"Access Denied," said the voice from the datapad. "Authorization required."

Horde, these Yumens kept information about their own history from themselves. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right.

An empty white box popped up on the screen with a blinking cursor. Letters popped up on the bottom of the datapad.

"Enter name," the voice repeated in monotone.

Name? She could sound out her name "Arachna" and put that in but wasn't sure if the glowing Yumen device would recognize it. Technically, her name was a series of soft and guttural clicks but "Arachna" was the closest Yumen translation.

What if—Hmmmm, that just might work.

She typed in the letters "C-A-R-L-S-E-N." The name seemed so familiar when written down. It was as if she'd spent a lifetime jotting it into tens of thousands of computer terminals like this one, and looking at it written out on screens.

The name "Carlsen, Humboldt" popped up, and she pressed down firmly on it with her index finger. Horde, she was getting the hang of this thing.

"Enter password," the voice said.

Great. Password? How was she supposed to know what Engineer Carlsen's password had been? Xither, this was getting to be difficult.

Arachna was about to give up when suddenly the answer flashed into her mind. The one name that Engineer Carlsen would never have forgotten—the love of his life. It was also his password, she knew instinctually.

"U-R-S-U-L-I-N-E," she typed in, before pressing down on the arrow. It felt like muscle memory as she pressed each letter—the keystrokes, the placement of the letters on the datapad, the sentiment she felt from repeating the name of a dearly beloved countless times a day, every single day. Carlsen had written the name of his deceased wife countless times on these Yumen contraptions.

"Credentials accepted," the voice said followed by a high-pitched bell sound. What followed was the history of Old Earth. Or at least the part of it that was understood.

Arachna folded in her legs, and hunkered down for a history lesson.

Old Earth

Earth is the birthplace of the human species as well as over 10 million unique non-sentient biological species. It was once the third planet from the star known as Solis within the Prime Solar System. The planet had one moon which still orbits Solis to this day and is home to an anthropological research station.

Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago and was characterized by a unique atmosphere and elemental makeup that gave rise to biological life forms.

Click, click. Arachna wanted to know more about life on earth and what happened to it than its distant past.

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So she scrolled down.

Before the Krath Wars, Old Earth was home to 1.8 trillion people, nearly half of the entire human population at the time. The United Solaran Fleet was beleaguered during the Krath Wars, nearly becoming enveloped by a fleet of Hive Ships known as the Horde.

The United Solaran Fleet failed to stop the advance of Krath originally stemming from Planet Xither and expanding across the galaxy. The Krath outnumbered the human race both in ships and in ground fighters.

Indeed, Hive colonies made it as far as Old Earth itself, wiping ancient cities such as New York City, Frankfurt, and Capetown.

Most historians would agree that the human race would have been completely destroyed during the Krath wars had it not been for the advances of the experimental Rifter program on Mars by Ides of Mars Technologies Incorporated. However, that program was not without its consequences.

The Rifter program turned the tide in the war, by genetically enhancing humans with a proclivity for psionics, a field not fully understood until the examination of captured Krath, a species that communicated psionically. Genetic enhancement granted three core rifter abilities: cloaking, force fielding, and rifting. Each ability relied on manipulation of the interdimensional rift in a unique way. The most powerful ability—rifting itself—tore a rift in time and space, eviscerating everything in its wake in a quantum cloud.

Early rifters could manipulate the rift but were highly unstable. This initially led to the destruction of Ganymede Station in a quantum collapse that was intended for a nearby Hive Mothership. When the quantum cloud grew too large, the rift enveloped the entire station, killing the colony.

Were it not for the imposition of the Krath Wars, the Rifter program would have been halted given the dangers associated with it. However, humanity was on the brink of extinction.

The World Council voted to adopt a Rifter program on Earth, immigrating a handful of powerful rifters from Mars and the outer planets to assist in the fight against the Krath. Among the rifters was Apollus Halcyon Graves, a Martian native.

An unstable rift woven by Graves initially enveloped the southern half of the Galapagos Islands, the largest Krath base established on Earth, in an attempt to expel the Krath from the human homeworld. However, the rift quickly grew out of control.

Despite the best efforts of the World Council with consultative bioengineers from the Ides of Mars Technologies, the rift could not be contained. It gradually grew to envelop the entire planet.

The resulting quantum cloud was the largest in recorded history, wiping out humanity's home planet in a matter of hours before disappearing without a trace.

The man-made catastrophe was the worst genocide in the history of the human race but it was not without a silver lining. Armed with key data points recorded during the destruction of Earth, the Martian Authority was able to develop a rifter technical solution: X-class rifter helmets utilizing quantum-Xitherium technology. Early models were not fully stable but allowed the replication of the power unleashed by Apollus Graves with some amount of control.

Using the technology, the Rifter program dispatched psionic recruits to hunt the Krath, finally turning the tide of the war. Armed with fantastic power, rifters could stealthily advance into enemy territory using force fields if necessary. From a distance, a single unit could unleash a quantum rift, destroying a sizeable Krath base in a matter of minutes.

The development did not immediately lead to the cessation of the Krath Wars given the sheer quantity of Krath forces and the limited number of psionically-adept humans. It also proved difficult to create a rift large enough to envelop a planet like that of Graves. However, rifts that could wipe out bases or ships were relatively simple to produce for a trained adept.

This led to the rapid expansion of the Rifter program with its graduates rising to near-godlike status.

Following the end of the Krath Wars, a tribute to Old Earth was constructed on its former moon, which re-orbited Solis.

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Old Earth