chapter 14: A New World

Glossary

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Prologue

Dorn Intervention

The Dorns’ ancient recorded history began with the Awakening. This Awakening event was documented orally in stories and then in writing, but always through their telepathic communication with their young. Dorn life prior to the Awakening was unknown and of no interest to them. The Awakening was the seminal moment of revelation of the knowledge of their place in the physical world and in the spiritual world that survived death. There was a complete acceptance of a Creator that created both the physical world and spiritual world. They viewed themselves as stewards of the physical world and agents of the Creator in caring for his design for his creation.

The Awakening moment, like their existence before the Awakening, was not carried forward in writing, oral tradition, or through their telepathic conveyances. How exactly the revelation came to be was lost. The subject of the Awakening, other than noting it as the beginning and that which was revealed, was considered conjecture by Dorns and remained in the realm of the unknowable knowledge of the Creator. The commitment to their spiritual mission was expressed in the name they gave their own planet. They named their planet Mare, the Dorns’ word for the Creator’s unconditional love.

As time passed and they mastered the sciences of their physical world, they turned their attention to the stars and planets, first those closest to them and then to those more distant as they were able to detect them. They eventually suspected the existence of other intelligent beings in the creation, and a compulsion slowly arose within them to help these fellow beings in their Creator's creation. This compulsion and their drive to master the physical world caused them to focus their efforts on developing means to travel spatial distances between their planet and other planetary systems in order to make such efforts practical for even beings with their extended longevity.

The Dorn mastery of technology and their acquired longevity allowed them to delve deeper into themselves and focus on their own spiritual development, which had become essential since their Awakening. As their knowledge of new worlds and sentient beings increased, their insight and application of their spiritual mission evolved. This increasing spiritual yearning to seek others who could join with them in their spiritual journey caused a corresponding de-emphasis on physical and material pleasures. Over time, as their lifespans expanded, they ceased to reproduce.

Of the once thriving Dorn civilization, a relatively small group of Dorns remained on Mare, the Dorns’ home-world, while several expeditions were sent via hyperspace portal to other planets. These planets previously had been surveyed and monitored remotely and were designated as hosting sentient life forms with complex systems of communication, rudimentary degrees of technological innovation, and social structures. Each expedition had several promising planets to visit.

Many years after their departure from Mare, one of these expeditions arrived on Thore and found the native species organized into small groups more common to lesser developed sentient beings than the Dorns had encountered elsewhere. Each group had a leader and leadership was determined based on physical competition between individuals in their group. The groups were very territorial and frequently clashed. Despite this primitive social structure, the Thorens had promising traits.

Like the Dorns, the Thorens would mate for life. If a mated Thoren did die, it would not be uncommon for the surviving mate to find a new mate. Thorens practiced a form of telepathic communication usually accomplished by touching foreheads, typically only observed between mates and offspring. This telepathic communication seemed to be a rudimentary form of the Dorns’ own telepathic ability and appeared integral to their learning process.

Also, like the Dorns, Thorens were non-placental and held their offspring in high regard. Birth, the traversal from womb to the pouch and the attaching to the mother's mammary gland, appeared to be a sacred event for the Thorens, although there were no other signs that they had a formal religion. This birthing process and the use of a primitive telepathy seemed to have influenced their high regard for their offspring and for life more generally.

Although their social structure was marked by occasional inter-group skirmishes, Thorens never intentionally killed another of their kind. Challenges within groups and conflicts between groups were occasionally the cause of a Thoren’s death, but it was never an intentional act. The passing of a Thoren was always a solemn event marked by grieving within the group.

Generations of Thorens passed as the Dorns remained on Thore and shared knowledge with the Thorens, who felt a sense of wonder for these beings who brought cultural innovation and practical technology for hunting, conveyance, architecture, and energy management. At the Dorns' suggestion, the Thorens accepted changes to their social structure, began to measure time, and saw the value in education on these subjects and the underlying principles of new technology. The Dorns held back some of their technology and did not address flight outside the atmosphere of Thore or the existence of other beings on other worlds. That knowledge would only be given to the Thorens when they proved worthy by reaching a satisfactory level of spiritual development.

The Dorns' work with the Thorens during