Edited: June 2017.
Welcome to Amoras.
What is Amoras? You ask. Well, allow me to introduce you to my home for the past five years. Amoras is a cobbled together piece of junk that should never have made it off the ground let alone into the void of space; and oh yeah, it's a space ship.
Spaceship doesn't quite describe it though, ten kilometers long, eight kilometers wide, and roughly two hundred meters tall; the Amoras has forty-eight decks supporting a population of roughly eight hundred thousand. Over half of which are currently in a tenuous at best state of hibernation in the "stasis" pods.
Yeah, the Amoras isn't really a spaceship, it's more of a space-city, and one in desperate need of a few decades on a planet somewhere just to clean up the mess made when we had to make our escape from Altus Malum.
Why did we have to escape? I'll tell you why, because those bastard religious fanatics of Origin.
Councilor Amelius, tells me that hatred is a poison to the soul, and I should endeavor to find a constructive outlet for my anger.
It's a difficult prospect, I don't have the decades of experience he has, I'm only in my seventeenth summer. Not that we have a chance to observe the seasons anymore.
I witnessed my family slaughtered by the so-called religion of peace. Yeah, I'm a little bitter, go suck on a citrum.
I suppose I should give you a name, since you've gotten this far into my rant, without giving up. I'm Tav, Tav Telemain. Let me tell you about how my own journey started.
"Quickly we must leave! The gate is clear but I don't know for how long," the lanky dark-haired teen Arwen led them quickly through the rubble. It had taken 3 months for Arwen to search the area and gather this small group of five.
"Hold my hand" Tav grabbed Theyla's hand pulling her over a larger piece of rubble. His dark brown eyebrows scrunched in concentration.
This city had been beautiful once. Now the once beautiful towers and arches lay half crushed in the streets, bombs from both defenders and attackers had taken their toll. The other three juveniles with the group were the last from the city and the surrounding area. They would be killed if the attackers captured them, even if only for just attempting to leave. But more so than that they were children of the Asura in the eyes of the attackers and that meant a death sentence.
Have you ever seen a planet shatter? I have. The Ori detonated an antimatter reactor on my homeworld, they didn't even care about their own soldiers on the planet. I watched the shockwave from the evac shuttle as it coursed its way around the world.
We'd just reached the shuttle when an patrol of soldiers found us, Arwen was hit in the back, with a grunt he fell to his knees, I don't know how he was still alive after that hit. He looked up at me and I could swear his face shone with an inner light.
"Go," Arwen said through gritted teeth, the others in our group stared at him with slack jaws.
He struggled to stand, stumbling as the spasms of pain disrupted his motor control. A single hand raised in the air facing the way we came, for a moment it didn't look like anything had happened. Then we heard the whine of the staff weapons charging as bolt after bolt of blue sped with unerring accuracy towards our group.
The air in front of Arwen rippled and distorted, as the bolts of blue death racing towards us swerved and missed.
There was a great rumbling in the distance and in knew in the pit of my stomach that it couldn't be anything good.
"We can't leave you," I said.
"Go, I'll hold them here, the evacuation shuttle should be just over the rise," Arwen said grimacing.
"Thonas, Marc, Antonidus, do you think you could help me carry him on a litter while he does whatever the char that is he's doing?"
The other three boys nodded.
"Brace yourself, we aren't leaving without you," I told him.
We barely made it through the archway to the shuttle Arwen was sweating intensely now, and the glow had spread from his face down his neck and to his arms.
The soldiers weren't far behind us, bolts of blue impacting against the shuttle's barrier now instead of Arwen's distortion field.
"Tav, you've made it," Arwen mumbled, his hand was shaking now as he reached up and patted me on the head, "I always wanted a little brother. Tav promise me you won't die fighting them, promise me you'll survive, promise me you'll get everyone to Altus and the city Amoras."
He looked at me intensely, and even though the hatred within me burned for vengeance against them, I promised.
Arwen closed his eyes, if I hadn't seen him breathing I would have thought him dead. He looked so peaceful, belying the raw wound in his back.
The glow was abruptly brighter and everywhere, Arwen felt lighter and lighter in my hands until unexpectedly, he just wasn't there anymore. I'd never seen the like before, or since, I didn't know what to think. Arwen was like an older brother I'd never had, these last few months, and suddenly he was gone. His wound was a fatal one, and now I didn't even have a body to bury.
A voice broke through my grief, his voice, "I didn't realize you looked up to me that much Tav. I think I've got enough in me for one final save. Eh, little brother? I'm not going to make it to Amoras, not like I was that is. But, remember, I'm watching out for you, from here on."
The engines fired up and the shuttle slowly rose off the ground, rocking as the shields absorbed the impacts. And then the brightness in the room condensed and a wave of energy washed over me. I felt calm for the first time in months. Waves of energy pulsed out of the room and with each pulse the rocking of the impacts against the barrier died away.
I looked out the window, the planet was shrinking faster than should be possible for this model of shuttlecraft. I could see the clouds of radioactive dust spreading out from the large cities stretching across the planet. Then a brilliant light appeared at the edge of the northern ice cap, and a violent shockwave spread throughout the planet, ripping up the crust and generating a massive ring of fiery red, as the wave of pressure rippled through the atmosphere. My home world was engulfed in fire. When the shockwave reached the antipode, there was an aftershock that quickly returned to the original point, before the whole planet swiftly collapsed inward; and this time the wave of destruction was not confined to the planet, it spread outward engulfing and then billowing past the Ori blockade.
