The following information concerns a dark force known as the "Kalran Empire". Little is known about them other than that they are hostile and violent by nature. The first section is from the report on a 1966 tour of the Alliance lunar bases. The second section is copied from a letter sent to Gabriel Green. The third section is from an informal conference with the Kors on 1 June 2008. It updates previous information.

3 Dec 1966 - lunar base tour

All too soon, we were on our way again, zipping through the sublunar shafts. Destination - Ptolemaeus. We had settled back for the trip, and I decided it was time to ask a bothersome question. "Who, pray tell, are the Kalrans?"

Kalen took the ball." The Kalrans are inhabitants of the planet Kalran, fifth planet of the star Vega. Their planet developed along lines almost identical to ours, but with an emphasis on military power. Once they had achieved space travel, they colonized the remaining suitable planets of the Vegan system. They established an impregnable fortress in that system, which the infant Alliance could not hope to tackle. The Alliance members decided upon a complete isolation of Kalran, economically, culturally and scientifically. We feel now that this may have been our greatest error.

"The Kalrans, left to their own devices, expanded their power and capabilities, developing an awesome military force second to none in this part of the galaxy. Still, they made no attempt to disturb outside planets, and we in turn, continued our policy of isolation. An occasional patrol vessel kept check on their activities, but for several hundred years, the Kalrans lived in relative coexistence with the Alliance, each ignoring the other.

”The Alliance had expanded to over 200 planets in nearby sectors of space. Our discovery teams drove ever farther into space, locating and enlisting new worlds into our group. It was upon one such a mission that we discovered that our head-in-the-sand policy had backfired.

"Probing into space around the Kalran system, we chanced upon a previously uncharted system of four worlds. Our instruments showed life, so we sent embassadorial ships to the major city of one of them, to extend our friendship and our offer. We were met by Kalran warships. The embassy ships were destroyed. We retreated and attempted to make sense out of this unexpected development. Patrols had shown no expansion by Kalran forces, yet they had taken over this system. A serious compromise of security obviously existed, since these warriors had slipped out from under our noses and occupied an entire planetary system.

We headed back to Alliance HQ with the disturbing news. We were paced to the edge of the system by three Kalran warcrafts, which then turned and headed back to their base.

“This was many decades ago. We were unable to stop the spread of Kalran influence, as their science was a match for ours and their methods were completely ruthless. They continued to harass our shipping and passenger crafts, make sneak attacks upon Alliance planets, and in general make blasted nuisances of themselves.

”To this very day, they remain the major 'dark force' in the known galaxy. They control over 150 systems in a tight net that is impossible to penetrate. Over the last several decades, it appeared that they had decided to stop annexing systems, and instead concentrate on spreading their influence by less violent means. Or so we thought, until today. Their presence here in this system confounds us, yet confirms a concept that one of our theorists had proposed, that the Kalrans had in fact joined forces with another group, or several other groups, to the end of creating an empire equal or superior to the Alliance in size and influence.

[Note: The Kalrans also played a role in the second lunar trip of 28 July 1967, although there was no direct confrontation. In the Plato tour account of 11-12 July 1987, they had formed a compact of mutual benefit with the Omegans, hostile forces uniting for a common interest. There are no other references to the Omegans in contact accounts.]

23 Dec 1967 - letter to Gabriel Green

Kalrans : members of the Kalran Empire of planets (not necessarily from the planet Kalran itself), a group very similar to the Alliance in size and power, but militaristic in nature, and expansionist intent, mostly expanding without the consent of the planets where such expansion of the Empire transpires. They are a means-to-an-end group, but do show restraint when confronting the Alliance, and is not eager to engage the Alliance in any major manner, realizing the devastation that it could suffer. They are presently operating in this system in order to add it to the ranks, and to use it as a center for their activities in this sector, over which Alliance control is not firmly established.

Omegans : originally ambitious men from Confederation planets who were exiled when their plot to overthrow the Confederation control of their system was uncovered. This group migrated to Sirius 3, and has their headquarters there at present. They are remaining within the law in that location, so that the Confederation, which controls that system, cannot take action against their operations, despite the fact that their undercover activities are common knowledge.

They enlisted the aid of others of like propensity, and formed a hard core of dangerous operatives numbering in the millions. They returned to this system in the centuries past, undertaking complete control of this planet, in the hopes of using our resources and people as a military arm to crush the other locals, and to gain the riches that such overthrow would afford them.

They are completely ruthless in their approach, seeing death as an expedient to their operations if required or desirable. They at one time approached the Kalrans and offered to join forces with them against this system, but the Kalrans, militant and dangerous as they are, refused to consider a pact with the Omegans, saying that the Kalran Empire would not resort to Omegan tactics to achieve their ends. For a time, there was a likelihood that the Kalrans would move in and wipe out the Omegans, but informed sources have indicated that such an overthrow would not be in their best interests, and that they would rather wait until Earth was ready to move en masse into space to take over and direct our activities.

That was before the Alliance moved in here, and threw a huge wrench in the gears. Such a takeover, which would have occurred within 20 years, would now be a direct confrontation with an Alliance operation, which could mean total war, which neither wants.

Thus the Kalrans are here in an observor capacity, waiting for an opportunity. The Omegans have control of the Earth and aren't about to relinquish it, even to the extent indicated in their Prime Directive Series, to the effect that if their operations are threatened by imminent collapse due to outside influences, they will initiate World War III, a totally-destructive nuclear holocaust which would leave the Earth barren and useless to anyone for years hence.

This is the difference, then. The Omegans control Earth; the Kalrans would like to. Both want this system, for different reasons. The Confederation is sitting on its hands and saying that they will not interfere in Terran affairs, even though outside forces are at work. The Alliance has moved in, has made it clear to both Omegans and Kalrans that they are treading upon dangerous grounds. Further, they have stated to the Confederation's governing Sector Command that the Alliance deems the Confederation's policies to be unrealistic, impractical, and ineffective. They also made clear that interference with Alliance operations here from Sector Command sources will not be taken lightly.

There is continually less cooperation and liaison between the Alliance and the Confederation, although trade and cultural exchange are still very much active, the two groups not wishing to inflict their differences upon the people by creating an atmosphere of hardship and animosity. The common folk are almost unaware of this high-level friction, which is as it should be.

Followup, recorded 20080601:

There is now a strong argument to be made that Kalran was colonized by a civilization of a world about 4300 light years away in the direction of what we call Cygnus. A system of dead planets was located in orbit around a sunlike star. The second planet once bore an extremely advanced but evidently violent and amoral culture.

The planet's death about 11,000 years ago was the result of the system's entry into a dense molecular cloud--which still engulfs it, although it is thinning--that blocked enough of the star's light to reduce surface temperatures to about 200° K, about -100° F. Life became impossible.

We assume that their scientists saw the peril coming and constructed a fleet of deep-space crafts to evacuate the elite of their culture and set out to find a similar world. There is evidence of the remains of billions of inhabitants in the equatorial regions, but little to suggest that they lived in a civilized manner until they perished.

Based on analyses conducted by Alliance scientists from the location of that planet, the logical direction to travel was toward our sector of space, where there was evidence of inhabited worlds based on radio and optical communications. Vega would be almost dead center in the range of possible directions that they had to choose.

The conditions on Vega-5 are quite like those that would have existed prior to the cloud's arrival. It is thus logical to conclude that the Kalrans (an English transliteration of the name provided by the Confederation) had relocated the "cream" of their civilization to Kalran, and left the rest to freeze to death. The Alliance would expect nothing else from them.