A Very Long Time Ago
Above an insignificant blue-green planet floated a mighty starship, and on the command deck of that starship the ship's master found his attention drifting towards that life-choked world. His senses took in the full scope of the planet as he drifted, cloak rustling in the low gravity.
Unlike his subordinates, the master's cloak had no hood. A solid, blank mask and helmet protected his features from the outside world. It had no eyeholes, for the master had no need of such things; his highly-evolved and modified brain read the imprints of the ether as easily as a lesser being could see and hear. To wear such a mask was a mark of high caste, signifying his worthiness to command a temple ship.
The last temple ship. When the master was still an initiate in the great chain there had been hundreds of temple ships supporting tens of thousands of smaller craft in the unending work. Over the years the temples had fallen to war or to accident and now only his temple remained to finish the last bits of the great work. The end of his species was approaching; every one from the master down to the rawest acolyte could feel entropy nipping at their heels. Soon they would go and learn their ultimate fate. They would either die, or they would join Those Who Had Gone Before in whatever higher realm they existed in now.
But first, the work needed to be completed. While the master's race wouldn't be there to shepherd their chosen seedlings through the long climb from bare sentience to sapience, they needed to be cultivated... to be preserved against the Universe's capricious whims.
(... )
The master's hands played over the Orb's surface. A final gift from Those Who Had Gone Before, the shimmering sphere of pale yellow light would in turn pass from his people to the seedlings. The master suspected that the Orb wasn't the handiwork of Those Who Had Gone Before, but a gift given to them by a patron who preceded them on the long path.
(... )
"Master Charn'El," said one of his underlings. "Our scouts report they've collected the necessary specimens for the breeding project and are preparing to return to the temple."
Charn'El nodded once. "The other work?" he asked.
"Our servants are being freed as we speak. Those who can survive on their own will be distributed across several reserves far from the seedling worlds. Those who can't will be euthanized as painlessly as possible."
"Very well," the master said. "Once the specimens are aboard, we depart for the seedling world. Then..." he trailed off, looking one last time at the blue-green planet beneath them. "And then we face our destiny. Let us hope that when the time comes, these new ones will succeed where we failed."
~***~
Excerpt from "Our Story: The History of Metahumanity" by Winn Adami (957 SA [2914 CE]):
"Of the beings that set the modern galaxy in motion, we know very little. They were roughly humanoid, perhaps two and a half meters tall with six limbs. They seem to have had strong psionic potential; every surviving artifact we've discovered needs a psychic ‘trigger' to operate correctly. We know they took humans from Earth roughly 70,000 standard years ago and scattered them across dozens of planets in known space, with more found every decade. And we know that shortly after this happened they vanished, leaving only a few instances of fossilized remains, a handful of technological trinkets and numerous metahuman subspecies.
Why they did this is shrouded in mystery; the only known message from the Preservers to their posterity, the B'hala Orb, remains maddeningly vague. The Orb's message has confounded a hundred generations of scholars and mystics, and continues to do so to this day. Perhaps one day we will truly understand what the Preservers were trying to tell us..."
So yeah. Welcome to an idea that's been kicking around for a while. In essence it's a reboot/re-imagining/AU of the venerable Star Trek universe, and as you can see we're starting from the very beginning. Never let it be said that I'm not ambitious. :v
I don't know exactly where this is going, but it's going somewhere. I'll probably spend the next little while - when I'm not busy with everything else - slowly filling in the gaps, explaining things and maybe even actually writing more story bits like the above. Kibbitzing is always welcome.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Above an insignificant blue-green planet floated a mighty starship, and on the command deck of that starship the ship's master found his attention drifting towards that life-choked world. His senses took in the full scope of the planet as he drifted, cloak rustling in the low gravity.
Unlike his subordinates, the master's cloak had no hood. A solid, blank mask and helmet protected his features from the outside world. It had no eyeholes, for the master had no need of such things; his highly-evolved and modified brain read the imprints of the ether as easily as a lesser being could see and hear. To wear such a mask was a mark of high caste, signifying his worthiness to command a temple ship.
The last temple ship. When the master was still an initiate in the great chain there had been hundreds of temple ships supporting tens of thousands of smaller craft in the unending work. Over the years the temples had fallen to war or to accident and now only his temple remained to finish the last bits of the great work. The end of his species was approaching; every one from the master down to the rawest acolyte could feel entropy nipping at their heels. Soon they would go and learn their ultimate fate. They would either die, or they would join Those Who Had Gone Before in whatever higher realm they existed in now.
But first, the work needed to be completed. While the master's race wouldn't be there to shepherd their chosen seedlings through the long climb from bare sentience to sapience, they needed to be cultivated... to be preserved against the Universe's capricious whims.
(... )
The master's hands played over the Orb's surface. A final gift from Those Who Had Gone Before, the shimmering sphere of pale yellow light would in turn pass from his people to the seedlings. The master suspected that the Orb wasn't the handiwork of Those Who Had Gone Before, but a gift given to them by a patron who preceded them on the long path.
(... )
"Master Charn'El," said one of his underlings. "Our scouts report they've collected the necessary specimens for the breeding project and are preparing to return to the temple."
Charn'El nodded once. "The other work?" he asked.
"Our servants are being freed as we speak. Those who can survive on their own will be distributed across several reserves far from the seedling worlds. Those who can't will be euthanized as painlessly as possible."
"Very well," the master said. "Once the specimens are aboard, we depart for the seedling world. Then..." he trailed off, looking one last time at the blue-green planet beneath them. "And then we face our destiny. Let us hope that when the time comes, these new ones will succeed where we failed."
~***~
Excerpt from "Our Story: The History of Metahumanity" by Winn Adami (957 SA [2914 CE]):
"Of the beings that set the modern galaxy in motion, we know very little. They were roughly humanoid, perhaps two and a half meters tall with six limbs. They seem to have had strong psionic potential; every surviving artifact we've discovered needs a psychic ‘trigger' to operate correctly. We know they took humans from Earth roughly 70,000 standard years ago and scattered them across dozens of planets in known space, with more found every decade. And we know that shortly after this happened they vanished, leaving only a few instances of fossilized remains, a handful of technological trinkets and numerous metahuman subspecies.
Why they did this is shrouded in mystery; the only known message from the Preservers to their posterity, the B'hala Orb, remains maddeningly vague. The Orb's message has confounded a hundred generations of scholars and mystics, and continues to do so to this day. Perhaps one day we will truly understand what the Preservers were trying to tell us..."
So yeah. Welcome to an idea that's been kicking around for a while. In essence it's a reboot/re-imagining/AU of the venerable Star Trek universe, and as you can see we're starting from the very beginning. Never let it be said that I'm not ambitious. :v
I don't know exactly where this is going, but it's going somewhere. I'll probably spend the next little while - when I'm not busy with everything else - slowly filling in the gaps, explaining things and maybe even actually writing more story bits like the above. Kibbitzing is always welcome.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
