The story of Project Manifest Destiny isn't just a story of earthlings and their sudden arrival on the galactic stage, their struggle with the dangers of space and their diplomacy with foreign nations. It is the story of two people, the people of Earth and the people of Kord, coming together and through peace, hope, and science, forging a lasting kinship and the technology to traverse space at superluminal speeds.
Earthlings, even compared to some of the species we share the planet with, are a bright and violent flame that flares brightly and burns out quickly. We share our world with truly ancient species that have lived unchanged for ages before we spoke our first words. Similarly, there are some organisms on this planet that do not know death in the way that we do, able to persist as individuals through novel biological processes that include long periods of dormancy and the ability to revert to earlier life stages.
This is the chief difference between Earthlings and the Kord. Earthlings are youthful and having just bloomed into a galactic civilization are full of ambition and desperate to make our mark. We are not unlike some species that we share this galaxy with. Others are just as brash, if not more so, but it is not a quality embodied by the Kord.
They are a people ancient beyond our understanding of the word. They exist on the outer fringes of the galaxy, having constructed their empire through the use of subluminal space-craft and cryogenics. Theirs is a culture that hasn't seen real change in millennia, a slumbering people (both literally and figuratively) that exist... and little else. We might compare them to our redwood trees, every bit as majestic and long-lived, but all but inanimate.
A discovery suddenly links these two people and the vigor of mankind enkindles the Kord. That which they thought long lost has been found and their eagerness to reclaim it has stirred them into uncharacteristic action.
Humanity's unquenchable curiosity combines with the Kord's wisdom and humble technologies to reveal new discoveries that prove to catalyze great change in both people, cementing their partnership for years to come.
The wisdom of the Kord is akin to folklore. As a people, they have born witness to long eons of the galaxy, having seen species rise and fall, and have endured the unique challenges of countless worlds. It is, however, not a wisdom drawn from real science, but from the lessons learned from those who survive. It is, after all, the stories of those who live that are passed on to future generations.
While there is value in these tales, there is also superstition. A young Kord explorer may have survived the season of flame known to scorch the surface of Godel IV wearing a wreath of knotwood twigs around his wrist, but Mankind might be skeptical that such a wreath was responsible for his
perseverance. On the other hand, Kord warnings that the surface of Godel IV is routinely awash with flame is very valuable information indeed.
