The Time Lord Empire.

Revelation of the Time lords.


" We survived in this galaxy, focusing our attention on rebuilding our race and developing our technologies and sciences." The human with Valen's soul told Delenn, carrying on with his explanation for his races survival. Delenn listened, still unable to believe that the human race, and from the sounds of it their worlds, had survived the end of the Earth - Minbari war. No one, not even the First ones had the power to move planets, and flip them millions of light years away into another galaxy.

" We had plenty of time and effort to expend on our efforts, and there were no Centauri and Narns to help you cull our people."

Delenn looked down at her hands, once again seeing the blood, the harm she had caused with her vote.

No mercy!

The human watched her actions with unhidden interest. Clearly this Minbari, whom he remembered, begging and pleading with him and his fellow survivors to let them help the remains of humanity to rebuild, but he'd had no intention of letting her. Besides, the way she had looked at her hands just now reinforced the fact this Minbari in particular felt guilty about the war which was now a distant memory for the Time lord people, only to find in recent years the old wounds to be reopened, along with a good healthy dose of contempt and loathing. Sinclair couldn't blame them; he remembered how arrogant the Minbari had been, how brutal, and he remembered this Minbari female, just as she remembered him, had begged him to let her people help him, but there had been something more than desperate in her pleas. Sinclair knew enough to know this female had been the deciding vote to begin the war against humanity, and he had to resist the urge to take out his knife and dissect her where she stood. The Minbari had shown how barbaric and evil they were, and how the other races truly acted, how they picked at one another and tore them to shreds.

" We worked on our science, and without jumpengines we couldn't move beyond our solar system, so we worked on our faster than light technology."

Delenn shook her head, " That's impossible. No one can travel faster than light." She stopped when the human spat at her with contempt. Hearing Valen speak to her in that tone

" What about tachyons? They can travel faster than light, and without needing hyperspace to do it. Just because your precious Vorlons couldn't find a solution, doesn't mean that there isn't one." Sinclair ground out.

Delenn, sensing the human's rising anger, backtracked and asked what had been on her mind for a long time. " So you survived, but how did you personally live so long if you were sent back 5,000 years?" She asked.

The human pointed at himself. " You mean myself, personally? Yes, I remember how your people tractored my fighter onboard, how your warriors tortured me, how you discovered I was carrying a Minbari soul. Oh, yes," Sinclair smirked, enjoying the Minbari woman's horror, and Delenn jumped with a shock when she realised that the human had mentioned the presence of souls before, she had been too stunned by the surprise of the human to take any notice. " I remember that, we all do. When we developed the means, we learnt how to block your souls and send them back. Did you never scan your own people, find out how many of them are carrying human souls? Considering your races prediliction for racial and spiritual purity, it must've been a shock, or have you decided to not to tell yur warriors?" The human folded his arms, his eyes and soul reflecting his contempt, that the soul belonged to Valen was more painful.

The human was right, the Minbari people did not know about the truth with the souls.

Minbari culture believed that for each generation of Minbari, the souls of the next generation would be the souls before becoming part of a whole, but for a long time there were Minbari who were not part of the soul, and those same Minbari carried human souls, and Minbari souls were not apparently inhabiting human bodies, if the human was telling the truth.

" You are probably not aware of the groups of humans still alive in our galaxy-" Delenn started, but the human once again surprised her. " You mean the New Earth alliance, and the Khanate, two pairs of throwbacks to an age that no longer applies?" The human asked, sneering at her, but Delenn got the impression he wasn't sneering at her, but at the thought of the two groups.

" We are aware of them, but they are not aware of us. The Khanate are the result of a botched genetically engineered project, and the New Earth alliance hold things to value that no longer apply. They think that joining forces with the Shadows will bring back those they consider dead, but it won't."

Delenn was growing angry at the callousness. " Don't you care?"

" Care? We only care about one thing, victory." The human replied.

Delenn was stymied, " What do you mean, victory? Victory over the Shadows?"

The human shook his head, " No, there is another enemy, one more powerful than the Shadows, one that is around our level of power, of ability. The High Council on Earth will speak to you shortly." Then the human made a decision, and signalled the guard. " Take her back to the holding cell with the rest of the council."

As the armoured human dragged Delenn out of the room, Sinclair managed to say to her. " Don't worry, you'll learn more when we arrive home."

When Delenn had left and the doors closed, Sinclair stood still for a moment, a small smile on his face as he contemplated what he had just told the Minbari woman. The Minbari were so full of themselves, thinking that of all the lifeforms in the universe the Shadows were the only ones that were even considered a threat, the conceit was enough to infuriate the members of the High Council.

