Category:The Reign of the Predecessors

18,000,000 BCE  (105,000 Years before the Ministry) - 

A Predecessor scout ship discovered the wreckage of a military flagship on a planet beyond the galactic perimeter. A salvage team is sent planet side to investigate the wreckage and rescue the Herald of Arms.

The salvagers find the Herald barely alive, and apparently ill from exposure to this planet's atmosphere. The team returns to their vessel and the Herald is placed in the medical wing, where he is placed in temporary quarantine so as to not expose the rest of the ship's crew to his alien illness.

The Herald's illness seems to worsen and one of the medical bay guards is attacked suddenly by him and is killed.

Contact with the scout ship is lost soon afterwards, and the Predecessor Governor dispatches a special-tasks group to investigate the disturbance. Upon arrival to the ship's last known coordinates, the squad boards the silent vessel and finds only the bloody remains of the entire crew strewn all over the entire ship.

The group finds the medical bay intact, a broken canister of gray-yellow powdery substance lying on the floor.

Orders are received after discovering this canister to seal it up and bring it back to the Capital (located in the galactic center) for research.

<span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">One of the special-task officers finds the Herald of Arms dead, but horrifically deformed from his former self, and upon discovery of the Herald, the officer is attacked by the seemingly deceased corpse and is infected by the Herald. The officer is returned to their stealth ship, and quarantined to the medical bay until the task-force returns to the Capital where the officer would be handed over to the Bio-Wing where the canister will be delivered as well.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The officer mutates in the loading bay of the salvage vessel, lashing out and killing one and wounding two of his comrades. The commander leading the search and rescue watches as these three transform suddenly and is forced to eliminate them. After the brief skirmish the commander radios their stealth ship, requesting Command to authorize the destruction of this vessel due to the highly-infectious disease encountered on the planet the ship is currently orbiting.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Their request is denied and the commander of the special-tasks group elects to "disable" the infected salvage vessel from a safe-distance by damaging its directional thrusters keeping it in orbit and relay the footage to Command, showing that the team had no choice but to abandon-ship when the vessel became too unstable to continue searching for survivors.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">As the group heads to Engineering to disable the engines, they come under attack by an assimilated menagerie of corpses consisting of the entire salvage crew with the Herald as their voice. The message is disturbing and during the attack the special-tasks group is killed, or  absorbed <span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">into the hideous creature. The commander decides to record this damning footage and transmits it to their stealth vessel before sacrificing himself and crashes the ship onto the planet's surface in an attempt to destroy it and damage the planet enough to cause an extinction event.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The ship survives the crash and the Commander manages to survive as well, however he is now stranded on the planet and he sends a message with the DNA molecules of a mutated Predecessor corpse encrypted within the message itself warning all who receive this message to stay away from this planet because of what is found here.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The stealth ship returns to the Capital with the recorded footage of the assimilated Predecessor monstrosity and Command archives it in its top-secret research library, away from prying eyes and all those who returned on the stealth ship are executed for "aiding a war criminal in a terrorist act that threatened the security of the Capital and its inhabitants."

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The stealth ship was then remotely sent on a collision course with a sun in a distant system, but the ship (unbeknownst to anyone on the Capital) crashed onto the fifth planet it the system. Where the firstlings of the Ancients have evolved into a primitive society of rock and stick wielding animals. The Ancients record the stealth ship's crash as a sign from the Starmakers that "this mountain of metal and fire may bring us knowledge and great understanding."