I couldn't believe it, they'd won the planet, why would they destroy the anti-matter reactors. It was thoughtless.
"Hold tight little brother, I can't outrun that shockwave, but I can certainly use it." Arwen's voice echoed in my head.
From the front of the shuttle I could hear the pilot and engineer arguing over the sudden activation of our FTL drive, we hadn't yet completely cleared the gravity well of the planet and it was dangerous, but I knew Arwen had something to do with it. The wave was now buffeting the shuttle's barrier, rattling everything inside the compartment, and then there was a burst of exotic particles as the ship's stream drive initialized, the energy in the shockwave being pulled into the spatial field.
"Hang on tight everyone, looks like someone decided to watch over us," the pilot called out.
Our journey lasted several hours until the stream FTL field collapsed over Altus, the stress of the journey that usually took three days at the normal speed burned out the drive and played absolute havoc on the control circuits, the pilots only just barely controlling our re-entry as we crashed into the ocean next to Amoras.
As our shuttle was towed into the hanger, several Asura rushed forward with medical equipment to scan and dress any wounds as well as untangle the group.
It was one thing being told about such abilities manifesting in one's final moment, seeing someone actually deflect the incoming fire with just their mind was a completely different matter. I understood and recognized somewhere in my mind that I was experiencing a mild form of shock. Taking steps to clear my mind some, I slowly became aware of the commander kneeling in front of me.
"Arwen's dead," I said, blankly.
"What happened son?"
"He was hit by two staff blasts right as we opened the gate. Somehow he... his... he deflected the incoming fire long enough for us to escape."
The commander had looked at me for a moment before responding, "Arwen's extreme need supplied nearly unlimited power but at great cost. Very few Asurans have ever done what he did, and all those who did manage… well, they died or were so near death that they died soon after."
"Welcome to Amoras, cadets. My name is Tria. You will each be assigned to a Maturia, the process is mostly random, and for the most part each of you will be among fellow Asura your own age. Mentors are assigned to each Maturia, I expect you to make use of them, you will have a mandatory hour with at least one of the mentors each day. After a year, we cycle mentors, though some of you may have the option to apprentice under a mentor, this removes you from the rotation." Tria paused looking around the room at the gathered refugees. "There will be twenty mentors assigned from the crew, for each group of a hundred. At the end of your eighth summer, if you haven't chosen to apprentice under a specific mentor, then you will be given an aptitude test, and you will be placed in the subject that best suits both your desires and abilities."
"It's a big universe out there, cadets, and it's my duty to make sure you all stay alive."
We had five years of safety on Altus, before the first Ori Scout arrived in orbit, the city wasn't finished by any means, but we had engines, life support, and an airtight hull, we had a new experimental generator that ran on an ultra-dense mineral called naquadah.
We only stayed as long as we did, in the hopes that few more people would be able to escape. Amelius is presenting his last-ditch effort to turn the tide to the council today. I snuck down to watch my mentor.
It's been five agonizing years since Amelius started his research looking for a way.
Amelius and the council stand around a metal box with a lid on top. He's taken to calling it the Ark of truth. It's a device that when activated emits a wave, which effectively rewrites the mental pathways, there is no nice way to put this, it's a brainwashing device.
"Is forced indoctrination really the answer? You would deny the Ori the very essence of self."
"No, I would deny them the right to prosecute a war of annihilation over such a simple matter as ideology," Amelius muttered.
"Amelius, we believe in understanding the world not through interference or violence but through observation and debate, and most of all freedom of will. I cannot in good conscious condone the use of this device." The councilor said shaking her head. "It would be a corruption of all that we are as a people, denying the free will of the individual to believe as they choose. At this point we are outnumbered by the followers of origin a hundred to one and the imbalance is widening every day."
Amelius tried to point out that the followers of origin had been using a similar approach against their people and this would only undo the damage they had done. But it was no use.
"Amelius let it go. The council has decided." The council left our lab in silence, as my teacher and I packed the few things we could, preparing to leave Celestis.
"Wait," Amelius said turning back to the lab. "I almost forgot." Looking down at his notebook he picked it up, a few designs for upgrades to the gateway on top. It looked as if we'd have plenty of time to perfect the technology.
I watched on the display screen from my safety seat as the place started shaking before the stabilizers kicked in. The Amoras' powerful engines were making the deck plates vibrate and a low hum filled the air as the ship pushed up through the mountaintop.
The empty buildings of our last remaining city were buried under the rockslide destroying everything that remained above ground.
As we cleared the top of the mountain and the last few slabs of mountain rock slid off our hull with a shrill scraping sound reminiscent of nails on chalkboard, the cavern we had hollowed out while working on the ship caved in.
No longer fighting against the tons of rock that had been overhead the engines settled into a quieter hum. The ship hovered for the briefest of moments. The display showed the finality of our last maneuver in the war. There was nothing left on this world for us.
Captain Ferris called out the order, "Take us into orbit."
The engine flared once again and we began our ascent into the night.
AN: I realise I received some flak (anon reviews and pms) regarding my decision to use certain terminology to refer to the religion of Origin, if you feel offended by them because of parallels amongst supposed followers of your own ideology, I believe Tav would tell you to go suck on a citrum for a while. Any perceived similarity between any real life events is entirely unintended, if you do see a similarity, it may be time for you to re-examine your own thought process in regards to those events. Also, go suck on some Citrums (lemons)