Sinclair wondered what the vaunted Minbari Grey Council, the supposedly wise rulers of the Minbari Federation, would meet the High Council of the Time Lords, and learn that the enemy the Time lords knew were rising from the darkness were even more vicious and powerful than the Shadows.

It was too bad he wasn't going to see it.


Delenn struggled against the cybernetically enhanced grip of the human soldier gripping her wrist. The human dragged her through the corridors of the ship, ignoring the Minbari's gasps of pain.

" I can walk myself, thank you," she had said to the guard primly.

The human looked at her, shook its head, and carried on walking, dragging her with him. Finally the human, fed up with the struggles, electrocuted her with the micro circuits in his gloves.

Delenn screamed in pain and shock, and the human started twisting her hand in his armoured grip. " You listen to me, Minbari filth, I lost two of my ancestors in your war, and your screams are like music to my ears. You will get up, or I will break you in two. Got that?" The human dragged the stunned Delenn up, and this time Delenn was far more co-operative.

The human slapped a hand on the door control, and pushed Delenn inside when the door was half open, propelling Delenn inside, who fell to the ground. Morann cursed angrily when the door started closing, but he helped Neroon pick up the stunned and startled Delenn off the floor.

Rathenn leant forward, " Delenn, are you alright?"

Delenn nodded shakily, " I am. The guard escorting me electrocuted me when I kept struggling." She took a gasping breath. " I know who they are, underneath those suits."

Morann leant forward himself, " Who are they?"

Delenn sighed. " At the Battle of the Line, those planets, those ships...they teleported here. Humans. All of them, they've survived. The original humans, they've been alive all this time, and longer than we have even been space faring. They transported back through time as well, travelling 5,000 years into the past."

Neroon snorted, " You can't surely believe that, can you?"

Delenn glared angrily," I had other things on my mind. They're going to speak to us, their High Council, but that isn't the only piece of news that worries me."

When the Council turned their attention to her, she told them exactly what the human had told her, how they had survived, how they had found a new enemy more powerful than the Shadows, but the most surprising things were how the Humans knew about their kin in the home galaxy.


The City Ship bridge surprised the Grey Council, and it was nothing to do with the complexity, more of its size. The bridge was at least six levels with stairways leading to various levels. Dominating the room was the massive viewports that showed the shining blue-white world Delenn recognised as the homeworld of the humans.

Earth.

Delenn studied the humans at work, noting how efficient they were at controlling the ship, and saw they were observing the Minbari, some of them with downright hostility, but others were watching them with curiosity, but there were some with more neutral faces. The humans who were hostile frightened Delenn; her hopes humanity would accept her apologies were dwindling fast, and if these people were serious they had travelled back through time, then they should have accepted what had happened, but it was clear that the hatred the humans held against their people was frightening, and if the human Delenn had spoken to had been right about the Minbari souls, then it was more likely the hatred humanity had for the Minbari had and would never dissipate. In the time of the war, Delenn had taken to studying human culture, art, philosophy and history, and although their history was bloody, there were patterns of civilisation, similar to what the Minbari had gone through, but the humans asked more questions about existence than the Minbari ever did. The Minbari just accepted things and left it at that.

The human that the Council knew as Valen appeared, unknowingly interrupting Delenn's thoughts. " You will accompany me to the planet." The council had no problems following the human, partially because he was Valen, and secondly because they wanted answers to some very important questions, but most importantly, they wanted more information about the supposed enemy he had informed Delenn about. The last reason was because of the presence of the guards, and their weapons were pointed directly at them.

The human walked into the centre of the room, and the guards prodded the Minbari forwards. The centre of the bridge was a raised platform, and when all the Minbari were standing on it, a noise from above had the Minbari council members look up, and saw a hatch open from above, and four rings descended to the ground...

...and they reappeared, only in a new place, and Delenn walked over to what looked like a window and looked out, realising she and her fellows had been transported without going down via shuttle or flyer to the planet below.

Outside the window was a city, a huge city, and Delenn could see the city was a mixture between the old and the beautiful, some of the new buildings reached high, thin, tall, and proud. There birds flying alongside sleek looking ships, and what Delenn took to be the human version of Minbari flyers. Green areas with trees, showing parks and what looked like pools were in more open spaces of the city. She felt a presence next to her, and the human carrying Valen's soul stood beside her.

