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==History== | ==History== | ||
===The Ancient Past=== | ===The Ancient Past=== | ||
Millions upon millions of years ago, long before the Traveler visited Earth, the Taishibethi system was the home to an advanced starfaring power called the Hierarchy of Hierarchies. Made up of the enigmatic Crystaliens, originating from a Panthallassic superterrestial called Titania, and the insectoid Hivers, from a trio of worlds, the Hierarchy engaged itself in immense megascale engineering projects and stellar transformation. Their system was located in a portion of the galaxy where metallicity was low, with the only major concentration being located in their star, and so they had embarked upon a starlifting project designed to harvest their star of its resources | Millions upon millions of years ago, long before the Traveler visited Earth, the Taishibethi system was the home to an advanced starfaring power called the Hierarchy of Hierarchies. Made up of the enigmatic Crystaliens, originating from a Panthallassic superterrestial called Titania, and the insectoid Hivers, from a trio of worlds, the Hierarchy engaged itself in immense megascale engineering projects and stellar transformation. Their system was located in a portion of the galaxy where metallicity was low, with the only major concentration being located in their star, and so they had embarked upon a starlifting project designed to harvest their star of its resources. | ||
One day their long-range telescopes detected movement in the deepest parts of the Oort cloud. Focusing one of their arrays towards a distant icy planetoid, they caught sight of an enormous alien fleet of mobile planetcraft and their escorts, ten thousand ships to a moon, all bristling with weapons; and moving towards the inner system. Panic struck the Hierarchy—they had only a small fleet of ships, none armed with weapons to battle an enemy. A decision was quickly reached and the Hierarchy redirected their starlifter—an equilateral band of statites—into a polar orbit and "fired" their sun's mass at the aliens. The stellar explosion blasted forth at near lightspeed, funneling outwards, entrapping the fleet, and quickly obliterated them. When radiation levels went back to normal Hierarchical ships investigated the remnants—and discovered the Traveler. It had suffered extensive damage from unknown causes, their star quickly being ruled out, but it was "bleeding out" from their attack all the same. The ships gently guided the Traveler into orbit near Titania and initiated contact. | |||
The | The Traveler did not speak in words but in dreams. Every single Hierarchical that reached out went instantly catatonic, including most of the Great Council, the ruling body of the Hierarchy of Hierarchies. For the second time the Hierarchy panicked but this time the situation was under control. The Hive Monarch forbade any further contact until those afflicted awoke. Months later they did, and announced to the entire system that the Traveler was god(dess) and needed their help desperately to heal. Without delay the reconstruction of the Traveler's body commenced. Isotope analysis determined it was made of neutronium, which confused their scientists greatly as there was no material that dense close by. Nonetheless they labored, extracting huge amounts of material from their home sun—which grew dimmer and dimmer as it lost more mass—and converted it via immense pressure into neutronium plates to replace the Traveler's shell. As the construction demanded ever more material the inner system was demolished, the Hivers sacrificing their homeworlds for the project, and the outer system of all gas and ice taken, the Oort cloud depleted and the four Jovians drained dry. What was left was added to Titania, which slowly began to change as the light of their star left it, and it ceased to be an ocean world. | ||
Finally, after many centuries and centuries of careful work, the pristine surface of the Traveler was whole again—at the cost of Taishibeth becoming a white dwarf, the conversion of Titania into a SuperJovian with all remaining material and the collation of every remaining planetary body deemed unessential to construction in its orbit. Those who were left who originally had contacted the Traveler, now immensely old, deemed the god(dess) healed and whole. | |||
The Traveler sent out a pulse of | The Traveler sent out a pulse of paracausal power. It washed through the entire system at a speed which defied physics—and time itself turned backwards. Taishibeth was restored to its youth, three more Jovians and their attendant satellite systems joined the rest in the outer system, and the Hivers' three homeworlds were reborn, free of all scarring and pollution. Titania was left as it was, for the Crystalien species had modified themselves to exist in this new world and most had forgotten how the old had been, but was gifted an enormous ring system and many satellites. Their starlifter was no more but in its place were metal rich planetoids and bodies in a new and gargantuan ring system that lay between the Hiver homeworlds and Titania. Last, but not least, was the fleet which had pursued the Traveler, empty and cleansed of all evil influence. The Hierarchy had enough material to last them endless millennia. | ||