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">9,000,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The Ancients become technologically advanced, and are integrated into the Predecessor's plan to bring the "lesser races" under their control and to do their bidding, and should these "lesser races" refuse; these "lesser races" would be exterminated.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Ancients refuse to become integrated into the Predecessor society and wage Civil War against them for fifty-thousand Ancient years. After which the Ancients liberate those lesser races that were "scheduled for eradication" (including humanity) and are revered as these "lesser races" saviors and protectors.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">It is at this moment when the Ancients occupy the Capital and begin executing plans to restore various advanced races to their planets and to technologically advance various races that appear capable of such rapid undertaking.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">8,950,000 - 1,020,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">A Galaxy Divided

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Several "lesser races" [including humanity] rebel against this galactic declaration and unite together. This is the first enacting of the Allied Territories Movement. These star systems prohibit any Predecessor starship from entering and imprisoned all Predecessors that were in any of these systems until the Governor heeded their demands.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">1,001,000 - 1,000,975 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">A Crisis Avoided

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Millennia after this blockade, the Ancients military leaders call for a cease-fire for negotiations and are permitted to meet with the Governor aboard the military armada's flagship. The leader of the Ancients petitions for temporary command of the Predecessor fleets to retake the systems that are blockading the Predecessors from approaching so that the Ancients can negotiate for prisoners and return them to their home world.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Governor permits a fleet of the Capital armada to be led by this Ancient and to become integrated into their [the Ancient's] military armada. Once communications are established with the Predecessor vessels, several special-tasks squads are dispatched to each of the Predecessor vessels to oversee their integration into the fleet.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">These special-tasks groups board the Predecessor vessels in full Vacuum-rated Combat Skins and as every ship in the Predecessor fleet reports that integration is complete, the Ancient Field Marshall gives the order to the special-tasks squads: "assuming direct control." The atmosphere in each Predecessor ship is vented, suffocating them and then, after the atmosphere has been restored to each vessel, these special-tasks teams assume control of the ships.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">1,000,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Humanity's Progressive Leap Forward:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The humans begin to comprehend very quickly the methods and motives of others, and start to expand and colonize other worlds. Progressing rapidly and becoming technologically equal to the Ancients, the humans begin to question the motives of the Ancients and their seclusion in the Capital. After discovering several messages regarding experimental research on humans and other extraterrestrial races alike, the humans wage war against the Ancients for several millennia, until they are physically retrogressed and confined to only one world from which they can progress again.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">500,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The Ministry of Ancients is established.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">This collective of leaders from various 'chosen' races together desire to become sanctified from all things, and dispatch several expeditions to retrieve various specimens that could prove valuable in further progressing their search for life-eternal.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">A differentiation of time is established due to the aging difference of the Ancients to other "lower" life forms:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">1 Ancient year is equivalent to 170 human years, therefore; it was only 2940 Ancient years when the last battle was fought.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">300,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Discovery

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The Ministry's "physicians" [Bio-Engineers] retrieve various specimens from returning scouting parties and begin to "purify" the lesser races by exposing them to these organic life forms. Two distinct infections are observed:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Vectors:  <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The less intelligent races yield benign mutations and produce sacs of gray-yellow colored powder and show strong feelings of aggression.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Parasites:  <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The more intelligent species undergo rapid transformation due to their ability to adapt and learn and are extremely violent.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Several deaths occur but are not recorded because of the great secrecy of these experimentations.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">278,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">An Enemy Returns

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">A scouting party returns after 1200 years of scouring the Northern intergalactic boundary with information regarding the location of a derelict ship containing a "hallowed substance" and research footage from a previous civilization that had reached the Pinnacle of Mortality and transcended into immortality.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">250,500 BCE <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;"> - Unrest in the Capital

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Divisions begin to occur between the Ancients military strategists and the Ministry regarding this process of galactic "purification":

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Ancients want to eliminate the source of this quasi-experimental process.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The Ministry desires to "preserve this Purifier" and to unleash it upon all those who would oppose them.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">After this declaration that all those who refuse to accept the Ministry as their galactic guide, the Ancients break off from the Ministry entirely and begin scouring every planet infected by this experiment and begins to destroy it.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">As the Ancients' fleets depart the Capital system in the galactic center, the Ministry dispatches a fleet of starships to pursue the Ancients' vessels and if possible destroy them. The Ministry's Fleet of Retribution departs and manages to wound one of the fleeing vessels before the Ancients' fleet escapes. The survivors of the wounded are executed immediately whereas several of them choose to surrender. They are executed afterwards anyways for failing to reveal the Ancients' plans of action.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">250,000 - 200,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Schisms Unfold