" We're in Geneva," he whispered, looking outside the window, his eyes fixed on the vista before him. " But there is no time for sightseeing," he added bluntly. " The Council is waiting."

The human walked through the corridors, and Delenn noticed that the corridors seemed devoid of life, and when she pointed this out to the human, he replied simply.

" The corridors are empty because the High Council know that, aside from the escort, you are coming. The Council are aware of how many of our race despise the Minbari, the plan was to limit all contact with your people."

Delenn nodded, hurt that she wasn't going to be apologising for her people's crimes for a long time. She pushed that aside, and focused on the human. " I'm sorry, but in all the confusion I didn't find out your name."

The human stopped, and turned to face her properly. For a long time he was silent, staring at her, then he nodded. " My name is Jeffrey Sinclair."

The Council room wasn't as big as Delenn had expected, it was actually quite small compared to the size of the bridge of the Ship that had brought them to Earth. The room was circular shaped, but there was a higher tier where the council members were sitting. The Grey Council walked forward, only to jump backwards. They had been moving towards a metal plate, only for a set of nine stuffed chairs to appear from the floor.

The President's voice echoed through the room, " Do not be alarmed," he said neutrally, giving Delenn the impression the president himself didn't want the Minbari here anymore than they wanted to be here. " The chairs are nano constructions, built from tiny subatomic machines."

For a while, none of the Minbari moved, fearful of the strange technology in front of them. In their galaxy, and the humans's original galaxy, nanotechnology was considered to be a holy grail, but the technology in front of them was more radical, and showed a different means it could be used. Delenn swallowed her discomfort, and she went and picked a chair for herself, and the others followed in her wake.

Delenn looked at her fellow Minbari, and noticed that the chairs seemed to mold themselves to the bodies of the people sitting in them, and then she caught the eyes of the President and the rest of the council. They were regarding her with something akin to delight, and Delenn got the impression that they were pleased she had shown bravery in sitting down first.

Delenn leant forward, and decided to begin first. " We would like to know how you managed to survive so long, and if you are telling the truth."

The President leant forward, " Are you accusing us of lying?" His tone was soft, but there was a steel note hiding a growing anger

Delenn swallowed, and ploughed on so then she would get these questions over with and not anger the humans. " No, but we're curious of how you were able to survive."

The president jerked his head up slightly, and the Minbari found themselves in a limbo...


Stars exploded, nebulae flashing, and Delenn found herself shooting around planets, solar systems, space and time seemed...meaningless as the nine Minbari found themselves trapped in limbo, and then they heard them. Voices, and Delenn knew they were not hearing Minbari voices. If they were Minbari then the voices would be harmonious and spiritual. The voices she was hearing at the moment were just as harmonious, but there were ideas, ideas that no Minbari would ever think about. Old, ancient, she could feel the minds of children of various ages as they played with her watching.

Delenn watched as children played in boxes or crates filled with sand, or in bodies of water, laughing and splashing as their parents watched them, or participated in their children's laughter. She saw pain, misery, and suffering next, as they turned to the Earth-Minbari war, but here there was a sense of murkiness, like the humans knew what had happened, but they couldn't define it properly. With the previous images and sensation, the image of joy was clear, but now it wasn't. She saw the human perspective, from fighter pilots who had survived, to colonists who had managed to escape before the Warrior caste landed its troops from various clans to systematically exterminate the colonists unlucky enough to be left there. Delenn watched helplessly as she sat onboard a human fighter, unknown feelings of rage, fury, desperation, and fear pierced her soul...

All that changed, when the humans moved to the other galaxy, and Delenn saw the various experiments the humans had performed, the advances they made when they were far away enough, the lack of jumpgates making the humans desperate and eager, but also apprehensive of exploring their new home, a memory not helped by the last experience of poking their nose into other races businesses. Delenn watched in awe as the humans sought to build time machines and sought the mastery of time, space, and matter of the universe itself, something not even the Vorlons possessed. She saw the destruction of the Hegemony empire, how the Time lords had galvanised the other races of the Andromeda galaxy, and transformed a war torn galaxy into a utopia. A United Federation of Planets, and the humans did something no one in her own galaxy with the numerous species, had ever done. Ever.

Delenn experienced everything the humans had done with themselves, the development and discovery of wormhole technology, time travel, the creation and introduction of genetically engineered humans, on a level more advanced than the genetically engineered barbarians who were cutting paths of murder in the Milky way galaxy, and of the creation of the Great Link, a telepathic merge of thought, sensation, and idea.

