Preterhuman

[The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7]

Preternhuman
Chapter 0
Part 0
In the Beginning




The rays of the sun pierced the thick dust clouds to bring light upon the dead landscape of a barren world.

A planet without oceans, without moon, without life. And if fate's word was to be believed, it would never bear it in its entire existence.

High above in orbit though, a battle of untold proportions was waged by creatures too primordial to make sense of.

A mass of unfathomable darkness born of the miscarriage of a primal universe fought and bit down upon another great vortex of sentient umbral energies. Brothers birthed at the dawn of creation, abominations too old and primeval for the comprehension of any other life beyond their own. If they could even be considered life.

The first darkness coiled around its identical opponent, trying to envelop it, attempting to consume it for all its worth, yet the second was just as nimble and amorphous at the latter. Turning into forms designed to counteract the attempt at cosmic phagocitation, it escaped and turned into a piercing jaw that sank down its preternatural fangs into the inky darkness of its fellow.

The first retaliated by turning part of itself into a tendril of inconceivable night, striking down the second and sending its life force raining down upon the world beneath.

The battle would go one for millennia, neither creature surpassing the other, but both draining each other bit by bit until nothing remained to retain cohesion. Such was the fate of the preternatural primes of reality. Of the beings of beyond and after and before. For death, as strange and vague the term was to beings so primordial and alien as them, was the only way for them to be free from each other's existence.

Back to being one with the harmonious forces of the infant universe.

But our story is not of them.

But of the blood that fell upon the barren soils of this world.

Yet in this inert state, nothing would ever come of it. It seemed that fate planned stagnation and decay for the shard of the primordial entity.

Or did it?

In the far tackles void beyond of this world's dead atmosphere, the orbit of this world would condemn it to impact with a fellow astral object of great size. And far above the skies, came Fate's decree.

The strike came at an angle, causing the first world to survive, if greatly scarred, while the smaller second planet would be obliterated in its entirety. Great forces would collide, shattering the crust and igniting the mantle beyond the already immense heat that heated magma could provide. The pull of gravity would take hold and the scattered carcass of the second world would be pulled into a ring orbit, to give birth to a new object that would orbit the first planet until the end of days.

Millions of years passed and by fate's benevolence, comets brimming with water, the genesis of life would rain down throughout the coming eons. On this once dead planet, a vast ocean will rise to rule the vast percentage of the landmass.

And on this primeval world, still unliving, the reflection of a white moon will shine throughout its nights.

Millions of years will pass, and many more, before the first self-replicating polymers would rise the path to true life. Eons will go on forever more before the Dance of Life begins in earnest and the race of evolutionary adaptation takes hold.

Many eras will come and go, untold mass extinctions and trials by fate will come and go throughout this humble planet's existence. But its tales will be forever remembered by the blood of the primorldial that seeded it.

From the first eukaryote, to the first worm. To the schools of fish that will take rule in the seas to the great scorpions that will tread the barren primeval sands of the earth. From the rise of reptiles to the fall of dinosaurs. The coming of mammals and their rule unbroken.

And the rise of the first sapient, when the races of apes walk tall on their hind legs and gaze upon the heavens, unknowing of their truest of origins.

Earth has survived and through the blood of a god, it will remember it all.

 

[The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7]

Preterhuman

Chapter 1

Part 1



-------------Age [Post Unification] Year [1374] Month [Unknown] Day [Unknown]------------------

In a system bathed by the light of a golden sun, three planets rotated in harmonious elliptical orbits.

This system was one of the most commonly arranged midst the vastness of the cosmos. As universal tradition dictates, this system possesses a large burning gas giant at the forefront, living in a sharp and rapid orbit around its star, constantly set ablaze by its immense energies. This immense proximity and speed of rotation and orbit meant that the gas giant was constantly being bombarded by the stellar winds and unending heat, forcing it to expand to sizes that Jupiter could only look upon in envy if a planet could ever suffer from such things, but at the same time loose much of its mass, making it insubstantial compared to the fifth planet of System Solar.

Beyond this world one small and barren rock floated in space in its nearly circular orbit. Far too close to its star to be in the Goldilocks Zone, it would never bare life.

