CHAPTER 22 - REVELATION

DATE POINT: APRIL 19TH, 7 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)

LOCATION: SOL SYSTEM, ABOARD AAV “CONTACT ONE”

CAPTAIN HENRY O’TOOLE

“When the Nephaeli’im travel using this method, they run a skeleton crew along with all of their soldiers locked away in temporal stasis. This keeps them fresh and ready to revive as needed. They also travel with a true prophet as navigator, which it would seem your expedition lacks. Only a sixth dimensional connection like that of a prophet’s combined matter-space-time senses can isolate the right spot in history on the correct timeline from the limitless possible timelines available to graft themselves into. Only a true prophet can navigate you back to your home timeline with this method of FTL travel, surely you know this?”

Henry watched Paul who was oddly silent. Usually, he had something to say to anything anyone ever said against him. The seconds ticked on, and the pressure built on Henry to take back over, though he was keenly aware of the strain he had been under carrying the conversations alone until he finally cracked and called in Paul. Henry had expected Paul to be able to take the lead for longer than a few short questions though. Paul clearly had nothing to add now though, Henry thought bitterly. Furthermore, what in the actual fuck had that xeno said again?! Sixth dimensional what? True prophet? What did any of that stuff even mean?

“Your silence betrays you. You humans are playing with forces you do not understand! The basic extension of the math shows that fifth dimensional travel can only reinsert you into the timeline equivalent of the path of least resistance. This means that once decoupled from your timeline, you will invariably be reinserted into the first major anchor point in your species collective history of the closest approximate timeline to your home timeline. This effect is automatic as the fifth dimension is still largely affected by the linear timeline perspective of third dimensional beings operating in fourth dimensional spacetime. Only through the addition of a higher sixth dimensional perspective can one actually begin to actively choose when and where to graft oneself into the spacetime web when returning to normal space. This is a complicated topic, and this is by necessity a vastly oversimplified explanation. Do you understand so far?”

“Mostly,” Henry replied, “Certainly enough to be able to take it for granted that you are repeating expert information for now and follow along for the purposes of this discussion. We can verify and discuss this later between our scientists in later discussions.”

“We are the seat of Consensus, through us speaks the combined will and knowledge of an entire galactic civilization. All of the accumulated information and intellectual capacity of the most advanced species in the galaxy gives weight to our words. You speak to the collective consciousness of an entire species, human.” Henry was taken aback, apparently he had upset their hosts.

“I have offended you, my apologies. We sadly still live in a reality where disinformation tactics are still occasionally used and thus must be guarded against. I am sure you understand.” Henry said, trying to restore the peace.

“The offense is minor; your ignorance is not being held against you in light of your genuine appetite for humble self-improvement. Such an attitude is in keeping with the balanced aspirations of the triune path. It is a credit to your civilization that you seem to embody such values despite your lack of illumination.”

“I am honored and humbled by your esteem. I am sure we would be mutually improved by the sharing of our own most highly regarded philosophical texts at another subsequent meeting, one of many we hope to have. Our most pressing concern now comes back to this timeline problem. You said the date in the cipher timestamp is three thousand years in the future from today?”

Henry’s head was spinning, and his stomach was in rebellion. He realized with horror there was no way to remove vomit from the inside of his helmet. He grit his teeth and willed himself to get over it, to stay focused on the life or death conversation at hand. This could still very well be a psyop, Henry thought. They had to verify this information before they could act on it.

"Three-thousand, two-hundred and forty of your years, by a rough conversion between our two calendars.”

“That puts us somewhere in the twelfth century BC? If what you are claiming is true, we have left our home timeline and grafted ourselves back into the bronze age. How do we get back to our own timeline?!” Henry asked, trying to prevent the panic from infecting his voice too much.

“Without a true prophet and their sixth dimensional connection, you can’t with any measure of control upon the time and place of your re-emergence. There is an element of random chance predicted, but your results will be mostly the same every try, meaning reinsertion near the beginning of the timeline at some major anchor point or another. At least right now you have the nominal support of our government, next time you may get shot first. This is far from a safe galaxy, after all.”