The Great Link was what Delenn and her Minbari brethren were experiencing right then, and she was taken aback by how many minds there were in the universe with her. It was like she could never become alone, like company, love, and joy, and sensation were tangible, and you could wrap yourself up in it like a blanket. Never in Delenn's life had she felt so content, not even when she was in the company of her now deceased father, or estranged mother.

And the humans were aware of her as well, and Delenn was shocked by how many of the humans were opening their minds to her in curiosity, showing her the full extent of her folly to destroy the human culture and civilisation before the Minbari could see the actions of one man, and the death of one man, was a pitiful excuse for a war.

The humans were also grateful.

The gratitude stunned the Minbari. Should not the humans hate her for what she and she alone had done? No. There was resentment and quite a lot of it, sorrow for the amount of death the Minbari had left behind when they moved away from the previously human planets certainly, anger, but then Delenn saw that the humans were grateful for the past 5,000 years, grateful to finally spread their wings and embrace their future, and their potential.

There was also contempt for her when they read her mind...

Delenn was back on the Valen'tha, clutching the broken body of Dukhat, her master and mentor, the one who had taught her so much, and the one who had inducted her into the Grey Council.

" Help me!" Younger Delenn shouted, pleading with others in the confusion of the human attack.

Dukhat's whispers, coughing with pain, and knowing he was dying, managing to whisper a few last words before he expired. Delenn watched in horror as Dukhat died yet again, only from a different perspective. She saw her younger self clap her hands to her mouth, knowing that her younger self was sobbing with anguish as she felt a part of her soul tear away from her.

Delenn watched as the battered and shaken Morann approached, pausing as he saw who Delenn had in her lap, and she watched as a flare of anger appeared in his eyes before it was quashed as he got his thoughts together. Her younger self hadn't noticed, too busy mulling over Dukhat's death, and Delenn knew how numb her younger self was, how angry she was going to be...

" Delenn, we need to strike back, but the council is divided." Morann said, and Delenn recalled how she had thought how could the Council be divided, the humans had launched an unprovoked attack, but at that point none of them, bar herself and Morann, and a few religious, worker, or warrior caste members in the corridor were even aware of Dukhat's demise.

Morann carried on, diligently speaking and trying to ignore the rage he himself felt at seeing the greatest leader of Minbari dead in the younger female's arms. " Do we follow them back to their base and take revenge or do we wait, try to find out what happened?" When Delenn did not reply, Morann added more fierecly, demanding a response. " Yours is the deciding vote, Delenn."

When younger Delenn didn't reply, when she was only just coherantly becoming more aware of what her fellow Minbari was saying, older Delenn closed her eyes, knowing she could do nothing to stop what was to come. The sentence yours is the deciding vote triggered the rage, unleashed the flood she herself had kept inside as she tried to control herself, but the words deciding vote unleashed that same rage...and older Delenn wished she could make the humans send her back through time to stop this from happening...stop Dukhat from giving her the power to vote on matters that could destroy an entire species...

It came, bitter, angry, there was something almost primal in what her younger self said next, something her older self was only just picking up.

" He was the best of us." Her younger self said, her voice dripping with rage that it would need a plasma thermal torch to melt. " They struck without provocation. There was no reason." Younger Delenn sobbed as she fought to understand why any race would do such a thing, and older Delenn remembered how she had thought humanity were violent animals. Savages.

" Animals! Brutal!" Younger Delenn had a hand to her mouth, trying to keep herself from choking on the words. Then she got up, her eyes light with malice, with righteous rage. " They deserve no mercy! Strike them down!" She said, her voice rising with each syllable as she got closer to Morann, Dukhat's lifeless body on the ground. Forgotton as his people, his councilors talked of war to avenge his death.

Younger Delenn reached Morann whilst older Delenn watched. " Strike them down! Follow them to their base and kill them!" In her hysterical rage, Younger Delenn started hitting Morann in the chest, but the warrior let her do it, giving her the opportunity to lash out before he rushed off with the deciding vote.

Younger Delenn barely noticed his departure as she screamed, her voice sounding hollow. " All of them! All of them! No mercy!"

Older Delenn also screamed, but then she found herself on the ground of the Human High council chamber, the humans sitting calmly, in control whilst her fellow Minbari, aware of what she was seeing but unable to move properly, found themselves out of the link.

The President of the council leant back in his chair, eying the Minbari council. " Are you convinced we are now telling the truth? When you launched your war, you set into motion the dawn of a new race out of the ashes of the Human race, the Time lords, and for that, I, on behalf of my people, thank you."