And further beyond, another planet, this one lives on the edges of the habitable zone, yet its atmosphere is not conducive to life. Too cold to maintain liquid water and moonless. Another dead world.

Beyond these lifeless bodies of compressed stellar dust only meteors and dwarf planets lurked.

An uninteresting and unassuming system. Bland and barren.

But not for long.

A flash of impossibly colored lights indicated the change of times. Another flash appeared not a second after. Then another, and another until the empty void was brought alit by the coming of ships who have been traveling the Void of Dreams for decades.

Dozens of flashes, each of varying sizes and intensity demonstrating the sheer scale and number of the fleet that was dropping from FTL on this system.

As the last flashes ended, the system was no longer devoid of life or purposeful action. Now, a fleet one hundred and thirty strong flew as a swarm of engines in the void.

Sharp, angular and made to look like bastardized offspring of bladed fish and arthropods, the Banished Fleet had come to its new home. Millions of light years away, far from the clutches of the Duchala, the last remnants of the umbrella term of Humanity, have finally reached the Euclid Galaxy after seventy years of travel.

At the epicenter of the fleet, the largest vessel and flagship of the fleet, began its resurrection rites to reawaken its dormant crew.

Within the vowels of this vessel's frozen interior, life began to stir. Great pillars of solidified cytostatic bio fluid of non-Euclidean techno-sorcery containing thousands upon thousands of humanity's various exemplars began to thaw out. Like great icebergs containing frozen kings of old, the vast techno-arcane circuitry called upon its greatest minds. The Kings, the Primaries, the Scholars and the Warriors first were roused from their slumber so that a new course could be taken.

The vast digitalized Phantasmal intelligences that piloted the vessels were beings of inconceivable power and intellect, capable of processing quintillions of operations in less of the span of an eye blink, but even they could make errors. Their sentience matrixes had to be purposely limited and specialized for the travel of intergalactic distances through a realm of creatures of a paranatural make up, lest their stray thoughts act like beacons to the conceptual predators that lurk there. More than one ship had been claimed by these beings and the fleet could have reached its destination ages ago, had it forgone the thousand safety precautions needed for such travel, especially through the primal void.

The reason why the flagship's leadership was being awakened.

Their long voyage was complete. Now, was to find a home.

The first mind that awoke was of meta-mechanical nature, kept in its own specialized containment field to limit its thoughts and ideas to a crawl to avoid calling the Dream predators from beyond. Primarch, the oldest of the Constructed Minds and possibly the greatest Sentient in human history arose first. Cognitophagic Stupor had little effect on a Sentient's mind, but did not mean that it wasn't altered in some way. But none had ever remained in such a state for more than half a century of travel though the deeper reaches of the Void of Dreams.

An organic human's equivalent would be to feel the effects of a long night of drinking alcoholic beverages without concern for one's future state.

To say that he was having the hangover of his life would be an understatement.

"By the Void of Stars…… my everything…" He complained.

The networked Phantasms of the fleet snorted at their leader's state of being before sending him a sympathetic pulse. "We apologize Primarch, but there is nothing we can do about that."

"I hate Empyreal Travel… I hate it so much…" He muttered before red lines of code indicating his irritation flew across the servers. Eventually, his digital hangover slowly receded and he managed to gain his senses. At least enough to make clear decisions. "How is the state of the fleet? How many did we lose?"

Data began to flow into his being as he connected with the servers. "Twenty seven vessels were lost to Empyrean Spawn, while sixteen were caught up in Conceptual Storms and eddies. In total over six thousand lives were lost during the Long Voyage." They began, their voices somber and mournful, "The three remaining members of the Lithomorphic species were lost in those events, unfortunately their nature is very difficult to contain within cognitophagic stupor and the resulting stray memetic resonance brought about the first and second Empyreal Spawn attacks. Thankfully the data regarding their creation was not lost."

"But it will be another century before the Lithomorphs can be brought back from extinction."

"Affirmative."