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">As the Ancients continue to evade the pursuing Ministry Defense Armada (of which the Fleet of Retribution was a detachment of), the Ancients continue to ruinously decimate world after world of infected or exposed life.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">During this time of "cleansing" a group of Ancients begin to question whether the Ministry was correct in its decision to accept the "purification" as the next step in galactic evolution. This group of individuals devised a plan and acquired one of the stealth ships and departs the fleet for one of the infected worlds.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Upon arrival to this world, this group finds an ancient structure predating the Predecessors and within they discover ancient pacts, oaths and signs. These are encrypted within puzzles of hieroglyphs and the group manages to decipher them and learn vicariously through visions and visitations of beings incomprehensible to describe the Dark Art of Manipulation.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The group takes upon themselves the name of these magicians and sorcerers that came before them: "The Forsaken."

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Forsaken take this dark knowledge and manage to secure several canisters of the infectious material. They depart the infected planet just as the Ancients' fleet arrives to destroy the surface.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">200,000 - 175,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">Outbreak

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The Ministry continues to "experiment" with the infectious material, deploying it on worlds colonized by the Ancients as a means of biological warfare. In retaliation the Ancients dispatch hunter-killer teams to the Capital to remove the Ministry from power and seize control of the government-seat.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Ancients' leadership receives as a response to their actions the heads of the hunter-killer teams encased in canisters filled with the infectious organism.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">After these failed attempts to regain control of the government, a Ministry transporting salvaged infection  material<span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;"> crashes onto the Capital world and the Ministry leaders dispatch a heavily armed hazardous-materials squad to secure the crash site and any surviving specimens are to be sealed and sent to the Ministry's Biological Research Facility on the "night side" of the planet.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The clean-up squads arrive and are immediately assaulted by exposed Ministry agents and are then ambushed by the Forsaken. A firefight ensues and the Forsaken eliminate every threat by wielding their manipulative powers as several civilians arrive and see the carnage. The Forsaken leader lies, saying that the Ministry meant to expose this, their home world, as a means of controlling those who even seem as allies with the leadership.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Believing this man's falsehoods, these civilians join the Forsakens’ cause to retake the Capital and pact to unite in the Galactic Embassies in the evening to become one of the Forsaken. That night, several hundred thousand arrive in the enormous stadium-sized amphitheater and are initiated and sealed into the secrets of the Forsaken.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Immediately afterwards, the Forsaken Army storms the Ministry's headquarters and in a great battle, the Ministry's forces are decimated and killed.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Forsakens' leader finds the Ministry's Governor hiding. Found, he pleads with the leader of the Forsaken to spare his life. But the leader simply looks at the Governor and lifts a canister of the infectious powder over the man's head, spilling it all over him. The Governor shrieks in horror as his body is enveloped in the mutating powder-gel and then begins to transform before his very eyes.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">As several small battles are being fought in the streets and paths outside the headquarters, the fighting ceases on both sides as something misshapen and reeking of rot comes crashing down the steps: the mutated corpse of the Governor. The Forsaken leader then steps down towards the corpse, and impales it with a primitive spear declaring that "this is what they wanted for you, for all of us." The Ministry's warrior-guards cease their fighting and surrender peacefully to the Forsaken who have now taken over the galactic Capital.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">175,000 BCE -  <span style="line-height:normal;font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">An End to Tyranny

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:black;">The Forsaken begin training all the inhabitants on the Capital world in the Dark Art of Manipulation, and they discover in the Sacred Library of Knowledge various texts on this dark sorcery, and with this expanded knowledge the Forsaken become a formidable foe for the Ancients.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Ancients have managed to complete the eradication of the infectious organism, and receive a transmission from the Capital world that it is safe for them to return. The Ancients fleets arrive in orbit around the Capital world to discover that it has been corrupted by the Dark Art.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Forsaken fleets [formerly the Ministry's armada] blockades the Ancients' fleet from departing the Capital and the leader of the Ancients meets with the leader of the Forsaken in the Ministry's headquarters to discuss their "integration into society."