Delenn was only getting her breath back, but she still had questions. " I felt the gratitude in my mind, and the curiosity. Do your people still hate us for what we did?"

The President leant back further in his chair, considering the question. " The Minbari destroyed our worlds, killed and butchered our people, but the war also taught us lessons we would never have done. In the past 5,000 years, there are so few of our people from that time still alive, and the newer generations belong to a different class of human than the kind we used to be when we first found ourselves here. In the centuries we have been here, the thought for revenge galvanised us, it was the focus for a few generations as we sought mastery of time and space, but also genetics. As time passed, we realised revenge was wasteful, and then we started to become more enlightened as the generations passed, and new children questioned the old ways. Do we hate you? We hate that you sought to destroy an entire race when you yourselves consider yourselves to be...enlightened," The Time lord stressed the word before her continued speaking. " Your battle tactics were also, as you say, dishonorable. You consider yourselves to be fair minded, but in war the best way to be fair minded, is to lose a battle occasionally. You didn't, except once or twice. John Sheridan destroyed a few of your ships, and you have the audacity to call him Starkiller, just for saving the lives of his crew, a crew your ship would've destroyed and wouldn't have been able to fight back. Where is the honour in that? There is no honour in attacking the weak or the helpless, and it is a lesson you will need to learn."

The President leant forward, " I am certain that already Jeffrey Sinclair, the one you know as Valen, has already explained our views on the matter of the New Earth Alliance, and the Khanate, and I am certain you are aware of our contempt of the two parties? We have been aware of them the whole time, the only reason we do nothing is because of two reasons; firstly the two parties are irrelevant, and secondly there is a greater threat looming over the galaxy, in fact nearly every galaxy in existence, but your galaxy is in far serious danger, and the First ones still inhabiting the Milky way are barely aware of the threat."

Neroon had had enough of the riddles from the human. Yes, he had experienced the Great Link, seen for himself how the humans had rebuilt their civilisation, but he had not seen or heard anything about an all powerful enemy.

" What is this enemy?" Neroon asked impatiently.

One of the councilors smiled at him. " That is what I call a warrior, always getting to the crux of the matter. The threat is far reaching." This councilor, a woman stood up and walked over to a monitor Delenn swore had not been there before, and the Time lady operated it.

The image coalesced, and showed an image of Vorlon ships clustered around a massive object floating in space. The Time Lady explained, " A million years ago, the Vorlons visited thousands of worlds, seeding the races with thoughts of order and obedience, whilst at the same time preparing them for the next war with the Shadows, but there was a side effect with the encounters, something the Vorlons never expected. The Vorlons were worshipped as gods, and the Vorlons, ever prideful, started to believe it, and they saw themselves as superior beings, superior in the universe. They decided to leave our plane of existence, and journey into another realm, a realm they believed held the key to existence. They built a gateway that would lead into this realm, but it wasn't something that did this. The Vorlons ripped a hole in the universe, tunneling into another reality, and they encountered a hostile species on the other side in another universe. This race was older than the Vorlons, a power beyond description, and they modified the Vorlon gateway to generate a telepathic field to create an army of Vorlons, willing to serve and to die for the aliens. They believe all forms of life, right down to the subatomic scale, is inferior and must be exterminated."

Delenn had trouble believing that, but after experiencing the Great Link she was convinced the humans were trustworthy, but the idea of the Vorlons building something this dangerous...

The Minbari knew how prideful the Vorlons were, and she didn't have a hard time believing that the Vorlons would want to keep this to themselves.

The Time Lady carried on, and the picture changed to a nightmarish creature, and even though it was simulated, the sight was enough to terrify everyone in the room.

" Older than the Vorlons, hungrier for destruction, the creatures we call the Killers were a threat to the universe. When the Vorlons were able to beat the aliens back, rebuild and repair the damage they caused, there were residual side effects."

Morann cocked his head. " What kind of side effects?"

The Time Lady sighed, " The ripping of the universe. The Vorlons believed the damage would repair itself, and it did, but we had to work on the damage ourselves, using our technologies. We sealed the breach as best as we could, but there are numerous cracks in reality close to where the breach was, and there is the possibility of tearing the hole open again, and if we can do it, so can the Enemy. We have the power to enter different realities, and we altered the reality quotient of this universe, it's like a magnetic pole being altered so then travel would be repelled. Since that time, no Time Lord has travelled to that reality, but that doesn't mean the same applies for other realities. The mess the Vorlons have made is making it harder for us to concentrate on one matter, and other realities have taken an interest, and this race are preparing an invasion of this reality."