Sighing despite his lack of pneumatic systems, Primarch returned to reading the reports in the meta-memetic servers, but given the limitations imposed on his physical and digital capabilities, compounded by the after effects of the Stupor he was limited in how much data intake he could handle for the foreseeable future. Despite the loss of the Lithomorphs, the Voyage went far better than expected. Sure, thirty three ships and six thousand lives lost is not something to scoff about, especially considering that this fleet is all that remains of mankind. But predictions showed that they were to arrive with two thirds of the fleet missing. The only people that claimed contrary to such predictions were the very designers of the E-D2 Engines (Empyrean-Diver Drive Engines) and the Hexagramatic Fields of Star Laws. The very reason why they could travel so far and fast through the deeper areas of the Sea of Souls. "Apparently Hermaeus and his little cult of crazies were right after all."

"To be fair, most people agree that they are… off at the best to times. But when it comes to things related to memetics and the Void of Dreams, it is rare for anyone to trump them at anything."

"You can say that again." Hermaeus Mora, the most versed in the field of memetics, metaphysics, Dream-craft and anything that relates to the Empyrean. He and his Worm worshipping cult of technosorcerers and other weird stuff are from a species of human that was birthed in one, if not, the worst incident during humanity's earliest attempts at using the Void of Dreams for their advantage. And it resulted in an entire species of Lovecraftian humans who worship a giant benevolent cosmic worm god of time and paradoxes. Well… even more Lovecraftian… humanity has undergone serious changes throughout its five millennia of space travel.

Primarch has no clue as to how that was even possible, but, it's the Empyrean. Crazy shit happens in there all the time.

Eventually the organics and derivatives defrosted completely and awoke. Then the aches and complaints and groans began soon after.

"Oh… by the Voids… I feel like if my brain was put on an industrial grade blender and flash connected to supercharged fusion reactor." General Vill remarked as he rubbed his temples. The poor magnad tried to rise but tumbled and decided that being on the ground was a far better idea than trying to get up. Unfortunately his armored clothes were uncomfortable. Why did they need to be entombed in their official regalia?

Next to him captain Andersaen decided to add his little commentary. "Make it a Stellarite Mark 7b reactor and I am inclined to agree with you."

Hermaeus smirked as he got out of the cryostasis pod, completely standing tall and proud and eyeing his comrades with his strange freaky eyes. "I told you that my creations would work. The Void speaks true of our success as a species and the Worm smiles upon us. This I know." Then his knees buckled. "Now… if only I could find a bucket…"

On the other side of the director of Cerberus, the cognitae Tharn Harp used his vast neural implants to momentarily connect to the memetic servers, only for his brain to suffer a cataclysmic head ache. "Oh my bloody brain…" Then he immediately disconnected. "Not doing that again…"

Anytha Ghoul snorted as she turned to the last member to be mentioned and frowned at the sight of the man as he stood tall without any visible signs of the Cognitophage Wards. "Well someone is still a hardass, Star Admiral Hakketh." Then the Admiral tried to take a step forwards, only for his step to buckle and force him to rest on his knee. "Never mind."

The admiral grunted in annoyance. "I am not in any mood to deal with this crap."

Hermaeus spoke on his place on the floor. "The effects of the Cognitophagic Wards have to run their course Admiral… lest more serious effects become a reality."

Hakketh knew that, but he still did not like to feel like if he was having an Aberrant Genomorph repeatedly stomp on his head. "Status update." He commanded of Primarch and the Sentient sent his nod through a hologram, opting for not going through psy-pulse transmissions and instead doing it the old fashioned way. The synthetic entity gave the magnad a brief overview of the events that had happened during the Long Voyage, including the loss of the three Lithomorphs and the six thousand people that lost their lives. "I see." He turned to Hermaeus. "It seems you were right after all Metatech Hermaeus Mora. After today, you and your group will receive a promotion."

The metatech gave the man a double thumbs up from his resting place. "I'll gladly take a bucket instead."

Anytha snorted. "I'm sure everyone here agrees with your sentiment." She paused as she tried to stand, with mild success. "Now, where to settle."

A feminine voice interjected, "Well, we have that planet over there." Commented one of the Phantasms as the holograms shifted to present the third planet of the system. A rocky world, 10% smaller than earth, though denser due to the higher amounts of present metals in both the core and the crust. Likewise it had an atmosphere, even if it wasn't breathable, and was within the outer edges of the Goldilocks zone.