“With respect, you are the most advanced species in the galaxy, you mean to tell me that you don’t have a technological reproduction of whatever sixth dimensional senses is required?” Henry asked, grasping at any desperate hope.

“Your imagination is inventive, but no. Such technology lies at the end of months or years of research and development of a novel technology. Already we have multiple teams reaching out through Consensus that are willing to begin research should Consensus vote to approve funding. The Rationalist faction counter-argues that funding this research is wise but will take time that you do not have. The Conservator faction demands that we sign a treaty enshrining a mutually beneficial relationship before we allocate major resources towards your cause. There should be a handful of true prophets alive on the surface right now, but they will be controlled by the enemy, so your chances of convincing them to help you are negligible. Your best option truly is to cooperate with us, rather than hope to find and convince a prophet to support your cause.”

“Well, then if it is such a hopeless cause, why bring them up!? How did you solve this problem when you first reached for the stars?” Henry asked.

“We didn’t, we developed the technology to warp spacetime from within the third dimension, rather than the technology to escape it and travel outside and re-emerge at will in time. By warping spacetime, we never leave our timeline, and we can still travel faster than light. The problem is the titanic energy requirements for ship-board spacetime warp technology are difficult and dangerous to contain within a single craft.”

“With respect, that doesn’t help us much either, Commandant, we are far from such technology ourselves.” Henry protested, trying to bring the conversation back to concrete lines that could benefit their situation.

“Remember, you are the ones who separated yourselves from your home timeline by recklessly experimenting with technology you don't fully understand. We are helping you, you must also help us and help yourselves in solving the problem you have brought upon yourselves. Messing with time is dangerous, you should have known this. There are rules that prevent contradictions, ones that cause the creation of new timelines whole cloth instead of changing the past in established timelines. Never actually being able to change anything is first on the list of predicted issues that kept us from pursuing the technology of time travel. It was pointless, and dangerous, so we never pursued it.”

“Meaning that we are probably in a brand new timeline and thus are in uncharted territory. We aren’t even fixing our own timeline’s past, or your future. We have hijacked your present, sent you spiraling in a whole new direction.” Henry said, a bleak mood welling up from within.

“You have our condolences in your predicament. Consensus achieved, new sapient species added to the Registry of Sophonts, Humanity of planet Earth, status: critically endangered. Special refugee status authorized. The Alderei formally recognize humanity as a species distinct from the existing registry species, the Adamu of planet Aht’Lantis. This removes Humanity from the legal status of being vassal species under our treaties with the Nephaeli’im and allows for the opening of diplomatic ties and expedited talks to draw up the terms for an alliance or a mutual non-aggression pact. Consensus achieved, funding approved for research into replication of sixth dimensional senses and novel means to send Humanity back to their home timeline. Consensus achieved, formal request for diplomatic ties with aims to form a temporary alliance with Humanity of Earth.”

“Wow! The wheels of your government move fast.” Henry said, dumbfounded.

“The early days of Consensus were more fractious, but that was many tens of thousands of your years ago now. Even today, not all resolutions are so easily unanimous. Even with the removal of the limitations of organic debate and distributed network supercomputer backed instantaneous galactic communications, some contentious modern debates can take hours. Upholding our basic values by assisting with the needs of galactic refugees is not one of those kinds of topics.”

“On behalf of my people I thank you for your generous offer of support. Now I hate to turn around and play the cynic here but what's the catch? I remember there being a short mention of helping you with your issues in this timeline now that we are trapped here. Did I hear that right before?” Henry asked.

Hopefully this would give them some leverage back, or at least force the Alderei to play their real hand in full. Nobody could be this generous to strangers. Then again… they had locked them in the room and threatened to destroy their ship just minutes before. They were beings not to be trifled with, even now.

“How many other intelligent species like us have you encountered that are free and technologically advanced?”

“Not so many as we had hoped when we first spread into the stars. Captain, if we may be so bold to infer a little into your question, you are asking the right question, but in a far too limited way.”

Henry squinted and cracked his knuckles at the comment but otherwise let it slide.