" What is this race?" Delenn asked, terrified.

The Time Lady's face became pinched in disgust as she described the aliens. " They are us, a version of the Time Lord race. Only a version that didn't become enlightened. You see, after we found ourselves in this galaxy, we found ourselves at a crossroads, a choice between moving on and moving ahead, putting ourselves above such a petty conflict with the Minbari once more, or we simply choose to destroy everything with our great power. We chose the former, we became enlightened, and we have started to explore the universe itself, adding to our knowledge. Not the alternate Time lords," she sighed. "Its like looking in a mirror and seeing a different version of yourself looking back. In this reality, the Time lords are everything we are not proud of. They are like us, they have our power over time and space, but where we explore the universe, they destroy it. In their reality, they have built an empire built on the blood of millions." The Time Lady with the others pitching in telling the Minbari counterparts of their alternate reality selves. It seemed that the alternate Time Lords history followed the Earth - Minbari war to the point where they developed time travel and faster than light drives, but there the differences changed. The humans of that reality had changed, and they realised their gifts and what had happened, how they had come so close to oblivion...they had almost been exterminated, their species wiped out without a qualm. It had been a close call, and they had brought it on themselves. The Humans of that reality geared their technology for war, and they started conquering each species they discovered, and when they became masters of time and space, they started entering other galaxies, destroying each race they discovered after charting them temporally, then moving on and carrying on with the same pattern, and any powerful race found themselves placed inside a time loop, or their solar systems were destroyed when their sun or planet exploded, or was converted into a black hole.

Delenn listened with horror as the Time lords described how their alternate selves waited, watched, and then struck out when the war between the Shadows and the Vorlons had exploded out of all proportion, and both races found themselves exterminated by the Time lords, their ships turned to ruins, their ascended forms extinguished by the Time lords power, and then the inhabitants of the Milky way galaxy found their jump engines destroyed, their planets ravaged, and they were exterminated. For the Narns, the Centauri, and the Minbari, the fates were worse. They were still alive, living as slaves to the Time lords, forced to atone for their crimes. The planets were gutted, and the three species found themselves living on radioactive ruins of worlds, and forced to toil in slave mines on other worlds. Vorlon and Z'ha dum were ravaged for information, and became the centres of power along with Minbari, Narn, and Centauri Prime.

The Time lords description of the conditions of the alternate universe were augmented by pictures showing Vorlon and Shadow vessels, burnt or melted by the firepower of the TARDIS machines operated by the alternate Time lords, then the image showed Centauri Prime, usually a bright world of blue, showing almost golden landmasses, becoming darker as the seas became increasingly polluted, and the clouds above the planet became darker with pollution.

Narn was no better, and the once beautiful and lush world, now a red arid wasteland, was now worse, as nuclear and antimatter explosions lit across the surface of the planet.

Minbar...Delenn felt her heart clench and her soul scream out as the Valleria station, the mightiest space station in the Minbari federation was destroyed, battered by the firepower. It should've been impossible to destroy the station...it was protected by the strongest gravimetric shields in the Minbari federation, and nothing short of a Vorlon or Shadow attack should be able to destroy it, but it would take time to pierce the shields.

The image changed, and this time all the Minbari felt tears prick in their eyes as they watched Minbari, hollow faced and red eyed, clothes tattered as they were forced to work, whipped and beaten by human guards.

" Enough! Turn it off!" Delenn shouted hysterically, unable and unwilling to watch anymore.

The Time Lords obliged, and the screen turned off.

The president allowed the Minbari to regain their composure before he spoke once more. " Now you see what kind of threat is looming over us. Our alternate selves were just mastering time and space when they discovered the damage the Vorlons caused, and they have prepared themselves."

Delenn, stil shaken by what she had just seen, couldn't focus her thoughts. She had just seen her people enslaved by an alternate version of the human race, and they were saying they were preparing themselves.

" You said you had sealed the hole, how can they travel here?" She asked.

The Time Lady pinched her nose. " As I explained, the breach left cracks, fractures in the universe...all our alternate selves will need to do, is use their Time vortex and apply pressure to the universe. They can teleport matter, the same as we can, and send warfleets into different parts of our universe so then they can establish their empire here. They see this universe as the perfect place to begin new work, to find untapped territories. The fact there is a time vortex here in this reality, and TARDISes means there is no shortage of opportunity for them. When we discovered their work, and what they were planning to do, we sealed off the walls of reality to that universe, we closed them permanently, but that doesn't mean WE, us in this universe, can not traverse in different universes. If they have access to different realities, then the evil Time lords will not be stopped, and they will subjugate the whole of creation. They must be stopped."


