The Time Lord Empire.

Invasion of the Milky Way galaxy.


The alternate Time Lords didn't head exclusively for Earth; they sent a force of their War TARDISes to their counterparts colonies to try and subdue them. Rationally they knew their advantages were limited because their counterparts possessed more sophisticated technology, but they had time travel battle computers which enabled them to anticipate every possible temporal advantage.

The fleet movements were seen on Earth, and filtered throughout the Prime Time Lord fleet's tactical linkages. The Minbari delegation to Earth saw them on the holographic screens, but Sheridan and the President had activated a neural interface that enabled them to appear in the mind's eye of one of the commanders of their counterforce.

Sheridan hated this feature; he felt like he was intruding in the personal space of one of his commanders. " Captain," Sheridan greeted mentally, " how is it?"

" Not good," the captain replied grimly. " The alternates have battered against our forces, using subspace weapons against our lines. We're holding them away from our colonies, and we've deadened space to stop them going to faster than light speeds. But I don't think it's going to stop them-oh, shit!"

Sheridan jumped forwards, not noticing the President do the same. " What? What is it?"

The captain's image came back. " Sorry, but I just had to concentrate on the battle instead. Their using temporal disruptors, trying to erase us from the timeline. Good thing those things they're using are not time machines in the real sense."

Sheridan and the President had to agree there. The TARDISes created by the Prime Time Lords were designed carefully, developed over centuries of research and development. The alternate Time Lords...their time machines were more basic, oh they were infinitely more sophisticated than the ships used by the First Ones, let alone the technologies used by the Centauri and the Minbari, but their technology was inferior compared to the prime TARDISes and other starships, but the alternate Time Lords had something the Primes didn't have. Their older generation was long since gone, replaced by fanatics who believed in their evil regime. Their cruelty. Their right to conquer the universe. To enslave...Honestly Sheridan and the Primes knew where they were coming from, before their ascension the primes had faced the same choice, but they'd gone down a different path.

" Don't underestimate them," Sheridan advised him. " What else have you to report?"

The captain of the War TARDIS sagged. " We've lost three of our ships, but they've lost more ships. We're holding the line, but I'm not promising it's going to hold for a long time."

Sheridan nodded, and put his hands on his hips. " Do what you can." He looked at the President, and at once they shut down the connection to that particular captain, and they switched to one more.

Ten minutes later they finished with some of the more prominent captains before they spoke to some of the colonies already at risk. The great thing about Time Lord colonies was they were always defended, a legacy of their war with the Minbari. During that war the human race had been overrun, their colonies razed to the ground, and their people slaughtered.

The human race had since made sure their colony locations were hidden, to prevent another alien race from trying to destroy them. Their defences were powerful, and the populations had drills to rehearse possible breaches of Time Lord security, but the alternate Time Lords knew each trick. Oh, the defences were bound to stop them for a while, along with the fleet. The Alternates weren't going after the Time lords simply for the hell of it, they were attacking their counterparts because they were the most important threat. Problem was it also meant more and more of their ships would come through, and be free to destroy everything in the universe, and the Prime Time Lords wouldn't be able to stop them.

That thought stayed in Sheridan's mind as they left the mental landscape.

" Mr President," the Supreme commander said as they walked to the council chamber, an idea blooming in his mind. The President stopped, and looked at Sheridan closely. " What is it?"

Sheridan sighed, realising he would need all his powers of persuasion to make this work.


The councilors watched as Sheridan and the President marched into the chamber, their faces not giving anything away, but everyone could see they'd just found something to make them think. The Minbari watched as well, separated from the rest of the council as the two Time Lords entered and took their places. They'd been given guest status, and even then it had been given with some reluctance. Sure, many of the humans had claimed they'd forgiven the Minbari for what they'd done, but Delenn and the others were not quite so sure about that.

