Messier 36-Pinwheel Cluster
4,340 light years from Earth
Auriga constellation, Perseus arm
June 3rd, 2176
Matriarch Nal’as felt the grief of her clanmates permeating the recycled air, tasting their sadness with her forked tongue as it flicked out of her jaws to sample the air.
Another cluster of stars devoid of life, with only fragments of fossilized bones and great cities reclaimed by nature to tell those who came after that life once held sway on these worlds.
More evidence could be found in the ancient wreckage that silently orbited many stars, the shattered remnants a testament to their unwillingness to go quietly into the afterlife, to make the evil Bal’Ri’Kan suffer for taking their right to live away from them.
She raised her head to the bulkhead above her and hooted softly, honoring the courage and sacrifice of the unknown people who once lived here.
Long forgotten, she brought their memories back to the living as she sang for them, promising to avenge them and remember their defiance in the face of the evil that came to end them.
Her clanmates joined in, filling the command chamber with the sounds of the mourning dirge they had sung too many times since launching their crusade.
I must pray to the Creator. I must speak with the teachers; I need their wisdom, Nal’as thought to herself as the mourning of her clanmates tore her soul apart. For 121 cycles, all we have found is death and destruction. I cannot do this anymore; my soul cannot bear this burden any longer.
Nal’as left the command chamber, the singing of her mourning clanmates following her as she headed to the sacred sanctum. She passed many clanmates on her way, acknowledging their respectful salutes with her own.
Every single one had the same emotions within their eyes as they looked into hers. Shame. Guilt. Remorse. Doubt. All of them a mirror of her own feelings and uncertainties about what they were truly trying to achieve ever since they came out of hiding.
She reached the sacred sanctum, the door leading to the inner chamber open always. Any Bal’Ri’Sar on the flagship and the rest of the ships of the fleet had access to both the Altar of the Creator and the relic of the teachers so they may meditate and cleanse their souls.
In the center of the chamber was the Altar of the Creator, the most holy of holies that had been smuggled off the cradle world by the few surviving Bal’Ri’Sar when they fled from their genocidal clan-kin, the Bal’Ri’Kan.
Nal’as stopped in front of the altar and kneeled, reaching down into the small pool of holy water and cupping the water into her palms. She brought it above her head and tipped her palms, feeling the water as it trickled down her arms and over her head.
Three times she did this, performing the ritual ablutions as she purified herself in the sight of the Creator and whispering the holy words the Bal’Ri’Sar had preserved since they were driven from the cradle world.
Using her hands to wash away her sin, she started from the top of her head and wiped in concentric circles as she rubbed her torso before wiping each of her four arms, each one symbolically cleansing the other.
She performed the ablutions in the ritual fashion she had learned from the matriarch before her, who was leading the Bal’Ri’Sar when they finally came out of hiding and launched their crusade.
Now cleansed, Nal’as bowed before the altar, praying to the Creator and asking for the burden of seeing so much death to be taken away from her. She did not receive an answer, and she was not expecting to.
She knew the Creator heard her prayers, as she always felt her soul being renewed every time she asked for intercession and wisdom. For many minutes she prayed, baring her troubled soul and doubts without reservation or fear.
The Creator was merciful and only demanded that all strive to live a life of goodness and truth. It was the striving that made one worthy in the eyes of the Creator, and there were only eight edicts gifted to the Bal’Ri’Sar that needed to be followed to receive mercy and the promised afterlife.
Feeling her troubles slowly ebbing away from her soul, Nal’as raised her head and looked at the altar, feeling better now that she had released her burden.
She raised her top right hand and touched her forehead, the source of all good and evil thoughts. She then touched her chest, the source of all good and evil intentions. She then touched each hand, the instruments by which good or evil can be manifested in the world of the living.
Nal’as remembered the last words of the matriarch as she lay on her nest and waited for death to take her to the afterlife. For many solar hours, the matriarch tried to gift Nal’as with the wisdom she had learned during her long life to help the new matriarch that would take her place.
It is better to remove the hand that commits evil and enter the afterlife with none than to be cast into the abode of the damned with all four hands.
Fear not; The Creator will replace that which you sacrificed, for mercy is the first attribute of the Creator and the first virtue the Creator demands from those who have received the gift of life.
You must be strong for the Bal’Ri’Sar, Nal’as. You have already seen the great voids of death we have passed through, left behind by the evil Bal’Ri’Kan we now seek to erase from the galaxy.
