The Universe is violence and chaos. Life is an insignificant scum on some of the warm rocky orbs. On rare worlds, life looks upward at the stars, and wonders, and yearns. On very rare worlds, life reaches out to other worlds, other stars.
These rare beings, mostly from water/oxygen worlds, war with each other. But tiring of fighting, they share their stories. Knowing that their stories and their aspirations are all that set them apart from cold meaningless entropy, they honor and preserve their stories.
These world races, with so little else in common, have a word for themselves–oki–”those who reach for the stars and share stories.”
These oki beings all have their stories to tell, and I am honored to pass along a few of them here.