Chapter 1: Prologue.
"All that moves in the void is easily seen." - The Bentusi
A large room full of tubes, circuitry and other electrical components began to light up, a metallic cylinder rose from the center of the room. A voice or rather more accurately, voices, spoke.
"We are the Bentusi, for eons we have existed with the benefits of hyperspace travel established the outer rim trade routes and encountered many races both benevolent and malevolent. But two races stand out among the rest, linked in both exile and bloodshed."
"The Hiigarans from our galaxy, who were exiled to a desert planet but managed to not only steal away their hyperspace core with them, but rebuild it and return to their homeworld against all odds four thousand years after their exile."
"The other race are the Terrans from our closest neighboring galaxy to which we fled from a dark power that would have us bound, a fate worse than death to our people."
"The Terrans like the Hiigarans, were exiled though they were never threatened with extermination, they still suffered just as much, if not more, death and suffering."
"Before we tell the tale of either, we must first explain the circumstances of us and our interactions with this galaxy."
"10 years ago, we fled our galaxy which the Terrans call Andromeda to this galaxy, that which they call the Milky Way. It has many names for many cultures, we have our name for it, the Taiidan theirs, the Turanic Raiders and so forth. For the sake of record keeping as much of the Terran homeworld has been torn asunder by nuclear fire, we will refer to the systems and galaxies whose names are disputed by Terran standards, other records exist and thus the statement of their local identities beyond that of what was communicated during the war would be unnecessarily redundant."
"When we arrived in this galaxy, we first came into contact with the Transvaal Empire, the same nation that would five years later launch a horrible and unprovoked attack on the Terrans much like the ancient Hiigaran Empire before the exile did to many cultures that had yet to discover the gift of hyperspace travel."
"We shared knowledge and technology with the Transvaal we met, told them of our galaxy, of the Taiidan, of the Beast, that we are unaware of what happened on the other side, we fear the worst, that the beast came and bound our brothers. We have hope however that our brothers were perhaps capable of sealing off the Hyperspace Conduit to prevent pursuit and were also able to either escape or destroy themselves before they could be bound. We were also aware of a Hiigaran kiith, Somtaaw who were attempting to fight and destroy the beast. Perhaps they succeeded, perhaps they did not. We can only hope, assume and perhaps pray."
"We learned much of this galaxy, of it's major and minor powers from the Transvaal, of an enemy invading from another universe, of ancient relics belonging to several precursor civilizations. What follows next is a revelation that shocked even us, the unbound."
"The Great Progenitor Empire was thought to have existed anywhere between ten thousand to fifty thousand years ago, we now know it existed for far longer and that the relics in our galaxy were the efforts of a recent and ill-fated colonization attempt, running afoul of whatever horror afflicted them. We had been aware for some time of the progenitors, it was their hyperspace cores that gave us and the exiles the gift of interstellar travel, and what will precipitate the end times, if our galaxy does not succumb to the beast before then."
"This galaxy, the Milky Way, has four major powers currently, and when we arrived, it had five."
"The Five that existed before were the Transvaal Empire, Valkyur Regency, Galactic Federation, Outer Rim Alliance and the Val'Fasq Empire."
"For the sake of avoiding unnecessary redundancy, we will reveal only that of recent times, the Terran Republic has risen as a major galactic power in the short time span of five years since the onset of the war, fueled not by the husks of their enemies that they originally believed would take them here, but by an ancient and powerful ship known only as the Foundry. We have found many ruined and non-functional ones in our galaxy, but in this galaxy, at least one had survived, perhaps more exist, this galaxy is more unexplored than our own."
"We had dealings with the Terrans, seeing similarities between them and the exiles as well as other reasons but recognizing the lack of any galactic council in this galaxy, we traded with them cautiously, the unbound are powerful, but so are the nations of this galaxy. Granted they took longer to reach the stars and did so with a different method than us, but also their discovery of ancient artifacts and the reverse engineering of them accelerated their development, had these artifacts never been found, they would be on equal footing with the Terrans."
"From what we could tell, three ancient civilizations used to dominate much of this galaxy."
"The Progenitor Empire"
"The EDEN Civilization"
"The Chozo Civilization"
"Before we begin the tale of the Terrans, we must explain why the Transvaal acted as they did, the Terran Grand Admiral requested this be recorded to avoid any future animosity between the two nations and to prevent his people from becoming what they fought so hard to break free from."
"The discovery of the wormhole that led to the Terran sector was a strategic asset, a veteran of both the Third Transvaal-Federation War and the Transvaal War of Succession, Admiral Volcott O'Huey, was given a large military force to escort colonization and engineering fleets into the wormhole to exploit the other side as a way to gain strategic advantage over the Galactic Federation, however it should also be noted that Admiral O'Huey was embittered against both the Federation and Pre-FTL civilizations during his service. The specifics do not need to be mentioned in the prologue for sake of avoiding unnecessary redundancy."
"We hope those who look upon this record will understand that the actions of the few should not be made to measure the entire mindset of a civilization, we Bentusi once made such mistakes in the distant past, we have learned to rise up above such petty thinking, we hope that the other races follow our path as well and become unbound as we are. Perhaps one day, we can return to our home galaxy and should the Beast remain, then we shall burn it with the support of our new allies, using weapons never thought possible, using new ways of traversing space."
File End.
Afterword:
I hope you've enjoyed reading this prologue as I enjoyed writing it. I will say a few things here in the afterword to clarify a few things, I will also check reviews and answer at least one question in the following chapter afterwords.
1. This is a large scale crossover, the primary entries are: The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Galaxy Angel, Homeworld, Valkyria Chronicles & Metroid.
2. Other items may enter based on a variety of factors.
3. I will be focusing on this story for a while then I will refocus on ABS:Evolution, the plan is to alternate between the stories as a solution to bypass writers block.
4. Due to a mega-heatwave in California, I may end up taking longer than usual to publish new chapters, sorry for any delays.
5. I am also in the process of reading some of Alastair Reynold's books set in the Revelation Space universe and thus this may affect the rate at which I publish new chapters, the first page of Galactic North has already hooked me. If any of you have any recommendations or know the chronology of the series I would appreciate the information.
6. Whilst the Bentusi are the main storyteller here, thanks to a combination of cybernetic memory copy-pasting and access to the TNS Endeavor's archive, information will not be solely revealed by the Bentusi, however they will play a major role in later chapters.
7. This takes place several years after Haruhi has graduated from high school. A few years after Homeworld: Cataclysm (with these Bentusi unaware of the events of Homeworld 2 as they have lost contact with their galaxy.) and as far as Galaxy Angel, Valkyria Chronciles and Metroid goes, it is an alternate universe entirely, not in line with manga, anime or games but will stick to as much lore as possible with regards to character personalities. Galaxy Angel Characters will behave similarly to their manga counterparts, the Valkyur in this story are a thriving galactic civilization with the planet the Valkyria Chronicles games takes place on is a lost colony.