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Ancients leader arrives and meets with the leader of the Forsaken and during their meeting the Ancients leader sees the slight hint of biologic infection on the neck and cheek of the Forsaken’ leader. The meeting is cut short as the Ancients' leader is attacked by several infected guards and he fights them off and escapes into the city where he manages to get a transport to the space tether connecting the planet's orbital dry-docks to its surface.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Upon arrival the Ancients leader is confronted by several Forsaken in heavy battle armor and wielding gravity weapons, and they attempt to subdue him but are defeated by the leader's personal bodyguards. Removing the helmets the leader sees that even these soldiers are greatly infected and after destroying the corpses to stall the infection, the Ancients' leader boards his starship and flees the Capital.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">While fleeing from the galactic center the Ancients' armada receives one last message from the Capital world. It declares that the Ministry managed to preserve all the DNA of all life and seeded the galaxy with life so that it would be prepared after millennia of preparation to take that last, final step in galactic evolution: "purification."

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Ancients' leader heads to his quarters to prepare to reveal the knowledge of only a select few to the rest of his people. He opens up a highly encrypted file that has been handed down from Predecessor to Predecessor and divulges that not only does he  descend <span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">from the Predecessor lineage, there is one remaining. An Engineer that was preserved and hidden away on a backwater planet whose location is known to those who have this file.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">He explains that it is expedient that this Predecessor be revived in the future to assist those who will discover him to assist in the final conflict. The Ancients' leader continues on explaining that it is his people's duty to cease this facility where the DNA of all life in the galaxy has been preserved and to protect it in this, the Ancients' final battle.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The Ancients' fleet divides, only a pair of stealth ships departing to this location where the preserved DNA of life is stored, while the rest of the fleet, led by the Ancients' leader heads to the Capital world to battle.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">The two stealth ships arrive in orbit around a planet composed entirely of volcanic material. This planet appears as if it never ceased its accretion from the sun which it orbits. Volcanos continuously erupt, lava oozes from great cracks in the planet's crust and there is a thick atmosphere of sulfuric acid that rains down hot ash from the sky.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Two teams are assembled, one from each ship, and they arrive on the planet's surface in armor designed to combat the harsh weather of various worlds similar to this.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">This army is confronted by hundreds of thousands of Forsaken warriors ready for battle with shielded combat armor, shoulder-mounted antimatter cannons, plasma-casters, vehicle-mounted gravity cannons and heavily armored airships.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Antimatter tanks and troopships spewing out more troops are on both sides and as the leader of the Ancients steps in front of his army, the leader of the Forsaken lifts his head high and smirks.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">Upon exiting their landing transports the two teams make their way towards the only standing structure on the entire surface of the planet. The building is shaped like a Y with the two upper prongs extending deep under the surface. Each prong holds a lift that takes the teams deep underground to where they see that the planet's surface shifts from volcanic to solid metallic surfaces.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The teams disembark the lifts and emerge into a corridor that ends in a cylindrical room with a raised platform in the floor.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">Both men charge towards each other and the battle is joined.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The two men fight each other as explosions rage in the distance, turrets discharge their explosive munitions turning tanks and antigravity mortars into smoldering heaps of twisted metal and bone.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">The teams manage to decipher the various inscriptions in the platform itself and once they are all read out loud there appear thousands of rectangular voids in the walls. From these voids racks extend, each divided according to each system's proximity to the galactic center starting with the inhabitants of the planets that orbit the Capital itself.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">Soldiers on both sides fight each other, trading fire for cover. For every one Ancient killed twelve or more Forsaken are turned into ash and charred remains. Plasma and electrically charged projectiles explode in mid-air as the Forsaken leader and his foe trade blow for blow.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">As the teams start discussing how they are supposed to extract all of these samples and seed each planet with each owns respecting plant and animal life a holographic image appears. It is of a Predecessor called the Vicar of Advocacy. The Vicar's holograph explains that it is his responsibility alone to preserve all organic life and to be the galaxy's "gardener." The team members ask the holographic image how to transport all of these organisms to their respective planets. The Vicar explains by saying that it is his "duty to do so" and he will see it through, once the entire galaxy is "free from the tyranny of those willing to sacrifice their souls to fulfill their lust for power."

