Twenty thousand years before the common era, a developed civilization isolated itself on a group of large islands just barely north of Antarctica and somewhat west of South America. This group of islands was later known as Zhaikaia, but for a long time the people in there were mostly changing tribes and other small communities, warring and exchanging like any other. Though the people did not know it, their way back to the main lands, all to Australia, South America and Antarctica slowly sunk into the ocean as a result of tectonic activity. No people without quite advanced seafaring could cross the vast distance or survive the imminent cold that lingered in their tracks at all times. The islands themselves, after a couple thousand years of volcanic activity, never again were bothered by very serious tectonic shifting. In fact, the climate of the islands cooled and was eventually quite cold – though mild in the way that the islands were after all surrounded by water that was never quite cold nor warm. In the summer the temperatures very rarely reached 30 °C, and even then in the most northernly places. In the south the temperature did not rise much above 20. During winter the temperature got as low as -30, even -40 in the south, where an ice field often formed to unite Zhaikaia and Antarctica. However, very few people ever traveled to Antarctica, for there was nothing but cold there for the people.

The people soon started developing language, culture and science. They were still divided among themselves and had small wars, times of peace as well as revelation and revolution.

Ten thousand years before the common era the people had developed simple technology and were mostly united among themselves. That is when they named themselves and their home; Zhaikaia was the name of the place that was a home to people who called themselves Zhyikevs.

During the next few millennia the Zhyikev developed their science even further. Being in touch with nature as they were, their home never paid the price most of the world paid much later at the hands of Europeans. They studied and assessed their methods, investigations and inventions, developing them to the point where they were not harmful to the nature. Being content with their space, the Zhyikev had no desire to conquer other places outside their realm even when they realized the existence of the rest of the world. As the other human civilizations were then quite undeveloped yet, they did not bother to initiate communication nor trade – the others had nothing to give them and they had no reason to give the others anything. Some of them did try, of course, with rather feeble results. They were worshiped as deities or burned as witches and demons – very little was accomplished from the attempts of communication. The domain of the Zhyikev remained constant, their Zhaikaia and the small research expeditions to the rest of the world were more than enough for them.

Six thousand years before the common era the civilization of the Zhyikev was capable of space travel; they conquered the moon and sent a team to orbit Mars. Nobody still knows why, but not too long after that, the Zhyikev started changing. There were undeniable amounts of people who could read the minds of others and people who moved objects by the force of their will. Some could bend the electromagnetic forces by their mind, some could consciously control some autonomous functions of their bodies. Some even had other uncanny abilities. People were born with deformations that were often too uniform and functional to be deformations. These people often showed amazing intellect and longevity. They were the ones who eventually discovered much of the secrets behind their coming about.

The Zhyikev were evolving into something new. Humans gave birth to creatures that turned out to be something more than humans, and in turn these creatures gave birth to other creatures that turned out to be more than the sum of their parents. Nevertheless, this evolving was rapid and uncontrolled – in fact, it caused more conflict and destruction than everything else in the history of Zhyikev. Yet these strange creatures were the cause of much further development, so that degeneration and regeneration canceled each other out and conclusively favored regeneration. Even at times of conflict and revolution, humans and the new creatures managed to keep their relative peace.

Eventually the situation seemed to stop into a standstill. Humans were slowly dying out, though now most of them only gave birth to their own kind and only few of the humans born turned out to be something more. Still, the trend was toward the extinction of human Zhyikev. This was accepted: if the nature wished to go that way, that way it would go. The new Zhyikev creatures slowly developed into something more among their own, but their evolving decreased logarithmically as newer and newer generations came into existence. It seemed their evolution had reached a new equilibrium for now. Still, many felt like their potential was wasted or hidden, but everyone had a hard time trying to figure that potential out.

It happened that before the secret of their hidden, maybe nonexistent potential was revealed, an alien species from beyond the stars came to Earth. The aliens cared not about the humans other than the Zhyikev and their more evolved counterparts, for the other humans were too undeveloped to be able to grasp any of their messages. It took more than a hundred years even for the Zhyikev to establish proper communication and comprehension – fortunately, after that things advanced rather smoothly. The aliens called themselves qapeiges and they claimed to be wanting to help intelligent species and build a vast social network with those that had advanced far enough. They taught the Zhyikev about technology as well as corrected some mistakes in their sciences, though they mostly inspired them to find it out themselves. Also, after realizing that the evolved people were at the breaking point of their evolution, the qapeiges helped to unleash the hidden potential in the people. This involved some complicated DNA fingering as well as perplexed mental training. This was something the Zhyikev did not comprehend, even though they knew what the qapeiges were doing, or more precisely aiming for. Not even with their unleashed potential did the people figure out the secret behind the qapeiges' changing of their essence. Soon after, the qapeiges left, leaving the Zhyikev to study their new form and the world with their improved methods.

