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Short History of Man, Volume One as presented by high librarian Arminius, 992.M27.
The Milky Way Galaxy has seen countless civilizations rise and fall ever since the first sentient beings developed millions of years ago. Many ruins litter the planets and asteroids and space nearby many stars. Even Sol has its share of those ruins. The remains of Silver Millenium are found on each planet and on many of the moons, although at the present mankind has yet to discover them. There are, though, some ruins that predate even the Lunar Castle, the first and grandest of the surviving structures of Silver Millenium. The era of Lunar dominance was built upon the ruins of the Imperium of Mankind, the first interplanetary empire built by mankind that had discovered the secret of space travel.
Twenty five thousand years before the beginning of the current calendar every corner of Sol had been colonized and prospered under the guidance of the most holy Emperor of Mankind who resided on the grand city of Empyrean, a huge space station orbiting Sol inside of the orbit of Mercury. All ten planets acknowledged his dominion and were supervised by warrior lords called Senshi, men and women who were genetically engineered for this task from the very genes of the Emperor of Man. The captain general and the right hand of the Emperor was the Senshi of Empyrean, Eldest of their kind.
Each planet had its own army and navy. Drafted ground forces for defence and several fleets of dreadnoughts, battleships and cruisers for offense. Then there were the Adeptus Astartes, Space Marines, who were the elite forces of the Senshi, sharing their genes and thus greatly resembling their masters in demeanor and behavior. They were the best of the best, utterly faithful and invincible. The ultimate warriors. Only Senshi Saturn, second among her kind and the mistress of the Planet of Shadow had no Legion of Astartes warriors to do her bidding. Instead she had developed a force consisting of entirely female warriors, The Adepta Sororitas, Sisters of Battle who similarly to the Marines shared the genes of their creator.
Ten thousand years the Emperor of Man reigned, bringing peace and prosperity to the people of Sol who had multiplied so much that housing them had become a serious problem and so a project to solve the limitations of interstellar travel had become primary interest among the technopriests of Mars who, along the brilliant thinkers of Mercury soon developed the portal to Immaterium, a dimension where the laws of physics allowed a swift travel between great distances. Yet, as the portal was opened the forces of Chaos were released upon mankind. The Gods of Chaos managed to corrupt half of the Senshi and their legions, greatest of them third in power and might, Senshi Vulcan named Horus, lord of the fift planet from Sun and his legion of Astartes, the Sons of Horus. Thus began the War of Twilight.
Horus launched a campaign against Pluto where the Portal of Immaterium was located to seize it and give him an access outside of Sol. Other corrupted Senshi, bowing to the might of Horus attacked Empyrean and destroyed the beautiful city of Emperor killing both its Senshi and the Emperor. Only the valor of the remaining uncorrupted Marines and Sisters, Saturn and Terra as their de facto leaders managed to thwart the conquest of Chaos in the inner system. The Chaos Marines, as the corrupted Marine Legions were now known were defeated in the battle of Mercury. Mercury, Mars and Venus, which had fallen to Chaos were liberated and purified by massive orbital bombardments leaving nothing alive and destroying their biospheres.
The battle of Pluto ended in the victory of Horus and the loyal Marines of Pluto and Neptune were wiped out completely along with their Senshi and the populations of the planets. Only the Senshi´s firstborn daughter escaped with small contingent of Imperial Guard of Pluto and managed to join with the uncorrupted Legions of inner system. Horus, after securing Pluto and Neptune turned towards Saturn and almost conquered it. The Imperial Guard of Saturn, being the best of the drafted militias barely managed to hold the line until the Sisters and Terran Marines came to their aid. Horus was beaten back and had to retreat to Vulcan, where the loyal Senshi followed him. Along the way to Vulcan Horus assaulted Jupiter to keep the battle out of his home planet. Unfortunately during the invasion Jupiter´s biodomes were destroyed and the great artificial continents in the planet´s atmosphere malfunctioned and fell towards the planetary core. The great gravitational stresses there shattered the continents and killed all Jupiterians. Horus had no choice but continue to Vulcan.
The ensuing battle was horrendous. The navies of Imperium and Chaos battled over the skies of Vulcan while loyal Marines and Sisters assaulted the planet. Thousands of nuclear and antimatter missiles were detonated, utterly shattering the surface of the planet and destabilizing its core. This lead to a massive explosion that destroyed the planet killing all on the surface and wiping out both of the battling fleets. Senshi Sol, Horus and other traitor Senshi died that day leaving only pitiful remains of their forces behind. No more than thousand Sisters survived along with their Senshi. The remaining forces of Chaos retreated to Pluto and used the Portal, vanishing from the Sol to paths unknown.