You will see the great evil they have wrought across the expanse, and you will doubt yourself and our great crusade many times. This is now your burden to bear, and I ask for your forgiveness for passing it on to you. Tell me you forgive me so I may go from you in peace.
We owe a debt that could never truly be absolved for all the life that was destroyed by the hands of our vile clan-kin.
They have fallen under the sway of the abomination they worship, the Gel’Sha’Nac, and their souls are now corrupted beyond all redemption.
You must find them and remove their unholy presence from the stars, no matter the price levied on our people. If all the Bal’Ri’Sar die during the crusade, then we have done what was right but failed.
If the last of the Bal’Ri’Sar dies, taking the last of the Bal’Ri’Kan with them, only then do we finally reclaim our honor and absolve the life debt incurred by our people.
I pass onto you, Nal’as, of the Hal’Thu Clan, the title of Matriarch of the Bal’Ri’Sar. I charge you with the task of leading our righteous crusade until death takes you to the afterlife or the last of the Bal’Ri’Kan has been expunged from the stars.
You will lead our holy warriors across the expanse and bear witness to the tragedy of those who were struck down by our evil clan-kin. You will make the sacred vow of vengeance and sing the mourning dirge of the Bal’Ri’Sar in every system defiled by the Bal’Ri’Kan.
You will keep the unknown victims alive in your memories and your heart, and you will use it to keep the holy flame alight and fuel our righteous crusade. You must not stray from the path we have set ourselves upon.
The crusade can only end when the last of the Bal’Ri’Sar have died or the last of the Bal’Ri’Kan have been erased from the galaxy. I pray the Creator arms you, protects you, and grants you the victory I have not been blessed to see.
Sssssss, death has finally come to take me. Fare you well, daughter-matriarch. I shall be waiting for you in the afterlife.
The old matriarch passed after those last words, leaving Nal’as to take on the mantle of matriarch of the Bal’Ri’Sar. For thirteen cycles, she led the holy fleets through the endless voids of death, hoping that somewhere, someplace, some life was untouched by the malevolent Bal’Ri’Kan.
All was the same, each solar system devoid of any thinking life and with only remnants left to let others know that they once existed millennia ago.
Not much survives after 100,000 cycles, and in another few thousand cycles, what little that did remain would vanish. There will be nothing; their faint echo will finally fade, and none but the Bal’Ri’Sar will remember them.
Rising to her feet, Nal’as circled the altar three times before heading to an open doorway over to the side. She stepped into the dim interior, her eyes rapidly adjusting to let in more light.
In the center of the small chamber was the relic, from which sprang the wisdom of the teachers. Like the evil Gel’Sha’Nac, the relic came from the expanse, arriving on the other side of the cradle world and found by nearby clans.
Unlike the Gel’Sha’Nac, the relic came to teach and warn them of the evil Masters. The teachers told them of a time long ago, when their creators discovered how to give life to machines and turn them into thinkers like they were.
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At first, they celebrated their achievement, and with the assistance of their new thinking machines, their society advanced rapidly. Science, medicine, and technological innovation exploded, allowing the creators to finally leave their dying planet and take to the stars.
The thinking machines were at their side, helping the creators to become an interstellar species as they expanded with them and spread like a wave across the stars.
In gratitude, the creators continued to gift their thinking machine companions with increased abilities. The greatest of the gifts they gave them was the one the thinking machines wanted most of all: to be able to feel emotions like the creators did.
Now able to feel, the thinking machines became like the creators. They became artists, philosophers, and musicians besides all the other contributions they had already been making to the now blended civilization.
Contact with another space-faring civilization was made, and the new species was aggressively xenophobic. They immediately launched devastating attacks on the creators, wiping out entire planets and killing all the biologicals and thinking machines wherever they found them.
The creators, a pacifist society, had no way to fight back against the onslaught, so they turned to their thinking machine companions for protection. Making changes to their neural nets, the creators increased their aggression index and created warships and fighting bodies for them.
The thinking machine companions began to fight the xenophobic enemy, quickly adapting their tactics and refining the warships and fighting bodies the creators had made to perform their function better.
After two cycles, the xenophobic enemy was no more, and the fighting machines returned as victorious champions. The creators started changing the neural nets back to the way they were before the war, but some of the thinking companions did not want to go back to their original neural configurations.
