An orange alert pulsing on his internal heads up display interrupted Guardian Calyx shortly before his favourite gladiator managed to defeat the Champion of the Gauntlet, annoying him to no end as attending on it would render him unable to follow the live stream of the final moments of the fight. However, duty required him to review the alert and System Guardians were primarily chosen for their vigilance and absolute devotion to duty.
He mentally swiped up the alert in his internal display and started processing it. It appeared that the System had detected a Quantum Fluctuation anomaly in the outer spiral of Galaxy 39178b, the quadrant which he was tasked to observe and protect. Although small in magnitude, the fact that an anomaly occurred in the outer reaches, the uncivilised outer reaches of space, was worrying in itself. System coverage out there was minimal, spotty and near non-existent in places.
Guardian Calyx quickly tasked a hyperspace nexus drone to investigate the area and started analysing the data it provided.
The data was puzzling, a previously undiscovered civilisation in the late Information early AI Age lived on the third planet of a smaller solar system with an abundance of resources.
Historical analysis showed that humans were a race driven by conflict, on occasion coming close to extinction by their own action. Nonetheless, they seemed to progress abnormally fast, though coming nowhere near the necessary level of technology to generate and utilise quantum fluctuations.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Closer analysis of the captured data showed that they had accidentally managed to coordinate quantum fluctuations during a science experiment at a primitive collider facility called ITER. Humans had strange naming conventions, thought Guardian Calyx. It became clear that the energy of the co-ordinated event was not utilised and the uncoordinated release had triggered the alert. It also led to several malfunctions of the collider and measurement equipment, invalidating the experiment but raising questions the scientists desperately tried to answer.
The System rated the incident as moderately threatening to the planets continuity and suggested that the matter be discussed with the Galactic System Coordinator before commencing with the recommended action: System Initiation.
Guardian Calyx flagged the incident and forwarded it to the GSC, before returning to his favourite’s stream.
Two orbital periods of the planet later he received an answer from the GSC approving System Initiation, further stipulating that the Games Protocol should be followed. Guardian Calyx reviewed the authorisation logs and initiation package specifications, adding a couple of personal changes and notes after barely glancing at it, staying within the ambit of his authority.
He completed start-up procedures and initiated the package, sending it off. Guardian Calyx also flagged a couple of issues he determined would need System Administration approval to remedy, including his recommended course of action, based on observed human idiosyncrasies, before he leant back and continued watching the latest episode of the Gauntlet Challenge. It would take months before the package could initiate and he would be swamped with work.