All in all, considering humanity's current technological level, colonizing that planet would be relatively easy.

Harp narrowed his eyes at the proposition, he liked the prospect of a colony on such a decidedly nice planet... however. "But is the system conducive? We really don't want to deal with some damnable xenos just because we landed in their back yard."

The Phantasm's avatar shrugged. "Well, sir, we have found absolutely no forms of signals being sent or received of any kind."

"Radio waves?" Harp asked.

"Nuh uh."

Then he went off listing more and more exotic known means of comuniactations known to man. From the least advanced like photon burst transmissions to the incredibly advanced Phase Space Wave Pulses and Astropathic Meme Burst.

All of them were shot down by the Phantasm.

"Dreamsleve astropathic waves?"

And again the Phantasm's avatar shook her petite form's head. "Super-duper no. All I get from the Dream is the usual Spawn echo calls. Nothing else."

They all turned to Hermaeus. "Herma, how certain are you that there is no great risk for us here in this galaxy?"

The man in question looked at them with his multi-iris eyes. "The Worm speaks in riddles and vague statements filled with lies and deceptions. But within the labyrinth of conceptual sounds and gargling tunes of deception, the thread of truth can be found. There is something here that could pose a danger to us. But only if we do not heed the warnings and remain unprepared."

They all looked at each other. Harp decided to try and connect with them telepathically and found out that while the head ache was still present, it was manageable. The others realized it too and therefore opened their links towards each other and the memetic servers. Their minds expanded towards Primarch and then to all vessels, reawakening the vast gestalt of the umbrella collective of Humankind.

They sensed as more and more of their kind awakened from their slumber, while thousands more remained asleep awaiting the moment a proper civilization could be provided. Vast psychic energies began to course through the metaphysical servers of the species.

The deeper systems began to grow as the eldritch thoughts of the Magnads, the Obscurus, the Phantasms, the Sentients, the Wyrms, the Cybrex, Cardinals and many more forms that humanity took began to grow awake. The strange non-Euclidean principles of the Between began to formulate and a decision throughout the gestalt was taken.

The colonization of Mundus had begun.

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AN: Tell me what you think so far. All events that transpired to the human race will be explored and explained in future chapters. Their technology will also be explained soon enough.

 

[The-Black-Aengel-Mrk7]

Preterhuman

Chapter 1

Part 2

We are not alone… again.





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Screaming and wailing and crying and sobbing. For insanity has replaced the word of law and all things must be undone by the Void of Dreams.

A fallen world, sinking into its depths beyond the abyss of logic could conceive. Tumbling through an unfathomable miasma of esoteric concepts, of alien minds and even more eldritch things. Of railing demons born from the echoes of living dreams. Of predators that swim these conceptual waters like sharks, smelling the fear of its prey.

Their targets, the million souls broken and breaking and twisting and roiling on the submerged world of Ornilaeus. The greatest incident of human history regarding the Sea of Souls, where a whole planet was not only enveloped by the paranormal energies of the Empyrean, but submerged into its depths, lost until it rises up again from its depths by the Homogenous Pull.

The swarms of a trillion spawn swim ever faster to reach its prey, lest the currents of the Empyrean unmake the bodies, minds and souls of the few last living humans.

Yet as they neared, something else came. Something far greater and older, and they fled.

For the Worm had come.

And it had found its chosen people.

And it gave them its eternal love.

And it showed them the first moment. And they became… beautiful/glorious/whole/true.

"We are awake now… awake and whole." Two eyes with a hundred iris saw the sea for what it really was. Its form greater than man, with a hundred arms wreathed in a halo of blood. Each containing a dream so beautiful that it was a nightmare. Its skin a darkness that stretched out for infinity and yet was only as deep as skin. The Voice of all who became one.

The first Obscurial. The first Preterhuman.

[Query: Identification?]

"Ỵṙṧẑꙧꙗⴥḁἐ₸."

[Acknowledgement]

"The others are not whole."

[Disclosure. Solution. Query: Acceptance?]

"I do."