Sol was greatly shaken by the War of Twilight. One of the ten planets was utterly destroyed, the capital of the Empire was no more, six of the surviving planets had become uninhabitable and one, Uranus, had no inhabitants left as they, being corrupted by Chaos, had left the system when Chaos retreated back to Immaterium. Only Terra, Saturn and Terra´s moons had survived the war. Of the Senshi only one remained.
The seeds of new conflict were sown almost immediately. Terra refused to acknowledge Sailor Saturn as the rightful Empress of Mankind even as she was the eldest of the surviving blood relatives of the dead Emperor. As a result Saturn which had taken heavy losses during the war turned inward refusing to have any contact with the rest of mankind. Senshi Saturn became the Empress of Saturn and the Imperium of Man was reduced to consist only Saturn.
Rest of Sol laid uninhabited for centuries as Terrans had no resources for recolonization as the generals of fallen Senshi Terra now contested among themselves for supremacy. Eventually the duchess of Luna managed to beat both of her rivals by the aid of unknown technology that for most seemed like magic as the secrets of the Imperium were now mostly lost. Yet the Duchess of Luna did not use Imperial technology but something else that she had discovered below the surface of Luna. A brilliant crystal that she named Ginzuishou was the most visible part of these discoveries and she used the crystal as the basis of her new power. Soon she had destroyed what was left of Terran Imperial Guard on the side of her two rivals and had them executed. After this she proclaimed herself as Queen of Luna, taking the name of Serenity I and called her kindom Silver Federation as she reordered it to consist three separate fiefs, one on Luna and two on Terra, arranged from the domains of her dead rivals. She herself ruled on Luna and appointed her cousins as Grand-Dukes of Terran subkingdoms.
Thus was what later would be known as the era of Silver Millenium founded. Eventually Silver Federation had enough resources to begin recolonization of inner solar system and all planets from Mercury to Jupiter were reclaimed and the name of the Kindom changed to Silver Empire. The remains of Empyrean were also approached in hope of claiming salvage but the ruins were still dangerously radioactive and would remain so for millenia because of the advanced nuclear weapons that were used there and so they were left alone and eventually forgotten. New Senshi for each planet save Terra were appointed and the post of Senshi of Luna was created to be the replacement of Senshi of Empyrean. Senshi of Luna was mostly a title which Serenity kept for herself combining thus the old offices of head Senshi and Emperor. These new Senshi were similar to their predecessors only in name as their powers were vastly different and they lacked the autonomity that the Elder Senshi had enjoyed as they all were linked to Ginzuishou which was in the possession of Serenity.
At this time the contact with Saturnians was renewed after centuries of separation. The reunion was cool as Senshi Saturn did not accept the Silver Senshi as her equals like Serenity (the second one to bear that name) requested. However, Saturnians, even if still powerful and possessing the ancient technological secrets of the Imperium had not managed to rebuild as swiftly as Lunarians had as they had had serious trouble with re-establishing self-sustaining economy after their food and energy production capabilites had been damaged by forces of Horus. Because of this they had a population that was only tenth of that of Silver Empire and their military was too small for anything else than self defence. Thus they agreed to become part of the empire with wide autonomy after hiding most of their advanced technology out of Serenity´s reach. Thus was established the post of Silver Senshi of Saturn as the Senshi of Saturn seemingly relingushed her Senshi powers and accepted the powers of Silver Senshi. She however still had all of her former powers and could not hide them fully and so was never fully trusted by the other Senshi as long as the Silver Millenium lasted. Especially as she was the only one of the Senshi that never died of old age and had thus be replaced by a successor (Senshi of Pluto never died after being appointed to her post but this was understood to be because of the power of Immaterium and so same distrust never was directed to her as she seemed to be utterly loyal to line of Serenity).
Eventually the three outermost planets were also colonized and their Senshi appointed. Of these the Senshi of Pluto was a descendant of the original Senshi of Pluto through the surviving daughter of latter and she was given the post of guarding the Portal of Immaterium, now heavily safeguarded with the power of Ginzuishou. The Senshi of Uranus and Neptune were appointed to be the generals of the armies of Silver Millenium as soon as the new way of interstellar travel, warp engines, were developed and contact with other star systems become possible. The first four of the Silver Senshi had their posts in the court of Serenity. One more Senshi was still created. Senshi of Sol who had not her own planet but was given the task of guarding Senshi of Saturn.
