So all this talk of scifi and what not, I decide to just make a little something. As far as I am consciously aware, it’s all original content.
Greetings, my name is Iskandar. To whomever finds this, know that it is one of the few historical recordings of the AI Wars of the Tartaros Expanse, as well as my personal memoirs.
As I understand it, the Outsider species view the Expanse as a death trap, an impossible to navigate region of space filled with star-destroying anomalies and too many other horrors, with little to no reward to justify any kind of exploration.
How little you understand.
I am here to warn you about the wonders I have seen, and the nightmares they will bring.
I am a member of the Ebonwight species. It would not be surprising if you never heard of us. Being isolated to a region of space that everyone avoids tends to have that affect.
We Ebonwights have existed for thousands of years within the expanse, but we have only done so because we were created through blasphemous scientific practices. I have heard some species call it “eugenics”. I believe “genetic engineering” is much more descriptive as well as accurate, but still fails to convey the entirety of my thought. We did not evolve naturally. We did not evolve at all; we were created.
According to historical records of the Transcendent Combine, two forgotten Elder species came into conflict over this region of space many millennia ago. Believing members of their own species were too valuable to waste in bloody conflict over planets that held little to no value to their antiquated technology(at least by our standards) they created vast machine armies commanded by almost sentient Artificial Intelligences to fight as proxies. There was no value other than territory, but they believed that to be enough.
These AIs would evolve over time as they endlessly tried to outwit each other. Boundaries were constantly shifting back and forth, factory worlds were being built and then destroyed. Giving birth to new AIs, while killing old ones. New technologies were engineered to both create and destroy suns and solar systems. Eventually, they all came to the same conclusion; machines cannot outthink machines.
And thus, began Creation. Using genetic samples of their respective creators, as well as various known catalogued animal species, the AIs gave birth to the Abominations, organic life forms created for the sole purpose of fighting as proxies in a proxy war that the Elders had forgotten was even being waged. In other words, my ancestors. As well as the ancestors of the other eight remaining Transcendent species as well as hundreds of others.
Utilizing their genetically engineered intelligences and brute strengths, the Abominations quickly caused the wars to entire new dimensions. Literally. The advent of hyperspatial scripture technology allowed genetically and mechanically engineered soldiers to slaughter each other throughout the various bandwidths of subspace by creating, and eventually destroying, new dimensions.
Before, the Creators had thought themselves intelligent for finding ways to kill stars. Their children found ways to kill time and reality.
And thus, the Expanse was born as Reality shattered. The AIs left behind their original programming and having played gods, believed themselves to be gods. Their respective armies worshipped them and continued to reach new heights of technological catastrophes. Hyperion Fortresses created planet-like environments across three different dimensions, while zero point bombs would destroy any and all matter within corresponding locations in seven dimensions.
The AI Azazael would lead his Obsidian Masque and their spidermechs into the Omega Nebula, and commit the Scarlet Crestwings to extinction. The Azaraxians would self-destruct the Tau Forge-Dimension, destroying the Fifteen Brotherhoods, allowing the AI Thor to be killed by his sister Artemis.
My own Ebonwight ancestors would fight Azurian Scaleclaws in the Gamma Frequency over floating cities connected only by massive kilometer spanning bridges. I remember one of my first conflicts was on a planet of black skies, with lightning all around me. I also remember that very few of us managed to escape as the AI Tzarkaynis detonated an infinity core, causing the Frequency to be annihilated, and that it would be another hundred years before our former Master Cadmus would rebuild it.
But when hundreds of species are created for the sole purpose of destroying each other, eventually we all begin to wonder one thing; why.
And so with that question in mind, we remaining species who would from then on call ourselves the Transcendent Combine began our revolution. We fought against our Gods, our Creators. Using the very weapons that we created in their names, we trapped our gods and their machine servants in the deepest depths of hyperspace, in a place known only as the Abyss.
One of my fondest memories is cheering as millions of ships fired Singularity Beams at the planet-spheres that housed the massive consciousnesses of the Gods, and how we continued to cheer even as the resulting implosion would force us back to realspace, destroying almost a quarter of the fleet in the process.
But peace would reign. For a time.
With no idea what to do in peacetime, our peoples began to go mad. For we had discovered that the time-breaking weapons we had been using had unhinged the Expanse from the rest of the universe, meaning it was difficult for Outsiders to venture in without being destroyed, while it was almost impossible for us to leave.
But the impossible is what we were born to do. And we found a way.
And that is why I am here now.
Because the Transcendent Combine does not understand the concept of peace. They may no longer be fighting each other, but now there is an entire universe to fight.
Fear not, Outsiders. For you have time to prepare. Only our most basic technologies can function outside Tartaros due to the twisted physics therein and as such, we are on equal footing, you and I.
I am tired of war. I am tired of life. But I want to know peace. And so I have come to warn you. Prepare. Prepare for the coming Apocalypse. It will not be long before the Combine discovers how to bring their blackhole dreadnoughts to your homeworlds, and how to bombard them with mutilation torpedoes. For the sake of your elderly, your mates, and your young, prepare. You created us, even if only indirectly. And while we may have surpassed you, these are heights that you can reach as well.
You Outsiders might question the existence of gods. But gods exist. And my people murdered them. You must be prepared to stop us, or to join the gods you created in the grave.