A Colonial Trip
“You really found the home of the thirteenth tribe?!” Dee exclaimed.
“We really did!” replied Felix. “Completely by accident too. Louis and I were doing one of those sight-seeing tours in Boston, and someone else told us that if we enjoyed that tour, we should check out Colonial Williamsburg. Colonial Williamsburg! Can you believe it? They’ve been here all along!”
Felix, Louis, and Dee had all piled into Louis’ car for a road trip down to Colonial Williamsburg from their home in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to getting to see more of the beautiful scenery that this portion of Earth called “the United States of America” had to offer, the three of them were excited to finally meet some of the memebers of the thirteenth tribe. After a few months of living on Earth without hearing anything from any thirteenth tribe members, everyone had thought they had just disappeared.
“How many people do you think there are?” asked Dee.
“Probably not too many,” said Louis. “Felix and I were looking at this thing called ‘Google Maps’, which is surprisingly good for Earth technology, and the town seems to be really small. We think most of the tribe integrated into the general population, and this town is the last hold-out of purebred descendants.”
“I wonder if they know we’re here,” Dee mused.
“If they have working transponders, I bet they do,” said Felix. “Hey Louis, did we bring any of those Cheeto things? Dee, have you tried Cheetos? They’re amazing.”
Dee scrunched her nose in disgust. “No, but after you guys made me try pork rinds, I’m not trusting your taste in Earth food.”
“Earth food is amazing,” said Felix, rustling around in the cooler they’d packed. “Ah, yes, there they are!” Felix popped open the bag and began munching. “It’s a good thing they fitted me for a sport prosthetic, because I really need to start jogging again. After a year of just eating algae, I’m going to get fat off all this Earth food.”
“Tell me about it,” griped Dee. “I think I’ve gained five pounds already.”
“If all you’ve put on is five pounds since we’ve gotten here, I think you’re doing pretty well,” added Louis. “Felix, pass me some Cheetos. And a Diet Coke while you’re at it. I think we’ve still got two hours to go.”
It was mid-day when the three of them arrived at Colonial Williamsburg. After stopping for lunch at McDonalds- a restaurant of debatable quality, but at least it was reliably debatable- and getting lost somewhere in the woods of Virginia, they’d finally managed to find the place.
“I can’t believe they charged us to get here!” complained Dee. “I’d hate to think the people of Earth made the thirteenth tribe into some sort of zoo animal. I certainly hope we’re not put on public display.”
“Ah, relax Dee,” replied Felix. “Maybe they have all their old space ships on display. I mean, I’d certainly pay to see a two thousand year old battlestar. Especially if it’s still functional.”
It was a plausible argument, though perhaps not the most believable. From what they’d seen of it, Virginia didn’t look like a very good place to land a spaceship.
“Everyone here looks just like the people in Boston,” remarked Louis. “How are we supposed to tell who the locals are?”
Felix pulled out the map they’d been given when they’d paid for their tickets. “Well, there’s a couple houses on this map. It even says who lives there. I think we might try the governor’s mansion though. I hate to intrude in someone’s home without an invitation, and I bet whoever’s in charge here is going to know more about the history of the thirteenth tribe anyway. It’s also closest to where we are now, and I don’t want to walk all over the town while I’m still getting used to this new leg. I don’t know why they won’t let us drive around town, it seems kind of silly.”
Louis shurgged. “It’s Earth. They have all kinds of crazy rules here, and they can never seem to agree on any of them from one place to another.”
It was true. Felix and Louis had even been told it would be illegal for them to get married in certain parts of the country, which made no sense at all to any of them.
Felix, Louis, and Dee finally reached the gates of the Governor’s mansion. There was a carriage parked out front, the kind only the more rural cities on the Colonies used, but only then for romantic trips around designated areas of the city, but there appeared to be no way in. The main entrance had been blocked off by a gate, with a sign posted on it saying “No trespassing.” Apparently the governor was not one for visitors.
There was, however, a crowd gathering in the grassy area in front of the gate. The three of them squeezed their way through the crowd to see what was going on.
“Hear ye, hear ye!” cried a man dressed in some sort of strange opulent garb. “By this declaration, signed by our bretheren in the great city of Philadelphia, we hereby declare ourselves to be free from the tyranny of our British oppressors!”
There was a lot of clapping from the people around them, but the three of them were confused.
“What British oppressors?” Dee whispered. “I don’t remember anyone telling us about any oppressors when we got here.”
“Yeah, and we just drove through Philadelphia yesterday. The only big thing going on there was an Eagles game, but I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about,” added Louis.
“You good sir!” cried the man in the strange uniform, pointing directly at Felix. “Do you wish to fight for the freedom of the United States of America?”
“Uh,” replied Felix, not sure if the man was actually trying to recruit him back into the military or not. It seemed odd that the colonials would be so patriotic and not know that he was ineligible for service here. “I don’t think so…”
The man gasped. “Do you mean to say that you maintain your loyalty to the British crown? Will you be fighting with the redcoats?” The man seemed taken aback by whatever it was he was implying. Felix was really quite confused as to why he would be, since even Felix didn’t know what he meant.
“I don’t intend to fight for anyone,” Felix told him.
“Ah ha. So you’re a Quaker. Very well, good sir.” The man then turned to someone else in the crowd and asked them who they intended to fight for.
“What the frak is a Quaker?” Felix whispered to Louis and Dee. “Excuse me,” he then interrupted.
The man turned back to him. “Why, yes, what appears to be the trouble?”
“We’re looking for the colonists. Could you tell us where to find them?” Felix asked.
Everyone in the crowd started giving them strange looks. The man just laughed. “Why good sir. We’re right here,” he said, making a grand sweeping gesture. “All of Virginia is full of colonists, young and old. But! Once we win our freedom!” More cheers from the crowd. “We shall be colonists, no longer! We will be free of the king’s oppression!” The crowd cheered again. Felix was more confused than before.
Felix, Louis, and Dee, having found this particular man to be of no help whatsoever, went off to find someone else who might know where they would find the thirteenth tribe. All they received, however was more of the same. Everyone that lived in Colonial Williamsburg seemed to sport a very peculiar style of dress that seemed very ill-suited for space travel: jackets with coat tails, silly pointed hats, and capri pants they called “knickers”. The women’s wear looked even less apt for space travel, with large skirts and very restrictive looking torsos. Some of the women had mildly scolded Dee for wearing “men’s clothing.” And while they all spoke English, they seemed to use words and phrases that no one Felix, Dee, and Louis had met had ever used before. Most notably, all of them had the same answer as the first man when they asked about where the colonists were: they said they were colonists. Yet not one of them had ever heard of Kobol.
“Frak guys, I can’t walk anymore and we’re getting nowhere,” complained Felix, after over an hour of searching. “If this is Colonial Williamsburg, where the frak are all the Colonists?”
“Hand me that map,” said Dee. Felix gave her the map, though it hadn’t been any help at all up to this point.
Dee studied it intently. “It says here Experience life as it was in the Eightteenth Century. Special events: today, watch as the news of signing of the Declaration of Independence spreads throughout Colonial Virginia, see how life was about to change for the residents of Virginia… Guys, this is a historic reenactment site. There’s no way the thirteenth tribe lives here.”
“I guess that would explain why everything looks so primitive here,” said Felix. “But I still don’t get it. Why call themselves Colonials if they’re not descended from the tribes of Kobol?”
“Well, I guess this is just more proof of it,” said Louis. “Earth is weird.”
Felix and Dee couldn’t have agreed more.