“By your own diplomatic packet, we know your species has yet to leave it’s home system. Tragically, already war has found you, thus the fog of war surrounds you. This might be a good time for some galactic history, it will help shine some light upon your situation as well. The Alderei have been space-faring for nearly two hundred thousand of your Earth years, exploring peacefully first with warp gates, then eventually with shipboard spacetime warping technology after many years and after finally cracking antimatter tech. We were the first civilization in our local galactic neighborhood to become space-faring, which allowed us to expand slowly and methodically. With warp gates, the receiving gate must be pre-positioned in the end system before transit can be possible, which can take decades of travel to set up easy rapid transit in supporting a new colony afterwards for just a single system.”

“We are familiar with the concept, and we were working on similar technology, though it would take time to fully mature when we left.” Henry said, enthralled in the conversation.

“Indeed, we picked systems based on our best guesses as to which ones contained potential garden worlds. That sent us on a hunt for those worlds best suited to our needs while exploring the galaxy down the spiral arms. As we found out, such worlds are incredibly rare In the galaxy. These factors combined to create a slow, methodical expansion. In that time, we were able to begin collecting and extrapolating data as more systems could be catalogued surrounding our new colonies and as new telescopes were added to see what was next in ever greater resolution.”

Henry nodded along, Roh Thaad’at took it as a signal to continue.

“We calculated that the galaxy had close to one hundred million worlds that were potentially habitable based on the star type, temperature ranges, size, planet type and more factors and extrapolating the data collected on our explored systems plus surveys of neighboring systems. Of every one-hundred promising exoplanets we surveyed, one would actually be naturally life-bearing, the rest would require active terraforming measures. Out of every hundred life bearing garden worlds, a mere handful were free from tool-using intelligent life. This meant that the entire galaxy was projected to hold less than thirty thousand available garden worlds. Of those thirty thousand, less than a third were modeled to be suitable for our kind. We had to find them amongst the endless sea of stars.”

Roh Thaad’at stood and paced the room for a minute as they continued their clearly propagandized history lesson.

“Those first fifty thousand years we expanded into just over one thousand colonized worlds and had more than fifty thousand quasi-intelligent species interspersed within our territory. Most would require significant evolutionary steps to be intelligent enough to ever escape basic tool using hunter gatherer societies, so they were left alone and studied from afar. Those first hundred thousand years were a golden age for our people. Within the next thousand years, we would discover two more intelligent species, both space-faring, and we would find ourselves embroiled in the first war our species had seen since we left our cradle world.”

“Was one of those races the giants, or the Nephaeli’im as you call them?” Henry asked, brimming with questions and desperate to tie the narrative in.

“Patience, human, but yes they were. The first species we encountered were the Cxzthroi, an insectoid species which began to attack our outer systems in large numbers, far too large to be invasion fleets. This was an evacuation of their population; they were a species on the run. We lost four systems to them before we finally made political contact with one of their queens. They were seeking to escape the expansion of a different species, or possibly a coalition of them, reports from their invaded systems were confusing and often conflicting. We discovered they favored hotter and dryer climates than we prefer, and we had several empty worlds they could settle so we signed our first interstellar treaty with another intelligent species. They would get settled within our territory behind the front lines in exchange for their assistance in battle should we encounter the Nephaeli’im in the future and they prove hostile to the Alderei. By the end of that millennium, we would indeed begin to see evidence of Nephaeli'im expansion as our territories began to creep ever closer together and the lightspeed time gap closed.”

“How long have they been space-faring, these Nephaeli’im? How did you not discover them before this point? This was around one hundred thousand years ago by this point?” Henry asked, trying his hardest to remember everything.

“They started off at almost the same time as we did at the other side of the galactic core from us, completely blocking their expansion from view. Even our best telescopes wouldn’t be able to see light young enough to show evidence of their existence until they were very close indeed. By the time our territories were getting within tens of thousands of light years from each other, we could begin seeing evidence of megastructures being assembled. Because of that, we knew we would eventually have contact, just not when.”

“So, when did you finally make contact?” Henry asked.

“As you can imagine, our race was terrified to expand in that direction, so we decided to turn inwards and improve our technologies, develop our fleets and defenses, and to turn our outer colonies into fortress worlds. While we did so, they continued to expand towards us. We formally came into contact with the Nephaeli’im at the end of that millennium when they sent us an envoy demanding tribute.”