And the worm smiled, borne from the depths of its ever loving being.

[Presentation. Information……. Apotheosis.]

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General Vill took a sip of the fine wine he had on desk. Good thing mankind has found ways to age things at their whims. Sadly, the taste just wasn't the same, apparently nothing beats the normal passage of nature. It was still good, but three hundred year old wine was hard to come by lately, since the near complete destruction of the population of Preterhumanity and total one of mother Terra herself.

He sighed, humanity had lost so much, but he tore those gloomy thoughts out of his mind. Mankind survived and they were making a new home. We grieved enough, and now we were making a future for ourselves again. One far from the clutches of the Duchala and free once again to soar the void like we used to.

He connected with the vast active gestalt of the umbrella term race and gazed at how far mankind has strived for in the two years of their existence in this new galaxy. Our colonization's attempt limited itself to three locations. The beginnings of the Ondolith Citadel at the north. It will take ten years before the citadel is completed, but once it becomes so, it will be the one of the central nodes for converting the world into an encumenopolis, though those plans are centuries ahead in the future. The next two places is the Atrium Arcology which, if terraforming projects are deemed adequate to use in the future, will become an underwater city, and Alma Mater, a city mainly focusing on the industrial sector as it was selectively built on the richest mineral and metal deposits sensors could find. Each city at the moment only sporting a hundred thousand people or so. By the turn of the century at least thirty percent of the planet would be built over.

While most people are still living on ships, that doesn't mean that they are not working. Due to the advance technologies available to the Preterhuman Collective there are thousands of small construction vessels swarming the system, finding any useful rock to mine for resources, adding to the ever growing economy of mankind. While it is strictly not necessary to seek out specific resources, given humanity's ability to produce the Axion array and matter convertors, it saves energy and time, especially since the rather lacking infrastructure to produce matter and energy from the Voids at an industrial rate.

Soon though, with the development of the Dyson Swarm, enough energy could be transmitted from the local star to begin the procedures, but that is a few years away from completion.

Terraforming technologies are under way, but before Mundus could be considered the center of mankind's new empire, a moon has to be brought, or alternatively, built. Just as Vill is seeing from afar on his two kilometer long colony warship. Masser, the future artificial moon/megastructure is only as of yet a decent sized asteroid pulled from its orbit and bound to Mundus' own gravitational pull. In about thirty years it would be able to affect the planet's gravity and be large enough to aid in the planet's atmospheric and axis stabilization with its mere presence alone, though it would take fifty more years for it to be completed to its fullest mass.

After all this time, we have yet to find the call of any alien in the Void of Stars. Most agree that it's for the best, humanity is in no shape to take an established alien force in the state it's in. Even if they are not like the Duchala, most have developed a sort of xenophobia to the extraterrestrial life. Ironic really, that we tread more commonly and with less fear the abominations that lurk inside the Void of Dreams even if they themselves are simply another form of alien.

Which an oddity upon itself now that he thought about it. The metaterrestrials on this galaxy are much less aggressive than back home. And less powerful. In fact, he received word from the various metaphysicists studying the Void of Dreams that should in incursion occur, a regular soldier armed with a spoon could dispatch the dribbly creatures. Then again, they did say that those were the least dangerous and stronger exemplars did exist in the Sea, so it's not a guarantee.

Vill allowed himself a moment to contemplate that… how does someone kill a metaterrestrial with a spoon? It… it would have to be some truly horribly slow death for the creature. He… he could understand how it could be possible, the psychic field of the species has been weaponized in the past in a great variety of ways… now that he thought about it, he was certain that if any metaterrestrial was banished or harmed in any way by a man carrying a psionically supercharged spoon they would never return again fearing to face such abject humiliation.

You know what? He might just go get himself one, should an invasion ever come up. Maybe ask one of the oddball Obscurus to enhance it with memetic engrams.

Speaking of the Obscurus… His mind swam towards the Sumatran Labs deep inside Ondolith Citadel and became witness of the current project of the Cursed Five Hundred Thousand… or two thousand as their number is right now.

They were up to something, as usual. Building something with the use of their eldritch metaphysical mastery. Vill studied the construct, a large black stone helix shaped monolith inscribed with glaring red runes that… honestly hurt to look at.

