So, these freighters are moving colonists out to this uninhabited world, which, as it turns out, isn't uninhabited at all. They were aware of this; they knew the place and knew the natives had a rather devastating war (about fifty Earth years ago) and their population was down and their tribes were getting a bit insular and still dealing with the sickness following the use of primitive biological and gas warfare. Everything is actually going ok: some of the colonists have even managed to sneak contact with the natives from each other and trade medical supplies for knowledge of water sources and such.

One batch of colonists, however, contained a Federation criminal, Tezen Marshall, fleeing authority. He'd already gotten in trouble for interfering in local development already. He heard about the local state of affairs and took it upon himself to help put back together the fracturing society, and used the emesh mythology to put himself in charge of a small group, attracting a few of the less scrupulous colonists with promises of positions of power. He personally wished to help, but mistook emesh for god, as did those men who followed him.

At least one colonist calls Starfleet to let them know that not only is a wanted criminal here, there are locals and he's trying to set himself up as a ruler. The Federation can't technically move in with a capacity that reveals themselves, so they send in some more colonists to try and hook up with the group that's trying to take control of the native territory. They're rooted out by Emela's brother, who receives visions from the Wondi-Katjoro, and brought into a small circle of natives who want to protect the man who's been helping them while preventing his men from acquiring too much power; some of the local tribes are already slipping from their traditions and worshipping the colonists as gods.

Emela manages to convince the two Federation operatives that they know essentially who and what they are: flesh and blood beings from another world, and that N!Manujh religion holds that what it calls emesh or immortals are simply an enlightened species with lots of knowledge. Marshall is mistaking that to mean god, and is convincing even the priests of this, as well, and that's more dangerous to the culture than intervening would be. They agree to openly confront Marshall in exchange for either Emela or her brother acting as a liaison to explain to their people what is happening. Ntouka agrees, not wanting to put his sister in a dangerous position.

During the confrontation with Marshall's men, Ntouka is killed, but the power base is destroyed while tensions at the colony rise. Emela officially welcomes the colonists and asks that the Federation remain in some small capacity at the colony itself. The two operatives agree, but only if Emela returns with them to provide evidence at the upcoming hearing. During the hearing, she manages to impress on Starfleet that leaving her people entirely and trying to gloss over the incident is more dangerous than just leaving the colony where it is. She agrees to take the Academy tests and receive training so that she can help negotiate a first contact situation with her people.

Tchitau is now a small Federation colony world, and has one small spaceport and one small station in orbit. It is a world of warm seas and strong storms, and the largest of its continents is perhaps half the size of Australia, and the natives use it for adulthood tests, now using the colony as a port to put in before sending their children off to cross it. The N!Manujh never use the land for much of anything else, and spend the majority of their lives on the sea or down rivers and mangrove swamps. Local legend holds that the land is the domain of demons and monsters, though fossil records indicate that most of these megafauna died out several thousand years ago.

N!Manujh do not believe in linear time; they believe time is better represented as a sea rather than a line, and that the past is a morass of events upon which the present is supported, rather than a single set of events. They also believe that the future is similarly plastic, and that the only way to view one's existence objectively is to see it from inside time, which is referred to as Ingiyab, synonymous with outer space. Before Federation contact, the N!Manujh seemed to be aware that space was a vacuum and that gravity was a phenomena related to mass and was capable of altering the flow of time.

As was tradition, Emela took the remains of her brother's name, adding Ntouka onto her own and fulfilling his promises to the Federation and tying up his loose ends while also forging ahead with her own life. As a trained sorcerer, she took interest in the broad spectrum of cultures under the Federation charter and its neighbors, and pushed herself into scientific and anthropological studies, fascinated both by the peace there and by the various beliefs held by many races, some of which mirrored her own. She proved adept at languages, considering her own one was somewhat complex and initially began as trouble for the translators, though a majority of the issues have been fixed.