The human-populated part of the galaxy is in turmoil: powerful energy waves of an alien nature and from an unknown source are ravaging the worlds. Even the Interstellar Commission has no answers. Is the mysterious planet Epsilon IV responsible for the upheavals? Because it disappeared just as suddenly as it appeared. The databases of the Commission and its military arm, the Komplex, contain no trace of the expedition which was allegedly sent decades ago.
The free mutants, the Murfs, who are rebelling against the Commission, want to harness the power of the energy waves for themselves. So do the warlike Arvingar and the mysterious An Dan. Not to mention the many adventurers and mercenaries seeking their fortune.
Will the Komplex succeed in maintaining order and preventing the unknown power and its artifacts from falling into the wrong hands, i.e. others than their own?
Away from the big battles, a handful of adventurers from all factions and worlds find themselves on the virtually forgotten planet Skrot, as attractive a lump of matter in space as its name suggests. Recent scans suggest that one of the valuable artifacts has appeared there …
Who will be favoured by Fate and be victorious in the search for the artifacts which could change the balance of power in the universe forever?
I am young. Maybe too young to have command of a Komplex warship. But the Interstellar Commission trusted me, and now I stand on its bridge as the gray outline of Skrot looms below us – a junk planet on the edge of settled space, but just possibly the epicenter of the greatest mystery of our time.
As we approach orbit, the old stories run through my mind. Every cadet in the Komplex knows them, but now they echo differently – because I realise that I myself have become part of their ongoing weave.
(The Birth of a New Era)
We were taught about the first space stations, the pioneer settlements on the Moon and on Mars. Of the generation ships which set out, propelled by fusion drives, to reach distant stars. Some colonies flourished, others were forgotten, lost in the silence of space. It was the beginning of humanity’s Great Journey.
(The Years of Upheaval)
That progress, however, did not last long. Earth was racked by chaos: Climate change, droughts, famine. Coastal cities were swallowed by the oceans, continents were devastated, ever more scarce resources were fought over in increasingly bloody wars. Nations disintegrated, governments collapsed, borders dissolved. Humanity reeled, and the old order was incinerated amid the noise of uprisings and in the fire of global war.
Out of the darkness, however, rose the harbingers of the Commission – forces with enough power, knowledge and determination to reshape the world into something better.
…
(The Rise of the Interstellar Commission)
What began as a fledgling community of corporations and the remnants of nations, forged out of necessity and crises, became a new vision: to unite the scattered colonies and the home planet. Using diplomacy, trade and the power of their technologies, they spun a web between Earth, Mars, the moons of the gas giants, and the interstellar colonies.
Thus was born the Interstellar Commission and its rule over the United Planets. Since then, the fate of humanity has never again been in the hands of individual nations, but in those of a government of the stars.
(Security and Prosperity)
The Komplex – my Komplex – became the power which protected that order. We kept the trade routes open and ensured that no planet sank back into isolation. Trade flourished, prosperity spread. Knowledge and resources flowed between worlds, and humanity stood united as never before.
We were told that we were the guardians of peace, the voice of a united civilization. We believed it. I believed it.
(A New Chapter for Humanity)
The Interstellar Commission was more than a government. It was the promise that together, as the United Planets, we were stronger than ever before. That we had found our place in the cosmos. It was the age of the stars – the age in which I was born.
(The Great Wave)
I remember the exact moment it arrived. I was not yet in command, just a lowly cadet on a training ship. But every one of us felt it – not just from the scanner displays, not just from the subspace displays, but within ourselves, in the core of our beings.
A powerful wave of energy had shaken the entire galaxy. It had affected all of humanity’s worlds, every colony, every station. Enormous amounts of mysterious energy which nobody could explain.
The Academy tried to convince us that it was a natural cosmic phenomenon. But even then we knew that this could not have been anything like a supernova or a black hole. The energy was different, completely alien. The Erebonian wave, it was later called. Whoever could harness it would control a power beyond anything previously known.
The trail led to Epsilon IV. A planet in a star system which had suddenly appeared out of nowhere some years ago. Expeditions were sent – I remember how we learned the names of those ships in awe as they set off to explore the impossible. And then: silence. The expeditions disappeared, Epsilon IV disappeared with them, and as though reality itself had been rewritten, there was no trace of them in the archives of the Commission or even the Komplex. No data record, no radio message, not a single bit of information remained.
A second trail pointed to Skrot. A miserable junk planet, littered with the remains of ancient battles where settlers cannibalised shipwrecks and survived as pirates. There, where nothing of value seemed to remain, our sensors suddenly detected an unusual kind of radiation – almost identical to that of the Great Wave. Some residual traces of radiation, perhaps an indication of what had been unleashed here back in the day.
It was a beacon for everyone. Mercenaries from the Periphery, soldiers of fortune from the colonies, adventurers from all factions pounced on Skrot. They wanted fame, fortune, or simply a piece of the power which had shaken the galaxy. They were followed by the fleets of the Komplex – my fleet – who were in turn shadowed by the ships of the Arvingar, the Murfs and, ominous as ever, the An Dan.
(A Volatile Stalemate)
And now I’m here, standing on the bridge of my ship, in orbit above Skrot. We stare at each other like competing predators, each awaiting the other’s first mistake. Minor skirmishes keep flaring up on the surface below, raids by small bands of mercenaries on each other, but there has been no big clash of forces. Yet.
My crew and I instinctively share the unspoken questions which are keeping us all on edge:
Do we intervene now, revealing the full power of the Komplex and surrendering the element of surprise? Or do we hold back, thereby risking others seizing the artifacts first? Are we powerful enough to enforce the order of the Commission if things escalate?
I know that a single spark can turn this standoff into a conflagration which spreads to other worlds. And then the Great Wave would not only remain a mystery – but become the trigger for the next galactic war.
Fate could be decided here, on this scarred planet full of scrap and dust. To whom will the secrets of the Great Wave fall? Will we find only fragments – or a force that could change the balance of power in the universe forever?
I am young. Maybe too young for this responsibility. But I know that when it is time to decide, my ship, my command, will be in the middle of it.
