First Feastday

The people of the Firstfall Collective have advanced beyond the technology possessed by their ancestors who first came to the Perseus Arm to establish humans in this part of the galaxy. Each year, they dedicate one day to remembering the trials, hardships, and successes of those ancestors. This is a day of celebration with family, friends, and local community that has come to be known simply as "First Feastday".

The First Feast

Firstfall, the first planet colonized by the Terrans who arrived in the Perseus Arm, is where this commemoration began. The first few months after arriving at the planet were focused on establishing a home for the five thousand or so colonists - dismantling their colony ship, transporting its modules to the surface, establishing rudimentary utility systems to distribute water and limited power to colonists' residential units. A second major focus was establishing agriculture to ensure a continued food supply as the colony ship's stores were limited.

At first, it could not be known how successful these efforts would be. Would the seeds of Terran-native food crops survive in alien soil? Would the livestock embryos be successfully gestated ? Could food supplies be supplemented by indigenous flora and fauna? Those first months were stressful, with even minor agricultural setbacks triggering concern among the population.

Fortunately, for the people of Firstfall, the efforts of the agriculturalists were successful - more successful than they originally imagined. While some individual Terran crops did poorly, most did quite well. By the time the first growing season was coming to an end, it was clear that food was not going to be a limiting factor for the success of the colony. To celebrate this fact - and all the other successes achieved by the colonists in their efforts to establish a new home - a settlement wide day of celebration was announced. Large temporary food preparation areas were set up in the settlement's central square. Long trestle tables were erected, and pretty much the entire colony gathered for a meal that featured harvested crops and meats from some of the smaller livestock species that had been transported. These were augmented by several indigenous tubers, leaves, fruits, and hunted game which had been found to be not only edible, but quite tasty. After feasting, music, dancing, games and friendly competitions extended the festivities long into the night.

Celebrations on the Homeworld

Now, more than a thousand years after that first celebration, the residents of Firstfall commemorate the day by "going back to their roots". "Proper" celebrations of First Feastday demand that modern, high-tech food preparation methods be eschewed in favor of more rustic approaches - often more rustic than the first colonists had available to them. Cooking in iron kettles and pans over open fires fueled by wood or charcoal is considered the right way to do things for First Feastday. "Traditional" music is played - ideally performed by live musicians rather than digital playback. Performers demonstrate "Colony Period Dance" (some of which were dances from as far back as Terra's 16th century and were considered obsolete by the colonists). While it would be impossible for the entire population of Firstfall to gather for a single celebration today, the spirit of community is still important - celebrating groups range from gatherings of several families of friends to residents of an entire housing complex.

Around the Collective

Celebrations on Collective worlds beyond Firstfall are essentially the same, but seem to be taken more seriously on the agricultural worlds that supply sustenance for the Collectives industrial planets. Many of these - especially those more recently settled hear the fringes of Collective space - celebrate their own local "First Harvest" feast, but this does not prevent them from also commemorating the "original" First Feastday.