>>715057616
My headcanon:
Pale men are an engineered servile species of something more advanced, not unlike the synthetics of mankind. Something went wrong over the ages, the leader species was eradicated / went dormant. The pale guys fractured into subgroups that wanted to preserve their creators' works, and one that wanted to dominate the inherited assets. The pale guys that left the maps were loyalists, expecting humanity, as another offshoot or experiment of their creators' works to come join them on their home world when they are able to traverse in space. During the thousands of years, however, the renegade engineers wiped out the loyalists at least on that planet. Maybe something during the attack went wrong and a lone surviving renegade went into hypersleep to wait out the contamination.