Category: Nano Stream Story

The Galatian Empire, like most of its peers, is peaceful. However, the Fell Wars that split one-third of heaven forced the creation of some truly terrifying weapons. Few advancements demonstrate this more clearly than what common folk refer to as “Zatcha” weapons, like the Zatcha pistol and Zatcha blade.

The name “Zatcha” is a mispronunciation of the original Leng’gui terms “Zed” and “Chi,” meaning Chemical Spirit. This translation does not adequately describe the extraordinary threat of this brand of heaven’s arsenal. Based, in part, on Leng’gui technology designed to provide safe and harmless travel of the soul to and from alternate dimensions, weapons built on these principles separate the soul from its targets. Advanced forms of these tools, which are highly restricted, are capable of trapping that soul within Chi Dasa stones for transport or virtually indefinite storage.

A select few among the highest officials in the Leng’gui Consulate and Galatian Navy believe that Zatcha technology might be used to erase a soul from existence – a crime so dire that it is both sacrilege and blasphemy against the Creator to use it. Research into such knowledge is forbidden at the highest levels, and any semblance of such a tool or research being conducted is met with fierce and swift response by heavenly forces. Recently, however, lay persons in Galat and Li have whispered rumors that this technology was being researched on Sigma 95 and may have something to do with the reason the moon of Gethsemane around Huan’Hai has been quarantined by angelic forces since the Huan’Hai Incident.

A replica of the original tablets found on the moon world of Miseo was recently moved to the Museum of Li Antiquities on Galat 5 as a testament to the extraordinary events collectively known as the Huan’hai Incident. Remarkably, the original tablets showed extensive corrosion and aging, although the story of their recent creation defies conventional explanation. The originals, once in the possession of the Leng’gui Consulate, contained a record that was a guarded secret, but is now revealed as a journal of the hasty flight that led to the miraculous reemergence of living, populated moons in the Li system. Visitors to the museum on Galat 5 who stop by this exhibit are left scratching their heads in bewilderment at the paradox represented by the age and story of these artifacts.

The chief author of the tablets, Averil Whey, lives on Miseo and tells of the harrowing escape by members of the Storge’s crew from a bizarre, collapsing time bubble. His story, filled with details about ships and crew thought lost thousands of years ago due to a catastrophic failure of critical systems aboard the ancient freighter, SS Thelema, remains stunning proof of a fantastic universe of possibilities.

During the early years of Galatian robotics and expansion into other Galat planets, the need for automated assistants to perform daily tasks became so commonplace that virtually everyone was familiar with, had or used an A.P.A. unit. It was designed to have replaceable appendages that supplemented a wide variety of purposes and was powered by one tiny Aetherite core that needed periodic maintenance about once every six hundred cycles. This mechanical wonder was in use throughout Galatia and served functions both complex and basic such as geological surveyor, lab assistant, and restaurant waiter. Although not tied to the Logos AI mainframes, this bot’s highly trainable but simple-minded intelligence core has made it a valuable tool throughout the empire.

Galatian and some Leng’gui propulsion systems allow FTL travel using an advanced piece of technology known as the ILAD core or Interdimensional Luminal Aetherite Drive. Its power source is based on an exotic energy found in naturally occurring aetherite deposits – a rare mineral that is rich in dark matter condensates. This drive is not exactly a form of propulsion on its own; rather, it is a quantum tunneller coupled with an interdimensional quantum mapping system. Together, these tools allow the appearance of faster-than-light travel via the creation of localized wormholes in which space is folded and stretched. In truth, the vessel itself travels at subluminal speeds through the tunnels, always arriving near instantly on the other side of the wormhole once the tunnel path is established.

This technology is, in miniature, what the gate system is for most interstellar travel throughout the kingdoms. However, because of its smaller size, its range is limited, as is the number of destinations that it supports. In the Galatian network, specific destinations and drive systems with more advanced protocols, which enable further travel or interdimensional hopping, are code-locked due to the encryption of these functions for the safety of uninitiated systems and species. These code locks are typically called GAK or Galatian Aether Keys. They must be used to enable the functionality or to override the safety protocols of such systems.

The Chi system is one of the most important star systems to the alliance between the enigmatic Leng’gui and the Galatian Empire. This is because this system exists as a parallel entity in numerous other dimensions and realities, each of which is home to a Leng’gui library of extraordinary significance. Known throughout Galatian space as among the most advanced races, the Leng’gui have hyper-advanced bioengineering laboratories and soul libraries scattered throughout several universes. They are among a very few races capable of terraforming entire star systems at a time and engineering life from raw DNA code all the way to complex ecosystems with spectacularly accurate predictive models revered by all heavenly races.

Chi is the site of a library complex that consists of multiple planets and moons that houses one of the most extensive libraries of life in the Milky Way galaxy. There, the signatures of trillions of lifeforms and their spirits have been stored in advanced underground archives of the special stones capable of storing the life essence of living entities known as Chi Dasa. Admittance to this system is highly restricted, to the point that the technology used to protect its secrets can literally translate the entire star system out of the cluster in which it resides on any given reality.

Li, the miracle system, was believed for millennia to be left lifeless by a catastrophic battle and the consequential rupture of the SS Thelema’s ILAD engine core. Home to one hydrogen gas giant, named Huan’Hai, several rocky, inhabitable moons orbit this enormous apricot colored Jovian. Further out in the system’s orbit, a broad asteroid belt is a rich supply of rare heavy metals, ices, and even an unusually high concentration of dark matter.

