This Looks Like a Good Place for a Disclaimer:  This stuff is owned by
other people, except for the stuff that isn't.  If you own the stuff
I've used, please do not sue me.  Firstly, if you do own any of it
chances are you already have one hell of a lot more money than I do. 
Secondly, I will have to relocate to Tierra del Fuego, and no one wants
that to happen...

The Legacy of Kain - Chapter Five (Kevin's Tale - Anajurai)

    A long, long time ago...
    "Oh, in a galaxy far, far away, I suppose?"
     -whack-
     "Ow!  Dammit, Washu-!"
     "Heh heh heh..."
     AHEM.
     "Sorry."
     A long, long time ago - in THIS galaxy, smartass - a young race was
just making its presence known amongst the stars.  With the aid of the
sentient trees they had evolved in symbiosis with, the Jurian Empire
grew at an incredible rate, unheard of.  Before long most of the galaxy
was under their control.  Then they hit a snag.
     They had been expanding for so long that their culture had become
one of expansionism, conquering and subordinating where before they had
coexisted and peacefully taken cultures under their wing.  When they
stopped expanding, unable to bridge the distance between galaxies, the
conflict known as the Great Rift began.  Wars turned inwards upon
themselves.  Colony worlds broke away from the Empire, formed alliances
and slaughtered each other.  Atrocities became commonplace, whole
planets were annihilated.  It was a terrible time for the galaxy.
     Eventually, the warring factions merged into larger and larger
groups, parleying for more power, more safety, more chances for
conquest.  At the end there were only two sides left - what remained of
the Jurian Empire, and those who had broken away from their control, the
alliance that became known as the Anajurai.  By this point the wars had
been going on for centuries - fighting the others was a galactic way of
life.  Both sides were so blinded by hate and had been killing each
other for so long that nothing could stop it now - only the complete and
utter destruction of the other.  Genocide or everlasting war.  In the
end the Anajurai made the decision that ended it all.
     They...decided to take away the Jurian's treeships.  They bombed
the nursery.
     All of the Anajurai were of Jurian blood originally.  Many of them
had treeships of their own.  They committed the highest treason, the
most disgusting, filthy crime possible for one of their kind.  They
killed an entire generation of trees only just reaching maturity...the
psychic screams reverberated across the planets as the saplings burned. 
Almost all telepathic sensitives  among the Jurai and Anajurai died or
went mad.
     Once the sound of their dying had passed, a new sound was heard
across the worlds...the sound of a woman, weeping for her children, both
the trees and the people.  Tsunami, the First Tree.
     After that, everything changed.
     The few treeships that remained...on both sides...could not stand
having been part of such a holocaust.  They committed suicide.  All of
them.  Every single Jurian Tree in the galaxy died, but for Tsunami.  No
ships flew, no one went from planet to planet...the Great Rift ended,
and an immense silence fell over the galaxy.  The Dark Age had begun.
     Up until then, treeships had been the only mode of transport
known.  Those who did not die among the stars found themselves stranded,
on Jurai and a million backwater colonies.  Those left on Jurai stayed,
shying away from reestablishing contact, trying to restore what had once
been a beautiful world.  It was millennia before they had the desire -
or the means, for Tsunami forbade them to venture into the stars again
until they had learned more wisdom - to leave their planet.
     The Anajurai were lost.  Unlike the Jurians, they could never hope
to have treeships again.  They were universally despised and reviled,
attacked on sight more often than not.  Slowly, they begged, bought, and
stole the ships of other, ‘lesser' races, ships built of simple metal. 
And slowly, they built the Ark; a ship the size of a planet, housing an
entire race.  A ship that huge could never enter hyperspace and expect
to come out intact, so it ponderously made its way through the stars,
avoiding threats it could, destroying those it could not, and eventually
it left the galaxy, making for somewhere they could start over - a new
place the Anajurai could call home.  
     I am Walker, son of Akkaize.  I am the last of the Anajurai.

     A silence fell over the room.  Kevin - or Walker - took a deep
breath as he put out his cigarette and seemed about to say something
when Ayeka stood suddenly.  She walked up to him until they stood face
to face.  Expressionlessly, Ayeka studied his face.
     Then she drew back her arm and slapped him.
     Kevin's head snapped to the side from the force of the blow.  When
he brought his face around to look at her again, his eyes were calm,
almost sad.
     "I will accept that from you, Princess.  I am aware of how my
people have been made into a myth, vilified, a story to frighten
children.  I am aware that you are the leader of your people, and how
your hate for me must be overwhelming."  His jaw tightened.
     "I will accept it only once, however.  For as the Princess you must
also know the truth about that war."
     "You killed the Trees.  You killed them.  There is nothing that can
compare to that."
     "My ANCESTORS killed the Trees!" Kevin shot back, staring into
Ayeka's face.  Ayeka crossed her arms, refusing to budge.  
     "Nevertheless," she replied.  "Your entire cursed breed must answer
for that crime."
     "That crime?  Listen to yourself!" exploded Kevin.  "Yes, it was
wrong.  Yes, it was a disaster, and cruel, and terrible.  No one should
ever have done it.  But you know as well as I do that it was only the
topper to a war filled with atrocities."
     "But the Trees!" burst in Tenchi.
     Kevin looked at him levelly.  "Tenchi.  I assume you learned of
your Second World war?"
     Tenchi blinked.  "Well, yeah, but..."
     "Do you remember how it ended?"
     Tenchi opened his mouth, then closed it again.
     "That's right," said Kevin.  "Nuclear weapons.  Two targets.  Two
whole cities wiped off the face of your little planet - women, children,
babies, pets, every living thing scythed away.  Gone.  And everyone just
calmly accepts that.  It's a footnote in history books, only anti-nuke
activists get worked up about it any more.  You know why?" he looked
back at Ayeka, looking angry for the first time.  "Cause history is
written by the winners."
     "That is not fair!"
     "No?" Kevin looked around.  "Hey, Sasami.  Ever hear of a star
system called Larai Regus?" 
     Sasami's brow furrowed in thought.  "No...I don't think so..."
     He turned back to Ayeka.  "My family settled there, originally,
after they left Jurai.  Generations ago.  Larai III was a beautiful
planet, unsoiled, crystalline skies and lush greenery that existed
nowhere else in the galaxy."  Ayeka had grown pale.  "Larai IV, our
neighbor, was an ocean planet, home to a newly emergent species. 
Dolphinoid.  Primitive, but very intelligent - we had only just begun to
learn their language.  They were peaceful.  Violence was completely
unknown to them...their philosophers had begun to teach us some of their
ways, and one day we were going to take them to the stars."  He sighed. 
"We never got the chance.  I'm not surprised you haven't heard of Larai
Regus, Sasami - it's not there any more.  In the last days of the Rift
the Jurai used a new weapon that made our sun go supernova.  We barely
made it out with our lives.  The Larian dolphins?  Casualties of war. 
They're an extinct species now - all to get at us.  Because of that
incident, my forbears reentered the war.  Tell me, Princess, whose
cursed breed has to answer for that?"
     Ayeka, who had sunk back into her chair, was silent.
     Tenchi looked up. 
     "What about Kain?"
     "Ah." said Kevin.  He lit another cigarette.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:  Tune in next time for the altogether more disturbing
second part of Kevin's story...oh, and send comments, criticisms and a
small furry lump of putty to kakapo101@hotmail.com.