In 2092, humanity made Contact with an alien civilisation.
For almost fifty years an object had been tracked on
course for Earth from the direction of Orion. It was a
Gate - one end of wormhole accelerated to relativistic
speeds and rapidly decelerated before reaching its
destination.
Linking two points in space and time, the wormhole
was just the latest part of a inter-galactic network
that connected thousands of galaxies, and spanned billions
of years in time. Relativistic time dilation meant that
many wormhole gates were separated in time as well as
space, but all connected together into a single One Time.
Our benefactors were the Xarn. They brought their
religion of the Mother Goddess, and also technology
and knowledge beyond anything humanity currently had.
Their triple prowed starships became a symbol of
culture, civilisation and technology. The culture
shock for humanity was terrible, but we could have
survived.
Except the Xarn lied to us.
The Wrong Side
As we embraced the Xarn, and worked with them and
learnt from them, so the Xarn were at war. In 2105
we learnt the truth - the truth that the Xarn were
about to die, to be wiped out by the Scree.
And the Scree would come for whoever stood by the
side of the Xarn.
In 2109 the Scree came through the wormhole. The
two Xarn cruisers in orbit around Earth died. The
Scree seeded Earth with a plague, which killed
eight billion people. The half a billion left alive
on Earth were made slaves of the Scree.
The rest of humanity has fled into the One Time,
as refugees, beggars, criminals and slaves. But
humanity has gone to the stars.