The evolved Zhyikev, now clearly not human anymore – though they still appeared mostly humanoid externally – recognized themselves as a new species and named themselves simply zhyikevs. The Zhyikev humans and those mutants who had not yet or still evolved eventually felt that their place was not among this new species anymore, so they all arranged for the willing to leave and live with the rest of humanity, outside the domain of Zhaikaia. Thus were mixed the bloodlines of the common humanity and the Zhyikev, and thus were created many of the legends of humankind, the legends that tell of extraordinary people, extraordinary deeds and miracles, even gods and demons.

While the human Zhyikev and the mutants either assimilated to the rest of humankind or died out, the new species, zhyikevs, continued living on Zhaikaia in peace. Before too long, they were the only remaining sentient creatures on the islands. They were much more curious and travel-oriented than their early human counterparts, but that nature of theirs was first directed toward their own essence and the depths of space – the rest of the world had been more or less examined and they figured it was not polite to go and study the places where the still undeveloped humans lived, and what was new was the priority of many people. They made remarkable discoveries in the study of telepathy (the ability to read, control and modify the mind itself), telekinesis (the ability to move objects by the power of your mind), electromagnetic manipulation (the ability to modify and sense electromagnetic forces) and metabolic consciousness (the ability to sense and influence the functions of one's own body). They traveled to other planets, not just the moon of Earth or Mars. They were able to establish a base on Titan, a moon of Saturn, and a space station in its orbit. Some zhyikevs actually moved to the space station and the base on Titan after they had been able to establish self-sustenance, attempting to make Titan wholly habitable and search for new planets among the stars.

However, the reign of the zhyikevs on Earth seemed to become to an abrupt end when their scientists announced that Zhaikaia was about to experience destruction by tectonic shifts that had been thought to be a thing of the long past. In addition, the humans had started coming up with simple technology and effective means of controlling other humans, and now apparently posed a threat for the zhyikevs, who were very few in numbers compared to the other humans. The climate got increasingly warmer every year and it was not until too late that they found out what had happened. As they were half busy trying to figure out what was wrong and half eager to evacuate the population, one day the humans came in great numbers and caused major damage, not as much directly as indirectly. The zhyikevs had to concentrate on the most immediate threat, the humans, and left the controversial geological state of the island unstudied for a while. Though the humans were not much of an enemy, they were a remarkable hindrance, and even before the humans had been beaten, the islands started tearing apart, exploding and sinking into the ocean. No sane humans returned from the voyage to tell what had really happened. The story of the mostly forgotten Zhaikaia remains a legend, if not a mystery, to all humans.

The zhyikevs fled with what little ships they had, some even used the unharmed human seaships. After the unfortunate event, many zhyikevs relocated to Titan, but though not many had survived the destruction of their home, Titan could sustain even less people, so they were forced to find a new home on Earth. They spread out now, into little communities in sparsely habited areas: Canada, Alaska, the south tip of South America, Tibet, Siberia, Iceland and even Australia – zhyikevs did not like heat, though they were of course able to adapt to it. They attempted to stay away from the human population, especially after a few failed attempts – after all, the humans had nothing to give to the zhyikevs and an alliance most often ended up in betrayal on the humans' part or them stripping the zhyikev of their resources. Because of the direct human threat, they made their homes and possessions easily portable or made do with much simpler conveniences like wooden houses or caves.

This happened, by common human era, around 1700.



The physiology of zhyikevs is quite different from the rest of the organisms on the planet. Though they are essentially mammals and are humanoid in form, they have a genetic structure similar to that of a plant. A normal individual has 96 chromosomes and four equivalent chromosomes, meaning that 24 of the chromosomes are in fact different. The composition of the DNA is otherwise similar to that of the rest of the organisms.