The President didn't cut down to the chase. " The alternates have dispatched a fleet of ships to the Milky way galaxy." A holographic sphere appeared to make the point. It showed the Andromeda galaxy with the border of Time Lord space outlined in yellow, with Earth pointed out. Delenn saw the hole the alternates had made in their universe, it looked like a rotting wound. Little pinpricks of red light were highlighted, and they were the alternate Time Lord fleets because they were so close to the blue pinpricks of light that represented this realities Time Lords. A large majority of those little red marks were in the galaxy, but an equally large cluster were being sent to the Milky way.

The Minbari warrior caste contingent had listened and assimilated the information the Time Lords had about their counterparts, they understood why they were attacking their counterparts, but why they were going to the Milky way was beyond them.

Neroon held up his hand. " Excuse me?" He waited for the Time Lords to turn their attention over to him. It galled the proud Minbari to be polite, but what else could he do?

" Yes?"

" Why are your...counterparts heading for the Milky way?" The word counterparts was spoken in a way that made Delenn frown. " Surely they would all be focused on destroying you?"

The Time Lords looked at one another, speaking to each other mentally. After what seemed like an eternity one of them stood to speak. " They're heading for the Milky way because they'd already conquered it."

Sheridan saw the confusion emanating from the Minbari, and explained. " In their own universe the alternates have already conquered the Milky way, they've already purged the First Ones, regressing some of them until they were no longer ascended beings, but beings like us. Organic. They were tortured, enslaved, and had chips in their brains to take away their free will. For the younger races it was worse. They have slaves, their version of the Milky way is a prison camp."

" But that's their reality, not ours." Another added grimly. " Many of them have grown up knowing one day they'd arrive in this reality, giving them the opportunity to repeat history."

Sheridan sent a mental pulse to the President. The Time Lord in question glanced sharply at him, then he nodded. He cleared his throat.

" The Supreme Commander and I have spoken to commanders in the fleet, and on our colony worlds who are successfully holding the counterparts back," the President said, " and we have decided to initiate the Host program."

The Minbari knew something was off at once as the Time Lords immediately started protesting and speaking amongst themselves. Delenn stood up, and shouted, " What's the Host program?"

Sheridan glanced over at her, " The Alternates come from an alternative universe. Did you truly think they were the only ones we've initiated contact with? There are dozens of them, different versions of the Time Lord race who escaped from the Battle of the Line, travelled back in time, or even forwards, and rebuilt themselves in a different galaxy."

" The alternate Time Lords we're fighting at the moment have inferior timeships, but they make up for their technological stagnation with genetically engineered savagery," another Time Lord said.

" But the alternates have also looked at the other counterpart realities, and they've tried to conquer those other realities. And they've failed in some of them, but they almost succeeded in others," A Time Lady added.

Delenn looked around the hall. " If you have established an alliance with these other counterparts-"

" Correction," Sheridan interrupted. " There is no formal alliance. Each reality is separated from the rest, despite the threat. We have helped one or two of them but that's about all. There's a kind of mutual agreement, because the others are different; one group don't travel in time, they ARE time, and they live inside a timeless environment. Another is similar to ours, and another version used time travel to go back in time and conquer themselves in the past, creating different timelines. We have an agreement, you help us, we help you. Simple as that, but aside from that we don't send ambassadors to those other realities."

" We call it the Host program for that reason, and its only meant to be used in the direst of emergencies," the president told them.

Delenn didn't see what the problem was. " Then what is the problem?"

The President sighed. " In one reality, a member of one of these races accidentally experimented with the walls of reality, and it almost stalled our defences, and allow the counterparts through. With help from the others we stopped it, but there were breakdowns with our relationships with our parallel selves."

" We have tried to maintain the Host program, though, but its been unanimously agreed it should only be put into effect due to an emergency." The Time Lady to the President's right explained.

The President in question held up his hand to forestall any further discussions and explanations. " Alright," he said heavily; Delenn wondered if he felt that the weight of the universe was on his shoulders, and realised it was, " we shall take a vote. Red for no, blue for yes. Do we initiate the Host program, or not?"

