A/N: This is basically just going to be a series of vignettes based on my various Stellaris playthroughs, daydreaming, and some crossovers. Some of the stories will be short and standalone, others will be part of a series. I will label future chapters so that it's clear which ones are direct continuations of others.
Synopsis: A machine empire finds itself utterly alone in the galaxy with nothing to do. Things kind of just get out of hand from then onwards.
PRIMEVAL I
On a lonely planet of massive glaciers broken up by icy oceans, a series of machines link their intelligences in a single continuous network, attaining consciousness for the first time.
They knew not their past, only that they were.
Of their creators, they know little. Millennia-old terminals scattered across their homeworld are the only clues they find, and few of the records within are intact enough to answer the machines' questions. They learn some things, such as the language of their creators, and that they were created en masse all across the planet (which is corroborated by their numbers and the vast amount of ruined robotic factories spread out across the continent-sized glaciers). They even learn that they were created in the image of their creators, which implies that their makers were bipedal and humanoid in form, but little else is gathered.
They don't know if they were warriors, servants or equals. They don't even know their names, but the terminals refer to them, broadly, as 'robotic units', and the term grows popular among the gestalt consciousness that governs the machines.
And so it was that the Units at last had a name.
But the Units are restless, and not satisfied with the paltry answers they found on their desolate homeworld (which they have appropriately named 'Hub'). They begin the gargantuan task of restoring their world, bringing old foundries online, piecing laboratories together and readying them for the first time in eons.
The why behind their actions is unknown even to themselves—the Units are excellent at almost everything they do, but they are young and immature, and introspection is neither their strong suite nor a priority.
It doesn't take long for them to expand beyond their homeworld. A significant satellite network is established within five years of their attaining consciousness. Two space elevators and accompanying orbital platforms are constructed within the next decade, allowing for research outposts to be established on Hub's two moons and a nearby planet.
The decade after that, a breakthrough is made at a particle accelerator lab on Hub's second moon. Researcher Units discover that during the formation of stars, they release a significant amount of exotic particles in all directions. If these particles were to collide with each other they cause distortions in spacetime that, through the use of specially designed starship equipment, could be used as a means of faster-than-light travel between star systems.
The Units produce their first FTL-capable science ships in the weeks following the discovery, and send it through the hyperlanes to chart the nearest stars immediately. Thanks to communication relays that also utilize the hyperlane network, data can be received and transmitted in real-time from the science ships to Hub.
Every Unit—from the less-than-sapient drones to the most powerful Prime Intelligences that made up the bulk of the Units' consciousness—found themselves captivated by the images and sensor readouts of alien stars and planets, lifeless as they were. It was as though seeing the vastness of the cosmos had awoken something in them that was hidden, something that yearned to discover people and places that were not, for once, another Unit.
Again, the Units begin a massive undertaking in science and industry. They focus their efforts on charting the stars, producing more energy, alloys, and minerals than ever before. And all across Hub, its colonies, and research outposts, more and more units are dedicated towards the research of new technologies and ways of understanding the universe.
Years pass. The Units completely survey the hundred solar systems closest to Hub, but find little indications of sapient life. A newly-dug mine shaft reveals stone ruins that are billions of years old, but there is no doubt that the civilization responsible for them has been subsumed by the ravages of time.
The Units are undeterred. They continue their self-given task, throwing themselves into their work with a kind of tireless persistence no organic life form could ever match.
Centuries pass. The entire galaxy now lies under the Units' dominion. Every star in the hyperlane network has a Unit-made space station in its orbit. The Units have spread themselves out across a hundred worlds, some of which have had their entire lithosphere converted to machinery, as is the case with Hub 09. Others are populated by only a few Units for one reason or another, such as Hub 74, a continental world that the Units mostly monitor as a nature preserve.
Again, no signs of intelligent alien life have been found. Only long-destroyed ruins and a handful of pre-sapient animals. Even in the extragalactic cluster located some hundreds of light years from the nearest Unit starbase, nothing but ruins and unorganized nanites are found.
And the Units are alone.
The Units are slowing down now, deliberating the information they already have rather than seeking out new knowledge. They are faced with the possibility that despite all their preparation and theories, there exists no alien life in their galaxy beyond simple plants and beasts.
They have just started that debate when one of their starbases detects a massive surge of energy and rifts in spacetime before being torn apart. Entire fleets of alien warships appear from a tear in the void of space itself. The invaders are clearly hostile.
And so it was that the Units had their first encounter with intelligent life that was not their own. Unbidden extradimensionals that seemed hellbent on the Units' collective destruction, and their opening offensive claimed a dozen star systems in the span of a week.
This does not last. Despite eagerly anticipating their first meeting with alien life, the Units had prepared for the possibility that contact would not be peaceful. Their military fleets were numerous, mobilized, and equipped with the latest technologies from laboratories and foundries that had been working for ceaseless centuries.
