VI - The Age of the Nodelines - Sci-Fi

The labor of generations opened the wealth of the solar system to us, and beyond.

Heedless of danger, we went forth like a breath exhaled from the sun. Some ships were crewed by the elder races, who could endure hundreds of years in transit. Then there were the generation ships of the flickers, where entire family lines were born, lived, worked, had children, and died below decks. All manner of groups sought to escape the unity of the core, or were exiled for not fitting in to the new revolutionary mold.

Efforts to reverse-engineer the destroyed hypergate sent out a pulse of energy, and drew the attention of both sides of a raging interstellar war. Machines calling themselves the Unbound offered us greetings of friendship, and the miracle of nodespace travel… which we would need to fight off their conquering sisters, the Bound, and their Infinite Empire.

Autumnal soldiers and Kigawan warriors stood shoulder-to-shoulder around alien suns with lifeforms we had barely met, in the heady excitement of a war against impossible odds. Only the discovery of a relic starship christened the Liberation allowed a band of rebels to rise up, rally allies, and finally strike a fatal blow against the Imperial **** shields... including the one that had been placed over Autumn herself.

The Liberation War was over, and having tasted the bitter fruit of powerlessness, many races, including the Ten Tribes, swore to never let it happen again.

Unwittingly following the path that had led the Bound to seek universal dominion, we rushed to use the jump points connecting every system to explore, exploit, and conquer. In the great game of star nations, we proved ourselves in a hundred far-flung wars. Only the elder races recalled times of peace. Many of them took on the burden of remembering, and helped inspire a galactic truce.

Leaving our sector a wild frontier; still profoundly dangerous, but teeming with opportunity. Any starship could ply her fortunes on the nodelines, striking riches or meeting an untimely demise. Into the gap left by the end of warfare flowed traders and travellers of all kinds. Connections of commerce and newly-formed romances among the stars made it impossible to go back to being enemies.

In time, we formed the Galactic Federation and accepted aliens as our own.