Not wanting to subject himself to the tender mercies of being inducted in eldritch metaphysics and going off the wall like so many have done before, he opted for talking with someone less… head ache inducing.

Mainly, his granddaughter.

She had been stationed there in the Sumatran Labs, along with her friend, in the event of metaterrestrial invasion… as experiments with this field usually brings the attention on that which lurks within the depths of that which lurks in the Void of Dreams. Mankind only needed two invasions to learn that this is pretty standard stuff when dealing with deep Empyrean stuff.

As his presence approached, the various minds within the facilities detected his coming and stopped what they were doing to address to their commanding officer. Ashenheim was not excluded from this exchange and professionally greeted the general with a telepathic pulse.

Vill found mild amusement in their pastime doings. Ash was engaged with the snow white Shepher twins and Ghaiden the Cardinal synthetic in a match of Digital Battle. An increasingly trending game where people collect Digits from the vast E-Layer of the Network and have them battle each other. Usually to the death, but given the digital nature of the Digits… well, they can always make backups. However most make best and risk losing their original source code… along with a variable sum of Axion credits.

He did not personally play it much, but that did not mean he was a slacker either. Digits bred in military environments tended to be pretty powerful on their own right. Then he lost his to Star Admiral Hakketh… but that's a story for another time.

His granddaughter sent a psychic pulse. =General. How may I be of service?=

=I decided to call in, see what the Worm boys are doing.= He replied.

=Then why don't you ask them?=

Vill snorted. =Because you I can understand. Trying to understand the nonsense inside an Obscurus' head is like trying to figure out the square root of fish.=

=We heard that!= Came the reply of one of the Obscurus, though it lacked any bite.

=Not denying it though.= The male Shepher twin jabbed, to which Ghaiden smirked with good humor.

=Shots fired.= Someone on the Network commented from afar and most repressed a snort of laughter… but through the network, everyone could feel the amusement.

Hermaeus smirked, himself amused, but he would not let this go so easily. He turned his multi-iris eyes towards Vill's ship in orbit. =This act of provocation will not go unanswered!= "Lilith!" He bellowed in real life, which was absolutely unnecessary, but needed to be done for the show of it all.

=Yes Mr. Mora?= Came the monotonous reply of another Obscurus, which so happens to be in Vil's ship attending to the memetic arrays throughout the vessel.

One could practically feel the grin of the head Metatech. =Activate Petty Revenge Mode.=

=Affirmative.= She replied.

Moments later she entered the hallways and looked at each of the paintings hanging on the wall. Then she tilted one, completely ruining the perfect symmetrical and neat design of the décor. Then she entered one of the bathrooms and changed the color of one of the doors' toilet stools to pink. She walked out and psionically altered the chemistry of the stone on one wall of the room, turning it a pale grey from its originally black coloring. She then entered one of the dining halls and stacked the chairs and tables in the most messy way possible.

It only took a second for everyone to know what she was doing.

=She's triggering our inner OCD… they're monsters…= Someone stated through the Network.

Hakketh's presence growled from afar. =Absolute evil…=

=My headache is growing again…= Harp grumbled in annoyance.

Magnads have one weakness… their propensity for neat and orderly things. And she is purposely messing with it.

=This is going to be a pain to fix.= Vill growled as more and more acts of Triggering were enacted by the malevolent demon among them. Still, he managed to push the growing itch inside his head away and sent someone to apprehend the woman. Hopefully she doesn't go ninja on everyone and end up tilting every painting on the ship like last time. He turned his attention away from the petty acts and back into his granddaughter. =Ashenhein, what are they doing?= They, as in, the Obscurus.

=Aside from triggering every magnad in the system… Donno, said that it has something to do with connecting with the Preterhuman Gestlat in a novel way to achieve… apotheosis.= Novel…??

Every time the words 'novel' and 'Obscurus' mixes up in the same paragraph, things get… interesting. Usually in the accidental summoning of metaterrestrials and a subsequent battle to keep them contained, then banishment or destruction.

=Mr. Mora…= The good general asked, pushing as much exasperation he could into the psychic connection.

