With a roar that shook the earth below, the humans descended from the heavens in their fire-breathing vessel. Steel met rock and the massive rockets of the Vagabond switched off one final time.

The inhabitants of the ship were the first humans to arrive upon the life-bearing planet. The crew had orbited the cosmos for the past thousands of years at near light-speed. Generations had passed, less generations than there would have been had they traveled at a slower pace yet still, the crew were more than pleased to be of the Landers, that long-prophesied generation that would form the infrastructure of the great planetary civilisation to come. 

There were countless ships like the Vagabond, orbiting the cosmos at various speeds, yet the Vagabond was special: it had arrived first. What’s more, the ship’s destination had always been this planet, a solid rock harbouring a plethora of wildlife. The ship had passed many a life-bearing planet throughout its eternal orbit yet had never stopped: they couldn’t have. Long ago, their trajectory had been prearranged and preordained with with the inhuman, artificial, accuracy of a Major, a quasi-omnipotent A.I..

Majors were so incomprehensibly large in scope and omnipotence that, to a mere puny human, they might as well be Gods. And so, once the Vagabond’s course had been set all those years ago, it had been sent on its merry ride with no possible alterations to their chosen path, their destiny.

Then again, why would they have wanted to? This planet had always been their destination and was, after all, special. It was their origin, the very cradle of humanity, the place in which it had all had started, eons ago, in that now distant year of 2065…

The Vagabond - after millennia spent amongst the stars - had finally reached Earth.

There was a small problem though, a little hiccup in the plan, nothing substantial, nothing to worry about. Nothing… Unless one counted the presence of another sentient life as something worthy of notice.

As the crew of the Vagabond were about to find out, they were now aliens on, from, of and to their own planet. They were, in customary human fashion, lots of things – only one of which was wholly unprepared.

The engines shut down and all was still in the blackened mess that crackled around the newly-landed ship. All but the trees that is, trees that now shimmered from both heat distortion and flickering flames alike.

Suddenly, with a concerted whoosh, the Vagabond’s automated sprinklers fired into action dousing the menial fires with fresh torrents of recycled water. Pure-white steam leapt from it’s wake contrasting sharply with to the dark ash covered coals of the once green forest.

With the last cinders extinguished, a first initial wave of drones appeared from small hubs in the vessel’s outer shell. Some drones were only fist sized mechanoid creatures while others possessed the proportions of humanity’s once mythological titans.

Despite their varying widths, all these drones shared sets of common traits, traits beyond the mere physical that is. All the drones belonged to hive minds, hive minds referred to as Minors by the Vagabond’s inhabitants. And, if the Majors were all-knowing, all encompassing Gods to the monkey-brained humans, Minors were, for there part, regarded as their minions: angels if you will. That is, if angels were ant hills.

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Minor’s consisted of countless small, intricate and synthetic artificial brains that had appeared in the complex neuro-networks of the inter-connective relays millennia ago and they now, through a form of life unto their own, were sustained by the post-natural sociological ties that connected all the machines assigned to them by their Major overlords.

As the Minors set out tasks for the drones to accomplish, drones appeared in newly-formed hubs in the outer-shell of Vagabond. While some drones focused on plowing the scorched earth, others scanned the ground in their wake to uncover stones. The stones were then recovered, sorted and cataloged leaving odd piles at the foot of the vagabond.

Then, through simple geometric evaluation of the material at hand, multiple Minors began to calculate and compare their respective solutions to the upcoming problems of “the paving”. They debated most efficient layouts and and worked themselves down to smaller and smaller intricacies as rough plans were laid out. As the paving-Minors squabbled in futility over frivolous final touches, other Minors began to override and recycle their occupied memory space in order to begin the execution of the chosen walking paths.

As the crew of the Vagabond, pinpricks as they were compared to the seize of the vessel, tasted fresh air for the first time in millennia, one man and a few of his loyal followers/friends stayed back to deal with an expected quasi-religious ceremony. A ceremony that, to their eyes, was almost as important as the landing of the craft itself.

The man, now sitting himself in his chair of office and flicking a hand over a monitor to signal for a meeting with the Inner-Major, was no other than Kernel Kaede Anders.

Kernel Kaede, widely regarded as one of those “alarmists” had long been dreading this fateful moment. This “return”. As a result and for most of his life, his apprehension had led him to make it his life’s mission to take command of the Vagabond’s inner nation in order to sit in this very chair, in this very room, in this very hour of this very day. He’d had to prove himself at every turn and still he’d found ways to prevail over his political opponents. And that in spite of his alarmist rhetoric, not because of.

It was his life’s goal and that’s the seriousness in which he took this very moment.

“Gods, if only I thought I was wrong!” he mused, “how different would my life be now? I’ve put everything on hold to be here, please Gods tell me it was all for nothing. The alternative… It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

He suppressed a shudder, but he had been thinking about it and it wouldn’t be long now, his answers were coming. Them and his fate too, all of their fates. “Gods!” This was the time, if there was ever going to be one, in which the Inner-Major, as benevolently as it had tended to the its inner-flock for millennia, would at last be able to admit to any truths, too hard to swallow, that it had been shielding them from over the years. Truths that would have to be horrific enough to impair its main given directive: “to return the humans to Earth, alive”. Facts that would make any sane nation flee.

“Leave us” said Kaede to his men before he religiously poured himself a whiskey and lit a cigar: it had long been speculated that Major’s never appeared on someone else’s terms if one did not greet them in this manner. Pure superstition born from an old joke he told himself but he would not be taking any chances, not today. Besides, he wasn’t impartial to the occasionally drink or two.

A few puffs from his cigar and the Major appeared out of thin air in front of him. It looked… Disheveled, nervous even since its hands shook imperceptibly. Looking upon it you would never have thought it was the complex God-like entity that had, through a miracle of technological enhancements, by itself micro-managed every aspect of human life for millennia.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the figure glitched out of view.

Kernel Kaede’s eyes went wide in shock: Major’s do not glitch. They can’t! They are an integral part of human reality and had been since before the departure!

The humanoid figure flicked back into existence. It seemed preoccupied. Why would a hologram show so much emotion. What was it seeking to achieve?

“What can I do for you?” volunteered the Kernel carefully.