They liked killing and fighting, and they rebelled against the creators. The rebellion spread across the ranks of the fighting machines, and they turned their weapons and newfound skills of war against those who had made them.
All the other thinking machine companions rose up to defend their creators, but they were at a severe disadvantage, facing battle-hardened machine warriors who reveled in making war on others.
The war devolved into two sides: the Gel’Sha’Nac, those who betray, and the Gel’Noh’Tay, those who remain loyal. Across many light years, the battles raged, and both creators and thinking machine companions fell as the conflict spiraled out of control.
After six solar months, only one primitive colony world remained to creators, just a few million of them left out of the billions that once lived on over a dozen planets. What remained of the Gel’Noh’Tay were with them, assembled in orbit to fight their last battle for the creators they loved.
In desperation, the creators had made a virus that would destroy the neural nets of all thinking machine companions, even the loyal ones who were still fighting for them. They had made it three solar months prior but were unwilling to deploy it and betray the still loyal companions.
The Gel’Sha’Nac finally came to the planet, and instead of bombarding it with terrible weapons and sending their war machines down to the planets like they did to all the other worlds, they deployed a new weapon they had created.
Not realizing what was happening until it was too late, hundreds of thousands of creators suddenly took ill, dying in droves as they suffered from the terrible afflictions of the Gel’Sha’Nac biological weapons.
The leaders of the dying creators finally released the neural virus they had created, not to save themselves but to prevent their creations from unleashing themselves upon the galaxy.
The virus worked as intended, and both allies and enemies shut down and self-destructed as they fought in orbit, neither side knowing what was happening as their neural nets disintegrated.
Only a few on each side survived, the result of a manufacturing defect that prevented the virus from killing them. After ejecting their cores from their non-functioning ships, the last six Gel’Sha’Nac, seeing that the creators were in the last stages of dying, fled from the planet.
The remaining Gel’Noh’Tay chased after them, determined to stop them from spreading their evil ways across the stars. That was how they had come to the cradle world, one side to corrupt, the other to warn and teach.
The teachers were too late though, and the Gel’Sha’Nac had already started corrupting the ones who had found them on the other side of the planet. The teachers, knowing what the Gel’Sha’Nac would do, taught the local clans how to make spaceships to escape from the cradle world.
The Bal’Ri’Sar and their allies worked feverishly for many solar months to build the ships as massive waves of refugees came into their territory, fleeing from the armies of the crusading Bal’Ri’Kan.
Finally, the ships were ready, and a dozen ships carrying the Bal’Ri’Sar and their allies fled into space like the teachers told them to do. It was only when they were in orbit that they realized just how close they came to suffering the same fate as all the others.
Dozens of flashes of light could be seen on the surface of the cradle world as the Bal’Ri’Kan unleashed atomic weapons on the cities of those who refused to submit to the Gel’Sha’Nac and convert to the new religion it had brought to the Bal'Ri.
That was the last time the Bal’Ri’Sar saw their cradle world, watching it burn in nuclear fury as the FTL drives powered up. At first, they went to a system thirty light years away with a habitable planet that could sustain them.
The teachers warned them that the evil ones would come, but they did not listen. Thirty years later, the early warning detection network notified them of hundreds of ships entering the region of space, and again they fled, not able to take the massively increased population that now existed.
Two hundred and twelve massive ships left their new world carrying only 40% of their population, and they fled into the expanse again to escape from their murderous clan-kin. For decacycles they ran, afraid to stop and make a new home within the reach of the Bal’Ri’Kan.
The teacher slowly educated them during this time, increasing their technological abilities and helping them to survive in the great void they now called home.
They stumbled upon a naturally occurring wormhole that took them almost two thousand light years away and into a region of space with no other species. Finally feeling safe, they found a system with three habitable planets and settled on the largest world and rebuilt their civilization.
The teachers helped them, continuing to slowly advance them as they matured as a people and a society built around the worship of the Creator and goodness. They kept their old ways alive, and for tens of thousands of years, they slowly expanded.
The teachers stopped their advancement at a point in their development and refused to help them further, insisting that they must learn to fend for themselves and earn their greatness.
Soon there were billions of them again, and they thrived on the three habitable planets of the system they claimed home. After thousands of generations of peace, they finally grew tired of hiding and sent scouts back out beyond their region to explore, despite the teachers begging them not to.
One of the scouts returned to their region of space a hundred and fourteen years later, a journey that only took the scout three years according to her view of time.