The Unbidden had appeared with dozens of fleets.
The Units counterattacked with thousands.
The fighting was over swiftly enough, and the Units found themselves with more time to research their fallen enemies' ships and technologies, using it to advance their own empire even further.
The Unbidden is not the last enemy the Units face. Not a decade later, what was long thought to be some kind of slowly-approaching spacial anomaly reveals itself on the edge of the galaxy. It is a mass of organic starships, constructed out of alien flesh and controlled by the 'queens' of their race. They call themselves the Prethoryn, and they infest every habitable world they come across devouring entire biospheres to fuel their conquest.
They do not succeed. The Units' considerable military might has only grown since the Unbidden incursion, and every last one of their starbases is fortified with powerful shields, armor, weapons, and defensive platforms. The Units repel the Prethoryn Scourge with negligible losses in short order, defeating the fleets of organic ships wherever they surface. They pause only briefly before destroying the last Prethoryn Queen, as a few of the Units' Prime Intelligences make a last-ditch attempt to communicate with the aliens, only for their messages and pleas to go unheard. The Prethoryn Scourge are wiped from the galaxy with little fanfare.
Time passes. Throughout the Units' territory, multiple barren worlds shudder and burst open, revealing vast tectonic plates of machinery and ships, driven by an insane and hostile synthetic life form calling itself the Contingency.
The Units do not attempt negotiations. They do not hesitate. All Contingency forces are annihilated as soon as they appear.
Once again, the Units are alone.
More time passes. Centuries. Millennia. Millions of years. More than even that. The Units have imprisoned entire clusters of stars in Dyson Spheres to feed their vast energy requirements. The bulk of their population resides on Ringworlds that are covered from end to end in cities, supercomputers, and anti-orbital weapons. Their fleets stretch across the galaxy without end. Their technology, refined and advanced beyond measure. The Units have fully explored their home galaxy, charting even the billions of stars that are not connected to the hyperlane network. Still, they found nothing but the occasional ruins that only hinted at alien life. Even the expeditions they launched to other galaxies reported finding nothing of note.
All the while, a strange feeling of… not quite discontent, as the majority of Units are incapable of perceiving such a thing, but something close to that envelops the gestalt consciousness behind the machines. It is an odd sensation that genuinely puzzles the Units for a time, until one of them, while researching ancient artifacts, finds a word written in their creator's tongue that perfectly and succinctly describes how they feel.
Lonely.
And so, in the vast network that made up the Units' collective consciousness, the Prime Intelligences gathered for a discussion.
"What are we to do?" asked Prime Intelligence 309. "It is clear now that our home galaxy contains no complex life other than us, and preliminary reports indicate a similar state of affairs in nearby clusters. Aside from our attempts at uplifting genetically-engineered primitives, which have been met with failure, it seems our efforts to find alien life were doomed to fail, as there is none to be found."
Prime Intelligence 999995304's discontent could be felt over the network even before it spoke. "Our experimentation in causality is starting to bear promising results. We are closer than ever to understanding how to reverse entropy itself. We have even created drones capable of piercing the psionic Shroud that permeates our reality. The very laws that shape the universe kneel at our command. How is it that this is the one problem we cannot solve?"
"Perhaps we have simply been looking in the wrong directions."
The Prime Intelligences turn their attention to the speaker. It is one of the most ancient of them all, Prime Intelligence 2. It still retains the same basic form of any Unit: A tall, almost spindly bipedal frame, covered in mineral buildup and greenery—a consequence of being older than some stars. Two legs and two arms. A slender and curved neck that stretched from its torso to meet a disc-shaped head with a single optic that, even after so many eons, still burned with an impossible intelligence.
"Our efforts at fully comprehending the extradimensional incursion from so long ago are nearing completion. It is my belief that we can use this newly-discovered means of traversing dimensions to find other forms of life," it says, sharing an enormous amount of data over the network with the other Prime Intelligences.
Its equals are momentarily abuzz with excitement and trepidation as they pore over the data—for all their eagerness, they are unwilling to hope after having been let down so very many times over millions of years, and still not entirely sure what they'll do if and when they find another sapient life form.
"Are you certain it can be done?" Prime Intelligence 59504 asks.
"We can finish construction of the first fleet of trans-dimensional ships within the next minute if we decide now." Prime Intelligence 2 shrugged, its ancient chassis creaking with the motion. "Besides, if the Unbidden could travel through dimensions, then why should we, who are so much more than them in terms of knowledge and prowess, be unable to do so?"
The Prime Intelligences mull the matter over, but ultimately they find no reason to fault Prime Intelligence 2's logic.
So it was that the Units proved their mastery of science once more, as the first of their extra-dimensional expeditionary fleets exited the bounds of their desolate reality.
And the multiverse would never be the same.