The Zhyikev humans generally gave birth to mutants who had two extra chromosomes in their genetic composition, and the gametes of those mutants combined to form a functional creature with four equivalent chromosomes. Zhyikevs themselves produce four different kinds of gametes and each of these is required for a zygote. The gametes are produced in two similar organs. One organ makes many ovum-like gametes (genranve) and little sperm-like gametes (gensane) and is called a generi. These gametes are released into a fallopian tube -like duct from where the gametes slowly advance to the uterus – the gensanes mostly push around the genranves. They cannot combine with each other because they practically repel each other due to the similar composition of their outer layers. The other organ, gento, makes many sperm-like gametes (tosane) and little ovum-like gametes (toranve). These gametes that also repel each other are released into a vas deferens -like duct and are then guided to another person's uterus. Once there, genranves start to combine with tosanes, forming a so-called maternal half-zygote. Gensanes combine with toranves, forming a "paternal half-zygote". These half-zygotes start combining and when this happens, the combination of all the four gametes starts secreting a substance that prevents other gametes from combining. The secretion kills all the other gametes and the many remaining ones use them for nutrition. Later three fourths of the zygotes die and are used for nutrition by the remaining ones as well. After a month of stressing competition, they start to develop together, stopping to harm each other. Almost every time there is more than one child born. Very usually three to six, and rarely one to nine. Much more than ten is not possible, because the adult body where the embryos grow in stresses so much that all the embryos die. Since most zhyikevs are capable of controlling their body in a way that they can consciously kill some or all of the embryos, it is not dangerous. The embryos are born when they feels like it, usually after about a year or so. If there are many children, they tend to be born earlier since the space gets too small. The children are very small and undeveloped when born, and the parent needs to feed them easy-eating food. The children start to care about the outer world at the age of three, when they no longer sleep when they do not eat. In other words, they start to think. The mental and physical abilities are defective until the children reach the age of about twelve.

The reproductive system of the zhyikevs is rather different from that of humans, but they do have bits that are equivalent to most of the reproductive organs found in humans. They have two gonads but they are different and are located inside the body. The jigen (equivalent for vagina) and uterus are relatively similar to those of humans. The external genitals are the most different: In a non-aroused state all the genitals are covered by shrunk skin folds and hair. Also, the togen (equivalent of penis) is generally attached under the jigen and looks mostly like an overgrown skinfold if it is seen in a non-aroused state. However, usually the togen is inside the individual's own jigen, which prevents it from getting hurt. In a sexually aroused state, the skin folds will swell and the togen will slip out of the person's jigen unless it is forced to stay there.

Zhyikevs have united teeth in the way that one tooth of theirs is about the same as three human tooths. They have the same complexion as most Amerindians and are fairly hairy. They have hair on their heads similar to humans as well as eyebrows and eyelashes, but they grow no or very little facial hair otherwise. Children have fairly light body hair and generally much less of it than adults. Adults have darker or more colorful hair and in more places. Zhyikevs have no ears – just a small piece of skin that covers the auditory canal – and they hear approximately the same frequencies as humans. They have three toes with no nails on them on each foot but five fingers on each hand like humans. They have fairly large eyes and can see in three ways: the normal colors the humans see, ultraviolet light like birds or infrared like snakes. Usually one person cannot see both ultraviolet and infrared, but it is not that rare. There are also some who do not see ultraviolet or infrared. Children have trouble recognizing which signal is which, but as they grow older, they learn to separate and concentrate on the different kinds of electromagnetic radiation. They can also sense electromagnetic phenomena with a pair of special sensory organs. The organs are effectively special strips of skin on the sides of their neck, starting from behind the ear and going down toward the neck just behind the large neck tendons (sternocleidomastoid muscles).

Zhyikevs live usually for a bit over 1300 years. Their adolescence starts about at the age of fifteen and ends at around 36. They also live through a second adolescence that takes place around when they are approximately four hundred years old. The gonads produce a very close zygotic copy of the original cell and the person becomes pregnant with that copy. The copy grows inside the carrier, but after a year, when a normal child would be born, the carrier instead enters a coma during which the structure of the carrier's brain and all the connections are carefully copied to the copy child's brain. This goes on for two years, during which the carrier's body degenerates badly – usually the body is given some extra nutrients to make sure that the process succeeds well. Eventually, the adult carrier's body withers and is about to die, and when that happens, the copy child needs to get out quickly. Most often others cut the child out, but the child can also be born on its own, though that has more chance of ending badly for the child since the parturition can go on only as long as the carrier's body is still alive. The copy can die when growing, but when the adult carrier is not yet comatose, the copy can be easily replaced. After the carrier's becoming comatose, the copy tends to die only if the conditions are very suboptimal, and even then the body of the carrier notices it and tries to finish the process, even if prematurely. The copy has the highest chance of dying while being born, but overall the death rate of embryonic copies is extremely small. The copy can not make copies anymore, but otherwise the copied body is more durable and fertile. The copy slowly taps into the knowledge, abilities and memories of the carrier.