While today this system is starting once again to participate in trade and integration with the Galatian systems fleets, Li enjoys a storied past that heavily influences this experience. The epic adventure of this system begins with the unexpected recovery of five of the seven ships in the Galatian fleet, each named in a way that expands their overall story. Records recovered after “The Huan’Hai Incident” indicate that the inhabitants of the Jovian’s moons lived within a bizarre, undetected time dilation bubble and believed that only four centuries had passed. Meanwhile, outside the event horizon of this bubble, the universe flowed on for just over 18,000 years!

Just around 18 millennia ago, this star system was severed from direct contact by Galatian Naval forces. Although sporadic encounters in the past with the inhabitants of the only, remaining habitable planet in the system do exist, it has been millennia since direct contact has been made in any official capacity. In the official record, Helel’s forces retreated to this system after being banished from Heaven for his rebellion. In his defeated state, he has chosen out of spite to maintain the petty goal of corrupting the human civilization living there, with only a minimal presence to validate any portion of his own record or history.

Traces of the stories of contact with Heaven have been found encoded in various local literature. Still, since the primary gate was buried in a deluge millennia ago, only ineffectual replicas, ruined remains of ancient temples to falsehood, and sparse evidence of a contingent of observers originally tasked to induct this system into the larger network remain accessible to the living inhabitants of this system’s world. Consequently, humans living in Sol are victims of rumor, conjecture, sporadic intervention, and a plethora of lies regarding these events. A Galatian prophecy, known as the Bloom Prophecy, predicts that the Creator will lead a campaign to retake this system and imprison Helel once and for all. However, for now, the reasons for the structures and legends haunting local myths and religions remain a mystery to the inhabitants until in one cataclysmic war, the truth of the Creator will be revealed.

If there was a single place where the Fell Wars saw first contact with the material world, the Umbra system was it. Home to six planets, the only inhabited sphere, named Nephali, was the location of Helel’s last stand after being thrown from his native dimension to this world. Nephali has been under the control of the scattered remains of the Fell forces that fought in that battle since the inception of Helel’s retreat to Sol. Still, as of last contact, it leadership and inhabitants were only barely loyal to the rebellion that they once championed.

Nephali is a political no-man’s land ruled by pleasure and greed, with little in common with either its demonic rebellion or the influence of the Creator’s heavenly forces. Best described as a pirate’s paradise, the central temple complex, which once served as a locus for Helel’s praise of the Creator, is now an open-air gallery of debauchery, vice, and desperation. This is because everyone on all sides of the equation knows that the commander of the SS Agape has put this planet on notice that its days of evil are numbered. Rumors about Michael’s plans often tie the inevitable destruction of Nephali and liberation of prisoners there to the Bloom Prophecy in which the Umbra System will be liberated on the Agape’s final approach to the Sol system, just before the Fell War is brought to a permanent end.

Orpa is home to Delphi, one of the largest Jovian planets in Galatian space. However, it is the advanced technical and artistic marvel named, Levi Station, orbiting Delphi that is this system’s most powerful draw. Levi Station’s resident artist is famous for his extraordinary attention to detail and the ability to paint works of art in five dimensions. This unusual skill makes it possible for gallery patrons to enter the masterpieces that he paints. Additionally, the space station, built at an exorbitant expense is networked to a hyper-advanced satellite emitter network capable of transmitting in three dimensions portions of the artist’s own works directly onto the surface of Delphi.

Today, the astrological charts of the Galatian kingdom still maintain markers for an ancient star lost over 11,000 years ago. The Dem system, a Leng’gui mining and biological research base of operations at the edges of both the Galatian and Leng’gui controlled space, went supernova, taking out most of the system in a catastrophic explosion. Historical records from the time suggest that although the planets of Dem were sparsely populated, two critical facilities played a central role in the end of the conflicts in this region and changed the course of the Fell Wars.

Scant documentation from that era about Dem suggest that contrary to popularly assumed ideas, the supernova was not naturally occurring. This belief is supported by records found on the only surviving Keiper belt object in the system with any artificial signs of Leng’gui civilization. Computer systems on that world recorded a single burst of data sent from the primary mining facility of Dem’s largest planet just before it was destroyed. The data, now classified Tao Epsilon, is simply labelled – Distress Signal. No other information about this is publicly available and the lone surviving facility structure is off limits to all but military traffic.

Effects of the supernova were far reaching throughout local space including severe radio and gravimetric disruption that caused widespread navigational turmoil. This alone required years of adjustments and recalculations to return travel to some semblance of normal within the kingdoms. Consequently, military traffic through the region on both sides of the war was dramatically hindered, allowing Fell forces to escape toward the distant Sol cluster of stars. The reprieve for the Fell systems did not last. Many leaders in the Galatian forces believe reckless use of ILAD systems in close proximity to the supernova rendered much of the Fell fleet unable to escape the Sol cluster of stars due to severe damage to the onboard systems. This combined with the acute lack of critical materials required to repair the devices in nearby stars systems has effectively ground the Fell wars into a slow collapse of Helel’s forces. Galatian, Leng’gui and Heavenly forces regrouped their relentless pursuit of Halel less than a century after the supernova.