In the monitoring station outside the solar system, the Time lords monitoring the cracks the Vorlons had left behind after their temporal fusion, and one of the technicians, becoming exhausted suddenly jolted, knocking over a cup of coffee aside when the alarms sounded.

One of the specialists leant forward, " What is it?"

" The cracks are getting bigger, the alternates are accelerating the collapse. But then that can also mean they're mass transfering TARDISes into our reality, but I'm still reading the transduction barriers as holding." The technician replied.

" Inform the High Council."


The order was sent with the reports sent to the homeworld.

" Are these readings correct?" The President asked desperately.

The Science councilor nodded gravely, " They've been checked and double checked 23 times already, sir. If these readings are confirmed, then the alternates are increasing their pressure on the transduction fields. What concerns me is why they're even bothering to knock holes when they could just as easily travel back through time when the hole was open properly, but if they did that then their fleets would be caught by the Killers and the Vorlons, but they could still lay down seeds and funnels to pour their forces into this reality."

The President closed his eyes. " What about other parts of the universe, anything there?"

The councilors' grimace said it all, " The temporal and spatial anomalies in other galaxies are becoming more unstable, and observatories are saying the graviton and chroniton levels are shooting through the roof."

" So they could use the rifts and tears in our universe, if their existence is constant in ours, then they could use those same rifts to enter this reality through them?" The President said clearly.

" Yes, its a possibility," The councilor replied but he hastened to make certain another possibility, " but it could also be a ploy. They know our response time to invasions from other realities is rapid, and they could be doing that as a ploy, but it could also be a side effect of what they're doing now. How are the Minbari taking the news their deadly enemy is nothing but a flea on a newspaper?" The councilor asked, deciding to change the subject.

The president snorted at the analogy. " The Minbari are stunned. Their people have been taught over the last 1,000 species they are superior to everyone, they believe they are special because of being a space faring power for so long, but their not special. The Minbari are not the only race in the cosmos, and its conceited and arrogant for them to believe anything of the sort." The president frowned thoughtfully, " I think when they saw the images of the Vorlon and Shadow vessels being destroyed, their great protectors and adversaries destroyed, their planet turned into a slave mine made them see just how we ourselves could have fallen if we hadn't changed our tack."


The alternate Earth was the same as the one of the target reality, but there were differences between them. Their Earth was no longer polluted, but then again since there were worthless alien worlds out there, shouldn't their worlds be polluted to maintain the Time lord war efforts, which were becoming more and more constant.

The buildings were harshly built, tall, almost like daggers stabbing into the skies of Earth, and there were numerous defence platforms, and in orbiting battlefleets bristling with weapons. The people themselves appeared just as arrogant as the Centauri, only the Alternate reality Time Lords were more deserving of their arrogance. The Centauri had raided an alien ship for its technology in their atomic age, using it to create an empire and become a dominant force in the Milky Way. Indeed, in this reality, you couldn't walk down a street on Earth, not unless you wanted to see alien slaves chained up and leashed by Time lord masters, and children would often poke them and throw sticks and stones at them, playing the game and continuing the cycle of xenophobia.

The alternate Time lords shared the same history as their prime counterparts, they had been sent back through time at the eve of the Battle of the Line, and they'd developed a similar civilisation to their real world antagonists, but that was where the similarities ended. Their time travel facilities were not as refined as the ones of the prime reality, something the prime reality Time lords were more than aware of, but the Alternate Time lords had time scoop technology, and they used this to draw out the most violent entities of their reality, capture them and send them off as cannon fodder for their never ceasing war effort. Unity is strength, one of their gospels, as was their motto. We survive. The alternate Time lords had an army of augments, more superior than the primates that were currently ravaging the Milky Way in the prime reality, and these augments were armed with temporal and antimatter weapons, and they were already feared and hated by many species.

The alternate Time lords had already forced dozens of potential realities into their universe's timeline, using their time vortex to alter and manipulate history to their advantage. They constantly altered the histories of various races, making them weaker because they didn't make a fundamental choice and seized an opportunity that would have repercussions for aeons to come.

The President of the alternate Time lords, a woman with a harsh and hardened face, her eyes greedy and malicious, leant forward in the council room. " What is the progress of the reality crossings?" Her voice was metallic, grating.

