Rain Wise and Smoke Cloud, or Jack and Miguel Sanderson, were half-brothers on the Rarasandia Reservation. They both studied because both were ambitious, wanting more for themselves and for their people, the Rara, than the doleful life they had.
They turned to history, which was a preoccupation of their tribe, and found much to be angry over. But whereas Smoke Cloud focused on the books which spoke of the evils done his tribe by the White Man, Rain Wise read further and began to see that while they had be abused, they had not been wholly innocent as well.
He read on and realized that what he worshipped was a pteradactyl, the Thunderbird. And so he chose someone grander, the Creator. He became a follower of Jesus despite the scorn of many others around him.
The two were older teenagers the day they were arguing over how to fix their pathetic ten year old computer with the new parts. And it got physical. By the time it was done, scriff had invaded their bodies and so had electricity.
They landed first on the orange plains, and learned psi skills there. Worlds passed, mostly seperate, but they came back together again in a land that reminded them deeply of home.
The Rockies were to the left and the Mighy Mo to the right and the Great Plains stretched north in front of them and south behind them.
The locals had similar customs to Pre-Columbian Native American tribes.
They weren't human.
Seven feet tall, three fingers with talons, fanged mouths with boxy bone-breaking jaws, heavy tails that they held high in full sprint, or that kept their rickety knees balanced as their knees could bend either way, and with out support from their tails, they tended to bend it the wrong way and fall. They were hairless except for a small ruff on their scalp, the back of their hands, and the tip of their tail. But not immodest because genitalia retreated into the body. One could tell a female from the birthing pouch (like a kangaroo), and if of greater maturity of greater size.
A female at full size would be three times the size of a male, but immobile. She would have one mate, raise his children. Keep the first mate, and add another while having another growth spurt. Typically, the top level females had four mates.
Rain Wise used his precog and saw that a technically expanding, expansionistic set of powers was going to come across the ocean and do unto the locals as had been done to the Rara.
Smoke Cloud, when told, came up with a solution. He would forge the locals into a mighty empire of iron. Rain Wise disagreed, and this brought forth all their disagreement with each other.
Smoke Cloud went north, and by skill, and charm, and bullying took over his first tribe. He used them to take over other tribes in a dazzling display of ruthless military skill.
Uncertain what to do about the problem, Rain Wise followed his heart, and began preaching of the love of Jesus as he went south.
The colonists came and Smoke Cloud slaughtered them.
Rain Wise kept going. His converts came to realize that loving their tribe was not enough. One had to love the enemy tribe as well. Many went. It was the custom that a bold visitor was received well, and so they were. But many were ambushed in the waste. Still more came.
The wave of conversion spread faster than Rain Wise could move. He found himself going into villages to preach, and having the local chieftain ask him to dedicate the just built church.
Trade followed. At first it was simple..."I like that pot, I'll trade you this bead for it...". But it expanded greatly from that.
And then Rain Wise was killed. He sought to rescue from a cave which he was small enough to enter, an unmated young male of poor family, if not the lowest of the low, still pretty low on the totem pole of status. He did, but he was crushed in the cave collapse.
This example taught the expanding Union of 'human rights', of dignity for all souls, even the poor and unregarded which was a new concept for them.
Smoke Cloud laughed when he heard the news. His great rival had wasted his life.
And yet the Union kept on spreading, even faster than the military genius of Smoke Cloud could drive his people with whips of barbed iron and the goad of pride.
With the knowledge of a rational God, they began to build items and create the rudiments of science.
When the settlers came to their land, bearing greed and God in their hearts. The Union was able to repulse them, and then send missionaries. Hearing of the love of Jesus from 'savages' who were willing to be martyred to save followers of Jesus made a serious dent in the greed that struggled in the colonists hearts.
The colonists assimilated into the Union.
The Empire tried to attack, but the Union's weapons were so great, with the settler's help that it would have required suicidal bravery by thousands to breach their lines. And thankfully, the Somme was centuries in the future in the sense that it would have required great changes in their culture to do that.
The Empire settled down to skirmish and harrass as the Union surrounded it to the South and East and West and began to encircle it on the top.
At this point, a ten year old boy, or so he seemed began walking down a road in the Empire. Soldiers came by and harrassed him. He dealt with them. And then he sought to find out who had taught the locals to be so rude.
Thereupon he sought out the Emperor, and explained to him at great length about courtesy by using his stick to bang the Emperor on the head repeatedly. At some point the Emperor was not listening any longer, and the 'young' 'boy' slammed his bo stick through the Emperor's heart who promptly versed out.
The Empire fell apart shortly thereafter. It was assimilated within five years into the Union.
This example taught the expanding Union of 'human rights', of dignity for all souls, even the poor and unregarded which was a new concept for them.
So, not that similar to pre-Columbian Native American tribes.
I don't know. I have been reading a book by Tod Lindberg on 'The Political Teachings of Jesus', and he argued that opressing the poor and weak was considered par for the course before Jesusian political ideas took over. Now that was in the Middle East and not in America, but I assumed that such was common worldwide.
I think this is a lesson humans need over and over again. In the Bible, one church?? gets scolded for their tendency to give the nice seats to the rich members and the bad seats to the poor.
Lindberg argued that we nowadays don't always respect each other, but we at least pretend too. Back in the day, there was no even pretense. It was "I'm rich, I'm proud of it, and poor people are scum." was the open viewpoint.