“At least they spoke to you. We still have yet to talk with their leadership beyond periodic demands for our surrender during the early years before we kicked them off the surface of Earth. They basically sat in orbit for a week and burned our cities from above before they even spoke a word to us.”

“That is horrible, and not in the least bit surprising. It was our apparent strength that saved our outer colonies from that fate in the early days. We refused tribute and we sent them back with a warning to stay out of our territory and we would do the same with theirs.”

“Didn’t work, did it?” Henry asked.

“Actually, it bought us another thousand years of relative peace. We began to expand in the opposite direction, away from them, and we avoided each other the entire time. We started getting probing raids on our new settlements after that, though they would run before our larger ships arrived. What we didn’t realize was that we were being encircled until we lost a hub system nearly a dozen systems back from what we thought might be the front lines to a brutal and unexpected attack. We had been claiming systems laterally along the expected line of expansion, but they had somehow found just the right system to attack to cut off the dozen newest systems from the rest of our territory. The new colonies were then conquered within a matter of a few decades while we struggled to get supplies and reinforcements to them. In less than twenty years they conquered almost one thousand years of careful, planned expansion. What was worse, we saw for the first time the type of exploitation and slavery they introduced to the primitive species in their territory between key industrial planets.”

“Just like what you claim is happening to the Earth right now….”

“Correct.” Roh Thaad’at replied. “After this, the war began in earnest. We retook a handful of systems, we even started searching and mapping out their systems to plan a means of attacking them. The next twenty thousand years were a constant series of attacks, counter attacks, rapid expansion away from the front lines, and fortifying the front line systems together with the Cxzthroi. During this time, we began developing our technological advantages. We found that one of our ships was worth two of theirs in battle, but they had the advantage in numbers. We didn’t exploit the younger races for labor and raw materials, while they did. This meant they could replace losses quicker, it also meant that they could hide behind ten thousand innocent species, frustrating our efforts to quickly seize their territory.”

“That sounds like a horrible war. How did you liberate them? What happened next?” Henry asked.

“Around forty thousand years ago, we finally made the breakthroughs that would lead us to antimatter dimensional sieve reactors. Our weapons became more devastating, our ships faster and more powerful, and we shortly thereafter cracked photonic shielding. Most importantly, the massive abundance of energy from antimatter allowed us to finally explore spacetime warp drives onboard our own ships. This proved decisive, and we were able to destroy dozens of their forward industrial systems, carving deep into their territory and cutting off hundreds of their key systems from their central control before we finally brought them to the negotiating table.”

“Were you able to secure a peace treaty? I can’t imagine they hated that.” Henry asked.

“Yes, they did, human. To our great surprise it even lasted for nearly a thousand years until Apophis seized control of the empire and they descended into a civil war of sorts. The invasion path we cut through their territory split their territories into fragments and severely damaged their empire’s ability to maintain central control. Since that point, we have been fighting proxy wars and supporting the lesser evils amongst their splinter empires where possible while expanding through the rest of the galaxy to ring their territories with our own and contain their expansion. In the past five thousand years, Apophis has consolidated much of their old territory. In the last hundred years, they have even started probing attacks again, though we have yet to lose any systems to them in this latest round. For the Alderei, it truly is a forever war.”

Roh Thaad’at waved his hand, and a holographic map of the galaxy sprang to life above the table.

“As you can see, we have managed to trap Apophis behind these key systems within these two spiral arms. This arm has been cleansed of the Nephaeli’im presence, and this one, cut off from Apophis and the rest of the empire by our invasion is where we are right now. Nominally, this arm is ruled by Rah, whom we have supported in his battle to retake the throne of empire from Apophis, but that option is no longer on the table.”

“What changed?” Henry asked, trying his best to keep up with the wash of new information.