One of the councilors swallowed, trying to hide his fear. The alternate Time lords did not have a Great Link, but their telepathic abilities were focused on the dark side of telepathy; inducing nightmare, using psychic powers to constrict the muscles of the body, and breaking bones, that sort of thing. The Councilor had heard rumours that the president herself, after assassinating the previous president because he was a weak minded fool, was an augment herself, and he didn't want to try her enhanced temper.

" We're applying more and more pressure on the vortex, Madam President," the councilor reported carefully, hiding his discomfort of having those cold green eyes focused on him. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the smirks and sneers, the anticipation he would be spit roasted for failure on the faces of the other councilors. " The alternate Time lords are changing their reality quotient to fight back, using temporal fusion supplied by their universes TARDISes, and they've locked us out of other realities."

The President did not reply for a minute, but it was enough for the room to start to shake, literally, with the force of her rage. When she spoke, it wasn't just the unfortunate councilor who was trembling with fear.

" Why didn't you despatch infiltrator TARDISes into the various realities so then we could go round the alternates defences?" She asked, her voice quiet. Deadly.

The councilor shivered in fear, guessing he had already been condemned, if the telltale signs of the glow of the presidents gauntlet were any indication...

" We tried to send an infiltrator squadron of 23 TARDISes with full troop deployment to reality 7745, but the alternate Time lords have already sealed the realities off. The alternate Time lords-"

The President jumped up with a shriek, not unlike a large raven. Her eyes, burning with malice and rage, burnt the other members of the council, branding them with her white hot temper into their seats.

" STOP CALLING THEM TIME LORDS!" She roared. " THEY ARE NOTHING LIKE US, WE ARE THE SUPERIORS. WE CONTROL AN EMPIRE OF GALAXIES, AND THEIR EMPIRE IS SMALL IN COMPARISON, LINKED BY ONLY A FEW STARGATES! OUR PROGENITOR PROJECT WAS TO FORM HUMAN EMPIRES IN NEARLY EVERY GALAXY IN THE UNIVERSE! THEY'RE NOTHING LIKE US, UNDERSTOOD?"

The president sat down, and they proceeded with the rest of the meeting, but aside from threatening each other, very little was accomplished.


In the prime reality, John Sheridan, Supreme Commander of the Time lord fleets, was walking through the corridors of the building in the Council segment of the Capital city that had been given to the Minbari Grey Council, and following him were two bodyguards. Starfleet had changed greatly in the last 5,000 years, and considering most of his fellows had retired, either to travel the universe for themselves, or simply because they were tired of constantly following the chain of command in the military and exploration services, John Sheridan had become the Supreme Commander of the fleets, and although the job had its moments of rewarding service, Sheridan often wondered why he bothered staying in the same job century after century, regeneration after regeneration, when he could retire and return to a simple life.

His parents had passed on many years ago, and although Sheridan himself was a father, grandfather, great grandfather, great-great-great grandfather, he still found cause to remain in the space service.

He had plans, if he survived, to retire from the role of Supreme Commander, and pass it on to whomever wanted the job. It was unlikely it would be Susan Ivanova, or Marcus Cole, since the two of them had left Earth in a TARDIS, and were now traversing time and space.

Sheridan was nervous about the task at hand, and the first thing he would have to see to was the Minbari. Sheridan remembered the Earth-Minbari war, remembered how brutal the Minbari had been, how uncompromising their forces had been in seeking to wipe out humanity over a mistake. The merging of the Minbari minds had given the Time lords some perspective into the crime and stupidity of Captain Michael Janowski, but there was nothing they could do about it, not unless they wanted to erase the last 50 centuries, and Sheridan wasn't sure if that would be a good idea. They would still have to deal with the Shadows and the duplicity and manipulative Vorlons, the apathetic First Ones, and they would have to remain anchored to one time and one galaxy, something the Mind of the Great link refused to even contemplate.

He approached the door of the Grey council, mentally composing himself as he prepared to walk in. He knew the Minbari called him Starkiller for destroying their flagship, but the Supreme Commander did not regret that action in the slightest. If he hadn't then the Black star would have destroyed more human ships and killed thousands.

He would never regret that decision for the rest of his shortened life, and the Minbari had better adapt to that quickly, if they wanted to live through this. Sheridan knew from talks with the Council that the Minbari knew about the danger of the invasion from their mirror opposites, that Minbar in that reality had been invaded, the people slaughtered and enslaved without mercy, but they were woefully unprepared.

Sheridan had the job of being the one who whipped them into shape, but that didn't mean he had to like the job. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Sheridan walked into the room.

What do you think of the enemy?