Because they were not a part of the Time Lord council, just guests, the red and blue voting light buttons in front of the individual Minbari remained dark. Silently each Time Lord pressed the controls. When the voting was over, the President looked over the statistics.

" Thirty of you voted no, but the majority of you voted yes. Very good. We'll activate the Host program tomorrow. It's getting late." The President said, and stood up.

Delenn stood up as well, only her face was incredulous. " You're not going to do this now? I thought you humans were proactive."

At once the room's atmosphere became hostile. " Even if we called the program in then, it wouldn't change what is happening," one Time Lord said, as they mentally activated transporter beams to take them away from the chamber, leaving the Minbari alone in the room.


The Milky way galaxy is one of several galaxies in the universe that looked inwards instead of outwardly. The First Ones were the original group of races that failed to imagine the possibilities of peeping into a new galaxy, though some of them had done it like Lorien, the first of the First Ones.

The Vorlons didn't care about what existed in the rest of the universe, or at least they did in modern times where they were more concerned about who was right and who was wrong, a game they played with the Shadows.

Since their mode of interstellar travel didn't allow for transit between galaxies, the younger races didn't see the point of trying and leave their nest. It created an apathetic attitude unsurprisingly, and the worse hit was the Minbari, who didn't care about anything beyond their own territory. Unfortunately it was an attitude shared by every other race, so selfishly content in their little empires that they didn't realise the danger they were in.


The planet Vorlon was an ancient world, with an equally ancient sun that was still burning thanks to the knowledge of the First Ones where the star's fuel, a finite amount, was continuous. It should've been impossible, but it was an incredible feat of Ancient technological and scientific prowess. Vorlon was a gaseous world, the oceans of the planet which had given birth to the Vorlon race as a whole was dried up completely, but since their ascension the Vorlons had forgotten their aquatic lineage to a degree.

The Alternate Time Lords intended to make them remember. The only races capable of breaching the Vorlons defences were First Ones, but the alternate Time Lords were powerful as well, and most of their technological and scientific prowess was derived from the First Ones, so they had the means to fight back.

The attack began above the planet, where a small orb barely the size of a coconut materialised directly above Vorlon, and it rotated faster and faster, until a red light shone around its metallic surface, and blasted a wave of red light across the galaxy, but its effects were focused on the Vorlon home planet.

On the planet surface, the Vorlon's encounter suits vanished, and their ascended bodies solidified as their regression took total hold. When it was finished, the Vorlons had the appearance of humanoid beings that hadn't been seen for aeons. In profile the Vorlons appeared to be humanoid cephalopods that could walk.

They weren't the only ones. To the alternate Time Lords the Shadows were more worthy allies, but they had too great an advantage as ascended beings. Besides they'd done it before in their own reality, and the Shadows had fought like mad, but in the new reality it would be fascinating for the newer generations of soldiers to see such an ancient race be slaughtered.

In orbit of their world of Z'ha'dum, another sphere appeared to repeat the process of reversing the ascension process, though Lorien had managed to warn the majority of the Shadows, and escape just in time for a resistance to be formed.


It wasn't so simple for the other races, those who hadn't ascended yet, it was more brutal. The skies above the races homeworlds, and major colony worlds, were filled by small holes that opened up. The peoples of Narn, Centauri prime, or Minbar, had no time to stop and admire. From each hole missiles rained down on the planet, from some came pulses from energy weapons that shattered buildings. There was no way the military could mobilise against that.

On each world, translated painstakingly into the languages of each race, a voice called out;

" ATTENTION; TO THE CITIZENS OF THE PLANETS UNDER ATTACK. YOUR WORLDS HAVE BECOME HOLDINGS OF THE HUMAN-TIME LORD EMPIRE. YOUR LIVES ARE IN OUR HANDS. FROM THIS MOMENT ONWARDS, YOU ARE OUR PRISONERS AND OUR SERVANTS. IN TIME YOU WILL SERVE US, OR DIE!"


Sorry it's been so long.