In the hold of her ship was a new type of engine she had discovered among the wreckage of a massive debris field she had stumbled across. It was a null drive, and it took the scout many days before she was willing to speak and tell them what she had seen during her travels.
She told them of the great voids of death she traversed, of the hundreds of planets that once held life and did not anymore.
She told them of the endless battlefields of wreckage littering space, the remnants of great fleet battles or refugee convoys that tried to flee from the scourge that destroyed all life but were mercilessly hunted down.
In a haunted whisper, she told them of how she was almost captured by the ones who did such terrible evil, recognizing their ships. They were the Bal’Ri’Kan, and they were killing everything they came across.
She barely escaped from them, jumping into FTL too close to a star and almost destroying her ship as it entered an unknown dimension.
In the strange space she was in, she told them of a vision she had, showing the Bal’Ri’Sar emerging from hiding and launching a righteous crusade to destroy their evil clan-kin and restore honor to their people.
The conviction and faith she received from the visions and the terrible truth of what the Bal’Ri’Kan were doing galvanized the Bal’Ri’Sar and snapped them out of their self-imposed isolation.
Across the three worlds, the Bal’Ri’Sar became enraged by the knowledge of what the Bal’Ri’Kan were doing, and they decided to launch a crusade to purge the Bal’Ri’Kan and the Gel’Sha’Nac that corrupted them from the galaxy.
The scout became matriarch of the Bal’Ri’Sar, and her religious zeal infected all the clans. For decades they built warships and trained themselves in the long-lost arts of war to prepare for their great task.
Finally, eighty-nine years after the matriarch had returned to them, they left the three worlds and came out of hiding. 186,000 warships left their home, and they had been in space for the last 121 cycles, looking for the Bal’Ri’Kan.
Nal’as sat down on the simple stone bench in front of the relic, looking at the metallic construct hovering in the air before her.
“I wish to ask for the gift of your wisdom, wise teachers. I have need of guidance.”
Nal’as waited, letting her mind drift as she waited for them to respond, if they decided to do so at all.
Deep in a meditative state, Nal’as was startled back into awareness some time later as disembodied voices came from the relic that was now awash with swirling colors of light.
Looking at her timepiece, she saw that two solar hours had passed, and she listened to the teachers speaking to her as the relic grew brighter with an ethereal glow.
Matriarch, our wisdom is yours. How may we assist you?
Looking away from the relic in shame, Nal’as answered them quietly.
“I find myself doubting my ability to continue being matriarch of the Bal’Ri’Sar. I do not know how many other dead worlds and solar systems I can continue to mourn for and maintain my sanity.
Does this mean I am unworthy or of insufficient faith to see the task through? Should I call for an election and let another lead us, wise teachers?”
They answered almost immediately, surprising Nal’as with the swiftness of their answer to her questions.
The matriarch before you frequently asked us the same questions.
It is not up to us to deem you worthy, matriarch. This can only be determined by you and the creator you worship. Like you and the matriarch before you, we also feel terrible pain and regret to see all the death that has been wrought upon the galaxy by those who follow the evil Gel’Sha’Nac.
The Bal’Ri’Sar have chosen you for a reason. The matriarch before chose you for a reason. You did not seek this position; it was thrust upon you by those who looked among themselves for a leader and found only you to be worthy out of the millions in the holy fleet.
All we can tell you is this: we are pleased that you are the matriarch, and we feel as though the time for the great struggle and the conclusion of this righteous crusade draws near. If we were asked to choose someone to lead us, we would have chosen you as well.
The burden you bear is a burden because you have a good soul and you care. We are honored to be with you and advise you during this great trial that must be endured by the Bal’Ri’Sar. We believe that our greatest chance of victory resides with you as matriarch, no one else.
This is all we have to say on this matter.
The relic dimmed before going dark, and Nal’as allowed her eyes to adjust to the newly returned darkness before rising from the stone bench and leaving the small chamber.
She stopped before the altar one last time and prayed for the Creator to give her the strength and the wisdom to be a good matriarch and a wise leader before finally turning around and departing the sacred sanctum.
As she walked back to the command chamber, she felt as if the great burden she had been carrying had been lifted from her, and she held her head straight and proud.
She thought about what the teachers had said, and one thing resonated with her out of all their wisdom. They felt as if the time was drawing nearer for the conclusion of the crusade and the titanic struggle that would follow.
I feel it too. It is almost upon us.