It’s a well known fact that the stars humanity sees in its skies are in actuality the light of stars from the distant past. Countless possibilities exist for each of those trillions of stars. Civilizations advancing and declining, expanding and collapsing and all the variations in between. Of those few to make it past the industrial age, some of those civilizations get lucky.
They don’t collapse immediately to civil conflicts, climate change, or any of the other innumerable traits and tendencies of sentient beings to act against their own collective interest and are able to grasp beyond their terrestrial cradle and reach into their solar systems. Maybe one in ten thousand can surpass this filter and reach the threshold of what humanity calls a stellar civilization able to utilize the entirety of its local system resources.
Beyond these titans are the behemoths of galactic-level civilization able to utilize the energy and resources of an entire galaxy. Perhaps one in ten thousand of those stellar civilizations can uplift themselves to these illustrious ranks. However, doing so is an immense undertaking requiring the joining of a war that had lasted for the past one hundred million years. The War in Heaven.
Stellar civilizations tended to stay that way because to join this War in Heaven meant becoming a target of societies that were war-hardened and possessed the will and capability to erase any fledgling civilization that would dare to stand against them. However, progress demanded sacrifice and risks so more than a few species brought their best and brightest to bring a solution to this eternal war. In secret they formed the Scientific Consortium, an inocuous name for a galactic conspiracy.
To one member species, the answer for the end of the War lied in the presence of the other dimensional spaces. They sought a method to prevent the war from ever occurring and looked to turn back the clock. Immense resources were used for the test run. From its perch atop an orbiting shuttle the top mind of the Scientific Consortium watched as thousands of laborers built the necessary spindle-like apparatus to “refresh” a doomed world. The planet was unremarkable in shades of brown and red, completely barren, blasted landscapes with a cracked mantle resulting in a disrupted magnetosphere. It’s only noticeable atmosphere was the result of super heated clouds of steam from the planets former world ocean. The world was the very definition of dead. Yet a mere two hundred thousand years ago, the planet and its system were home to billions of the Halmo, a humanoid race which trained the galaxies foremost diplomats.
The Halmo were still around, a few thousand in cryo-stasis, a few thousand more noted for viciousness in combat, but the majority of their race perished with the glassing of their planet by one the major forces in the conflict. No one claimed responsibility. No one needed to, it was an expected occurrence of any civilization attempting to meddle in the affairs of their betters.
For the Consortium, it was the perfect scenario. A dead planet no one was paying attention to previously occupied by a race noted for thier abilities in peace and diplomacy. At worst nothing happened and the project was a waste of resources. A best case scenario however promised much more,a valuable ally to the Consortium being the least of the rewards.
“Sir, the team is ready to begin the trial at your command,” an aide informed him with a brisk salute.
“Excellent, proceed immediately,” it said with no emotion displayed on its avian face.
As it watched on the holo-display, it saw the planet undergo what seemed like a a miracle from the gods of old. A bright light emitted from the orbital apparatus powered by strange matter reactions, and the planet of the Halmo seemed rejuvenated. No longer were the only traces of atmosphere the remnants of the world ocean, it was instead back in its full glory as storm systems and clouds were formed. The crack in the mantle was erased as if it never occurred. On the dark side of the planet, bright lights of metropolises gave the Consortium all the information needed to inform other members in the Consortium the trial was a success. It let a brief smile play across its face as it summoned its aide.
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“Yes, sir? What do you require?” said the aide.
“Bekal, send in a few abductors for specimen collection and establish an embassy in the name of the Consortium.” it replied.
“It shall be as you say.” the aide said as it left.
Over the next few weeks, the results of the trial were confirmed. The Halmo of two hundred thousand years ago were back to the day prior to their extinction and understandably confused though ever the consummate diplomats most Halmo hid this exceptionally well. The results of this experiment were transmitted to the rest of the Consortium and the potential ramifications were endless.
Resources long since exhausted were within the reach of any member nation of the Consortium. People and peoples long since departed could be brought back from beyond the pale. Best of all, an end to the War in Heaven was in sight.
***
The Consortium’s plan was simple. Assemble, in secret, several orbital appartuses in order to encompass the entirety of the conflict, and then rewind back to points during the conflict when leaders on either side of the conflict were amenable to peace with the power to enforce it. The one to lead the task was none other than the leader of the experimental trial, now given access to vast sums of resources.
The Consortium was large it was true. Spread out over a number of systems, it could be argued that it was a contender for the next galactic civilization. However, in comparison to the fighting behemoths, the Consortium would need to watch its step lest it be revealed to be conspiring against all. It was in this context that the Consortium undertook the largest secret operation in the history of the Milky Way.
Orbital rings, platforms and even a few dyson structures were built and tuned to the correct coordinates over the course of two centuries. Incidences of mass life energy, bonds of "fate" and other occurances were singled out. Workers were kept isolated and mind wiped regularly. The head of the project carefully designated successors to its post and guided the Consortium towards secrecy with regards to the behemoths.
***
The day came at last. An end to a war that had raged for a hundred million years. Countess lost civilizations ready to be brought back, resources ready to made available indefinitely, post-scarcity for an entire galaxy’s worth of sentients.
It was for naught. Spies had infiltrated the operation and the Consortium was left exposed and brought to the attention of the behemoths. In an unprecedented move, they called a truce to utterly annihilate this new threat. The orbital facilities still went off that day but instead of carefully controlled and limited coordinates affecting a limited space-time the destruction and interference of the behemoths caused events to go awry.
Time-space ruptured and people long gone were brought to the present. The Consortium as it existed was eliminated in but a single day while the aggressor's were scattered across time. The homeworlds of all involved “rewinded” to the distant eras of their ancestors, while their present-day counterparts were flung across time. The energies released by the orbital complexes spread across the galaxy far from its intended area of effect.
One of these tendrils of energy took aim directly at a distant system with eight planets: four terrestrial planets and four gas giants with a scattering of smaller objects spread throughout the system. The main tendril hit the fourth planet while the third, second and first were hit with smaller amounts of the time energy before it made its way into the sun. The Consortium was gone, the War in Heaven was for all intents and purposes was over and there was no going back for the people hit by the Unraveling.