Chapter 0:
Echoes of the Void
Year: 2047, Quantum Facility Alpha.
Humanity had dreamed of reaching the stars for centuries. All that started with the fascination for birds flying through the sky and imagining yourself as one of them, soon led to the human to imagine what else could be out there, what lay beyond the sky.
But, as it turns out, space was not the empty void we once believed it to be. And in the end, it wasn’t curiosity that pushed humanity into the galaxy; but power and the instinct to survive.
The day humanity harnessed the power of antimatter, the whole world felt it. They called it Project Prometheus, and it was supposed to be the greatest achievement of human history. After all, antimatter was the ultimate energy source, something capable of creating entire worlds...or destroying them, the very thing that separated what was possible from our imagination. When that reactor came online, a pulse of energy surged across the Earth, lighting up skies and sending shockwaves through every scientific community, every government, every country, and every ordinary person watching their screens in awe. With that first brilliant flash, humanity knew it: we were entering a new era.
In the beginning, people dreamed of a future free from scarcity, where the struggles of food were no more, and were commodity and peace were basic to all. With this power, they said, we could build colonies on other planets, create vast floating cities, and eliminate the concept of “limited resources” forever. But as with all, not everyone wanted to use it for peaceful purposes. Some saw it as a weapon, a force strong enough to vaporise cities, even planets. Antimatter could create or destroy with ease, and soon enough, the nations of Earth began to fight over who would control this miracle energy. All of a sudden, it wasn't a country who had the world at its hand, but a mere company.
In the end, it wasn’t diplomacy that settled the matter—it was conquest. Earth became one world government, united not by peace but by force and fear. With their disputes temporarily quieted, humanity turned its eyes outward, to the endless expanse of stars beyond our world. At the end of the day, the only thing that can bring humans together is a common enemy.
Two hundred years later, those dreams of the stars had come true.
Across the galaxy, there were now entire worlds shaped by human hands. The galaxy’s wealthiest citizens lived in sprawling, artificial paradises. Planets with Earth-like conditions, “the core worlds,” were carved into landscapes of shimmering lakes, crystal cities, and lush fields under digital skies protected onto the planet’s shields. Here, humanity had recreated an “Earth” in perfect luxury, even better than the original. The rich, the powerful, and the privileged lived their lives in ease, supported by endless antimatter energy. But, as always, there was a hidden cost.
For every core world of wealth and comfort, there were dozens of fringe colonies on hostile planets. Mining worlds, where people worked around the clock in dangerous environments, scraping out rare materials to sustain the antimatter machines. Labourers grinded under blazing suns, suffocating in heavy suits, performing tasks that would kill them in minutes if they made a single mistake. The poor lived on these worlds, born into dangerous, unforgiving lives where they would remain as long as they lived, just to keep the core worlds glowing. A place they would never even see…
Even then, humanity seemed unstoppable. Life forms had been discovered on distant planets, sure, but they were mostly like animals: odd creatures, sometimes beautiful, sometimes monstrous, but never intelligent. Humanity’s conquest felt inevitable. For every uninhabitable planet, for every perilous mining world, there were whispers of new discoveries, new lands. What could possibly stand in the way of such a bright, boundless future?
That’s when we met them.
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At first, no one believed the rumours. Travellers spoke of strange sightings out in deep space—ships that looked more like living creatures, made from a strange material that pulsed and shimmered like water. They seemed to vanish into the fabric of space itself, moving with a fluidity and silence that felt... unnatural. But it wasn’t long before those rumours started to get louder.
Expeditions into the borders of human territory began to disappear without a trace, outskirt planets started losing connection. Ships with antimatter cores would depart as usual, then simply vanish. At first, the disappearances were explained away as accidents—deep-space hazards, equipment failures, anything but what the reports whispered of: aliens.
Then, finally, came the first direct encounter.
A human fleet met the foreign ships on the edge of known space. Human officers sent out messages in hundreds of languages, transmitted every kind of greeting protocol ever devised. But there was no response. When they finally moved, it was with terrifying efficiency. Their ships seemed to ripple through space, dodging attacks and appearing behind human ships without warning. They didn't fire antimatter beams or use projectiles; their weapons were more like... energy syphons, the attacks from the human ships seemed to redirect mid-trajectory and simply come back at them. In minutes, the entire fleet was rendered powerless, floating in space like discarded toys.
The message came after: Your energy endangers the slumbering giants of the stars. Cease your destruction, or the ancient void will devour you.
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Earth’s leaders scoffed at their warning. “The ancient void?” they laughed. It sounded like folklore, a myth to scare children, not a threat to an empire that spanned the galaxy. And yet, in hidden academic circles, whispers began to spread. Among scientists who studied the background energies of the universe, there were theories. The cosmos wasn’t as empty as we thought, after all, we still didn't know but a fraction of how our universe actually worked. There was...something out there. An energy that seemed to pulse in the dark spaces between galaxies, a faint, almost imperceptible hum. It was ancient, older than humanity, older even than the stars.
The aliens' message echoed the oldest legends from human mythology, stories of ancient beings that existed before the universe itself. They were thought to be asleep, drifting in silence for eons. But if disturbed... these creatures were said to awaken in a rage, consuming stars and planets without mercy. And with every antimatter reactor, humanity was unknowingly stirring these ancient forces, spilling energy across the galaxy in dangerous waves.
And yet, the leaders of the core worlds shrugged off the warnings. How could anything that ancient still exist? How could something so vast be so fragile?
The expansion continued. Humans dug deeper, pushed farther, and consumed more antimatter than ever, refusing to slow down. The luxurious cities on the core planets only grew, their lights and power blazing brighter. And in the dark of space, that hum began to change. Scientists detected subtle tremors, strange distortions in the fabric of space itself. But when they tried to report their findings, they were ignored. After all, nothing could threaten humanity’s progress...right?
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Across the galaxy, three lives were about to change forever.
A young woman travelled the edges of human space, an adventurer driven by curiosity, logging strange phenomena on planets no one had dared to explore. She lived in a rusted old ship, with only her research logs and the distant stars for company. And out there, she was about to stumble upon something that would make her wonder if humanity’s boundless ambition was worth the cost.
On a mining world in the outskirts, a boy sweated under the scorching artificial suns, swinging a pickaxe in brutal rhythm with his fellow miners. Every day was a fight for survival, and every night he looked up at the distant stars, wondering if a life of comfort even existed. All he wanted was a way out—a chance to escape. But in the depths of the mines, he’d soon find something that would ignite a fire in his heart, one that would make him a threat to all those in power.
And on a grand council of the core worlds, a battle-hardened diplomat sighed as he listened to endless arguments about whether humanity should heed the aliens' warnings or expand further preparing for war. His body was a map of scars from countless wars, his soul ached for peace, yet he found himself fighting once again, only this time, for a future he wasn’t even sure could exist.
As each of their paths crossed, humanity’s fate would hang in the balance. Somewhere in the galaxy, in the cold silence of space, an ancient force began to stir. And it would soon awaken.
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For humanity, the stars once seemed like their birthright. But now, they might become humanity’s grave.
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