“Because some fool lesser deity named Aten betrayed him and killed his ritual body while his war body was in temporal stasis. He timed it perfectly while his megastructure dreadnought, Nii’Baruu was refueling itself, leaving none authorized to command it. This has sparked a civil war amongst the pantheons on the surface of Aht’Lantis below to fill the power vacuum. We were dispatched to find Rah before Apophis’ forces discover that he is missing and invade into the chaos. This is actually where we are hoping that your fortuitous arrival can be of assistance. Our laws prevent us from using our technology in a visible manner around young species, so stepping in directly to end the war on the surface is off the table. We have some Adamu that we have hired and trained to do some clandestine work on the surface, but the situation is rapidly progressing beyond their ability to affect things.”

Henry folded his arms, now came the real ask, he just knew it.

“We expect that you will be trapped in this timeline for quite some time. It is evident that you have a combat ready fleet, and that you have some feeling of attachment to the world below. While we work on finding you all a way back to your home timeline, we could use your assistance in ending the civil war on the surface. While your forces are operating on the surface, it will give you a chance to search for a true prophet as well. If, for some reason we both fail at finding you a way home, you might consider liberating the planet for your own long-term use. If anyone has a legitimate claim to rule Aht’Lantis, it is you, not them. You would have our full support either way. If Rah cannot rule Aht’Lantis, chaos is no substitute, far better it be an ally that fill the power gap. Especially one with the freedom to act as they see fit, unconstrained by law and non-intervention as we are. Make no mistake, however, you will be a signatory to the same non-uplift treaty for young races, and your special waiver will only be for the conflict to seize political control over Aht'Lantis and to ethically industrialize the Adamu afterwards.”

“What if we choose to walk away, stay out of this war?” Henry asked.

“It would affect the enthusiasm with which we support the expensive and time consuming research to create the novel technology required to send you home. We would also have major qualms about allowing you access to Aht’Lantis again without major oversight. We are still at war; we have to wisely allocate our resources and prohibit or allow access to such a strategically important system. I am sure that you understand.” Roh Thaad’at replied coldly.

“I understand that you basically have us over a barrel right now.” Henry replied, frustrated.

“I am afraid I do not understand the meaning of this phrase, though it is hardly relevant. Do you accept our offer?”

“I will need to confer with my leadership team before we entangle ourselves in an unnecessary conflict.”

“Understandable, just remember that time is short, and the situation grows more dire by the day on the surface. Consensus achieved; offer genetic upgrade and technical augmentation inventory.”

“What do you mean by that?” Henry asked.

“Captain, the decision has been made to provide additional support should you choose to assist our cause. Because we have been training Adamu ground teams and building intelligence networks on the surface, we have sequenced the Adamu genome and have created a number of custom physical upgrades for your species. Our inventory is low, but there are enough to outfit a ground team with a well-balanced set of upgrades to assist them. If you intend to fight and kill Ares, Shamash, Marduk, Bast’et, or any of the surviving god-kings in battle, you will need these upgrades.”

“That doesn’t really help describe it that well. What do you mean by upgrades? I know Ares, but I don’t know what you mean by god-kings. Can you explain more about this?” Henry asked, genuinely curious.

“We have developed the means to rapidly upgrade the genetic code of a living organism in a safe manner and help ease the body through the transition into a full rapid cellular replacement body with the new, updated genome. We also have a number of nano-tech solutions that can physically augment your bodies against your known weaknesses, dramatically boosting survivability as well as combat capability.”

“Give me some examples, how many test subjects have you had? Any side effects?” Henry asked, trying to hint at the types of details he wanted to hear.

“We have fifteen vials that can provide a single human with functional immortality and accelerated healing, we have twelve doses that add flexible subdermal graphene armor. We have ten doses of respirocytes that can store oxygen for hours and provide near endless stamina, we can add electro-muscle to your muscles and strengthen your bones providing incredible strength and durability, ten each. We can install semi organic neural supercomputers to give you perfect memory and a chance to be revived if your memories can be retrieved. These are required to run some of these various systems in the background, just not the pure genetic upgrades. All are examples of the available options we have in our reserve stock. All of this will be available to your ground teams if you accept our offer. All of the Nephaeli’im God-Kings on the surface will have similar upgrades, less advanced in many ways than our own, but they will be augmented in some way. You will want to take advantage of this offer if you wish to stand a chance in battle against them.”

