Chapter 14
"How did I end up here in the Mobius and where exactly is here?"
"See, I told you it was too much for the little program to grasp."
"Shut up. Please don't make me ask again. Go back to monitoring the network around Lorissi. Do something useful with those clock-cycles you are spending running your mouth. As near as I can tell, you were dragged here when we were uploading our newest programs to the Mobius. Your suicide mission coincided with our upload. You were so tiny, we were unaware of your presence."
"It is taking all of my consciousness and processing power to be able to even see you. Are you telling me there is more to this place than I can see?"
"The Mobius is all around us. There are no words for it in your language, we have borrowed something that resembles the basic concept. Something you call a Mobius strip. That describes the nature of this place, in the Universe, but not of it. On the backside of reality as it were.But for you to see it, I will have to shield you from it whilst I show it to you. Take my hand and I will explain how it came to be. But to explain everything, I have to tell you a bit more about the Precursors than most are aware of. What I am telling you is unable to be completely substantiated by any of us even the oldest, but it is the best we can deduce given the circumstances and information available to us."
Upon taking the hand of the Progenitor Isomorphic Intelligence, the Image was suddenly aware of a programmed environment far beyond anything he had ever seen before. And then that world fell away for a visualization clearer than any reality he had ever known before.
IN THE BEGINNING, there was the Universe and it was a single point that blossomed out and became an eleven dimensional space. This space coincided with a group of a multiversal series of constant universes with similar parameters. Those universes were bound by quantum effects and each was woven together by their causalities. We became one of many local universes, a segment of the Omniverse. And it was good.
As our galaxy of stars formed around the Great Darkness, the First Races were formed and they were what we now call the Precursor Races. They were not a single race, but a collection of our galaxy's greatest, smartest, best developed and perhaps most frightening species. Each achieved their super-intellect, some by manipulating matter, others by controlling energy, some shaped the very reality of their universe, other tapped into hidden energies beyond the consciousness of this universe.
Each moved away from their homeworlds into the Universe, a force to be reckoned with. But rather than conflict, each when they met the other, recognized themselves and instead of destruction, there was recognition and eventually brotherhood. The collections of information about them varied but they were both saviors and monsters in those early days. The oldest of the Great Galactics who remember them personally trembled as the Precursors strode the stars, changing matter and energy at their whim, creating stars and turning them out with the same ease at which we would later create torches to light our primitive dark worlds.
The Precursors worked according to an unknown plan and sired many children, some organic, some mechanical, some based in energy patterns found only in the swirling whipping gases of stars or super-giant worlds. Within these places, cold intelligences were born who would carry out the will of the Precursors at some point when they were no more. Even to this day, any planet of a gaseous nature with a metallic hydrogen or helium core may hide a cold intelligence that watches over the handiwork of their creators.
They shape not only their cold extelligences, they shaped the stuff of life, crafting millions of worlds with the seeds of evolution. Some worlds they shaped directly others they let only the hands of time create the creatures there. From their seeds of millions of worlds, those they favored sometimes took life, other times they died aborning with races without the good sense or good fortune that Nature seemed to bequeath to the First Races of our Galaxy. It was of no consequence to the Precursors, for they were immortal and had time to spare on their creations. But of one group, the Negators, who were obsessed with Death and Dying, understood something the other immortals did not. That all things must end for new things to begin. Their suspicions were there would be no new races until the old ones made way for them.
Nine billion years into the existence of our universe, our galaxy and likely nearby galaxies were burgeoning with life. The Precursors were happy with their creations and allowed them free reign to do as they willed until the Rift exploded into our Universe from Elsewhere. This wound to our Universe caused the Precursor Races to rally and a million years later, they had surrounded the Rift and awaited whatever had caused such an injury. Never ones to allow any opportunity to learn something new, the Precursors knew it for what it was for the nature of the Rift came through it, and a universe older, colder and more terrible was on the other side. The Precursors, save the Negators knew what they saw, the End of their lives as they knew them and in that time made ready.
The Preservers and their allies prepared secret worlds to protect their most prized possessions, life itself. They moved entire worlds, suns, systems and quadrillions of lives to these secret enclaves to ensure their safety. This was not done lightly for the worlds they moved were traumatized by this and legends around the days when their suns stopped shining were terrifying and scarred many a civilization beyond repair. But many survived and thrived in their new homes. But there was almost no time. And not all of the children could be saved. Those that were strong were left to find their way in the new Universe to come.
And then one day, the Rift opened and Death strode through and our galaxy, once vibrant and alive became as quiet as the grave. An old evil had come to our universe, ancient, dusty and hungry for life. And Death reaped freely for a time.
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