The kalyars - "evolved men" - appear from the Tungsten Era
onwards. Their physical difference from the Nenns - they vary
from shaggy to horned or crested - is sometimes, though not always,
accompanied by great mental and cultural differences.
After a spurt of rapid
development, which encouraged them to believe that they would
replace the Nenns in the main line of "normal" humanity, they
suffered the disappointment of the Rhenium Moment which
told them that their day was not yet - told them in fact that
they would have to wait for the next Great Cycle, over two thousand
million days in the future.
During the Osmium Era many kalyars did not at first
accept this verdict, refusing to believe in its transcendent origin, and
striving to build up their power in competition with the Nenns.
However, as the era wore on, more and more kalyars slipped away from the
struggle to compete, and went into a kind of cultural hibernation,
reducing their lives to a tribal existence, where they still wait for
their day to dawn, deriving contentment from the assurance that the far
future is
theirs.
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