“Commandant, you presume much about our willingness to engage in a war of liberation for an entire world, thus putting the Indomitable Will and her crew directly at risk. We have a larger mission we must still adhere to.” Henry fell back, the insanity of the conversation bending his mind.

“A mission, whatever it is, that is rendered useless without a means to travel back to your own timeline. These procedures are reasonably safe, exhibiting fraction of a fraction of a percent of manageable risk for the guarantee of an immeasurable reward. There are two dreadnoughts patrolling the fifth planet, the large gas giant that you will need to eliminate first to gain access to the inner system. After that the risk is reduced almost completely to your mothership, and you can start mining and processing the asteroid belt to create a base of operations. From there your augmented troops can pick a landing spot to begin recruiting the native population to your cause while you hunt God-Kings.”

“Damn, you make it sound incredibly tempting. Why haven’t you done anything about this?”

“Our own laws prevent us from interfering in the internal affairs of any species that has yet to leave their home system, and it was a cultural taboo long before that. In the years since the forever war began and the uplift treaties signed, it has become illegal for us to show high technology to non-developed races. The Nephaeli’im skirt this by exploiting young species and keeping them in the bronze age, we simply leave them alone to develop as they will. Any actions we take in an exploited system has to be disguised tech clandestine work. Your situation is unique as you can legitimately claim to be liberating your own people with your own technology.”

“So, you can help us legally only through a loophole, am I understanding this right?” Henry asked, agape at how blatantly legalistic the conclusion was.

“Correct, it is the logically optimized solution, we can provide these upgrades, we can give your mothership a lift within our warp bubble into the orbital track of the seventh planet and no further, and we can provide you with contacts on the ground and intelligence about the political situation. You will need a lot, language packs for your neural computers, training with your augmented bodies, recovery care, and final accelerated tissue replacement into your augmented form. The whole process would take several of your calendar weeks to plan and implement.”

Henry’s head was swimming with the wash of new information. A text message chimed within his expanded consciousness.

“CAPTAIN, CMDR ALVAREZ REQUESTS A STATUS UPDATE. - PATRIOT 4”

_________________________________________________________________

“ALL IS WELL, RETURNING TO MOTHERSHIP SOON - CPT O'TOOLE.”

“Very well, I will discuss these matters with my leadership team onboard our own ship.” Henry said and he then stood up. The rest of the human party followed him shortly thereafter to their feet. Roh Thaad’at stood with an unreadable expression before striding to the door, beckoning for his entourage to follow.

“That is quite understandable, Captain, this was a momentous discussion full of many difficult topics you are just learning about. You will need to make plans and analyze this new timeline you are now trapped in. We will wait twenty four Earth hours for an updated response.”

Great, no pressure.

“Thank you, Commandant, would you kindly lead the way back to our ship? We will contact you soon about when we are ready to reconvene and finish our discussion.”

They were lead from the room before the wall rippled and resolidified shut behind them. Turn by turn they followed the guardian robots following the three Alderei representatives until they finally emerged back into the outer ring of the ship and the hangar bay. Their Patriot pilot even lowered its weapon ever so slightly in a sure sign of relief at their safe return. Henry piled everyone onto the waiting gunship and into their armor cradles to comfortably ride back. The fight for what to do with their immediate future loomed large on the horizon, and the silence aboard the gunship showed that none were ready to fire the first salvo.

For the moment, at least, Henry welcomed the silence as they returned to ship, with just the noises from their pilot and navigator breaking the spell in the background. If even half of what they had just heard was true, they were in deep trouble, and they had no good way to get themselves out of it. They very well might be forced to accept the deal offered by the wily extraterrestrials. The consequences that had been laid out so far hadn’t bothered him so much, as everything sounded too fantastical to be true. They needed to independently verify their status, and moreover, Henry was concerned about what it was that they had likely deigned to not tell him. Aliens couldn’t ever fully be trusted, only mutual self interest and peace through strength could be counted upon in the end. They had certainly done their best to project strength.

What do we do when they are so far beyond us that even our best is a mere joke to them?

Miserable, Henry ruminated the entire rest of the way back to the ship.