The planet of Shashnia and Earth are light years apart. No one knows exactly how far apart, the only known route between the systems is indirect, moving through a system which is not directly in line between them.  There are suspicions that there is a wormhole or other space-time disruption that makes these distant regions of space closer.

There will be two instances of human contact in the Shashnimyn future.  These events have not yet occurred in the present game time, and will have already occurred for those playing far future campaigns.  Introduction of these elements may arise as play continues.

• The Lonely Observer - a no-return deep space research expedition, one of the last hopes of humanity to find another intelligent species. Many of these ships were sent out, almost all had disasterous failure. On the last moments before the collapse, a single survivor discovers a civilization.
• The Stranded Expedition - a group of scientists are travelling to one of the last unexplored frontiers on Earth in the mid 21st century; under the ice packs of the pole. After they become stranded, their exploration introduces them to a whole new world of discovery...

The Lonely Observer

The first contact in time is not considered the first by the Shashnimyn people, because they will not know about it until many years in the future.  In orbit above the planet there is a solitary research probe ship sent out long ago by the humans.  It encountered an anomaly in space, possibly a wormhole near Pollux, and was transported close to the Shashnian system.

It is manned by a single human who volunteered for the research mission. These missions were taken by people who had a desire to seek out the far reaches of space, but they knew full well that they may never return. A high proportion of incurably depressed but smart people took this task upon themselves. This fella is no exception to that average. He however, is one of the ultra rare few, that has not drifted indefinitely doing little more than cataloguing peculiarities of deep space.

He goes in and out of stasis while in orbit in the Shashnia system, letting the computers automated systems take care of most of the routine data crunching. A human is necessary to deal with unforseen possibilities, and the unlikely phase of contact.

They are not supposed to engage in contact unless they have watched the species for a sufficient amount of time to be sure of a smooth episode. He has been watching for nearly a thousand years and still does not feel comfortable with this task.

he goes unnoticed by the planetary astronomers due to his cloaking system, and has never left his ship for anything more than surface repairs and a few asteroid minings. The Dual know he is up there, and he has suspicions about them knowing this too (There are only so many times they can look your cameras in the eyes knowingly before you are not convinced).  The Dual likes him, and might even perform some small miracles to keep him alive, but knows that his place is to watch, and never contact the Shashnimyn within his lifetime.

In the course of his observations, he discovers the second human occurrence.  This is understandably baffling for an already over-whelmed mind.

---

fiction fragment from perspective of the lone observer soon after setting out on his voyage.

the first thousand years of the voyage were relatively uneventful.  Well, except for the rest of the crew dying.  It was a result of the stasis technology.  We were warned prior to launch that it was not 100% reliable and that we should expect to suffer up to 10% casulaties within our extended lifetimes.  Unfortunately, the simulations that gave these predictions hadn't accounted enough for the effects of enormous time.  So, going into stasis became a ritual where one had to acknowledge that you might not wake up.  Naturally, this did nothing good for our collective psychology.

As it was, stasis required the participants to enter deep meditation and then a near-death coma-like state was induced.  All metabolic functions slowed to a near stop.  Once this initial sleep was established, the tissues were maintained through nanotechnology.  The fear of death prevented some from being able to meditate properly, others just decided to live out their lives without returning to stasis.  Unfortunately there was an incident near the end.  One of us snapped and went homicidal.  The last few of us were locked into stasis and protected by the ship's AI, which was eventually able to kill the maniac.  The three of us seemed immune to the cumulative risks of stasis and lasted for many years together.  Loneliness took one through suicide, letting go on a space walk.  And the other died in a maintenance accident.  I'm the only one left, but that's all that keeps me going.

Stasis was the only option for this trip.  Generation ships had been in operation for centuries and were pretty standard on low cost, long haul shipping.  Although they allowed for good training to be passed on through the generations and a crew specialized to the workings of that ship, they would introduce a bias upon the research that was the nature of this mission.  That bias could only be overcome by individuals with a true memory of human civilization.  This meant we had to use stasis so that if we did encounter our objective, we could do so with the correct frame of reference to compare.  We were also much fewer in number than a generation ship and the loneliness was yet another factor in our demise.

Our mission was to find alien civilizations.  There was little hope that we would succeed.

The Stranded Expedition

Are the main driver for the epic story plotline.  They are a group of explorers searching in the last unexplored areas of Earth, some deep caves below Vostok.  Something strange happens in the darkness.

They are transported to Shashnia try to survive.  The Dual did not actively bring them to Shashnia, though they knew that humans would likely come.  There are some groups that believe that they are part of a prophecy, though this is a hotly debated subject.  When a group of alien species shows up on your planet with no apparent ways of getting there, it is expected that higher powers are involved somehow.  The slim chance of this happening in a normal universe would render it certain, but the magical nature of Shashnia and its people makes that assumption too strong.

They explore the world in the form of a gulliver's travels type voyage and discover the culture and adventures along the way.  their higher purpose is to serve in the resolution of sealing the demon gate.

humans may also be present in the far future where they can interact with the Shashnimyn space empires.