The Traveler then gestated a marker, a black obelisk that spoke with the voice of a woman, to remind the Taishibethi that one day it would return home; and then it left, moving out into the void for new adventures. | The Traveler then gestated a marker, a black obelisk that spoke with the voice of a woman, to remind the Taishibethi that one day it would return home; and then it left, moving out into the void for new adventures. | ||
===The Shattering=== | ===The Shattering=== | ||
The enrichment of the Hierarchy led to profound sociological and technological changes. The expensive starlifter was dismantled, but its original arrays left in place for future projects. Colonization of the outer system began, and new colonies and their dependents were created. A thriving confederation of planets was born, and the Hierarchy became diverse and widespread. Industry developed at immense rates, the construction of a powerful fleet of warships was underfoot—the threat of the alien fleet had never left them—and last of all, the slow evolution of a great mind was underway. | |||
The Hierarchy had never forgotten the Traveler or its gift to them, and were greatly sorrowed by its departure. Their most dominant religious cult had added the Traveler to the pantheon of divine powers, over the objections of conservative factions, which saw the Traveler instead as a divine agent or an avatar of their deities and not a deity in of itself. But this did not stop the most radical from going further—if the Traveler could not be with them, they would ''make'' a Traveler. | |||
Turning to one of the Jovians of the outer system, the outermost by an order of many thousands of AU, the Hierarchy laid the foundations for the construction of a Jupiter brain, a mainframe designed to hold the greatest intelligence ever birthed by a psionic species. After centuries of construction the Jupiter brain was finished, and Lyt Ahn awoke. | |||
Lyt Ahn was an archailect, an intelligence so great it collectively surpassed the entire species by orders of magnitude. It was designed for one thing—to substitute the Traveler. The J-brain hummed with an invisible symphony, its moon-nodes alight with synaptic fire and electric thought, and the Hierarchy rejoiced. At last their god(dess) was with them. But its birth was a cataclysmic affair. The conservatives viewed Lyt Ahn as blasphemous, and continually warned it would bring damnation to the Crystaliens. The societal rifts were riven deep but only just. For a collective consciousness defined by willing separation the seeds of doubt were more pernicious than any non-psionic species. Every objection, every uncertainty, left a scar—and these all went unaddressed. Within a few centuries of Lyt Ahn's creation the Taishibethi system was embroiled in civil war, the Jovian civilizations warring amongst themselves over matters of theology and blasphemy. Lyt Ahn had fortuitously declared itself neutral in these internecine conflicts, only acting when it was under threat, and those disaffected or loyal to the archailect fled toward its shelter. | |||
In the depths of interstellar space the birth of the archailect summoned the Black Fleet. They turned their sleepless eyes towards Taishibeth. They could sense the seething turmoil of the Hierarchical divisions, and could subtly influence it from afar as they made their approach. In their wake came the [[Hive]], already an ancient race, and the [[Vex]], following the lingering influences of Darkness. | |||
In the midst of civil war Lyt Ahn discovered the Black Fleet long before any Hierarchical eye thought to, the methods and sciences of the archailect already quite strange. It rallied the warring fleets of the system, overriding their masters' will, and mustered for the attack. But when the attack came, it was everywhere. The Hive made the first assault, led by an unnamed son of the Taken King. They smashed the Hivers' homeworlds to pieces and waged war upon the system's star, breaking apart its arrays and orbitals, killing billions of sophonts. The Vex followed, causing havoc on Titania itself, and disrupted the Jovians. Last of all the Black Fleet's hammer broke upon the shield of the archailect. For centuries the war raged onwards—repeatedly the Hive were beaten back, the Crystaliens using the raw power of their psionics to launch endless noopathic assaults; the Vex smashed apart by esoteric warmachines designed by the archailect; and the Black Fleet clashed with the collective might of the Hierarchy in both realspace and on the Ascendant plane. | |||
But it was all for naught. A witch of the Hive infected the archailect's systems with a Vex virus, and caused Lyt Ahn to go mad. The backlash broke the Crystalien fleets to nothingness. The way clear, the Black Fleet took advantage of Lyt Ahn's madness, locating the source of the Traveler's gift, and used the obelisk to focus their dark might upon the sun—with a burst of paracausal might it detonated, and laid waste to the entire system. The Jovians evaporated as the timeline reset, countless trillions lost to the ether, and Titania was ejected from its home system. Their mission complete, the Black Fleet departed. | |||
Reduced to mere millions the surviving Crystaliens and Hivers reflected upon their sins, and buried themselves within their worlds. They forsook all advanced technologies and sciences, retreating to simpler methods. It took a million years for Titania to return to its home star, the ghost of Lyt Ahn guiding it back, but the damage was done. Their civilization was no more. | |||
===Evacuation of Earth=== | ===Evacuation of Earth=== | ||