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">Both men are equally matched and one seems to know the moves of the other and is able to counter every parry, every thrust and strike. We see a strong familial resemblance of both men and it is so because the leader of the Forsaken shouts to the other:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">"You can see now, brother, that you cannot best me. I have discovered the Power of Manipulation and it is mine to command." Several other Forsaken soldiers begin levitating Ancients and throwing them against walls, into smoking vehicles and sending them flying through the air to come colliding with the ground in a heap.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">"You see brother, that I am more powerful than any Ancient…than any Predecessor. I have learned of these Arts from the Last True Promethean. And he has shown me true power, and it is mine…and you will see!!!"

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">The team continues to inquire of the holograph who simply states that "the liberation of the galaxy is now at hand," and they understand it to mean that it is the battle currently underway on the Capital world.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">The holograph of the Predecessor fades and in its place appears an image of the Capital world. Then, the image shifts as the planet seems to split open and the leafs that separate open like a flower petal to reveal complex machinery combining, transforming, changing until the entire surface becomes a giant cylinder with enormous forests of antennae extending from the center of the device.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">Suddenly the Forsaken leader lifts his hands high above his head, and the sky begins to shift. Cylinders and machinery appear from the ground. The ground trembles as the Forsaken leader shouts: "Lift up your hands to the sky my brethren and together we shall destroy our enemy!" The Forsaken all around begin lifting their hands to the skies and the ground starts shifting, it's transformation around them complete when a flash of light blinds everybody to the final transformation into a cylindrical device. The weapon extends both above and below from the core of the planet and the machinery and gears within activate.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">The image shows the antennae pulsing, and the pulses get slightly faster and faster as something within the center of the cylindrical device (where the "planet core" would be) is pulsating with energy, and that energy is growing brighter and brighter, as the antennae pulses get faster and faster until the device unleashes a brilliant burst of energy along every wave (microwaves, radio waves, etc.) imaginable.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">The Forsaken leader's eyes burn red with lust and hatred as transformation finishes and the sounds of whining  <span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">  <span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">motors grow louder and louder until a brilliant pulse of energy rips through the device and disintegrates every trace of those inhabitants and fighters on the Capital world/energy weapon.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:normal;">The image zooms out to show the entire galaxy as the blast wave ripples across every planet, every system, and every constellation until it dissipates several hundred light-years outside the galaxy.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">In a matter of moments, the entire galaxy is made eternally silent, a wasteland void of life.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"> T <span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">he Predecessor holograph appears and stands in front of the galactic image and solemnly speaks three words: "It is finished." The team suddenly realizes that what they thought was a demonstration of the device was the powerful weapon charging up and firing. They now realize that they are the only surviving Ancients in the galaxy.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="color:black;font-family:Cambria,serif;font-size:12pt;">They try raising their orbiting starships but get no response. The Vicar turns to them and explains: "This structure was the only one protected against the cleansing flame of the wrath of my gods. It was folly that my people stumbled upon a world untouched by life, yet teeming with the unholy sickness. That evil consumed my people until they were nothing more. I am the one who chose to sacrifice my entire civilization so that life could begin anew in this galaxy. It is fate that has brought us together, to place ourselves into the dreams between life and death until those who come will have need of us. Time is short, prepare yourselves for the coming fire for I am a not just a Predecessor, I am Promethean…The Last Promethean and I will avenge my people."