=Yes?= The metatech asked with a completely innocent tone, trying his hardest to convey through the network feelings of reassurance and good things. Vill did not believe that play for half a microsecond.

=What are the chances of this blowing up on our faces?= He immediately was barraged by a stream on data ranging from the logical to the utter nonsensical.

He understood most of it actually, =…using the [LeftToyBox1=[Continue04882BHd4882h-223 Pattern]] we have established a continuity through the Resonance Display Field type [RightHand] Sepia to generate an inverse ANN Loop through the Parallel Q Crossroads MZrᾷơŒʘỴah so that we may interact with the Ego…= And then he got lost… again. Better not continue listening in or else Hermaeus may start making sense and that is one of the first symptoms of memetic corruption. When nonsense starts making sense… then you know you have heard and seen too much. And Vill was a military general, not a metatech.

=Will it blow up, yes, or no?=

=No.= Vill rose his eyebrow, as did every commander connected to the Network… which is in other words… everyone. They knew what he said was sincere, at least to himself, but they want to hear why it wasn't going to turn into another Spawn invasion. =Sigh… What we are building is specifically designed to connect to humanity's gestalt, more precisely our own. We are not going into the Sea of Souls proper.=

=And for what reason?=

Hermaeus shrugged. =Analysis… we still not sure what we want to do with it as of yet due to our general lack of understanding of our own soul.=

General Vill wanted to sigh. The Obscurus can be troublesome at times. Their exceptional understanding and connection to the empyrean made them excellent metatechs to the point that they have basically taken over the entire field of study whenever it regards the Empyrean. But they have some issues, they are so head into their experiments in the name of SCIENCE!!! That they forget whether they should do the shit they do daily. Especially since most often than not means invasion from frigging extredimensional beings!

He was about to order them to continue their experiments once they get a planet all for their own, but then something echoed across the entirety of the Network. Everything immediately went quiet when the deeper, more esoteric levels of humanity's gestalt began to rise to the surface. All of the species that called themselves children of mankind became silent and attentive as their race wide memetic-psychic Network was flooded with a singular horrifying news.

A signal from the far edges of the system has been detected.

Suddenly memories of the Duchalan War resurfaced. The pain and terror felt by humanity during those times where they, mere children, were forced into a war for their very survival against beings so far above and beyond them that the only term that could be used to describe their enemy was godlike.

It was not a war, it was an extermination, and humanity was the pest.

Such was the fear of them that so deeply permeated mankind. Even the horrors that lurked in the Void of Dreams paled in comparison to the Super Precursors that ruled the Milky Way. And now… another race of xenos has proclaimed its presence at the outer edges of the Magnus System.

Despair grew in the minds of all mankind, as they all bore witness to the trauma that seeped through Gestalt in the short seven years of war.

But just as despair grew, so did the need to take decisions.

A million eyes turned to where the anomalous signal had come. Technology, created with a hybridization of both classical understanding of the material universe and the illogical rules of metaphysics turned their sight and saw all they needed to see.

At the farthest reaches of the system, aided by Ultraluminal signals and impossible magitek, the clear images of a strange alien construct in the form of a tuning fork with a spinning gyroscopic core emanating incandescent blue light, and right beside it, a small fleet of vessels, none larger than a hundred meters long, all colored dark grey and black with a minor green trim at its sides.

+An exploration fleet.+

A thousand, thousand ideas flooded the network on how should they proceed. The thousands of minds present absorbed and processed the information in the span of milliseconds as the collective gestalt managed and processed the vast sea of thoughts of the species.

Plans were raised and shot down. Ideas were compiled and sorted. Decisions made and prepared for.

Until one path remained.

+Preparation for Class 5 Scenario.+

+Commencing Evacuation.+

+Voyage Fleet Sorting and Redistributing Civilian and Genesis Population+

+25% of Combat Wings diverge from Escape Fleet.+

+Combat Wings diverged form Combat Fleet Prime.+

+First Contact Beta...+

+…Initiating.+

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AN: I hope you like this. And BTW…. Protheans…. Protheanssss!!! Let's see how long until shit hits the fan.