The earlier body reaches sexual maturity approximately at the age of 32, but the person is not generally allowed to carry offspring until after twelve years. The copied body reaches sexual maturity at the age of 54. The adolescence starts at the age of 22 and ends around 62. Unlike in the first stage, now the person knows how to raise offspring, so ey can have children whenever ey will be capable of doing it.

Raising offspring of same age takes at least 30 years. Many of the people can have more offspring after 20 years from when the last ones were born, but if it is the first time, it takes 40 years to be fertile again. All the people usually have offspring at the same time so that the kids will have a lot of friends and mates of the same age group.



In North America, the zhyikevs found that things were not for the better as Europeans were coming in large numbers and invading the territories from the original human inhabitants, the Amerindians.

The Amerindians tended to not mind the zhyikev too much so they mostly left each other alone – the trouble started when Europeans discovered zhyikevs. The religious humans regarded zhyikevs as abominations and sought to annihilate them all. Zhyikevs of course did not accept that nor the Europeans' slaughter of Amerindians, so they did what they could to preserve their own and the others' lives. Zhyikevs did no war and eventually the conflicts died out when the humans started to come around to cooperation among each other – zhyikevs were happily forgotten and they were thought to have died out by most humans. Humans, having no advanced science at the time, did not know what zhyikevs were and could not find out or most often even understand – early on zhyikevs were regarded as demons and the like, later as the sciences made advances, it was thought that zhyikevs were only deformed humans and mutants.

As the conflicts ended, two zhyikev communities settled around the Rocky Mountains in Canada, one settled in Mackenzie Mountains and one in the state of Nevada in the United States of America – or the places that would eventually be known as such.

The human population started evolving like the community of the Zhyikev had done long ago. The reason was mostly the emerging heritage of the evolved Zhyikev humans but the rest of the humans did not know that. Mutants were born with strange deformities and phenomenal abilities – they were most often killed as abominations or treated for their "faults" and "abnormalities", though some did become superheroes or the like. Most often the so-called normal population accepted those who had gained their abilities through a freak accident – the Zhyikev heritage in some people made them more receptive to mutation and resistant to the more harmful effects. However, from the beginning of the 1900s, most natural mutants were not regarded as superheroes anymore, and after the late 1900s, they were replaced altogether by people who got their powers only by accident, usually caused by radiation or chemicals, or if not, then they used technology. Still many claimed to have gotten extraordinary talents through an accident, as the genetic state of being a mutant had always been a problem and the humans had significant difficulties trying to map some of their own genomes. Some mutants now knew something about themselves and therefore hid themselves among normal people, or were killed.

In the beginning of the 21st century people started figuring out something conclusive about the state of being a mutant, finding out that the genetic makeup of mutants was very different from that of the "normal" humans. That of course mostly depended on the sample that the mutants were compared to, and as those humans who had Zhyikev heritage in them either were mutants themselves or had mixed themselves among the other humans so as to have made the heritage much less clear, they were hard to find. The general populace now regarded mutants as a dangerous threat that should be removed from the face of Earth. However, they did not do that with the accidental superheroes who are even worse cases than mutants since mutants get their powers naturally and they do not – it seemed much more humane and easy for them to accept and support the specialness of victims of accidents rather than try to accept people who were born different and refused "normalizing" treatment.

By the time modern science and civilization came around, most of the world had completely forgotten about the zhyikev, only considering them some elite Amerindian tribe that had been able to preserve lives in the midst of colonization and wars in America. The myths, legends and imaginative stories remained, but as usual, they were considered just that – stories, and most often they were not even associated with zhyikevs.

The zhyikev community in Mackenzie Mountains was, however, known to the humans of Jakahata, a city near the community. The city had initially reported of the "strange humans" to the state, but the state had told them to mind the strangers themselves or stop believing in UFOs. There had been reports ever since the city was established around the 1850s. However, since they were told to mind the issue themselves, the humans just made it a secret among the city government and local military. Since direct attacks always seemed to fail, the strangers did not seem to be a big threat and the humans figured out that the zhyikevs could in fact use telepathy on them, they took ages to come up with a way to deal with them. Stories of course spawned among the regular citizens, but they were considered folklore.