All Tomorrows

Freed from the constraints of weight, their bodies grew spindly and insectile, with individual digits extending into multitudes of thin, versatile limbs. Other than these, the only developed organs were their derived jet sphincters; which went on to become the principal means of locomotion. But above all were their brains, their bulging, swollen brains.

With no hindrance from gravity, the human brain could grow into unprecedented sizes. Each generation devised experiments that produced offspring with greater cranial capacity, giving rise to beings who went through their everyday lives thinking in concepts and structures scarcely comprehensible to people of today. The physiological limitations of the human mind had been long since debated. Now, it was established that these limits were indeed real, and individuals who could break them would likewise conquer new grounds in philosophy, art and science. Everything changed.

Yet some aspects of humanity, such as the basic desire to expand, remained. To this end the Asteromorphs built great fleets of globular sub-arks and spread their influence across the heavens, into every stellar cluster and every star system. Within less than a thousand years, the galaxy was straddled by a new and far more alien Empire of Man.

Strangely enough, its dominion included none of the newly emerging post-human species, for its masters had completely lost interest in planets; those stunting, gravity-chained balls of dirt and ice. The newborn arks settled comfortably in the outer rims of star systems, quietly observing the lives of their struggling relatives.

For the first time in history, there were actual Gods in the myriad human skies. They were silent and weren’t even noticed for most of the time, but their watchfulness was ultimately going to pay off.

Second Galactic Empire

Over time, the sentient post-humans began to reach out to the galaxy. They inevitably stumbled across the ruins of the Star Men, and figured out their interstellar ancestry. These discoveries were followed by a realization; that there might be others like them, unimaginable distances away. Thus, the fledgling civilizations set about to probing the skies.

The contacts, all established by radio communication, were not spread out evenly. The Empire began little more than a few million years after the Qu left, with the first dialogue between the earliest Killer Folk and the Satyriacs. A few thousand years later they were joined by the Tool Breeders, hailing out from the ocean depths through living radio arrays.

The second wave of sentient species joined in during the following ten million years, as the Modular Whole, Pterosapiens and the fledgling Assymetrics contacted their celestial cousins. Finally, in the next twenty million years, newly evolving civilizations such as the Sauros, Snake People, Parasite/Symbiotes and the Sail People successively contacted the burgeoning Galactic Empire. The Bug Facers were aware of the whole process, but due to their xenophobic experience, they only opened up after a staggering forty million years of silence.

This union was an empire of speech, for actual travel between the stars was too difficult to be practical. Like the bygone colonies of the Star Men, the posthumans co-operated through the unrestricted exchange of information and experience. Although covering every aspect of an astonishing variety of cultures, the Empire’s efforts focused on two main issues; political unification (though not homogenization) and galactic awareness; constant readiness for possible alien invasions. Everybody had come across the remains of the mysterious Qu. Nobody wanted a repeat of the same scenario.

When the Second Empire ran into the Asteromorphs, (who had silently saturated the galaxy with their own Empire of Man,) they feared the worst. But luckily for them, the godlike beings were not interested in the Second Empire, nor any of its worlds. The Asteromorphs were given a wide berth and accepted as they were; incomprehensible, omnipotent forces of nature.

This coordinated effort lasted for almost eighty million years, during which its member species attained previously unimaginable levels of culture, welfare and technology. Each species colonized a few dozen worlds of their own; in which nations, cultures and individuals lived to the fullest potentials of their existence.

Needless to say, all of this was possible only through constant communication and a total openness to the Galaxy. Most communities took this for granted and dutifully participated in the galactic dialogues. But there were others, silent, darkened beings who refused to join in. Through them would come the ruin of the Empire.

Gravital (Descendants of the Ruin Haunters)

After the lesson of the Qu, Second Galactic Empire kept a constant watch against alien invasion. Ironically, they neglected to look among themselves. The second great invasion of the galaxy came not from outside, but from within.