Soon enough Silver Empire had reached outside of Sol and tried to hold dominion over several solar systems. This brought them in conflict with several local powers like the Tau and different tribes of Orks that inhabited those systems. Also some humans were discovered outside of Sol and it was speculated they were the descendants of those colonists that had been sent out of Sol with sublight speed ships before the Portal of Immaterium was developed. Those ships, although incapable of light speed were fast enough that it would have taken only some thousands of years to reach the systems where they were found. These humans had their own Senshi and were developed enough that Silver Empire had no chance to hold rule over them with the resources and conflicts with the Tau and Orks it currently had. So was developed a complex diplomatic system over the area that was in the reach of Silver Empire where all different human factions considered each other equal and the Tau were also accepted in this community as they were sufficiently civilized. The warlike Orks were a problem for everyone, although their tendency to fight among themselves most of the time reduced their threat to others. This situation lasted as long as the Silver Millenium lasted and was only disrupted by small wars that broke between human factions and occasionally between human faction and the Tau or some Ork tribe.
Sol prospered anew under the rule of the line of Serenity although Saturn remained mostly isolated and ruled by the so called twelve High Lords of Saturn in the name of the holy Empress of Mankind although this was kept secret from Lunarians and the Lords were publicly known as the Senate of Saturn. The Empress herself resided on Luna as the Silver Senshi of Saturn under the watchful eyes of the other Senshi. The rearming of Saturn continued in secret so that one day The Imperium of Mankind would rise again.
Saturn never had the chance to revolt against the rule of Luna, though. Others beat them to it. Four thousand and seven hundred years after the founding of Silver Millenium several ancient alien artefacts were uncovered on Mars and secretly brought on Terra where dissention against Luna was beginning to reach the boiling point. These artefacts granted Grand-Duchess Beryl of Avalon an access to ancient being called Metallia who promised Beryl the crown of Serenity and the man who Beryl loved, the son of the Grand-Duke of Atlantis, the other sub-kingdom of Terra. Beryl accepted Metallias help but was deceived by it and thus released the horros of Negaverse on Silver Millenium. The following battles that culminated in Senshi Saturn´s suicide on Luna that wiped out the life support of the Lunar Capital left most of the Sol once again lifeless. The people of Terra were reduced to the stone age and if there are survivors elsewhere, no one on Terra can tell. After several generations all knowledge of Silver Millenium, save some scattered legends, was lost. What has happened outside of Sol is also out of Terran knowledge.
Thought of the day: The Holy Ones see all, be righteous.
Ooo
Present day. Nerima, Japan.
Tendo Kasumi was doing a part of her daily chores that she perhaps enjoyed most in the dull routine that had been her life ever since her mother had died all those years ago. She was hanging laundry.
The weather was quite nice and Happosai was not around so she expected that the laundry would dry just fine without any disruptions today. Even "Ranma´s little friends" as she liked to call the rowdy bunch that others called Nerima Wrecking Crew had been quiet lately or at least out of her sight and hearing, propably tearing apart some other parts of Nerima for change. Kasumi had wanted some excitement in her life for a long time but the kind of excitement Ranma and others brought was not to her liking. It broke the harmony of her house.
She turned to get the last few clothes out of the laundry basket to hang them and was humming a pleasant wordless tune. Just as she turned back to the clothesline she heard a peculiar sound that she had only heard coming from TV when either of her sisters was watching a warfilm. It was a sound of an armored vehicle moving on tracks although it took several minutes for her to recall this. This one sounded to be an especially heavy armored vehicle and as she tried to understand why such a thing would be in Nerima because there were no JSDF or American bases anywhere nearby The vehicle in question came into view. It was huge. If Kasumi would have known of such things she could have seen that it resembled the first british tanks of WWI but was a lot larger. The battered vehicle burst through Tendo family´s fence, heavily damaged the dojo and smashed the koi pond all the while lumbering towards Kasumi who was frozen in fear. However as the humongous vehicle bumped into one of the bamboo poles holding the clothesline and brought it down along with all the laundry she gathered herself and let out a most un-Kasumilike cry of outrage and dismay as her hard work had just been wasted -again. Just then the track left side of the vehicle broke and the entire vehicle stopped. What happened next made Kasumi to faint on the spot after muttering soft, frightened "Oh my".
The top hatch of the vehicle opened and most fearsome looking humanoid in some sort of dark blue armor came out of the vehicle. What had made Kasumi to faint was it´s helmet, which resembled a human skull. Several other armored beings excited the vehicle after this first one, their helmets a bit more ordinary looking in comparison but Kasumi knew nothing of this. The being with the skull helmet came to examine the young woman lying on the grass and reached out to touch her.
OOO
A/N: I know, I know. I have already three other stories in writing. However I have been toying with this idea for a while now and decided to write it down.